by Jay Nadal
A glimmer of light punctured the darkness. A soft glow that radiated out from a doorway up ahead. Scott put out his arm out to slow Mike down before he placed a finger to his lips to indicate the need for silence. The glow flickered and danced on the walls of the corridor.
Alarm bells rang in Scott’s mind as he pressed his back to the wall of the corridor and peered around the corner through the doorway before entering. The overpowering smell of fuel hung in the air like a deadly assassin.
Scott glanced around the room, dimly illuminated from an assortment of tea light candles that been placed around the perimeter. His eyes darted over towards the fireplace mantelpiece where several Molotov cocktails rested, primed with fuel soaked rags. Fear raced through his body as his heartbeat accelerated. Scott’s mouth dried as he realised the volatility of the environment, then anger boiled up inside him as he realised that they had been lured into a trap. He knew that fumes from the fuel could be ignited at any moment. He could have seconds or minutes before the whole room went up like a Guy Fawkes Night bonfire.
Shit, as Scott looked around nervously, small pieces of paper had been pinned to the walls, all bearing the same Latin inscriptions. He couldn’t be certain from this distance, but they looked identical to the ones that had been placed at each crime scene.
That murdering piece of shit, Saunders, stood behind a solitary wooden chair that had been placed in the centre of the room. Its worn seat still pooling a liquid that Scott assumed was more fuel. Several lengths of rope lay loosely around the chair’s legs, handcuffs hung from the armrests ready to receive their captive. A green plastic fuel can and a box of matches sat close by.
The whole damn place was soaked in petrol.
“Saunders, it doesn’t have to come to this. We can end this peacefully and all come out of this alive,” Scott said, in a useless attempt to reason with a psychopath.
Saunders sniggered, enjoying the futility of the predicament that Mike and Scott found themselves in. Seeing grown men squirm and panic excited him. A soothing sense of satisfaction raced through his body, tingling his spine and relaxing his muscles. He inhaled deeply through his nose as he closed his eyes to enjoy the moment.
“It’s a little too late for that don’t you think, Inspector?” he replied, pointing the knife in their direction.
In the dull light, Scott could clearly see a dark coating that enveloped the blade. Blood. Sian’s blood?. He fisted his hands at his sides. They twitched and itched in a desperate need to squeeze the life from this prick’s body. Scott needed to keep Saunders talking whilst he analysed the situation. In a matter of minutes, reinforcements would be arriving, and if the situation went horribly wrong, the fireball created by the Molotov cocktails would race down the corridor like a raging bull taking out everything in its path as it sought an avenue to escape.
Scott elbowed Mike. “Get out of here, Mike. Get everyone out of here,” he repeated, widening his eyes as fear and anger took over.
“Guv, I’m not…”
“It’s an order, Mike. Get…the fuck…out of here. Now!”
Mike struggled with the need to be compliant versus his military ingrained instincts to stay, defend and fight. He glanced back and forth between Saunders and Scott. He was tetchy. Part of his mind calculated whether he could cover the six feet that stood between him and Saunders before Saunders could react. He reasoned with himself. Back in his military days, he wouldn’t have thought twice about it, but Civvy Street had taken its toll. He was slower and admittedly, significantly heavier.
Mike stared at Scott as they exchanged silent thoughts. He felt a sense of duty to stand by his senior officer, but at the same time realised the need to avert a bigger catastrophe by warning the advancing officers of the danger that lay ahead. Mike started to take a few tentative steps backwards, retreating from the room, his eyes firmly fixed on Saunders. Every fibre of his body willed him to stay by Scott. The wrench of pulling himself away from the situation sat heavy with him.
“That’s a good boy; you run along like the good inspector’s told you. Save yourself because the inspector has a nasty habit of letting down those that matter…don’t you, Inspector?” Saunders sneered again with a cold steely glare. “This isn’t your battle, Inspector. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll exchange you for Collier.”
