Peter Robinson - Playing With Fire

The PC wrote something on his clipboard and gestured with his thumb. “Inside, sir,” he said with a wistful tone.

Banks walked down the path. The front door was closed, but not locked, and there were signs of forced entry. The firefighters, or someone else?

Banks found Ken Blackstone and the local DI from Weetwood, Gary Bridges, in the living room. DI Bridges presented quite a contrast to Banks and the elegant, dapper Blackstone. In some ways he resembled DS Hatchley, though he was in far better shape. He was a big man in a baggy creased suit, an ex-rugby forward with arms and legs like steel cables, a head of thick sandy hair and piercing green eyes. The traces of his Belfast accent were still in his voice, even though he’d spent most of his life in England.

Banks looked around the room. There was no trace, or even smell, of fire or smoke damage anywhere. Sitting on the sofa, where he cut a slight and lonely figure indeed, was Mark Siddons. The room was warm, but Mark had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and was trembling slightly. He looked over when Banks walked in, then quickly averted his eyes. What looked like streaks of dirt, or blood, stained his face and the hands gripping the blanket. There was also blood on the side of his head.

“What’s going on?” Banks asked, after greeting Blackstone and Bridges. “Where’s the fire?”

“Gary here rang me at home as soon as he heard the location,” said Blackstone. “His lads had been helping us check up on Aspern, so he knew I had an interest.”

“It started in Dr. Aspern’s surgery,” Bridges said. “At the back. An addition, really. The damage isn’t serious, and it’s pretty well contained.” He gestured toward Mark. “Seems this lad here snapped into action with the extinguisher real sharpish.”

Banks looked at Mark. “That right?” he asked.

Mark nodded.

“Was it you who broke in?”

Mark said nothing.

“Sure you didn’t start the fire yourself?” Banks went on.

“I didn’t start it.”

“I warned you to stay away.”

“I didn’t do it.”

“What makes you think he did?” Bridges asked. “What’s going on here? DI Blackstone said Dr. Aspern was involved in a case you’re working on, but that’s about all I know. Do you think this might be related?”

“The personnel’s the same,” said Banks, then he explained about the other fires and Mark’s problems with Patrick Aspern. Mark said nothing. He seemed to be lost in his own world, still trembling.

“So what happened?” Banks asked.

“We’re still not clear yet,” Blackstone said. “But the fire’s not the main problem.” He looked at Mark. “And the leading firefighter told me the front door was already open when they got here. Do you want a look at the scene?”

Banks nodded. Blackstone glanced at Bridges. It was a courtesy to seek his permission because they were on his patch. “It’s okay,” Bridges said. “Looks like we’ll be working together on this one, anyway. I’ll take the lad here down to the station.”

“Why are you arresting me?” Mark asked. “I haven’t done anything.”

“Where else would you go at this hour?” Banks asked.

Mark just shrugged.

Bridges looked over at Banks. “Breaking and entering?”

“That’ll do for starters. And see if you can get a doctor to have a look at him, would you? We’ll talk to him tomorrow.”

“Okay,” said Bridges. “Be careful in there. The doc’s been and gone, but the photographer’s not finished yet, I think, and the SOCOs haven’t done their stuff. Can’t seem to get the idle buggers out of bed.”

“It’s pretty grim,” Blackstone said as he and Banks walked down the plush-carpeted hall to the back of the house.

Banks remembered the scene on the boats and in Gardiner’s caravan. He didn’t imagine it could be much worse than either of those. And it certainly couldn’t be worse than what he had witnessed in that tall, narrow terraced house all those years ago.

“There’s just one connecting door through from the main house,” Blackstone said, turning the handle. “And there’s a separate entrance from the outside into a small waiting room for the patients. They’re mostly private, and I expect they pay a little bit extra for the olde worlde charm. I’ll bet the doctor paid house calls, too.”

There wasn’t much olde worlde charm in evidence when Blackstone opened the door to Aspern’s surgery, but whatever damage had been done there hadn’t been done by fire. Even with the slight charring and spray of foam from the extinguisher, it was plain to see that the walls and floor were covered in blood, and that the blood came from the body of Patrick Aspern, well beyond the help of any doctor now, spread-eagled on the floor, the entire front of his body ripped open in a glistening tapestry of tissue, organ, sinew and bone.

Banks glanced at Blackstone, who was looking distinctly peaky. “Shotgun?” he said. “Close range? Both barrels?”

“Exactly. Gary’s bagged it and tagged it.”

“Jesus Christ,” Banks said under his breath. In such a small room, the impact must have been tremendous. Even now he could still smell the powder mingled with burned rubber, surgical spirit and blood. Banks could only imagine the deafening noise and the spray of arterial blood, the gobbets of flesh blown clean off the bone, leaving dark slimy trails on the walls. Even the eye chart was splattered with blood, and so was the hypodermic syringe on the floor by the chair.

“Who did it?” Banks asked.

“Looks like the wife,” said Blackstone. “But she’s not talking yet.”

“Frances?” Banks said. “Where is she?”

“Station.”

“And the boy was in the room, too? Mark?”

“Yes.”

“What does he have to say for himself?”

“Nothing. You saw for yourself. I think he’s still in shock. We’ll have to wait awhile before we get anything out of him.”

Banks kept silent for a few moments, looking around the room. A shambles, in the original meaning of the word. He noticed several strands of cord on the floor by the doctor’s chair. “What’s that?” he asked.

“We think the boy must have been tied to the chair.”

“Why?”

“Don’t know yet. But Mrs. Aspern must have cut him free.”

“And the fire?”

“Hardly got started before the kid turned the extinguisher on it. As you can see.”

He pointed to a burned patch on the carpet, which had spread as far as the cubbyhole used to store patient files and singed the crisp white sheets on the examination table.

“Who set it?”

“Again, it looks like the wife.”

Frances Aspern. Well, maybe she had reached a snapping point, Banks thought. If what he suspected had been going on, and if she had known, then he could only guess at the power of the emotions she had suppressed, or how warped and dangerous they had become under the pressure of the years. But something must have happened to make her snap. A trigger of some sort. Maybe they would get something out of her or Mark later.

The outside door opened, letting in a draft of icy night air. “Sorry, lads,” said the photographer, tapping his Pentax. “I finished the video, then I had to go back to the car for this.”

The young photographer didn’t seem at all fazed by the scene of carnage in front of him. Banks had seen the same lack of reaction before. He knew that photographers often managed to distance themselves through their lenses. To them, the scene was only another photo, an image, a composition, not real human blood and guts spilled there. It was their way of coping.

Banks wondered what his way of coping was and realized he didn’t really have one. He looked upon these scenes as exactly what they were – outbursts of anger, hate, greed, lust or passion, which left one human being mangled and split open, the fragile bag of blood burst, and he didn’t have any way of distancing himself. But still he slept at night, still he didn’t faint or puke his guts up over someone’s shoes. What did that say about him? Oh, he remembered them all, of course, all the victims, young and old, and sometimes his sleep was disturbed by dreams, or he couldn’t get to sleep for the images that assaulted his mind, but still he lived with it. What did that make him?