The Burning Man

by Edward Figg

  The force of the blows caused Kelly to stagger back and fall against the table. His hand touched the weapon. He picked it up by the barrels and swung it wildly at Carter. The two of them were too close for the blow to have any impact and it glanced off Carter’s shoulder and up into the side of his face.

  Kelly took a few steps back, then, grabbing the barrels of the shotgun securely in both hands and swinging it like it was a club, it hit the half-open door causing it to fly from his grasp and skid across the floor.

  Carter could feel blood running down his chin. He stumbled back against a chair for a brief second before diving back at Kelly; his eyes narrowed in determination.

  A sudden gush of pain jolted through Carter’s body as Kelly lashed out and kicked him hard in the calf, then landed a few quick blows to his face and chest.

  Carter’s stomach ached, his arms lost tension, and his legs began to weaken. He went down, dropping to the ground on his knees. The inside of his mouth tasted bloody. He coughed, feeling it run down the back of his throat.

  Lynch, seeing Carter on the ground, extended his baton and dived over at Kelly, telling him to stand still and not to move. Kelly turned and saw him coming across the room and reached out and grabbed the nearest object, a stool. He swung it at Lynch, hitting him in the head. Lynch let out a yell and sank to his knees, half stunned. He remained in that position for a few seconds, then fell sideways on to the cold flagstones and lay still.

  Bruised and winded, with his leg in agony, Carter grabbed hold of Kelly’s foot and pulled him to the ground. His head was pounding. Both men were struggling for breath. He ploughed a fist into Kelly’s face with all the force he could muster, snapping the bone and leaving his nose an odd shape. Both men, breathing hard, staggered slowly to their feet.

  An exhausted Kelly swung his fist, but all it found was clear air. Carter dodged his fist and came up with his own. For a brief instant, Kelly’s blue eyes widened before Carter managed to tilt his head back and slam it into Kelly’s forehead, splitting one eyelid. Kelly, with one eye blinded by blood, threw a sloppy kick at Carter who, stepping back, easily evaded it. Kelly growled and threw himself at Carter, who again managed to sidestep it, causing Kelly to stumble and hit the kitchen table, knocking it over.

  Carter glanced over to where Kirby and Lynch lay on the floor. Blood surged through his veins as determination and anger took over. Taking advantage of his distraction, Kelly lashed out with his heavy boot, catching Carter in the small of the back. His mind screamed out as the pain drove through his body.

  Carter turned and threw the whole weight of his body behind his punch, hitting Kelly’s jaw with such force that blood sprayed from his mouth. Then, with his two hands, he grasped Kelly’s head and brought his knee up hard into his face. Blood leaked from his already broken nose. It covered his face and soaked into his shirt. Carter drew his fist back again, and it ploughed into his stomach. He continued to hit Kelly a few more times until, finally, he went down unconscious and bleeding onto the floor.

  Out of breath, panting hard and bleeding from a cut on the side of his face, Carter flopped down on the only remaining upright chair. He bent over, his chest heaving as he tried to regain his breath. The right side of his face had started to swell up.

  ‘I’m getting far too old for this game,’ he gasped, as Lynch slowly staggered to his feet, rubbing the side of his head and examining the blood that lay on his fingers.

  ‘I would have helped you more, boss, but you seemed to have it all under control,’ said Lynch, trying to conjure up a smile.

  Carter examined his skinned knuckles, then looked down at the inert figure of Kelly lying at his feet. ‘Next time, Dave, you can be the first one in through the bloody door.’

  After regaining some of his breath, Carter lent over and dragged the unconscious man over to the wall, cuffed him and sat him up against it. Still panting, he sat back down in the chair and brought out his handkerchief and, holding it up to his cut face, dabbed it a few times.

  ‘You’re going to have a few nice bruises in the morning, boss,’ said Dave Lynch, looking at Carter’s swollen lip. He then went over, pulled another chair upright, then helped Kirby slowly to her feet and sat her on it. She grimaced and held her side. Lynch pulled out his radio and called for an ambulance.

  ‘Think I might have a cracked rib,’ she said, tenderly probing her torso.

  ‘We’d planned to meet at the end of the lane,’ said Lynch to Kirby. ‘What happened?’

