by James Oswald
‘What the fuck’s in that building?’ were his first words on seeing the detective inspector approach.
‘It should’ve been empty. Just a few old bits of furniture.’
‘Could’ve fooled me.’ The fireman winced as another explosion crumpled in the night air. ‘It’s like bloody Greek fire. The more water we pour in, the hotter it gets. I’ve seen munitions dumps burn more peacefully.’
‘We’re going to have to let it burn,’ McLean said. ‘It can’t go any further. Just fields out there.’
‘SIO’s not going to be happy we let his crime scene burn.’
‘I’m SIO. And believe me, nothing I might find in there’s worth risking a life for.’
‘That’s all I needed to hear.’ The fire officer turned away. Bellowed an order and his men started to pull back from the flames. McLean scanned the area, using his hands as best he could to shield his face and eyes from the scorching heat. Most of the police cars had gone now, and all the ambulances. Only fire engines ringed the remains of the hospital. Fire engines and one other car.
It was parked right up close to the steps leading to the front door. He’d not noticed it before, but he recognized it as soon as he saw it. A black Range Rover with tinted windows. How it hadn’t melted, or exploded, in the heat, he had no idea.
‘That car.’ McLean grabbed the chief fire officer by the arm, hauled him round and pointed. ‘Anyone check it out?’
‘Empty. Locked. We broke a window just to be sure.’
‘What about the driver?’
‘If he’s in there,’ the chief fire officer pointed at the blaze, ‘he’s dead. I’m not risking my men to go fetch a corpse.’
‘Not going to ask you to. Any chance we can get a line on the car and drag it away, though?’
The chief fire officer gave him a world-weary look. ‘See what I can do. Wait here.’
He hurried off, called over a couple of firemen. A brief conversation, during which faces turned towards him with glowering expressions made even worse by the hellish firelight. Another loud explosion rocked the night, and McLean was about to shout out to them not to bother, but then a heavily suited fireman appeared with a loop of rope over his shoulder. In moments he had run to the Range Rover, uncoiling the rope as he went. He looped it around the towhook on the back of the vehicle and then scurried back to the relative safety of a nearby fire engine. Moments later, the rope went taut, juddering slightly as it took the strain. The Range Rover stayed put, its tyres melted to the tarmac, and McLean was convinced the rope was going to snap. Then it slowly slid backwards, smears of sticky black rubber leaving lines on the ground as it was pulled away. Another explosion and a tongue of flame spat out, as if something in the building were trying to stop it leaving. Paintwork singed and the windscreen cracked, but inch by inch, then foot by foot, the car was pulled back from the fire.
McLean waited until it was well clear of the flames before approaching. He was fairly certain it was the Range Rover he thought it was, although the way the paint had blistered made it hard to be sure even what colour it was.
‘I’d keep well back if I were you.’ The chief fire officer stopped McLean in his tracks. ‘Thing’s leaking petrol. Could go up any time. Too hot to touch, too.’
Now that he’d mentioned it, McLean could smell the fuel and feel the heat. ‘Should be safe enough there. Pull your men back.’ He looked around for the brave man who’d attached the rope in the first place. ‘And thanks. You’d’ve been well within your rights to tell me to piss off, asking you to do that.’
The chief fire officer grinned, slapped McLean on the back. ‘Nah. You asked nicely. Now let’s get back a ways and let this thing burn itself out.’
His Alfa was parked nearby, the conflagration reflected in its windscreen and headlights. Too close for comfort now he’d seen what had happened to the Range Rover. McLean was walking towards it when an unseen hand picked him up, its fingers as hot as the sun. It threw him forward as if he were no heavier than a straw doll, then slammed him hard into the ground. One hand trapped in his pocket, he struggled to breathe, rolled over to see a huge mess of flame and smoke claw its way up into the night sky. In his confusion it looked like some terrifying beast, reaching out with flaming hands to grab him. There was a noise like a jet plane taking off right beside him, a horrible crunching of metal, smashing of glass. Then the gentle patter as a thousand thousand shards of shrapnel rained down on the heat-softened earth.
