The Burning Man

by Edward Figg

  High above, a few clouds rolled across the early morning sky. Despite the chill in the air, it looked like being a beautiful day. He clipped in his seatbelt, switched on the radio and tuned it to the local station, then, putting the car into gear, he pulled out of the driveway and headed up Cow Lane. As he pulled out into the traffic on the A 2, he mulled over what Broadbent had just told him about her arthritis and the injection.

  The traffic out on the A 2 was light, and it wasn’t long before he reached the turnoff that took him into Kingsport. As he drove through the suburbs and in towards the town centre, he had to stop at the Market Square for the lights. While he waited for it to turn green, he glanced over to the jeweller’s window opposite. Looking at Hardwick’s collection of rings in their window got him thinking. Is it too early?

  The lights turned green. Carter drove across the Market Square, his head full of thoughts. He was so wrapped up in them that he nearly missed the turning by Tesco’s. He braked suddenly, indicating at the last second. The driver travelling behind him showed his frustration by hitting his horn. Carter glanced up into the rear-view mirror. Bugger. A few minutes later he turned down Kent Street, and as he pulled into the station’s parking area, he thought about the display in the jeweller’s window. He knew what he wanted to do.

  He climbed the stairs and walked along the passage towards the CID office.

  He was just about to push through the double doors when Superintendent Janice Watkins came out of her office. ‘Bob, a minute please?’ He turned back and followed her into the office.

  Watkins was a few years older than Carter. When first joining the police force, they’d both been stationed together at Canterbury. Both rose quickly through the ranks. Carter moved from Canterbury after two years and came back to where he was born — Kingsport. He went as a trainee detective constable. Janice Watkins stayed on in Canterbury. She worked her way up through the ranks and, as a freshly promoted chief inspector, moved to another force. She went to Brighton, in Sussex. Tom Bishop, the then Chief Superintendent at Canterbury, was also Acting Assistant Chief Constable of Kent at the time. They all suspected that it was Bishop who had a hand in her transfer. There were a lot of rumours and speculation around that time that the pair were romantically involved. Carter knew it was true.

  ‘Bob. How are you getting on with this body in the barn, and the hold-up at the store?’ she asked, as he walked in behind her.

  He unbuttoned his raincoat, took it off, and laid it over the back of the chair. ‘I’ve organised a full briefing in half an hour to bring the troops up to date. We need to start putting some of these pieces together. We should also have the Mary Lampton autopsy reports back this morning, all being well. I’m pretty certain we're looking at the same man for both killings.’

  ‘Okay. Fine. Anyway, that's not what I mainly called you in for,’ Watkins said, going around to the other side of her desk and sitting down. ‘I had a call from DCI Carver of the Regional Organised Crime Unit yesterday. He wanted to know if you'd finished up at Chalk Lane. I said I'd get back to him. He wanted to go over and have a nose around. They’ve already sent the samples off to the lab to determine its country of origin. He said he didn't want to go trampling all over your crime scene and asked would you pass on anything you might come up with that’s relevant.’

  ‘How nice of him. Since when has that stopped the crime squad from doing what they want. They’ve always been a law unto themselves. Go where they want, when they want? It’s okay for them to go there, anyway. We might have to go back at some time, but forensics have finished,’ he said.

  ‘Okay. That's what I understood. I’ll let Carver know. I'll call him later and let him know the site is clear. Oh, I'll be away for the rest of the day and in and out for the rest of the week. I'll be tied up with these meeting about amalgamating our six divisions into three. It's not long now before it all kicks off and there's still a lot of work to be done.’

  She looked at him as if trying to decide whether to tell him. She quickly made up her mind.

  ‘There's also something else you should know.’ She leaned across her desk. ‘I'd rather you hear from me now than get it second hand later. And I must emphasise that it's not yet official, so keep it to yourself. As you already know, a chief superintendent and a superintendent will command each of these three new areas.’ She paused, got up from her chair and went over to the window.

