Strike a Match (Book 1): Serious Crimes

by Tayell, Frank

  Ruth glanced at the sun and then searched the sky for the dissipating cloud of smoke from the power station as she tried to gauge exactly where they were.

  “Over there,” Mitchell said, his voice low and his arm pointing through the trees.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Can’t you hear it?” he whispered back.

  She concentrated. There was something, and it was different from the rustling creak of the trees above them. It wasn’t rhythmic, but nor was it a natural sound.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “People,” Mitchell said. “Doing what, I don’t know, but it’s coming from the direction of the first house I wanted to check. Leave the bikes here. Cadet, you stay ten paces behind Riley at all times. Understand?”

  She didn’t, but nodded anyway. Uncertainty of what lay ahead added a coating of fear to the doubts that had been plaguing her all morning.

  Mitchell and Riley moved soundlessly through the closely packed trees. They’d done it before, Ruth thought. A lot. That begged the question of where in Twynham a city copper would— a branch cracked under her foot. She looked up to see Riley and Mitchell had stopped, hands poised over their holsters, not looking at her but scanning the trees to either side. She waited. After a moment, they continued. She followed, this time keeping her eyes and concentration on the ground.

  The sound slowly resolved into that of hammering, sawing, and the clattering of metal. When she reached the treeline’s edge, she saw hundreds of people swarming across the landscape.

  “Are they putting up a factory?” she asked.

  “A warehouse,” Riley said.

  More than one, Ruth thought. She could barely make out the house that had been marked on Mitchell’s old-world map. The narrow track leading to it was still visible, but was now at the middle of a much wider road. A score of orange-clad labourers were grading and levelling the surface under the watchful eye of a pair of armed prison guards.

  “Is that a work gang?” Ruth asked.

  “Fulfilling a sentence of light labour,” Mitchell said. “It looks like they’re putting in a train line.”

  Beyond the gang were more workers, these dressed in that casual uniform of patched blue and black that most people called their everyday clothes. They scrabbled up scaffolding as they erected cladding on a building’s skeletal frame. Behind the partially constructed warehouse was another that was nearly complete. Distant figures clambered across the roof putting guttering in place. Further back, there were more buildings, all seemingly finished.

  “I think we can safely say that wherever Mr Anderson was shot, it wasn’t here,” Mitchell said. “You see the lamps? The mirrors? They must be at this night and day.”

  “But what is it?” Ruth asked. “What are they building?”

  “Is it the National Store?” Riley asked. “That’s what’s over in the distance. Are they extending it?” She sounded as uncertain as Ruth felt.

  “Looks like it,” Mitchell said.

  “But it’s so big,” Ruth said. “I mean… I suppose I should have realised.”

  Selling goods from an abandoned property was classed as looting and profiteering unless a scavenging licence was applied for, in which case, ninety-percent of the haul was taxed. That tax could be paid in money but was more usually paid in goods. These were stored by the government, and then sold at nominal rates in the branches of the National Store that each town, city, and large village had. There were exceptions and exemptions, but it made a life of farming, making, or mining, more profitable than a career in picking through the remains of the old world.

  “Can there be that many frying pans in the country?” Ruth asked.

  “And pots, pans, crockery, cutlery, clothes,” Riley listed.

  “Easily,” Mitchell said. “What they’re building is barely bigger than some of the large malls they used to have in the States. I don’t know how much electricity is needed to make Teflon, but why bother when you can stockpile enough pots and pans for three generations? But I don’t think that’s what they’re doing.”

  “And what’s that?” Riley asked.

  “They’re increasing storage capacity. What they want to store, I’m not sure, but it has to be connected with the trade deal with the Americas. It looks like the buildings have thick walls and thin roofs, and that gives a clue, but not one connected with Mr Anderson’s murder.”

  He moved back through the woods, towards where they’d left their bikes. This time he made no attempt to be quiet, nor did Riley, so when they spoke, Ruth was able to hear.

