Fire in the Blood (11 page)

Chapter 21

Jack and Annie, apparently the only residents, were sitting with drinks in front of a dying log fire in the faded chintzy lounge of their hotel, which featured floor to ceiling oak panelling on the walls. An impressive collection of stuffed animal heads from Africa and the sub-continent were on display. Obviously hunting trophies gathered from across the British Empire, when half the world seemed to be coloured pink on the map.

Despite the warmth from the fire, Jack looked around and shivered, clearly uncomfortable in the staid formal surroundings. ‘I keep expecting Agatha Christie to walk in, with her knitting bag and set of darts, and order a pint of lager up at the bar.’

‘Who’s she?’ asked Annie.

‘Never mind. Look, I can’t tell you how sorry I am that I’ve got you involved in all of this, Annie. I owe you a full explanation.’

‘But you haven’t done anything wrong. You said this guy Burke is just a psycho nut job with a grudge.’

Jack paused, then said, ‘Yes, all that’s true. But, maybe he’s got a good reason to have a grudge.’

Intrigued Annie asked, ‘What do you mean?’

‘It was the testimony I gave in court that was crucial in putting him away for eighteen years.’

Shrugging, Annie replied, ‘So what? He was a very bad man, who deserved to go down.’

Exhaling deeply, in full confessional mode, Jack leaned forward and continued, ‘I
lied
, Annie. I planted incriminating evidence in his flat and car and then
lied
through my teeth under oath in court. My only defence is that he was an evil bastard and, if he’d stayed loose, out on the street, he would have killed again for sure. At the time I felt that I had no choice. I still feel the same way, but there was a price to be paid.’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean.’

‘You have to understand, I really
loved
being a policeman, it was my whole life. I know that sounds kind of corny these days, when most people change jobs umpteen times, but it was the only job I’d ever wanted to do since I was a little kid. But things just weren’t the same somehow after the trial. I’d crossed the line, you see, and I felt tainted, unworthy. And more than anything else, I felt
guilty
that I just wasn’t good enough at my job to put him away without doing what I did.’

Annie was finding it difficult to compute what she was being told and said, ‘I think it would maybe help if you started at the beginning, boss. Tell me about Thomas Burke.’

‘Okay, to be fair there were early signs of his fascination with fire. As a young boy he used to regularly set fire to neighbours’ pigeon lofts and rabbit hutches in his street, which is obviously a bit of a red flag. You know that old cliché, they trot out all the time on the evening news, about someone who “could light up a room”. Well, the young Thomas Burke
was
that guy, especially if somebody had left a box of matches lying around.’

‘Then when he was a bit older he was sent to a secure unit for young offenders, where they tried hard but couldn’t do anything to cure him of his obsession with fire. First he tied up the head psychiatrist and set his trousers on fire, during a one to one therapy session and then, for an encore, he burned down the entire building. Well, it was all downhill from there.’

Jack swirled the dregs around in his pint glass and then continued, ‘Thomas Burke is a real sick puppy, a psychopathic serial killer and also a full blown pyromaniac. This is definitely not a good combination, Annie. The latest thinking on psychopaths is that they
are
actually capable of feeling empathy with other people, but only when they want to manipulate a situation to their advantage. Then the empathy switch goes to “on” and they can appear quite normal, charming even. But when they revert back to their default mode, it’s quickly switched
“
off
”
again and the mayhem begins. People always ask the same stupid question about psychopaths, they want to know
why
they commit their terrible crimes, as if there has to be a rational explanation. From my experience it’s simple, they commit their crimes because they
want
to. Because there’s something in the twisted wiring of their brains that compels them to, and because it’s the
one
thing in their pathetic lives that they truly enjoy. Sometimes their methods evolve over the years, but usually they continue to commit their crimes in the same way, over and over again, until they get caught. But their Achilles heel is that they tend to have their own particular signatures that they leave at the crime scene and, over time, they often get over-confident, or careless, and then they eventually leave some crucial bit of evidence behind that gives the cops a break.’

‘And Burke’s signature is obviously the use of fire.’

‘That’s exactly right. There aren’t too many like him, thank God. I mean, very few people got thrown out of the IRA for being
too
violent, but
he
was. He was a complete loose cannon, apparently, who wouldn’t follow orders, and who would kill anyone who looked at him the wrong way in a heartbeat. Anyway, when the Provos eventually decided enough was enough and told him to get out of Ireland, he left and a year later he washed up in Glasgow, where he started an extortion racket.’

