Fire Games

by Mark Stewart

  KENDAL LEFT Claire hunched over a computer keyboard and marched towards the impound car-yard.

  “Good morning Sir,” called a twenty something-year-old man in blue overalls. I’ve just got off the phone from talking to Captain Hughes.”

  The moment the young man stepped out of the small office his runners crunched the pea stones.

  “What did he have to say?”

  Pointing at a car parked behind the gate, the young man began to chuckle.

  “I thought Hughes was joking when he talked about this car. Hughes told me to tell you that you must accept the vehicle. He added, or else.”

  Kendal glared at the grinning man, snatched the keys from his hand and in silence walked a complete lap around the car shaking his head. Except for the graffiti, the car was perfect for its age. Green, pink and burnt orange swirls and a large black peace sign had been sprayed on every panel. Not to mention a ‘Jesus loves you’ sticker was firmly glued to the rear bumper. Kendal flung open the front driver’s door, slid behind the wheel, turned the key and roared the engine. Driving out of the yard his mobile phone sounded.

  “Captain, if this is you, I want to protest.”

  “Hey, this isn’t your Captain.”

  “You?” spat Kendal.

  “That’s no way to talk to an old friend. I’ve called to let you know I’ve talked to your wife again this morning.”

  “Patrick, what have you told her?”

  “If you’re going to yell at me, I’ll end this conversation, and you can find out for yourself.”

  “I’m sorry Patrick. Please inform me of what you said?”

  “Now your blood pressure will be returning to normal, don’t you feel a whole lot calmer?”

  “No.”

  “Your wife has just finished packing a small suitcase. She is ready to leave.”

  Kendal slammed on the brakes and pulled the car into the gutter. A sudden jerk saw the car stop in the shade of a Japanese maple growing close to the road.

  “Tell me what did you say?”

  “I told her Tegan’s safe for the moment. I also said she’s asleep. The only mistake I made was I laughed. I don’t like women screaming in my ear. They should be strong, sure of themselves, like me.”

  “Anything else?” questioned Kendal.

  “Your wife started the water works again.”

  “Why involve my wife and my kids? This game is between you and me.”

  “I thought it might add some spice to the game.”

  “You thought wrong.”

  “Coppa, I’m never wrong,” jeered Patrick. “Do you hear me? I’m never wrong.”

  “Let Tegan go.”

  “No. I’m having fun.”

  “Are you really?”

  “Yes. I’m excited to the bone. I’m visualizing you’re driving home in an old station wagon with Graffiti sprayed on every panel. By the way, I agree about the car; it looks horrid. The Captain could’ve at least sent a limousine to pick you up.”

  “How do you know what sort of car I’m driving?”

  “Don’t interrupt me when I’m talking.”

  Kendal ignored the taunt and repeated the same question.

  “I know all things. I even know what you’re thinking. Hey, I reckon I’m psychic?”

  Kendal shook his head and restrained his sarcastic answer. “What am I thinking?”

  “You’re thinking your wife’s hysterical. She’s cowering in a corner screaming and trembling watching me waving a gun at her head and shooting at the walls to scare her.”

  Kendal heard a bang followed by two more in quick succession. He slammed the gear stick into gear and pushed the accelerator pedal to its stop. The engine screamed. Smoke billowed from the rear tyres.

  “You’ll roar up the drive, stall the manual car, run and kick the front door in hoping to catch me.”

  Kendal steered the car into his court and replayed the previous night’s act. He threw the gear stick into neutral and let the car roll towards his house. One hundred and nine feet from his drive he stopped the car and started running.

  “Tell me more.”

  “Now now, Coppa, you do insist on knowing too much. What have I told you before?”

  “This is all a game. A game you invented.”

  “Correct. Come sit at the front of the class so all can see how clever you are.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ll explain precisely where you are?”

  Kendal sprinted past his brick letterbox. He reached the front door. Pushing his shoulders into the brickwork he reached for his gun while his left hand held his mobile phone in a death grip against his left ear. He could hear Margaret sobbing from inside the house. Exactly where he couldn’t be sure.

