A Step Into The Dark

by Vince Vogel

  Only twenty meters away, Jack took a gamble and ran at the guy. But when he was within ten, the ground disappeared beneath his feet and he was falling, the kid disappearing along with the fire-lit sky. With a thump, he landed on his back in a pitch black room and instantly recognized the smell of gasoline. He would have moved immediately, but the fall had completely winded him and he lay down there staring up at the huge hole cut out of the ceiling whilst trying to find his breath.

  A head poked over. The kid. Jack looked up at his eyes as they shone in the glinting light. Even though most of his features were masked in darkness, Jack could tell that the little shit was smirking.

  “A piece of carpet over a hole,” the teenager shouted down. “Oldest trick in the book. I’m so glad you got here in time. I’ve been waiting for you to finally put some effort into catching me. Especially as this is to be my last. I won’t be setting any more fires. I’m going to go away, but if you survive this, maybe one day we’ll meet again in some other form.”

  With that, he kneeled down and lit the edge of the hole with a lighter. Flames immediately spread down the wall and when it reached the end, it spread everywhere, engulfing the floor and remaining walls. The boy turned sharply over his shoulder, probably at Col, and disappeared from the edge.

  Jack scraped himself up from the deck. The room was bare, no furniture, but everything, including his own clothing, was covered in gasoline. A door covered in flames stood before him. With his lungs already choking on the thick smoke, he threw himself forward.

  Shoving the sleeve of his coat over his hand, he tried the handle. The door wouldn’t budge. He shoulder barged it, but something was wedging it on the other side. Repeatedly he began bashing it with his shoulder, one hand covering his mouth, his eyes closed, the smoke closing in around him, threatening to drown him, choke him. The flames on the door grew as they ate into the flesh of the timber and Jack was getting burned each time he hit it with his shoulder. It refused to budge and he found himself lost when he stumbled to the side and was unable to relocate the door through the smoke, the heat feeling as though it would crush him. He was lost in blackness and heat. Blind and suffocating. He wanted to take his hand away from his mouth and breathe. He sat down. He didn’t know why. Perhaps in anticipation of death. He laid down on his side. Began desperately choking as his lungs shook in his chest, demanding to breathe, no matter that it was smoke.

  He was on the cusp of giving in and allowing the smoke inside when someone grabbed his legs and dragged him out through the busted door. The arsonist had nailed a wedge against it. The next thing he knew, Jack was lying on his back in a hallway, Col gazing down at him, shouting something that Jack couldn’t hear.

  Shaking himself, he got up and placed an arm around Col’s shoulder, the latter helping him down the stairs.

  “Where is he?” Jack muttered as they shuffled down the concrete steps.

  “Little fucker had removed most of the roof around him. Covered it in gray carpet. I saw you disappear and wasn’t so willing to get close. I got no closer than twenty meters before he legged it. Then I came down here and broke the door in.”

  “So you lost him?”

  “Him or you,” Col said as they burst out of the block of flats onto the street, the flames and smoke still pouring out from the balconies of the building in front.

  Col put Jack down on a grass verge at the edge of the road and ran to the firemen to inform them of the new fire. Jack had broken a couple of ribs in the fall and sat holding them while he wheezed, watching the men and women dart about in the light and the smoke, the burning flats roaring with an anger that threatened to swallow the very night.

  Feeling a shiver travel through him, he instinctively looked up the road. At least a hundred meters farther along beyond the cordon, the outline of a hooded figure emerged into the smoky street. The kid put his hands in his pockets and strolled away along the pavement as though nothing in the world could ever bother him.

  Jack tried to call one of the others, tried to stand, but he was unable, the pain in his chest paralyzing both his voice and his movements.

  All he could do was watch the kid stroll casually away, knowing that he’d been beaten by a teenage boy.

  53

  “He’s moved on, hasn’t he?” Col suggested. “Like he told you he would, he’s become something else. Another form.”

