The Burning Man

by Paul Finch

  ‘That’s about it. Like I say, it’s bare details only.’

  ‘Did the Russian cops offer any opinions as to why he might be over here in the UK?’

  ‘No, but apparently they weren’t surprised. And let’s face it, mate, he’s not going to be over here for a holiday, is he?’

  ‘I suppose that depends what he does for R&R. At present nothing would surprise me.’ Heck swung through a busy intersection into Budworth. ‘All right, Eric … can you email this over?’

  ‘Will do. Take care, Heck … oh, Heck!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I mean it, take care. This character, Nayka … you don’t get to be a brodyaga for nothing. This guy’s likely to be as loopy as they come.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve already got that.’

  ‘But he won’t be stupid either. To reach the rank of brodyaga you’ve got to be trusted implicitly by your gaffers. He may be a maniac – in fact he will be a maniac, but he won’t be an idiot.’

  ‘Thanks for that, mate.’ Heck turned into Blaymire Close. ‘Speak to you later.’

  As streets in this district went, it wasn’t especially shabby, but it wasn’t smart either. Most of its properties were semi-detached or rows of townhouses, in some cases adapted into bedsit flats. All boasted tiny strips serving as walled-off front gardens.

  Heck cruised slowly along, not entirely sure what he was looking for. Contrary to the popular image, brothels did not look like brothels. There’d be no tawdry neon signs, no red lights showing. Brothels that actually made money did so because they were discreet. It could be any one of the everyday houses he now passed, and most folk who lived here would never know about it. He assessed the various buildings as he passed. Some curtains were drawn, others open. A few houses were in good condition, others less so – but there were no obvious giveaways. The one or two pedestrians he saw looked like ordinary citizens trudging to work. But among them he recognised one of the lads from the taskforce, a DC Dave Klebworth. Heck hadn’t got to know Klebworth yet, but apparently he was a local officer on liaison from Bradburn CID. That would make him useful to this situation.

  A balding, podgy, toad-like figure in his mid-forties, Klebworth was currently dressed in army-surplus pants, a ragged sweater and a donkey jacket, and was slouching along the road in the forlorn fashion of the middle-aged unemployed. He was probably here on DI Hayes’s behalf, sniffing out anything he could. And as a guy whose beat was this very patch, he’d doubtless be more effective at this than Heck would.

  Deciding that he’d already cramped DI Hayes’s style enough that day, Heck turned off Blaymire Close at the first opportunity and drove back towards the nick.

  In truth, he quite liked what he’d seen of Hayes so far. She was young but had been promoted early, which meant she was both efficient and ambitious. All that was good, as it implied that she liked to get results and didn’t fanny around with politics. The previous Saturday, when she’d learned about his unofficial conflab with Lee Shaughnessy, she’d rightly hit the roof but hadn’t taken it any farther than that because she recognised the usefulness of the contact. The same thing applied when she’d found out this morning about his trip over to Longsight. If anything, she’d looked jealous that she hadn’t been involved in that. She was no shrinking violet, DI Hayes, and she clearly didn’t mind the unorthodox approach, so long as it worked.

  A girl after Heck’s own heart then … in which case it was all the more important not to vex her too much. She was better placed than he was to locate this brothel on Blaymire Close, assuming it existed, so why attempt to steal that thunder?

  He returned to the station and the MIR, where, having heard that Gemma had now been summoned to a meeting with Gold Command (several of GMP’s local top brass, including the ACC – so that wouldn’t be over any time soon), he spent the next two hours trying to make himself useful in the VDU room.

  A bunch of officers were scanning videos of the town centre during the hours leading up to and after the attack on Shelley Harper and Nawaz Gilani. As always, the enormous mass of CCTV footage that had been sequestered for inspection was a mixed blessing. Though on the surface it might appear as if the streets surrounding the Stags n Hens bar were thoroughly covered, with barely a minute unaccounted for in the relevant timeframe, the quality of the visuals was poor: grainy, dark, constantly pixelating. As it was highly unlikely the Incinerator would openly be walking around in his flameproof gear and carrying his weapon in hand, it seemed a tall order to get anything from this. The only visual reference point they had on the Incinerator thus far was the short piece of video caught by accident on an exterior camera at the Waterside nightclub next to the Leeds–Liverpool Canal on the evening of April 3. That film had been shot from a high angle, and again was dark and grainy, though it appeared to depict the murder of the drugs dealer Danny Hollister. Heck had viewed this footage several times now, but didn’t see that it could hurt to watch it again.

