Firetrap

by David Hodges

  The other treated her to another weak smile and appraised her critically. ‘You don’t look so hot yourself,’ she commented.

  Kate muttered an oath. ‘Never mind what I look like. I thought you’d be off that crap by now.’

  The girl nodded, still snuffling and shaking. ‘Bit of bad luck, Sis,’ she replied, her voice almost a whisper.

  ‘But you went to rehab?’ Kate repeated, frustration now getting the better of her. ‘You were doing so well.’

  Linda shuddered violently, clutching at her stomach. ‘Couldn’t hack it,’ she mumbled. ‘Had to get out.’

  Kate leaned against the back of a chair, studying her bitterly. The very last thing she needed was for her junkie twin sister to turn up on her doorstep with more problems for her to sort out. ‘So what is it now?’ she snapped. ‘Coke, “H” or what?’

  Linda shuffled forward a few paces. ‘Need another fix, Kate,’ she said, desperation in her voice. ‘Just a few quid – honest. Then I’ll – I’ll go back.’

  Kate snorted. ‘What, to rehab? Do me a favour. I’m not that naive.’

  Her sister drew her arms about her and rocked on her heels for a moment, her face glistening with perspiration. ‘Sis, please, just a few quid.’

  Kate’s mouth hardened. ‘Linda, you were sent to rehab as a condition of your suspended sentence. You were lucky you didn’t go down again. They’ll be looking for you – and I could get into a lot of trouble if you were found here.’

  The young woman stared at her fixedly. ‘So, you going to turn me in?’

  Kate didn’t answer her, but swung towards the kitchen. ‘First we’ll get a meal inside you and then we’ll talk. I think I can rustle you up some egg and chips at least.’

  Linda shook her head several times. ‘Don’t want—’ she began, but Kate cut her short.

  ‘I don’t give a damn what you want. I’ve got enough problems at the moment without you as well. Now, either you sit and wait while I make you something, or I put in a telephone call to the nick.’

  Linda’s shakes worsened as she sat down on the edge of the settee. ‘Egg and chips then,’ she said, forcing a smile and once more wiping her nose with her sleeve.

  In the small galley kitchen, Kate could feel the walls closing in on her. She wanted to scream, cry and vomit all at the same time as she gripped the edge of the work surface for support, hyperventilating like some hysterical schoolgirl while her knotted stomach sent waves of acid surging up into her throat.

  Broken visions of the blazing police Transit seared across the room in front of her, blotting out the cooker and the chuckling chip pan, and the smell of cooking fat gave way to the sweet nauseating stench of burning flesh as the chips thrust up through the fog like charred fingers. ‘We don’t want the rest of the department to think you ran out on your colleagues, do we?’ Roz Callow mocked again inside her head, as she reeled back against the refrigerator, knocking her egg box off the side with one flailing hand.

  Then the bang of a door closing and fantasy and reality merged into one as she stumbled back into the living room. Her handbag gaped at her with malevolent mirth from the table and she saw with a sense of shock that her lipstick and other oddments were scattered across the polished wooden surface. Checking the handbag, she found that her purse was missing. True to form, Linda had seized her chance and gone, snatching her purse containing one of her two sets of keys, her credit cards and over fifty pounds in cash.

  Sinking to the floor in a heap, she began to sob hysterically as the eggs in the kitchen bubbled over on to the electric ring and, seconds later, the fire alarm activated.

  Twister was in the workshop of his funeral parlour, examining the newly crafted oak coffin, when his mobile rang at just before nine. All the coffins were made on the premises by local pensioner, Tom Grace, who had been with the firm since it had started, but as it was Saturday, the old man was off and Twister had the place to himself – which turned out to be just as well, for the call was not one he would have wanted to answer within the earshot of others.

  ‘You bloody fool,’ a familiar voice responded to his terse acknowledgment.

  He started. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You missed one. A woman detective, named Kate Hamblin, was in the copse having a pee when you totalled the Transit. She was unhurt.’

