The Dead Tell Lies: an absolutely gripping mystery thriller

by J. F. Kirwan

  ‘Any of the wifi dead zones nearby?’

  There were three, more or less equidistant, all within a few minutes’ drive or a fifteen-minute walk.

  They all stared at the tablet.

  Simon said what they were all thinking. ‘Three locations. Three of you.’

  Matthews interjected, blustering about how Finch wasn’t fit enough, blah, blah, blah. Donaldson spoke to Decker. ‘We need a chopper here, right now. Send three armed response units to those locations, we’ll rendezvous with them as soon as we can… Yes, The Torch. He has two hostages… Yes.’ Donaldson swallowed, closed his eyes while he said it. ‘Shoot to kill.’

  He clicked off.

  Finch was already being helped into some clothes by Simon, doing her best not to flinch at the pains she was no doubt feeling.

  Matthews was in Donaldson’s face. ‘You can’t be serious. Why are you letting her go along?’

  ‘Two reasons,’ he said. ‘One, she knows what Jones looks like today. The rest of us don’t. Aside from crippling our operations and creating a diversion so he could kidnap Jennifer, that was why he bombed the Yard.’

  Matthews stood his ground. ‘Second reason?’

  Finch had paused dressing. Her eyes met Donaldson’s eyes across the room. He spoke to her as if she was the only one present. ‘She needs to be there when we save Greg, and when we take down Jones.’

  Matthews backed off. Donaldson studied the map.

  We’ll be there in thirty minutes, Greg.

  Hold on.

  37

  Greg threaded his way carefully across the industrial wasteland of disused low buildings with smashed windows, rusted machinery and tin cans scattered across the uneven ground. He glanced again at the phone. There was no signal, which made little sense. But The Torch – he had to think of him like that, rather than Tobias Jones, because he couldn’t afford to humanise him right now – had given him clear instructions, and Greg followed them to the letter. He spotted the alleyway with an oil drum sitting upright, an old tin can of Heinz baked beans on its top. He turned down the alley. The light was beginning to fade, the dark passageway before him a dead end. On the left was an iron door, ajar, just as he’d said. Greg entered and descended a tight spiral staircase, a dismal glow oozing up from somewhere below. He heard a voice. Strained, full of pain. Barely audible. Jennifer.

  The arrow-straight underground corridor at the foot of the steps was lit by low-voltage naked bulbs every ten yards or so. Pipes stretched into infinity along both the walls and the ceiling, the smell of petrol all around. The ground was wet, and every now and again puddles of water reflected the crude lighting in a rainbow sheen. He stopped by a package that looked out of place, a small, oblong, caramel-coloured block of something with two wires trailing out of it.

  ‘Don’t touch anything!’ The Torch shouted from further down the corridor.

  Greg guessed what it was. C-4. The entire corridor was booby-trapped. In case of a rescue attempt. But he was alone. With the palm of his hand he brushed against the Colt in his pocket. He considered the likely outcomes.

  Plan A was that he killed The Torch as soon as he laid eyes on him, and he and Jennifer escaped.

  Plan B was that Jennifer was released, while he and The Torch died, because Jones most likely had additional fail-safes, wherever he was hiding.

  Plan C was that they all died.

  Plan D was that he and Jennifer died and The Torch got away.

  Plans A to C were tolerable, from a larger perspective, though with obvious preferences.

  Plan D was not an acceptable outcome.

  He pushed on. Faint red light seeped from a doorway up ahead on the right. It was a heavy fire door, made of thick metal. Greg couldn’t help but imagine it was the gateway to hell, his own personal Hades beckoning. He knew how The Torch killed his victims, how long it took them to die. Anywhere between fifteen and thirty minutes. The Torch had left audio tapes for the police, recording the agonised screams. Greg had listened to all of them. There might be worse ways to go. Right now, he couldn’t think of any.

  He stepped across the threshold.

  ‘Close the door,’ The Torch said.

