Night of Fire:

by Iain Cameron

  He couldn’t claim by any definition to be a handsome man: a shock of blond hair that wouldn’t lie flat no matter how wet, teeth too big for his mouth and a complexion that went florid after a few drinks, but he didn’t go short of his share of the birds. When his second missus hightailed it after he hit her and the bottle once too often, he met a bird in the pub not long after and they’d shagged all night for the next two weeks. By the end of the third, she was in his house and cooking supper.

  Last night, he’d proved that his marriage of nine months to Gillian Emerson hadn’t blunted his edge. Everyone assumed him hitching his wagon to the homely Mrs E would calm him down, but did it hell. She was a good lady and looked after him, but she didn’t like going out at night. He did, and if he ended up in bed with one of the birds from a group of five out celebrating their mate’s forthcoming wedding, like he’d done last night, she had no way of finding out.

  He couldn’t fathom modern women. As a teenager, the man assumed control and women did what they were told, but fast forward twenty years and throw into the mix women’s lib, high profile rape cases and a widespread knowledge of STDs and AIDS, and it was her way or the stairway. If he created a fuss, all it would take was a cry of ‘rape’ and he would see the inside of Lewes nick once again.

  His phone rang. He cursed and lowered the spanner, but stayed put, upside down, facing the pipework as it would take too long to extricate himself. He rummaged for the little device among his many-pocketed overalls and got to it before the caller decided to ring off.

  ‘Jeff Pickering Plumbing.’

  ‘Jeff, thank goodness I caught you. It’s Beth Atwood at Beechhurst Cottage. If you remember, you installed a new shower unit in one of our upstairs bathrooms about a year back.’

  How could he forget? Early forties with a great figure and long legs. Always seemed to be walking past when he was lying on the floor. A cockteaser first class whose eyes seemed to suggest she would be partial to a bit of rough, but when he made his move, albeit a touch clumsily and smelling of Boss jointing compound, she rebuffed him and threatened to tell her husband if he didn’t give her a discount.

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘There’s a leak in one of the pipes in the boiler cupboard. It’s made such a mess of the ceiling in the lounge that Eric thinks it will need re-plastering.’

  ‘Is it bad? Are drips coming out of it or is it a continuous flow?’

  ‘I can see a little valve thingy and water is coming out in a steady stream from the little screw in the front. I’ve got buckets and basins down but I’m not catching it all.’

  ‘Hmm,’ he said, as if thinking over a thorny problem. Isolating valves were a common failure point in boiler cupboards and under the sink, but cheap to fix: two pounds for a replacement valve and fifteen minutes’ work to fit the little blighter.

  ‘It sounds like a big job.’

  ‘I don’t care what it takes, I need it fixed today.’

  ‘Tell you what, I’ll come straight over there after I finish this job, but it means disappointing another customer.’ He didn’t have another customer until two-thirty. After this, he intended finding a pub and enjoying a long lunch with a couple of pints and a sandwich, but Mrs A didn’t need to know.

  ‘That’s great Jeff, thanks. How much? You know I like to agree a price before a job starts.’

  ‘Five hundred; four-fifty for cash.’

  He went back to his work under the sink in sombre mood. It didn’t stem from anything said by Mrs Atwood, or the fear of missing out on a wad of easy money, the lady in question was currently on her way to a cash machine, but thoughts of Marc Emerson crowded his brain.

  His wife was cut-up about the death of the boy, and no bloody wonder, her only son? She did have a daughter but he’d only met her once and she never came back. Gillian asked if he’d killed Marc and he feigned surprise, but he did have a reputation for settling scores with his fists and on more than one occasion, he’d wanted to land a fist into Marc’s Emerson’s smug face.

  It didn’t help that he couldn’t produce a solid alibi for the night in question. He’d been in the Dorset bar that night, as he had been the night before and the night before that, and for as many weeks as he wanted to count back. The problem with anyone asking, neither he nor his equally drunken mates could remember specific details of any one night, as they all seemed to blur into one. Gillian wouldn’t let it rest and nagged him again and again, and in the end he needed to give her a smack to shut her up. It did the trick as she’d never raised the subject since.

