The Burning

by Jane Casey

  ‘Make yourself available for duty tomorrow night and I’ll make sure you’re included in one of the surveillance teams.’

  I mumbled something incoherent but grateful and he went on his way, head bent, the weight of the world on his shoulders. Superintendent God at his best; he knew how to take care of the details – even one as unimportant as me.

  Louise North’s Victorian terraced house was, predictably, in immaculate order. I had phoned so she knew I was coming, but somehow I didn’t think she’d spent the half-hour before my arrival tidying up. The small front garden to the right of the geometrically tiled path was covered with raked white gravel, and the only plants were two round boxes in zinc containers on either side of the front door. I was still looking at them when the door opened, before I even had a chance to ring the bell.

  ‘DC Kerrigan. Come in. Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘I would, but if you’re making me tea you should definitely call me Maeve.’

  ‘Maeve, then. Follow me.’

  It was the first time I had seen Louise on home territory, and I was instantly intrigued. There was something different about her – something softer. Her hair was loose and hung down around her face. It looked blonder than I remembered. She was wearing old faded jeans, stripy socks in rainbow colours and a sky-blue sweatshirt with worn cuffs and a dusting of flour down the front. It had LATIMER written across the back, I noticed when she led the way through the narrow hall to the kitchen, which was small but cosy, with yellow-painted walls and herbs growing in little pots on the windowsill. The sweet smell of baking hung in the air. Beside the cooker there was a collection of the sort of culinary gadgetry that only a really serious cook would need, and I looked at Louise with renewed respect.

  ‘Don’t tell me you make your own cakes.’

  ‘Now and then. There’s one in the oven at the moment, but I’ve got homemade brownies that are ready to eat if you’d like one.’

  I had missed lunch. The thought of a brownie had me positively drooling. ‘Why not. Thanks.’

  ‘Sit down.’

  A round, well-scrubbed table and four ladder-backed chairs occupied the centre of the room. I threw my coat over the back of one and sat down in another, resting my chin on my hand and watching Louise bustle around the kitchen.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d be the domestic-goddess type.’

  ‘I’m not, really. But baking is easy.’

  ‘If you say so,’ I said dubiously, thinking of the leaden, airless sponge cake and bullet-hard scones I had made in home economics class, which was the last time I had attempted to make anything that could be bought for loose change in a supermarket. In my view, life was too short to measure ingredients, and I’d never met a recipe I couldn’t foul up. But Louise was the sort of person who enjoyed that sort of thing. Painstaking. Efficient. Everything I would have liked to be and wasn’t.

  Looking around the kitchen, I noted two mugs on the draining board, two plates in the rack, two wine glasses waiting to be put away. On the way through the hall I had seen a man’s coat hanging on the newel post. Unless I was very much mistaken, Louise was single no longer. I recalled the love bite I’d seen on her neck at the memorial service with mild distaste. Not that I thought there was anything wrong with romance in and of itself, but there was something gruesome about the circumstances if that was where things had started. I would not leave without finding out more, I promised myself, while giving Louise an innocent smile.

  The brownie was meltingly delicious and I ate it quickly, chasing the last crumbs around my plate before I sat back with a sigh.

  ‘Gorgeous. If you ever get tired of the law, you should open your own bakery.’

  ‘Don’t think I haven’t thought of it. I’ve set my heart on starting up a teashop in some nice town where there are lots of thirsty tourists to serve. Somewhere on the south coast, probably.’

  ‘What about somewhere like Oxford? Plenty of tourists there.’

  ‘No. Not there.’

  I had just been making conversation but her voice was strained, and when I looked up I saw that she had retreated behind the mask of reserve again.

  ‘I thought you were happy there.’

  ‘I was. But you know what they say, you can’t fish in the same river twice.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She laughed a little. ‘I’ve never really thought about it. The water’s always flowing in a river, I suppose. It never stops moving. So it’s not the same river even if you’re in the same place. Does that make sense?’

  ‘Sort of,’ I said dubiously. ‘Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.’

  ‘Oxford?’