  It was just as horrific as it had been before.

  The camera, which looked lengthways down the canal from the towpath alongside the nightclub, revealed little – until in the near distance a staggering white flare appeared from the black mouth of an alleyway. It was a human being, engulfed head to foot in flames. The blazing form tottered across the towpath and fell into the canal. Despite the dreadful quality of the film, a cloud of steam visibly plumed up.

  Once again, the hairs at the nape of Heck’s neck stiffened as a second figure emerged from the alley, a humped, featureless shape in its bulky body armour, armed with a firearm-type weapon, obviously the flamethrower, wearing a helmet, and with some heavy appliance strapped to its back. The helmet looked as if it had a faceplate attached, while the appliance was almost certainly a petrol tank. This second figure strode along the towpath for about thirty yards before crossing over the canal via a metal footbridge. As it did, the first figure, visibly blackened and twisted, had clawed its way up onto the opposite bank, where it lay shuddering. Briefly, nothing was distinguishable until the second figure strode up to the first and, with another searing flash, more flame was jettisoned, immersing the prone shape, which writhed and squirmed in the blast.

  The victim didn’t last long this time. He rolled around frantically, once again a human fireball, but eventually lay still. By now, the killer – a monstrous, featureless outline – was stumping his way back to the canal bridge, which he crossed almost nonchalantly before vanishing up the alley.

  Detective Sergeant Sally Gorton, a hefty but good-looking girl with a loud voice and infectious laugh, was coordinating the footage scan, and was busy at a screen of her own.

  ‘What do we know about this guy Danny Hollister?’ Heck asked her.

  ‘A dealer from way back,’ Gorton replied. ‘Mainly on behalf of Vic Ship. But a user too. Never did an honest day’s work in his life, benefits scrounger, all the usual.’

  ‘What about his background?’

  ‘Familiar enough pattern. Not a particularly bad family. But his older brothers and sisters were a rotten influence. He basically came of age in the late 70s, surrounded by these hippy radicals who brainwashed him into believing that all coppers were corrupt agents of the state, while drugs-suppliers represented the voice of the people. How that happens, I don’t know. You need a brain like a sponge to start with, if you ask me. Either way, it helped him find his route in life early – and qualified him to do precisely nothing else.’

  ‘Except burn like an Olympic torch.’ Heck replayed the grim video.

  There were some, no doubt, who’d think this a just outcome for a man who’d spent his entire adulthood poisoning others. Heck didn’t concur. From his paperwork, Hollister had been a typical underworld fall guy. He might have thought he was connected, but in reality he was never more than a fringe player, probably less than that. He couldn’t even be classified as a ‘soldier’. ‘Camp follower’ would be a better phrase, one of those who thought they were rebels but in fact were always destined to die first.
r />   A bit like Tom, eh? Heck thought. In fact, very like Tom.

  His phone began buzzing. He glanced at it, again seeing a number he didn’t recognise, though not the same one as earlier. He stepped out into the corridor, but rather to his surprise the caller was his Uncle Pat.

  ‘Mark, I wonder if you’d like to call for lunch at the presbytery today?’

  ‘Erm …’ Heck hadn’t made plans for lunch. Usually it was no more than a quick sandwich on the fly.

  ‘Unless you’re busy, of course,’ the priest added. ‘But try and make it if you can. I think we should have a bit of a chat while you’re up here. It’d be bloody awful if the next thing I knew you’d gone back to London and we’d barely even spoken. On top of that, Dana would never forgive me.’

  Heck was about to dig some excuse up – he didn’t have time for family stuff at present, when he remembered something Kayla had said about his uncle running a kind of outreach programme – for local folk who’ve fallen through the cracks: alkies, druggies, prozzies. Usually all three at the same time …

  He wasn’t sure how feasible this was, but might his uncle, or someone his uncle could put them onto, know anything about the brothel on Blaymire Close?

