The Puppet Show

by M. W. Craven

  Reid said, ‘I don’t suppose it matters any more. I’ve finished.’

  Reid’s part in the story was about to come to an end. He was handing the baton to Poe.

  ‘You don’t need to do this,’ Poe said.

  ‘Swift needs to feel the same pain my friends did.’

  ‘What about you? Throwing your life away is a poor way to honour their memories.’

  Reid stared at him. ‘You’re right. Please make sure I’m not buried alongside them. And look after my evidence. It’s been an honour to have called you my friend, Poe.’

  With a flick of his thumb he lit the Zippo and threw it over his shoulder. The sound of it landing was followed by a soft ‘whoomph’ and a burst of orange light. Shadows began dancing across the cold dark fell.

  Reid shut his eyes, and stepped out of sight.

  Hilary Swift began to scream.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  Poe didn’t know how Reid had rigged the building but he’d clearly been having arson lessons. Within a minute, thick smoke poured from the open window.

  Regardless of what Reid wanted, Poe wasn’t ready to let him die. He wasn’t ready to arrest him either, but he’d cross that bridge later.

  He needed to find a way inside. He eyed the sturdy door.

  On television, kicking down doors looks easy. In practice, the police use weighted battering rams and aim for a door’s weak points – normally locks and hinges. When you’re using your shoulder, you have fewer options.

  Poe charged, and bounced off it like a rubber ball.

  White heat spread from the top of his shoulder to the tips of his fingers. He tried to move his arm and found he could barely move his fingers. He’d damaged something.

  The shuttered windows had metal bars embedded in the thick walls that could only be removed from the inside. They were impregnable.

  Swift was still screaming but Poe could tell she was weakening. He searched desperately for options.

  He looked at the four-cell van.

  He sprinted towards it. The door was open and the key was in the ignition. He turned it and the diesel engine grumbled into life. He glanced at the passenger seat. The secure box containing Reid’s evidence was there. He would deal with that later. Poe put the van into reverse and backed up, manoeuvring the van into the right position. He gunned the accelerator and fired the van towards the door of the building.

  A number of things happened. The van hit the door and the driver’s airbag hit Poe’s face. The plastic cover that held it in the steering wheel hit him on the nose and broke it. The sound of the ruined engine was horrendous. Poe staggered out of the van and saw that the front door had been breached.

  Poe had never suffered from paralysis by analysis. He climbed over the van’s bonnet and walked through the shattered door of the burning farmhouse.

  As Poe entered the building, a mass of fresh oxygen via the recently opened door caused the flames to surge like a blast furnace.

  The heat was outrageous.

  Visibility was zero.

  He couldn’t breathe and he didn’t know where he was going.

  Poe steeled himself. His friend was up there.

  He remembered something about fire, something from his days as a cub scout: smoke rises: the lower you are, the cleaner and cooler the air. Poe dropped to his knees and began crawling. The smoke was making his eyes stream and he clamped them shut.

  He reached out to feel his way around the building, and he hit the stairs straightaway. He scrambled to his feet, figuring it would be better to run up blind rather than crawl partially sighted.

  Poe gripped the banister, ignored the bubbling varnish that stuck to his hands, and took the stairs two at a time. They ended before he stopped running and he tumbled forwards on to his hands and knees. He hadn’t drawn breath for almost thirty seconds and there was no chance of breathing up there. This was either going to happen quickly or not at all.

  Swift was no longer screaming, so he had no direction to follow.

  He moved forward, hoping to find a wall and get organised. Try a quick grid search. He estimated that wherever Swift and Reid were lying, together they had to be at least four feet wide. He moved a few feet to his right and his hand touched a cast-iron radiator. It was hotter than a spitting griddle. Poe jerked his hand away. He knew it was badly burnt but he needed to keep moving.

  Halfway across the room he found them. Two bodies. He reached out and parts of them were still burning; other parts were crispy. Reid must have drenched them both in accelerant.

  They were dead.

  Poe felt between them. As he’d feared: they were still handcuffed together. Tethered in death as they had been in life. Poe wondered if that had been Reid’s plan all along.

  He couldn’t leave him where he was. He might have said he didn’t want to be buried with his friends, but he would get a burial. Even if only he and Bradshaw turned up at his funeral.

  Poe began dragging them by their feet, but with just the one good arm and only a sliver of breath left, it was slow and hard going. He grunted with the effort.

  He reached the stairs.

  He’d have to throw them down. Ignoring his bursting lungs, Poe dragged them to the edge of the stairs.

  He nearly made it.

  He really did.

  But old buildings have exposed wooden beams and wood burns quickly.

  An ear-splitting crack was followed by so many sparks the room looked like the inside of a firework. He looked up and saw the sky. Part of the roof had collapsed. The oxygen-starved fire flared and burned brighter. The heat intensified against his already scorched skin. Flames shot through the roof, driven skywards.

  Another creak, and the roof collapsed.

  A shower of burning timber covered Poe. In his fear he sucked in a lungful of the toxic air. He felt himself beginning to lose consciousness and knew he had little time left to save himself. With heavy arms and laboured movements, he freed himself from the burning debris. He started crawling towards the stairs but his arms and legs felt like lead.