  “How can you think this massacre is him? I mean, do they let you watch the news in here?”

  “Yes. I get the papers, too. Now tell me, what leads have you got?”

  “I’m not actually working it. I’m looking into something else.”

  “What?”

  “You recall Robert Kline?”“Raped old women in their homes. Killed children, too.”

  “That’d be him. Well, he gave Jonny Cockburn a letter. Turns out some killer has been writing to him and so—”

  For the first time since Jack had got there, Col had stopped fidgeting and gazed across the table like a statue, his full attention on the man speaking opposite. It unsettled Jack slightly and caused him to pause.

  “Go on,” Col pressed the moment he stopped talking.

  “So I checked out the description of the disappearance and found that it matched a case up in Derby three years ago. Then today, I checked out another description and found the body of a young woman lying in a canal. It was apparently his first.”

  “You think he knew her?”

  Jack frowned across the table at him.

  “I think so,” he said, a note of dubiousness in his voice. “I’ve matched the handwriting of the letters to that found on love notes sent to the victim at her place of work. However, no one—including her—ever knew who was sending them.”

  “An infatuation that turned bad. Did he mention that in the note?”

  “Vaguely. He mentioned that she used to smile at him, but when he smiled at her that day, she pulled a face and ignored him. He followed her after that and took his opportunity by the canal as she walked home. Strangled her and threw the body into the water. We only found the body today because of a description in the letter.”

  “Why hadn’t it been found earlier?”

  “Got hit by a boat. The propeller shaft did the damage and sunk it. The owner of the boat must’ve been unaware they’d hit anything.”

  Col was grinning. It pleased him to hear about the case. He was nodding.

  “And you know nothing about the massacre at the woods?”

  “A little,” Jack replied. “Bloke by the name of Tommy Lewis may have provided the gun. We were led to him by a tip off claiming he may be hoarding a large collection of guns. The type used in the shooting was very rare. Not the sort of thing that turns up so easily. Anyway, the tip wasn’t wrong. The same gun is missing from the collection.”

  “So it’s this Lewis guy?”

  “Hold your horses, Col. See, we turned up and found the guy sporting a hole for a necktie and a fifteen-year-old runaway holding the blade. Downstairs, we found the gun collection. Except the one we suspect was used in the shooting is missing. They’ve found some flimsy connection to his ex-wife’s son, who also happens to be the stepfather of the only survivor, and have pulled him in.”

  “So you have a suspect?”

  “I have nothing, Col. They think they may have found something, but I wouldn’t know a huge amount about that.”

  The two men sat staring across the table for a second. The talk of police work had calmed them both and they’d become relaxed in the past few minutes. It felt odd to Jack. To be so at ease with this man after everything they’d been through.

  “I’m being serious, you know,” Col said, breaking the silence.

  “About what?”

  “That this is the Fire Starter. I know you were the one with all the hunches, but I’ve been waiting for him to come back. To grow. Haven’t you?”

  “He was an evil little shit that killed four innocent people during three years of setting fire to things. Oh! And, of
course, lest I forget, he tried to kill me for his little magnum opus.”

  “That wasn’t his magnum opus, Jack. The fires were the start. He’s now growing into his greatest work. Starting with killing those teenagers. You need to catch him. Not just name him. Because this guy doesn’t care. He’s not going to slow down. These killings you’re looking into; why did Robert Kline call Jonny in now, all of a sudden? Over twenty years in prison that man’s stayed silent. Why choose to talk now?”

  “I’ve been asking that same question ever since Jonny told me about it.”

  “Exactly. These letters are connected. When did he show Jonny the first letter?”

  “Saturday.”

  “The night of the killings. I bet it was almost at the same time. It’s all one and the same, Jack.” He was becoming frantic. “You’ve been brought into a game.”

  “How do you know all of this?” Jack said with a bewildered expression.

