Playing With Fire

It was nearly one o’clock, he saw by the church clock in the first village he came to. Christ, he hadn’t realized he’d slept in that long. You could hardly call the place picturesque. This was one the tourists would drive straight through without even slowing down. There was one Tarmac main street of squat red brick houses with the red pantile roofs so common in East Yorkshire, a post office, general store and newsagent’s.

The village was dead quiet, apart from some faint pop music coming from the shabby-looking local pub, the Farmer’s I

Cautiously, he walked inside. It wasn’t one of those places where all conversation stops and everyone looks at you when you walk in, as in that werewolf film he’d seen on the telly in the squat, but he still felt exposed in his ill-fitting clothes, no doubt with a twig or two stuck on the hem of his overcoat and a smear of sheep shit on his jeans. He just hoped he didn’t smell too bad.

The pub was exactly the slightly down-at-heels local you’d expect in such a village, which was probably why the food was so cheap. It smelled of last night’s beer and cigarette smoke and was mostly full of hard-looking unemployed farmhands, who wouldn’t be squeamish about a bit of sheep shit here and there. The landlord was a surly bugger, but he copied down Mark’s order and gave him a number, only turning his nose up when Mark ordered a small lemonade to drink. He didn’t want to waste his money on beer. With the change in his pocket, he now had a little over four pounds left, and that might buy him a roll and a cup of tea for di

He realized he’d have to do something about the money situation soon, and it might mean a bit of burglary. He didn’t like it, but he’d done it before, and he’d do it again if he had to. It was the one thing Crazy Nick had taught him, when he had forced Mark to come out on jobs with him. There was hardly a house he couldn’t get into. Mark would never beg, but he would thieve if necessary. At least thieving took guts, and you didn’t look like you’d just given up and sat down with your hand sticking out permanently.

Mark had one cigarette left, he realized, courtesy of the copper who had given him the clothes. He decided to smoke it after his lunch. He sat in a deserted corner by the window and looked out through the greasy glass on the empty high street. People would be eating their roasts behind their dusty net curtains, perhaps watching football or racing, as Crazy Nick did when he came back from the pub. If his team lost he used to smack Mark around. Mark’s mother, too, sometimes, though she was a tough old bird, and you could tell Crazy Nick had to be really pissed to have a go at her. As often as not, he came out the worse for wear.

The telly was on behind the bar in the pub, sound off, and Mark was just in time to catch the local news. A tart with a microphone was standing by a burned-out caravan dripping with water the fire hoses had sprayed on it. Was that what he had seen last night, when he was ru

There was another reporter by the canal side, a man, this time. His name was captioned at the bottom of the screen, but it was too small for Mark to read. He was wearing a heavy overcoat and a scarf wrapped around his neck. He talked and gestured as the others, police officers, Mark supposed, went about their work.

Next came an old picture of Tom in the next boat, the man they said was an artist. He was barely recognizable from the photograph, but it was definitely Tom.

And then came the picture that grabbed ahold of Mark’s heart and squeezed. He’d never seen it before, but it was Tina, maybe taken two or three years ago, before they met. Her blond hair was long, over her shoulders, and it seemed to glow with health. She was smiling at the camera, but Mark could tell it was a bit forced. If you didn’t know her well, though, didn’t know that telltale clenching of the jaw and shadows behind her eyes, then you’d never know. Time hung suspended. He almost felt as if she could see him, was looking right at him, and he wanted to call out to her, tell her he was sorry he had failed her, sorry he hadn’t been there for her.

When the picture vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and the program cut back to the reporter by the canal, Mark stood up so quickly he knocked his drink over and ran out into the street.

Banks bowed out of the excursion to the pub out Richmond way, allowing A

At this point, while each fire was being investigated separately for cause and motive, every possible effort was being made to find the link between them that everyone suspected was there. When Banks dropped by the incident room, Winsome was back entering the green sheets into the HOLMES computer system; DC Gavin Rickerd was making sure everything was in its place, neatly logged and filed; DC Kevin Templeton was chewing the end of a pencil as he tried to gather information on any similar fires; and DS Hatchley was pondering over the bits and pieces he had dug up on Mark David Siddons. The phones rang from time to time, computer keyboards clacked and fax machines hummed. Everything was ticking over nicely, but just ticking over. Of course, everyone was on overtime except Banks. A DCI didn’t get paid overtime.

Banks hadn’t been back in his own office more than a couple of minutes when Stefan Nowak tapped at the door. “A moment?”

Banks looked up. “Good news, I hope?”

“I don’t know,” said Stefan, standing at the open door. “But there’s something you might like to see, if you’ve got a minute or two to spare.”

Curious, Banks followed Stefan down the corridor into the “new” part of the building, which they called the a

Stefan stopped at a lab bench. “I thought you might be interested in this,” he said, pointing to a blackened cube about the size of a computer monitor. “We retrieved it from the caravan. Looks as if it was hidden in one of the cupboards.”

“What is it?” Banks asked.

“Well, it looks to me like a fire-resistant safe,” said Stefan.

“A fire-resistant safe? What on earth is a bloke living on his wits in a dilapidated caravan doing with a fire-resistant safe?”

“You tell me,” said Stefan. “I only found it and identified it.”

“Can you open it?”

“It might take a bit of brute force.”

“Any reason to treat it gently?”

“No. We’ve already checked for prints. Nothing.”