  ‘Yes. More specifically, the river. What happened to Adam Rowley, Louise?’

  She was too self-possessed to bite her lip or fidget, but she couldn’t do anything about the colour that drained from her face before she answered. ‘I don’t see what that has to do with Rebecca. He drowned. It was an accident.’

  ‘It might have been. But from what I’ve heard, it might also have been murder.’

  ‘Who told you that?’ She sounded amused, not alarmed, and I could tell she was back in control, the lapse so fleeting that I might have imagined it.

  ‘Various people. What about you – what do you think?’

  ‘Adam wasn’t murdered. He was out of his skull on booze and drugs the night he died. He fell into the river, and frankly, I was just surprised no one had done it before. The banks of the river were completely open at the time; there was no barrier to stop anyone from falling. Typical Latimer College. As long as it looks nice, that’s the important thing. Never mind safety or common sense.’ The venom in her voice surprised me.

  ‘You liked Oxford. You told me you did the first time we met. You’re even wearing the college sweatshirt,’ I pointed out.

  She shrugged. ‘Yeah, I liked it, but I saw it for what it was. The senior common room is basically a retirement home for perpetual schoolboys. They don’t like to deal with the real world. And they don’t have to, most of the time. I thought it was heaven to be so remote from reality when I was there. Now I’m not so sure. You only have to look at how they reacted to Adam’s death to see what they’re like.’

  ‘And how was that?’

  ‘They went on a witch hunt. They were determined to prove that they weren’t responsible. Some evil influence had come in from outside like shit on a shoe. You’d have thought they were looking for the bloody serpent in the Garden of Eden. And anyone who didn’t fit in was automatically a suspect.’

  The cut-glass accent was faltering a little, consonants dropping here and there as Louise talked more quickly.

  ‘Like you?’

  She laughed. ‘Me? They didn’t notice me. No, a friend of mine was sent down. It ruined his career. Alex was a brilliant chemist. He could have gone into research, done something really important. He never went back to it after what happened at Latimer. He’s never had a proper job since, just done temping here and there to make ends meet. He didn’t look right and he didn’t sound right and they hung him out to dry to make themselves look better.’

  ‘Rebecca struggled too, didn’t she?’

  ‘Only because she wanted to. She was in love with the idea of suffering. She wanted the attention.’ She must have seen the shock on my face because she gave me a quick half-smile. ‘Oh, I loved Rebecca, but she was a bit of a drama queen. She was highly strung anyway – she was worried about Finals because work hadn’t been going so well for her, and she hadn’t been eating or sleeping much so she was getting into a right old state. And then Adam died. It was her way out – a good-enough excuse for not sitting her exams when she was supposed to. She had her tutor wrapped around her little finger and he let her get away with it.’

  ‘Are you saying she wasn’t genuinely upset about his death?’

  ‘She was sincere, don’t get me wrong. Rebecca always meant what she said. But it was all very convenient too. She’d c
ompletely convinced herself that Adam was the love of her life and now he was gone for ever, when actually he was a nasty little prick who had very little interest in her, apart from seeing her as easy. He was absolutely no loss to anyone, and certainly not to her since she didn’t have the sense to stay away from him.’

  ‘Ouch.’

  Louise looked at me defiantly. ‘I didn’t like him.’

  ‘No kidding.’ I was beginning to get the impression that Louise had never thought any man good enough for her friend. I thought for a second, trying to decide how to approach it. ‘Louise, why would Rebecca have said that she was responsible for what happened to Adam?’

  ‘She said what?’ I had shocked her out of her composure again.

  ‘One of her other friends told me that Rebecca had told her she had been involved in something dreadful, and because of it, she was sure she was going to die young. The exact phrase was that she owed her life in payment for someone else’s. I can only assume she was talking about Adam – unless you know something I don’t.’

  She shook her head, mute.

  ‘Why would Rebecca think that Adam’s death had anything to do with her? She wasn’t even in college when it happened. She had an alibi.’

