The Burning Man

by Paul Finch

  He thought it through. ‘Nothing that’s going to get reported to the police, if that’s what’s concerning you.’ He nodded at the glass of spirit. ‘Any chance I can have one of those?’

  ‘Shut up.’ She made a visible effort to calm down. ‘You’re telling me you went and fronted Vic Ship’s crew? Just like that … on your own?’

  ‘It wasn’t by choice. They came for me first.’

  ‘Why go after you? There are fifty-odd detectives working on this case.’

  ‘They saw me gassing with Shaughnessy outside the nick, and assumed I was one of his.’

  ‘Jesus wept!’ She swilled down the rest of her whisky. ‘How am I going to write all this up? Does that ever cross your mind when you go off on these madcap adventures?’

  He shrugged. ‘I’ll give you a statement. A full one if you like … a special Health and Safety conscious version if you prefer …’

  ‘Damn it, Heck, this is not a joke!’ Again, Gemma made an effort to keep her voice down, clearly aware there were folk in other bedrooms. ‘You’re seriously telling me you tailed them all the way to Manchester? A bunch of suspected killers? Without telling anyone, without asking for any kind of support?’

  ‘I tried to get you. Didn’t think it would be a good idea to put it on the airwaves generally. If the world and his brother had turned up in Longsight, what would be the most we could throw at them? That they’d been planning to abduct a police officer. Ship wouldn’t have coughed to it for one – he wasn’t even in Bradburn.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have gone!’ she snapped. ‘You should have reported straight to the MIR.’

  She banged her glass on the writing desk and kneaded her forehead. Fleetingly, she didn’t even seem angry with him … just tired, worn to the bone.

  ‘One of these days, your shift’s going to end, Mark, and –’ she made a helpless gesture ‘– and you’re just not going to be there to sign off. And then I’ll have to write that up too, won’t I? But we’ve had this conversation before. Maybe a hundred thousand times.’

  ‘Gemma …’ He stood up, frustrated himself. ‘We’ve made progress tonight. We now know that Sagan’s on the plot. We’ve got a stronger-than-strong suspicion that the Incinerator is an agent provocateur –’

  ‘That’s your imagination.’

  ‘Vic Ship thinks it too. Even Shaughnessy didn’t dismiss the idea.’

  ‘Damn it, Heck – I just can’t believe you think it’s acceptable to do your job this way!’

  ‘I saw an opportunity to gather some intelligence, so I took it.’

  ‘At extreme risk to your own life.’

  ‘Is this like –’ He shrugged. ‘Is this a personal thing?’

  She glanced slowly round at him. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Is your main issue here concern for me?’ He tried not to smile at the thought of this.

  She eyed him incredulously. ‘Are you suggesting what I think you are?’

  ‘Well … you let me in here.’ He grinned. ‘You’re virtually naked, it’s three o’clock in the morning. Do you care about me again, Gemma? I mean more than you normally would for a colleague in danger?’

  She shook her head. ‘You cheeky bloody ape.’

  ‘Listen.’ He yanked at his shirt-collar to loosen it. ‘I’ve had a pretty rough night, and, like I say, it’s late. So can I stay here?’

  ‘Don’t be so bloody ridiculous.’

  He moved to the armchair. ‘I mean on here. I can sleep sitting upright, me.’

  Her voice hardened. ‘I said don’t be so bloody ridiculous.’

  ‘It’s just that …’ He looked her in the eye. ‘If you feel about me the way I feel about you –’

  ‘We’ve had this conversation before too. There’s the door, Heck. Use it.’

  Disgruntled, he opened the bedroom door, but hesitated to leave. ‘You know, I went out with an ex-girlfriend tonight. That’s how these fun and games actually started. Those bastards were lying in wait for me when the date was over. Nothing happened between us, by the way, so no worries there –’

  ‘I couldn’t care less,’ Gemma said.

  ‘Her name’s Kayla Green and she’s a real looker. What’s more, she’s keen. But during the course of the evening, I decided she wasn’t the girl for me. There hasn’t been one since you and me broke up.’

