BURN, BABY, BURN

by Jake Barton

  Burn, Baby, Burn

  by

  Jake Barton

  Copyright 2009 Jake Barton

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed by a newspaper, magazine or journal.

  First Edition

  All Characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  http://jakebarton.wordpress.com

  ~ Prologue ~

  Ramsdon Hall Assessment Centre, Cheshire. 2002.

  Marcus was special. He’d always known it. Even at the age of six when he decided to kill his father. His privileged childhood should have produced a doctor, an academic, perhaps a diplomat. Instead, he killed people for fun.

  Now, his world was one room. Most of the time just a blank and empty wall.

  Like himself.

  He focused on a crack in the plaster – eyes fixed, lips slightly parted, the indiscernible rise and fall of his chest the only clue to his continuing grasp on life. Four hours since his last meal. He possessed no independent means of measuring the passage of time, but a wristwatch would have confirmed the accuracy of his estimate almost to the second. He fixed his eyes in the middle distance, allowing his head to drop ever so slightly forward. He could maintain this level of concentration for as long as it proved necessary.

  He’d been in this room for over two years, biding his time until the doctors washed their hands of him. The rows of softly humming machines with their trailing wires, the bright lights shining into his eyes, all taken away when they moved on to more exotic specimens for their future amusement.

  His only daily contact being his warder, Grimes; a man of no interest.

  He heard a key grate in the lock.

  The heavy steel door swung open. Grimes lumbered through the entrance, key ring bouncing off the ridges of fat surrounding his waist. The single bed, metal table and revolving chair were bolted to the floor – but Grimes still managed to bang his hip on the table as he moved into the room, bringing with him a sour melange of rancid sweat and cheap tobacco. The odour always lingered long after his departure.

  "You can come in now," Grimes called out. Two figures entered. Marcus could tell by their leather shoes creaking on the tiled floor.

  Marcus remained motionless, staring at the wall, senses on high alert. This was a change of routine. His last visitors had come more than a month ago; thirty-six days to be precise. Marcus liked to be precise. On that occasion it had been Doctor Rogers and his team of white-coated acolytes.

  They pronounced themselves satisfied with the status of their patient; stable, with no prospect of reversion. Marcus exhibited the proper level of contrition and no longer needed to be regarded as dangerous, but under the conditions of his enforced detention would remain at the facility pending a Home Office decision on his future. That future had arrived. They were taking him to prison.

  "Is this him?" one of the visitors asked. "He’s only a bloody kid."

  Marcus slowly swivelled round in his chair, gazing impassively at the newcomers.

  "Fuck me," the man continued, "Talk about the face of a fucking angel."

  He’s seventeen, and don’t let that pretty-boy face fool you either," Grimes said. "Nasty little bastard."

  Grimes jerked a contemptuous thumb in the direction of the Administrative Centre two floors above. "That lot upstairs, reckon he’s some sort of misguided kid who maybe done wrong, as if it were something out of character. Bloody crap." He narrowed his eyes. "They don’t think to ask me, do they? Oh no, what would I bloody well know about anything? Never mind that I’ve seen him every day for the two years he’s been here. Not just when they come round and he’s on his best behaviour. I know what he’s really like."

  "Does he ever speak?"

  Grimes shook his head. "Hardly ever moves. Just looks at that fucking wall all day." He nodded at Marcus. "Hey, pretty boy. They’ve come to take you away. You’re out of here."

  Marcus didn’t move.

  The second uniformed man moved into Marcus’ line of vision. He looked carefully at Marcus but did not speak. He was slim, almost puny alongside Grimes. The cropped ginger hair, intense pallor and prominent Adam’s apple, only emphasised his lack of stature. His dark blue Prison Service uniform, liberally stained with rain splashes, hung off his narrow shoulders.

  Grimes began to bluster. "Watch yourselves, that’s all I’m saying. Nice as pie he is when the doctors are here, but when they’ve gone, there’s something about the way he looks at you. Gives me the bloody creeps, it does."

  The smaller man snorted. "Don’t worry about us. I think we can cope with a bit of a kid like him. What about his visitor? Hadn’t you better sort that out before we take him out of this fucking holiday camp?"

  Grimes started to speak, apparently thought better of it and left the room, his receding footsteps echoing on the tiles as the uniformed officers exchanged amused glances.

  A minute passed in silence, broken by the reappearance of Grimes in the doorway. He took a step into the room, looking backwards at the open doorway.

  Marcus stiffened, the slight tremor passing unnoticed, as a slim figure squeezed past Grimes’ distended paunch. Fragrant and light of foot. A woman.

  "Leave me." she said in a gravelly tone. Nobody moved. "Leave me," she repeated, commandingly. "You’ve seen the letter - permission for me to see him alone. Doctor Rogers said the patient was no longer even rated as a low-level threat."

  Grimes shrugged. "Can’t do it, sorry. My responsibility, see? Never mind what Doctor Rogers says. He’s in my care. Tell you what; I can stand just over there, by the door. That suit you?"

  The woman nodded. "Thank you. What about them?"

  The two men made their way past her. Marcus could tell by their body language that they disliked the woman’s hectoring tone.

