The Burning Men

by Will Shindler

  ‘Hold on,’ said Paulsen, cutting in. ‘If Whitlock was such a known launderer, why wasn’t he was in prison?’

  ‘He was, at various stages, but he was smart. There’s a reason why he was regarded as the best in the business – because he learnt from his mistakes. By the time he died, pinning anything on him was pretty much impossible.’

  ‘So have you found anything that directly connects him to the Stansted money?’

  ‘All I can tell you is this: within weeks of the Pacific Square fire, Ray Spinney disappears off the face of the earth. Not a trace of him. His launderer dies, and Spinney goes to ground. Go figure.’

  Paulsen tried to take it all in. A huge heist, where both the money and the prime suspect disappeared, with the one man who could connect it all long dead. She didn’t envy Warrender.

  ‘If I knew where Spinney was I’d be ninety per cent closer to solving this. So that’s my story, DC Paulsen. Does any of that help?’

  Paulsen frowned. The truthful answer was not really, but she didn’t want to return to Cedar House empty-handed.

  ‘My DI said a number of people connected to the Stansted heist have been killed over the last few years?’

  ‘The so-called “Stansted curse”, you mean, as our friends in the tabloids like to call it?’ He walked over to a desk and pulled out a file, which he passed across to her.

  ‘You’re welcome to wade through this. Lewis Huxton was stabbed through the eye with a screwdriver outside his house over the May bank holiday. He’d done time previously for one of the post office raids in Leyton, linked to Spinney. Terry Wu was battered to death with a claw hammer in Hackney in 2016, Wayne Francis was stabbed after a row in a car park in Bromley and Jerry Ademola was found face down in the bath of a B&B in Harlow. I can link all these men tenuously to Spinney. Can I prove anything? No.’

  Paulsen started to flick through the file.

  ‘These men were either all criminals, or known associates,’ she said. ‘That’s the difference with Adesh Kaul.’ She frowned. ‘Did you ever look into the fire crews who attended One Pacific Square?’

  ‘Why would we have? There were over two hundred of them on the night.’

  ‘The fire killed one of your key players. Weren’t you interested in talking to at least the first responders to find out exactly what happened?’

  ‘We were interested in what Whitlock was doing there, but as everything was incinerated, we’ll never know. Some routine interviews were done, but that was the extent of it. Nothing significant came from them, from what I recall.’

  ‘You must have thoughts of your own about why he was there?’ Paulsen persisted. Warrender shrugged.

  ‘My best guess has always been he was meeting someone. But like I say, it’s a secret he took to the grave with him.’

  Paulsen felt overloaded, as if a picture was building but she couldn’t see quite what it was yet. There was also a strong possibility that there was nothing there at all.

  ‘There could be any number of reasons why your man was murdered,’ said Warrender. ‘Just as likely, there’s a psycho ex-boyfriend of the bride who didn’t want her getting married. You’ve got a long way to go before you can draw a line between your dead firefighter and Ray Spinney.’

  Paulsen glanced at a clock on the wall. It was a long way back to Cedar House. She needed to ask one more question and she’d deliberately left it to last.

  ‘I’m sorry to bring this up but as I’m sure you’re aware, there’s a lot of speculation the robbers have always escaped arrest because they’ve got an inside man. Someone within the police service?’

  Warrender pulled a face of tired irritation.

  ‘Not a chance. Again, tabloid bollocks. As far as this team’s concerned, every officer’s been vetted by me personally. I’d vouch for any of them.’

  In an office across the corridor, DS Mike Godden swore out loud to himself. He was sat peering at his computer screen wondering if he needed new reading glasses as he looked at the figures in front of him. Squinting at these sodding screens all day just gave him a headache. The job hadn’t always been like this; he was sure of it. He wished he was a few years closer to retirement age.

  ‘Who’s that with the governor?’

  The voice belonged to young DC Jim Farmer. He was new, on attachment from uniform. Worse, he was keen. Like an effing Labrador. Always bouncing around just behind you. Godden peered over his glasses at the attractive woman with the dark hair Warrender was escorting out of the building. She gave the DI an unexpectedly radiant smile before shaking his hand and departing.