  His heart made a sucking noise as he thought about his faux pas the previous night. So the bloody mare was another copper, was she? Just his luck!

  ‘That’s awkward,’ he replied, trying to keep the alarm out of his voice.

  ‘Awkward, you stupid prat? It’s a lot worse than that. She might have got a look at you.’

  ‘Very unlikely,’ he replied, trying to convince himself as much as his caller. ‘It was too dark.’

  ‘And what about the motor? She must have clocked that.’

  He emitted a short laugh. ‘I hope she did.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I used an old Land Rover I managed to find—’

  ‘You did what?’

  ‘A Defender, like Duval’s, but with replicas of his index plates front and back. A bit of insurance, just in case I was spotted near the scene. If your lady cop did clock the number, it will only put Duval even more in the frame.’

  ‘I didn’t tell you to do that.’

  ‘Maybe you didn’t, but I only agreed to do the job for you; how I go about doing it is my business.’

  ‘Not if it means I could be compromised, it isn’t. You’d better get rid of that Land Rover pronto.’

  He sighed. ‘You worry too much. There are dozens of ’drovers like mine all over the Levels.’

  ‘Dump the thing and torch it nevertheless.’

  ‘Bit dodgy with Old Bill swarming all over the place, don’t you think?’ He paused to light a cigarette. ‘And anyway, if I did dump it, I’d have to get another motor and I don’t need to tell you, I’m a bit boracic at the moment.’

  There was a snort of anger. ‘Your financial state will be the least of your worries if it turns out Hamblin can ID you, so you’d better fix her PDQ – just in case.’

  ‘I would if I knew where to find her?’

  ‘She has a flat in Bridgwater. I’ll give you the address.’

  He breathed a sigh of relief; the information he needed at last. Grabbing a biro and an old newspaper from the workbench holding the coffin, he pinned the phone between his ear and shoulder and quickly took down the details on a piece of white space, adding, ‘It would help if I knew what she looked like.’

  An irritable hiss. ‘Around 5' 6'', slim, with auburn hair, blue eyes and lots of freckles. Is that enough for you?’

  ‘Sounds exactly my type – especially the freckles bit.’

  ‘Just fix her, OK. I don’t care how you do it – but do it.’

  He exhaled slowly. ‘Sorted.’

  ‘It had better be – for both our sakes.’

  There was a click and, pocketing the mobile, he stood there for several minutes, absent mindedly caressing the brass handles of the coffin and pulling on his cigarette as he thought about his next move.

  Kate Hamblin was history – had to be. He couldn’t afford to mess up on this contract with his finances the way they were. He had taken over the family firm from his father after an ignominious exit from the SAS had pushed him into working for the mob as an enforcer and earned him a term inside. The old man had run the firm successfully for nearly forty years until he had ended up in one of his own nice oak coffins, and he had obviously thought his only son and heir would carry on the good work when he died. But the confidence he’d expressed in his will had been misplaced.

  Twister – as young Larry had been nicknamed by his army comrades for his preferred method of dispatching combat targets by snapping their necks – was no businessman. Drink and gambling had soon depleted the family coffers and even the money he had made out of fencing property burgled from the unoccupied houses of deceased clients had been insufficient to fill the black h
ole in his finances. Most of his father’s long-serving retainers had deserted him following empty promises in lieu of pay. Of the original crew, only Albert Price, his senior assistant who virtually ran what was left of the business for him as his deputy, and master carpenter, Tom Grace remained. With the resignation of Maggie Page, the elderly receptionist who had fronted the business for over thirty years, he had also been forced to rely on single mum, Sue Dennis, to do the job – when she deigned to turn in, that is – and, but for Albert’s wife who helped out from time to time, he would have had to do the laying out of the cadavers himself. As a result, his business had been reduced to a basic ‘cadaver disposal’ service, as Albert Price described it, and he could no longer offer clients the additional frills, like embalming, that his father had been so proud of. Even his pall-bearers were hired in – not that that mattered much, for he’d only had two funeral bookings in the past month anyway.

