The Burning Man

by Paul Finch

  ‘Gladys White.’ Her mouth trembled, the top lip moist with perspiration.

  ‘Listen to me, Gladys … you warn Tim, you warn the killer too.’

  ‘The killer?’

  ‘Yeah. Sorry, but I’m not going to sugar-coat this for you.’

  ‘We can’t just do nothing.’

  ‘I don’t intend to do nothing. But I need to borrow a car.’

  ‘What?’ Despite everything else, she looked stumped.

  ‘I know the Old Town, and I know the quickest way to Maldon Hill,’ Heck said. ‘But to get there fast I need a set of wheels.’

  ‘But how did you get here?’

  ‘I ran, chasing miladdo.’

  She still looked uncertain. To Heck’s mind it was astonishing that she could dither over something like this – as if the whole thing might be an elaborate charade to enable him to pinch a taxi. Heck flipped open his wallet to show her his authority again.

  ‘And if you still don’t believe me –’ he dug a scrap of paper from his pocket ‘– you got a pen?’ She passed one under the safety glass and he scribbled down a number. ‘I’m entrusting you with a lot giving you this, Gladys – it’s the personal number of Detective Superintendent Gemma Piper of the Serial Crimes Unit. Ring this number and ask her about me. She’ll confirm everything I’ve told you. But if you value Tim’s life, you’ll need to do it fast.’

  He thrust the notepaper under the glass, but Gladys clearly decided that she’d seen enough. Without bothering to call anyone, she rummaged in a drawer and produced a key with a green plastic tag, which she slid through to him.

  ‘It’s a turquoise Honda Civic,’ she said. ‘Parked in the yard at the back. You can get round to it down a passage at the side.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Call that number anyway, please. Tell Superintendent Piper what I’ve told you, and make sure you give her the last location of Tim’s car, OK?’

  ‘Yes, of course. But listen – if you get stuck in one of these flooded areas, I can’t help you.’

  Heck clattered back outside. ‘If I get stuck, no one can help us.’

  Chapter 40

  Heck staggered round to the rear of the minicab office. Only one vehicle, the Honda he’d been told about, was waiting there. He leaped in behind the wheel, and it grumbled to life. Rain pounded on the roof as he slid out onto the main road. Despite the conditions, he made reasonable time. Foot to the floor, with full-beam headlights forging through the downpour, he reached the foot of Wardley Rise, which led up into the Old Town, within a few minutes. Already, though, it was increasingly difficult to imagine that whatever was going to happen to Tim the taxi driver when he reached his destination would not by now have happened, which prompted a new train of thought.

  Nayka … the Incinerator.

  For some reason it hadn’t sent Heck reeling with surprise.

  The Russian mafia were no one’s friend. The idea that they’d come over here to make an alliance among equals with Vic Ship and his Manchester mob was in some ways laughable, but a ruse along those lines was more than plausible. If the Russians wanted a controlling influence in this region, it would have paid them to be clever. They were looking for new territory, but it would have made no sense to get involved in a full-blown shooting war with the Brits. So why not send a single operative over here, a commando, someone whose arrival they could pay for through the promise of cut-price, bulk-load fentanyl, but someone whose real purpose was to sow discord among the native factions? If Britain’s home-grown gangsters destroyed each other in a civil war, that would make it a lot easier for the Tatarstan Brigade to move in afterwards.

  ‘Is that what you were really tasked with, Nayka?’ Heck wondered aloud.

  It wasn’t an especially ingenious plan, but it hadn’t needed to be. Britain’s organised criminals were way too cosy with their easy earnings from the dope business, and far too greedy for more to take an especially hard look at anyone guaranteeing them an even bigger slice of the toxic cake.

  Except possibly for Vic Ship.

  He’d retaliated once against his unknown enemy, almost spontaneously, recruiting a freelancer, John Sagan, to torture and kill Calum Price and Dean Lumley – most likely to get information out of them. But after that he’d held off. Did he suddenly smell a rat?

  Heck progressed onto the gentle rise that was Maldon Hill. The going got slower, his wheels spinning in the surface water without gaining real purchase. The terraced houses to either side were little more than ghostly outlines in the gloom.