‘So who did he target?’

‘Well there was nothing very sophisticated about his MO. He would just go into any city centre pubs, that he liked the look of, first thing in the morning at opening time, order a pint of Guinness and then bold as brass demand protection money. If the owner refused, he’d come back after closing time and torch the place. It was crude, but
very
effective. Word got round pretty fast after the first couple of fires.’

Annie was puzzled. ‘But why didn’t the police just arrest him?’

‘Well he’s mad all right, no question, but not stupid. He didn’t leave any evidence behind at the crime scenes and he didn’t made threatening phone calls either. He always preferred to let his victims look into his mad eyes and
believe
that these were not empty threats he was making. We knew for certain he was responsible for the arson attacks on three pubs and he was arrested twice, but then released due to a lack of hard evidence. Of course, all the witnesses who initially identified him were later intimidated by hoods, who were sent round by Burke. So by the time we organised a line-up for witnesses, they were usually scared shitless and claimed that they couldn’t identify him. All we were left with was useless grainy CCTV footage that placed him in the area where the attacks took place, but didn’t actually prove anything. By this time the Irish police had provided us with his full rap sheet, so we knew for sure that Burke
was
our man, but we just didn’t have the physical evidence, or any witnesses prepared to testify in court, that would have let us take him off the streets.’

Jack ran a hand through his hair and paused to gather his thoughts. ‘What happened was the third fire he started gutted not only a pub, but also two flats in the tenement building directly above. Three innocent people died, Annie. My eighty-two year old grandmother was one of them. I went a bit crazy then and it became totally personal, which is never a good thing. I forgot about being a policeman and doing things by the book. I just wanted revenge and that’s when I did what I did, planting the evidence that nailed him. That’s why he’s coming after me now, and anybody close to me is right in the firing line to get hurt as well. In his mind it’s payback time for those lost eighteen years of his life. Of course he doesn’t consider all the jail time he would have got for the umpteen other serious crimes he actually got away with. Psychopaths don’t think like that. They tear up and ignore the rulebook that the rest of the population lives by, but they still expect everyone else to play by these same rules. So that conviction, obtained by me committing perjury, is the one that bugs the hell out of him and now it’s payback time.’

Shocked and touched by the confession, Annie considered Jack’s explanation for a moment then tried to console him. ‘I’m so sorry. What you did was a wrong thing, but it was for the right reasons.’

Feeling down and emotional, with the memories dredged up from two decades before still raw, Jack then drained his glass and stood up. ‘A wrong thing, for the right reasons … you’ve got a great title for a country song right there. Look, I’m beat Annie, I’m going to have an early night. See you in the morning in the dining room for breakfast. Eightish okay?’

‘Yeah, that’s a good idea. But I’m going to make a couple of phone calls first, to confirm where we can stay for a couple of weeks and maybe try to borrow another car as well. What with all the crumpled rear end, the blistered paint and scorch marks, Senga’s way too easily recognised.’

‘I suppose you’re right. Sleep well Annie, we’re safe here.’

Chapter 22

Next morning Jack and Annie left the hotel and drove towards their new temporary base, located three miles from Sandhead village and fifteen miles from the dramatic lighthouse on the tip of the Mull of Galloway.

After ninety minutes on the road and still staring straight ahead, wilfully ignoring the beautiful coastal scenery, Jack whined, ‘Are we nearly there yet?’

‘Yes, it’s not far now, only about three or four miles. You’ll see it soon,’ replied Annie, patiently.

After a further five minutes, he suddenly sat up and took an interest as they approached an impressive country house pile, set well back from the road, in beautiful parkland. ‘Annie, I’m impressed. This is
really
nice.’

Annie smiled and said, ‘You’re right it is, but this isn’t where we’re staying. Ours is
much
nicer.’

She then turned left off the coast road and drove slowly down a bumpy, unmade track towards their destination on the sea shore,

Concerned that any last vestige of civilisation was being rapidly left far behind, Jack moaned, ‘Where the hell are we going Annie?’

‘Patience, you’ll see in a minute.’

Shortly she pulled up beside a clapboard beach cabin, one of a group of six hidden away in the sand dunes. The cabin had peeling pale blue paint on the external walls and a small timber deck area adjacent, where a gas barbecue was located next to a picnic table, which had been artfully constructed from pieces of bleached driftwood.