He curled up on the ground like a frightened child as the sounds slowly filtered back through his fractured hearing. The blast furnace intensity of the blaze settled down into a more natural roar as the fire slowly consumed the remains of the hospital. Finally, when the last of the glass had finished falling from the sky, he rolled over and looked up on a scene that could have been a war zone.
A group of firemen were huddled in the lee of a fire engine, sheltered from the blast that had melted its tyres and welded it to the tarmac. Further away from what was left of the building, the Range Rover stood like some dark totem, steaming gently in the glow. Other firemen were stirring, picking themselves up from where the explosion had thrown them, or rolling on to their backs and groaning at the sky. As McLean looked around, he couldn’t see anyone not moving, nor were there screams of agony. He hoped against reason that no one had been badly injured. There was no such hope for the hospital.
Its frontage was gone, the rock pulverized by the explosion or collapsed in on itself. Flames still ripped through the mess, urged on by their success so far in devouring all they touched. It wasn’t natural, that fire. Or was it just his head swimming?
Slowly, arms and legs complaining all the while, he picked himself up, trying not to sway as his balance came back in random waves. His hand was still clasped around his key fob, and without thinking McLean pushed the unlock button.
Nothing happened. When he turned around he could see why.
The heavy stone door lintel, still carved with the Weatherly family crest, lay across the Alfa’s ruined roof. It had smashed in the windscreen, crumpled the bonnet and broken the suspension so that the wheels leaned out at an uncomfortable angle. The Alfa stared at him through broken eyes, dead and reproachful. A faithful hound to the last, he’d barely had it six months.
‘Looks like you’re going to need a new car.’
McLean turned slowly to face the chief fire officer. That he had come up to see what had happened was a good sign. It suggested there were no serious injuries or fatalities requiring his attention.
‘Reckon I’ll get a tank. That’s the second one’s had something dropped on it from a height.’
‘Just as well you weren’t in it, really.’
‘Just as well,’ McLean echoed, and a horrible certainty settled on him. He wasn’t really thinking straight, could feel the shock dulling his senses. He shook his head to try to clear it as he set off in the direction of the still-smoking Range Rover, all too aware that to do so was to come closer to those unnatural flames.
‘Where the fuck do you think you’re going?’ The chief fire officer bustled up behind him, catching hold of McLean just as he was reaching out to open the back. The smell of fuel was everywhere, hot metal pinging and clicking as it cooled.
‘I need to open this.’ McLean turned the back of his hand to the car, judging whether to touch it would burn. It was cooler than it looked, so he chanced grabbing the handle. Nothing happened.
‘Told you it was locked, didn’t I?’
‘I need to get it open. Can we break the window?’
The chief fire officer looked at him like he was mad, shook his head, then pulled a small pry-bar out of his belt. ‘I’ve got a better idea.’ He jammed the bar under the back door and wiggled it around a bit. Inside, something cracked and the lock popped. McLean pulled up the door and peered inside. It was dark at first, shadow cast by the raging inferno beyond. It didn’t take long for his eyes to adjust, and then the chief fire officer shone a torch inside as wel
l.
‘Bloody hell!’
The Range Rover had a large boot, lined with expensive pile carpet like the rest of the car. It had been covered up with black plastic bin liners in an attempt to keep it clean. On top of them, a shovel covered in mud very much the same colour and texture as that found just around the side of the building sat on top of a neatly folded Army-issue body bag. McLean shoved a hand into his pocket and brought out his phone. The screen had a crack in it, but still lit up. A name, a number. A horrible cold sensation in the pit of his gut.
‘No one touches this until forensics get here.’ He scanned around the area, searching for a squad car. There was nothing, and no time. ‘And I need a vehicle. Now.’
58
As a little boy, McLean had always wanted to ride in a fire engine with the sirens blaring and the blue lights flashing. Sat between a couple of tired and sweaty firemen, both eyeing him with a mixture of animosity and wary fear, it wasn’t quite as romantic as he’d imagined. They made good time back to the city, aided by the late hour. Soon, however, the limitations of such a large vehicle became apparent as they navigated the ever-narrowing streets of Sciennes. Eventually McLean leaned forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder.
