The Turin Shroud Secret (16 page)

She nods as she remembers the big black beefcake who turned out to her house.

Sheen reaches over the reception desk and presses a button. ‘Look at screen four.’

A black-and-white feed of Alfie’s cell fizzes up on one of six video surveillance monitors. It breaks her heart. Despite everything
he’s done and said, the sight of him bent forward on the edge of a bolted-down bunk with his head in his hands rips her apart.

‘Hey, now don’t you dare go feeling sorry for him,’ says Sheen, putting a hand on her shoulder. He’s close to retirement and
has seen every drama of life acted out in his cell blocks. ‘A night in the pokey never harmed no one.’

‘Jeez, Bobby, just look at him.’

He clicks off the monitor so she can’t. ‘You want a cup of Joe?’

She nods. ‘Just black.’

‘You got it. Watch the shop for me.’ He pads down the corridor, keys on his belt jangling until he turns a corner to find
the hotplate where the coffee bubbles all day.

Mitzi wonders what happened to her life. How come she let things slip so much that Alfie ended up in the bullpen?

Sheen returns with coffee in mugs so chipped and dirty they’d get a restaurant closed down.

‘Thanks.’

He clunks his pot against hers and gives a reassuring wink, as he’s done a hundred times before when they’ve worked together.
‘So what do you want to do?’

Mitzi puts her hands around the mug and is comforted by its warmth. ‘You didn’t charge him yet?’

‘He thinks we did, but no.’ The custody sergeant points to the admin book on the countertop and the ugly black pen dangling
on a steel chain. ‘Logan and I didn’t write him up. Far as we’re concerned, there was a call-out but your man ain’t never
been in here.’

‘Appreciate that.’ She knows the risks they’ve taken. If there’d been an incident – if Alfie had got physical, hurt himself
or someone else, then the proverbial shit and fan would have come together.

‘If you want him in court, I need to get someone go through your statement with you and have you examined and photographed.’
He stares into her eyes. It’s the concerned look of a friend as much as a colleague. ‘Did he mark you, Mitzi? Have you still
got bruises that’ll show?’

She feels ashamed. It’s not her fault but she feels like crying because of what she’s let him do to her. Their dirty secret.
‘Yeah. I got stuff to show.’

He nods. This isn’t the time to push it. One word from this angel and he’ll personally see the bum behind bars gets every
one of his no-good bones broken.

She sips her coffee and weighs up the dilemma. Alfie gets charged then he sure as hell stays away from her and the girls.
If she cuts him a break, he could get the wrong idea and think their marriage is still alive.

‘I don’t know what to do, Bobby.’

He wants to help but knows the dangers. ‘Got to be your decision, Mitz. Way I see it, you’re damned whatever you
do. We process this guy, he gets a record, then, shit, you know how hard it is to get a job after that.’

She nods.

‘We don’t put him through the system, then he’s coming right back at you.’

The old-timer bangs a fist against his heart. ‘Go with this, Mitz. If your brain’s run out on you, then go with whatever you
feel in here.’

‘Emptiness, Bobby. That’s all I feel right now. Emptiness.’

DOWNTOWN, LOS ANGELES

It’s worth it just for the look on her face.

JJ has to fight back a smile as all of the women settle at their machines and Jenny Harrison looks around for her friend.
He can see her glancing repeatedly at the empty seat, wondering if the absence is due to oversleeping, overindulgence or overdosing.

‘Anyone seen Kim?’

She’s asking the silly bitches either side of her. How sweet. How nice to be concerned about her co-worker – her co-bully.
What a shock she’s going to get when she finds out the truth.

Harrison puts a hand in her jeans and pulls out a pink cell phone.

‘No phones,’ he shouts across the room, walking towards her. ‘You should have left that in your locker.’

‘I won’t be a minute.’

‘You won’t even be that. You know the rules – no phones in the machine room. Give it to me. You can have it at the end of
the day.’

Her mouth is open. A white worm of chewing gum lies on a pink floor. ‘Did Kim call in, Mr James?’

Mr James.
How quickly they learn. Amazing what the fear of God can do to mannerless little whores like this one. ‘No, she didn’t. Phone,
please.’ He holds out his hand.

She gives it to him. ‘I think she’s sick. She was coming down with something last night. Said she thought she had a dose of
flu.’

