BURN, BABY, BURN

by Jake Barton

  "Bide your time," Dexter said. "We’ll get there. No sense in rushing him. If you want to be useful, you can go and get another Guinness in and one for yourself." This time Donna waited for him to reach into his wallet for the money. If she was going to be drinks waiter, Dexter could at least pay the bill.

  By the time she got back from the bar, Harpo was wiping tears from his eyes and going on about the good old days. It was always like this with Dexter. Donna wondered how he and the likes of Harpo ever got round to chasing villains. She knew she wasn’t being entirely fair. Dexter was good at the job. There must be fifty coppers in here tonight and every one of them would have nothing but respect for Dexter.

  Harpo, on the other hand was no high flyer. Dexter had explained, on the way in, the man had one precious quality. He remembered every crime that had ever been committed on his patch and could recall all those little obscure facts that may not have been written down at the time.

  "What he doesn’t know about this Division isn’t worth knowing," Dexter had said.

  "Tell me about a fire," Dexter said, getting to the point at last. "Heswall, eleven or twelve years back. Two little kiddies."

  Harpo frowned, sipping from his fresh pint with an appreciative nod in Donna’s direction. Good drinks waiters are hard to find.

  "Bad business," Harpo said. "Mother and two girls it was, about four or five. A neighbour tried his best, raised the alarm. The mother could have got out, but went back trying to save her kids, then the roof collapsed and there was nothing anyone could do after that. Fire brigade thought it accidental at first, until they found a home-made fire-bomb in the basement."

  Donna gasped in horror and Dexter banged one fist on the table. "I remember now," he said.

  "We caught a lad for it. Hiding in the bushes, he was." Harpo’s speech came in short sentences, allowing for frequent sips at his pint. "Only a bloody kid himself. Thirteen, I think. He knew the mother. She was his teacher. Bloody awful business. The lad went down for it. His brief pleaded temporary insanity, but the lad went down. Her Majesty’s pleasure. I saw him once."

  Dexter looked up, surprised.

  "I’d got a case in another Court and went in for a look at him while I was there. Chester Crown Court. He just stood there, never said a word. It was the day the Coroner was giving evidence. All about how the kids had died. No smoke in their lungs so they hadn’t suffocated. Literally burnt to death. Do you know what the little bastard did when he heard the evidence?" He was looking at Donna who shook her head, eyes wide.

  "He laughed, he bloody well laughed. I remember his brief using that as evidence of insanity. The jury found him guilty, but the Judge sent him for psychiatric tests. Secure unit, of course. He was locked up, but it’s not enough, is it? I know they say you shouldn’t send kids to Broadmoor, but that’s thinking about the offender, not the victims. The parents, they won’t get over that, not ever. But, once the bloody do-gooders started agitating about how young that Marcus Green was and how he’d learnt his lesson, it was only a matter of time before they let him out."

  "They released him?" Donna was horrified.

  "Early on this year. Skipped out on his probation. Never turned up as far as I know. Not around here anyway."

  Dexter said grimly, "If he turns up, let me know, will you?"

  "No problem. What’s your interest, Merlin? Long time ago all this stuff."

  Donna held her breath, but needn’t have worried. Dexter was a pro. If the client said no police, then no police it would be.

  "Nothing desperate. We’re working on something just round the corner from the house where the fire happened. I thought there was something about the place, but just couldn’t bring it to mind."

  "Oh well, anything else you want, just ask."

  Dexter shook his head. "No, that’s all right, mate," he said. "It was just at the back of my mind that’s all. Nothing to do with what I’m working on. Bloody Hell, I don’t get stuff like that any more. Lost dogs is more my sort of thing now."

  Harpo nodded and started another story involving Dexter and a gang of lorry thieves that threatened to go on forever. Donna yawned. It looked like it was going to be a long night.

