The Burning Man

by Paul Finch

  ‘Incident Room,’ he said, still distracted. ‘DS Heckenburg.’

  ‘Ah,’ Gemma’s voice said. ‘You’ve finally graced us with your presence?’

  ‘I graced you with my presence about two hours ago, only to be told –’

  ‘I’m in no mood for lip, by the way. I wanted you fully au fait with this case before you actually got started. Now is that all right with you?’

  Heck straightened in his seat. ‘Yes, ma’am, of course.’

  ‘Good. How soon can you meet me at the Queen Alexandra Infirmary? I’m in the mortuary at present.’

  He shuffled the paperwork. ‘I think I’m ready to come now.’

  ‘Good. Foot to the floor, if you don’t mind.’

  *

  When Heck arrived at the Queen Alexandra Infirmary, or Bradburn Infirmary as it was known locally, it was almost noon. This was a lowering Edwardian structure, first opened in 1909, but it had been extensively redeveloped over the decades since and now comprised many departments. The entrance to the Infirmary mortuary proved elusive. Heck finally rang Gemma on her mobile and was directed around to the rear of the building. The mortuary attendant who showed him in, a towering, ox-like youngster with sloped shoulders and a huge jaw covered in fuzzy red stubble, was busy chomping on an immense bap, which looked to have been crammed with ham, lettuce and mustard, specks of which rained down onto his white scrubs. He led Heck to a cool, white-tiled chamber with walls of stainless-steel refrigerator cabinets to the right and left, and two porcelain slabs in the centre, both currently occupied by horizontal forms covered in opaque plastic sheets. The place was thickly scented with the usual combo of bleach and formaldehyde.

  Without even bothering to put a glove on, and without any request from Heck, the attendant drew back the first sheet. ‘These are last night’s two fatalities,’ he said, his mouth half full of ham and bread. ‘This is the female.’

  There wasn’t much left that was even vaguely identifiable as human, or that wasn’t black and crisp as an overdone steak. Heck had seen much in his many years of detective work, but this kind of thing never ceased to hit him in the pit of his stomach. The stench of burned, melted flesh didn’t help much either. Voices now distracted him. He glanced over his shoulder as Gemma and another officer, both clad in disposable white smocks, came in through a side door.

  ‘Nasty mess a flamethrower makes, eh?’ the attendant said, still chewing.

  ‘So long as it doesn’t put you off your lunch.’ Heck turned to Gemma. ‘Ma’am?’

  ‘Can you give us some space, Mel?’ she told the attendant.

  He dropped the sheet and stumped away. Heck now realised that he recognised the other officer; it was DI Ron Gibbshaw from the Organised Crime Division, which was a surprise.

  ‘What do you think?’ Gemma asked Heck.

  ‘I think I’m glad I only had a cup of coffee for breakfast.’

  ‘Well, it’s not going to get any better, not in the short term.’ She planted her hands on her hips. ‘The rate these poor sods are coming in, the hospital’s agreed to reserve this entire section of the mortuary for our use. So, we’ve got those APs believed to be victims of Vic Ship’s faction on this wall –’ she indicated the righthand cabinets, before turning to the left ‘– and those thought down to Shaughnessy’s faction on this one.’

  Heck indicated the twosome occupying the slabs. ‘And this pair smack-bang in the middle.’

  ‘That’s partly because they haven’t been fully examined yet. But also because we haven’t completely confirmed they’re connected to the case.’

  He nodded. ‘Well, looks like we’ve got it all organised.’

  ‘What we’ve actually got here, DS Heckenburg,’ Gibbshaw said, disgruntled, ‘is a complete bloody nightmare. We’re on a gangland battlefield that’s going to keep us all occupied for a very long time.’

  Heck eyed the guy warily. He supposed it was inevitable that Gemma would have given in to the pressure eventually. It wasn’t just that OC had been stridently demanding some involvement in the case, but it would have been preposterous not to attach them at least in some capacity, given that gangster-related homicides were their speciality. Thus far, though, Gemma appeared to have been true to her word. Ron Gibbshaw was the only OC officer Heck had seen since he’d arrived here. He held high rank, of course; possibly he was even joint-DSIO with Katie Hayes, but most likely that was the compromise that had been reached.

  It was just about bearable, Heck decided.