  ‘That’s a pity. You’ve tried enough of them out.’

  He eyed her curiously. ‘That something else that’s bugging you?’

  ‘Don’t flatter yourself, Mark … and stop wasting my time.’ She pointed along the corridor towards the top of the stairs. ‘I’ll see you in the office in the morning. We’ll try and formalise these events on paper, and see if we can get something out of them that actually resembles a lead.’

  ‘Deep down, I don’t think you want me to leave.’

  It wouldn’t have been true to say that the sudden turn in the conversation had left Gemma blushing, but there was a rare pinkish tinge to her cheek. Even so, she pointed again, very firmly.

  ‘I will see you in the morning.’

  He held his ground. ‘Do you ever stop to wonder, Gemma, why it is you can’t get a bloke – a woman who looks like you? Or if you can get one, why you can’t keep him?’

  ‘You are so out of order here, Sergeant, that I only need to whisper about this and you’ll be straight out of a job.’

  ‘I’ll tell you,’ he said. ‘It’s the same reason I can’t keep a girl. Because what we do, day by day, is so bloody extraordinary – and I choose that word carefully – that nothing we come home to at night can live up to it. In comparison, other people with their little problems … they seem pointless.’

  ‘I can see you’ve had a hard night, Mark,’ Gemma said slowly. ‘I can see that you’re very strung out. That’s the only reason I’m giving you the opportunity to leave this room right now.’

  He turned into the corridor, but swung around again when he was halfway down it. She watched him from the doorway. Still looking flushed. And still listening.

  ‘What I’m trying to say, Gemma, is … I can understand that I get under your skin, that I’m lackadaisical when it comes to procedure, that I sometimes behave like I’ve nothing to lose. And your career-minded, straight-down-the-line, “dot every i and cross every t” approach drives me up the bloody wall too. I get it that you don’t like the thought we’re destined to be together. So try looking at it this way – we’re doomed to be together. How does that sound? And like it or not, time’s running out. We’re fighting two crime syndicates from Hell here. We could both be dead by the weekend. So what do you say … ma’am?’

  ‘I say: any more of this, Mark, and I’ll write you off sick with a recommendation for mandatory psychological evaluation.’

  ‘Promise me you’ll at least consider it. Because I can’t stand this farcical pissing around and pretending that we don’t care for each other.’

  ‘Go back to your sister’s house. I will see you in the morning.’

  And to ensure he did just that, this time she slammed the door.

  Chapter 26

  Heck felt as if he’d only been asleep a few minutes when his phone buzzed.

  He sat upright, fuddled, assuming this would be the office. But when he looked, the call had come from a number he didn’t recognise. He also noticed, to his surprise, that it was almost half past six in the morning. He’d been out cold for the last three hours.

  He put the phone to his ear. ‘DS Heckenburg.’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ came an odd croaky voice, which Heck immediately realised was being faked.

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Don’t talk, just listen.’ The voice might be a put-on, but it possessed a clear Bradburn accent. ‘You’re looking for a lass called Mindy-May. You’ll find her hiding in that brothel on Blaymire Close.’

  The caller hung up.

  Heck tried a call-back only to be told the number was not available. He made a note of it anyway, though almost certai
nly it would refer to a throwaway mobile, something that could no longer be traced. He also wrote down the name, Mindy-May.

  If the caller had been who he thought and hoped, this was potentially a big step forward. Of course, with no idea about the informant, there had to be a question-mark about how reliable this intel was. But if nothing else, it was another lead.

  It was earlier than even he’d normally be up and about. After last night’s shenanigans he could probably do with an extra hour, but the phone-call had woken him as abruptly and completely as a bucket of iced water. Grabbing another forty winks now would be elusive and pointless.

  Plus, there was simply no time for sleep.

  He rummaged through the soiled rags of the clothing he’d worn the previous night, which now lay strewn across Dana’s lounge carpet, extricated the few important bits and pieces he needed, and screwed it all up into a tight ball. He walked through into the kitchen, deposited it in the bin, laid some bacon strips on the grill, filled the kettle and hurried upstairs to have a shave and a quick shower. He came back down to eat dressed casually in jeans, trainers and a plaid shirt, and carrying a zip-up brown suede jacket.

