The Burning Man

by Paul Finch

  At first Heck didn’t know what to say. He’d been expecting to find Nayka here, not one of Lee Shaughnessy’s firm. What this now signified he couldn’t immediately fathom. Had the Incinerator not arrived yet because he was on foot, which might give him the opportunity to flee unnoticed? Or was he already here and biding his time, determined to see things through?

  Which was the worst of those possibilities?

  Langton meanwhile grinned all the more, pointing his gun directly between Heck’s eyes. It was a Beretta 92, a highly efficient and easy-to-use weapon, especially in close combat.

  ‘So, you finally shook your tail?’ Heck said.

  ‘Not so easy to keep tabs on me in this weather,’ Langton replied. ‘Park up and turn their wipers off, they can’t see through the windscreen … leave ’em on, I can spot the surveillance car from way off. No biggie to sneak away on foot. Anyway, move your arse … that way.’ He pointed his free hand along the church wall. ‘There’s another door round the back.’

  ‘Funnily enough, that’s where I was going.’

  ‘Excellent. You’ll only be a little bit late.’

  Heck trudged along the path. By the heavy thud of his boots, Langton was close behind. Heck could sense the Beretta trained on the back of his neck. He glanced left, looking towards the nearest houses, but in the torrential rain there was no sign even of those, let alone any cavalry units charging to the rescue.

  There was no sign of Nayka either.

  Heck wondered where exactly the Russian had secreted himself, and what his plan was.

  ‘Don’t know what you’re thinking, Heckenburg,’ Langton said. ‘But I advise you not to try it. I’m not one of these Bradburn scallies. I’ve seen it all.’

  Chapter 42

  Gemma climbed in behind the steering wheel of her command car, flinging back her drenched hood as she visibly seethed with frustration.

  ‘I’ve tried higher ground, I’ve tried further down the road … I can’t get through.’ She tossed her mobile onto the dashboard. ‘You’d have thought that on an exposed hillside like this I’d have no problem getting a signal.’

  Ron Gibbshaw was slumped in the front passenger seat. ‘Don’t worry, ma’am, you’ll be getting a signal. Heck’s probably turned his phone off – pulling his usual stunt of going it alone.’

  Gemma sat tensely, staring through her window. Technically speaking, her lying-up point, tucked away in a semi-flooded layby some thirty yards up Hunger Hill Road from the main entrance to the French & Sons Auto Traders vehicle compound, was an ideal position from which to watch the comings and goings. But she was now torn with indecision about staying put. It was unclear how much support she personally could give Heck, while if she went back into town now to try and assist him, it would mean leaving Gibbshaw in charge here, which didn’t feel like a great idea either.

  Everything seemed to have gone askew; suddenly there were no easy options.

  There was no telling when things would start happening here. She might vacate her post just as it was about to kick off. She’d instructed Katie Hayes and her team down at the cinema to provide Heck with all the necessary back-up. They ought to be able to manage that; they were much closer than she was. She’d even authorised those AFOs among them to draw firearms – though of course that procedure would take time, so most likely Hayes and a few select individuals would be heading up there unarmed.

  ‘Mustn’t be too hard on him though,’ Gibbshaw said, sipping coffee, his bearded features saturnine in the blueish glow of the dashboard light. ‘He’s doing his job after all. Pursuing a murder suspect.’

  ‘Yes, but he’s alone,’ she replied, aggravated that Heck’s fate clearly wasn’t a great concern for the Organised Crime Division man, whose main priority was still the apprehension of John Sagan. ‘And this Nayka’s killed at least seven people that we know about.’

  Gibbshaw sniffed. ‘If this guy’s ready and waiting with his fireproof suit on, and his helmet, and he’s got his flamethrower fully fuelled, I’d say that even Heck isn’t stupid enough to tackle him head-on. But I’m not completely convinced by that. Especially if this priest fella’s already been hurt. Funny thing … I heard a whisper among the team that Heck doesn’t have any family left in Bradburn. At least, none that he cares about.’

  Gemma gazed through the streaming windscreen. ‘I suppose now he’s learning differently.’