  *****

  Marcus awoke. The moment his eyes opened he swung his legs to the side and rose from the simple mattress, laid directly on the unpolished wooden floor. Rising to the tips of his toes he stretched, like a cat, arching his back and rolling his neck from side to side to iron out any stiffness. For the next half hour he put himself through a punishing regime of exercises until his naked body gleamed with sweat.

  Slicking back his hair in front of a small wall-mounted mirror he left the room and padded silently along a narrow corridor. The next room was open to his gaze, the door having been removed. The metal-framed bed, the only furniture, was fastened securely to the wall. The girl lay on her back, motionless on top of the mattress. There were no coverings on her and he noted the small raised bumps on her skin, testament to the chill in the air. Her small breasts were reddened and tender and her slightly parted thighs imparted an air of innocence.

  He turned and walked away, leaving the cabin behind him. The lake surface alternated between sparkling glass, where the moonlight caught it, to deep gloom in the shadows. Perfectly flat with no raised waves or discernible currents, it just lay there, placid and inscrutable.

  The air drifted through the trees with the hot rancid breath of an impending storm as Marcus prowled restlessly through the wooded glades of his island retreat, breathing in the night air. His eyes were pools of splintered quartz, reflecting not a single element of humanity. The blazing furnace of rage that burned unchecked inside his head would never be revealed to the world at large, constrained by his inflexible will.

  The naked girl asleep on the mattress in the cabin behind him was bait, nothing more. He had no interest in her other than as a means to attaining his goal. Her vacuous life would have ended by now if he did not have need of her and her continued existence was only peripheral to his real target.

  Grinding his teeth, and carrying a heavy water-soaked log over each shoulder, he sprinted up the steep slope leading from the lakeshore, his naked body gleaming in the moonlight.

  Sweating profusely, he turned at the crest of the hill and jogged down to the shore where he dropped the logs and dived into the icy water, swimming a hundred yards into the lake before returning to the shore and collecting the logs to repeat the exercise.

  This punishing routine was the key to his superb fitness and had been a daily ritual for the past three months. This extra nocturnal session had an air of desperation about it, almost as if he were determined to push himself beyond the levels of sanity.

  Exhausted, he returned to the cabin. He made no sound, but some primeval instinct alerted her to his presence – perhaps a throwback to the days when a nearby predator spelled imminent danger. Thinking this he smiled at the appropriateness of her reaction.

  The girl stared blankly at him, her face completely devoid of expression. Marcus disregarded her completely as he walked towards the bed. He reached down and replaced the empty bottles at the side of the bed with clear plastic containers of fresh water.

  Leaving the room briefly, he returned after a few moments with a plastic bag of fruit that he placed alongside the water bottles. He sat on the edge of the bed.

  Celine shuffled away, towards the wall, but he did not touch her. Reflective in his mood, he stroked the thin silver line of a scar on his right forearm. Slightly raised, smooth and slender, it stood out against his tan, always more noticeable in summer.

  The scar, itself, was nothing, an irrelevance. With no connection to nerve endings it caused him no pain. But, it served a purpose to remind him of the days before he gained absolute control. No more unplanned impulses.

  He could no more surrender control than forget to take his next breath. Weaker men succumbed to alcohol or drugs, but Marcus would never contemplate losing the power to directly influence the world about
him. Without this power he would be nothing.

  *****

  Marcus knew Celine was aware of his naked figure seated alongside her on the bed. He had seen her risk a glance in his direction, he registered the terror on her face. He was awake, but his mind roamed elsewhere.

  He dreamed of flames, licking softly at the exposed flesh of two young girls. Their screams were clearly audible from his position in the shrubbery. Another memory came to mind and he smiled, brilliant white teeth flashing in the gloom. A thought occurred to him. He could share his pleasures with the girl; she was a cousin to those two, after all. Surely she would appreciate his gift, this was no time to be selfish.

  "I was six when I decided to kill my father." His voice, low and faint, startled her. Marcus knew she had thought he had forgotten about her. She inched further away.