  He didn’t like Marc Emerson from the first moment he’d laid his eyes on him. His mother looked out of shape and a bit on the lumpy side, and he expected her son to be the same. Instead, a smart salesman turned up in a nice BMW, wearing expensive casual gear, a handsome smile on his face and his hair styled and trim. In fact, he hated him; the boy was all the things he wasn’t.

  The little fucker had gone to university and while Pickering had been clever at school, his alcoholic father and doormat of a mother took no interest in his education. When he announced at the age of twelve that he wanted to be a doctor, they both laughed. To spite them, he fell in with a bad crowd and smoked dope and drank fortified wine in the woods at the back of the house. How he made it to the end of the school year and didn’t get thrown out for falling asleep in class or selling drugs to the other boys, he would never know.

  Not only did Gillian’s son’s degree get rammed down his gullet, but his activities at uni did too. The captain of the football team, treasurer of the Students’ Union, President of the Film Society and popular with the birds. His anger became manifest and his solid grip of the spanner loosened. It fell, the heavy tool narrowly missing his face. The clang brought old Mrs Redfern into the kitchen.

  ‘Are you all right Mr Pickering?’

  ‘I’m fine, Mary. Accidents will happen.’

  ‘You don’t want anything happening to you, or your Gillian will be getting a complex; first her son and now you.’

  ‘Have no fear. I’m tougher than I look.’

  ‘It’s such a shame about Marc. I always thought him such a nice boy. I bet you miss him.’

  He nodded in agreement but under his breath he muttered, ‘No fucking chance.’

  **

  Jeff Pickering pushed open the door of the Dorset bar and walked in. He had arrived earlier than usual as he had wolfed down his tea when Gillian disappeared into the lounge to watch Eastenders, a photo album of the times spent with her son on her knees. The atmosphere in the house felt morbid and he couldn’t stay there any longer than he needed to. It was a crisp cold night with thick clouds obscuring his view of the stars, but not a hint of frost, which he welcomed as slippery pavements were the worst enemy of a man with too many beers in his belly.

  He was enjoying some banter with Dave the barman, a spotty long-haired oik who invariably wore an old ‘Alice in Chains’ t-shirt regardless of the weather, when his best pal, Lou, came in. Feeling flush after pocketing four-fifty in cash from Mrs Atwood, he bought a round of lagers and large whiskies and carried them over to the table beside the fire.

  ‘Cheers Jeff,’ Lou said, before taking a big gulp from his pint of lager. He worked as the dispatch manager for a large logistics firm in Crawley and by his account, spent much of his day shouting at drivers and talking on the phone. No bloody wonder he had such a thirst.

  ‘Did you see that bit in The Argus today about your Marc?’

  ‘No.’ Pickering didn’t read much, he got all the news he needed from the radio which he listened to all day while working. Lou, on the other hand, looked through several local papers and two nationals to keep him up-to-date with the ever-changing world of road transport.

  ‘The story was in the paper at the time it happened but sort of disappeared when everybody went gaga over the housewife robberies.’

  ‘Does it say if anyone’s been arrested for the robberies?’

  ‘Nah. The cops are stupid. Gi
ve ’em a dead body, ’scuse my insensitivity, and they’ll find the villains like that,’ he said snapping his fingers together. ‘Give ’em something tricky to solve like those robberies, and they can’t find jack shit.’

  He paused for a drink.

  ‘As I said about your Marc–’

  ‘I told you before, he wasn’t my bloody son.’

  ‘Keep your hair on, it’s just a figure of speech.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with my hair.’

  ‘Nothing that a gardener and a pair of shears couldn’t fix, ha, ha. As I was saying, the story disappeared off the front pages these last few days but all of a sudden it’s back. Have the police spoken to you?’

  Pickering felt alarmed at the thought but feigned nonchalance and lifted his pint. ‘Not since the night it happened. Nobody’s said bugger-all to me and Gillian’s never mentioned it.’