“It doesn’t work that way. Listen, I know what happened. I know about what happened to Peter Jennings.”
48
“You know nothing!” Saunders screamed wildly, as his face turned from placid and relaxed to red with rage. “You know nothing!” he screamed again as he flailed his arms. “You’ll never know what it feels like to lose someone you love.”
“I do, Timothy. I do, trust me,” Scott said softly. “I know what they did to Peter, but taking lives in revenge isn’t the way to resolve the situation.”
“They killed him. They punished him. They bullied him.”
“Is that why you were so protective of Matthew, because he was being bullied? Because you felt his pain?”
“He’s just a soft soul. He’s done no harm, but that’s the problem with this fucking place. It’s wrong; the weakest don’t survive,” Saunders cried, his eyes heavy, tears escaping down his cheeks and into his beard.
Fearful of an imminent explosion, Scott pleaded with Saunders to leave with him now. Everything he said seemed to wash over Saunders, his behaviour becoming more erratic, volatile and unpredictable, just like the situation.
“Do you know how hard it was living a secret life?”
“No, why don’t you tell me, Timothy?”
Saunders sobbed, as snot trails run over his lips. “I’ve known since I was a young boy that I was different. I dreaded coming here knowing I was different.”
“And then you met Peter? Someone who felt the same way you did?”
Saunders nodded helplessly, the fight leaving him deflated. “I could handle what they threw at me…but Peter couldn’t. He became the soft target. Johnson, Rochester, Winterbottom, Goddard…used him as their punchbag. They were scum. They were cowards and deserved to die. And yet they could do no wrong. Collier loved them, loved how hard and manly they were.” His eyes narrowed, his lips thin and teeth clenched as he spat out his words with fury.
“Why now? Why after all these years?”
Saunders curled up his lip slightly, feeling pleased with himself. “It’s taken me this long to get close to them. I’ve been planning this moment for most of my life. I wanted to see them up close. I wanted to live around them and see how they went about their lives without a care in the world. And they did. Goddard was the only one shitting himself, and rightly so. And what did he do? He got pissed and beat the crap out of his wife!”
As Saunders spoke, Scott had slowly inched further away from him towards the door.
“Do you think I wanted to be a chef…or a bloody catering manager? I’ve wasted years learning how to cook. NVQs for this, NVQs for that. Going from one restaurant to another, one school to another, ’til I landed this job. Doing so allowed me to blend into the background and bide my time.”
“And Collier? Why him? He wasn’t involved?”
“Yes, he was. It was entirely his fault!” Saunders screamed again, his hands on either side of his head. “It was always him. He was the housemaster. It was his prefects. Then he brought them back as teachers. It was always Collier, and now you’ve spoiled the main event. Just like a guy on a bonfire, Collier’s seat was all ready for him…’til you spoiled it, Inspector. And now you must pay the price…or give me Collier.”
Saunders rocked on his heels, his eyes closed, mumbling incoherently. He shook his head from side to side.
“Taking your life doesn’t solve anything. You’re better than them. Give it up now, Saunders.”
Saunders raised a finger to his lips. “I’ve done what I came here to do. I’ve nothing to live for. My time will come again, another life, another being.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a lighter, then proce
eded to taunt Scott with it. “Justice will prevail; the weak will die. Justice will prevail; the weak will die,” he chanted repeatedly.
“No!” Scott screamed. “Don’t do this!”
Scott’s word fell on deaf ears. Saunders opened his eyes and stared at Scott coldly. The emotion had drained from the man’s expression. He looked solemnly in Scott’s direction before a small smile broke across his face. The scratch of the wheel on flint was the last thing Scott heard before he was thrown back by a searing surge of orange heat. The blast threw him clean back out into the corridor. He scrambled to his feet. His face felt hot. His skin stung. His eyes burnt. He stumbled to the side of the door as he glanced back in, holding up a hand to shield his face from the intense heat that prickled his skin.