  “There was nothing about it in the paper,” Riley said.

  “Which simply means they told them not to print it,” Mitchell replied. “There has to be five hundred people working there, perhaps a thousand. You can’t keep something like that quiet.”

  “But they’re spending our taxes on it,” the constable said. “We should know about that.”

  “An interesting point, especially coming from you,” Mitchell said. “Why don’t you ask your MP? You never told me how your date with him went, by the way.”

  There was something close to a growl from Riley. Mitchell chuckled in reply. Then there was silence as they collected their bikes and continued cycling along the edge of the overgrown fields.

  “There’s no one here,” Mitchell said, stepping over a charred beam. Ruth thought that had been obvious from the first sight they’d had of the ruined house.

  “You think this was where they were doing the printing?” the constable asked.

  “I think so,” Mitchell said, “and they destroyed the evidence by burning the building to the ground. They did a thorough job of it, too. Cadet, walk the perimeter. Look for wheel marks that would show where a heavily laden cart was driven away.”

  Ruth shuffled around the broken fence, scanning the ground, and then the surroundings. She tried to picture the house as it had been, not just a few days ago, but in the decades before that. Built by a road so narrow it didn’t deserve the name, it was nestled amidst fields, yet it was too small for a farmhouse. Certainly there were no barns or outbuildings nearby. It was hard to say any more than that as only the rear wall of the house and a creaking few feet of roof remained. She wondered who would want to live in such a remote place. Though she suspected it was that isolation which had made it so attractive to the counterfeiters.

  There was a loud rasping groan from the house, followed by a sharp crack. Ruth turned around in time to see Mitchell diving out from the house as one of the remaining roof beams fell. Ash, brick, and splinters sprayed outward as the last section of roof crashed down, bringing half the remaining wall with it.

  “No printer,” Mitchell said as he picked himself up. “No sign of anything that didn’t belong in a normal home. Riley?”

  “Can’t see any cables,” the constable called from the other side of the building. “If they were stealing electricity they must have laid them underground.”

  “Which is what I would have done,” Mitchell said, brushing dust off his uniform. “There would be less chance of it being seen. Cadet, find anything?”

  Guiltily Ruth glanced at the ground before answering. “No, sir, I haven’t found anything,” she said, which had the merit of being entirely true.

  “Hmm. Well, arson isn’t something I’ve much experience with,” Mitchell said. “The ash is cold, but not damp. When did it last rain? Six days ago? Then the fire began in the last week, but not in the last twenty-four hours. If they had everything already packed up and a cart waiting, and if they burned the place down immediately after Anderson was shot, then it does fit our timeframe. Just. The factory is further away than I expected. You’d need at least a mile of underground cable to bring electricity into this place.”

  “What’s the but?” Riley asked. “I know there is one.”

  “Finding the cable, bringing it here, and setting it in place would have taken time. But we can surmise from when Anderson bought those boots that this operation has
been going on for months. Physically digging a trench between this house and that fence couldn’t have been done without being seen, but they could print however much money the security guards asked for. They had time. They had money. If a problem can be solved with either of those two, then it could be overcome.”

  “Then we should go to the factory and ask when the fire was,” Ruth said. “Surely someone noticed the smoke. Maybe they came out to investigate.”

  “Yes,” Mitchell said. “We could do that. But if we did, anyone inside who’s working with this gang would be alerted to our investigation. They’d disappear before we found them and we’d lose another lead.” He paused and seemed to be weighing something up. “No,” he finally said. “It’s too great a risk, and this is too important. We have, I’m afraid, reached the end of our own investigation. Or this part of it.”

  “You want to tell Weaver?” Riley asked.

  Mitchell glanced at Ruth again before answering. “I think so. This house needs to be searched, and it needs to be made safe before that can even begin. The factory needs to be surrounded before questions are asked inside. We can’t do either of those and, frankly, I don’t want to. This trail is cold, so it’s time we looked for another. For that we need the autopsy report, and access to the bullet we found in Mr Anderson.”