  ‘She’s fit – I’ll say that,’ said Farmer conspiratorially.

  ‘Don’t go all laddish on me, Jim. It doesn’t suit you.’

  ‘Like you hadn’t noticed, Mike . . .’

  Before he could respond Godden heard a noise which made the retort die in his throat.

  ‘Yeah, you’re not wrong,’ he said with a wink, waiting as Farmer laughed before mercifully sauntering away.

  Godden paused a moment to make sure he was alone, and then took a mobile phone out from his drawer. His own personal device was sat charging next to him on his desk. He looked down at the pay-as-you-go in his hand, which rarely did anything except sit in his drawer, ignored. But it was always with him, always fully charged. He’d heard it vibrate with an incoming message and the sound chilled him to the bone. It was a reminder. There was a message on it from much earlier in the day, and he’d missed it. He felt his mouth dry up as he read the six words on the screen.

  We need to talk – call me.

  Chapter 14

  The following day Finn woke in a state of woolly amnesia. As consciousness slowly returned, with it came an awareness of something fundamentally wrong. Then came a hazy confusion about precisely what, until finally the memory kicked in again: Oh, yeah – that.

  He reached across the bed to the empty space next to him and let his arm rest there. He thought about the wake he’d be going to later, so soon after Karin’s. But he’d asked for this, almost begged Skegman for the opportunity, so there could be no room for self-pity. And he’d been pleased with his first day back. It felt good to be in the thick of an investigation again, back to his daily patterns. In routine he found order, and in order he found focus.

  After rising, Finn always drank a pint of tap water, followed by a quick shower and then a double espresso, grinding his own beans – Ethiopian Yirgacheffe by preference. Then, over a breakfast of granola and fresh fruit, he perused the BBC News website on his phone and flicked through Twitter. He was a voracious follower of events on social media, and when violent crime spiked in the capital he monitored the electronic fall-out closely.

  Adesh Kaul wasn’t the only fatality that week; a sixteen-year-old boy was dead after a stabbing in Tottenham, and a seventeen-year-old had been gunned down in Stratford. As usual the Mayor of London was criticising the government for the cuts imposed on the Metropolitan Police. Equally predictably, the government’s response was to highlight their investment in anti-knife and gun strategies. It would have taken press officers at City Hall and Whitehall mere minutes to draft their standard statements, he thought. As someone at the sharp end, the cuts did make a difference. Nobody leading a murder investigation would say otherwise. He and Karin used to discuss it at length, their respective jobs giving them unique perspectives on the problem. They both agreed something fundamental needed to change, but neither of them were optimistic it was going to happen anytime soon. He’d sat in interview rooms looking into the eyes of too many fifteen-year-old killers. Nobody was giving them a reason not to carry a knife, and all he saw was an increasingly lonely and lost generation. He stared at the image of another bloodstained crime scene, then looked over at the empty chair opposite; he really wasn’t helping himself.

  On the other side of south London, in a small but beautifully maintained house in Richmond, Mei Tsukuda opened her front door and greeted the man outside with a polite welcome. Stuart Portbury was ca
rrying his toolbox and smiled pleasantly. She led him through to her bathroom and his heart sank; he’d been dreading this. The wall behind the toilet was peeling badly. Something somewhere was leaking and he hated fixing toilets. Kitchen sinks were bad enough, but the likelihood was that once he started to trace the leak, he’d be knee-deep in shit. Literally. But this was Mei, so he’d make sure the job was done to perfection.

  ‘Would you like some tea first?’ she offered politely.

  ‘Yes, please; black, no sugar,’ he replied with equal courtesy.

  ‘Of course. I remember,’ she said. ‘You’re very early today, Stuart, is there a reason?’

  ‘Yes, I have a wake to attend later, I’m afraid.’

  A look of concern crossed her face.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘It’s alright. It’s not anyone close. Just someone I used to work with. Don’t worry, this job should only take a couple of hours. There’ll be plenty of time for me to freshen up and change.’

  ‘You didn’t have to come today. It could have waited until another time.’

  ‘I promised you I’d come, and I never break my promises.’