  ‘More of the same self-dramatisation. I wouldn’t put too much faith into what Rebecca said about it. She was the sort of person who couldn’t look at the front of the car after a long drive in the summer in case there were dead butterflies stuck in the radiator grille. She was too sensitive for her own good, basically. She took responsibility for everything, whether she could control it or not.’

  ‘Did you ever hear her say anything about Adam? About feeling guilty? Or anything that might relate to how he died?’

  ‘Not that I recall. But she wouldn’t have spoken to me about it anyway. I told her to pull herself together when she had her breakdown after he died. I said I wasn’t interested in hearing about how upset she was. I thought it was the only way to snap her out of her state of mind. But she took offence. We didn’t speak for a few months.’

  ‘Just because you weren’t sympathetic about her breakdown?’

  ‘Because I didn’t back her up. I wanted her to do her exams and graduate at the same time I did. I knew she wouldn’t do as well if she came back after a year away. And I was right. She tried to run away. You can’t run for ever. Sooner or later, you have to do whatever it is that frightens you.’

  ‘Sometimes fear can be useful,’ I said softly. ‘Sometimes you have to run away for your own good.’

  ‘It didn’t help her,’ Louise insisted. ‘And no one helped me to get her back on track. If her parents had supported me, she would never have had to go back and creepy Caspian Faraday would never have molested her – which is basically what he did, by the way.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Well, then.’ Louise seemed to run out of steam. She stared at me. ‘You know about Caspian and Rebecca?’

  ‘I’ve interviewed him.’

  ‘Oh. What did he say?’

  ‘This and that.’ I knew she would be annoyed by my non-answer; I also knew that she wouldn’t ask me anything further. She could take a hint, could Louise.

  Louise’s eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t see why you’re focusing on what happened to Rebecca at Oxford anyway. It’s got nothing to do with what happened to her.’

  ‘Doesn’t it?’

  ‘Obviously not. She was murdered by a serial killer. That’s just bad luck. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

  I decided it was time to show some of my cards. ‘Actually, we aren’t sure that Rebecca was murdered by the Burning Man. We think it might have been someone she knew trying to make us believe that she was killed by the serial killer. Maybe someone she was blackmailing. Maybe someone else. She was in a lot of trouble when she died, and there were quite a few people who might have wanted her gone.’

  ‘Like who?’ Louise asked, and I could barely hear the words, she spoke so softly. She looked absolutely terrified.

  Before I could answer her, I heard a sound from the hall behind me and I turned in my chair to see Gil Maddick standing in the doorway. He looked very handsome, and very angry, and I had no idea how long he had been there or how much he had overheard, but I noticed that his feet were bare. Considering how rumpled his hair was and his overall demeanour, I was quite sure that he had just got out of bed.

  ‘Well, well, well, look who it is. WPC Nosey making a house call.’

  ‘That rank doesn’t exist any more,’ I said calmly. ‘The title is just PC for everyone. And as it happens, I’m a detective constable, so it’s DC Nosey, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘I beg your pardon.’ He folded his arms. ‘Fancy meeting you here.’

  ‘I’m surprised to see you too, as it happens.’ I was trying to recall what I had just been saying. I hadn’t mentioned his name yet, that was one thing. But what the hell was he doing in Louise’s house?

  As if to answer me, he strolled around the table to stand behind her, sliding one hand inside the collar of her sweatshirt as he bent to kiss her cheek. He kept his eyes fixed on mine throughout and I felt as if I was intruding, then became irritated that he’d made me feel that way.

  ‘You shouldn’t have let me sleep so late, Lulu. It’s almost three o’clock.’

  She was looking embarrassed but also oddly triumphant, and the glow I’d noticed when I arrived was back in full force.

  ‘I thought you needed a rest. And I wanted to talk to DC Kerrigan on my own. I didn’t need any distractions.’

  The hand inside her collar moved once, then stilled. ‘Shall I shoot off, then?’

  ‘I think we’re finished.’ She looked at me and raised her eyebrows.