  He knew Gibbshaw reasonably well. He was a typical OC guy, big, burly, time-served and, despite haggard features – tired eyes, a scruffy beard and thin, greying hair – he was an adversarial character, argumentative and opinionated, but he’d know a thing or two about the underworld and would be keen to put Reg Cowling’s murderer behind bars.

  ‘It’s certainly a tangled web,’ Gemma said. ‘At present, no one at all is talking.’

  ‘Unsurprising if this is the outcome,’ Heck replied.

  ‘The assassins on both sides are being ultra-careful. We’ve no forensics thus far. The CCTV from the canal is the only physical evidence we’ve acquired and it tells us precisely squat.’

  ‘Well, it tells us this flamethrower man’s working alone,’ Heck said. The other two glanced quizzically at him. ‘I haven’t seen it yet, admittedly, but according to the report, it depicts one assailant with no sign of a back-up team.’

  ‘Professional hitmen often work alone,’ Gibbshaw pointed out.

  Heck mused. This wasn’t entirely his own experience, not when those hitmen were targeting fellow mobsters.

  ‘What are you saying?’ Gemma asked. ‘That you don’t think these burnings are down to Lee Shaughnessy?’

  ‘Shaughnessy’s our best bet at present,’ Heck had to admit. In truth, he couldn’t think of anyone else it was more likely to be. Self-evidently there was a war being waged here, one ultra-violent act having kick-started a succession of retaliatory strikes. But it still didn’t entirely add up. He glanced at the two shrouded forms on the nearby slabs, the blackened, twisted things that had once been human. If the flamethrower man was part of Shaughnessy’s crew, they were going very overboard with this.

  ‘Has anyone, you know –’ he shrugged ‘– spoken to Shaughnessy?’

  ‘Of course we’ve spoken to him,’ Gibbshaw said. ‘He doesn’t know anything about it. And he’s shocked and mortified that anyone could have been so cruel to his good mates Calum Price and Dean Lumley.’

  Heck could just picture the snot-nosed little bastard looking po-faced and pious as he made this calm response to intense questioning.

  ‘But it’s a mess,’ Gemma said. ‘We don’t even know where Harper and Gilani fit in.’

  ‘Or even if they’re connected to the case,’ Gibbshaw added, reiterating a point the SIO had made earlier.

  ‘You don’t seriously think we’ve got two flamethrower killers in Bradburn?’ Heck said.

  ‘We don’t know it was a flamethrower on this occasion,’ Gemma replied. ‘As I said before, we need confirmation. The CSIs are still examining the car – what’s left of it. All we’ve really got until they report back is a standard case of arson with intent to endanger life. It could have been a Molotov cocktail that was used.’

  Heck was unimpressed by that possibility, but he knew she had to cover all bases. ‘Either way, ma’am … I’ve read the preliminary theses, and I wouldn’t spend too much time looking into the taxi driver’s past.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Let me rephrase,’ he said. ‘I’d allocate at least as much time to looking at Shelley Harper. And I guess you think that too, because I rang Eric Fisher on the way up over here from the nick, asking him to do just that, and he told me you’d got onto him earlier, asking for the same.’

  ‘And ground gained nil,’ she replied. ‘At least so far. Superficially at least, neither Harper or Gilani have got connections to the Manchester underworld.’

  ‘More puzzling to me
is that it isn’t tit-for-tat,’ Heck said. ‘At least not so far.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Gibbshaw asked.

  ‘If the firebug is on Shaughnessy’s side,’ Heck said, ‘which at present we assume he is, he just keeps on prodding, doesn’t he? I mean, Shaughnessy appears to have provoked this whole thing with the sex-shop attack on March 7 – that in itself seems odd to me, given that he’s the smaller fish. In return, he lost two of his own men a couple of weeks later. He’s struck back since then, when that dealer was killed by the canal. But now he appears to have struck again. And this weapon, this flamethrower – it’s more than vicious. They tried to outlaw flamethrowers even during World War Two, didn’t they? What I’m saying is, it’s like Shaughnessy’s doing everything he can to goad a much bigger outfit. And he isn’t even waiting his turn any more.’

  Gibbshaw shrugged. ‘It’s a war. These goons don’t follow codes of chivalry, like “first it was your turn, sir, and now it’s mine”.’

