Fire in the Blood (25 page)

Chapter 54

After a few minutes Burke’s continued silence and unblinking stare was making her extremely uncomfortable, so Annie asked, ‘What’s the plan, Thomas?’

‘What do you mean?’ replied Burke.

‘Well I’m assuming that you didn’t go to all the trouble of kidnapping me then dragging me out here, just to enjoy my
company.’

Burke drained his glass, licked his lips and then poured himself another healthy measure of vodka and continued staring at her. He looked to Annie just like a man who was savouring the menu in his favourite restaurant and deciding what to have for a main course.
She didn’t like the thought of being his main course and reasoned that her best hope was to try and keep him drinking and
talking long enough, so that he might either fall asleep, or at least be incapable of
acting
out any of his twisted fantasies.

Since he obviously wasn’t prepared to share any details of his immediate plans with her, Annie decided to try a different, less controversial, approach and asked him instead about the caravan.

‘An Irish guy, I shared a cell with for a while in prison, told me about this place. He said he had traveller relatives who used it whenever they were over in the Glasgow area. So when I was released, I decided right away that I didn’t want to be surrounded by people any more. I needed to get the stink of prison out of my lungs and breathe some fresh clean air. I also needed some peace and quiet, to think about the future and work out the details of how I was going to kill Jack Davidson. So as soon as I got hold of a car, I came out here to have a look around. This caravan was the only one left that hadn’t been completely trashed by the local yobs, and there was a weird old guy living in it, which is why it’s still in reasonable condition. But we quickly came to an arrangement, which was that I wouldn’t kill him if he moved out immediately. I gave him two hours to clear all his stuff out and a couple of hundred quid for his trouble. Of course, there’s been no mains electricity out here for years, so he had been using candles and torches. But I got hold of a second-hand petrol generator and connected it up to the caravan electrics. All it needed then was a good clean and tidy up and a couple of Calor bottles for the gas supply to the cooker and fire, and Bob’s your uncle. A right wee home from home, so it is. It’s perfect for me because it can’t be seen from the main road, it’s free and it’s
very
private, with no nosey neighbours.’

‘I like it,’ said Annie, looking around as if she was auditioning for the
Escape to the Country
show on afternoon television. ‘It’s surprisingly spacious and quite convenient for getting into the city as well.’

Relieved that Burke had stopped silently staring and started to talk, she continued, ‘I’ve heard a fair bit of your back story, Thomas. I know that you feel pretty hard done by, the way things worked out.’

Burke’s eyes instantly flashed with anger as he snarled and leaned towards her, ‘You don’t know what you’re fucking talking about, girl. Hard done by doesn’t even
begin
to cover it,
not
by a long shot. I’ve just done eighteen years of hard time in jail, because that bastard Davidson planted evidence in my house and car and
then
stood up and committed bare faced perjury at my trial. He made me out to be a
careless
amateur
criminal, somebody who didn’t know what he was doing and the jury believed him. Because a policeman couldn’t be telling lies under oath, could he? My arse, he couldn’t.’

Annie immediately picked up on Burke’s sense of professional pride having been deeply insulted. She nodded sympathetically and said, ‘Okay, but I’m confused, Thomas. Can I ask you something?’

‘You can ask all you want, doesn’t mean I’ll answer,’ said Burke gruffly.

‘You’re angry because Jack Davidson committed perjury against you, I get that. And I know it’s true, because he admitted to me that he did it. But you
did
set fire to all those pubs, didn’t you? So, it might have taken a bit longer, but
surely
the police would have caught you sooner or later, anyway?’

‘Yes, but the point is I was
never ever
careless, I was a
pro
at lighting fires,’ said Burke bitterly. ‘People think it’s easy to start fires, but it isn’t. It’s more of an art, if you want to do things properly.’

Annie recognised that Burke clearly had his own uniquely self-serving view of his crimes and the savagery of his past. Continuing his rant, he said, ‘Look there are supposed to be fucking
rules
about these things. The police can’t just go around making things up, in the absence of any real evidence. So we’ll never know, will we, if they would have got me. Because, trust me, I was
good
at what I did and always had a proper plan worked out. They made me out to be a crazy man, but the violence and the fires only ever happened when stupid people didn’t do as they were told.’

‘That
is
annoying, isn’t it,’ said Annie, with genuine feeling.

‘Are you taking the piss out of me, girl?’ he snapped.

‘No, I’m not,
honestly
,’ said Annie, quickly. ‘I mean everybody makes up death lists of the people we hate. For me it’s usually the shitty bosses at work,
but ordinary people are too scared to ever do anything about it. I just wish I had your nerve to make a start.’

Annie sensed that despite the bursts of anger, Burke was beginning to relax slightly and open up about his past. He took another drink and continued, ‘You see, the thing is, I was always a little thin skinned when I was younger, I can admit that now. The psychiatrists in prison said I had serious anger management issues and didn’t having adequate coping strategies for my “negative emotional cycles”. They also reckoned that I didn’t understand the difference between anger and rage. They got
that
bit right at least.’

‘So what would you say
is
the difference, you know, between anger and rage?’

‘Well what they say is that occasional anger is a normal, even healthy, emotion which can release tension and clear the air when, for example, two people are disagreeing about something. But rage is a totally different thing altogether that can, in some people, instantly flare up from nowhere into extreme violence, if the necessary behavioural trigger occurs.’

‘So I guess that the doctors in prison taught you how to manage these triggers?’ asked Annie, hopefully.

