The Burning

by Jane Casey

  ‘Trust me, you never will.’ I twisted free of him and started to walk off, but he grabbed my wrist, pulling me back.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Away from you.’

  He stared down at me, frowning, seemingly at a loss.

  ‘Look, what do you want from me?’

  ‘Strangely enough, this.’ He bent his head and kissed me, hard, before I could move away, and for a couple of seconds I found myself responding, pressing against him. A wave of desire swept over me and I swayed, all caution swept away, my mind a blank.

  But then the thoughts started to drop back into my head like stones toppling into a deep well. This was Gil. And it was wrong. More than that, it was stupid.

  I pushed my hands against his chest and he let go of me.

  ‘Well, what a surprise. She isn’t cold to the touch after all.’

  ‘Why don’t you piss off and leave me alone.’ I was struggling to maintain my composure, pretending to be unmoved, but my face was flaming.

  ‘Would you like me to? Really?’

  I couldn’t answer him. What I really wanted was for him to kiss me again. I settled for asking, ‘Why are you doing this?’

  He shrugged. ‘Because I want to. I have always wanted to, I think.’

  ‘Bullshit. You avoided me the whole time you were with Rebecca. You barely spoke to me.’

  ‘I was afraid she’d notice that I was more interested in you. I liked her, you know. But I was always intrigued by you, Louise. And I’ve never known quite what you’re thinking.’

  ‘Just as well, probably.’

  He laughed. ‘Yes, you’ve never made any secret of not liking me. Don’t worry, I don’t care about that. I’ll convince you.’

  ‘You won’t get the chance,’ I assured him, edging backwards. I needed to get away from him. I needed to think.

  ‘Won’t I?’ He stepped closer, following my steps like a dancer. ‘You don’t kiss someone like that and walk away, Louise.’

  ‘Watch me.’

  ‘One for the road?’ He raised his eyebrows and laughed as I shook my head. ‘You want to say yes, don’t you?’

  ‘If I wanted to say yes, I would say it.’

  ‘So you don’t want me to kiss you again. Just so I’m clear.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ever?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Because I was thinking … next time, I might kiss you here.’ He trailed his fingers down my arm until they reached my palm, where he folded my fingers over. ‘Or here.’ His hand moved to cup my breast and even through layers of clothes I could feel his warmth. ‘Or here.’

  I couldn’t help myself; as his hands moved about my body, I melted into his arms again. It was the last time, I promised myself. He was the one who broke away, at last. With a self-satisfied smirk, he ran a finger down my neck. ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’ve left my mark. You’ve got a beautiful love bite.’ He pulled my scarf up around my throat. ‘That must mean you’re mine now.’

  ‘What are you, a teenager or something? You can’t have done it by accident.’ Not only was it starting to ache, but it would take days to fade. And in the meantime, it announced to anyone who cared to notice it what I had been doing.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, not sounding it, and started to walk away. ‘I think we should get back, don’t you? Before someone notices we’re gone?’

  I watched him go through the orchard, whistling as he went. He didn’t look around to see if I was following. I pulled the scarf more tightly around my neck and wished I had a mirror. All he had wanted was to make me respond to him, to see if he could. I felt humiliated, as if what he had said and done had been the most crude of practical jokes. And I had fallen for it from a height.

  ‘For the last time, though,’ I said aloud. ‘Never again.’

  I left the orchard by a different gate, coming back through the other side of the garden so I wouldn’t run into him again. Nor did I, but I found the police detective wandering around the rose garden and stopped to chat to her. It was utterly predictable that she would notice the mark on my neck; she didn’t seem to be the sort who missed much.

  I phoned for a taxi as soon as I left her, heading back into the marquee to say goodbye to Rebecca’s parents. I saw Avril first and went over to her, realising too late that Gerald was deep in conversation with Gil.

  ‘I’ve got to go, I’m afraid, if I’m going to make my train.’

  ‘Thank you for coming, darling. It meant so much.’ She clung onto my arm. ‘Do come back and see us. Often. We’ll miss you if you go away.’