  ‘He did,’ she said, directing her gaze towards the semi-conscious figure of Kelly.

  ‘Just as well we came looking for you. When we saw your car by the barn — we knew something was wrong.’

  She looked over at Carter’s panting form.

  ‘We still need to find Eades,’ she said. ‘Kelly said he was holding him here, down in the cellar. He’s also got explosives stored down there as well. He said they were from his days in the IRA. He was holding a remote detonator. I don’t know what happened to it,’ she said, looking around the shattered kitchen.

  A car could be heard coming fast up the driveway. It drove into the courtyard and came sliding to a halt. The front door of the cottage crashed open. Moments later, Luke Hollingsworth and Jill Richardson came running down the hallway and into the kitchen.

  They were followed seconds later by PCs Cotton and Best. Carter explained the situation to them. Then, turning to Kirby, said, ‘Marcia? You okay to move? I want you out of here.’ He looked into her ashen face. She nodded.

  On the floor, Kelly started to stir. Addressing both constables, Carter said, ‘You two. Take Sergeant Kirby and the prisoner. Help them outside. Get them well away from the house and wait for the ambulance to arrive. One of you stay with the prisoner, and the other come straight back here. We’ll need to put all our efforts into looking for this cellar. While you’re out there, call the bomb squad and tell them we have some explosives for them to defuse. Tell them we believe it may be old IRA stuff — dynamite. Dave, you still look a bit groggy. Go with them.’

  ‘I’d rather stay and help here. You’re worse than I am!’ Lynch protested.

  ‘Get the medics to fix you up first, then, if you feel up to it, come back.’

  Kelly let out a groan as Cotton and Best lifted the big Irishman to his feet and half walked, half dragged him unceremoniously towards the door. Holding her injured side, Kirby slowly followed them down the hallway and out into the daylight. Lynch slipped his arm around her for support.

  With blue lights blazing in time with the jagged noise of its siren, an ambulance came speeding up the lane, in through the tunnel and up the driveway.

  Carter limped over to the sink and ran the cold tap, splashing water over his face, and stared out the window at the ambulance as it came to a halt near the old barn. He held tight to the sides of the sink with both hands for a few moments as a wave of nausea swept over him. With head bowed, he waited for it to pass. Then, turning to Richardson and Hollingsworth, he said, ‘We need to find this cellar entrance. In an old house like this, it could be behind any one of these panels or even on the floor. It has to be here somewhere. Eades is down there and may need medical attention.’

  ‘I think you need to get patched up, boss.’ said Jill Richardson, looking at Carter’s face.

  It’s not that bad,’ he said, fingering his cheek. ‘It looks worse than it feels. First, we need to find Eades. Get hunting.’

  At that moment, Carter’s phone rang. He looked at the display. He didn’t recognise the caller’s number. ‘Carter.’

  ‘Good afternoon, Chief Inspector. Inspector Matias Perez calling from Spain. I called your office. They said you were out. Your Inspector Baxter gave me your mobile number.’

  ‘Inspector. It’s nice to hear from you again. And how is it in sunny Spain?’

  ‘Raining...’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You sound a bit out of breath. Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine. Just had a bit of a
workout.’ He looked at the reflection of his bruised face in the mirror above the sink.

  ‘It’s that investigation I am calling about, Chief Inspector. It has come to the attention of our organised crime unit in Madrid that you were making inquiries about Rafael Garcia. Yesterday, I was summoned to the Ministry of Interior. They asked me all about your inquiry, and when I told them, they said that Garcia has been under secret investigation for over two years. I was very shocked. It concerns his possible involvement in drugs and money laundering. They asked me for more information about why you were asking. I told them I did not know.’

  ‘Well, Inspector, I can tell you that we’ve had some developments here in the last twenty-four hours that does point to his involvement in organised crime. There’s been a fire and a death at his business premises.’ Carter went on to explain what had happened and what they had found at Compton Furniture.

  ‘Looks as if this may turn into a joint operation.’

  Carter said, ‘A Chief Inspector Carver is handling the drugs side of the investigation. I will get him to contact you when I get back, and he can pass on what information he has’

  ‘Thank you, that would be most agreeable. I’m sure our people would be most appreciative. I will wait to hear from your Chief Inspector Cadaver.’