  *

  Heck plodded into the passage between the garage and the church. Scaffolding reared above, planks forming flimsy walkways overhead, plunging them into shadow, though firelight now shone from the open door to the sacristy. Langton shepherded him into this, pistol muzzle jammed into his spine.

  The sacristy, which was little more than a stone ante-room to the church itself – a preparation chamber for the Mass – stood in half-darkness. On the other side of it, an interior door connected to the north side of the altar. This too was open, firelight flickering beyond. The usual combined odours proliferated: incense, candle-wax and polish, along with new additions thanks to the building work – creosote, damp plaster, dust. But now an agonising groaning was audible too, as well as more coarse, drunken laughter. Heck almost ran forward, but Langton snatched him by the back of his collar and frogmarched him through the internal door.

  The interior of the Roman Catholic Church of St Nathaniel’s had always possessed a tranquil beauty, its altar and alcoves ablaze with candles, the carved ends of its pews garlanded with flowers in spring and with holly at Christmas, its statues of saints and angels peering serenely down from their plinths, its many pillars soaring up to a vaulted roof now painted eggshell blue and scattered with gold and silver stars, to create Father Pat’s image of Heaven on Earth.

  Now unfortunately, it was exactly the opposite.

  Because of the refurbishments, a mass of scaffolding clad the north wall and the rear of the altar, and there were dust sheets over several pews. Behind the baptismal font in the northwest corner stood a clutter of brushes, rollers, tins and bottles.

  But all this was normality; all this was perfectly acceptable.

  Less so were those statues thrown down and smashed, including the Virgin Mary and Christ as the Sacred Heart. Less so was Lee Shaughnessy and his crew, about twelve of them in total, now dotted across the nave with tins of beer in hand. One had a spray-can and was busy decking each Station of the Cross with a grinning demonic face; two others were lighting joints from the candles in a side-chapel. Shaughnessy himself slouched in the front pew, drinking from a cheap bottle of wine – the Communion wine no doubt – and between gulps filching sacred hosts, several at a time, from a chalice on his knee, cramming them into his mouth like crisps.

  More shocking still, Father Pat was also present.

  Heck didn’t spot his uncle straight away, because they entered the church to the right of the altar, and his attention was only drawn belatedly to the rear of this by a series of ape-like sniggers. The first thing he saw when he glanced back there was the weirdo who liked staring at people, Eyeball. He sat cross-legged on one of the altar servers’ stools, like a demented gargoyle. Again, bizarrely, he was bare-chested, having stripped to the waist. In his right hand he held a broken beer bottle, and in his left something Heck couldn’t quite identify – mainly because he was distracted by the sight of his uncle, who was also stripped to the waist, and now stretched upright against one of the legs of the scaffolding, his hands lashed to the crossbar above his head with rope.

  Father Pat had been cut repeatedly, bloody lacerations zigzagging across his pale, bony torso. He was grey in the face, his eyelids closed.

  ‘YOU FUCKING MANIACS!’ Heck bellowed, his voice thundering down the nave.

  Surprised, several of the gang immediately drew pistols and cocked them. Langton jammed his Beretta into the side of Heck’s head and wrapped a brawny arm around his chest.

  Shaughnessy meanwhile looked delighted by the intrusion.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ he said. ‘If our pa
rty isn’t complete. Detective Heckenburg.’

  ‘He’d better still be alive, Shaughnessy.’

  ‘We keep checking to find out.’ Shaughnessy nodded at Eyeball, who reached out with his left hand. Heck now recognised the vinegar bottle they’d used with their fish and chips in the presbytery only two days ago. Brown fluid splashed over the gaping wounds. Father Pat twisted in agony, eyelids fluttering.

  Heck lurched forward, but again was hauled back. Langton forced him across the front aisle, and shoved him up against the pews.

  ‘Shaughnessy, you’re off your bleeding rocker!’ Heck spat. ‘Who do you think you are – the Mexican mafia? You’re not just gonna walk away from something like this.’

  ‘Oh?’ Shaughnessy sidled out of the pew and strolled down the aisle, still drinking wine and eating bread as if he was on a picnic. ‘And who’s gonna stop us?’

