To Dwell in Darkness (8 page)

Kincaid introduced himself and Callery, then said, “We understand you were demonstrating in the St. Pancras arcade this afternoon.” There was no sign of the placards and Kincaid wondered where they had been ditched.

“We had a protest. So what?” There was worry behind the belligerence in Matthew's tone.

“We understand from Iris here that one of you set off what was meant to be a smoke bomb as part of the protest.”

If looks could kill, Matthew's glare would have slain Iris on the spot. Still, he hesitated before admitting it. “Yeah. Ryan. It was Ryan's idea. He thought we'd get some attention from the media.”

Kincaid nodded towards the television screen. “I'd say you got considerably more than that.”

One of the girls on the sofa stood and came towards them. She was painfully thin, with dyed black hair and black-painted fingernails, but there was a sweetness to her face that belied the halfhearted attempt at Goth. “They said someone was—that there was a—a fatality. And Ryan hasn't— We don't know where he—” A look from Matthew stopped her. She shoved her hands into the opposite sleeves of the droopy black sweater that hung on her thin frame like a shroud.

“What's your name?” Kincaid asked, ignoring Matthew for the moment.

“Trish.”

“Do you have a last name, Trish?”

“It's—Hollingsworth.” Her accent, like Iris's, was decidedly middle class.

Matthew, on the other hand, had the unmistakable drawl of a prep school boy. Doug Cullen, who had done his best to disguise the fact that he had gone to Eton, would have recognized it instantly. What were they playing at, these privileged kids? Kincaid wondered.

“Iris,” said Trish Hollingsworth, “where were you? Where's Ryan? What happened?”

“They—they think it might be Ryan that's dead.” Iris's words ended on a wail.

“That's bullshit,” said Matthew. “Nobody was supposed to get hurt. Ryan knew what he was doing.” He scowled at Kincaid and Callery. “Unless you lot did something to him.”

Callery spoke for the first time. “What's your name, sonny? And don't mess me about.”

“What is this? Good cop/bad cop?” Matthew sneered.

“You haven't begun to see bad cop, so don't tempt me, son.” There was a menace in Callery's voice that made Matthew step back.

“Quinn,” he said grudgingly. “Matthew Quinn. But I don't see what business it is of yours—”

“Matthew!” It was the other girl, a delicate young woman with Asian features. She came off the sofa with her hands balled into fists, the force of her voice at odds with her small stature. “Just shut the fuck up, will you?”

She crossed the room to Iris. “Is it true?” she asked, her voice shaking.

Iris nodded. “I didn't see. But something terrible happened, and he's not here. Ryan's not here.” She looked beseechingly at the others, as if someone might tell her differently, but no one spoke.

The girl's face twisted in grief. “Oh, God. No. Please, no.” She put a hand to her mouth and swayed.

Just as Kincaid reached for her, fearing she might collapse, they heard the bang of the downstairs door and the stomp of police-issue boots on the stairs.

“I think,” said Kincaid, “that it might be a good idea if we all had a talk down at the station.”

They had not got the group into the waiting panda cars without considerable protest from Matthew Quinn.

He was the last to be escorted down the stairs, once he'd locked the door. Turning back, he'd said to Kincaid, “You'll see about this, you and your jackbooted thugs. I'll call my—” Then he'd stopped, clamping his mouth shut.

“Your lawyer?” Kincaid asked. “You have a lawyer, do you? Now that's interesting. Why do you need a lawyer?”

But Quinn had refused to say anything else, and Kincaid decided that he would interview the rest of the group, and separately, before he spoke to Quinn again.

But before he talked to anyone, he wanted to see what had been pulled from the CCTV footage at St. Pancras station.

And all assuming, of course, that SO15 didn't hijack the protesters.

Nick Callery walked away from the idling cars, phone pressed to his ear. After a brief phone conversation, he returned to Kincaid and said, “Your place it is, then, at least for now. My guv'nor's not convinced it's SO15's party. We'll wait and see.” He did not sound pleased.

Kincaid had already put in the request for a search warrant for the flat. “We'll see what we turn up once we can get a team in there. Let's hope there wasn't a bomb factory in the bedroom.”