  ‘Carver,’ said Carter.

  ‘Pardon.’

  ‘Carver. His name is Carver. Chief Inspector Carver. Carver! Not Cadaver.’

  There was a momentary pause, then Perez said, ‘Ah, si. Carver as in cutting. Not cadaver as in dead? Thank you. Good day to you, Chief Inspector. Adiós.’ The line went dead.

  Carter pocketed the phone and limped off down the hall. His face hurt. His leg hurt. His whole body ached.

  It was twenty minutes later that PC Best came back in looking for Carter. He found him in the office, pulling back the carpet.

  He stood, cap in hand, looking in from the doorway. ‘Sir, they’re be taking all three back to A&E for treatment. They’ve called for another ambulance. DC Lynch may have a mild concussion, and Sergeant Kirby has a suspected cracked rib. Kelly has been patched up, and they’ve called for another ambulance to help transport them all back. The bomb squad said they’re all tied up and can’t get here for at least another two hours. They said to tell you that if you find anything suspicious, not to touch it.’

  ‘Not to touch it?’ Carter exclaimed sarcastically, dropping the carpet back in place. ‘Now why the fuck didn’t I think of that.’ He winced as a wave of pain travelled up his back.

  ‘Okay, Constable. Go and help the others.’ Best could hear the furniture moving around. He walked down the hallway towards it.

  He found Hollingsworth in the large sitting room, struggling to move a three-seater settee. He called out to him as he entered, ‘Grab that end, will you, and help me move it off of this bleeding carpet.’

  After dragging it clear, Jill Richardson pulled back the carpet. ‘Well, that’s it. Nothing there Where else it there?’

  ‘Just the kitchen to go,’ said Hollingsworth, picking up his jacket from the back of a chair and putting it on. ‘If that’s no good, then I guess we’ll have to look at the outside for an entrance. A tunnel maybe?’

  The trio headed down the hallway to the kitchen. As the pair drew level with the office, Carter came out.

  ‘Nothing down there, guv,’ said Hollingsworth. ‘Solid as a rock.’ We’re off to try the kitchen next. That shouldn’t take too long. It’s got a flagstone floor.’

  Carter looked back into the office and suddenly had a thought. He said to Richardson and Best, ‘Have a look through some of the paperwork in there. See if you can find a floor plan.’

  ‘Why don’t we call in a sniffer dog?’ Hollingsworth suggested. ‘If there are explosives hidden here, they’ll find ‘em.’ It’ll be quicker.’

  ‘Good thinking, Luke. Get on to it. When we find Eades, it sounds like he may require treatment.’

  Hollingsworth set off towards the kitchen, talking on the phone as he went.

  ‘The dogs at the vets, so they can’t get here for at least two hours,’ Hollingsworth said, as Carter came into the kitchen a few minutes later.

  ‘Two hours. Okay. In the meantime, we keep on looking,’ said Carter.

  Carter called down the hallway to PC Best.

  When he came, Carter told him to go around the outside of the building and look for anything that remotely looked like an entrance to a cellar.

  As Hollingsworth strolled around the kitchen, he said, ‘I see they located a living relative of that pilot.’ He stopped and examined the flagstone he was standing on. ‘Bill Turner was telling me this morning that he was married. Born and lived at Aylesford. He had a son. Bill got a call from one of the grandsons thanking him and Martin Jones for all they did. He said that the RAF is going to formally acknowledge him and provide a full guard of honour at his funeral. They are going to bury him in the family plot. Should be quite a big turn out.’

  ‘By the way,’ said Carter. ‘I meant to ask. What happened in court this morning with Silverman and Harper?’

  ‘Quite funny, actually. It turned out that one of the presiding magistrates was one of Silverman’s bloody victims. He had his video camera nicked along with his new VCR. They were amongst the stuff we found in the lock-up. If he’d had the power, I think he’d have given them hard labour for life, there and then, and packed them both off on the next convict ship bound for Australia,’ he laughed. ‘All he could do was to disqualify himself and bail the pair of them to appear in court later next week. Maybe he is hoping the next judge will give them what he couldn’t. A custodial sentence.’