  She smiled, and he felt his heart beat faster.

  Everything was already out of sync, thought Phil Maddox. He’d woken too early, eaten too early and dressed too early. Now there was too much time to kill before setting off.

  For all that, he was looking forward to the day. Martin Walker called him back twenty-four hours after they’d spoken on the phone. He’d stressed how important it was they tried to keep their contact to a minimum. His tone was condescending. It was easy to forget how up himself the man could be and the passing of time clearly hadn’t changed that. Then the invitation to the wake came through the door and Walker called a second time. He’d slept on things apparently, and decided it would look more suspicious if Adesh Kaul’s old crewmates weren’t there to pay their respects. Maddox couldn’t have been more delighted.

  He’d always found forming relationships difficult. He’d loved the camaraderie of being a firefighter and with it the sense of being part of a team who looked out for one another. He knew they weren’t necessarily best mates, but the feeling of an unshakeable bond hadn’t left him. They may not have the job any more, but they shared something else now. They shared a secret – and if there was someone out there, someone who’d discovered it, they’d need each other again.

  His reverie was interrupted by the sound of a ringing phone and he recognised the number immediately.

  ‘Mads!’ said a booming voice. It belonged unmistakably to Gary Elder and hadn’t lost its volume in five years.

  ‘Gary . . .’

  ‘Don’t sound so surprised, mate! Just wanted to see if you were going today?’

  ‘Of course I am.’

  ‘Thank fuck for that. I got a call from Marty last night, pretty much ordering me. Cheeky bastard still thinks he’s in charge.’

  ‘Yeah, I got that call too.’

  ‘What about Stu, is he coming?’

  ‘Yeah, I spoke to him yesterday. He’s devastated.’ He heard Elder blowing through his teeth.

  ‘Horrible business though, eh? Poor old Adesh, who’d want to do that to him?’

  ‘That’s what’s worrying me, Gal.’

  ‘You what?’

  Surely it’d crossed his mind, thought Maddox. It must have.

  ‘We shouldn’t talk about it, not over the phone,’ said Maddox quickly.

  ‘Christ. You’re sounding as paranoid as Walker.’

  ‘I just think we ought to be careful.’

  ‘You really think it might be connected?’

  ‘I don’t know what I think.’

  ‘It was probably just an accident, mate. Adesh went for a crafty fag and it all went horribly wrong. How many scenes like that did we deal with back in the day, eh?’ Something about his tone didn’t quite convince.

  ‘Maybe. I’ll see you later, Gary. It’ll be good to catch up.’

  ‘Yeah, you too, mate.’

  The line went dead. Maddox glanced up at the clock on his wall but it was only 8.15. He was starting to feel sick.

  Martin Walker knotted his tie and looked in the mirror. He looked tired and there was a jaundiced pallor to his skin. He’d experienced a mixture of emotions since Adesh Kaul’s death. There’d been fear, first and foremost. He fancied himself as someone who could smell when trouble was brewing, and his every instinct was telling him this was the first domino to fall and more would follow. Then there was Adesh himself. He could remember his first day, taking him to one side, looking him in the eye and liking what he saw. There’d been a quiet willingness about him with plenty of raw courage. All the ingredients were there, and he’d matured into a fine firefighter. He should still be doing it. Fighting blazes, saving lives. They all should.

  ‘Marty! Do you want a cup of tea before you go?’ It was Christine, calling from downstairs.

  ‘Love one – be down in a sec,’ he shouted back.

  He wondered how it would go today when he saw the rest of them. Part of him was almost looking forward to the reunion. They’d been through so much together, but he hoped they’d use their brains. What happened to Adesh was terrifying. If someone knew, then they’d need to tread carefully. But how could they have been found out? It was impossible.

  Despite the wedding venue in deepest south London, the Kaul family home was north of the river in Harlesden. Finn found himself outside a large five-bedroom house in a quiet suburban backstreet. The front door was wide open when he arrived. Mourners largely dressed in white were milling in numbers around the front garden. The sense of shock in the air was still palpable. If he felt awkward, there was no need; nobody seemed to even notice him.