Burke smiled bleakly and said, ‘Well they
thought
they did, that was the main thing. The problem is, I’ve never liked anybody telling me what to do, or criticising me. That’s always had
consequences
. But what I found out early on was that once you get past the first three or four killings … well, it’s just routine after that. A job that has to be done professionally, nothing more.’

‘Thanks for the tip, I’ll bear that in mind,’ said Annie, nodding. ‘But to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure why you’re even bothering with Jack Davidson. The truth is he’s a bit of a sad bastard. You maybe didn’t know, but he got thrown out of the police, after an internal inquiry, not long after your trial and then his wife divorced him. From what I’ve seen in the last couple of weeks he’s a borderline alcoholic who doesn’t even have any friends.
And
his business is on its last legs, that’s why he took me on.’

Burke seemed to be genuinely interested in learning more about his sworn enemy, and asked, ‘What do you mean?’

‘He’s so old-school about everything, it completely does my head in. He’s completely stuck in a rut and thinks the world owes him a living
.
Hasn’t kept up with any of the new technology.
Can you believe he was still using a
fax
machine up until two weeks ago, when I started work? If it wasn’t so pathetic, it would be funny. This is not somebody who’s been having a great life while you were locked up, believe me.’

His dark eyes suddenly flashed again and he growled, ‘So what are you saying, girl? That I should start to feel
sorry
for Jack Davidson? Maybe just let this thing go and forget what he did to me?
Believe me, that’s not how it works when somebody crosses Thomas Burke. There
has
to be a day of reckoning, even if it does take eighteen years
.
I’ve never forgotten a quote from a book I read in prison, by Heinrich Heine. He was a nineteenth century German poet, but I think he must have had a good bit of the Irish in him, because he said,
‘We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged.’
He was a rubbish poet, but a right smart feller, was old Heinrich. He knew a thing or two about human nature.’

It suddenly occurred to Annie that she was probably the first person that Burke had spoken honestly to like this, for almost twenty years. Maybe ever. Sitting here in his caravan, feeling relaxed and safe with a drink in his hand and, crucially, in total control of the situation with literally the power of life or death over her, he actually seemed to be almost enjoying their conversation. Throughout his whole life he had lied to and conned all the
psychiatrists, social workers and assorted do-gooders who had tried to look into his dark heart
and assess his true feelings
.
But at the same time, she was under no illusions that the real reason he could be so open and honest with her was because he intended to kill her. And maybe sooner rather than later, to ensure that his shared secrets
would never go beyond the four walls of this caravan.

An hour later, with half of the bottle of vodka already gone, Annie could see that Burke was starting to feel the
effects of the neat alcohol, but he was still chatty and, more importantly, had made no moves on her, beyond the creepy hair touching. But then, completely out of the blue, he suddenly asked her, ‘Do you know how long it is since I last had sex?’

This was the moment Annie had been dreading most of all, when Burke got bored with talking and started to feel horny. The unanswered question, which had been nagging at the back of her mind was … is he the type who will get turned on by beating me to a pulp first,
before raping me, or will he just get straight to it
?
Or, had the last hour and a half of,
almost
, civilised conversation, earned her a little bit of leverage with the madman? She inwardly repeated her survival mantra, ‘Don’t be a victim, Annie’.

‘Sorry, do you mean sex with another man, or with a woman?’ Annie blurted out in reply to his question, before biting her lip.

Burke stared at her again, with a thin smile, and growled, ‘That’s funny … very funny, girl. I’ve killed people before, for making smart Alex comments just like that
.
I think
you know
exactly
what I meant
.
’

‘Okay, look I’m sorry, that was a stupid thing to say. But I honestly don’t know, it could be eighteen years or eighteen hours. I mean you’ve been out of prison for almost three weeks now, so surely you must have had the opportunity to, you know, do something about it. If you really wanted to.’

Burke was starting to slur his speech at this point, and he replied thickly, ‘Yeah, you’re right, and I
did
do something about it last week, with a junkie whore up one of those little dark lanes, somewhere near Central Station
I think it was.’

Annie wasn’t sure exactly what kind of response Burke expected from her, to this piece of news, and simply said, ‘Oh, that’s great then.’

Burke slammed his glass down on the side table, spilling half the contents, and said sourly, ‘But
that’s
the problem, it
wasn’t
fucking great,
at
all
. I don’t know what it was, could have been too many pints. But between you and me it wasn’t a great success
.
Maybe it was the stink from the rubbish skips, or the smell of cheap perfume and sweat coming off the dirty little whore in waves. Anyway I started off well, as they say, and then fell away. And, would you believe it, the little whore goes and makes the big mistake of laughing at me. So I punched her in the face a couple of times and then stuffed her into the skip. Cheeky cow. Trust me, she wasn’t laughing any more when I slammed the lid down on her head.’

He got up, staggered slightly, and then stood behind her once again, gently stroking her hair. ‘But
you
now, Annie, you’re
much
younger,
much
prettier than she was. Such nice clean hair and you smell wonderful.’

Oh
shit
, thought Annie, he’s doing the hair thing again
and
he’s started using my name for the first time,
and
his glass is empty. Say something
to him quick, girl, for fuck’s sake, before he gets his dick out
.
She turned her head back towards him and forced what she hoped was a warm friendly smile. ‘Could I have a drink with you, Thomas? Just the two of us … I’d
really
like that.’

Burke paused and frowned. Clearly sharing drinks and true confessions with his young female captive had not been any part of his original plan for the evening’s entertainment. Nevertheless he chuckled and said, ‘Okay then, but just the one
mind.
I wouldn’t want anybody to think that I had to ply you with strong drink before I had my way with you.’