  With the banks and other creditors breathing down his neck, the light oak coffin on the workbench beside him was likely to be the last one old Tom Grace made and he smiled grimly as he ran his fingers over the imitation brass plate on the lid. Poor Mary May was the only cadaver left in his mortuary fridge and she would very shortly be heading for the crematorium anyway. Then what? Bankruptcy, seizure of his cars, his flat and other property and public humiliation? That was unthinkable and now this lucrative contract had come along, offering the solution to all his problems, there was no way he was going to let some bitch of a bluebottle ruin it for him. But first he had to find her.

  chapter 5

  THE CID OFFICE on the ground floor of the new police station in Highbridge was practically dead when Kate pushed through the double doors at just on ten o’clock in the morning after wasting half an hour on the telephone cancelling her stolen credit cards.

  ‘An incident room’s been opened on the top floor,’ Dick Stacey, the grim-faced office manager, snapped as she walked into the room. ‘Briefing in five minutes.’

  He hardly raised his eyes from his desk as he spoke and there was no warmth in his tone, no sign of sympathy in his expression.

  Tight-lipped, she headed for the stairs and the hubbub of conversation that penetrated even the thick glass of the door on the landing, feeling a bit like a convicted criminal about to walk into court to be sentenced.

  The man in the rumpled suit overhauled her halfway up with a shouted, ‘Kate!’ Detective Constable Hayden Lewis was the oddball of the department, his public school background and old-world courtesy setting him apart from the rest of his more streetwise colleagues, who regarded him with tolerant amusement. Yet he had looked after Kate ever since her arrival and, while he had not so far managed to pluck up the courage to tell her so, his affection for her was common knowledge. The stars in his hazel eyes now clouded over, however, as he studied her from under the mop of unruly flaxen hair that tumbled over his ears and forehead like an uncut hedge.

  ‘You shouldn’t be here, you know,’ he admonished gently, ‘not after what you’ve been through.’

  Her bottom lip trembled and he grabbed her in a sympathetic bear hug, ignoring her tears flooding into the collar of his threadbare shirt.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ she choked, ‘I just can’t believe it.’

  He prised himself free, suddenly looking awkward. ‘Listen, Kate,’ he went on, ‘it might be better if you kept out of the briefing – you know, took a back seat for a while.’

  She dried her eyes, moving to one side as two uniformed officers approached, obviously heading for the incident room. ‘But surely I’m a key witness?’ she said, meeting a searching gaze from one of the policemen as he opened the landing door. ‘I – I saw the whole thing.’

  Lewis looked uncomfortable. ‘Kate, there’s like – er – rumours going round; you know the sort of thing. Might be best if you spoke to the DCI before going in there.’

  ‘What sort of rumours?’ Suddenly there was anger in Kate’s blue eyes. ‘Rumours about me – is that what you’re saying?’

  Lewis hesitated. ‘People are very upset, Kate. You have to understand that Andy Seldon in particular was a popular bloke.’

  The tears were coming again as Kate fought to control her emotions. ‘He was popular with me too, Hayden,’ she whispered. ‘And I nearly died with him on that job.’

  He patted her arm. ‘I know that, old girl, but there are those on the department who – well – are questioning exactly what happened and why, er—’

  ‘Why I survived? Is that what you’re trying to say?’

  But Lewis didn’t get the chance to respond.

  ‘Ah, Kate,’ DCI Callow purred from behind her. ‘In early, I see.’

  Lewis made a grimace and, nodding towards Callow with a quick ‘Morning ma’am,’ he headed on up the stairs and disappeared through the landing door.

  ‘I was going to the briefing,’ Kate said, her voice now cold and brittle.

  The DCI shook her head. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, Kate. Not after all you’ve been through. You told me enough about the hit for the incident room team to be briefed and Detective Superintendent Davey, who has just been appointed Senior Investigating Officer, wants to see you anyway as soon as he’s finished at the briefing.’ She gave a cobra-like smile. ‘Why don’t you make yourself a cup of coffee downstairs while you’re waiting?’