  ‘Lunch is fine,’ Heck said. ‘What time?’

  ‘I’ve got the noon Mass, but straight after that would be good.’

  Heck glanced at his watch. It was half past eleven already. ‘I’ll be there at half-twelve.’

  ‘Good man. See you then.’

  Chapter 27

  Heck parked on the church car park, but, hearing the warbling tone of a hymn inside the venerable old structure, opted to wander around the churchyard until Mass had finished. Perhaps inevitably, he drifted to its far west corner, where, though he’d never seen it, Dana had once informed him in a letter the family plot was located.

  From this side of the church, much more of the refurbishment was in evidence. What would normally have been a striking window of blue and red glass bearing a vivid portrait of Christ beseeching Heaven, trickles of blood streaming down his face from a crown of rose-thorns, was obscured by an immense climbing-frame of scaffolding and plastic sheeting. A workman plodded along its upper tier in overalls and a woolly hat.

  Inside the church, the congregation had moved on to the next verse. It sounded like ‘Lord of All Hopefulness’, which, if Heck’s distant memories of dutiful attendances at church as a good Catholic boy were accurate, he’d always thought one of the most moving of hymns. He seemed to recall that it was often sung at funerals to commemorate a life well spent and after that the reward of Heaven. Almost unavoidably, he felt another brief pang of loss – childhood, innocence, a less complicated era when good things came thick and fast and there was an alluring certainty that even better was to come if you stayed on track – before turning his back on St Nathaniel’s and surveying the grave, which lay alone beneath an elm tree.

  It was neatly kept, two borders of mown grass enclosing a bed of white gravel.

  The simple headstone was engraved:

  GEORGE DEREK HECKENBURG

  1939 – 1999

  MARY WILMA HECKENBURG

  1944 – 2003

  THOMAS PETER HECKENBURG

  1974 – 1992

  ‘Don’t worry,’ came a cheery voice. ‘They’re pretty well looked after here.’

  Heck turned, and saw Kayla Green coming down the path towards him. She wore a heavy puffer-jacket and a bob-cap, from under which her raven hair protruded in fetching bangs. A long-handled, stiff-bristled brush lay across her shoulder. She smiled at him.

  ‘Kayla, I …?’

  ‘Surprised to see me again?’

  ‘At this time of day, I suppose, yeah. Isn’t Monday a workday?’

  Not that it looked as if she hadn’t been working. She was pink-cheeked and watery-eyed; her front fringe hung damp with perspiration. She leaned on the brush, as if wearied from using it.

  ‘In all honesty, Mark, things aren’t great with the business. We haven’t got very much of it, to be blunt. Still … gives me a chance to help Father Pat out.’

  ‘Thought you were Eucharistic minister, not a gardener?’

  ‘Doing a bit of everything at present. Father Pat’s getting on, as you may have noticed … can’t sweep last year’s leaves away all by himself.’

  ‘Doesn’t he have a caretaker for this?’

  ‘Not full-time, no.’

  ‘No altar servers?’

  She frowned. ‘Mark, the servers get time off school to help him say Mass, not maintain the grounds. And before you ask, he doesn’t have a deacon either. In fact –’ she sighed ‘– we’re short of priests across the board these day. There aren’t even many lay-people come here who are under the age of fifty … unless they’re up to no good. Country’s going to Hell in a handcart, I’ll tell you.’

  Heck always prided himself on being difficult to surprise, but he was genuinely taken aback by this. He’d found it hard buying into the concept of Kayla Green the Eucharistic minister, even though he supposed that religious conversions did sometimes happen. But to find her doing odd jobs around the church as well – that really astonished him.

  ‘Why are you here anyway?’ she asked.

  ‘Uncle Pat’s invited me for lunch.’

  ‘Oooh …’ She looked impressed. ‘That’s more of a treat than I’ve ever had.’

  ‘I think he wants to thrash some stuff out.’

  ‘Ah … things that never got said, eh?’

  He nodded. ‘I kind of hoped we could just gloss over all that, to be honest … pick things up as they were.’