  "He showed no signs of ill health, my father, and so killing him was the only possible solution," Marcus continued. "I had reached the end of my tether as far as he was concerned. His efforts to mould me in his image appalled me. Why would I want to be like him?"

  "I don’t understand. Why are you telling me this?"

  "He was professor of mathematics at the university," Marcus continued, disregarding her question. "He thought he knew everything. My mother, she was different. I must have been more intelligent than my mother while I was still suckling at her disgusting breasts."

  Celine turned aside her head so she no longer looked at him. Marcus reached across her body and grasped her chin, turning her to face him once again. He looked into her eyes, seeking out her soul.

  "I’m just reporting facts accurately. My parents, they were not pleasant at all. I can remember that quite clearly. I want to tell you everything. You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?"

  Celine screamed as his hand stroked her shoulder.

  He smiled. "Scream all you like. You must know by now, there’s nobody around to hear you."

  "You bastard, you sick fucker, let me go."

  "It was quite easy," Marcus continued, disregarding her again, "Much easier than I thought it would be." He paused, looking through her. "The secret is in the planning. I found a disused well in the field behind our house. Our house was in the country, no close neighbours, nobody to meddle in my affairs."

  He stared impassively over Celine’s shoulder. She turned her face away again but he disregarded it this time as he continued to speak in the same calm voice.

  "The well was covered over with asbestos sheets which were ledged against the sides of the well. It was abandoned for many years and I saw its potential immediately. The edge was flush with the ground, and when I covered it with leaves and grass it was invisible. I’d moved the central asbestos sheet so it was barely resting on the lip of the well.

  "I was pretty sure it would work, but of course, I made a trial run to be certain. We had a dog, a golden retriever named Jake. I took him to the field and led him to the edge of the well. Even though the cover was completely hidden by grass and leaves, Jake was unwilling to walk on it. I had to push him quite hard before he fell in. I watched him swimming around for a while, the water was about thirty feet below the surface, but he didn’t bark, never made a sound. He kept looking up at me, and then just slipped beneath the water. I waited a while longer, but he didn’t surface, so I covered the well over again and went home for lunch.

  "Nobody missed Jake for a while, he often went off for a couple of days at a time, so his disappearance wasn’t even mentioned. My mother put food in his bowl, ready for when he came home. Every time I looked at that bowl it made me smile."

  "You bastard!"

  Marcus waved a finger in mock admonishment, before continuing. "I waited until Sunday morning, when my father had finished washing his car. My mother had gone back to bed – this was not unusual at weekends – so nobody else was around. I asked him to help me look at a badger’s sett in the woods on the far side of the field. He wasn’t keen, but I carried on asking until he agreed to come with me. Nature study was a worthwhile endeavour and would allow him to pontificate and display his knowledge of the habits and lifestyle of the badger family. He was rambling away as we set off across the field, and never noticed the slight creak of the asbestos cover as I walked across the well cover. I had tested it in advance, and knew it would bear me, but under my father’s greater weight the cover bent precariously until it was just barely overhanging the edge of the well."

  "He stood absolutely still, realising his position was unsafe, but not yet aware of the extent of the danger. At first, I was annoyed that the cover had not slid off the edge as I’d planned, when the asbestos sheet suddenly snapped right across the centre and he went straight down. I crawled to the edge of the well and lay full-length on the grass so I could look down into the pit. His pale face was clearly visible, and below the surface I could see his legs moving as he trod water to stay afloat. He shouted up to me. ‘Go and get help. Run across to the farm and fetch Mister Saunders. Tell him to bring a rope. Hurry son‘."

  "I moved away from the well and sat for a while in the sunshine, catching insects and pulling their legs off. When I went back to the well he was still there, his arms splashing. I could see blood on his fingers where he had tried to support himself on the walls, but the bricks were too slimy. I just looked at him and watched his expression change as he realised I didn’t intend to fetch help."