  “I believe you’re close. I can smell your cheap deodorant. You ought to put a hand in your pocket and buy an expensive brand. Buy some good aftershave while you’re at it.” Patrick paused. “You’ve gone quiet on me.”

  “I’m here.”

  “I have a question,” whispered Patrick.

  “I’m listening.”

  Kendal pulled his house keys from his pocket. Silently he pushed the key into the front door lock.

  “Have you ever heard what a reversing truck sounds like on the phone?”

  “I can’t say I have.”

  Patrick ended the call and slipped his mobile phone into his pocket.

  Standing in front of the half-open door Kendal counted five beeps coming from the phone. He shook his head and buried his mobile phone deep in his pocket.

  “Just another stupid game,” he mumbled.

  A nosy neighbour stood watching the man in the black duffel coat push the door open. The moment the man saw Kendal’s gun he disappeared behind closed curtains.

  Kendal pointed his Smith and Wesson in the direction he thought Patrick might be. Instead, he found Margaret cowering in the corner exactly how the pyromaniac had reported. Kendal studied the room and his study.

  “Patrick was never here!” stated Kendal.

  Marg shook her head. “I was given a message over the phone.”

  Kendal gently took the phone from his wife’s trembling hand. Helping her off the floor, he walked her to a chair. He knelt and patted her hand.

  “Tell me everything. A good place to start is Tani’s where-a-bouts.”

  Marg couldn’t stop staring at the floor. Kendal gently lifted his wife’s head so he could look into her eyes. Her pupils were darting back and forth. Tears were cascading over her cheeks.

  “Where’s Tani,” he repeated quietly.

  “I told her to hide under her bed until you got home.”

  Kendal exhaled a sigh of relief. “What’s Patrick’s message?”

  “The next fire is going to be spectacular. Patrick reckons it will go down in history. You cops will remember the scene for years.”

  Kendal cradled his wife in his arms waiting for her trembling to subside. Marg buried her head in her hands. Trying to repeat the remainder of the message, her words were inaudible.

  “It’s okay,” he said gently. “When you’re ready the words will come.”

  Marg displayed a feeble smile. Locking her red eyes onto her husband’s stare, she whispered the message.

  “Our family will be dead.”

  Kendal repeated the five words aloud over and over. Marg used her hands to cover her ears. Unable to hold back her tears she burst out crying again.

  “Sorry. I’m having trouble believing Patrick is a killer.”

  “I’m not lying,” she sobbed. “I’m not.”

  “Of course, you’re not. Patrick’s getting worse. It’s the single reason why I’m taking you and Tani to your mother’s. Aura Lake is only an easy forty-minute drive from Melbourne. Everyone knows everyone else. You’ll be safe there.”

  After finding Tani and inside an hour Kendal drove into the township of Aura Lake. Half a mile from the town center Kendal saw an elderly man sitting on an old rocking chair outside a small cottage surroun
ded by a white picket fence. His eyes were shut tight as he rocked back and forth, puffing on a thin cigar. Above his head floated a turban of grey smoke.

  “Are we there yet?” asked Tani.

  “We sure are Sweetie,” reported her mother.

  Kendal stopped the car long enough to let his daughter retrieve the mail from the letterbox. The moment she got back into the car he proceeded up the narrow drive, taking careful consideration of his mother-in-law’s small plants lining the driveway.

  ‘This place hasn’t changed at all,’ he thought. ‘Same old rusty gate with the graveyard pattern welded in the middle, unpainted front steps and the missing spouting around the top floor. Yep, this was the place all right. No chance of forgetting this joint in a hurry.’

  “Tani, don’t break Grandma’s plants,” urged Marg.

  “You don’t want to see her get angry,” added Kendal. “I have, and it’s not pretty. If you break a rose bush, it’s okay. They’re fair game. No matter what caused the breakage, say it was an accident. I’ll back you up all the way.”