  “I can feel it all. I’ve been waiting for him to come back to us, and going on what I’ve learned from all similar killers who begin life as arsonists, they tend to slowly build to something like this. A carrier arch develops, you could say. The fires stop, but the fantasies continue. He wants to learn how to kill. How to control his feelings and become proficient in it. Get the most out of it. The greatest release of his anger. Fire was good. But except for the one man he watched burn in his chair, he never got to see the other three victims die as they burned randomly in their homes. He wants to see them die. See the look on their faces. So he starts easy. The killings in the letters were in separate cities—the boy and the young woman—am I right?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s because he’s moving about. Works as a lorry driver or some other delivery man. Safe kills. Strangers. Moves about. The Yorkshire Ripper evaded captivity for years because he was a lorry driver.”

  “You’re right. He is. The place the girl worked at was a truck stop. Her secret admirer was a regular customer.”

  “Easy kills, Jack. Training. Robert Kline was the same. The children he confessed to years before he killed the old women. He was a lorry driver too. The killer and he have an affinity. Don’t you see? Robert Kline is in on this. He knows the killer, Jack. They’re working together. It’s him. The Fire Starter. The fires; then the time of easy kills; now the rampage. He’s going to cause so much damage and he’s going to involve you through Kline. I can guarantee it. I’ve been waiting for him, Jack. Waiting. Waiting all this time…”

  Col looked deranged and Jack watched him with a mixture of consternation and concern on his face. The guard had come away from the door and was walking up behind Col. The latter didn’t notice him and continued to repeat that he’d been waiting, his speech breaking up into small fragments of sentences. The guard placed a hand on his shoulder and he jumped as though it were an electric shock.

  He stopped his rambling and gazed from the guard to Jack.

  “Sorry,” he said with an abashed look, his muscles loosening and relaxing into the chair. The guard left. “It’s the medication,” he added in apology. “It causes you to get caught in a loop every now and then.”

  He tried to smile but didn’t pull it off. Jack could see full well it wasn’t the meds that made him go so incoherent. Over the eighteen years they’d worked together, Jack had often witnessed Col’s disjointed speeches. Especially towards the end. He’d begin rambling about a case and then suddenly be talking about something completely different, repeating phrases over and over with an awkward look on his face as though he was aware he was broken and needed help.

  “I’ll have a look into it,” Jack said.

  “Good.”

  The detective got up and so did Col. They shook hands, no embrace this time, and Jack left, Col watching him go.

  Out in the car, Jack sat in the driver’s seat, gently sobbing for a full ten minutes before he could drive away. The sight of his old friend looking so withered and out of shape had deeply affected him. Nevertheless, it was the disjointed ramblings, fidgeting hands and sudden outbursts that had affected him the worst. Col was much worse than he was when he first went in, Jack observed. Ten years inside that place hadn’t helped him; it had bent and twisted him into even worse shape.

  His phone went off and he wiped his eyes. It was Alice.

  “What’s up?” he answered in a croak of a voice.

  “We’ve just had a major development.”

  “Yeah. I hear you’ve made an arrest.”

  “Not that. Have you seen a copy of the Evening Standard yet?”

  “Can’t say I have.”

  “Your mate Jonny Cockburn has printed a letter from the man responsible for the massacre.”

  “Without consulting us?”

  “Yes. But I think we can let him off. I just got news that his family has been stabbed. His ex-wife and one of his sons are dead. His youngest son is in intensive care. It’s all blown up around us, because that’s not all. The letter—the one he printed—it’s the same handwriting, Jack. The same as the ones from Robert Kline. It’s him, Jack. It’s all him.”

  She appeared to echo Col’s words and for a moment, he heard them both speaking to him in unison. His head went dizzy. And then it hit him. Jonny’s family had been stabbed.

  “Who stabbed Jonny’s family?”

  “He was holding them hostage to make Jonny print it. But he stabbed them anyway. Minutes after he’d made the initial threat. Only the youngest son survived.”