  ‘Ah the same old story,’ Lou said. ‘The family are the last to know. Drink up mate and I’ll get us another.’

  The next hour or so passed pleasantly, the drink having a mellowing effect, ironing out the rough edges and pushing his problems into the distance. Lou was a season ticket holder at the Albion and could talk endlessly about league positions and transfer news. If Pickering nodded now and again or added a piece of controversy filched from Radio Five Live, Lou would fill in the rest for most of the evening.

  On those nights, Pickering would say little, just sit there slowly getting pissed, his head filling with Lou’s facts and statistics, details that would all be forgotten by morning. Other times, angry at a job gone wrong or the lack of work, he’d rant and rave while Lou feigned interest, his mind far away in the land of trucks, parcels and motorways.

  He pushed back his chair and stood, a little unsteadily at first and announced he was going to the toilet. Early evening there could be a long gap between loo breaks of up to an hour, but after 9:30pm it shortened to about twenty minutes. At closing time, he often didn’t make it home without pissing into somebody’s garden hedge.

  He stood back from the urinal making sure the splashes went down the drain and not on his trousers. He’d changed out of his working gear before coming out this evening, but the light-coloured chinos revealed every misdirected splash or drip.

  The door opened and someone entered. He stopped his tuneless humming of an Ellie Goulding song, played almost every hour on the radio, or his toilet companion would think him potty. He liked toilets that provided a display of the front pages from today’s newspaper in the eye line of the peeing patrons, as at times like this, he could be standing there for five minutes or more. He would mention his suggestion to ‘Alice in Chains’ Dave upon his return.

  He finished, turned and was about to head out when he realised the man who’d come in earlier hadn’t approached the spare urinal beside him or headed into a cubicle; he stood looking at him. He was about Marc’s age, brown hair combed to one side and with a thin face. Pickering thought he recognised him, maybe from television or one of Marc’s mates.

  ‘Jeff Pickering?’

  ‘Yeah, who wants to know? You a cop?’

  ‘No, I’m no cop. I’m trying to find out who killed Marc.’

  ‘What are you asking me for?’ He leaned closer to the stranger. ‘You think I did it, do you?’

  ‘I don’t know, did you?’

  ‘I should give you a smack on the kisser for saying something like that, mate. ’Course I didn’t, but if I did, I wouldn’t tell the likes of you.’

  ‘Yeah, but I know you and Marc had fights. He told me you smacked him around.’

  ‘He deserved it, the cheeky bastard.’

  ‘Where were you the night he died?’

  ‘What’s it to you?’

  ‘It’s a simple enough question, but if you don’t answer it could make me suspicious.’

  ‘I was in here, if you must know,’ Pickering said, his anger rising. ‘It’s what I told the cops and anybody else who asks.’ He pointed a finger at his accuser. ‘What the fuck’s it got to do with you anyway?’

  ‘He was one of my best mates and he told me he watched out for you. You become an aggressive bastard with a drink inside your belly, he said.’

  ‘Is that so? Well you should watch out for me too,’ he said.

  Pickering swung a fist but the stranger ducked out of the way and his trusty hammer blow landed on nothing but empty air. Before he could attempt another, Pickering doubled up in pain when a fist rammed into his gut.

  ‘I’m not frightened of you mate, but I tell you, if I find out you killed Marc, I’m coming after you.’

  From his low-down position Pickering saw the knee come up and before he could get out of the way, it smacked him straight on the nose. The stars he wanted to see earlier on his walk down to the pub were now in his head, the last thing he saw before he collapsed on the floor, blood oozing over the red, piss-stained tiles.

  EIGHT

  ‘I hear you’ve bought a place in Hove. How do you like it there?’ DS Harry Wallop asked Deepak Sunderam, sitting beside him in the passenger seat of the pool car.

  ‘It’s a great place to live. I don’t have any distance to walk to the supermarket or the seafront, but I would like it better if I had some more furniture.’

  ‘I know what you mean, a detective constable’s salary can only stretch so far. I remember my first place. I could afford a bed but no curtains or wardrobe. All my clothes were lying in suitcases for months.’