“Bunch of bloody amateurs if you ask me,” Callery grumbled as they got back in the silver Vauxhall and the driver pulled out into traffic ahead of the panda cars.

“Better than professionals,” Kincaid said with feeling, and they made the rest of the trip in silence.

The concrete fortress of Holborn Police Station seemed much more welcoming than it had when Kincaid had left it late that afternoon. It promised warmth, and smelled of stale coffee rather than burned flesh.

Once inside, he had a word with the custody sergeant first thing. “I've got six witnesses coming in, three male, three female. Put them all in one room, but keep an officer in with them. I don't want them comparing stories or using their phones. I'll pull them out one by one.”

Then he and Callery went up to the CID suite. There was a hum of activity he hadn't felt before today. The case manager for major incidents, Simon Gikas, had already started a whiteboard with a time line and some of the SOCO photos.

“Sidana and Sweeney not back yet?” Kincaid asked.

“On their way in,” answered Gikas. “They've left the rest of the statements for uniform.”

Gikas and the rest of the team were eyeing Callery with interest.

“This is DCI Callery from SO15,” Kincaid said. “We'll be coordinating until we see what sort of incident we have here.”

“Do you think we've got some sort of nutter, boss?” Gikas had dark, wavy hair, and his olive skin was indicative of his Greek heritage. The name, of course, afforded the team much amusement, and even though Gikas had explained innumerable times that the “g” was pronounced as an English “y,” to most he was simply known as Geek. It was perfect for a case manager, who needed to be logical, technical, and organized.

Kincaid sensed a sudden wariness in the room. Homicide considered SO15 the cowboys, the coppers who didn't have to play by the rules. Nor would his team want to invest too much in a case that might be taken away from them if SO15 decided it was their turf. “Too early to say.” Kincaid's noncommittal shrug was as much for Callery's benefit as the team's.

He walked over to the whiteboard and examined the photos with as much dispassion as possible, trying to shut out his sensory memory, which was distorted by shock, as well as his worry over his friends. What hadn't he seen?

The charred corpse gave him nothing back but the rictus of a grin.

“Boss.” Gikas motioned to one of the monitors. “We've pulled some CCTV footage from right around the time of the incident.”

As Gikas hit Play, Kincaid was very aware of Nick Callery moving in beside him, watching the screen with frowning concentration.

It took Kincaid a moment to orient himself to the first camera angle. It was south facing, covering the arcade between the Marks & Spencer and the south entrance to the terminal. The time stamp started at five minutes before Melody had made the call to Control.

The crowd swelled and thinned, swelled and thinned, making Kincaid think of deep sea plants moving in unseen currents. Then some of the passersby slowed and stopped, all turning to face towards the center of the arcade, and Kincaid realized they must be watching Andy and Poppy. A few seconds later, Melody appeared at the edge of the camera view. She just as quickly vanished offscreen, and he assumed she'd moved closer to the band.

Then he saw Matthew Quinn come out of the Marks & Spencer and join the stream of shoppers and commuters. Even with a woolly hat covering most of his hair, his height made him unmistakable. In gaps in the crowd, Kincaid recognized the others he'd met at the flat.

The group coalesced in front of the Marks & Sparks, causing the crowd to part around them. There was Iris, and with her were the Asian girl and the bearded young man. Trish Hollingsworth stood beside the ordinary-looking bloke with the glasses and the goatee who had been sitting on the sofa with the girl who'd challenged Quinn. He was carrying a flat case that might have been an artist's portfolio. The group huddled around him as he opened it, and a moment later they all raised placards.

The camera caught several of the signs full on. They were printed in clear block lettering, but were obviously not professionally made.
SAVE
LONDON
'
S
TREASURES
said one,
NO
CROSSRAIL
said another, and a third had
CROSSRAIL
marked with the universal NO symbol.

The protesters looked alert and rather full of themselves, not as if they knew one of their members was about to burn himself to a crisp not more than a few dozen yards away.

