Night of Fire:

by Iain Cameron

  His restlessness came to a halt when someone appeared at the top of the lane and walked towards him. It had to be someone who lived in the area as the lane didn’t serve as a short-cut to anywhere. When the person moved nearer, he noticed they carried a holdall, and when the person stopped outside the old Weald storage facility, he could now see that under the hoodie disguise, the build was unmistakably that of Guy Barton.

  McLaren waited, more patiently this time, as he knew something was about to happen. He did wonder how Guy Barton could simply walk up and open the building with a key. The keys for all the properties which the Society owned and had access to, were kept in a box at the main warehouse on the Cliffe Industrial Estate. The key for this storage facility wasn’t missing as he could feel it now inside his jacket pocket. Barton must have made a copy, not a difficult job to do as the key box contained many keys and no one would notice if one key went AWOL for a spell. Intriguingly, Guy Barton wasn’t a member of the society.

  Less than five minutes later, Barton reappeared without the holdall. The way he stood in the shadows and looked up and down the lane several times spoke volumes to a man in such a suspicious state as Kevin McLaren. Barton wanted to ensure that no one had observed his nocturnal activities and looked pleased with himself to find it verified. He turned and locked the door and set off with the determination of a man who knew that in some pub on the High Street, a cool pint of lager had his name on it.

  McLaren waited several minutes after seeing Barton disappear around the corner at the end of Stewards Inn Lane before walking towards the door of the storage facility. He looked up and down the lane too, not because he didn’t feel entitled to enter the place, but in case Barton returned. He turned the key, easier than he remembered, suggesting a recent oiling, and walked in. Half-expecting to find it full of illegal immigrants, drugs, or the banners and flags of a rival bonfire society, he felt disappointed to find it as dark, empty and damp as the last time he came here. He closed the door and locked it.

  He reached for his torch and switched it on. It wasn’t a big place, about six metres long by about four wide, and with his back to the door scanned the walls from left to right. His quick search revealed nothing and he now concentrated on the left side, going up and down and into corners. Coming up with nothing, he turned to the right. There on the far side, away from the damp wall, he spotted a tarpaulin and under it he felt sure, the things Guy Barton had brought here.

  He put the torch on the floor and carefully folded back the tarpaulin. Just then he heard a noise at the door. He killed the torch, replaced the tarpaulin and moved to the opposite side of the room from the little heap of mysterious things. If the door opened and McLaren made a rush for the exit, Barton would suss his identity, despite the dark, as they knew one another well. He didn’t want to confront him either, as even though McLaren could handle himself, he boxed and once did karate, Barton was a street fighter and if the things under the tarpaulin were illegal, he wouldn’t be surprised to find him armed.

  The door took longer to open than expected. He realised it wasn’t Barton returning, but someone unfamiliar with the lock, or a burglar. He moved to a position closer to where the intruder could be intercepted, and waited. The door didn’t provide a good seal and leaked light into the room. If he didn’t fear it opening at any moment and smacking him in the head, he would have peered through a crack and taken a look at the visitor.

  The door opened and a man entered, someone smaller and slimmer than Guy Barton, who immediately closed the door. Before he could turn, McLaren came up behind him, threw an arm around his neck, grabbed his arm and shoved it up his back. He pulled him backwards, knocking the intruder off-balance.

  ‘What the fuck–’

  ‘Shut your trap, mate. What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m a building inspector. Let me go or I’ll call the cops.’

  McLaren tightened his grip of the man’s neck. ‘Building inspector my arse. It’s ten o’clock at night. You’ll need to come up with something better than that.’

  ‘Agh, let the fuck go, you’re hurting me.’

  ‘That’s the idea, chum. What are you doing here?’

  No response. He squeezed his neck and pushed the arm higher.

  ‘Aghhh, right, you got me,’ he said in strangled tones. ‘I’m a fucking burglar, here to rob the place.’

  McLaren laughed. ‘Rob what? An empty space? You’re some burglar, mate. You need to go back to thieving school.’

  ‘I saw Guy Barton putting some stuff in here. I thought it might be worth a look.’

  ‘You know Guy Barton? How?’

  ‘Lemme go and I’ll tell you.’

  McLaren released his grip and stepped back.

  The weasel sprang up and in a practiced move, pulled out a knife and waved it in front of him, emulating street punks in some movie he’d seen.

  ‘Ha, you’re not laughing now tough guy, are you?’ Now it’s m–’

  Before he could complete the sentence, McLaren’s boot smacked his knife hand, the blade sailing off into the gloom, and his fist flew into the burglar’s face.

  ‘Ah, you bastard,’ the weasel said, doubling over in pain. ‘You busted my nose and my finger’s fucked.’

  ‘You pull a stunt like that on me again, shit face, and I’ll burst more than your nose.’

  McLaren kicked the burglar’s heels and dumped him on the floor, face up. He stood over him, pushing his boot against his neck. ‘I want answers to my questions, now.’

  ‘Arg…’ he gargled as blood slipped down his throat. ‘Can’t… breath.’ He eased the boot a touch.

  ‘How do you know Guy Barton?’

