Shaun Hutson - Captives

'I'll tell you what puzzles me,' said Finn, looking down at the body. 'Why didn't he burn her as well as himself?'

Gregson could only shrug.

'Why did he burn himself,' the DI mused.

'Was there any ID on him?' Finn wanted to know.

'If there was, it went up in smoke with him. What about the girl?'

'Paula Wilson, twenty-three years old. Single. She lived with her parents.'

'Have they been told yet?'

Finn nodded.

'They've got to come in and identify the body, poor sods,' he said.

'What was she carrying when he attacked her?' Gregson wanted to know.

'Just a handbag.'

'Anything taken?'

'She had credit cards and fifty-seven quid on her. As far as I can tell he didn't even look in the bag.'

'Because he didn't intend stealing anything,' Gregson said flatly, pulling the cover back over the body and getting to his feet. His knees cracked loudly as he straightened up. 'He got what he wanted.'

'And then torched himself? It doesn't make much sense, does it?' said Finn.

'Just like the other one didn't,' the DI reminded his partner. Both men looked at each other. 'Hell of a coincidence, isn't it? One man robs a bank, doesn't take any money, kills six people then burns himself up. A few days later another man mugs a young woman, but he doesn't want her money; all he wants to do is kill her then, when he's finished, he sets fire to himself. Like you said, perhaps Guy Fawkes night has come a bit early this year.'

'You think they're linked?'

'What the fuck do you think?' snapped Gregson irritably. 'Two murderers commit motiveless crimes then burn themselves to death within one mile of each other in the space of a week. You're telling me there's no connection?' He shook his head. 'What we've got to find out is who they were and what the hell that connection is, because I've got a bad feeling about this.'

'Like what?'

'Like, they might not be the only two.'

THIRTY-THREE

He paused before the mirror and adjusted the knot in his tie, finally satisfied that it was straight. Then Jim Scott took a last look around the room, checking that everything was tidy.

He'd been up since seven-thirty that morning, dusting, picking up any stray pieces of paper from the floor. He even managed to force himself into doing the washing-up, which had been lying in the sink for a couple of days.

Scott polished the handle of the door to the room which used to be his father's. He didn't go inside. There was no need. There was nothing to tidy up in there.

He had rung Carol at 8.30 that morning and asked her if she would see him after work. Would she come back to his flat? They could get a take-away and eat it when they got back. He had found himself gripping the receiver tightly.

Please say yes.

She had agreed without her customary reticence. Scott had put the phone down and shouted triumphantly, punching the air as if he'd just been informed he'd won the pools or come into a vast inheritance. All the anger and disappointment of the past few days was forgotten. She was going to spend the night with him. That was all that mattered.

She'd been to the flat on a number of occasions before, usually staying the night. When they'd first started seeing each other it had been almost every night. He studied his reflection in the mirror again, noticing that his smile had faded slightly. He wished that things could be as they were in the beginning. There had been passion between them then. There had never been any excuses about not being able to see him then.

Not like now.

Scott crossed the bedroom to the cabinet beside the bed.

So much they had to talk about.

He slid open the top drawer.

The Beretta 92S automatic lay beside a pile of handkerchiefs.

He looked at the weapon for long moments.

So much they had to talk about.

Scott slid the drawer shut once more.

***

Carol rolled over in bed and sighed, gazing at the poster of James Dean on her bedroom wall.

Beneath the picture of the film idol were the words: BOULEVARD OF BROKEN DREAMS.

They were the only kind of dreams she knew.

Broken. Wrecked.

Ray Plummer had rung about twenty minutes before Scott to apologise that, again, he couldn't see her. He'd make it up to her, though, he had said. He'd get her something nice. Something expensive.

When Scott had rung she'd said yes to him almost without thinking. Now she began to realise what she had agreed to do. To spend the night with him. By agreeing to spend the night, had she also agreed to sleep with him? They had been lovers, after all, still were occasionally; although the term lovers was redundant as far as Carol was concerned. They had sex occasionally. That was it. In her mind, there was no involvement, nothing other than physical contact.

She knew it was different for Scott.

But she knew that there were other reasons why she must see him tonight. She had no doubt that he was becoming suspicious of her. Of her excuses. She needed to spend time with him to allay those suspicions for a while.

Until when?

Until it was time to tell him that it was all over between them?

Until it was time to move in with Plummer?

Time for the final escape.

Carol rubbed her face with both hands and thought about getting out of bed.

For some reason she looked across at the phone, perhaps expecting it to ring again.

Only this time it might not be either Scott or Plummer.

When it had rung earlier that morning she had hesitated for interminable seconds before picking it up, remembering the call of the previous night. It had taken a monumental effort of will and courage finally to snatch up the receiver. Even in the light of day she felt the fear pricking her as she pressed it to her ear and spoke into it. She had been hugely relieved to hear Plummer's voice.

Should she tell him about the calls?

Perhaps she should tell Scott.

Tell someone, for God's sake. Don't keep it to yourself.

And if she did tell them? What could they do? She herself had no idea who was making them. Or why.

Carol swung herself out of bed and headed towards the toilet, glancing at the phone as she passed. She paused in the doorway, looking down apprehensively at the phone.

He wouldn't ring, she told herself. Whoever he was, he wouldn't ring now. Not so early. He seemed to prefer the hours of darkness.

Whoever he was.

She suddenly reached for the jack plug and. pulled it from the socket in the wall.

She was safe from his calls now.

At least for the time being.

THIRTY-FOUR

The stench was appalling.

DS Finn pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and held it close to his nose as he peered down at the body.

'He's not as badly burned as the first one,' said Phillip Barclay, prodding the remains of the dead man's face with a probe. A piece of blackened skin came away from the cheek, exposing the bone beneath.

'Will that make identification easier?' Gregson wanted to know, his eyes never leaving the corpse.

'Theoretically,' the coroner told him. 'But his hands are very badly burned; that rules out finding him by his prints. It looks like it's going to be dental records again.'

'Provided he's in the files,' Finn added, his voice muffled through the handkerchief.

Gregson looked at his companion as if contemptuous of the fact that he found the stench of burned flesh so repellent. Then he returned his attention to the body.

'Any further progress on the first one?' he asked.

Barclay could only shake his head. He seemed more interested in his new subject. He used a probe to force the jaws open a little wider, peering into the black maw that was Bryce's mouth. Even the tongue was burned, black and swollen by the ferocity of the heat. Two fillings in the dead man's rear teeth had indeed melted and Barclay chipped away at the molten matter with one end of the probe, cursing when a whole tooth came free of the scorched gums. He retrieved it from the back of Bryce's throat with a pair of tweezers, dropping it with a dull clink into a small kidney dish.