  ‘I think we are too.’ I was feeling sick; it was like watching someone running towards the edge of a cliff, all oblivious to the danger they were in. ‘But I wouldn’t mind a word with you, Mr Maddick, since you’re here. In private, preferably.’

  ‘Use the sitting room,’ Louise said promptly. ‘I want to tidy up here. Put a couple of lamps on, Gil. It’ll be gloomy in there now the sun is off the front of the house.’

  I followed him into a small room that was dominated by a huge abstract painting over the fireplace, hazy blues and greys that suggested a seascape at first glance. The rest of the room was straightforward IKEA, as if she’d torn a page out of the catalogue and ordered everything on it. Practical, comfortable, unexciting furniture that looked as if it was never used. I remembered what she’d said about spending evenings and weekends in the office and thought the spare time she had was probably spent in her lovely kitchen. This was an impersonal space, indefinably dead, and against that backdrop, Gil Maddick looked very much out of place.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I could ask you the same question,’ I said. He hadn’t bothered to switch on any lamps and I flicked down the wall switch by the door. The harsh overhead light scored lines around his mouth and put shadows under his eyes; he looked less handsome, more hooded, and though I knew better than to think criminals looked like what they were I found him flat-out disturbing and I hoped it didn’t show.

  ‘Isn’t it obvious? Louise and I have made up our differences. You should be happy for us, DC Kerrigan. You brought us together.’

  ‘How do you work that out?’

  ‘It gave us something to talk about.’ He gave me a half-smile that made my skin crawl. ‘We’re very happy – Louise is very happy. Please don’t do anything to threaten that.’

  ‘What, like telling her one of your exes took out a restraining order on you?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Then, ‘How did you know about Chloe?’ He looked baffled, though there was a hint of anger there too. ‘Have you spoken to her? Did she explain it was all a misunderstanding?’

  ‘I’ve spoken to her, yes. I’ve drawn my own conclusions about the incidents in question, though.’

  ‘Not this shit again. I’ve been through all this. It was no
thing. Don’t blow it out of proportion.’

  ‘I think Louise should know that you have a history of violent behaviour towards your partners. I think she should know that Rebecca fractured her cheek while she was in a relationship with you.’

  ‘I told you before. She was pissed. She fell over, didn’t put out her hands to save herself and hit her face. It was nothing to do with me, except that I was the one who sat with her in the waiting room at the hospital and looked after her while she was convalescing. You can tell Louise about that if you like. I don’t think I come out of it too badly. And if it had been my fault, don’t you think she would have told her best friend about it?’

  ‘Not necessarily. It’s well documented that victims of domestic violence can try to hide it. They feel ashamed. They blame themselves.’

  ‘Why are you so determined to prove I’m a criminal?’ He took two steps towards me, getting too close for my comfort, leaning in so his face was only a few inches from mine and I had to work hard not to flinch. ‘Is it because you think I know more than I’m saying about what happened to Rebecca?’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘As it happens, no, I don’t. Get a new theory, DC Kerrigan. This one is getting tired.’ He spoke softly but the effect was menacing enough. I almost wished he would go further though – try to hurt me – so I could have an excuse for arresting him. I wanted more than anything to get him out of Louise’s house, to show her what he was really like and save her from falling for the blue eyes that were staring into mine. If I wasn’t too late already.

  ‘I’ll be honest with you, Mr Maddick. I don’t like the way you talk about Rebecca, and I don’t like the attitude you have taken since the beginning of this investigation. Some people don’t like the police. I can understand that. But when someone is hostile from the very start, with no apparent reason for it, that makes me interested in them. And at the moment, I’m interested in you.’

  He stepped back. ‘I don’t know why you’re so convinced I’m a bad guy. I’m not who you’re looking for. I’m just unlucky in my choice of girlfriends.’

  ‘They don’t seem to have too much luck either.’ I closed the gap between us again. Let’s see how you like being on the receiving end of some aggression. ‘I’m watching you. And if anything happens to Louise – if she so much as breaks a fingernail because of something you do or don’t do – I will come after you and I will not rest until I make sure you’ve paid for what you’ve done.’