  He stood quietly waiting for her to continue. She stared down at the passing traffic in the street, then, turning back quickly, said, ‘You might as well know now Bob. I've been asked by ACC Bishop to put in for divisional commander for this area. There's a good chance I'll get it, but this is for your ears only. Understand? The plan is for his station to be the hub and I’ll be here. There’s going to be some major changes to the building. A completely new wing is to be built. In it will be a communication and video surveillance centre. This will also mean more civilian administrative and operating staff. I know it’s early days yet, but it’s in the pipeline that you may be getting a wider area of operations.’

  Carter looked at her in silence for a moment, nodded, smiled, and said, ‘Okay. Big changes happening. Are we getting a bigger team?’ he said hopefully.

  ‘As I said, it's early days.’

  They looked at each other in silence.

  ‘Is that all you wanted?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, that all, Bob. Thanks.’

  He went over, picked up his raincoat, and opened the door. As he was about to enter the passage, he looked back and said. ‘Oh! By the way. Congratulations.’ He pulled the door shut behind him.

  As he walked along the passage, he mulled over what she had said. How long had she been in Kingsport — six, eight months? He knew Janice Watkins was about to put her foot on the next rung of the ladder. Back in the early days when they were on the beat together, she had ambitions. He never doubted her. She always said she wanted to go right to the top. She was that kind of women. The job of chief constable was well within her reach.

  As Carter sat in his office a few minutes later, fumbling with a pencil, he thought about the brief period when he had taken over as acting superintendent before the arrival of Janice Watkins. He had hated being an administrator. Buried in paperwork and being deskbound was not his thing. He got up from his chair and looked out of his window at the surrounding town. ‘My job is out there on the streets,’ he said to himself, ‘not stuck here compiling budgets and working out overtime and shift rosters.’ As he thought more about the implication of her promotion, a cold shiver ran down his spine. He wondered just what role Assistant Chief Constable Tom Bishop had planned for him? If Bishop thinks he's going to get me as the next desk jockey he can think again, he thought. There was a loud snap. He looked in surprise at the pencil he’d been holding. It was in two pieces.

  ****

  Carter took a mouthful of coffee, put down his mug and looked at the town’s street map that Luke Hollingsworth had fixed to the whiteboard. Hollingsworth pointed to a spot on the street map and tapped it several times with his finger. It left a grease spot from a bacon sandwich he'd just finished eating.

  ‘Here's Singh's convenience store on Cobblers Lane.' He tried to wipe the mark off with another finger. His attempt only made it worse. He ended up spreading it across the High Street and into the nearby war memorial gardens. ‘Bollocks.' He turned back to his audience. ‘Witness number one said she saw him come out of the alley and walk quickly down the High Street and around the corner towards the Market Square.’ He re-traced the route with his finger, keeping it well clear of the map. ‘The description she gave in her statement is an exact match to what he was wearing. She couldn’t be sure of his hair colour but thought it was grey. He was next seen crossing the Market Square by the second witness a few minutes later. Again, the description matches but couldn’t confirm his hair colour. The third witness said he saw him getting on a bus at the south end of the square but didn’t notice what number it was. They all noticed
his pink shoes. It was those that drew their attention to him.’

  Jill Richardson was sitting on the edge of a desk, swinging her legs. ‘There are only two buses around that time,’ she said. ‘The number ten that goes out to the Morton Estate and the fourteen out to Green Hills. We’ve talked with both of the drivers. None of them noticed him. As one of them said, all they look at is the money, not the faces. Forensics has examined the bag that he dumped. There was no evidence of a weapon ever being in that bag. No gun oil, nothing. It was just a normal Tesco grocery bag.’

  ‘Okay. Keep on it,’ said Carter. ‘Talking of faces,’ he said, looking around the room, ‘where the hell is DC Turner?’

  Marcia Kirby spoke. ‘He was in first thing this morning. There was a call. They've found some human remains on a building site over at Oare. He's gone over to check it out. He’d gone before the rest of us got here. Sergeant Crane told me when I came in. He said he came up and put a memo on your desk. Sorry. I naturally thought you'd seen it.’