Back at her favourite place in the whole world, Annie spread her arms wide and asked, ‘So what do you think?’

Jack, however, was not impressed. ‘Okay, I can see the fucking garden shed. Where’s the
house
?’

Jumping out of the car, Annie kicked her boots off and skipped across the sand in her bare feet. ‘Don’t be silly, this is it. Isn’t it great? I came here every summer with my mum and dad, when I was a little girl.’

Clearly not a happy camper, Jack mumped, ‘I’m sorry, I forgot to bring my bucket and spade. I’ll have to go home.’

In estate agent mode, Annie simply ignored all of Jack’s complaints and offered him a guided tour of their new digs. ‘You can’t go back to Glasgow, unless you intend walking, so you might as well come in and I’ll show you around. It’s actually much bigger inside than it looks. It’s got two rooms, a cute little kitchen and a million dollar view of the sea.’

Reluctantly Jack followed Annie inside the beach hut, looked around and said, ‘Call me mister picky, if you like, but I have to say, Annie, that a flimsy wooden shed wouldn’t have been my
first
choice for a place to hide out from a mad arsonist. And I’m sure that the guy who’s sitting outside the next hut along was in
Deliverance
. You know, the crazy looking one who was always sitting rocking on the porch, with the banjo and the eyes way too close together.’

Staying calm and pragmatic, ignoring Jack’s hissy fit, Annie replied, ‘Oh, that’s just old Mr Jackson, he’s a retired headmaster and he doesn’t have a banjo as far as I know. The point is Burke will never find us here. Hardly anyone knows that this place exists, even some of the locals, but with my internet dongle and laptop we can still work from here, just like in a normal office. With modern technology, you don’t need to have a physical office anymore. It’s an unnecessary expense and it ties you down to one location. When you think about it, we could actually work anywhere in the country. We could call ourselves, I don’t know, the ‘Pop-Up Detectives’. What do you think?’

Jack struggled to find any sensible reason to refute the logic of Annie’s argument and said, ‘I don’t know, I’ll need to think about that. But I was thinking, since I’m going to be stuck here for a few days, I might as well have a swim in the sea. But I didn’t have time to pack my Speedos.’

‘That’s
good
, because old Mrs Jackson next door has a bad heart. You’re on the couch, by the way, and I’ve got the bedroom.’

Ten minutes later, having settled in, Annie was sitting with her MacBook open at the picnic table outside the cabin, shaking her head. ‘This is amazing.’

Jack looked up from a deck chair and asked, ‘I didn’t realise that you could get internet access down here. What’s up?’

‘There’s actually no phone signal anywhere down near the beach, but Mr Jackson next door is a lot more tech-savvy than he looks. And since he spends most of the summer down here with his wife, he’s rigged up a 3G dongle, which is connected to a big antennae, up on his roof and that set-up
does
pick a good strong signal. He’s a real sweetie and, any time I’m down here on holiday, he lets me use his password so I can piggyback with my laptop or iPhone on his secure Wi-Fi network.’

‘Oh right, that’s clever,’ said Jack, none the wiser.

‘Anyway, I set up an email address for you last night, you know, so we can keep in touch with the police in Glasgow and contact clients, and you’ve got twenty-three new messages already.’

Hopefully, Jack enquired, ‘Have there been any developments about finding Burke?’

Annie hesitated, ‘Er, no … the emails seem to be mostly, like, you know, personal stuff for you.’

‘Go on then, tell me.’

‘Well, short version, three are about penis enlargement, another one’s about controlling your long standing premature ejaculation problem and there are even two emails requesting that you need to immediately send full details to allow access to your bank account.’

Jack snorted and said, ‘Christ, it didn’t take my ex-wife long to track me down.’

Laughing out loud Annie replied, ‘Maybe Mr Jackson’s Wi-Fi network isn’t so secure after all. But don’t worry about it, I can install some software that will filter out all the spam.’

‘I’m not worried. I love a bit of spam on a sandwich, with pickled onions and brown sauce. Fantastic.’

Grimacing, Annie warned, ‘It’s a miracle you’ve lived so long, with some of the stuff you eat. Anyway,
this
spam can give my MacBook serious indigestion. So don’t go opening any emails that look a bit iffy, okay?’