  He looked different. She hasn’t seen me, he’d said. Another lie. He wasn’t disguised in any way, except that he’d completely shaved his head, so it would be easy to don a wig and false beard. No eyebrows, either. Otherwise there was nothing remarkable about him, except the shiny facial skin and red-tinged eyes, rendered even more bloodshot by the red lighting, which was good for night vision adaptation; or maybe he just liked it that way. He was wearing fireproof coveralls and jacket done up to the neck, a fireman’s helmet on the table next to him. There was even a respirator kit, complete with air tank and harness, and a fire extinguisher, just in case…

  He shifted from one foot to the other, his blood-hungry eyes wide with anticipation, the rush that all serial killers got, which was how Greg knew that while The Divine and Rickard might have had a point that he could think like them, he wasn’t one of them.

  Never would be.

  Greg hadn’t yet reached for the Colt for one very simple reason. Jennifer was a little way behind The Torch, in T-shirt and jeans, gagged, hands tied behind her back, a noose around her neck secured by a rope over a hook in the ceiling and tied up at the wall. She stood barefoot in a broad, shallow metal tray of liquid that Greg didn’t presume for a second was water. Her T-shirt was wet. Again, not water. She was shaking, though from her eyes he could tell she was trying her best to be brave.

  The Torch had a black object in his hand, like a remote control for a TV. His thumb was holding something down.

  A dead man’s switch.

  ‘The gun. On the floor. Now. Or we’re all barbecued, especially her.’

  How did he know he had a gun? Did he know? Greg spotted a laptop on another table. He must have had cameras outside. Greg reconsidered the options. Once he put the gun on the floor, the likelihood of Option D becoming reality spiked.

  ‘Now! Or she burns,’ he said, levelling a Taser at Greg with the other hand.

  Greg’s Plan A was already in the bin.

  ‘I comply, you let her go,’ he said.

  The Torch nodded, but his eyes went even wider, and Greg knew in that moment he was lying, itching to watch her burn, to have Greg watch her burn. The Torch couldn’t help himself.

  Jennifer tried to shout something as she twisted and swayed, struggling uselessly against her restraints, but Greg couldn’t work out what. Could he get the drop on The Torch, shoot him before he fired the Taser?

  No.

  He took out the Colt slowly, held it by his thigh.

  ‘On the floor,’ The Torch said.

  ‘Not until she walks.’

  The Torch’s grin morphed into a grimace. His Taser arm firmed.

  ‘You fire that,’ Greg said, ‘and I’ll go down, but not before I squeeze off at least three rounds. Maybe I’ll hit you, maybe her. The door’s shut, and we might all go up in flames. You can’t control what happens. Are you willing to make the same mistake as Rickard?’

  The Torch shifted faster from foot to foot, like an agitated crab.

  Greg had to appeal to that sliver of rationality The Torch must have in order for him to have survived this far.

  ‘The Divine said you were smarter. A more important piece on the chessboard than Rickard. He said he could trust you to execute his strategy, realise his endgame.’

  The Torch slowed his manic crab-dance, then stopped.

  He carefully moved the dead man’s device to his Taser hand, thumb on the switch, finger on the Taser’s trigger. Then, with his left hand, he walked to the wall and uncoiled the rope linked to the noose around Jennifer’s neck. He walked forward and eased the back of the knot around her neck, tugged it over her head. He moved the dead man’s switch back to his left hand.

  Jennifer staggered forward out of the tray, towards Greg, who didn’t take his eyes off The Torch for a second. He lif
ted his hand to her gag, but The Torch shook his head.

  ‘She goes now, like this, or not at all,’ The Torch said.

  Greg sensed The Torch’s window of rationality closing. He reached behind him and yanked open the door.

  ‘Get out of here, Jennifer. There’s C-4 in the corridor.’ He stared into her eyes, and as he said ‘Turn left,’ he surreptitiously prodded her right forearm twice, because he knew The Torch would detonate the bomb between here and the exit to the left. Her only chance was to turn right and go deeper into the tunnel. ‘There’s a spiral staircase fifty yards along, then daylight. Get upstairs to ground level, then run until you find someone.’

  She nodded shakily, a look of concern briefly surfacing above the terror.

  ‘Tick-tock, tick-tock,’ The Torch said.

  Greg nudged her out through the doorway. ‘Run! Run now!’

  She took one last glance and stepped outside into the corridor. Greg pulled the heavy door shut, so The Torch wouldn’t see which way she went. He now had a dilemma. Every additional second increased Jennifer’s survival chances. But his greatest chance to kill The Torch was right now. However, if he succeeded, the dead man’s switch would set off the bomb.