  Carter shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t see it.’

  He looked over to where DC Lynch sat casually slumped back in his chair, both legs stretched out in front of him, hand deep in his trouser pockets.

  Carter then turned and looked at the other whiteboard. ‘Dave. Anything more on Chalk Farm?’

  Dave Lynch sat up. He leaned forward, his chair squeaking beneath his weight. ‘There's still no trace of Ajmal Hakim. He’s vanished into thin air. We’ve had a few callers phone in after seeing his picture in the papers. We followed up on them, but they’ve all drawn a blank. Checked with immigration as well. He hasn't left the country. We have checked with the railway station, and none of the staff remembers seeing him on Sunday night. He can't stay hidden forever. He has to surface some time.’

  ‘There was one other thing,’ said Kirby. ‘That gun safe at the farm. I did check, and Eades has a license for a shotgun and a Beretta. He's also a member of the local gun club. I got a locksmith to open it up and confirm that both weapons were still there, which they are.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Carter. ‘Let’s move on to Mary Lampton. Mike, what’s happening there?’

  Reid looked at the folder on his desk trying to memorise the content of the report. He turned to Carter, who had now perched himself on the edge of the table. ‘Right,' said Reid. ‘I got an email back from forensics this morning with some results. I've also spoken to them for clarification on a few things. The syringe they found in the hut was clean. No prints on it whatsoever. The hairs found on her were identified as coming from a badger. That, I think, was a foregone conclusion. The two red ones are human. They took a swab from the inside of the syringe. It showed a very high concentration of Fentanyl. It was four times stronger than the concentration found in Eades blood.’

  He thought for a moment, then reached over to a folder on his desk and pulled out the printed email. ‘Ah, yes. Now, the whiskey bottle. That was the one they found just on the edge of Plimpton Woods near the farm. They had the palm, thumb, index and little finger of the right hand of Mary Lampton on it. That was found close to where the cigarette and oils stain were found. There was also a small amount of blood on the broken chair.’ He put the paper back into the folder and tossed it back onto the desk.

  Detective Inspector Ted Baxter moved closer to the board and said, ‘You can’t inject yourself and not leave prints. We know she wasn’t wearing gloves.’

  ‘That’s just it, Ted,’ said Carter. ‘We now know for sure that she didn’t inject herself. We know it was done for her and to do that, she would have had to have been unconscious. That would account for the head trauma. He must have used the chair to knock her out. Our friend didn’t want to risk tying her up. That would leave marks. He wanted it to look like it was self-administered and that she fell and hit her head, but he made one huge mistake.’

  Carter paused for a second or two, then said, ‘On the way here, I spoke to Broadbent. During his preliminary examination, he told me she had arthritis in her left hand. This was also confirmed by Gummy Bear. Doc said it was almost like a claw. He said she would’ve had difficulty using and holding things. Now, if you remember, the puncture mark was in her right arm, so there’s no way, if her hand had been that bad, that she could have been able to hold the syringe. Our killer wouldn’t have known that. That was his big mistake.’

  Marcia Kirby sat swinging from side to side in her swivel chair. She had a look of deep concentration on her face. She lifted her head, nodded, and said, ‘How about this? Let's assume that she saw our man in the woods the night of the fire. She recognised him because she knows him as being a dealer. She thinks to herself, Maybe I'm onto a good thing here? So, she attempts to blackmail him to get drugs or maybe money. Pay up or I'll tell the law, she tells him. She then plans to meet him up at the hut. He arrives, knocks her out, then gives her a lethal freebie.’ She looked around, waiting for their comments.

  ‘I think you could be on the right track there.’ said Hollingsworth, looking at those around him. ‘Sounds plausible.’

  At that moment, the phone in Carter's office started chirping. Carter ignored it and looked over at Hollingsworth. ‘I agree with Luke.’ He picked up his mug and took a mouthful coffee. It was cold. ‘Edward Bear said she had someone to see. Logic tells me it must have been our killer.’ His phone stopped. ‘Check through records. See if any dealers have a red Hilux or trail bike.’

