Burnout, p.1
Burnout, page 1
BURNOUT
David Hodges
First published Pharaoh Press in 2005
Copyright © David Hodges 2005
This edition published in 2022 by Lume Books
The right of David Hodges to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental
This book is dedicated to my wife, Elizabeth, for all her love, patience and support over so many wonderful years and to my late mother and father, whose faith in me to one day achieve my ambition as a writer remained steadfast throughout their lifetime and whose tragic passing has left a hole in my life that will never be filled.
This book contains descriptions of violence and rape that some readers may find upsetting. Reader discretion is advised.
Table of Contents
Before…
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Before…
Hate, paranoia, cruelty – the eyes held it all and in their fixed unblinking stare Ron Ferguson also saw death.
‘Please,’ he blurted hoarsely, his voice cracking open with a gasp of pain as the cage of chicken wire binding him to the frame of the wrought iron bed cut into the flesh of his sweating near naked body. The figure did not move, but in the glare of the moonlight flooding into the bedroom through the open window the thin lips curled into a contemptuous sneer.
‘Please,’ he begged again. ‘I’ll do anything you want, but don’t—’
A black gloved hand rose to eye level, as if in a placatory gesture, but this was only illusory and a fraction of a second later his tormentor was thrusting a large square can towards him as the other hand proceeded to unscrew the cap in a very slow deliberate motion. In the stillness of the room the metallic scrape of metal on metal was plainly audible and, heedless of the wire cutting deeper into his flesh, he thrashed madly from side to side in a futile attempt to snap the vicious strands.
The stench of petrol enveloped him even as the fiery spirit launched itself from the spout in a glittering cascade, seeping into the patchwork of lacerations that covered his trunk and lower limbs, soaking into the mattress and dribbling over the edge of the bed into the thick pile of the carpet. His choking screams held a mixture of agony and terror as they erupted from gnawed, blooded lips through a torrent of drink laden vomit and fled into the humid night, losing themselves among the pines of the thickly wooded hillside, and carrying with them the remnants of his own sanity.
He was too far gone to hear the click of the lighter, to see the tiny flame born in the doorway where the dark figure had retreated, briefly illuminating the cold pale face and the triumphant gleam in those fixed staring eyes. But he was aware of the sheet of flame that leaped from the floor at the foot of the bed and swept over him with the frenzied roar of a tidal wave, stoking up its energy on the greasy fats seeping onto the rubber mattress from his writhing blackening flesh and exiting from the incinerated inner shell of his body through every conceivable orifice in fiery twisting tongues that raced up the walls and across the ceiling of the old house in a gleeful orgy of destruction.
For Ron Ferguson death was relatively swift, but justice was to take a lot longer…
Chapter 1
The telephone rang at precisely 3.00 am. ‘Chief Inspector Dexter?’ The voice sounded nervous, unsure of the likely reaction.
The hand that snatched the receiver from its cradle re-emerged from under the bedclothes and shook off the sheets in which it had become entangled. ‘Who wants to know?’ came the truculent reply.
‘Jamie Briggs, sir. Headquarters Control Room Inspector,’ the caller continued in a rush. ‘We’ve got a nasty incident. Detective Chief Inspector Lawson asked for you to be called. Apparently the press are already on the scene.’
Dexter levered himself up on to one elbow, conscious of his wife stirring beside him. ‘What sort of incident?’ he queried, the interest suddenly evident in his tone.
A barely perceptible sigh that sounded very much like relief. ‘Suspicious fire at Alden House, Bellingham, sir. They’ve got a stiff to go with it, I’m afraid.’
Dexter frowned heavily in the darkness. ‘I should know that address, shouldn’t I? Isn’t it one of our vulnerables?’
‘Yes, sir. Judge Lionel Berwick’s place, and it looks like he’s the stiff.’ Dexter was wide awake now and hauling himself up into a sitting position against the headboard. ‘Berwick?’ he exclaimed louder than he had intended.
‘So I’m told, sir, though they’ve yet to do a formal ID, of course.’
Dexter cast a guilty sidelong glance in the direction of his sleeping wife, then turned away from her, cupping the telephone mouthpiece in his other hand. ‘No chance he was smoking in bed, I suppose?’ he said dryly.
A hard laugh. ‘Shouldn’t think so, sir, not unless he was using petrol in his lighter.’
‘Gordon Bennett! So who’s the Senior Investigating Officer?’
‘Detective Superintendent Moffat is SIO, sir.’
Dexter groaned. ‘That’s all we need,’ he grated. ‘Bloody Super Plod.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Briggs replied politely, but without further comment. The bedside light snapped on and a hand grabbed Dexter’s arm.
‘Big mouth!’ his wife, Tania, hissed in warning. ‘Tape!’
He blanched slightly, remembering, too late, that all calls to the Control Room were recorded as a matter of policy, something even Tania had immediately appreciated.
‘Are you still there, sir?’ Briggs queried innocently.
Dexter cleared his throat. ‘Yes… er… I’m on my way, Jamie. About an hour I should think.’