‘Just drop me here. I’ll walk.’
‘You sure, sir?’ He could see the relief in the man’s eyes.
‘Sure. It’s not far. Probably quicker on foot and we wouldn’t want to panic anyone, aye?’
McLean jumped down from the warmth of the cab into the cold night, his feet slipping slightly on the icy pavement. He didn’t wait for the fire engine to back up and head home, took himself as fast as he could to his destination.
Ten years earlier, Grumpy Bob had shared a small but pleasant detached house in Colinton with Mrs Bob. One too many late nights, or maybe just being married to someone like Bob Laird for a quarter of a century, had proved too much for Muriel, and she’d finally told him to leave. After they’d sold up and split the proceeds, Grumpy Bob could have afforded something much better than his tiny one-bedroomed flat in the heart of the student city, but it was close enough to the station and an easy walk to all his favourite pubs. He didn’t spend much time there anyway. Did most of his sleeping on the job.
The front door to the tenement was open, stopped from fully locking by the expert positioning of a halfbrick. It brought back bittersweet memories. McLean climbed the stairs silently, ears straining for any sound that might have been out of place. He wasn’t sure why he was here, really. Unless he was ready to embrace the madness.
Quiet music played through the front door to Grumpy Bob’s flat. That was never a good sign; he only played music when he was in a melancholy mood, and that usually meant whisky had been imbibed. McLean knocked on the door, then listened for any sign of movement within. Nothing but the music, warbling away.
He’d known Grumpy Bob going on fifteen years now, maybe more. Many were the times the old sergeant had ended up sleeping in McLean’s spare room, too drunk or too tired or just not wanting to go home to Muriel. When the divorce had come through, he’d spent six weeks in there before finally getting his own place. McLean hadn’t minded, but he had discovered something about Grumpy Bob’s musical taste, or lack of it. He liked country and western, and a bit of the more accessible classics, particularly if they were reduced to short snippets. Sometimes he’d be caught whistling something incredibly bland from the charts, but mostly he liked to read his paper in silence. The music distorting its way through the door was like nothing McLean would ever have suspected Grumpy Bob of listening to. It was avant-garde, asynchronous, experimental. If he was being honest, it was shit.
He knocked again, all too aware of how loud the knocking sounded in the night-time hallway. ‘You in there, Bob?’ Loud enough to be heard, hopefully not enough to wake the neighbours.
Still no response, and now the music changed, growing noisier and angrier. The wrongness of it all was like a slap in the face. McLean took a step back, feeling the railings press against him. Then he lifted up his leg and kicked the door as hard as he could.
It flew open with a crash that would surely have woken everyone in the street. McLean didn’t care. He scanned the hallway, expecting a bleary-eyed detective sergeant to come rushing from the bedroom in his stripy pyjamas. Instead, his eyes focused on the electrical socket beneath the coat rack. A cable had been plugged in, and it snaked across the narrow hall until it disappeared under the bathroom door.
‘Bob. You in there?’ McLean heard the music rise and it seemed like it wasn’t music any more, but the wailing of a million tortured souls. He reached down and pulled out the plug from its socket at the same time as a startled shout echoed from the bathroom, followed by a loud ‘Fuck!’ and a splash.
Water cascaded under the door, seeping through the floorboards on its way down to the flat below. After a few seconds McLean heard the sounds of something large scrambling out of the bath, then a towel-wrapped and flabby Grumpy Bob appeared. He held an elderly cassette tape machine in one hand, water dripping from the plastic speaker covers. The cable looped out of the back of it, down to the floor and back up to the plug still in McLean’s hand.
‘Tony? What the fuck?’ Grumpy Bob stared at the machine. ‘How did this get in here? I’ve not listened to it in years.’
McLean tried not to smile as the relief flooded through him. ‘Never mind that, Bob. When was the last time you actually took a bath?’