  By 7.15 he was back on the road.

  It was another dismal grey morning, raining steadily, the heavy rush-hour traffic honking and growling noisily as it fought its way through the crack-of-dawn dimness. But as usual on a Monday morning, Bradburn Central police station was already a hive of activity …

  *

  ‘You think this message was kosher?’ Gemma asked.

  She was seated behind her desk in her private office, which was about three doors along the corridor from the MIR. As always when she was running an enquiry, its door was permanently wedged open, junior staff free to come and go as necessary, but only Heck and Hayes were present now. Gemma continued to examine the grubby piece of notepaper on which he’d scribbled the details he’d been tipped off about earlier on.

  Heck shrugged. ‘Don’t know, ma’am. It could be a hoax, but we still need to act on it. Whoever it was, they clearly know we’re looking for a possible witness to the sex-shop attack – a woman who may have been working in the peepshow at the time.’

  ‘They didn’t actually say that, though?’ Gemma pointed out.

  ‘No, ma’am.’

  ‘So it could be something else?’

  ‘Could be,’ Heck conceded.

  ‘Who do you think it came from?’ Hayes asked. She watched him coolly, having, on first checking in this morning, listened in stunned silence to the events of the previous night, and immediately afterwards turning truculent towards him (mainly, he suspected, because he hadn’t taken her to Longsight with him).

  Heck pondered before answering. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if Lee Shaughnessy had something to do with it. Quite a coincidence that I get the call on my personal phone only two days after giving him the number.’

  Gemma, who, as was her wont, was doing a remarkable job of not even looking ruffled by her messy confrontation with her shellshocked sergeant the previous night, seemed thoughtful. ‘Shaughnessy, eh?’

  ‘Or one of his crew,’ Heck said. ‘I can’t be certain, but whoever it is, they know we’re looking for a missing woman. No one outside Operation Wandering Wolf should know about that.’

  ‘Unless they’re involved in the crimes themselves,’ Hayes said.

  ‘In which case why inform us?’ Heck replied. ‘Surely it’s more likely that Shaughnessy picked this up on the underworld grapevine because he’s extra well connected?’

  ‘Could it be Vic Ship?’ Hayes wondered. ‘Did you leave him a calling-card too?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. But why would it be Ship? He’s already been shown up in front of his team last night. Do you think, if he had a lead on the Incinerator, he’d share it with the police?’

  ‘So far we’ve no evidence anyone survived the sex-shop attack,’ Gemma reminded him.

  ‘There’s no record of a woman even working there,’ Hayes said.

  ‘Would there be?’ Heck asked. ‘If you were doing it for pocket money? It’s not exactly something you’d want tracing back to you. On top of that, you might not like paying tax … there’re all sorts of reasons why you’d be happy to take your wages in brown paper bags for doing a job like gyrating nude in a smeary glass booth.’

  Gemma glanced at Hayes. ‘Do GMP have any record of a brothel on Blaymire Close?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge, boss.’

  ‘Nothing your local snouts have come up with?’ Heck asked her.

  ‘I haven’t had a chance to speak with them yet, but that’s where I’m going next.’

  ‘Blaymire Close is a residential district, isn’t it?’ Heck said. It was just north of the centre, and he seemed to recall that though it was in a very working-class part of town – lots of red-brick semis, but yards rather than gardens and very little greenery – it also had an aura of respectability. ‘We obviously can’t just raid properties at random around there.’

  ‘Like I say, I’m getting onto it,’ Hayes said.

  ‘What about the name, Mindy-May?’ Gemma wondered.

  ‘Nothing in the system, ma’am,’ Heck said. ‘But that may be something else DI Hayes can speak to her grasses about.’

  Gemma looked at the DI. ‘Take care of that now, will you, Katie … let’s get this ball rolling.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Hayes threw another brief, irritated glance at Heck, and departed the office.