Liar.
She’s just covering for her. ‘No show, no pay. You all know that.’ He’s only said what they’d expect him to say. No reason
for him to treat Bass’s absence with anything but annoyance. He’s one down. Productivity is falling.

JJ takes the phone to his office. Sits at his desk with the door shut and scrolls through her messages. Most are to Bass.
The ones that aren’t are to a guy called Marlon. Probably her pimp. They’re short and not at all sweet.

MARLON WEN U DUN?

JENNY: 20

MARLON: U GOT LESS THAN 2 AN U GET CUT UP BITCH

Seems that given time Marlon might well carry out JJ’s wishes for him. But he has no intention of waiting. He turns off the
phone and puts it on the edge of the desk.

Jenny Harrison won’t be missing her friend for long.

77TH STREET STATION, LOS ANGELES

Alfie Fallon sits alone in the holding cage like an abandoned mongrel dog. Life as he knew it is over. That much he gets.
The motley mob he’s spent the night with have all been processed through the system and like an unwanted stray he’s the last
one waiting for his name to be called.

The air is sharp with the sting of industrial-strength disinfectant, the floor freshly mopped after hours of people vomiting
and relieving themselves. He’d give anything for a hot shower, a walk outside and a decent breakfast.

A distant noise makes him look up. When you’re in the pen you know someone is coming long before you see them. The lack of
carpets, curtains or anything soft for that matter, means sounds from far away skim down the hard corridors until they hit
your ears. After an hour or so you’re an expert on identifying everything from a lock opening to a van of new arrivals backing
up in the yard outside.

Someone’s coming. And they can only be coming for him.

Buzzers sound. Metal doors slide open then clunk closed again. Feet slap on hard floors. His time is up. Alfie puts his hands
on his knees and rolls his head side to side until it cracks the stiffness out of his neck.

The outer gates of the pen slide open. Mitzi. His hopes rise. The little old guy who scowled at him last night is with her
as well. They’ve both got blank faces – hard faces – cop faces. Mitzi rests her hands on the inner gate, ‘They’re going to
charge you with assault, Alfie. Most likely you’ll be in court in a couple of hours. I’ve talked to my lawyer and he’ll be
serving you with divorce papers as soon as they cut you loose.’

‘Mitzi, listen—’

‘No, Alfie.
You
listen.’ Her voice is calm and without a hint of the fear and dread racing inside her. ‘I’ve got to do what I’ve told every
other woman over the years to do. You have to be dealt with properly, then life goes on. Whatever it is, whatever mess is
left, life goes on.’ She turns to Bobby Sheen and touches his arm. ‘Thanks for looking out for me. I’m gonna go.’

‘Mitzi!’ Alfie is at the bars now.
‘Wait.’

Mother of two, wife of a decade and a half, LAPD hard-ass Mitzi Fallon is four steps away from moving on with her life. No
looking back. No regrets.

‘Mitzi!’

She stops and turns.

‘I still love you.’ His face says he does. Really does. He’d
give anything for this not to be happening, for his life not to have disintegrated like this.

‘And I still love you.’ Her feet are glued to the spot. ‘But not as much as I did. And I love the girls too much for this
to go on any longer.’

Now she goes. Walks head held high. Heart beating like the drum at the front of the Macy’s Day Parade. With any luck she’ll
make it to the washroom before she breaks down and wonders how she’s going to cope for the rest of the day, let alone the
rest of her life.

ITALY

It’s the middle of the night in Turin. The bed in the rented room is still made, pristine. The monk hasn’t sat on it, let
alone slept there.

Ephrem is naked as he kneels and prays inside the single wardrobe. The door is closed tight and he feels comforted in the
claustrophobic and airless space. He longs to be returned to the seclusion of the monastery where the unblinking kiln master
will watch bemused as he bricks him into the sanctuary.

The hands that are joined together have taken many lives. Not so many that he can’t remember each and every one but
too many for all but a soldier – a crusader – to live with.