DC Gregg’s nondescript ex-council semi was not far from Grumpy Bob’s flat, which was just as well as neither of them had a car. McLean tried to call her as they walked, but his phone’s cracked screen made it impossible to use. Just that name and number reappearing every time he switched it on. Grumpy Bob had left his own phone behind, which was pretty much par for the course. He spent most of the ten-minute walk muttering about baths and idiots and not being in his right mind. As soon as they arrived at Gregg’s front door, McLean was glad he’d not been able to make contact.
‘Smell that?’
‘Gas, aye. And lots of it.’
‘Got to get the main turned off.’ No question as to where the gas leak would be; there were far too many coincidences already for that. ‘Go see if you can wake someone up. Get on to the gas company.’
Grumpy Bob headed off along the street, putting a sensible distance between Gregg’s house and any spark from someone turning on their light. McLean watched him go, then headed round the back, looking for a way in.
He found a small window open just a crack. Twenty seconds with a pen and it was wide enough to clamber in. He paused only to let his ears adjust to the new silence before easing open the door on to a narrow hallway. The smell of gas was overpowering in here, making his head swim, his eyes water.
Upstairs was worse, as if that were possible. He found the master bedroom, two humps under a duvet, stepped quietly over to the bedside, crouched down beside the sleeping form of his newest detective constable. She slept on her side, covers pulled up around her, head scrunched into a large, soft pillow.
‘Constable Gregg. Sandy.’ His voice sounded odd, coarse and low. His throat tickled, forcing out a cough.
‘You have to wake up now.’ Louder this time, and the constable scrunched up her face.
‘Come on, Sandy.’ This time McLean shook her. She rolled on to her back, opened her eyes.
‘Jesus, fuck!’ She sat bolt upright, revealing rather more than he needed to see. Her hand shot out for the bedside light but McLean grabbed her wrist.
‘It’s me. Tony McLean. You can’t turn on the light.’
Gregg relaxed slightly, pulled her hand away from his grip. He let go, stepping back as she pulled the covers around herself.
‘What … ?’ She sniffed. ‘Gas?’
‘Don’t turn anything on. Got to get out of here.’
Gregg clambered out of bed. Naked as the coming dawn. She grabbed a dressing gown, wrapping it around herself as she hurried to her husband’s side.
‘B
arry.’ She prodded him. ‘C’mon, Barry. Wake up.’
Nothing. ‘Shit.’ She went to the window. Pushed it wide open. Fresh air tumbled in, but it was still hard to breathe for the gas.
‘Upstairs windows. Not alarmed.’
McLean understood. He went into the front room and opened the window. The street was busier now; three squad cars and a van bearing the logo of one of the gas companies. Of Grumpy Bob there was no sign, which either meant he’d found some tea or he was organizing a quiet evacuation. Back in the master bedroom, Gregg was still kneeling beside her husband. She looked up, tears of panic in her eyes.
‘Won’t wake up.’
McLean didn’t waste any time, just pulled the man up over his shoulder, the way they’d taught him all those years ago in fire training.
‘Out.’
Walking downstairs was like sinking into foetid water. The air thickened with gas as they went, and Barry grew heavier with each step. At the bottom, Gregg headed for the front door.
‘Alarmed?’ McLean managed to ask. Gregg turned and stared at him until the implications clicked together.
‘How’d you get in?’
‘Loo.’
She nodded, hurried past. McLean staggered to follow. It seemed the easiest thing in the world just to sink to the ground and fall asleep. Barry was a heavy weight about his shoulders, but he was also an obligation. A life threatened for no good reason but spite.
By the time he reached the window, Gregg was already outside. Faces swam in and out of his vision as McLean passed the comatose Barry out. Hands grabbed at him, voices saying something about urgency? A need to get moving before something. Some time? He couldn’t really be sure, even as he realized he was outside, gulping down breaths of fresh air. Then the hands were all around him, pulling him away, forcing tired legs to walk, run. Car engines roared, wheels spinning as they backed up the road, anxious to get away from something, though he couldn’t immediately remember what. A noise. Was that Grumpy Bob shouting at him? Something about the time, a central heating boiler, a gas main stuck, a leak.