Just as they started to pump the placards up and down and chant what looked like “No Crossrail,” Colleen Rynski appeared. She gestured towards the exit. Matthew argued with her, waving his free hand. Rynski spoke into her shoulder mic and put her hand on the baton at her belt. She jerked her head towards the exit.

After glancing at Matthew, the group began moving in the direction she'd indicated, still halfheartedly holding up their signs. They disappeared from the camera view.

The time counter on the tape ticked onwards. Twenty seconds. Thirty seconds. Then, suddenly, all the heads in the crowd swiveled as one, mouths opening in shock or horror. People began running, shoving, dropping parcels and shopping bags. Within a few seconds, smoke as thick as pea-soup fog obscured the view.

“It's five minutes before the smoke begins to clear,” said Gikas. “Do you want to see more?”

Kincaid realized that everyone in the room had gathered round, watching in silence. “Not now,” he answered. “Have we got a view of the victim?”

Gikas tapped keys and another camera angle appeared on the screen. “It's not great. He must have known where the cameras were.”

Now Kincaid saw the other side of the arcade. There were Tam and Caleb, standing by one of the café tables, looking towards the temporary stage. He saw Tam smile, and Caleb lift a mug to his lips.

“There.” Simon Gikas pointed a pencil at a figure who appeared just at the edge of the screen, a man carrying a lightweight backpack and wearing a hoodie. At least Kincaid assumed the figure was male. The clothing was dark and slightly bulky; the hood was pulled forward so that it shadowed the face and covered any visible hair. The figure appeared to be of medium height compared to the other passersby.

The figure stopped, but did not look towards the band. His head moved—might he have been searching for the group on the other side of the arcade?—but he didn't turn his face to the camera. Then he stood for a long moment as the crowd ebbed and flowed around him. His right hand was in his pocket. Kincaid felt a jolt of dread and an urge to reach out, to stop the action from unfolding.

The crowd around the figure thinned, cleared. The figure took his hand from his pocket but his grasp obscured the object he held. He looked up then, but the hood still shadowed his face.

Then he brought his hands together, and a moment later, fire blossomed between them.

“Sweet Jesus,” muttered one of the detective constables. Kincaid heard an intake of breath from someone else behind him as the flames billowed up in a great ball, engulfing the figure.

For an instant, it looked as if the man's arms rose up in the flames. He might have been a conjurer, casting a spell, or a great bird about to take flight. Then the cloud of smoke obscured all.

The graves, like the corpses they bear, are jumbled; a frantic mass of jagged stones that break the earth as fractured concentric circles, imposing the macabre on an otherwise peaceful area of the churchyard. Bodies lay upon bodies, graves upon graves.

—Jamesthurgill.com,
The Hardy Tree, St. Pancras
Old Church, London

Sidana and Sweeney came in as the video finished. “Absolutely bonkers,” said Sweeney, shaking his head. “A bloody human candle. Do you think he felt anything?”

Kincaid was glad enough to have Sweeney break the mood in the room. “I hope not. But there's no way he's going to tell us, is there? Did you come up with anything?” he asked, including Sidana in the question.

Sidana flipped open her notepad. “One woman reported a giant invisible flying saucer appearing in the arcade, then blasting off in a heavenly cloud,” she reported, straight-faced.

“Meds?” Kincaid asked with equal gravity.

“Um, Valium, and some kind of antipsychotic. She couldn't remember what it was called.”

“Well, that's not surprising.” Kincaid wondered what it would take to get his DI to crack a smile. “You can watch the tapes, but if it was an invisible alien ship, I doubt you'll be able to see it.”

There was a titter in the room, but Sidana didn't join in. He hadn't meant to make her the butt of a joke, only to relieve a little of the tension in the atmosphere. “You'll need to enter your notes for Simon to process, but in the meantime I want you with me on the interviews.”

“Sir?”

He explained about the six protesters. “You'll need to watch the CCTV tapes first, spaceship or not. You can do that while I get the interviews set up.” Frowning, he thought for a moment, then said, “I want the girls first.” He glanced at Nick Callery, who hadn't said a word since they'd viewed the CCTV footage. Callery looked a little green. “Are you going to sit in?” Kincaid asked.