  The idea of sleep became strangely alluring.

  A voice broke through the roar of the fire.

  ‘Poe! Poe! Where are you, Poe?’

  Something touched his foot. He looked down and instinctively pulled his foot back. He was hallucinating. He had to be. A mud monster, a golem from his nightmares, had hold of his foot. It was trying to drag him down to hell. He gasped in panic, and the little breath remaining in his lungs left his body.

  The room began to spin. The golem was going to get him; he could feel the monster’s hands on his legs again.

  His eyes bulged as he gasped for air. He found he didn’t care any more.

  Washington Poe put his head on his burnt hands, closed his eyes and passed out.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  Poe heard sounds. They’d been there for some time although he hadn’t been conscious enough to identify them. He wanted to open his eyes but they seemed gummed together.

  He tried to figure out where he was.

  Beeps, hums, people talking in hushed tones. He was in a bed. The clean sheets were rough and tucked in too tight at the feet. The air smelled of lemon disinfectant.

  Poe knew a hospital when he was in one.

  He attempted to open his eyes again but they stayed shut. He tried using his fingers to pry them open but they were heavily clad in soft cloth – bandages presumably. His hands throbbed, almost certainly from the burning banister. Or the cast-iron radiator. Or the burning corpses. Or the roof collapse. Poe gave up using his hands, and, ignoring the excruciating pain, forced his eyes open. With a rip, they opened further. Searing pain caused him to cry out loud. A narrow beam of light pierced his vision. It felt like molten steel being poured into his head.

  He tried to sit but was too weak. He looked and saw his hands were bandaged. A bile-coloured liquid had leached through them. Probably iodine.

  What the fuck had happened?

  The heavy feeli
ng of sedation was making it hard to think. Poe leaned back on the pillow and shut his eyes.

  When he woke, his headache had improved slightly. He tried his eyes again and this time he could fully open them. He gave himself the once-over. His skin was either bandaged or exposed and raw. His nose was splinted. A cannula with a split feeder was attached to the back of his right hand. Poe looked at the IV stand. A bag of saline was half full. Another smaller bag, which he assumed was an antibiotic, was almost empty.

  The ward lights were muted and it was dark outside. He was on his own in a two-bed room on a ward. The bed had high-sided rails to stop him falling out.

  He wondered how long he’d been there.

  He was desperately thirsty but the water jug was out of reach. Poe grabbed the patient alert box and pressed the button. The door opened and a uniformed nurse walked in. She smiled at him.

  ‘I’m Sister Ledingham. How are you feeling?’ She was ruddy-faced, and spoke with a rich Scottish burr.

  ‘What happened?’ he croaked. He didn’t recognise his own voice. It sounded like he was speaking through gravel.

  ‘You’re in the HDU at Westmorland Hospital, Mr Poe. You were burnt in a fire. Lucky to be alive.’

  ‘HDU?’

  ‘High Dependency Unit,’ she replied. ‘You’re not really in any danger but burns are easily infected and this is the best way to keep you sterile until the skin begins to heal.’

  ‘How long have I been here?’

  ‘Almost two days. There’s a queue of people waiting outside to see you, if you’re up for visitors?’

  Poe sat up, fought the urge to vomit and nodded.

  Instead of the queue Sister Ledingham had promised, one person walked through the door. It was Stephanie Flynn.

  She was back to wearing her official two-piece trouser suit. She looked as tired as he felt.

  ‘How you feeling, Poe?’

  ‘What happened, Steph?’ His voice came out little more than a whisper. He gestured towards the water. Flynn filled the plastic beaker. She inserted a straw then held it close enough so he could get it in his mouth. No drink had ever tasted so good.

  ‘What do you remember?’ she said.

  He remembered Reid telling him about his mother and he remembered the burning room. He had vague recollections of trying to drag Reid and Swift out of the burning building. He also remembered something about a mud monster but he decided to keep that to himself.

  ‘Not much,’ he admitted. He had fragments of memory but they were jumbled and unorganised. ‘The children . . .’

  ‘Alive and well and where you said they were. They’re with their mother now and are unaware anything untoward happened.’

  ‘And the man who took them?’

  ‘Wore a baseball cap and sunglasses.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Yep. A police artist has sat with them but got nothing usable. The woman who took them to Center Parcs was a registered nanny. Reid had hired her but made it look like the request had come from their mother. The email said it was a treat for them, and a rest for Grandma, before she landed in the UK. They stayed at Reid’s flat until he found time to drop them off with her. She took them straight there. She’s innocent.’

  It made sense. Reid had needed him to think the kids were in danger, but given his own experiences at the hands of monsters, he hadn’t wanted to harm them.

  ‘There was a box. A metal box on the front seat of the—’

  ‘Of the van you drove into a burning building?’

  ‘What happened to it?’

  ‘Same as the van. Burnt to cinders,’ she replied. ‘I don’t know what it was but it must have been a big deal because when CSI found it, the chief constable took it away personally.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘The official line is that nothing inside survived. All burnt to cinders. We asked to see it but were politely told it was a Cumbrian matter now.’

