The Burning Men Read online

  He scoped out the hall, looking for Steph, and saw her in deep conversation with Josh, her best mate from work. She was wearing her bright red wedding dress, garlands of flowers around her neck, while the gold she was bedecked in glistened and shone every time she moved. She looked spectacular. He watched the pair chat. Predictably, the wedding was proving only a minor distraction to the constant flow of gossip passing between them. He stared across, determined to catch her eye, and was rewarded with a look of surprise which morphed into a warm, private smile. He wondered if life would ever feel better than it did right now.

  Since leaving the fire brigade he’d built a world around him he was proud of. It helped he’d always known what he wanted to do. Forming his own business – a fire risk assessments consultancy – was a natural progression. It allowed him to use the expertise he’d built up on the job, without having to put his life on the line every day. Steph deserved a proper wedding and he’d spent big on it, probably more than was sensible. He owed it all to one night a long time ago. He owed it all to Pacific Square. Everything was as he’d designed it to be.

  The man at the back of the room sipped his drink and pretended to study his phone intently. There’d been no problem slipping in. He was just another body in a packed room. Since arriving he’d spent some time looking around carefully, always aware of where Adesh Kaul was and what he was doing. There was something about the guy, he conceded. The wedding too – a class of sorts. You could feel the joy in the room and it nauseated him.

  He peered up carefully from his phone, making sure his head was still tilted down towards the screen so as not to attract attention. He watched Kaul make two young children laugh and shake their parents’ hands. The family moved on and Kaul paused for a moment before striding out into the corridor that led to the toilets. This was it. The man pocketed his phone and stood up.

  ‘I know my brother . . .’ said Ajay Kaul to the waitress. ‘If I was a betting man, I’d lay odds by the time you’re serving breakfast tomorrow I’ll be an uncle-to-be.’ He woozily tapped the side of his nose and gave her a knowing smile. ‘Let’s just say I’m not anticipating any particular delay to that development.’ He winked, and the waitress smiled before taking his empty plate and politely making her excuses. He downed his champagne, belched and patted his stomach. A quick piss then some more food.

  He followed the signs to the toilets and walked down a small corridor until he found the gents. He reached down, fumbling for his flies, when he stopped in his tracks. Someone was smoking in one of the cubicles, he could smell it – see smoke rising above the door.

  ‘I wouldn’t, mate. You’ll have the alarm and sprinklers going off in a minute . . .’

  There was no response and Ajay frowned in irritation. ‘Listen, it’s a wedding – you don’t want to spoil it for everyone, do you?’

  There was still no reply. He could hear what sounded like birds’ wings flapping behind the door. He stood nonplussed for a moment, wishing he hadn’t drunk quite so much so quickly. The smoke got thicker, and the odour was becoming acrid and unpleasant. On cue a loud, shrieking alarm started to sound and the sprinklers kicked in, neatly saturating everywhere inside the small space except the one place that mattered. Ajay noticed that the door wasn’t actually locked from the inside, just ajar. He pushed it open and jumped back as a wave of heat surged out.

  He was greeted by a sight that would never leave him. Adesh – slumped on the toilet seat, the top half of his body completely alight. His hair was almost entirely burnt off, the skin on his face boiling and melting, leaving nothing but the impression of a vacant rictus grin.

  Chapter 4

  Karin chose a humanist service as she wasn’t remotely religious. She’d organised it herself. One last project to throw herself into. They’d met a funeral celebrant in December, an unctuous man who’d irritated Finn from the off. Karin was pleased enough by what he’d told them and following his advice, she’d drawn up her own itinerary for the service from her hospice bed. The melancholy second movement from Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ concerto greeted the mourners as they arrived. Her best friend Cally opened the proceedings with a small speech and a quote from Winston Churchill: ‘Life is a whole, and good and ill must be accepted together. The journey has been enjoyable and well worth making – once.’