  "I enjoyed looking at him, but he never spoke to me again. I had previously collected a supply of stones on the off chance they would be needed, and I can remember being disappointed with the first two. One missed him completely and he managed to ward off the other, suffering only a graze on his arm. The next stone, a really solid piece of granite, hit him full in the face, pushing him under the water. When he came back up, he floated face down and didn’t move at all."

  "I didn’t cover the well as I knew he would be found eventually and it was best to make it look like an accident. I went home and made myself a snack. A packet of crisps and most of my father’s Christmas tin of shortbread biscuits he had forbidden anyone to touch. Well, he wouldn’t need them, would he? I remember going back to my bedroom where I played with my toys until my mother got up and noticed he was missing. She never even asked me if I’d seen him. It was more than three weeks before the police found his body."

  While telling his morbid story, Celine had wedged herself between the edge of the mattress and the wall, her arm extended to the limit allowed by the handcuff on her wrist.

  When she spoke, it was in a hoarse whisper, "But, you were only six, just a baby, how could you kill anyone?" She bit her lip, drawing a bright bead of blood.

  "I was a child prodigy," Marcus said with complete sincerity.

  Celine made no response, staring at his dead unblinking eyes, her own equally unblinking frozen with terror.

  "My sister was ordinary," he said as he looked through her, "Not like me at all."

  "You had a sister?"

  "Yes, I had a sister …" His voice was dreamlike and sounded far away. "… A year younger than me. My earliest memory is of hatred for her. I begrudged the attention she got from my parents. It was even worse after she disappeared, nobody noticed me at all. You would have thought a lost child was unique, it happens in the best of families."

  ~ Chapter 7 ~

  A sudden scrabble of boots on the steep slope behind him alerted Alex.

  Bound and defenceless, slithering like an arthritic snake, he struggled to the sanctuary of darkness at the rear of the warehouse. Desperate for release, he remained fearful of the unknown intruder. If it was the bastard who’d dumped him here he’d good reason to be afraid.

  They’d not seen him on the path. Not that they’d been paying much attention – him and Jimmy had been pissing themselves laughing, trying to run off the previous night’s booze-up. A figure had come out of the bushes, swinging a baseball bat. That was all he remembered. He’d come to in the boot of a car. The man tied him up and dumped him behind the warehouse with no cha
nge of expression, without saying a word, treating him like a lump of condemned meat.

  Alex shrank back, protecting his face as much as he could. The figure approached and stood over him. After a long minute, he smiled. Alex knew the smile for what it was and his teeth chattered in his head as terror flooded his entire body. The man reached down and grasped Alex by his thin wrists. "Time to earn your keep," the man said. Alex stared up at him in bewilderment, then his eyes widened in terror as he saw his captor’s intentions.

  "No," he screamed, the scream ending in a sob of agony.

  Marcus stood up and threw a chunk of bread into a puddle at his feet. "I may still need you. Don’t go away," he said, striding off without a backward glance.

  *****

  Donna perused the vicinity while Dexter hammered on the door with his clenched fists, his more discreet knocking having failed to elicit any response. The house, one of those three-storey Victorian terraced houses typical of seaside towns, was in good structural condition but showed signs of recent neglect. A milk bottle stood on the front step, its metal top pecked by birds. Overgrown ferns choked the small front garden and the bay windows were streaked with grime. Watery sunlight induced a dappled shade through the sparse leaves of the broad-leaved trees lining the road and overhanging the entrance to the house.

  "What sort of trees are these?" Dexter asked, squinting upwards.

  Donna shrugged. Who cares?

  Dexter gave her a searching look, but said nothing. She noticed him looking again at her hair, stuck up in spiky clumps. He’d already asked her twice if she wanted to borrow a comb. Donna told him the new style was deliberate. She’d been irritable since the trip back from the pub last night, and felt no better this morning.

  A stray gull wheeled overhead, wings outstretched, gliding on the faint breeze coming from the Dee estuary. Dexter glared at it.

  "Boy, you’re in a right mood," said Donna, noticing his expression.