  ‘It’s not a matter of chivalry,’ Heck argued, ‘it’s a matter of common sense. Shaughnessy’s small-time compared to Ship. And Ship isn’t just going to go away because it gets rough. He’s already got Sagan on board, he’s got the Russians …’

  ‘You’re assuming these people are as sane as the rest of us,’ Gemma said.

  ‘I don’t know, ma’am. These low-level hoodlums, they always have a kind of animal cunning, a survival instinct. They tend to steer away from anything that could really damage them, let alone destroy them outright.’

  She considered this. ‘We’re starting to think that Shaughnessy’s willingness to fight Ship is down to the Incinerator himself.’

  ‘The Incinerator?’ Heck said.

  ‘Your firebug,’ Gibbshaw replied. ‘The press have already dubbed him “the Incinerator”.’

  Heck pondered this, fascinated. OK, it was only a moniker – yet another sensationalist nickname dreamed up by an enterprising journalist – but it reinforced the image in his mind that this flamethrower-wielding maniac might be a lone-wolf operator.

  ‘Let’s face it,’ Gibbshaw added, ‘they don’t need some fancy torturer like Sagan on their books if they’ve got this guy. He’s just as terrifying, just as effective.’

  ‘Surely the flamethrower itself is some kind of lead?’ Heck said. ‘Have we ever heard of any other flamethrower attack anywhere else in the UK? Is it even possible that someone like Shaughnessy could have access to one, let alone someone who’d know how to use it?’

  ‘The thesis is that he’s somehow acquired this equipment and this knowledge, and that this in itself is what’s emboldened him to attack Ship,’ Gemma said.

  ‘You mean he suddenly feels he has strength in his corner and he’s just going for it?’

  ‘Attacking again and again, hoping to do as much damage to the Manchester firm as possible.’

  ‘You mean before they obliterate him once and for all?’

  She looked frustrated. ‘Like I said, it’s a confusing mess, and at present we’ve barely penetrated it.’

  ‘And just out of interest, where’s Sagan while all this is happening?’ Heck asked.

  ‘We haven’t got a lead on Sagan as yet.’

  ‘Some of us aren’t even one hundred per cent convinced he’s here,’ Gibbshaw grunted.

  ‘Oh, he’s here, sir … somewhere,’ Heck countered. ‘I can feel it.’

  ‘You can feel it.’ Gibbshaw snorted. ‘Great, cool. To hell with all those time-consuming criminal investigation procedures.’

  ‘It stands to reason, sir.’

  ‘It doesn’t stand to reason at all,’ Gibbshaw retorted. ‘Ship’s the kingpin up here. Why would he hire a private contractor? He’s not just got his own gun-hands, he’s got the Ruskies too.’

  Heck shrugged. ‘Perhaps to distance himself from the actual murders. He’s an obvious suspect, plus he’s got GMP Serious on his case.’

  ‘One thing you’ve always been great at, Heck, bending the facts to fit the theory.’

  Gemma was about to intervene to prevent a sharp riposte when her mobile rang. She fished it from her pocket and signalled to the other two to wait, while she strode out of the room.

  ‘What’s up, Ronnie?’ Heck asked Gibbshaw, when she was out of earshot. ‘Outside your comfort zone? Northern accents a foreign language? Can’t relax unless you’re surrounded by diamond geezers?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Gibbshaw replied, looking coldly amused. ‘I’m just wondering what kind of wild-goose chase you’ve brought us on this time. We’re supposed to be looking for John Sagan, who killed one copper and put two others out of the job with critical injuries. And yet now we’re sniffing around an underworld squabble in the arse-end of nowhere because you fancied popping home for a bit.’

  It occurred to Heck that he’d underestimated Gibbshaw. The guy was keen to put Sagan in jail, but he was keener still to do it on the Organised Crime Division’s terms.

  ‘Sagan’s here,’ Heck assured him.

  ‘There’s not a shred of evidence to suggest he is.’

  Heck thumbed at the wall of cabinets on the right. ‘Those two jerks over there were chloroformed. All Sagan’s other victims were chloroformed too.’

  ‘You can get chloroform anywhere on the black market. It’s hardly a smoking gun.’

  ‘We had a tip-off.’

  ‘Yeah …’ The shadow of a smile crossed Gibbshaw’s face. ‘I’d love to know who from. Someone reliable this time, I hope, not some psycho bitch with an axe to grind.’