  He put his head in his hands and rocked backwards and forwards. Before long he was sobbing uncontrollably.

  Flynn called for the nurse. A doctor came instead. He adjusted one of the drips and soon Poe’s crying subsided and he fell asleep.

  ‘He was a killer but he had his reasons, Steph,’ Poe said. It was three hours later and he’d woken thirsty and ravenous.

  ‘What was in the box, Poe?’ she asked. ‘What is it that has everyone so worried?’

  For the next thirty minutes Poe replayed the conversation he’d had with Reid at the farm. He omitted the discussion about his mother and the origins of his name.

  Flynn asked a few questions and made a quick call when he told her about George Reid’s grave – otherwise, she let him tell his story.

  ‘I want to make a statement,’ he said when he’d finished. ‘I know it’ll only end up as hearsay but I owe it to Kylian to air his side of the story.’

  ‘There are a lot of people and organisations who could be embarrassed if that happened, Poe. And with no witnesses, little corroborating evidence and all the key players dead, the CPS have already said there will be no charges. There is no one to charge.’

  ‘What about Montague Price’s confession?’

  ‘Already suppressed.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Technically it was only information he was offering towards a deal, and because Reid abducted him before he could be charged, the family solicitor said they’d sue if all records weren’t destroyed. Cumbria handed over Price’s statement and the video interview this morning. We’ve been told to destroy our copy of it.’

  ‘And the bodies of his friends?’

  ‘All down to Reid. The working theory – or at least one that fits the bullshit they’re spinning – is that he killed them when they were children and he’s been reliving the thrill of it all with these new murders.’

  ‘Bastards,’ Poe whispered.

  ‘It does have the bouquet of a cover-up,’ she admitted. ‘I’ve been digging around and some of the people who took advantage of Carmichael’s hospitality are . . . men of influence, shall we say? And if Carmichael had opened a bank account for one specific event, who’s to say he hadn’t done it before? Nobody wants to look under that stone.’

  ‘Perhaps someone should,’ Poe said.

  ‘While you were out, the Secretary of State for Justice made a statement thanking Cumbria Police, and the chief constable in particular, for their hard work and professionalism “during this trying time”. Said that the Immolation Man was a police officer with mental health issues and his prayers were with the victim’s families. He singled out Quentin Carmichael, said he was a shining example of the type of selflessness that makes this country great and all that bollocks.’

  Poe was staring at her aghast. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  ‘There’s literally nothing we can do. Even if you were prepared to go on record and repeat what Reid told you, nothing would happen. I’ve been told to tell you that if you say anything other than the official line, you’ll be sacked. And as well as losing your job and pension, some of the most powerful and well-connected families in the country will come after you. They’ll sue you for everything you own.’

  She was right. With no evidence he’d be pissing in the wind. Without the confessions, Poe’s evidence was worthless. He had half the story but it was the wrong half.

  ‘We know the truth, Poe,’ she added. ‘That means something.’

  ‘He deserves better, Steph.’

  ‘He does, but he won’t get it.’

  Even if Poe were reckless enough to try and get an interview with a tabloid, he knew that the people suppressing the story were the same people who controlled the media. It would never be printed.

  He would think about it later but he’d decided he wanted no part of the NCA any more. He would leave and spend some time digging around. See if there was some concrete evidence to be found. He owed his friend that much. He also needed some time away to think about what he should do about his mother. He’d need to spe
ak to his father first, and tracking him down would be a job in itself.

  ‘I need to get off and ring van Zyl, Poe, but before I go is there anything else you want to know?’

  ‘There is, Steph,’ he said. ‘Something that’s been bothering me ever since I woke up.’

  She inclined her head.

  ‘How the fuck am I still alive?’

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  Flynn had some calls to make first and he needed his dressings changed. They agreed to discuss it again in an hour.

  ‘The heat was cracking stones and boiling glass,’ Poe said when she returned. He lifted his bandaged hand. ‘Even touching a body was enough to cause third-degree burns.’

  ‘We know,’ Flynn said. ‘I’ve seen the preliminary fire report. The house was drenched in that accelerant. It was little more than an empty shell by the time the fire went out.’

  ‘Went out?’

  ‘The fire engines were there within half an hour of getting the call but they couldn’t get near enough to the farm because—’

  ‘—of the stones blocking the road.’ So that’s why they’d been dragged there. ‘Who called them? And half an hour seems too long for me to have been lying in a burning building.’

  ‘Who do you think called them?’

  Poe thought about it. He doubted Reid had. He’d planned to die in the furnace he’d created. Ashes to ashes and all that. And no one else had known where he’d been going.

  Except someone had . . .

  He remembered the headlights winding through the fog to the farmhouse. He hadn’t seen who was driving; Reid had set fire to the building as soon as he saw them approaching, but someone had been coming.

  Other than Bradshaw, everyone else would have assumed he’d headed back to Shap Wells after leaving the Montague Price crime scene. But she couldn’t have worked out where he was.

  Could she?

  He shrugged.

  ‘The same person who dragged you out of there by the scruff of your neck: Tilly. Our real-life hero of the hour.’

  ‘But . . . how did she know how to find me?’