  Heck was about to blurt out that there were more cops on the way, but he resisted – why give them a heads-up? As far as Shaughnessy knew, Heck was here on a family visit. The hoodlum would probably be in no rush to do whatever he was planning – and that might just save them.

  But it wouldn’t be easy.

  Heck gazed at his uncle, agonised by the old man’s pain. The priest hung there like a tortured martyr, his wounded flesh pale as ash, his dark trousers slick with blood. Frantic thoughts raced through Heck’s head: exsanguination, shock, infection … the ridiculous notion that any of these would matter, because neither he nor the priest was likely to be spared. In which case he had no option but to try and keep the bastards talking, and buy themselves as much time as possible.

  ‘Some crimes are too unforgivable, mate,’ he told his tormentor, who now stood directly in front of him.

  Shaughnessy smirked as he placed the chalice and bottle down on the altar rail’s marble top. ‘And so what happens next? Righteous fire comes down from Heaven?’

  ‘You never know.’

  ‘But I do know.’ Shaughnessy drew on a pair of heavy duty gloves; thick leather, with extra padding on the knuckles. ‘There will be payback here tonight … but strictly of the mundane variety.’

  Heck said nothing.

  Shaughnessy flexed his hands inside the gloves. The padded leather creaked.

  ‘We were just discussing that, as a matter of fact,’ he said. ‘Your uncle and me. I suddenly had this overwhelming desire to know where I could find you. Why do you think that was, detective? Something to do with this afternoon, maybe? When you –’

  BANG!

  The left hook that caught Heck in the face was ferocious in its power. His head rang.

  ‘– royally overstepped the mark?’

  BANG!

  A right hook this time.

  ‘You really thought I was going to be your bitch?’

  BANG!

  An uppercut.

  Heck slumped in Langton’s grasp, head hung low, blood streaming from his nose and mouth.

  Shaughnessy leaned down alongside him. ‘You seriously thought you were going to play your two-bit games with me?’ He placed a finger under Heck’s chin and levered his face upright. ‘You’re looking puzzled. Hmm …’ He stepped back. ‘I suppose you’re wondering how I knew Father Pat here was your uncle. Well, guess what? It took five minutes. You see, our lads weren’t always bad uns. Azzy, let’s be having you, son.’

  Heck’s scrambled senses tumbled back into place and he managed to straighten up, just as another of Shaughnessy’s creatures came ambling along the aisle. This one looked older than the others. He was tall but overweight, with long ratty hair, a grizzled chin and sunken eyes. He wore a dirty old Wrangler jacket over a stained white T-shirt, and leaned a sawn-off pump shotgun over one shoulder.

  ‘Azzy here used to be an altar boy,’ Shaughnessy said. ‘Doesn’t look the part now, does he? People change though. I think he’d got to a state where he’d even forgotten what the inside of a church looked like. And then that business today in the Britannia. He’s watching from the corner, you see … watches you come in, hears your name … gets some idea there was once a priest here in the Old Town who had a nephew called Heckenburg. A young rugby player, bit of a schoolboy superstar. Well … wasn’t hard after that. We went through the phonebook. Rang around the local churches. Not many left, are there? You Catholics are a dying breed, I’m sorry to say. Each time we asked if we could speak to Detective Heckenburg. No dice the first couple. No one knew what we were talking about. But then, when we rang St Nat’s presbytery, we got this mouthy Irish cow, who seemed irritated we’d rung. Think she thought we were coppers too. Anyway, she says she doesn’t know where you are but that your uncle’s around somewhere and she’ll ask him. We say, “Nah, it doesn’t matter. We’ll catch you later.” And look …’

  BANG!

  Another monstrous right hook. Heck was knocked dizzy again.

  ‘… we have done.’

  BANG!

  A stinger to the nose. Heck felt the cartilage crack, but somehow kept his feet.

  ‘Where’s the fucking Makarov?’ Shaughnessy asked. He reached under his own jacket, and pulled out a different pistol, a Ruger semi-automatic, its grip encrusted with gold, jewellery and other ridiculous bling. ‘I mean, as you can see, I’ve got my own piece, my own pride and joy … but I have a vested interest in the other one too.’

  Heck spat more blood. ‘Somewhere you’ll never find it. Somewhere no one’ll find it.’