  ‘Well, if you’re not happy with this gig, Ronnie, why don’t you just butt out? I’m sure Gemma won’t mind. You’re only here as a sop to your own bosses anyway, to stop them whingeing to Joe Wullerton.’

  Joe Wullerton was official Director of the National Crime Group, not just the overall commander but a diplomatic mediating power when its various constituent parts – the Serial Crimes Unit, the Organised Crime Division and the Kidnap Squad – jockeyed with each other for resources or just about anything else they could think of. Thus far since his appointment, he’d proved sympathetic towards Gemma’s investigations, but he was a politician too – he had to be to wield such power and influence – and his support was not always guaranteed.

  ‘Yeah, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ Gibbshaw sneered. ‘One less beady eye fixed on you. I mean, we can hardly rely on Piper to do that, can we? Everyone knows you’ve got her wrapped round your little finger. Or is it your middle finger – or is it your two middle fingers?’

  ‘You fucking slimeball …’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Gemma said, re-entering and finding them squared up to each other.

  ‘Nothing, ma’am.’ Heck stepped back.

  ‘Nothing? Are we dick-measuring already, even with this carnage lying around us?’

  Heck looked sheepish. ‘Different viewpoints on how we should proceed, that’s all.’

  Gibbshaw nodded, as if this was exactly the truth of it.

  She gazed at them both with severity, knowing they were lying, her worst fears perhaps confirmed that an Organised Crime Division officer, still hurting from the loss of his friend, was likely to cause friction with those SCU officers he might indirectly blame for it.

  ‘Anything good, ma’am?’ Heck asked.

  ‘As a matter of fact, yes, there is – on two fronts. First of all, Eric Fisher has just emailed us a load of bumph concerning Shelley Harper. It seems she is connected to Vic Ship’s firm. She was once a hostess at one of his clubs. Later on, she became his mistress. That relationship ended long ago, but it’s a clear connection.’

  ‘And it won’t go down at all well that someone’s just burned her alive,’ Heck said.

  ‘If we thought this fight was nasty before …’ Gibbshaw concurred.

  ‘What’s the second bit of news, ma’am?’

  ‘It seems we’ve acquired some CCTV footage from last night. It shows a car belonging to Marvin Langton leaving the area where the Harper and Gilani burnin
gs occurred – and at roughly the right time.’

  ‘Seeing as Langton once used fire during a Wild Bunch attack, he seems a very viable suspect in this case, ma’am,’ Gibbshaw said, though he still sounded frustrated – as well he might, given that he was here primarily to catch Sagan, not the Incinerator.

  ‘Langton’s used fire before?’ Heck asked.

  ‘Once,’ Gemma replied. ‘Seems he firebombed a Manchester nightclub when there were people inside it.’

  ‘Different MO,’ Heck observed. ‘But OK, I see the link.’

  ‘He’s the most big-time of all these Bradburn sewer rats,’ Gibbshaw said. ‘If anyone’s going to take the fight to Vic Ship, it’s likely to be him.’

  Gemma didn’t initially reply. She was thinking hard.

  ‘So do we stick an obbo on him?’ Gibbshaw asked. ‘See what his next move is?’

  ‘He may not be their only killer,’ Heck said. ‘We could be sitting for days watching Langton, and in the meantime another one of them could go off and burn someone else.’

  ‘And even if it is Langton, close target surveillance won’t stop Ship and Sagan retaliating,’ Gemma said. ‘We’ll have corpses up to our navels. I want to hit them hard – get right into their guts and end this thing now.’

  ‘So we lock Langton up,’ Heck said. ‘I know it feels like a kneejerk. But we’ve got more than enough to pull him in on suspicion, and he’s a mercenary anyway, not a loyalist. Who knows, we get him in a quiet room somewhere, and his allegiance might shift. He talks enough, and this gang war’s over by next weekend.’

  Gemma eyed him carefully before switching her gaze to Gibbshaw, who shrugged.

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘We make an early arrest.’

  Chapter 17

  ‘First thing yesterday we started checking road camera footage shot around the town centre on Thursday night,’ DI Hayes explained as she drove. ‘To see if anyone appeared who we recognised.’

  ‘And Marvin Langton did?’ Heck said.

  ‘Langton drives a blue Hyundai i40 saloon. One such, with matching reg, was spotted heading south along Romney Avenue – away from the town centre towards Gulwick Green, which is where he lives. That was just before eleven-thirty.’