The Fire Baby

The caretaker wheeled round, the tin cup he held shaking instantly. Dryden could only imagine what kind of life had produced a face like that. In the cellar’s half light the deep lines were as sharp as knife wounds, the eyes hooded and cast down. Without looking at Dryden he walked to the tape recorder and hit the stop button, holding his finger on it for a few seconds before speaking. It was the recorder Dryden had bought Maggie. Its predecessor, a moulded 1970s version three times as big, stood beside it still.

The voice was a revelation, pitched high, clear and pleasantly musical. I’m sorry, I thought they’d left it behind. I…’

Dryden held up his hand. ‘Keep it. It’s not important. Was there a tape inside?’

The caretaker looked puzzled. ‘A tape? Yes, yes… I’m sorry. I didn’t think… Again. I’m sorry. So sorry.’ He rummaged amongst the flotsam and jetsam of a kitchen drawer. He held up the tape, the fingers of his hand trembling clearly, and Dryden took it, turning it like a diamond in his hand.

Dryden left and as he climbed the stairs he heard the Bruch swell out again.

Outside, Inspector Newman had parked his Citroën next to Humph’s cab. They were busy ignoring each other as Dryden appeared, flopping into the passenger seat beside the policeman. ‘Anything new?’

The back seat of the car was nearly obscured by Newman’s photographic equipment. He’d clearly been up to the coast in pursuit of the Siberian gull.

‘If you count an ID on the body in the fire house at Mildenhall, yes,’ he said. ‘This is unofficial, OK?’ Dryden nodded. ‘Bob Sutton. Teeth gave it away – military work. We got the X-rays from Singapore. He was a Red Cap. Perfect match. Wife’s upset.’

‘Getaway. Some people, eh?’

Newman refused to take the bait. ‘Which sort of cuts him out as number one suspect for torturing and killing Johnnie Roe.’

‘Why does it rule him out? He had a great motive. His only daughter had been lured into that pillbox, raped, abused. She’d been drugged, and for all he knew at that time murdered as well. He must have thought Johnnie Roe knew where she was. Perhaps he was trying to get it out of him.’

‘So who killed Sutton?’

‘You tell me. But he’s still my call on Roe’s torturer,’ said Dryden, watching Humph tear open a pre-wrapped sandwich.

‘Great,’ said Newman, viewing the cabbie with distaste. ‘Two killers, not one.’

As he got out Dryden tried a last question: ‘The bag in the pillbox. The picture, the food. It was Emmy Kabazo’s?’

‘Yup. Dad identified it for us during questioning before his release on bail. Doesn’t put him in there though, does it? And it’s Bob Sutton’s prints on the knife, anyway. Work that one out.’

Jimmy Kabazo hugged himself and thought of Emmy, his son. He smelt his hair and the memory quickened his heartbeat. Then he lifted the rifle barrel to his lips and kissed the cool stock, leaving two lips of condensation on the dull yellow gunmetal. He watched the lips fade and then whispered ‘Emmy’ as he lowered his eye to meet the icy metal oval of the gunsight. The target crosshair swam slightly through a tear, and then cleared to reveal a crisp cross.

He swept the telescopic sight across the familiar contours of Sedge Fen. The main silos stood in an urban cluster rising out of the black peat flatlands. The Victorians had built them, and the New Elizabethans had let them rot. Each, empty now, was an open throat to the sky. The crows circled in the early morning heat, rising from their roosts inside.