The Watchful Eye (21 page)

Daniel was engrossed in his latest problem when the hand tapped his shoulder. ‘Excuse me, Doctor.’

Brian Anderton was looking concerned. Strange, anxious and concerned. There was no trace of his previous hostility, which deceived Daniel into believing that this was a professional plea.

‘Yeah?’

‘There’s an elderly lady over in the corner of the field. She’s been taken ill. I just wondered if you’d have a look at her.’

Daniel was not suspicious. His doctor’s training came to the fore. All he was thinking about was concern for this unknown woman who had come to the bonfire only to fall ill.

‘Yes. Yes. Of course, Brian.’

He followed the policeman across the field towards the darkest corner without even wondering why an ‘old lady’ who was feeling ill would have chosen the remotest corner of the field to fall in.

Unseen by either of them, Cora Moseby was standing near
enough to hear the policeman’s words. Like an automaton she followed at a distance.

Guy Malkin was inching around the edge of the field, moving closer to Claudine Anderton, circling her like a hyena moving in for the kill. If he could only get close enough to whisper in her ear, tug at her sleeve, she would know how he felt and she would come to him. There were plenty of dark, quiet corners in this English field.

Marie Westbrook had planned to ‘bump’ into Daniel at the bonfire so had sidled close to him. When she saw him following the policeman away from the bonfire, she too walked behind at a safe distance.

Then everything happened fast, like one of the fireworks exploding into the arena.

First Vanda started screaming terrible things to her mother.

‘You killed her. You killed my baby. My little Anna-Louise. You hurt her more and more. Every day of her life you hurt her like you hurt me. And when you thought you had hurt her enough you killed her. I know you did it.’ She was facing her mother, her anger and grief making her appear bigger, taller, stronger. Frighteningly powerful.

Bobby Millin stood perfectly still, her mouth slack, her eyes unfocused, shocked. She opened her mouth to speak but no words came out, only a strangled croak.

Vanda took a step towards her but her brother restrained her with a hand on her arm. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Steady on there, Vand. Mum wouldn’t—’

Vanda withered him with a look. From somewhere – who knows where – she had found a huge source of strength. ‘You always were the stupid one,’ she said, half turning towards him. ‘You couldn’t see what was under your ruddy nose.’

Arnie gaped at her. ‘What’s brought this on?’ he began. ‘What is this?’ He looked from his mother to his sister then gave up. He had no words in his entire vocabulary to encompass the situation.

Bobby Millin’s shoulders crumpled. As her daughter had appeared, physically, to expand, so she had appeared to shrink. She was staring straight out, into the distance, as though desperate to abstract herself from the scene. No one watching could tell whether she was listening to her daughter’s rantings or whether the allegations were so dreadful that she had been struck stone deaf and dumb. She said nothing in her defence and apart from the dropping of her shoulders she did not appear to react. Around the family group was a ring of shocked faces. No one dared speak. It was as though they were all holding their breath, waiting for something more to happen, for someone to make a sound and break the spell of ice that had dropped over the scene.

It was like a horrid, pagan festival, the roaring fire, the dancing fireworks, the bright explosions – and in the foreground, a furious young woman, held back by her minder, accusing her mother of the murder of her child.

What made it infinitely worse was that they had all known the child. As they knew Bobby, the helpful nursing assistant, Vanda, the downtrodden teenager, Arnie, the local psycho.

These were not strangers to the Ecclestonians. They were people they passed in the street day by day. Neighbours, if not friends. Familiars.

Like everyone else Daniel had been mesmerised by the drama that was playing out in front of his eyes. Feeling he should play an active role he started towards the group but Brian Anderton couldn’t afford to waste the time on this. While resenting the tableau he realised,
this
was playing right into his hands. A distraction. While everybody was looking the other way it was the perfect opportunity to carry out his plan.

He touched Daniel’s shoulder. ‘Umm, Doctor.’

Daniel turned.

Somewhere, far back in his mind, he had registered that Anderton was carrying a petrol can but he didn’t question it. He followed him towards the edge of the field, where the rim of light met absolute darkness and stumbled behind the policeman.

All the time he walked across the field he was aware that something was wrong. He hesitated, stringing events together. Surely Anderton should be speaking into a two-way radio; where was the ambulance, the back up? The flashlight?

He struggled to find normality. ‘Brian,’ he said lightly, ‘I’m not going to be able to do much in the dark.’

‘My colleague is with her. We have a light. I
think
she’s OK but if you would just check?’

Daniel peered into the darkness and could see nothing.

Still his mind struggled.