  Gemma mused. ‘No name or proper address, no employment record. Assuming this lass exists, she likes to fly under the radar.’

  ‘She obviously doesn’t want any legal involvement,’ Heck said. ‘Given that she witnessed two men being murdered with a flamethrower, you’d have thought she’d come to us voluntarily. Presumably she’s too scared for that. Whatever the reason, we obviously need to speak to her.’

  ‘I agree. In the meantime, how are you this morning?’

  Now they were alone, she treated him to a flat, even stare, but still looked unhurt by the way he’d spoken to her the night before, scarcely even fazed by it – which, conversely, made him feel slightly guiltier about it – not that he ever felt especially guilty about having cross words with the former love of his life. The situation between them was, in some ways, untenable. They worked so closely together that they were almost joined at the hip, and yet there was precious little chance of their ever being an item again. Innumerable factors – personality differences, attitudes to the job, rank itself – put an immense gulf between them. Not that this prevented Heck, in moments of extreme stress (or when he was drunk), thinking he could span that gulf with a single bound. Gemma, the more level-headed of the two, always resisted, of course, but was that because she wanted to or because she had to? She would never say, and though Heck knew it was completely outrageous of him to keep pushing his luck in this way, he increasingly resented her unwillingness to even discuss the matter.

  ‘Look,’ he said awkwardly. ‘I’m sorry about last night.’

  ‘We’re not talking about that,’ she replied. ‘Not yet. I asked if you’re fit for duty today?’

  He shrugged. ‘I’d rather be working than not. But I suppose that’s not what you’re really asking …’ Before he could elaborate, the phone began buzzing in his pocket. He fished it out and saw that the call was from Eric Fisher. ‘Mind if I take this?’

  With an exasperated waggle of the fingers, she waved him from her office.

  He put the phone to his ear as he walked out into the corridor. ‘How we doing, Eric?’

  ‘Nayka …?’ Fisher began.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘As in the Russian toerag you were enquiring about last night?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘Do you mind me asking what this is actually about?’

  Heck left the building by its rear personnel door, seizing the unlooked-for opportunity to get away from the station before Gemma’s concerned enquiry turned into the inevitable roasting.

/>   ‘Well … he may be connected to this gangland dust-up in Bradburn.’

  Fisher briefly contemplated this. ‘He’s bad news, I’ll tell you that. Assuming we’re talking about the same person.’

  Heck climbed into his Megane. ‘Just let me know what you’ve got.’

  ‘Well … it’s not a great deal at the end of the day. The St Petersburg Criminal Investigations Directorate are not especially forthcoming with intel at the present time, international relations being what they are … but Interpol have managed to get some details from them.’

  Heck cradled the phone between his jaw and his shoulder as he drove out of the car park and joined the morning traffic. ‘Shoot. I’m all ears.’

  ‘They’ve only really got one Nayka listed. You said something about your suspect being covered in cobweb tattoos? You’re certain about that?’

  ‘Certainly am.’ Realising this was going to be more than a quick natter, Heck put the phone down and hit the speaker-phone switch. ‘They’re all over him. Arms, torso – maybe his whole body, for all I know?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s the man,’ Fisher confirmed. ‘OK, sounds like we’re talking about Grigori Kalylyn. He’s a hoodlum well known to the St Petersburg cops as a brodyaga.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A brodyaga is a specialised warrior. Someone who’s more than just muscle. Back home, Nayka’s role was extreme enforcement. A soldier who was fully authorised by his bosses to use any amount of violence and terror to achieve their goals.’

  ‘Well, that would fit.’

  ‘Nayka’s also a hardline Tatarstan loyalist. And before you ask, the Tatarstan Brigade started out in Kazan, which is about a thousand miles south of St Petersburg, and are regarded as one of the most dangerous crime syndicates in Russia. Back in the early 2000s, they literally terrorised their way into the St Petersburg crime scene, and that takes some doing, I’ll tell you.’

  ‘I figured he was the real deal,’ Heck said. ‘What else have we got?’