  Her father read Auden’s ‘Funeral Blues’. Unsteady on his feet, and inaudible at times with his heavy accent, it was almost as painful to watch as it was to listen to. But an unexpected smile at the very end made it the most memorable part of the whole day, Finn thought later. The old man’s eyes, dead for the past seven months, suddenly alive and urgent again.

  Finally came Finn’s speech. A collection of memories and stories about the woman he’d loved. It was the one thing Karin hadn’t wanted to know anything about. She’d just said, ‘Make them laugh – after Dad, they’ll need it.’ But he hadn’t managed anything of the sort, the words falling out of his mouth like dying slugs. There’d been nothing memorable about it; no anecdote people would take away, no turn of phrase that would stick in the mind, not even an emotional breakdown to mitigate its mediocrity. Just a disjointed and wholly inadequate tribute to the one person who’d genuinely changed his life. He took some solace from the fact Karin would have found his car crash of a ramble extremely funny.

  The wake was awkward too. People he’d known for years suddenly felt mutually disposable. He doubted he’d see or hear from many of them again, which was odd because by and large these were good and decent people. Finn knew it was Karin they’d found so alluring; they admired him, but they’d loved her. He’d always struggled with friendships, largely because the concept ran counter to his natural personality. Letting people in didn’t come easy to him. It’s not that he was without friends, but you could count the real ones on one hand and they’d earnt their place in his life. These people were Karin’s friends. He liked nearly all of them, but could already feel himself detaching. There was no animosity to it, but like it or not he was entering a new phase in his life now. They sensed it too; there’d been an unspoken finality to the goodbyes as they’d left.

  The same could not be said of Karin’s parents. To his own surprise he’d formed a genuinely close relationship with them over the years. His own parents were both dead and while they didn’t fill that void, they certainly rented some space in that area. For all their quirks, Otto and Olga Bergmann were old-fashioned people of principle. It was something he couldn’t help but admire, just as he’d admired it in Karin.

  Finn’s boss at the Cedar House murder squad, DCI John Skegman, also came to the service. A thin, wiry man with a sweep of black hair, he could often strike people who didn’t know him as a little shifty. His demeanour didn’t help, a natural stillness coupled with narrow eyes which were constantly moving. Finn knew differently though; a mutual respect having built between them over the three years they’d worked together. In reality Skegman was a straightforward man who’d let you know if he wasn’t happy and support you to the hilt if he felt it was warranted. He also possessed the hide of a rhino, seemingly unbothered by angry superiors and resentful juniors alike.

  ‘Call me, when you’re ready to come back to work,’ he’d said as he left, though Finn knew it was more a courtesy than an offer. The DCI’s interpretation of the Met’s compassionate leave regulations had already been more than generous.

  Now, several hours later, Finn was finally alone. He was sitting in his bedroom at home drinking up the stillness of it, warming himself in the sunlight blazing through the windows. There was just the quiet ticking of the bedside clock to let him know the world was still turning. He’d almost been defeated as he’d come through the front door, the effort of keeping himself together finally releasing. He felt like an elephant heading for some mythical graveyard in the jungle, ready to lie down and surrender.

  ‘It’s day one I’m thinking about,’ she’d warned him, all those months ago in Berlin.

  Now it was here Finn reali
sed he didn’t know what to do with the rest of the evening, never mind the rest of his life. He remembered the other thing she’d said that day.

  ‘Throw my underwear out last.’

  He’d taken it as a joke and laughed, but she’d picked up his hand and said with a twinkle, ‘I’m serious.’ He’d known then she’d said it for a reason. Unbidden, an image of Karin giving him a glare over her reading glasses came to mind. It was something she’d frequently done, usually after he’d said something pompous. He couldn’t help but smile at the memory and wondered how many more times, in the years to come, this virtual-reality Karin would emerge to put him in his place. He walked over to the chest of drawers in the corner of the room, stopping for a moment to catch his pallid reflection in the mirror, then pulled open the second drawer down. He lifted out a selection of knickers and bras, halting as his eyes suddenly started to prick. He’d got used to this, unexpected tears set off by unexpected triggers.