  ‘Oh, dear … that’s no good.’ Shaughnessy tucked his gun out of sight, turned and walked away. ‘Have your share, Benny. You’re owed it.’

  Yet another of his crew stepped forward. Heck spotted the bruised and swollen face of Stardust, who grinned dementedly as he swept in with several vicious punches of his own: body, head, body again. Fleetingly Heck was nowhere; all strength and awareness hammered out of him. When the aisle’s tiled floor hit the side of the head, he realised he was lying curled at their feet. Stardust and Langton stood one to either side, grinning as they kicked his face and ribs.

  ‘You enjoying this, old man?’ Shaughnessy shouted up to Father Pat. ‘Apparently this pig’s your nephew, yeah? Well, the sad truth is we’re having to do this because you lot didn’t. You know, spare the rod spoil the kid and all that.’ He turned back. ‘OK, that’ll do.’

  They hoisted Heck back to his feet. His legs half-buckled.

  ‘I’ll ask you one more time,’ Shaughnessy said, drawing his gloves off. ‘Where’s that Makarov pistol that you so casually boasted you were going to frame me with?’

  Heck shook his head feebly. The offending weapon sat in the glove compartment of his Megane, of course, which at present was out of their reach. But the moment he told them its true location, it was all over for him and his uncle.

  Shaughnessy glanced at Eyeball, who swung round with his broken bottle and scored another deep gash across the priest’s ribs. Father Pat rolled his head in agony, mewling aloud when more vinegar was poured onto the open wound. Eyeball imitated him, pulling weird monkey faces as he vocalised dramatic oohs and aahs.

  ‘Sure you don’t want to tell me?’ Shaughnessy wondered.

  Heck looked groggily up. ‘I was wrong about one thing, Lee … you and the Britannia Boys are no bunch of tiddlers. You’re as bad as they come.’

  Shaughnessy nodded approvingly as he picked the chalice up and crammed more wafers into his mouth. ‘Well, if recognition from an expert like you is all we get out of this, it’s been worth it just for that.’ He turned to Langton. ‘How much blood do you reckon’s left in that old coot, Marve?’

  ‘Couple more cuts should do it,’ Langton said.

  Shaughnessy sighed. ‘Bad news, that, detective. You see, we don’t really need your uncle as much as we need you. And well, we have to start getting serious at some point …’

  But Heck was no longer listening. His attention had been captured by the chalice in Shaughnessy’s hand. A goblet of polished gold and silver, it reflected various exaggerated images: the firelight fr
om the candles, the distorted shapes of the gang members – and now a hulking black form emerging from behind the choir screens at the very back of the altar.

  ‘Sorry.’ Shaughnessy held the chalice up, scraped out the last two Communion hosts and gulped them down. ‘Will this send me to Hell?’

  ‘No.’ Heck glanced across the altar. ‘But he may.’

  Their heads turned.

  The Incinerator stood there: char-black armour and helmet, new-filled tank strapped in place, flamethrower levelled, finger tightening on the trigger.

  Chapter 43

  ‘What now, Gary?’ Gemma asked, not disguising her irritation that this latest phone-call was from one of her own observation posts rather than from Katie Hayes. She was also testy because it was an exhausting struggle working her way back around the exterior of the vehicle pound on foot; rain still hammered unceasingly down, and she was ploughing through quagmire upon quagmire.

  ‘Ma’am, there’s movement in the compound,’ Quinnell said breathlessly. ‘Difficult to be sure in all this crap … but it looks like one of the vehicles is pulling out. And it’s drawing a caravan.’

  Gemma stopped in her tracks, pulling her hood back despite the rain. ‘Is it Sagan?’

  ‘Dunno, do I?’ He sounded frustrated. ‘We haven’t had a close look yet.’

  Gemma had just completed a half-circuit of the vehicle pound, which was no mean feat in these conditions, given that its overall diameter was probably about a mile and a half. The purpose had been to check on her various OPs, most of whose personnel, lying out in the muddy ditches or under wet bushes, were naturally having a miserable time of it, and if possible to free some of them up so they could head back into town and join the forces converging on St Nathaniel’s. She’d now decided that she was going down there. But if Sagan was on the move, that changed everything.