  The office manager was elsewhere when Kate returned to the general office, but the kettle on its tray by the window was already boiling, suggesting he couldn’t be far away. She poured herself a black coffee with trembling hands and slumped into the swivel chair at her desk, taking occasional gulps as her mind turned itself inside out.

  What was happening to her was like a nightmare. First the horrific murder of Andy Seldon and Alf Cross, then the finger of suspicion pointed at her for absolutely no valid reason at all as far as she could see. And on top of it all, another serious problem arising with her own twin sister, Linda, which had the potential to jeopardize her very career.

  In an effort to control her rising panic, she forced Linda from her mind and concentrated instead on the cold-blooded crime that had just been committed – desperately trying to override her emotions and look at things in the clinical deductive way she had been taught.

  Why on earth would Terry Duval waste two policemen? It didn’t make sense. OK, so as Roz Callow had already pointed out, he did have the motive, drove a Land Rover Defender and had the knowledge and previous where explosives were concerned, which certainly put him in the frame. Furthermore, he had quite a history of violence.

  A former quarry blaster, he had suffered a severe beating at the hands of a group of young farmers after forming a sexual relationship with a local sixteen year old boy and had retaliated by using his technical skills to booby-trap each of the cars of his assailants with an incendiary device. One lad had nearly died and two others had suffered multiple injuries, earning him six years in Broadmoor. The spate of farm fires had started within months of his release and his MO was certainly all over them: a timed incendiary device magnetically attached to a tractor or car parked in a barn or other outbuilding in the early hours of the morning, then triggered electronically from somewhere close by – and on two occasions a Land Rover Defender seen driving away from the scene immediately afterwards.

  It all fitted nicely together, but what still didn’t fit in her mind was why Duval had targeted the police Transit. He must have known that murdering the surveillance team would not halt the operation – only bring down even greater heat on him – so there had to be more to the appalling crime than was immediately obvious, but what, that was the point?

  Reaching across to Andy Seldon’s desk, which backed on to her own, she picked up the buff folder labelled ‘Operation Firetrap’, remembering with a faint bitter smile Alf Cross’s disparaging comments about the whole exercise.

  Terry Duval’s photograph stared back at her from the copy of his criminal record file; the square, robot-like face, sparse black hair and
half-closed eyes indelibly etched on her memory from detailed pre-surveillance scrutiny.

  She knew without having to re-check his file that he was a 42-year-old loner, who had lived with his mother in her cottage on the Levels until her death a year ago – ironically as a result of an accident with a farm tractor shortly after he had been released from Broadmoor. No wonder, given his history, that he had a thing about farms. He was currently unemployed and receiving the usual social security benefits. As far as she knew, he had no surviving relatives and nowhere to go except his cottage, yet he had managed to disappear somewhere and she suspected that finding him was not going to be that easy, especially as he still had his wheels.

  Then she started and stared at the file again, the photograph of the Land Rover he was known to be using jumping out at her. She studied it more closely. A green hard-top Defender? She thought back to the incident. Surely the vehicle she had clocked at the crime scene had been grey? Could be mistaken, of course – after all, it had been dark at the time – but something else did not seem quite right either. In her exhausted state, she couldn’t at first make out what it was, but then suddenly it dawned on her. The Land Rover she had glimpsed at the murder scene had been fitted with a snorkel, whereas the one in the photograph before her had no snorkel at all. Now that was interesting. Either Duval had two Land Rovers or maybe – just maybe – the Land Rover she had spotted on the drove was not his at all, which suggested he might not have been the killer in the first place.

  With a frown, she dumped the file back on the desk, just as Stacey shuffled back into the office carrying a carton of computer printer paper.

  He threw her a swift searching glance. ‘Told you the briefing’s upstairs,’ he snapped.

  ‘I’ve been excluded, Dick,’ she retorted. ‘Any idea why?’