  “Which hospital?”

  “St. Christie’s in Islington.”

  Jack started the car and rolled it out of the carpark, motoring off into the early evening traffic.

  54

  “I don’t know,” Alice said to Lange as they stood outside the interview room, watching David Burke through a window. “He arrived at the hospital an hour before we did. It means he could have easily been at Jonny’s ex-wife’s house and committed the murders before reaching the hospital.”

  “They say the killer had stabbed the family not long after he’d got off the phone to Jonny,” Lange mentioned.

  “He was always going to kill Cockburn’s family,” Alice stated firmly, piercing her eyes at the man sitting on the other side of the window. “Jonny should have called us the moment he got off the phone to his wife. At the very least, we could have had the killer coming out of the house.”

  “Still, you’ve got to feel for Jonny. He did what he was told and still lost his family.”

  “The best way we can feel for Cockburn is to catch the man who murdered them.”

  Alice took hold of the handle and opened the door, marching straight up to the scratched table and taking a seat opposite the annoyed face of David Burke. Lange took a seat next to her.

  Burke hadn’t wanted a lawyer. Said he didn’t need one. He sat with a stern look on his pockmarked face, his perceptive but beady eyes watching the detectives, arms crossed and forming a formidable barrier across his chest. A slightly stubby nose sat between two scarred cheeks. He must have suffered bad from acne, Alice and Lange both commented in their heads.

  Alice started the interview and the questions began.

  “What relation do you have to Tommy Lewis?” she asked straight away.

  “He was married to my mother.”

  “Who is?”

  “Carolyn Burke.”

  “When was the last time you saw Tommy?”

  “2000. Not long after he kicked me and Mum out and we had to live at a women’s refuge for eight months until the council housed us in a flea-bitten flat.”

  “You sound bitter about that.”

  “To tell you the truth, I was a kid, and playing with the other kids who were there was fun. There was a park behind the place and I’ve got a lot of fond memories of those months. It was only years later that I came to realize the damage that experience had done to my mum in the longterm.”

  “And what was that?”

  David Burke shook his head.

  “I
s this what this is about? Tommy Lewis’ death.”

  “For now.” She looked him right in the eyes when she said this and he narrowed his own.

  “I thought you already knew who killed him,” Burke said.

  “We do. Now tell me what growing up was like with Tommy Lewis.”

  David Burke frowned and tightened the arms across his chest.

  “If you were suggesting did he touch me,” he began in a tired voice, “then I hate to disappoint you. Because Tommy Lewis only liked little girls, so I never got to experience the darkest side of him. Other than that, I lived a spoilt life with him. For those ten years I spent in his house, he treated me kindly. Holidays. Computers. My own motocross bike. I’ll admit he treated Mum like shit, but then, I kind of understood. She drank too much and was completely unstable. Liked drugs. Sleeping pills. Barbiturates. That sort of stuff. It must’ve upset him to have a wife who was always so out of it. I know it hurt at times to have a mother like that.”

  “So you never hated Tommy?”“No. Not even when he slammed the door in my face when I tried to see him a month after he kicked us out.”

  “So you wanted him as a father then?”

  “I was an eleven-year-old boy. I would have had anyone for a father and he’d been it for ten years. It really hurt when I learned that he wasn’t my real dad. I guess it hurt Tommy, too. Made him real angry. In the divorce, he gave my mum nothing. Left us to fend on our own. I mean, she was only a kid herself. Fifteen when she had me and only twenty-six when he kicked us out. She’d never even had a job.”

  “How’d Tommy know you weren’t his son?”

  “He did a test. He’d suspected it and had some of my blood taken by a doctor. They confirmed that he wasn’t my dad. It was the final straw. He kicked us out that weekend.”

  “But you’ve been getting on lately,” George Lange suggested, gazing straight into David Burke’s eyes. “Since you got back in contact.”