  And then, there it was. Sat at the bottom of the brown wooden drawer was an envelope with his name written on it. He perched on the edge of the bed again and looked at the neat, small handwriting on the front. He could smell perfume and he held it to his nose, getting a blast of Elie Saab Rose Couture. Carefully he opened it and pulled out a solitary piece of paper. There were just two sentences written on it.

  ‘How far will a blind dog walk into a forest?’

  Work it out – it’s important! x

  Oh, for fuck’s sake, Karin, he thought. A riddle? That’s it, really? And then there she was, peering over her glasses at him again. Off the top of his head, he’d no idea what it meant. He suspected a few minutes on the internet would solve it, but the note said, quite specifically, ‘work it out’. She’d clearly wanted him to think it through. One last challenge to him. He could feel the tiniest of unexpected smiles forming.

  ‘Alright, love – you’re on,’ he muttered to himself.

  He took the note downstairs and sat in the kitchen pondering it over a bowl of corn flakes. Why a dog with impaired eyesight would be wandering around some woodland, and what message of great import this held for him, his brain didn’t seem ready or willing to decipher. He glanced at the clock on the wall – it was ten to five and the silence in the flat was already oppressive. He turned on the radio. A woman was wittering on about dog kennels. He stuck with it more for the company than any great interest, until the five o’clock news. There were some soundbites of the prime minister and the leader of the opposition trying to out-smug each other in the Commons, reports of a children’s hospital being bombed in Syria, then a story about a man’s body being found at a wedding in Morden the previous afternoon. The victim died in a fire at a hotel and police were now investigating. The newsreader’s wording was deliberate; not found dead after a fire, but in a fire at a hotel. For a moment the semantics of it were a glorious distraction.

  He couldn’t help but let his mind wander. His colleagues at Cedar House would now be fully mobilised. All three emergency services would have descended on the hotel in a chorus of blues and twos. CCTV footage would have been gathered and scrutinised, the hotel staff and all of its guests would be in the process of being interviewed. Forensic teams would be working the scene. It would be chaos – sodden and smoking chaos, with the charred remains of a human being at the centre. It also occurred to Finn how easy it would have been for Skegman to have given Karin’s service a miss this morning. With the DI on compassionate leave, the last thing anyone would have needed was the DCI also out of the office for most of the day.

  He switched the radio off and picked up his phone. He held it in his hand as if weighing it. There was no question his head wasn’t in the right place for work yet. On the other hand, the prospect of another day sitting around this flat was soul-destroying. His fingers made the decision, and Skegman’s name flashed up on the display.

  ‘Alex?’

  ‘I just heard on the news about the death at the wedding. I wondered if you could use a hand?’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, you only cremated Karin this morning.’

  ‘I know how it sounds, but I need to be doing something. I can’t see any point sitting around here.’

  ‘Not a chance. And that’s it. No argument.’

  ‘What kind of fire was it?’

  ‘Alex . . .’

  ‘You’re also dealing with that stabbing in Thornton Heath, aren’t you? From last week? I saw it in the paper. On top of the ongoing workload you must be spread pretty thin.’ There was a short silence before Skegman answered.

  ‘You’re not thinking straight. You need time off. You need to heal.’

  ‘I’m guessing you’ve barely got enough senior officers to go round.’

  ‘You know better than anyone what this kind of investigation involves – the level of work, the intensity of it, the clarity. You’re in no state for it right now.’

  ‘So it wasn’t an accident then?’

  Skegman sighed and there was another pause. Finn knew him well enough to know he was considering it. For all his protestations, two new investigations on top of everything else would be spreading them thinly.

  ‘I wouldn’t suggest it if I didn’t think I was up to it.’