  The Torch stared at him, red eyes gleaming, hopping from one foot to the other as his mouth spread into a macabre grin. Then he stilled.

  Greg knew he was out of time.

  He raised his arm to shoot, but before he got even halfway he heard a barrage of clicks, like a cicada gone berserk, and his body exploded with pain and cramps as fifty thousand volts sent his nervous system haywire. Greg got off two shots. The first seemed to hit home while the other ricocheted around the room, taking out the laptop. Before he knew it, he was on the floor, shaking, every muscle in spasm, as the gun was booted out of his hand.

  The Torch jumped up and down with glee. He pulled down a lever bolting the door shut, knelt down beside Greg and unzipped his jacket, revealing the bulletproof vest underneath, a dimple in the black Kevlar, right over his heart.

  ‘Ha ha! Fooled you! Not so smart, Gregory Adams.’ He flourished the dead man’s switch, shouted the word ‘Kaboom!’ theatrically, then lifted his thumb away. The room shook, wracked by thunder. The Torch lifted his fist, a savage, feral look in his eyes, and then cannoned it down into Greg’s face.

  38

  Greg jerked awake. His head felt like a chainsaw had cleaved it in two. He was nauseous, the stench of paraffin wax threatening to overwhelm him. Technically, paraffin didn’t smell, he knew, unless it was mixed with other chemicals, such as fire accelerants. He guillotined that line of thought.

  He was wrapped up tight, as if in a cocoon. He closed his eyes as his mind tried to lock itself down. Paraffin wax was used to make a candle. In this case, a human…

  This isn’t happening.

  He opened his eyes, tried to focus on everything else, anything else other than what had been done to him. The room was different to where he’d just been, devoid of furniture and lit by thick, smoky candles. The Torch must have moved him after he’d fallen unconscious. But The Torch was small, a diminutive figure, so he’d have had trouble dragging Greg any distance. And why move him anyway? Then he saw why. A large mirror, propped up against a wall.

  So Greg could watch himself burn to death.

  Don’t play their games, he’d once told Collins. Don’t let them into your head. But that was advice for other people. Greg had spent his career doing the opposite, in order to find them and lock them away. Even though he couldn’t see a way out, he wasn’t ready to give up just yet. Time to play The Torch at his own game.

  He took a breath and caterpillared his way across the floor, so that he was directly in front of the mirror. Like a mummy, covered in white bandages from toe to head, except for gaps for his nostrils and eyes, though not his mouth. The bandages were uniform and several layers thick. He tested them but his legs and arms, even his hands and feet, were almost completely immobilised. All he could do was wriggle like a worm.

  He searched his reflection for the end of the bandage and spotted a short, loose stretch near his bound feet. The taper The Torch would light. Greg knew how it went after that. The taper would burn slowly at first, and the unfortunate victim would try to stamp it out, hobbling and hopping, and inevitably failing, only making the fire progress quicker. If the victim did nothing, it could take thirty minutes before his or her heart gave out.

  Where was The Torch? He should be here to light the taper, to watch Greg catch fire, to revel in those agonised screams he’d longed for since hearing his own father burn alive all those years ago, after the man had somehow angered a West African witch doctor.

  Greg needed to speak to him, to try to delay him, by making up something about The Divine, to give him time, until… until what? He recalled hearing the explosion before blacking out, the ground shaking but the reinforced door, walls and ceiling, all holding. The Torch knew his trade. Maybe Jennifer had made it. But even so, it would take her time to find another way out. He had to assume no rescue attempt was on its way. Nothing more to be done, except…

  Greg realised there were still some things he didn’t know, that he didn’t want to go to his grave without knowing. He began shouting, a single word, over and over again, muffled though it was through the bandages. The one word that might engage his captor.

  Divine.

  The mirror revealed The Torch walking towards him, whereupon he delivered a brutal kick to Greg’s right kidney, winding him. He gasped for breath.

  ‘Quiet,’ The Torch said. ‘Just another minute, and then we begin. Then you can scream.’