Anderton had been working with a WPC. Of course.
She
would have stayed by the old lady’s side, comforting her, while Anderton had crossed the field to fetch the doctor. Then Anderton had been sidetracked by the family drama which had played out in front of their eyes.

Panic only set in when Daniel recalled seeing the WPC standing behind Roberta Millin as her daughter had pointed the accusing finger at her.

Daniel hesitated, undecided whether to turn back.

But our instincts tell us to trust and obey a policeman.

He suddenly wished Anderton would say something. ‘Hey, Brian,’ he tried.

But the policeman kept walking.

He knew when he had reached the right spot.

But what Brian Anderton had
not
realised was that Claudine had noticed him leading Daniel towards the edge of the field and had felt the apprehension that had been building up inside her over the past few weeks. She knew that something besides the fireworks would explode tonight on this field.

‘Here,’ she said quickly to Bethan, ‘stay with Holly and her grandmother. Don’t stray. I need to have a word with Daddy.’ She placed the little girl’s hand in Daniel’s mother’s, ignoring the inevitable startled look and the, ‘Well, she might at least have asked,’ from Holly’s grandmother, and hurried after Brian.

Guy Malkin had not taken his eyes off Claudine since he had arrived at the field. He knew that he was in love with her and would be for ever and she had given him signs that she felt exactly the same about him. Why wouldn’t she? He was a man now. It was time they told Anderton that his day was over anyway.

Daniel turned. ‘So where is she?’ He didn’t know what the policeman’s game was but there was something very odd going on. He wasn’t sure when he had realised that there
was
no old woman in a state of collapse. That he’d been lured here.

He faced Anderton, expecting a confrontation.

That was when he felt the splash. Followed by another splash. Then he was drenched in the stuff and his nostrils were full of the stink of petrol and he could not speak for terror because now he could see right into the policeman’s mind. And it was bonfire night. Sparks were everywhere, filling the night sky like fireflies. Children were brandishing sparklers. He tried to pull at his clothes but his fingers were stiff with panic. Rockets were
exploding in the sky, showering golden, brilliant tendrils of fire – any one of which could ignite him. Each one threatening to explode him into pain and death. Then he heard the click of a cigarette lighter. He remembered it now. Clearly and too late. The way Anderton had toyed with the yellow, plastic Bic lighter in his hand, clicking it over and over again.

‘No,’ he said. ‘No. Please.’

We all make this appeal, for mercy, for pity. But we are wrong to do this. Our killers have no pity. So it is useless to appeal to it.

Yet we do it.

Daniel watched the flame, saw the hand bring it nearer and nearer.

That was when Cora Moseby began to scream. But the scream mingled in with the other shouts and screams of Bonfire Night. It melted into the night air.

Claudine drew in her breath. One word. The wrong word. ‘Brian,’ she breathed. ‘No. No. It’s just Daniel. He doesn’t mean any harm.’

Brian Anderton gave an almost animal groan. ‘How do you know?’ The cigarette lighter was no more than a foot away from Daniel. Daniel backed away and felt the prickle of a hawthorn hedge against his hand.

He could sense the heat already and he had nowhere to escape to.

Anderton clicked the lighter. It didn’t even spark.

Anderton clicked the lighter again.

Still it was stubborn.

No flame.

He clicked it a third time.

Malkin had misunderstood so much in his short life. He had watched the scene around the bonfire, confused at what was happening. He hadn’t understood what Vanda was talking about, her anger directed at her mother. He’d looked from one to the other and given up.

Now he watched another scene with the same bafflement.

He’d seen Anderton move towards Daniel with the cigarette lighter. He smelt the petrol but made no connection.

He saw Claudine launch herself at her husband and that was enough. It was time for him, Guy Malkin, to act the cartoon hero.

In his mind’s eye he saw himself knock Brian Anderton to the ground and so, yelling and screaming like a Zulu, he did just that.

Anderton did not have a clue what was happening. His focus was all on Daniel, his quarry.
He
was in control here. It was dark. Malkin was dressed in black jeans and a hooded top. All Anderton felt was himself being felled. Shocked, he dropped the can. The petrol splashed over him just as the lighter, contrary and fickle to the last, spluttered its flame to ignite him.

His last conscious thought was a terrible, searing understanding.

So this had been the meaning of it all.

He heard screams and more screams and then he tried to run away from the flames.

But they were faster than him. With him and around him. He was inside them. The flames were him.

Marie Westbrook was a nurse, well versed in first aid and quick to react.