  ‘I promise, I will.’

  ‘Can I give you a lift?’ Gil sounded pleasant, polite, a little bit remote and I couldn’t look at him as I shook my head.

  ‘I’m getting a taxi.’

  ‘No need for that,’ Gerald said firmly. ‘Gil’s car is outside. Let him drive you. He’s leaving now too.’

  I did my very best to argue my way out of it, but the Haworths were determined, and Gil listened to my protests with a studiously neutral expression. I had to agree in the end, of course, as I couldn’t tell them why I didn’t want to go two yards down the road with their daughter’s ex-boyfriend, let alone as far as the station.

  I glared at Gil as he opened the passenger door of his low-slung vintage Jaguar, sleek in British Racing Green. He waited patiently for me to get in. ‘Don’t think I’m pleased.’

  ‘Aren’t you? It’s better than a dodgy local cab that smells of pine air freshener.’

  ‘The company leaves something to be desired.’

  ‘Don’t be a bitch. I’m doing you a favour.’

  He slammed the door on me and walked around the back of the car, taking his time, whistling as he sat into the driver’s seat.

  I looked across at him, at the little smile that curved the corners of his mouth, at the total confidence that emanated from him, and somehow I wasn’t surprised when he drove straight past the station without stopping.

  ‘After all, we’re both going to London. Why not go together?’

  There were too many reasons to list them so I stared out of the window instead, hiding a smile of my own. I rarely gambled – I liked certainty in all things – but for once I was enjoying the recklessness that came from being in this situation, the exhilaration of being in freefall and not knowing where I was going to land. I could cope with Gil, I thought. Trouble he may be, but I knew a fair bit about him. Forewarned was forearmed. If he messed with me, Gil Maddick wasn’t going to know what had hit him.

  At least, that was what I told myself.

  Chapter Eight

  MAEVE

  I arrived in Oxford two days after the memorial service with a notebook full of questions and a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. It wasn’t actually that far from London, but the train journey had taken a surprisingly long time, stopping at every hole in the hedge between Paddington and the university city. It had been a slow trip and felt slower because the heating was broken. The inside of the windows in my carriage had frosted over by the time we pulled into the station, and I was chilled to the bone.

  The day was raw and dank. Fog hung in the air and I tucked my chin down into my chest, walking fast to get to where I was going without being tempted to do any sight-seeing. The city was hiding its charms effectively as my route took me through the shopping precinct that was somehow more depressing for being decked out with uninspired Christmas lights. The colleges carried on their business behind high walls that hid most of the grandeur I had been expecting. In fact, the main difference between Oxford and any other provincial city was the number of tourists mixed in with the Christmas shoppers in the crowds I had to dodge on my way down the wide, busy street named St Aldates. I was curious enough to look through the heavy, imposing archway on my left as I walked past Christ Church, or I would have looked if a bowler-hatted man with a purple-veined nose and a forbidding expression hadn’t been barring the way. A si
gn in front of him declared the college to be closed to the public. It might as well have said ‘no riffraff’.

  I had arranged to meet DCI Reid Garland at St Aldates police station, although he had retired the previous year. On the phone, he had sounded positively cheerful at the prospect of going back to his old stamping ground, and when I asked for him at the desk, the receptionist pointed one manicured finger at the waiting area with an indulgent smile. I turned to see a heavyset man in a blazer, grey flannel trousers and a dangling tie sitting on one of the plastic seats with his hands clasped loosely between his knees. He had probably noticed me the moment I walked in, but was affecting to read the notices on the board by the front desk. The tie was a particularly offensive shade of purple and narrower than was currently fashionable; I guessed he’d had it since the eighties. He wore a Thames Valley CID enamel pin in his lapel, and the material of his blazer was shiny with wear on the shoulders and elbows.

  ‘DCI Garland?’ I ventured.

  He was on his feet surprisingly quickly for such a big man, one hand extended for me to shake. ‘Hello, my love. Maeve, isn’t it? I’ve arranged for us to use one of the interview rooms here – hope you don’t mind, they’re not the most comfortable places but they are private and I thought we wouldn’t want to have anyone listening to our conversation, if what I understood from you on the phone is right.’