He prays, first in Aramaic, then in French and finally in Latin. He prays for God’s strength and guidance for what he is about
to do. Just before twilight he opens the wardrobe and spends half an hour stretching away the pain of motionless devotion.
He focuses his mind. Then he clenches his fists and adopts the press-up position. His knuckles glow white with the weight
of his body as he lowers and raises himself so slowly that the movement is imperceptible. Each press-up takes more than five
minutes to complete. By the end of the hour his naked body is bathed in sweat. His abdomen, thighs and shoulders are muscular
coils of writhing, sinewy snakes. He wants to collapse and rest on the floor, wants to rest and recover, but he knows it would
be a personal indulgence and personal indulgences are sinful.

Ephrem takes a freezing cold shower, towels dry, then drinks a litre of bottled water. It’s all that will pass his lips. He
eats only every other day and today is the fast. He dresses in black, the traditional colour of his order, in T-shirt, sweater,
trousers, socks and long wool overcoat, and pulls on a tight, black hat that covers his dark, close-cropped hair. He touches
the hidden tools concealed about him within the layers of clothing – two knives, a garrotte, a spike and a coil of razor-thread
no more conspicuous than a dental floss container.

The first pink light of dawn breaks over the rooftops. In the shadowy, night-frosted street he walks quietly from his hotel,
clears the windshield of the rental car and patiently begins his day’s work.

CORONER’S OFFICE, LOS ANGELES

The call takes Amy Chang by surprise.

It’s been a long day and she’s just scrubbed up after dealing with a fatal RTA. Her secretary says Mitzi Fallon is waiting
in her office. She glances at her watch – it’s almost six-thirty. She wonders what her friend wants so late in the day and
why she didn’t call to say she was coming over. The two women go back a long way. Mitzi was on the first case Amy dealt with
and since then they’ve grown close. A friendship born out of professional respect and common values.

The detective is sat on a moulded black chair, busy frowning at her phone when Amy walks in pulling a small jacket over her
shoulders. ‘So, Lieutenant Fallon, to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?’

Mitzi looks up. Seems her bad news hasn’t reached the morgue yet. ‘Passing through. The girls are staying over at a friend’s
after soccer – I just found out they won two-nil. I hoped maybe you had time for a drink or some dinner?’

Amy’s face brightens. ‘Both sound good.’

‘Both it is, then. My treat.’

She nods to her glass-walled office. ‘Give me a minute. I need to grab some work.’

A few minutes later they walk out arm-in-arm and even
while they’re making small talk she knows something’s wrong. But she says nothing. Mitzi will tell her in her own good time.
They drive separately to Amy’s favourite Asian-Cuban place. It’s more bistro than full-on starched-cloth restaurant. It has
warm woods on the floor and walls and they both like the fact the waitresses are real waitresses not would-be actresses.

After a couple of margaritas and a starter of Tunapica with cucumber salad, Mitzi downs her fork and unburdens herself. ‘Alfie
and I had a fight. A big physical one.’ She turns her face so Amy can detect the bruise beneath the concealer.

The pathologist stops eating.

‘I threw him out. When he came back I called the cops and got him processed.’ Mitzi downs the rest of her cocktail. ‘I think
I’m going to need more of those.’

Amy’s in shock. ‘How long’s this been going on?’

‘Jeez. How long hasn’t it?’ She catches the eye of the waitress. ‘Two more peach margaritas please – the big ones.’ She waits
until she’s gone. ‘On and off he’s been beating on me for something like a decade.’ Shame rises like backwash.

‘Oh, Mitz, I’m so sorry.’ Amy reaches across the table and touches her arm tenderly. ‘You did the right thing.’

‘I know. Should have done it years ago.’

‘It’s never that simple, though – what with the girls and everything.’

‘Nope. Funny, you hear about domestic violence and say that’ll never happen to me. No man would
dare
lay a hand on me. But it’s different when he does. You get so screwed
up in your head you blame yourself. You kid yourself that it wasn’t deliberate, it was a mistake. Life’s full of mistakes,
eh?’

‘Tell me.’

The new drinks arrive and Mitzi dives in straight away. ‘I may get wasted tonight.’

‘Go for it.’

They clink glasses and the lieutenant smiles for the first time in days.

TURIN

The disused church is exactly where they told Ephrem it would be. At the end of a windy little street, behind a broken fence,
hiding a small, cramped graveyard overrun by grass and weeds. The headstones are mould-green and long-forgotten. Like ancient
teeth that have decayed, they lie at twisted angles in soft, subsiding plots.