  ‘It’s not so much that I can’t afford it. Most of the furniture has been ordered, but many of the stores in town are quoting six to eight weeks delivery.’

  ‘Oh, I forgot. Your dad’s helping you set up.’

  ‘It’s not the free lunch ticket it might sound. He’ll want paid back when I get on my feet.’

  ‘Yeah, but you should be fine, your lot…I mean, Muslims, don’t charge any interest.’

  He laughed. ‘Muslims don’t but Hindis do.’

  They were driving into Lewes after a brief detour to the school of Harry Wallop’s daughter, Daisy, in Shoreham. His wife often said the cherub-faced seven-year-old with a shock of blonde hair took after her father. She didn’t mean in the hair stakes, although he and his daughter shared the same colour, his was short and receding at the temples. His wife was referring to their attitude, sense of humour and the way they both sucked on a pencil, but he could see another common trait in her forgetfulness. When he dropped her off at school first thing this morning, she had left her water bottle in the car and the trip to Shoreham was to stop her receiving a ‘minus’ from her teacher.

  ‘It’s a terrible way to die, in a fire, isn’t it?’ Sunderam said.

  Wallop was about to say it was a common enough occurrence in parts of India, but fearful of getting the sect or region wrong, he curbed the thought. ‘It sure is.’

  ‘The day after I heard, I went out to the shops and bought four smoke alarms and put them in every room in the flat.’

  ‘Really?’ Wallop had done the same and replaced the batteries of those units already installed and added a few more.

  They drove into Lewes, a familiar enough journey as both of them now worked there, but it never ceased to impress with grey, solid-looking houses, an austere prison, narrow streets and a thousand-year-old Norman castle. Wallop couldn’t afford to live in Lewes even if he wanted to move there. He lived in Shoreham, not the prettiest of places, with a working dock and hundreds of light industrial companies, but they had a lovely house and he couldn’t ask for better neighbours.

  They located St John’s Terrace without too much trouble but couldn’t find anywhere to park. Ten minutes later, Wallop knocked on the door of the house belonging to Lily and Guy Barton.

  When the door opened and Wallop saw the lady of the house standing there, he momentarily lost the power of speech. She had thick, shoulder-length hair, high cheekbones, deep blue eyes, and a beautiful, proportioned face undiminished by the addition of trendy specs.

  ‘Are you the
detectives from Lewes?’

  ‘Yes,’ Wallop replied, his voice magically restored. He pulled out his ID. ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Wallop and this is Detective Constable Sunderam.’

  ‘You better come in.’

  They walked into a long room with a leather sofa and chair, huge LCD television, coffee table with books scattered on top and large windows at one end shuttered with wooden blinds. The absence of clutter such as toys, picture books and DVDs was a clear indication to Wallop that the Barton’s didn’t have kids.

  ‘Can I get you anything, tea or coffee?’

  He was about to say ‘no’ as earlier he had treated himself to a coffee and Deepak to a green tea, in appreciation of his tolerance at doing the errand for Wallop’s daughter. Instead, he said ‘yes’ as he wanted to prolong the interview with this lovely lady.

  He took out his notebook and made a few bland comments about his surroundings, trying to drive the face of Lily Barton out his head, swimming around in there like a large fish. He often made notes like this as he had a poor memory and by the time he returned to the office, he wouldn’t be able to differentiate this house from one he’d visited a few days before.

  The door opened but it didn’t allow him another chance to gaze at Mrs Barton, it was a big man Wallop assumed to be her husband, Guy, from the photograph on the unit beside the television. He nodded acknowledgement and took a seat in the chair opposite.

  He was tall with lightly tanned skin, short dark hair and three days’ stubble on his face. Wallop’s wife would probably say he looked ‘dreamy’ but he preferred ‘good-looking’ if somewhat rough. He looked muscular in a natural way, not like many of the guys who came out of the gym on Brighton seafront and couldn’t walk properly because of their big thighs, or couldn’t stretch in case they ripped their tight t-shirts.