  “You think it will match?” Riley asked.

  “I don’t know. Whether it does or not will give us more answers than sifting through these ruins. Certainly it will keep us occupied until we hear from Isaac.”

  “Why do you want the bullet, sir?” Ruth asked.

  “What? Oh, yes. You don’t know, do you? There was an incident the day before you joined us, but that is a story that can be told in far more salubrious surroundings than these. What time is it? Yes, we should make it to that pub before the rush when the afternoon shift finishes. I’ll tell you there, cadet, and it might answer your questions about Isaac. It’s about half an hour from here. I suppose, since we’re going in that direction, we might as well look in on that last house.”

  By the time they next brought their bikes to a halt, Ruth was feeling somewhat better about her career. To their left lay a steep wooded hill. Beyond it was the third house. In an hour they would be sitting in a pub, eating game pie, and Mitchell would be explaining… not everything, probably not even enough, but that didn’t matter. He was going to share some of the half-heard conversations he’d had with Riley. Better yet, he was going to inform Captain Weaver of what they’d found. Even if one of her superiors were to approach her that evening and ask what Mitchell was up to, what could she say that they wouldn’t already know? It didn’t answer the question of her future, but it did delay having to find that answer.

  She tramped up the hill, enjoying the warmth of the day as she thought of the winter to come. Even when Riley and Mitchell reached the top, bent low, and then began to crawl along the ridge, she thought nothing of copying them. She reached the crest and found a spot where she was hidden by a sprawling fern.

  Below them was a two-storey house with a one-storey extension at the rear. The windows on the ground floor had been boarded up, but the ones on the upper floor were unbroken and a few were wedged open. The roof looked intact, and other than being slightly run-down, the property appeared undamaged. There was no road leading to the house, just an unpaved, rutted track that went past a newly fenced pasture before disappearing down a dip. Just under a quarter of a mile beyond the house lay a fenced building, out of which jutted those ubiquitous smoking chimneys.

  “Is that the aluminium works?” Ruth asked.

  “It’s basically a recycling plant,” Mitchell said. “It turns old aluminium into new cans, before they’re taken to the canning factories near the docks. Well, cadet, what do you think?”

  From his tone she knew that was a trick question. She scanned the house, looking for whatever he’d spotted. The door was closed, but…

  “The upstairs windows are open,” she said.

  “And?”

  And? And what? There was no smoke coming from the chimney, nor was there any sign the garden had been tended in the last two decades. Then she saw it.

  “The fence around the pasture is new,” she said.

  “It’s not a pasture,” Riley said. “Where are the animals? Look at the track. The ruts. It’s a paddock for a horse that’s currently out pulling the cart.”

  “And yet this land isn’t farmed,” Mitchell said. “There’s no chicken coop, no vegetable patch. It’s occupied, but not lived in.”

  “But by who?” Ruth asked.

  “Let’s watch, and wait, and see if we can find out,” Mitchell said.

  After half an hour, Ruth was about to ask for how much longer they would lie in the dank undergrowth when Riley raised an arm.

  “From the east, at the end of the track,” the constable hissed. “Do you see it?”

  It was a high-sided scavenger’s cart pulled by two horses and being led by a person in a wide-brimmed straw hat.

  “Is that a woman?” Ruth asked.

  “Think so,” Riley said. “A scavenger, I think.”

  “Are those radiators in the back of the cart?” Ruth asked.

  “And copper pipes,” Riley said.

  “Do you need radiators for counterfeiting?” Ruth asked.

  Riley gave a snort.

  “No,” Mitchell said. “But there is a type of still you can make with them. I have a nasty feeling we’ve found out how that other house burned down, and it had nothing to do with the counterfeiters destroying evidence.”

  “A still exploded?” Riley asked.