  Ordinarily there’d be a body, and traditionally there’d be a cremation within twenty-four hours. But the manner of death robbed the family of both body and dignity. What remained of Adesh Kaul was still with the coroner and would be for some time. With so many people having travelled far and wide for the wedding, the family wanted to proceed with something. Guests who’d come to London for a wedding now found themselves at a wake.

  As he entered, Finn could hear a long, slow moan of anguish. He found his way into the living room and was greeted by a sight which in any other context would be beautiful. There were flowers everywhere; expensive ornate vases and bouquets festooned the room. A large framed picture of the victim surrounded by a number of small religious icons took pride of place on a large table almost completely covered by flora. Adesh Kaul stared out at Finn from the photograph. He’d been handsome in life, sharp boyish features with charismatic brown eyes, topped with a glossy mop of black hair. An image of Stephanie Kaul lying like a broken doll in her hospital bed flashed though his mind. He remembered what he’d felt then and the same thought struck him again – they should be on their honeymoon.

  It took him a moment to notice the agonised howling had finally stopped. He turned and saw an elderly woman with long grey hair sat in an armchair, sobbing. It wasn’t hard to deduce that it was Adesh’s mother Neeta. A younger man and woman were trying to console her, but she could only raise a hand limply at them. Finn wasn’t sure if she was acknowledging their sympathy or trying to tell them not to bother.

  ‘Thank you for coming,’ said a quiet voice behind him. He turned and was surprised to see Stephanie dressed in a traditional white saree. The state she’d been in on the previous day, he doubted the doctors could possibly have sanctioned this. She was as pale as a ghost and moved slowly and deliberately, clearly in great pain. Her face and hands remained wrapped in dressings. There was an ugly red weal on the side of her head where her hair was burnt away, and he couldn’t stop himself recoiling.

  ‘Nothing was going to stop me coming today,’ she said, as if reading his mind. ‘I had to be here, do you understand?’ Her voice trailed off and Finn didn’t argue. He understood only too well how lonely she would have felt lying in a hospital bed while her hu
sband’s family gathered.

  ‘Is there any news?’ she asked. Finn nodded and asked if there was somewhere they could talk privately.

  She led him through the house and as they walked, he noticed a trio of well-built men talking together in the conservatory. His eyes lingered on them as a fourth man arrived and was warmly greeted. They were the firefighters, he was sure of it. He’d worked with enough of them over the years to recognise the type. The oldest, a burly man with greying hair, caught Finn’s eye and sized him up in return.

  Stephanie was at the foot of a staircase. She turned awkwardly and asked for his help, and they slowly went up a step at a time. She led him across the landing to a small bedroom, which seemed to be doubling as a cloakroom. Finn moved some of the coats on the bed and she sat down, visibly grateful.

  ‘The woman in the chair – that’s Adesh’s mother. The young man with her is Ajay, Adesh’s brother, and Gurpreet, one of his nieces.’

  ‘How are they all coping?’

  ‘They’re not. Ajay’s not right. He broke down last night, drank a bottle of whisky and slept on the floor under that picture of Adesh. He’s only got his act together today because his mother’s in an even worse state.’

  ‘I can’t imagine how they’re feeling.’

  ‘This is what I wanted you to see. How loved he was.’

  ‘How are you bearing up? You really should be at the hospital, you know.’

  He said the words gently but firmly and she nodded in acknowledgement.

  ‘I’m taking it hour by hour. But please . . . tell me how your investigation is going?’

  There’d been some fresh updates earlier in the morning and Finn was grateful to have something concrete to relay. None of it was likely to make Stephanie feel much better though.

  ‘The preliminary pathologist report has confirmed traces of an accelerant on Adesh’s body.’ Stephanie looked confused, and Finn took a deep breath. ‘We think he was doused in it. We’ll know for certain by the end of the week.’ She closed her eyes, and he continued. ‘Despite the fire there’s also some minute traces of blood on the toilet cubicle wall. Forensics believe it could be consistent with signs of a struggle. We’re still working on that. We’ve also got a witness statement from one of the hotel staff, who thinks he saw someone follow Adesh into the toilet. We’re formally treating his death as suspicious now.’