  He carried on talking as he led the way into the back office, his voice deep and accented with the local lilt, the vowels as rounded and smooth as river pebbles. He had picked up a file from the seat next to him in the reception area, and I stared at it covetously as I walked behind him.

  ‘I was glad you called, even though it was out of the blue. I said to Mrs Garland, I always knew this case would come up again. I never liked the way it was left, you see.’ He held open the door for me and I found myself in a small white-painted room with all of the charm I expected of interview rooms, which was none at all. I settled at the table and flipped open my notebook, but if I had thought I was going to be interviewing DCI Garland, I was wrong. He sat down on the other side of the table with a barely suppressed grunt of effort and put the file in front of him, then leaned a meaty elbow on it.

  ‘Now you tell me what’s been going on with this serial killer. How many victims are you up to now?’

  ‘Four,’ I said. ‘It looks like five, but we’re not convinced girl number five was the same killer.’

  ‘Is that so? I was wondering what brought you to Oxford. I couldn’t see how it fitted in.’

  ‘Well, maybe it doesn’t,’ I said honestly. ‘But I’ve been looking into Rebecca’s background, and I was interested in finding out more about the death of Adam Rowley.’

  ‘Any reason why in particular?’

  ‘From what her parents said, she had a very strong reaction to his death – strikingly so, considering they weren’t in a relationship. Not formally, anyway.’

  ‘Is that it?’ The retired policeman had a crease between his eyes that was on the verge of deepening into a frown.

  ‘Not quite. I spoke to a few of Rebecca’s friends from college after the memorial service. They had some … interesting things to say.’

  I had doubled back to talk to the pub-goers once I’d left the Haworths. I had found a group that had shrunk to six, including Mike the designated driver who had a sparkling water in front of him, loud-mouthed Leo and Debs, who was, I had to concede, a bit of a drip, but who had been only too pleased to talk about Adam Rowley. Leo had spent a long time telling me how much he and his friends had adored Rebecca, though none of them had been able to persuade her to go out with them. I admired her taste.

  ‘Go on,’ DCI Garland said.

  ‘According to them, the rumour in college was that Rebecca knew something about what happened to Adam Rowley. He was a bit of a lad and he had a reputation as a heartbreaker – lots of girlfriends, lots of one-night stands. Rebecca had had a crush on him for years, and a couple of weeks before he died, she “got her man”, as one of their friends put it.’ That had been charming Leo, removing his nose from a gin-and-tonic to speak. ‘It didn’t go anywhere and she couldn’t come to terms with the rejection. The gossip was that she had become obsessed with him – couldn’t be in the same room with him without bursting into tears. After he died, she fell apart completely. No one actually said she was responsible for what happened to him, but there was a lot of speculation, not that I give that too much weight. All I got from her friends was hearsay. I mean, he drowned, didn’t he? Wasn’t it an accident?’

  DCI Garland folded his massive arms across his chest. ‘Could have been. Wasn’t. Not that I could prove it, mind you. The coroner decided to record an open verdict but he was fairly clear that it was probably an accident – the boy had been drinking and he’d taken a handful of drugs. By all accounts he was off his face that night. All I can tell you is that Adam Rowley was a shit, and if my daughter had been seeing him, I’d have been seriously tempted to kill him myself.’

  I raised my eyebrows. ‘That bad?’

  ‘That bad.’ Garland opened the file and took out a glossy eight by ten photograph which he skimmed across the table. ‘This was Mr Rowley. Butter wouldn’t melt.’

  It was a blown-up detail from a larger picture and the contours of his face were slightly blurred, but the poor quality couldn’t disguise the fact that Adam Rowley had been a beautiful young man. His black eyebrows were straight over deep blue eyes and his hair was short, revealing nicely shaped ears. He had high cheekbones, a lazy grin that showed white, even teeth and a square jaw that saved him from looking too pretty. But what really made me jump was the striking resemblance he bore to Gil Maddick.