A yellow and orange ball of flames consumed Saunders’s body. A human fireball. No cries or screams pierced the air. The man didn’t even drop to the floor in an attempt to extinguish the flames or escape the skin-melting heat. Saunders’s body stood motionless as it disappeared into a golden inferno. The chair in front of him roared, the wood crackling and creaking as the fire took hold and engulfed the room. Saunders’s face melted, his skin peeling off like hot candle wax from a candle, his clothes offering the perfect kindling to encourage the flames.
Scott didn’t have time to hang around. There was nothing he could do now other than save himself. He knew that once the Molotov cocktails exploded, the ensuing flashover and fireball could be moments away. That would be catastrophic for him as the fireball only had one way to travel and that was back down the corridor. He stumbled and fell from one side of the corridor to the other as he desperately tried to retrace his steps. He wasn’t sure if the smoke that wrapped around him or his injuries slowed him down, but the passageway seemed to go on forever.
He fell to his knees. Smoke choked his lungs robbing him of air. His chest burnt; his eyes stung. He seemed to be in the middle of a thick acrid sea of black, choking smoke. He could feel the heat rearing up behind him. Fire. He needed to get away. He probed his surroundings but confusion tightened its grip on him. Darkness swooped around him like a hungry vulture waiting to pounce on its weak prey. He coughed hard through his parched mouth. Disorientated and unsure which way to turn, he fell forward succumbing to the smoke.
The corridor fell silent.
49
Mike kicked through the ashes. Blackened walls left a chilling reminder of the fireball that had ripped through the room. The choking, acrid smell of fuel hung invisibly in the air, stinging his nostrils. Sweat beaded on his forehead from the heat that lingered. He watched with his hands stuffed in his trouser pockets as firemen around him doused the burning embers. Columns of steam rose from the charred wood, spiralling upwards gracefully, swirling around innocently in the still air.
It was nothing he hadn’t seen before. Burnt out Afghan houses and those who had once lived in them exposed him to the horrors of war. Parents, children, young and old, none of it mattered. Fire was indiscriminate; it took anyone who stood in its path.
He stared at the charred, blackened body of Saunders lying in the middle of the room. Fuck that smell of burnt flesh. He’s seen enough charred bodies to feel unfazed by them now. It was an acrid, moist smell in your nose with a hint of earth and bubbling fat. It didn’t smell like meat, but you knew it was human and it was haunting. Mike remembered one of his unit commanders talking about it. It was a smell that writes itself into your brain and cannot be erased.
The coroner’s van would be here soon to remove the body. From where Saunders lay and what was left of him, it would have been impossible to distinguish any discernable features, yet alone if it was male or female. Mike shook his head in bewilderment.
Hot damp air clung around his mouth. Suffocated him. He lifted his heavy hand in front of his eyes and gazed at the white gauze dressing wrapped around his left hand. He blinked hard as tears from his stinging eyes escaped and carved white trails through the black soot that covered his face. He coughed hard, mucus rising to the back of his throat. He needed air, fresh air, but a paramedic had pinned a face mask firmly over his mouth. He pulled it away to take lungfuls of air which made him cough even more violently. His hand stung as his fingers bent around the face mask.
“I guess you like living on the edge,” DCI Harvey said. She was perched on a chair alongside Scott in the back of an ambulance.
He tried to talk but winced when nothing came out. His throat stung from smoke inhalation. He glanced over to the DCI and shook his head in resignation. In a faint crackly tone he said, “Well, I’m definitely on suspension now.”
He felt exhausted, his mind desperately processing the events of the last few hours. What the fuck just happened?
The ambulance rocked a bit as the large hulking figure of Mike clambered in. “You had a lucky escape, Guv. You okay?”
Scott blinked furiously, desperately trying to shake the fuzziness that prevented him from thinking clearly. “Saunders?”
Mike shook his head. “I’ve seen more meat on a barbecued spare rib.”
DCI Harvey and Scott both shot him a disparaging look, which Mike met with one of his nonchalant shrugs as if to suggest, what’s the big deal?