  "We’ll need to have him out of here in an hour," said the larger man to Grimes, clearly speaking for the woman’s benefit, "About time that pretty boy of yours found out how we go about things in a proper nick."

  "Behave yourself, Marcus," Grimes said, transparently eager to follow the prison officers out of the room. "I’ll be right here," he added, "in the doorway." Grimes moved away, banging his hip once more on the table in his rush to leave.

  The woman waited until Grimes had taken up station in the doorway while Marcus looked on impassively. She inched forward to stand beside him, peering closely at his profile.

  "I’d forgotten how young you were," she said. "You would have been no more than fourteen or fifteen when I last saw you. At the trial."

  Marcus raised his eyes to hers. He remembered every detail of the trial, right up to the moment when the judge had sentenced him to be detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure for an unspecified duration.

  "The doctor asked me why I wanted to come here, to see you. What could be gained by it?" Her voice was calm, but a betraying hand shook as she fiddled with a stray tendril of hair.

  "I told him the truth; I need to repair my life. My sister and her two baby girls are dead because of you, and not a day goes by that I don't miss them." A solitary tear trailed down her cheek.

  "At the trial," she continued, her voice shaky but under control. "You looked so young, so innocent, a tiny figure dwarfed by the lawyers. I almost convinced myself there must have been some dreadful mistake. Yet you sat throughout the trial as if the proceedings were an irrelevance; right up to the moment the verdict was announced. I was watching you then. You terrified me. Your eyes were empty pools, the deadest eyes I’d ever seen."

  S
he breathed deeply, exhaling slowly, as if cleansing herself of the past.

  Marcus’s eyes held hers. He smiled at her, briefly glancing at the doorway where Grimes leaned against the corridor wall, then rose to his feet with an easy grace. Raising a hand he touched her tear-stained cheek.

  "Don’t cry," he said.

  Slim fingers enclosed her wrist, drawing her closer. She caught her breath as he touched her hair, fingers closing on a metal hairgrip; deftly slipping it into his hand. The woman winced as his fingers tightened on her wrist. Slowly and deliberately, he moved the hairgrip towards her eyes. She stared at it in horror, unable to move.

  Grimes clearing his throat in the corridor interrupted the spell. Grasping his hand firmly in her own she forcefully yanked the tiny metal grip away from her face. The point pierced the skin of his forearm, slicing a shallow groove into his flesh. Ignoring the blood escaping from the wound he leaned right into her, almost touching. "How they screamed, those little pretties, oh yes, for such a long time," he whispered, smiling as she shrank from his voice. She broke away, frantically sucking air.

  "I’ll find you," Marcus hissed, his voice urgent and compelling. "They’ll have to let me out eventually. I’ll be a model prisoner who has seen the error of his childish ways. Then I’ll come for you."

  ~ Chapter 1 ~

  "When they put me away…it was nothing. When I was freed, I was five times richer, a hundred times more intelligent and a thousand times more dangerous."

  Nicholas van Hoogstraten, property developer and once Britain’s youngest millionaire, speaking in the 1960s following his four-year prison sentence for ordering a grenade attack on the home of a businessman whom he claimed had refused to pay a debt.

  Wirral, Merseyside. 1:15 am. 2010.

  Rain fell steadily on the broad leaves of a tree in the adjoining garden, like the relentless footsteps of an army of marching warriors, but Marcus was impervious to the elements. Glancing upwards at the slate roof, glistening with languorous black slickness, he allowed himself the luxury of a wry smile.

  The roof and solid stone walls might protect the occupants from the wind and rain, but they wouldn’t protect them from him. He savoured these moments, watching while unobserved. Hiding in the dark, making his plans, he was totally absorbed in his task. He devoted countless hours to the study of a target’s routine and in planning his escape routes, accumulating the essential information he needed.

  The pale light from a gibbous moon on the rise revealed a bedraggled kitten, stranded under a parked car, too fearful to venture out, but shivering with the bitter chill of the night air. Marcus gave it no more than a glance. The shop doorway where he stood was deep-set, the yellow glow of street lighting struggling to probe its inner recesses.

  Opposite, a large square house stood mainly dark and empty, just one lit window held his attention. Yet, even at a time of maximum concentration, his defence systems were fully operational. Was anyone watching him? Watching the watcher?

  Each passing car, a single scurrying pedestrian, an area of dark shadow behind a bus shelter, each evaluated, their risk potential carefully considered – instinctively, without any conscious effort on his part. This talent for self-preservation was an integral part of his life, for he was at risk, at every moment of every day. He had no fear of imprisonment; he had planned too well to make another mistake, such concern was not a factor. What he feared was discovery.

  Discovery would prevent him from his work, from what he had to do. As a young man, he’d survived many years in prison, seizing every opportunity. Freedom to study, honing his already formidable intellect was only a small part of his continuing education.

  Surrounded by dangerous men, Marcus refined his skills, ensuring he was both respected and feared by his fellow prisoners while representing himself to those in authority as a contrite and respectable member of society.