  When I looked up, Garland was looking at me quizzically. ‘Problem?’

  ‘She had a type, that’s all. Go on. Tell me about Adam.’

  ‘He was twenty years old when he died. Twenty years and two months, to be exact. And I’d say he’d spent every moment of his life causing trouble. He was bright enough. He was studying maths, so he’d have to be. And he played tennis to a very high standard – if he hadn’t been so busy having a social life, he could have played for the university, I was told.’ Garland shook his head. ‘He had an eye for the ladies, no question about it, but what Rebecca’s friends didn’t tell you was that he had a couple of nasty STDs, and he knew it, and he always refused to use a condom. He said it was the best way to make sure they never called him again when he dumped them.’

  I made a note to check Rebecca’s medical history to see if she’d had any problems with sexually transmitted diseases, as Garland went on.

  ‘He liked to play with people too. We found a chart in his flat when we searched it. He’d made a note of each of his … conquests, I suppose you’d call them, and gave them marks out of ten. Double points if they were already in a relationship and he’d persuaded them to cheat. Triple points if he could persuade them to do things that a normal person like me would consider degrading. There were pictures of some of them, taken without their knowledge I have no doubt. He treated them like dirt, you see, and laughed about it with his friends, and I didn’t warm to him, I have to admit.’

  ‘So what happened? How did he die?’

  ‘Have you been to Latimer College yet? Do you know where it is?’ When I shook my head, he licked his thumb and went through the file until he came to a map of the city. He turned it around and pointed. ‘This is the college, here, at the far end of the High, just before Magdalen Bridge. The Cherwell is the river, here.’ He traced a line down the side of the city. ‘One branch of it runs right alongside the wall of Latimer and it actually cuts through the grounds here.’ He tapped his pen on the page. ‘This is where we think Rowley went into the water. The body wasn’t found for seventy-two hours. The Cherwell flows into the Thames here, not far from Latimer College, and the corpse had gone with it. It bobbed up again at Goring-on-Thames, just this side of Reading. We were lucky it came up at all. The river takes a few every year that go all
the way to the sea.’

  ‘So what makes you think he went in at Latimer? Were there marks on the ground?’

  ‘No sign of a struggle and no damage to the riverbank, but then he didn’t have a mark on his body, give or take a few abrasions that most probably happened after his death. One way in and out of college and the night porter swore he hadn’t seen him leave. I trusted his word. He was a good man, Greg Ponsett. Ex-Navy. If he said it, he meant it.’ Garland sighed. ‘He’s dead now. Lung cancer.’

  ‘I’d like to read his statement,’ I said, hoping that the detective might take the hint and just give me the file.

  ‘Nothing in it. Just like there’s nothing in any of the other statements in here.’ He riffled the edge of the pages with his thumb. ‘They closed ranks as soon as the police became involved. No one was talking. All I know about Adam Rowley, I got off the record from staff and students. And it didn’t matter anyway, because I couldn’t prove it was murder in the first place.’

  ‘But you think he was killed.’

  ‘I’m sure of it.’ Garland’s eyes were steady on mine. ‘No question.’

  ‘It could have been suicide,’ I suggested.

  ‘Not him. He was in love with his life. He had everything going for him. He was doing nicely with his academic work so there were no problems there, he’d lined up a traineeship at a bank to start the following September, he’d bought himself a ticket to go around the world during the summer – he’d just applied for a load of visas the day he died – and he had no money worries. Suicide definitely didn’t fit.’ Garland shook his head. ‘It was the way it happened that made me sure it was murder. He wasn’t averse to taking drugs, but there was absolutely no reason why he should have been looking for sedatives on the thirtieth of April. May Day is a big deal in Oxford. The kids stay up all night so they can head down to Magdalen Bridge at dawn and party. Nightmare to police. If he was on something, it would have been coke or speed. Not diazepam.’

  ‘So what – someone drugged him without him knowing it?’

  ‘That was my theory. Or they told him he was taking uppers. Then, when he was nicely out of it, they rolled him into the water and let the river do its work.’