  There was a brief moment before the phone on Reid’s desk started chirping. He leaned over and picked it up. He had to put his hand over his other ear to shut out the voices of those around him. He listened for a while, passed on his thanks, then hung up.

  He sat for a moment, mulling over what he had just heard, then, standing up, he interrupted Carter in mid-sentence. ‘Boss, that was the lab.' Everyone stopped talking, and eyes turned towards him. ‘The DNA from the victim at Chalk Lane Farm and the samples they took from inside the farmhouse belonging to Eades was not a match.' He let that sink in for a second then said, ‘Whoever it was that died in that fire, it definitely wasn't Eades.’

  The room went silent. There was an exchange of glances. Carter sat quietly thinking over what had just said and looked around at the sea of faces. Everyone in the room was lost in thought.

  It was Dave Lynch who broke the silence. ‘Sir, under the circumstances, I think I’d better get over to Mrs Habibi’s and collect some samples of Ajmal for DNA analysis. What do you think?’

  ‘Yes, Dave. I think you’d better.’ There was a long pause before he said, ‘It looks as if we might have found our missing Mr Hakim. We’ve been looking in the wrong place. He never went to London. He’s been here all the time. He’s must be our corpse. So now, we switch the search. It’s now Richard Eades we need to find.

  Chapter 12

  10:45 a.m.

  Bill Turner had turned off at the roundabout on the London-Canterbury Road some fifteen minutes after taking the wrong turning, and was now driving along the Western Link towards Oare. He looked at his satnav. The display showed there was not far to go. He looked out of the side window at the passing scenery. At least now I'm heading in the right direction, he thought. He’d somehow managed to take the wrong turn some three miles further back and ended up driving up a very narrow farm track. All the time the persistent voice of the woman in the satnav, the one he called Gloria, kept insisting that he “turn around whenever possible”. He was on the point of swearing at her when he came across the farm gate.

  After a bit of shunting back and forth, he managed to turn and head back in the opposite direction. ‘Satisfied you stupid cow?’ he said, glaring at the small screen that was attached to the dashboard.

  She replied, ‘After one and a half miles, turn right.’

  Now, on both sides of the road were pebble-dash bungalows, with back garden washing lines full of white linen. They flapped gently in the morning breeze.

  At the end of Western Link, he stopped at the junction of the road with the strange sounding nam
e of “The St”. Turner guessed it was short for “street”. Following Gloria’s directions, he swung right, then left, along the Oare Creek. It was full of moored yachts, motorboats, and other small pleasure crafts. The tide was out. The majority of them were laying on their sides in the mud like beached whales.

  Over on the far side of the creek, a farmer was busy ploughing a field. His tractor was being followed by hundreds of flapping, squawking seabirds, all fighting for worms and insects in the newly turned soil.

  As he drove further on, a billboard came into view. On it were pictures of new houses with gardens full of flowers and a summer scene showing the creek full of water and yachts in full sail. He stopped and wound down the window to get a better view. Across the top of the board, it read Fifty Affordable Homes with Water Vistas. Under that, it read. Soon to be Opened.

  Gloria's voice informed him, ‘You have reached your destination.’ It might have been the wind, but Turner would have sworn he heard Gloria breathe an audible sigh of relief.

  He drove on a few hundred yards past the display board, then pushed on across a makeshift bridge that spanned a narrow drainage ditch and into the building site.

  He got out of the car, stood and looked around. Despite the sun, it was cold. The breeze that came in from the sea, tugged at his hair and pulled at his overcoat. With gravel crunching under his feet, he walked over to a Porta-Cabin. Apart from a Porta-Loo, the cabin was the only building on the site.

  The signboard outside, with a hand pointing towards it, read, Site Office, and under it, All Visitors Must Report Here. The door was open. He poked his head in and looked around. The two desks inside where unoccupied. Not a soul around. The place was deserted. He walked around the back of the cabin. Parked further over on the six-acre site, next to a big chestnut tree, he saw the blue and yellow area response car belonging to PCs Best and Tanner.