There was laughter in the other’s voice now. ‘Thank you, sir,’ he acknowledged. ‘I’ll tell Chief Inspector Lawson just that, shall I?’
Tania’s blue eyes studied him frankly as he put the telephone receiver back. ‘Nice one, Mike,’ she said tartly. ‘For the Press, Public Relations Officer, you certainly know all about tact and diplomacy, don’t you?’
He swung his feet over the edge of the bed. ‘Yeah, yeah,’ he growled. ‘But at least I don’t make a profession out of being a prat like Moffat. He couldn’t detect a fart in a storm.’
‘You’ll be the prat if someone has cause to listen to tonight’s tape later on,’ she retorted, then added after a moment’s pause, ‘So what was that about Judge Berwick?’
He felt acid churn in his stomach. Damn, he had been hoping she hadn’t heard him mention the name. ‘Nothing for you to worry about, love.’
‘Michael,’ she snapped as he stood up. ‘I’m not a kid.’
He made a face before turning. ‘I know that, dear, but I don’t want you upsetting yourself after all this time.’
‘What’s happened?’ she persisted tersely.
He sighed and sat down again. ‘There’s been a fire at Berwick’s place and they think he died in the blaze. It’s just an accident, probably an electrical fault or something. Dick Lawson wants me over there to handle the press.’
She swallowed hard and he could see a flicker of something in her eyes he hadn’t seen for a long time. ‘A fire?’ she echoed, a tremble in her voice. ‘But if it was accidental, why are CID—?’
‘A precaution, nothing more,’ he cut in hastily, anxious to put an end to the line her thoughts were taking. ‘Usual procedure with incidents like this. Now can we drop it? I have to get ready.’ She hesitated, then gave a weak smile. ‘Yes, you go ahead.’ She leaned across and kissed him on the cheek. ‘I’m just being silly. Judge Berwick’s name gave me a jolt, that’s all. Touch of déjà vu.’
He nodded, studying her narrowly for a moment. ‘I’ll get back as soon as I can, okay?’
Another smile and she ran her hands through her tousled auburn hair. ‘Yes, of course. Give my best to Dick Lawson, won’t you? Tell him it’s a long time since he and Janet were over for a meal.’
Standing at the bathroom mirror a few minutes later, Dexter gripped the edge of the wash-hand basin and stared at his face in the rapidly clouding glass as the basin filled with hot water. Time was beginning to tell on him. He could see that in the thinning grey-black hair and the pouches under the haunted brown eyes. Even his neat military style moustache was turning grey and there was an overall tightness in his face that seemed to accentuate the sharpness of his cheekbones giving his cheeks a sunken failed appearance. Just forty-six years of age, that was all, and yet he was beginning to look like sixty. The strains and stresses of the job were killing him, he knew that, but the thought of letting go now and having to admit to himself – and even worse, to Tania – that he couldn’t hack it anymore just didn’t bear thinking about.
The biggest joke of all was that everyone thought he had it made. Always up there being interviewed in front of the TV cameras, quoted almost daily in the national press and rubbing shoulders with the high and the mighty at virtually every major event in the force calendar. Yet they didn’t know the half of it. As the Chief Constable’s confidant, he was envied and resented by every senior officer in the force; seen as a renegade by the rank and file because of his links with the press and mistrusted by the press themselves because he was the police spokesman. He walked a tightrope between the two camps and he was acutely conscious of the fact that, if he made one wrong move, there would be a queue of people waiting to plunge a knife in his back. No wonder he was worn out and now, to add to it all, it looked like the past was coming back to haunt him. What was that quote one of his shift sergeants always used to come out with when the chips were down? ‘Life’s a bitch and then you die.’ Yeah, well sometimes you could be dead and not even know it.
Thick fog was waiting for him when he left the house twenty minutes later and there was a sharp chill in the air that went right through him. He shivered as he made his way down the drive to the double garage by the gate.
Tania had been right about the déjà vu bit. Even he felt it and it was certainly ironic that Berwick of all people should have died the way he had. How long was it since the Challow case? It had to be over twenty years he reckoned. He had been just a rookie detective then. ‘Keen and green,’ his crusty old detective inspector had called him. Probably true at the time too. But he had still nailed that crazy fire freak, hadn’t he? And got a crown court commendation after Berwick had put the bastard away.
The engine of his blue Volvo started first time and a few seconds later he was through the gate and bumping along the unmade lane towards the main road. He glanced at the bare trees reaching over the hedgerows on either side to form a skeletal tunnel and shivered again. Why the hell did poor old Berwick have to go and get himself cremated? The last thing Tania needed was to be reminded of the Tulse End nightmare all over again. For so many years she had struggled to come to terms with what had happened, taxing every ounce of patience and resilience he possessed and demanding the best psychiatric support that could be provided. Now, when the pair of them had at last managed to establish a normal life for themselves, there was every chance that everything could go to rat’s shit, just because of this.
‘Damn you, Eddie Challow,’ he said aloud. ‘Damn your rotten stinking hide.’