  She chuckled, although it was a strange sound, lacking in humour. ‘No one can do that, Mark. No one can just carry on the way things were.’

  Heck didn’t understand what she meant by that, but he wasn’t in much of a mood to discuss it. ‘To be honest –’ he headed along the path towards the church ‘– I haven’t got time for family stuff at present.’

  ‘So make some time.’ She fell into step alongside him. ‘I should scold you for that – tell you that you won’t know how much you’ll miss your loved ones until they’re not there any more, but you already know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose so.’

  ‘But you should still make time, Mark. No man’s an island, and all that.’

  She stared straight ahead as they walked.

  She was certainly full of surprises, he thought, this new-look Kayla.

  ‘What did you mean?’ he asked as they followed the gravel path at the side of the church. Inside, the hymns had finished, and ahead of them a handful of congregants, mostly old ladies and one or two old men, trailed out from the church’s main door. ‘When you said no one comes here under fifty unless they’re up to no good?’

  ‘Well … what do you think the problem is?’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t say I have to clear syringes out of the graveyard every day, but it happens from time to time.’

  ‘Addicts come here to the church?’

  ‘Sure. Along with the alcoholics and various other hoboes.’

  ‘You mean as part of this counselling service Uncle Pat runs?’

  ‘Good God, no. He holds those sessions down in the Mission Hall in town. No … sometimes they come here asking for charity. Usually, if someone sees them and asks what they’re up to, they say that. Other times it’s been to steal the collection boxes. At least four have gone in the last two months. One was even broken off the wall where it had been fixed with screws. Another time, Father Pat caught a couple of them washing their needles in the holy water font. A new baby was due to be baptised in it later that afternoon.’

  Despite his experience at the sharp end of criminal investigation, Heck shuddered. ‘I hope he’s reported all this.’

  ‘Oh, sure. Your guys come round whenever we call, but you’re busy, aren’t you? You’ve got real crimes to solve. And I’m not being flippant when I say that. Old ladies getting burgled, young mums getting mugged … a girlfriend
of mine was stopped in Candlewood Park last year, while she was pushing her two-year-old in a pram. Broad daylight, but the bastard held a knife to her kiddie’s throat till she coughed up some cash. Can you imagine that?’

  Heck didn’t need to imagine it. The official stats would have the average man on the street believe that crime in the UK was falling, but in fact violence was on the rise. And it wasn’t just restricted to inner-city areas. Increasingly, every part of the country, be it urban, suburban or rural, now played host to a low-key but rather vicious crime-wave, which was fuelled not just by drugs but by hopelessness, wretchedness and, of course, that strange new twenty-first-century form of immorality wherein almost everyone apparently felt entitled to anything they wanted.

  But Kayla seemed to be taking it harder than most.

  ‘You shouldn’t let this get to you, love,’ he said. ‘These things are always going to be with us. I mean, we do what we can in terms of damage limitation, but don’t let them rip your life apart. Really – don’t. That’s no solution for anyone.’

  Ahead of them, the tall, angular shape of his uncle had now appeared among the last of his parishioners, still in his purple Lenten vestments. The priest now turned, spotted them and walked down the path in their direction.

  ‘Afternoon, Father,’ Kayla said.

  ‘Kayla.’ The priest nodded to her.

  ‘I’ve done the graveyard paths and steps. I’m going round to the car park now, and then I’ll do the memorial garden.’

  ‘Thanks, Kayla, that’s very kind of you indeed. The presbytery kitchen’s open. Make sure you go in there and get yourself as many cuppas as you need. Don’t mind us.’

  ‘I won’t, thanks. See you later, Mark.’ And she strode away, booted feet crunching the gravel.

  ‘So,’ Father Pat said to his nephew. ‘Been to see the family?’

  ‘I have. Thanks for tending the grave so well.’

  ‘Good grief, don’t thank me … Dana won’t let anyone else go near.’

  Heck glanced back at the headstone, just visible under the distant elm. It was difficult not to picture the passing seasons and the lone figure of his older sister, a melancholy shape constantly there, tirelessly ordering and reordering the last resting-place of her all but extinct family.