Rule one is to prevent further harm and that included to her. She knew the petrol can could blow up at any moment. A bomb waiting to ignite. She kicked it away from Anderton, spilling more of the volatile fluid as it jerked along the grass. She set it upright, ignoring, for the moment, the screams of the human torch, the scene straight up from Hell, Dante’s
Inferno
, the rim of watching faces demonic and reddened by the fire and the terrible, visible agony of the man, his lips peeled back in agony like an early Christian painting.

Her next priority was to protect Daniel. ‘Take your clothes off,’ she screamed. ‘All of them.’

Oblivious to embarrassment he stripped naked and she tossed him her coat to cover up. Her challenge now was to stop Anderton running around, whipping the flames into activity, the watchers shrinking away whenever he neared one. Anderton, driven into insanity, was screaming, while Claudine stood nearby, absolutely still, watching her husband, her hands covering her mouth, her eyes wide open with horror. Parents covered their children’s faces. They did not want this picture seared into their tender brains. Finally Daniel caught Anderton’s ankles in a flying rugby tackle of the sort he had been renowned for at school. Marie called to the watchers for coats, blankets – anything to damp down the terrible flames.
She worked beside Daniel in shocked silence, the only sound Anderton’s low moans and the mutterings of the crowd. Privately Marie revelled in the fact that they were working together. She and him, how it was always meant to be. Even in the horror, the panic and the darkness she smiled. Happy.

She recalled the second rule from the lecture on burns:
You do not remove the clothes of a burns victim because they form a sterile dressing over the area of damage. Besides, the skin will come away with the clothes, peeling away the flesh down to the sinews and the bones
.

Firemen were running helter-skelter across the field with fire extinguishers and arc lights and the scene was transformed to a sea of slippery foam around which stood a ring of shivering, frightened, pale people, shocked at what they had witnessed. The festival was abandoned; the bonfire left to burn out and fireworks suddenly seemed a threat too terrifying to ignite. Blue lights flashed, sirens wailed. Two ambulances, a ring of police cars, officers slowly taking charge, trying to restore order before taking statements and finding what had happened on this dreadful night.

Now the initial shock was over, Daniel felt shaky. His thoughts were all on what might have been. He could not rid himself of the image of the evening, which had exploded so suddenly into terrifying chaos, or the picture of a man turning to charcoal in front of his eyes. He looked around at the pale, frightened faces of the familiar families who had gathered to celebrate and enjoy themselves and knew that none of them would ever forget this night. He saw his mother shielding Holly from the scene, the way his daughter clung to her, and was glad she was there. An ambulance man ushered him into
the back of his van and he sat for a while as they found a spare pair of trousers and a sweater. He peered around the back door. They were stretchering Anderton into a second ambulance but he knew they were too late. He could not live.

Brian Anderton died four days later of shock, infection and fluid loss. He had sixty-five per cent burns.

Had he lived he would have faced a lifetime of surgery and prison.

Daniel Gregory refused the offer of a ‘check-up’ in hospital and returned home with his mother and his daughter. Marie slipped away, unseen, into the darkness. Claudine and Bethan were ‘cared for by a neighbour’.

Once home, Daniel bathed and showered and shampooed his hair to get rid of the smell of smoke. Then he sat in his dressing gown, staring in front of him. He could still smell petrol in his nostrils; still see the man in flames, dancing his macabre dance every time he closed his eyes. He turned his head sharply to the side, convinced he could still hear hysterical screams.

It would take him a long time to forget.

For months he would see the man flailing. Even to fill up his car with petrol and breathe in its pungent perfume would become a terrifying ordeal. Presented with any naked flame for more than a year, he would shrink away.

WPC Shirley White had comforted a hysterical Cora Moseby and it was from her that she learnt a fuller story, that she had been stalked, that PC Brian Anderton had promised to protect her and what form that protection had ultimately taken. ‘When David Sankey doused himself in petrol,’ Cora said,
her face white and shaken, ‘in front of my bedroom window, it was Brian who set him alight.
He
set him alight,’ she’d said – again and again. ‘It was
he
who burnt him. Not Sankey. I think Sankey was just doing it to frighten me but Brian Anderton put the flame to him. He clicked his lighter and Sankey exploded into fire.’ She hid her face. ‘Just like Brian did tonight. He did it’, she turned her face to WPC White, ‘to protect me. I thought he always would. He was,’ she paused, ‘chivalrous.’

It was an epitaph of sorts.

‘When I found out where he’d moved to I followed him to Eccleston because I knew I would be safe here. He would always protect me.’

WPC White had found the woman pathetic, sad and damaged. She’d put her arm around her and tried to quiet the terrified sobs.