  It would have cost Vic Ship nothing to strike back at a piece of trash like Lee Shaughnessy. The underworld would have expected it, maybe demanded it. But of course when all this started he was being watched by the same Manchester police team who’d taken apart the Wild Bunch. That was another reason for him to have brought in a mercenary to do his dirty work. But then, if he’d eventually developed some doubts about Shaughnessy’s involvement, he might even have put his gun-for-hire on hold …

  Before Heck could speculate further, his headlights fell on a blockage ahead.

  A beige Toyota Yaris was sitting askew across the road, as if it had skidded to an abrupt and crazy halt. Heck jammed his own brakes on and slewed forward about fifteen yards before stopping and climbing out. The woman called Gladys had told him that Tim was driving a Toyota Yaris. This was clearly it, because there was a minicab licence disc in its back window.

  Heck hastened towards it on foot, tottering around to the car’s offside. There was no sign of Nayka; clearly the bird had flown – but the front door, the driver’s door, hung open, and a bearded body was draped out of it headfirst.

  ‘Shit!’ Heck sank to his knees.

  Even as an experienced officer, he was not qualified to pronounce death, but it was pretty obvious in this case. Tim – for that was surely who it was – sported a cut across his exposed throat, which extended from ear to ear and had sliced clean through his windpipe. The front of his quilted anorak and the floor around him would have been patterned scarlet by the arterial spray, had the rain not washed it away.

  Heck checked the carotid artery. As he’d expected, it was a lost cause.

  ‘Fuck,’ he said under his breath, standing up and dragging Kemp’s phone from his pocket. But before he could place a call, it rang.

  ‘Heck!’ It was DI Hayes again. ‘Whereabouts are you?’

  ‘Maldon Hill – at a brand-new murder scene, I’m afraid.’ He bent and glanced inside the Toyota. ‘It’s a minicab driver –’ he consulted the licence under the windscreen ‘– name of Timothy Mulholland.’ He again had to shout to be heard above the deluge. ‘Cause of death looks like a fatal laceration to the throat.’

  Hayes sounded astonished. ‘Is – is this connected to –’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m sure it’s our Russian friend Nayka. Also known as Grigori Kalylyn.’ He passed on the details as best he was able, rounding off with a request that some kind of armed protective detail be attached to Gladys White, who worked at the minicab office on Riverside Way.

  ‘Just in case we don’t get the bastard tonight,’ he said. ‘She’s seen him face to face, so –’

  ‘Fine, I’ll sort that!’ Hayes said, interrupting. ‘Listen, Heck, we’re getting up there as soon as we can. I’ll come myself. But full support’s going to be delayed. The Pennington’s burst its banks in some places, and a couple of bridges are out. Traffic’s bottled up in the town centre, and parts of the suburbs are under water. On top of that, we’ve still got half the team on the stakeout at Hunger Hill. The main thing is … Heck, are you listening to me?’

  ‘I’m listening,’ he grunted.

  ‘We’ve started searching the Peugeot at the cinema. There’s an awful lot of stuff in there that’s relevant to the Incinerator’s mission.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Such as several spare cans of petrol. A pile of tools, a thick steel bar that’s been improvised into a Halligan by having an adze and pickaxe welded to one end of
it …’

  ‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘That means we’ve got him for the Blaymire Close murders.’

  ‘Also a heavy triangular plate with chain attachments. Some kind of homemade wheel-clamp.’

  ‘A clamp!’ Finally, Heck understood why Shelley Harper had abandoned her car the night she died.

  ‘Heck, there’s something else. Are you listening to me?’

  ‘Yeah, course I am.’ He wondered why she suddenly sounded tense, even nervous.

  ‘There’s also –’ Hayes hesitated. ‘There’s also a number of diagrams and street-maps of Bradburn’s Old Town. Plenty of Russian handwriting on those, as if he’d been working to identify certain locations and such.’

  ‘Yeah, and …?’

  ‘And photographs. They look like surveillance shots.’

  ‘Anywhere in particular?’

  ‘Try 23 Cranby Street.’

  He stiffened. ‘That’s my sister’s address.’

  ‘And that’s where you’re lodging at the present time, isn’t it? Looks like you’re on Nayka’s radar yourself.’