Alden House was a big Georgian place set well back off the road in wooded grounds and he could smell the fire even before he saw the imposing pillars of the entrance gates. A group of shadowy figures scuttled towards him as he pulled up, peering in through the open window.
‘What gives then, Mike?’ a bearded reporter in a gabardine raincoat queried when he saw who was behind the wheel.
Dexter grunted. ‘I don’t know myself yet, Tom,’ he replied, recognising the news agency man. ‘Catch you later, eh?’
He ignored the host of shouted questions from the others and edged towards the iron gates. A uniformed constable pushed his way through the reporters and shone a flashlight in his face. Turning away from the glare, Dexter showed him his warrant card.
‘Chief Inspector Dexter,’ he snapped sourly, seeing rings in front of his eyes. ‘Headquarters Press Office.’
The policeman stepped back smartly and leaned on one of the gates. ‘Sorry, sir. Just follow the drive round to the right. You are expected.’
His instructions proved to be unnecessary, for the flashing blue lights of the emergency vehicles became clearly visible through the trees a hundred yards into the grounds and seconds later Dexter was pulling up in loose gravel behind one of half a dozen fire appliances. Alden House was no longer alight, but a smoky haze still drifted lazily across the beams of the powerful spotlights trained on the building, and yellow helmeted figures moved among the ruins, raking out debris. The familiar stench created by a combination of wet smoke, charred wood and scorched stonework was only too apparent and Dexter knew that, even with dry-cleaning, his clothes would carry the smell for days afterwards. He made a mental note to extract some cleaning tokens from the Senior Admin Officer’s tight fist as soon as he got back to the office.
He found Detective Chief Inspector Lawson standing talking to a couple of senior fire officers in their distinctive white helmets a short distance from what had once been the front door of the building, and the tall gangling CID man turned quickly at his approach. ‘Mike, my man,’ he exclaimed. ‘Didn’t wake you up, did we?’
Dexter grimaced, nodding at the two fire officers. ‘No, you arsehole, I always stay up until 3.00 am!’
Lawson sighed. ‘Oh dear, the trials and tribulations of being a press, public relations officer. And there’s me thinking it was all TV interviews and Masonic dinners.’
He placed an arm around Dexter’s shoulders and walked him over to a police area car, parked a few yards away, its headlights and blue flashing beacon already dimming as the battery started to run down. ‘Stupid sods,’ the detective commented and reached through the open window to turn everything off. ‘Should have left the lot on and let them walk back to the nick.’
‘You’re all heart,’ Dexter observed dryly, leaning back against the door and shaking his head at the packet of cigarettes thrust under his nose.
Lawson studied him for a moment as he lit up. ‘So, how’s Tania these days?’ he queried quietly. ‘Does she know about all this yet?’
‘Oh she knows all right. I just hope it doesn’t put her back to square one. You know, association of ideas and all that.’
Lawson nodded. ‘I’m just sorry I had to be the one to stir things up again, Mike, I really am, but you were down as on call tonight, so I had no choice.’
Dexter sighed. ‘Forget it. I’m always on call for incidents like this and Tania would have heard about it sooner or later anyway.’ He stared past him at the remains of the house. ‘Bit of a mess, isn’t it?’
Lawson turned briefly to follow his gaze. ‘It’s a lot more than that, old son. Going to take some sorting out too.’
‘No ideas then?’
Lawson shrugged. ‘Too early yet. We know the fire was started about four hours ago but we’re still at the theorising stage. When the Home Office Pathologist deigns to arrive we should know a little bit more.’
Dexter stiffened. ‘Are you saying this thing had been going on for three hours before I was even called?’
Lawson nodded. ‘Bit isolated out here and the old boy lives – lived alone. His wife died two years ago and there were no house staff, just a domestic who came in three days a week. Unfortunately, the place was well alight before a bloke spotted it from the road as he was driving by.’
‘But three hours, Dick? Surely someone could have let me know a damned sight earlier than they did? This will be a major press story.’
‘Yeah, well, I must admit things weren’t handled particularly brilliantly. Our first unit on the scene after the fire service was a bloody dog man and he seems to have farted about for a while before calling CID. Probably tried to get the dog to piss on the fire! I only got here an hour ago myself – minutes before I had Headquarters Control Room telephone you, in fact – and the governor still hasn’t arrived.’
‘Well, every cloud has its silver lining.’
Lawson chuckled. ‘You and Moffat really don’t like each other, do you?’
Dexter snorted disparagingly. ‘The man is a catastrophe waiting to happen, you know that as well as I do. I haven’t been to one major enquiry yet that he hasn’t cocked up.’
‘Now you’re being unkind.’
‘Am I? Then why did you lot christen him Super Plod?’
Lawson chuckled again, but ignored the question. ‘You’ve got Mr Moffat all wrong, Mike. He’s quite a nice bloke when you get to know him. He just doesn’t like the press, that’s all.’
‘Well, I don’t happen to be the press. I’m a copper like you and if I’m to do my job properly, I need to know what is happening – which reminds me, what’s all this I hear about petrol being used to start the fire?’