  ‘I’ve seen him before, in pubs. I know he works for the Council on the building side of things, and when I spotted him bringing stuff down here I thought it might be a store for tools and construction equipment.’

  ‘Things you could nick and sell?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  It was a reasonable enough explanation and although he didn’t fully buy it, he couldn’t be bothered trying to extract something more plausible.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Frank Skinner.’

  ‘Aye right, and I’m David Baddiel. Now listen up scum bag,’ he said easing the door open with his hand. ‘Get your arse out of here and if I see you down this way again, I’ll go to town on your good looks. Understand?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’

  McLaren removed his boot and the weasel got up more gingerly than before, slinked out without another word, nursing his sore hand and holding his nose. McLaren watched him for thirty seconds before closing the door and walking back to examine Barton’s stash.

  He switched on the torch and lifted the tarpaulin. He sifted through a neat pile of dark clothing, wary of any mice or moths, and came across polo necks, balaclavas and cotton trousers. Close by, a couple of sets of bolt cutters, two sledgehammers, a range of smaller hammers and tools. He sat back. The weasel’s information didn’t look so far off. Barton was using this place to store equipment but it couldn’t be for the Council as the warehouse didn’t belong to them.

  Perhaps this was yet another example of Guy Barton’s greed and disregard for authority, a man not happy with a lovely house and wife, willing to risk it all for a few bits of stolen kit. McLaren didn’t think so. He felt sure it was connected to the vow Guy made to his wife in the kitchen that ‘everything will be back to normal’ after Bonfire Night, but how?

  EIGHTEEN

  On November 5th, Bonfire Night, at seven in the evening, Henderson parked his car in the Malling House car park. Using the car park when not on duty could be regarded by an overbearing or officious boss as a breach of privilege. DS Edwards preferred to get annoyed about the more serious things in life like murder and armed robbery. Good job, as on Bonfire Night, town centre traffic in Lewes was banned and car parking spaces impossible to find.

  ‘How long will it take us to walk there?’ Rachel asked as she wrapped her
scarf around her neck, before putting on a woolly hat and zipping her jacket up to its full extent.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘twenty, twenty-five minutes? It depends on how soon we get caught up in the crowds. C’mon, let’s go.’

  It felt bitterly cold, the stars all visible, as if displayed on an HD television. If slippery downhill pavements glittering with an early frost didn’t require such care, he would have taken a longer look at the celestial spectacle.

  ‘Did I tell you where we’re going for our Christmas party?’ Rachel said. ‘I got an email about it today.’

  ‘No, where?’

  ‘The Queen’s Hotel.’

  ‘Do they have a good reputation for hosting such events? And can they keep a bunch of drunk and rowdy reporters in some semblance of order?’

  ‘I saw the menus and the food sounds excellent. Can they handle it? We’ll have to wait on that score and see how it goes.’

  ‘Based on last year, we should have a couple of squad cars and a meat waggon parked outside.’

  ‘It wasn’t so bad.’

  ‘From memory, fights in reception, a dining area strewn with food and the fire alarm going off at various times of the night. I would say you lot need some kind of early police intervention.’

  ‘I think the response we received from Sussex Police was a bit on the heavy-handed side myself.’

  ‘This is because you left it until midnight before calling us. By then, the rowdy ones had started knocking lumps out of one another.’

  ‘What about your lot? Where are you going?’

  ‘I don’t know. I suppose I should follow it up and make sure something happens. Now we’re in Malling House with all the admin staff, everyone expects someone else will do it.’

  ‘Knowing the police as I do, I expect it’s written into someone’s job description.’

  ‘You could be right.’

  The streets were busier now, a mass of people heading downhill towards the High Street. Henderson had been to the Lewes bonfire celebrations a couple of times before, once when he first moved down south and another when his daughter arrived for a visit. In a way, it was penance for not spending more time with her as he had been heavily involved in a big case.

  The noise level increased too, not the sound of the parading Bonfire Societies, it was too early for them, but the squeal of excited children and the shrill voices of adults trying to make themselves heard above the background din.

  They reached the High Street at six-fifteen, now dark and with nothing much happening in the street, but it did little to deter the crowds five deep on the pavement with expectant expressions on their faces. With some difficulty they made their way along the pavement to a place where the crowd numbers were thinner, and offering a decent view of the road. It didn’t bother Henderson too much as he was taller than most of those around him, but he wanted to make sure Rachel could see the unfolding spectacle.

  At about seven-thirty, it started. Not that they could see anything yet, but the noise of the now huge crowd rose to ear-piercing levels, anticipating the approach of the procession. From where they were standing on the pavement of Lewes High Street, to the left and right, and across to the pavement on the other side of the road, all he could see was thousands of people.

  He almost forgot how narrow the High Street could be in places. Without such crowds, he could speak to someone on the other side of the road without shouting, but on evenings like this, the closeness of the buildings created a unique, claustrophobic atmosphere in which every sound and smell would be amplified.

  Ten minutes later the first marchers approached. The big banner held up by a couple of guys amidst a large band of society marchers read, The Trafalgar Society, and bore the image of wooden warships in conflict. The society members were dressed as soldiers from the Napoleonic wars, carrying swords and rifles and most of them holding burning torches. With the blast of heat from their torches as they passed, it was difficult to believe winter still gripped surrounding streets and countryside.