  Greg didn’t struggle as he knew he was supposed to. Instead he began speaking at a normal level, as if he didn’t care whether or not The Torch understood him.

  The Torch rolled him over, and Greg got a good look at his tormentor. No longer in fireman’s gear, he was wearing some kind of ceremonial robe the colour of sand, and had painted his face with what looked like aboriginal markings.

  ‘The candle cannot speak,’ he said. The Torch’s leg swung backwards, as if in slow motion, then rocketed forwards. Greg’s face exploded in pain. He felt and heard the cartilage in his nose snap. Blood filled his nasal cavities and entered his throat. He started to choke, to convulse, unable to breathe.

  ‘Oh no you don’t!’ The Torch shouted, and bent down to peel back the bandages from Greg’s mouth, so he could breathe easier.

  Greg gasped in air, ignoring the stinging pain and his watering eyes, and spoke in the calmest tone he could manage.

  ‘The Divine’s grand plan. What was it? To train Rickard? Did he do all the killing?’

  The Torch looked down on Greg with utter contempt. ‘Rickard killed The Dreamer. His initiation. He also killed your wife. I had to carve her though, he couldn’t do it. Raj screamed nicely for me, once I took over. Until Rickard stabbed him, unable to bear it any longer. I always knew he wasn’t up to it. I should have burned both of them, then and there. But it was never really about Rickard.’

  Not about Rickard, then… Greg gambled on the next part. ‘The Divine said he was training you for a greater role, to be his successor. That you were one of the most interesting pieces on the chessboard.’

  The Torch’s grimace morphed into a ghoulish grin, and with his knuckles, he rapped hard on Greg’s skull three times, as if banging on a door.

  ‘It lies,’ he said. ‘About to die, and still it lies! You are not worthy to know the plan.’

  Greg was confused. ‘But if not you, then–’

  The Torch knocked Greg’s skull again, harder. ‘Rickard was in training. But he was a failure. I watched over him, but he never got it right, any of it. I showed him how, with the bully and the night-watch bitch, but all he could do was copy. He couldn’t invent.’

  ‘Then what was the point?’

  The Torch grinned maniacally. ‘We played Rickard. We tricked him!’ He jumped up and down suddenly, then came back to Greg’s level, speaking close to
his face. ‘We gave him what he wanted, so he would give us what we wanted. What the master wanted.’

  ‘But the chessboard,’ Greg tried. ‘The knight…’

  The Torch spoke into Greg’s ear, a conspiratorial whisper. ‘I am the Rook. The Castle. Sturdy, unmovable, a place of unassailable strength. A place with dungeons.’

  But if Rickard wasn’t the knight, and neither was The Torch…

  Before Greg could say any more, The Torch tugged several thick strips of bandage back across his mouth. Greg could still breathe, but speaking coherently was no longer an option. Muffled screaming wouldn’t be a problem though.

  The Torch produced a silver lighter and manoeuvred Greg back to where he could see his full reflection in the mirror. He pushed down on Greg’s legs with one knee to hold him in place, took the taper in one hand, and flicked the lighter in the other, producing an unwavering flame.

  ‘The Divine told me to save you till last. Time to die, Gregory Adams.’

  He lit the taper.

  Greg didn’t move. His only play, whether it worked or was ultimately futile, was not to act as The Torch wanted. He remained perfectly still as the orange flame took light on the taper and began crawling its way towards his tightly bound feet. Acrid, black smoke burgeoned in its wake. Greg heard the soft whisper of flame devouring cotton.

  The Torch waited, squatting on his haunches, leaning forward, transfixed, like a gargoyle.

  Greg remained utterly still. As a psychology student, he’d studied the theory of pain, and had read a lot of case studies, including those of near-death burn victims. There were three counter-strategies to the intense pain of burning. First, he absolutely had to focus on his breathing. That would be the first and last thing he could hold on to. The second was to imagine somewhere he felt safe, the most grounded experience of his life. He’d been to Africa, too, on safari, and recalled the Serengeti – the endless plain – the serene calm of the bush, where each animal lived moment to moment, never knowing when death might strike. This wouldn’t last, he knew, but would aid him initially, maybe help him survive mentally intact until the point when the nerve endings had burned away and there was no more pain, or else shock had kicked in and numbed him.