  The routine of prison life brought a kind of perverse satisfaction. He’d slept like a child, surrounded by the myriad sounds confined men make at night. The clipping of steel-tipped shoes along interminable corridors as the screws made their rounds, the screech of metal on metal, and the slap of plastic flip-flops on polished floors. To other men, prison was bedlam where peace was an impossibility, but Marcus had found it soothing. Sleep now was more difficult. Brain racing he’d lie awake for hours, planning his moves, sharpening his levels of hatred.

  Four months ago, he left prison without a backward glance. He’d learnt from his experience and learnt well. He put behind him the mistakes of childhood. Planning was the key. Planning ensures freedom. Freedom to escape when threatened and freedom to continue doing what he enjoyed more than anything.

  Freedom to kill.

  From the very first, his murders had gone unknown and undetected; only he and his victim aware that a life was extinguished. Murder - the ultimate thrill – exquisite ecstasy. How he had missed it.

  In the bitter chill of the night, his body almost closed down, like a bear in hibernation. Impervious to the cold or the cramped surroundings, his mind remained scalpel-sharp. Breathing softly, heart beating almost imperceptibly, he would be ready, the instant his senses detected any change in the immediate surroundings.

  Marcus returned to full alert as a shaft of light came from a small window. "Bathroom," he murmured, the frosted glass confirmed this. A figure materialised, identifiable by its size as an adult male, but blurred by the swirls and bobbles in the glass. The face came closer to look out, but the watcher knew that all would be dark beyond the window. The shadow resembled one of those camera-obscured faces shown on television, when the person does not wish to be identified.

  Another slim finger of light, further along from the bathroom, pierced the gloom, prompting a fierce intake of breath and a slight shift of his position. Through the partially drawn curtains, the girl was invisible to everyone but himself. She examined her body in the mirror, gently caressing breasts, as tenderly as any lover. The girl behaved naturally without any false posing, opening herself up for him.

  The time of sharing, rich and satisfying, was no less poignant for being one-sided. The subject of his vigil remained secure, with no reason for fear, no knowledge of the patient, wary, calculating watcher, or of any prospect of her impending part in their singular relationship.

  *****

  Marcus watched the girl. Celine. She didn’t know he was there. She was undoubtedly cold – he could see goose-bumps on her soft naked skin. Unable to move beyond the fixed boundaries imposed by the restraints which held her captive, exercise was difficult.

  He’d been away since the first rays of watery sunlight pierced the woodland gloom. The small window gave no hint of the sun’s movements. Marcus knew the time down to the last second but she wouldn’t know. All she would know was that he’d been gone a long time.

  She never heard him approach. One minute she was alone; the next he was there. Dripping water from his naked body, he stood in front of her, reaching out to check the security of her shackles.

  "I’m cold," she stammered. Marcus stood over her, his face expressionless.

  *****

  The steady rain of an hour earlier had died away; replaced by sunshine which illuminated the imposing iron gates set in an immense stretch of high stone wall.

  The sky, the shade of blue which great painters yearn to immortalise on canvas, stretched like a great bale of cloth tight over the roof of the world, appearing close enough to reach out and touch. Standing outside the gates, and waiting with her customary lack of patience, Donna was beginning to regret wearing a heavy duffel coat now the weather had so radically improved. It had been one of those mornings, and she’d only been out of bed two hours.

  She thought back to the start of the day and shuddered at the memory. Her father’s body hanging, his eyes bulging, staring straight at her, blood vessels cracked. No matter that it was only a dream; no matter that it happened two years’ ago. No matter that it wasn’t even a new dream, that it was old and all too fa
miliar. She’d woken, screaming, throwing the strangling bedclothes away, her heart thudding, the image flashing in front of her eyes, even when she forced them wide open. Peg, her grandmother, rushed in and slapped her face. Tough love, she called it. The doctors reassured her she was much better now than she used to be: she only had the dream once or twice a month. They told her the memories would fade with time. She was still waiting.

  Donna relived the dream, like a scab she couldn’t help picking. She had just turned eighteen, waiting nervously for the results of her A-levels. She arrived home late after a storming row with her boyfriend. He wanted them to share a flat; she wanted something else. She didn’t know what it was, but setting up house with Lee wasn’t it. On the long walk home, Donna worked out a compromise: take a gap year, do some travelling perhaps, and keep the option of going to university next year.

  Lee wasn’t part of the plan. She needed to talk it over with her Dad, and she was pleased to see the lights burning brightly as she turned into the drive. Donna knew he wouldn’t stop her doing what she wanted to do. She didn’t remember her mother, but her Dad had always been there for her.

  Donna found his body in the stairwell, hanging from a length of cheap clothesline, face blackened and swollen, tongue protruding, eyes bulging.

  Donna had been in therapy for over a year – screw-down furniture, no hard surfaces and a permanently dry mouth from the tablets. One day meandered its way seamlessly into another – Tuesday became Wednesday without any discernible sign to mark its passing. Like a drunk on a bender where time and space ceased to have any meaning.

  Donna closed a door on memories. Put the morbid thoughts behind her and moved on. Tried to move on. The trouble with doors in the mind is they don’t stay closed for long, always liable to swing open without warning.