  ‘Obviously,’ Heck said. ‘Why else was he waiting for me at the cinema?’

  But her tone remained terse. ‘There’s something else too – among these photos, I mean. It’s St Nathaniel’s Church … and the presbytery. There are even shots of your uncle. I believe he’s the parish priest there, yes?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Heck … these are surveillance shots too. And there’s not just a few of them. We’ve got your uncle talking outside the church to parishioners, going in and out of his front door. You know what I’m saying?’

  Heck stood ramrod straight. ‘My uncle’s just a harmless old guy!’ But he was thinking aloud rather than responding to her. He certainly wasn’t seeking an explanation for this, because suddenly it was all too clear. ‘Christ almighty, that sodding bastard … in case he couldn’t get me, he had a secondary target lined up.’

  ‘Heck, listen!’ Hayes tried to sound stern and authoritative. ‘This is a direct order from Superintendent Piper – you are not to go up there alone. You are to wait for support, which is already en route. Do you understand?’

  ‘The hell with –’ Heat surged down Heck’s back.

  ‘I repeat, Heck – support is en route. It won’t get there immediately. Like I said, we’ve got roads blocked and bridges down. But you are to wait for additional units to arrive. Now that’s a direct order.’

  But when Heck spoke to DI Hayes again, he’d already jumped back into the turquoise Honda. ‘No disrespect to you, ma’am, or to DSU Piper … but the sodding bloody hell with that!’

  Chapter 41

  ‘How are you feeling, Kempy, mate?’ Vic Ship asked through wreaths of cigar smoke.

  He was on the private balcony in his nightclub in Castlefield. As with all such establishments these days, a no-smoking policy was strictly enforced in the club’s public access areas, but Ship’s balcony was also his ornate and spacious private office, and sealed off by a wall of reinforced glass which, brightly reflective on its exterior, also served as a one-way mirror, enabling him to chug on his King Edward without anyone even knowing. The glass was so thick that it was also soundproof, so though on the other side of it stroboscopic lights dazzled the throng of revellers below, and dance tunes boomed at multi-decibels, it was quiet enough in here for the boss to have heard his mobile chiming in his pocket.

  ‘Ahhh … poor old Kempy,’ came a heavy, urgent voice. ‘And stupid old Kempy too. Forgot to report he’d had his phone nicked, did he, Vic?’

  Ship frowned and jammed his cigar between his teeth while re-checking the number on the phone’s panel. There was there no question about it; he was being called from the mobile belonging to his associate Tony Kemp, who currently was hospitalised.

  ‘Or is it just that he’s too knackered to even have thought about that?’ the voice wondered.

  ‘Who the fuck is this?’ Ship asked, his voice so taut that his two minders looked curiously around from the bar in the corner.

  ‘Who do you think?’ the voice wondered.

  ‘I think you’ve got the wrong number, pal. I don’t know any Vic –’

  ‘I’ve not got the time for stupid games, Vic. Nor the patience. If you don’t know who this is, you’re not as clued in as I thought. It’s DS Heckenburg, Serial Crimes Unit. You can’t have forgotten already. Kempy’s probably still wrapped up like an Egyptian mummy thanks to me.’

  The heavies got to their feet, but Ship signalled them to stay put. He stubbed his cigar in an ashtray. ‘You’ve got some face, pal, I’ll give you that.’

  ‘Well … you’re right to call me “pal”,’ Heck said. ‘I did you a big favour the other night and I’m doing you another one now.’

  ‘Sounds to me more like you’re running for your life,’ Ship chuckled. ‘Can hear an engine revving away back there. Pissed someone else off, have you?’

  ‘It’s the other way round, mate. Remember the Incinerator? The one-man army who’s been making a total monkey out of you in the land where once you were king? I’m not very far behind him. But I’m on my tod … and likely to be that way for a little while just yet. Bad weather stopping traffic and all that. You wouldn’t by any chance have any firm in the area who can assist, would you?’

  Ship’s expression tightened, but again he signalled his colleagues to keep their traps shut. ‘You wasted your time before,’ he sneered. ‘You’re wasting it now. I have no clue what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I’ll make it easy. I’m talking about Nayka.’

  This time Ship said nothing. His right fist slowly clenched into a rock of flesh and blood.