  “Alan!” shrieked Marg. “Mum loves those rose bushes. Besides, you know she lives alone. She’s done well to keep this place going these past two years since dad was admitted to the nursing home.”

  “Maybe the old dear should sell and move to a unit in the city.”

  “Mum and I have been through the idea many times. She won’t sell. She was born here; she wants to die here.”

  “Thank heaven Patrick doesn’t know where this place is or she might have a hand getting to the next world sooner than later.”

  “Alan, don’t agitate me. My nerves are already on edge.”

  “I apologize,” he grumbled, raising his hands.

  Marg kept up her chilled stare till she rang the front door bell. Hearing a faint voice calling from somewhere around the rear of the house Kendal and Marg went to investigate.

  Kendal pushed hard against a one-metre tall cast iron gate. The rear of the house looked worse than the front. Every weatherboard covering the outside walls appeared to be rotting.

  “Your father never was one for painting. This half of the house hasn’t seen paint in years. The paint he did use on the other half of the house must have been watered down something shocking,” announced Kendal.

  Marg nodded. She slipped her hand around his hand. Her anger quickly melted. She looked down the solid red brick path towards the lake in time to see an old woman wearing a tatty old pink dressing gown tied at the front shuffling towards them. Her feet were planted in black knee-high gumboots. She was slowly strangling a bunch of wild yellow daffodils in her left hand.

  “Hello mum,” Marg yelled.

  The old woman appeared not to hear.

  “I’ll have to wait. When she’s closer, I’ll call again. She’s a little deaf.”

  “And senile,” added Kendal.

  His wife’s chilled stare returned as they walked down the path to meet the old woman.

  Kendal returned his attention back to the house. He shook his head.

  “What I could do to this place. The first thing he’d do is to pull out all the bloody rose bushes. Second, I’d rip off all the creeping vines attached to the walls, replace all the weatherboards and spread an extra thick layer of paint.”

  Kendal was so engrossed in his imaginary renovations he didn’t hear the old woman sneaking up behind him.

  “Do you still like the view of the lake?” she yelled in his ear.

  “Yes I do,” replied Kendal. He hid the fact she managed to get the jump on him.

  “Would you like some tea and scones?”

  “Sounds wonderful to me,” he said over the shrill of his mobile phone. “I’ll meet you two ladies inside in a few minutes. “I’m hoping the person phoning is Captain Hughes. I could use some good news about Teagan.” Watching the two ladies watching him he grabbed his mobile phone from his pocket. “Hello.”

  “It’s so nice to hear your voice again. Did you miss me?”

  “Patrick,” Kendal spat.

  “Don’t sound so surprised. I’ve missed our little chats. I’ve called to let you know I’m not waiting for another month to burn the next house.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d inform me of the address?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  Inwardly Kendal could see Patrick’s smirk. The pyromaniac was slowly wearing him down. He needed a breakthrough, and fast. “Let Tegan go,” he said.

  “I’ll let you in on a secret. The kid will be reunited with you real soon.”

  “Will she be alive?”

  Silence came through the phone. Holding his mobile phone to his ear, Kendal paced the ground in circles. Eventually, he talked.

  “Patrick, are you listening?”

  “Yes.”

  “Answer my question.”

  “It depends if you’ll do exactly as I say?”

  “What’s on your mind?”

  “I want you to take your new partner out for tea.”

  “Why?”

  “I want you to.”

  “What will happen if I refuse?”

  “Do you want your daughter to be delivered whole or in very small pieces?”

  “What assurance do I have Tegan will stay alive?”

  “Do it and don’t tell your partner. Tea will be at the closest Chinese restaurant to Police Headquarters. Understand?”

  “Patrick, I’ve come to a decision.”

  “Hey, I’m hanging. I can’t wait to hear what’s on your mind.”

  Kendal rolled his eyes. He closed the phone and dropped it back into his pocket.

  CHAPTER NINE