  ‘The dead man . . . it was the groom. It’s looking like someone deliberately set him alight in a toilet cubicle.’

  Finn didn’t respond, but he could feel the familiar stirrings of curiosity.

  ‘Sleep on it, and if you still feel this way in the morning, come in and we’ll have a chat, but I can’t promise anything,’ said Skegman.

  Finn knew what he was thinking; the DCI wanted to look him in the eye, copper to copper, then make a judgement. He thanked him and said he’d call in one way or another first thing. A good night’s rest and he’d be ready, he thought. He’d make himself ready.

  And suddenly there she was again, sat in the chair opposite, peering over her glasses – ‘Who are you kidding?’

  Chapter 5

  Martin Walker wasn’t brilliant at speeches, but it didn’t matter, he decided. Sometimes you didn’t need to be one of life’s wordsmiths. Say what you mean, mean what you say; he’d always lived by that and it was a good fallback on days like this. The fourth annual Sundridge Park Retro and Vintage Jumble Sale wasn’t the most prestigious charity event in the country, but it was for a cause that meant something to him.

  ‘If you don’t see anything that takes your fancy, then I commend to you Janice Barnard’s excellent table of cupcakes, fondant fancies and Bakewell tarts. This year one pound will buy you one of each, am I right, Janice?’ He glanced over at a beaming woman in oversized spectacles. ‘Now all that remains is for me to declare this sale open, and God bless all of you for every penny that’s raised.’ There was a smattering of applause from the dozen or so familiar faces stood in front of him in the small church hall. He went over and joined his wife Christine whose wheelchair was parked next to some of the stacked pews at the side of the room.

  ‘You’ve got them eating out of the palm of your hand again, Marty.’

  ‘Don’t be daft – everyone likes a bargain, that’s why they’re here.’

  ‘You should listen to your wife when she pays you a compliment,’ said a ruddy-faced man, approaching them with a smile.

  ‘Thanks for coming, Colin, appreciate the support.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, mate. You deserve it – all the work you put in. Not just this, all the events you put on.’

  ‘It’s just a jumble sale.’

  ‘Oh, come on. It must take a lot of time to set up – cost you a fair bit too, I should imagine.’

  ‘Nonsense, the church lets us have this space for free, and if you count Janice, then the catering doesn’t come to much either.’

  ‘I’m not just talking about today. The charity dinners, the auctions, the sporting events, not to mention all the travelling you do; that’s proper commitment. If they ever find a cure for multiple sclerosis, we’ll all know who to thank. Don’t tell me yo
u’re not putting your hand in your pocket for all that.’

  Walker was well versed in deflecting the question. For a start he’d always exaggerated the size of his fire service pension. At the age of fifty-nine he looked about the right age to have taken early retirement. The unexpected wealth he’d come into five years ago was under lock and key in multiple covert locations around the capital. He’d drip-fed it as and when he’d needed to, finding different ways to mask its use. It hadn’t attracted attention and after all this time he’d even managed to convince himself it never would.

  He did miss his old life though; he’d loved being a firefighter. He’d joined straight from school and in those early years never gave much thought to the day it would have to stop. But then Christine was diagnosed with MS, and along came Pacific Square.

  What took place that night changed everything; from the quality of Chrissie’s care, to the lives they’d been able to lead since. It also spurred him to raise money the right way. To do the right thing. There were lots of people like Colin in this world, people who looked up to him. They all saw a fine, upstanding member of the community, who cared for his wife and raised money for charity with unstinting energy. They saw a good man. But none of it helped when he woke in the middle of the night and remembered. His reputation was built on a lie and he was certainly no hero.

  ‘We’re fine. Made some good investments when I was younger and I’m reaping the rewards now. Feels right to pump it back into something that matters.’

  ‘Stop making his head swell, Col, you’ll turn him into a monster,’ said Christine.

  ‘No chance of that, I bet you keep his feet on the ground, Chrissie.’