  In the middle of the procession, six members pushed a cart containing a giant effigy. The figure was perhaps three metres tall and broad with a fat frame, the stains on the shirt depicting his prodigious eating and drinking habits.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Henderson asked Rachel.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Who’s the effigy meant to be?’

  ‘Paul Ranier, The President of the European Union.’

  ‘Ah, I see it now. I assume he’s being pilloried for giving our car industry such a lousy trading arrangement with the EC.’

  ‘Please don’t talk about Brexit,’ she said. ‘It’s all we hear in the office. What’s going to happen to him?’

  ‘He’ll be put on the bonfire, someone will stand and denounce his crimes and then they’ll burn him.’

  ‘Best place for him and all his cronies.’

  ‘Now, now, don’t say such things,’ Henderson said. ‘Remember the case I’m involved in at the moment.’

  ‘Sorry, just a figure of speech.’

  Trafalgar took twenty minutes to pass and minutes later, Weald followed. He didn’t have to ask about their effigy as Harry Wallop had told him what they were creating, and even without his prompt he would have recognised the image as it looked a close likeness.

  ‘It’s the prime minister, Ashley Stevens, isn’t it?’ Rachel asked.

  ‘The very man.’

  ‘Won’t the PM be annoyed about this? He seems to get annoyed about everything else.’

  ‘It’s only a bit of fun and even he should see it, although the lack of a sense of humour could be considered an essential job requirement for a prime minister nowadays.’

  Weald told them their Society would appear in the parade out of respect for Marc, he wouldn’t want to disappoint the crowds, but when they reached the bonfire a commemorative speech would be made. Henderson wished them luck, as the one time he’d made it as far as the bonfire a large crowd had gathered and many were drunk. Thankfully excess alcohol impaired their aim as some were trying to hit the poor speaker with bangers and rockets.

  In the course of the next hour and a half, a tribe of North American Indians, pirates, a Scottish pipe band, smugglers, ghouls with white faces and many more, including Guy Fawkes, tied up and ready to be hanged, passed in front of them. Some time later, he realised many people were peeling off and following the marchers, indicating the tail-end of the procession. They joined them.

  He took out his phone to take another picture of Rachel and noticed a missed call from DS Edwards. There didn’t seem much point in trying to call now, with a brass band in mid-tune in front of him and a drummer nearby, banging out a regular marching beat.

  Before they reached the bonfire he ducked into a doorway and called his boss.

  ‘Evening ma’am,’ he said raising his voice above the general hubbub of the passing crowd.

  ‘Evening Angus. God, is it still going on there? It’s after ten.’

  ‘It goes on until the middle of the night, I’m told.’

  ‘There was a time when I had the energy for late-night festivities, but not now. I’m knackered if I don’t get my seven hours.’

  He laughed.

  ‘The reason I called; have you passed Fenton’s Jewellers?’

  He thought for moment. ‘I’m not sure as a lot of the shops have their grills down, and with all the smoke sometimes it’s hard to see the other side of the street. Why? Did you forget to buy a last minute present?’

  ‘No. There’s been a break-in. It’s not something we normally get involved in but uniform couldn’t get a car down when the alarm went off, what with all the crowds and closed roads. The Commander asked around to find out if any of our people are down there.’

  ‘What’s wrong with uniform? I’ve seen plenty of them standing around.’

  ‘The Commander’s having trouble reaching them, what with crowd control duties, the noise, and apparently one of the tar barrels upended and a few people got
hurt.’

  ‘Would you like me to go over there and take a look?’

  ‘Yes. I expect uniform are there now but it would be good if you could make sure the site is secure until one of the burglary team can get there. I know burglary isn’t part of our remit but we’d be doing Eddy a favour. He’s a good man to have on our side.’

  ‘I know. No problem.’

  He returned the phone to his pocket and explained the conversation to Rachel.

  ‘What, and miss the bonfire?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, but this might only take ten or fifteen minutes and the bonfire goes on for hours.’

  She shrugged. ‘I suppose so. I guess it gives me a chance to see a burglary at first hand. I’ll get one over Rob Tremain for being first at a crime scene.’

  They walked back the way they had come, not easy with a mass of people coming towards them. Fenton’s the Jewellers wasn’t hard to find, easily identified by the flashing blue light pulsing from their alarm box. However, getting in would present a problem with the door locked and the window protected by a metal grill.

  They headed to the first turning off the High Street and after walking twenty-odd metres down St Martin’s Lane, turned right again into Stewards Inn Lane. He soon located the back of the property, identified by the flickering light of torches and the voices and laughter of several men, not the behaviour of a gang of burglars.

  The tall gate barring the entrance to the back of the jewellery shop had once been secured by a padlock and chain, but he found it lying on the path, the chain sliced in half. The door to the shop lay open, the lights inside now coming on. It felt a bit like coming late to a party, but the coppers in front couldn’t have arrived at the scene more than a few minutes before them.

  He stopped and turned to face Rachel. ‘It’s unusual for police officers to take their partners to a crime scene.’