  “And they’ve been out to get the supplies to build another one,” Mitchell said.

  A man came out of the house, walked a dozen yards towards the track, and waited for the cart to approach. He had close-cropped hair that might have been silver, grey, or blond. There was something strange about his face, but he was too far away for Ruth to tell what. When the woman brought the cart to a halt, the two engaged in animated conversation. As the wind shifted, Ruth caught a few syllables but nothing she would call words. The man waved a hand towards the house. A moment later, a second man came out. He went to the cart and began levering a radiator off the back. The woman unhitched the horses and led them toward the paddock.

  “What do you think, sir?” Riley asked.

  “I think they’ve burned down one house, and are likely to do the same thing again unless we have a quiet word,” he said.

  “We’re going to go down there?” Ruth asked. “Shouldn’t we get backup?”

  “I don’t want to arrest them,” Mitchell said. “I want to know if they started that fire. I don’t want to tell Weaver that house is where the counterfeiters were if a quick sift through the ashes only turns up a melted still. But if they didn’t destroy that house, they might have seen something.”

  “Won’t they run?” Ruth asked as she followed the sergeant through the bracken and back down the hill.

  “If they do, then we’ve broken an illegal distillery. That’ll please the commissioner, though it will mean we spend the rest of the week filling in the paperwork.”

  Ruth wasn’t reassured. They collected the bicycles, wheeled them around the hill, and towards the track. What was even less reassuring was what Mitchell said as the roof of the house appeared over the horizon.

  “Stay behind me,” he said. “Do what I say, and nothing more. Understand?”

  She nodded.

  “If there’s any sign of trouble, fire your gun in the air,” Mitchell said. “They’ll run.”

  “Probably,” Riley added.

  Ruth’s sense of anxiety grew as they walked nearer. The rest of the roof, then the upper windows of the house, and then the head of the man on the back of the cart came into view. He spotted them a moment later and shouted a warning to the others. The woman returned from the paddock. The first man, the one Ruth thought of as the leader, stood watching them. Mitchell raised a hand. The leader stepped away fr
om the cart. He was holding a suitcase. Presumably he’d brought it out from the house. Ruth wondered why. The woman stayed where she was, her body shielded from view. The second man was… he was backing away from them, Ruth realised. Not fast, and he wasn’t heading towards the house.

  That sense of unease finally boiled over. Something was wrong. Very wrong. She couldn’t say why or what. Riley must have seen it too, because for each forward step the constable took, she was taking one to the right. She was angling toward the further side of the track, close to the fence. Ruth understood that it meant Riley was planning something, she just wished that she knew precisely what.

  “Lovely day for it!” Mitchell called out.

  Ruth turned her attention back to the two figures by the cart. The woman was young, in her early twenties. The leader was older, and there was something strange about his face.

  “Can we help you?” the woman called. The man put the suitcase down.

  “We’ve had a report from the recycling plant,” Mitchell said. “They’re concerned because of a fire in another property not far from here.”

  They were fifty yards away now. The woman’s lips were curled up at the edges in an approximation of a smile. The man was staring at Mitchell. Ruth kept her eyes fixed on him. He wasn’t smiling. Or perhaps he was. Now that they were closer, she could see his face properly and saw that it was distorted by a mass of scars. He looked like he’d fallen through a plate glass window only to land on a fine metal sieve.

  “We’re looking for pipes,” the woman said.

  “Then I’ll need to see your licence,” Mitchell said. They were thirty yards away, close enough for their voices to carry without the words being shouted.

  “Of course,” the woman said.

  The man abruptly waved at the house. “Do it!” he shouted.

  And then it all seemed to happen at once.

  Ruth was looking at the woman and saw surprised confusion spread across her face. At the same time, there was a loud noise, and something hit her, knocking her down to the ground. Before she had to time to register that it was the sergeant, he was half rolling her, half dragging her into the ditch on the far side of the track.