The DCI tapped Scott on the shoulder. “The good news is you’ll survive. You’ve got a few superficial burns to your left hand, a bit on your face. You’ve lost a bit of your eyebrows, but nothing an eyebrow pencil won’t sort out.” Mike fought to contain a laugh that threatened to get him in even more trouble. “And you’ve got a bit of smoke inhalation. They’re taking you to the hospital for a check-up.”
“Abby?”
“Abby is doing okay. We’ll be offering her a counsellor if she needs one, but our Abby is made of strong stuff. She’ll pull through this. We’ve all been affected by Sian’s death, not just CID, not just Brighton either but the whole of Sussex constabulary. It’s going to take a long time for all of us to come to terms with it.” DCI Harvey sighed.
Harvey’s words brought forward the reality of his situation. He’d lost a good member of his team. A young, vibrant, intelligent officer who he had no doubt would have gone on to bigger and better things. He was her commanding officer. It was his responsibility to ensure her safety as well as the safety of others on his team, and somehow he felt that rightly or wrongly, he had failed. Failed yet again to protect those around me. No doubt the internal investigation would determine what part he had to play in her death. Were procedures followed correctly? Had a suitable risk assessment being conducted and more importantly could her death have been avoided?
50
Scott had to endure an overnight stay for observation at the Royal Sussex County Hospital. He’d been surrounded by geriatrics and the infirm who seem to have had their own inter-ward competition for who could cough the loudest and who could shout ‘nurse’ the most times during the night. His only consolation after a poor night’s sleep had been a visit from Abby the following morning. She had been a welcomed visitor. They’d sat together in the day room sipping some rather unpleasant hospital tea from some chipped china mugs whilst talking through the events of the last twenty-four hours.
The DCI had been right. On the face of it, Abby appeared to be strong and coping well. It may have just been a front, a defence mechanism to get her through the trauma. They still had Sian’s impending funeral. It would be a particularly difficult moment to deal with, and Scott really didn’t know how he’d be able to face Sian’s parents and family. Scott knew the eyes of the force would be looking at him. Judging him. He would no doubt face some difficult questions from friends and colleagues, and that was something he wasn’t prepared for. He didn’t have the answers. He wished he did.
The fresh sea air felt cool and cleansing as they walked along the beach. The waves crackled over the stones as seagulls floated effortlessly, dipping and diving opportunists ready to swoop down and grab a discarded chip or half-eaten sandwich.
Scott and Cara walked hand in hand. An uncomfortable a
nd awkward silence marred the majority of the walk. Neither knew what to say and neither were willing to start the conversation, afraid of where it might end up.
Scott stopped a short distance from the Brighton i360, the city’s new attraction, a one-hundred-and-sixty-two-feet high observation tower with a viewing capsule. On a clear day, it offered spectacular views towards the marina and beyond towards the white cliffs of the infamous suicide spot Beachy Head in the east, and to Worthing Pier and Portslade in the west. It was an unmistakable modern feature on the Brighton landscape.
Cara stepped round to face Scott reaching out to hold each of his hands as she rubbed the backs of them with her thumbs. “Scott, listen to me. Babes, I’m really sorry. I know you’re angry with me and I don’t blame you. I put you…and us, in danger. But now you know why I had to leave London. Jason was a violent bastard.
“It all started off really well. He was really kind, very caring and generous. Then he started staying out later and later. He started drinking and coming home and being really aggressive towards me. I was being criticised about my job. He tormented me about it, saying it was creepy, that there must be something wrong with me. One minute it was my weight, the next it was what I wore, or what I cooked for him. He always found something to have a go about. He hit me a few times. Stupid me, I didn’t leave. I was too scared. And…then I fell pregnant.
“And trust me, I really wanted a baby. I have always wanted children, but the thought of bringing up a child in that abusive environment…I knew it wasn’t safe for me or the baby. It wasn’t fair.”