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ Heck said. ‘Just like you suspected, eh? But when you think about it, it’s the obvious answer. It was never going to be Lee Shaughnessy, was it? I mean, the Britannia Boys are pretty good at dealing dope to the desperate, I’d imagine, and battering the occasional everyday punter who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But when it comes to something complex, something that requires planning, I doubt there’s one of them could tell you his arse from his elbow. What do you reckon, Vic?’

  Ship’s nostrils quivered. His cheeks had flushed a livid blood-capillary red.

  ‘It’s Nayka, my old pal,’ the taunting voice added. ‘But you’ve really got no one to blame but yourself. I mean, you’ve been bulk-ordering China White, haven’t you? Well, that’s a bit naughty, but it’s not my case at present. The main thing is, it gave the Tatarstan Brigade an entry point to the drugs market here in the Northwest of England, didn’t it? I don’t know the exact terms of the deal you made with them, but I reckon it went something like this: you get lots of discount deliveries in return for showing a few of their lads the UK ropes … perhaps with the promise of some kind of power-sharing arrangement in the near future. Is that right? Trouble is, Vic, the Tatarstan Brigade don’t share. Ask the crew who used to run St Petersburg … if there’re any who aren’t at the bottom of the River Neva. Anyway, that’s it for now … oh, except where you can find this lad who’s been giving you so much trouble. Try St Nathaniel’s Church, Bradburn. There, or somewhere in the vicinity. But you’d better be quick if you want a piece of him, Vic. Because I can’t guarantee I’ll be leaving much.’

  *

  Heck shoved the phone back into his jeans pocket as his borrowed motor slid to a halt on the lower road alongside St Nathaniel’s. He leaped out and scrambled up towards the church via the steep slope of the graveyard. The soaring height of the religious building was lost in the rainy murk, but up close a dull light was visible through its windows.

  Heck knew he was heading into a trap. If he was removed from this equation, the only solid evidence that the Tatarstan Brigade were behind the Incinerator murders was poor old Gladys White, who wouldn’t be much of an obstacle on her own if Nayka managed to eliminate Heck first. But there was no choice in the matter. This had to be done.

  Again,
the phone buzzed angrily in his pocket. In the brief time he’d been chatting to Ship, it had registered two missed calls. Heck knew they’d be from Gemma, so he ignored them, letting them shift to Kemp’s voicemail.

  The church’s main door loomed in front of him. He threw himself at it and grappled with the ring-handle. Ordinarily he’d have gone first for the presbytery, but he’d distinctly seen lights inside the church. He twisted the handle – but no access was possible.

  The doors wouldn’t budge.

  Heck flung his shoulder against the wood. It shuddered, but there was no give. Then he heard what sounded like a prolonged, wailing groan – abruptly curtailed.

  He backed away, ears straining – and thought he heard a muted sob.

  Heck slammed his ear to the wood.

  It came from inside.

  Along with a jabber of harsh, hyena-like laughter.

  He dashed away, careering around the corner of the church. There was a rear door just off a passage running between the presbytery garage and the sacristy. The presbytery itself came into view in front of him. There were no lights inside; it was dark, gloomy, its windows dead. Mrs O’Malley would long have gone home, of course. Father Pat would have been here alone.

  However, before Heck reached the sacristy passage, he saw something that brought him to a sliding standstill. The church car park was on slightly lower ground, and at present there were only two vehicles there. His uncle’s blue Volvo and a van of some sort.

  A rather dingy van, with distinctive green-and-white livery.

  Heck trod over there, incredulous, trying to see more clearly, checking that he wasn’t mistaken. It was the same van that had been parked outside the Empress Britannia earlier that afternoon. Before he could work out what this meant, a nub of cold steel pressed into the back of his head.

  ‘Hands where I can see ’em,’ came a voice with a thick Manchester brogue.

  Initially Heck froze, but then did as instructed.

  His captor frisked him, taking the phone, switching it off and stowing it in his own pocket, but finding no weapons, circling around to the front. He wore a black waterproof over his bulky frame, and orange woollen gloves. The face under the hood belonged to Marvin Langton, his eyes like points of metal, his white-toothed grin a glinting crescent in his ebony face, that single gold denture gleaming in the middle of it.