  He was about to say something else when Jill Richardson came back in the room. ‘No signs of a floor plan, I’m afraid, sir’ she said.

  ‘Okay, Jill. I was clutching at straws.’

  Hollingsworth walked over to the walk-in pantry and pulled open the door. He walked in and stood for a while, looking around. Inside it was cold. He shivered. On one wall were shelves full of pots and pans, crockery and other items of kitchenware. The other side was full of jars and tins. There was a layer of dust over everything. No one has used this stuff for a long time, he thought.

  As he turned around to go, he noticed something laying on the floor under the bottom shelf. He bent down to pick it up. There was a gap between the wall and the floor. Sticking out from under it was a piece of paper. He pulled it all the way out and read it. It was a receipt for three hundred small plastic sample bags. Still, in the crouched position, he ran his finger along the gap, feeling for any draft. It was then he noticed that along the edge of the shelf, there were finger marks in the dust.

  He gripped the edge of the shelf and pushed. Nothing happened. He then tugged at it, and, to his surprise, it moved. There was an audible click, and the whole unit swung open a few inches. Putting fingers between the gap, and the wall, he pulled it wide open.

  ‘In here,’ he yelled. ‘I’ve found it.

  Richardson came running in, followed by a limping, Carter. ‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ he said, staring at the opening carved into the chalk. There were a series of wooden steps leading down. ‘It’s a priest hole. Is there a light switch?’ he enquired.

  Jill Richardson ran her hands along the inside of the wall and found a switch and flicked it on, instantly illuminating the steps.

  Carter led the way down the steps and along a short tunnel. Lights had been installed at intervals along the sides of the walls. The floor beneath their feet where flagstones, the same type as all those in the kitchen. At the end of the tunnel, they came up against an old oak door, held together with metal straps and iron studs.

  Carter lifted the heavy latch, pushed it open and went inside. They found themselves in a large brightly lit room with benches full of chemicals, presses for making tablets, and distillation equipment and plastic sheets hanging from the ceiling.

  ‘Well, looks like we’ve found their lab,’ said Richardson, taking it all in.
>
  ‘Over there,’ said Hollingsworth, pointing. ‘It’s Eades. He’s over there.’

  Carter went quickly over. Eades was tied to a chair. He was unconscious. His head lay to one side, his face was bloody and bruised and his mouth covered over with duct tape. One of his sleeves had been rolled up. Beside him, on a table, was a hypodermic syringe and a glass vial full of a clear liquid. Carter guessed it to be Fentanyl. It looked as if Kelly had planned to inject him as he’d done with Ajmal Hakim and Mary Lampton. Stacked just beside him were three boxes containing sticks of explosives. There was a half box of blasting caps.

  ‘Shit,’ said Hollingsworth, staring intently at the boxes. ‘That thing strapped to that box looks like one of those controllers you use with radio-controlled model planes.’

  ‘Don’t touch it, for fuck sake,’ cautioned Carter. Don’t touch anything.’ He looked around. ‘Okay. The first thing we need to do is to get Eades out of here fast.’

  ‘What happened to the remote that Kelly had. Did anyone find it?’ asked Hollingsworth.

  ‘It’s still missing. I never found anything in the kitchen. Maybe one of the others might have come across it?’ Richardson said.

  Carter said to Jill Richardson. ‘Go back up and see if there are any signs of that second bloody ambulance yet? Find out where the bloody hell they’ve got to.’

  Richardson turned and walked quickly out through the door and headed back up the tunnel. He called after her. ‘While you’re up there, you can call off the dogs. We won’t be requiring them any more and send PC Best down here. We’ll need him to help get Eades out of here. We don’t know if he has any internal injuries, so we’ll have to take him out still sitting in the chair. I don’t want to risk bringing them medics down here just in case. I’d feel a lot better knowing where that remote is, so let’s get this done quickly and get him out of here,’

  Some fifteen minutes later they were all outside in the sunshine next to the two ambulances. Eades, now conscious, lay in the back of one the units talking to one of the medics. Kelly was on his own, in the other, guarded by PC Best. Kirby and Lynch stood next to Carter, waiting to go off in the ambulance.