Ambush (24 page)

‘No, I came in the morning after,' Milne said, and went on, ‘A fire was noticed in one of the cells at about three a.m. on the morning of the twenty-first, but we're not certain exactly how long it might have been blazing – possibly for some time.'

‘Why do you think that?' Dean asked.

Milne winced. ‘Part of the alarm system was disabled on the landing of that wing … it's called Martin Mere Landing, after the nearby bird sanctuary.'

‘How was it disabled?' Dean probed.

Milne shrugged. ‘I say “disabled”; it just didn't work like it should have done. It was checked after the fire and was working OK.'

‘But it didn't pick up the smoke or the heat?'

‘No … and it's one of those that can respond to heat and/or smoke, but it didn't go off for some reason. They can be temperamental, but they are checked monthly. This one had been checked on the first of the month.'

Dean was eager to ask more questions but decided they could wait. He and the others were impatient to see the CCTV footage. ‘OK, can we see?'

Milne touched a button and the screen showed an image split into two camera angles on Martin Mere Landing, Block C, Wing B. These showed views from each end of the landing, the cameras basically facing each other, with ten cell doors on the left of one screen and the same ten on the right looking the other way.

Nothing was happening. The landing was empty.

Then a wisp of smoke came from underneath one of the cell doors, like a spirit coming through the gap.

The time stamp on the screen was ‘03:01'.

Smoke seeped out, slowly building until it began to fog the landing. Flynn thought he saw a lick of flame from under the door.

The situation seemed to go on for a while, the time passing with excruciating slowness. It took for ever before ‘03:04' appeared on the screen.

‘I'm assuming that is Tasker's cell?' Flynn asked.

‘Yes. He was in there alone.'

‘Alone,' Flynn said flatly.

‘Yeah, guy like him—' Milne said.

‘Gets what he wants?' Flynn eyed Milne cynically.

‘Up to a point. Occasionally he had to share,' Milne said. ‘And, by the way, he had been a model prisoner for all his time in custody.'

‘Sociopath,' Santiago said. ‘Playing the long game.'

Almost five minutes after the first wisp of smoke the first prison officers were pounding down the landing, weaving their way through the smoke-saturated air to the door from which the flames were now definitely licking. They fumbled the keys and it was evident, even on this silent video, that they were shouting desperately to each other, until one managed to shove the key into the lock.

Once the door was unlocked they did the sensible thing and ducked behind it as it opened outwards, to protect themselves from severe injury or death. A searing fireball came from within the cell as the rush of fresh oxygen produced an explosion of incredible force, heat and ferocity, as though a bomb had gone off, but missed them crouching behind the steel door.

Dean, Flynn, Santiago and Bromilow stared, transfixed, in awe. Flynn gave a quiet whistle.

‘He had an armchair in his cell as a perk,' Milne said, glancing quickly at Flynn for a comment which did not come, ‘but it was stuffed with old style foam and it looks like he fell asleep on his bed after dropping a lighted cigarette down the back of the cushion. The smoke killed him and he was engulfed by fire after the explosion when the door opened.

‘Fire service took twenty minutes to arrive, during which time the fire raged and we were ineffective in fighting it with our inadequate extinguishers. He had no chance and neither did we.'

‘Very convenient,' Flynn said sourly.

The officer pushed a brown envelope across to Dean, who shook out several graphic photographs of the scene after the fire had been put out. They were horrific and the body on the lower bunk bed was barely distinguishable as such. The inside of the cell was a black-charred mess.

‘We carried out an investigation,' Milne went on, ‘together with the police and fire service, and as far as the coroner was concerned it was death by accident.'

‘It was a DI from Leyland, I believe, who dealt with the police side of it?' Dean said.

‘Correct.'

‘And a post-mortem was carried out?'

‘For what it was worth,' Milne said.

‘So the death of Brian Tasker has now been done and dusted,' Flynn said. ‘How sure are we it really was Brian Tasker in that cell?'

‘As sure as we can be. He was locked in at lights out, ticked off on rollcall and checked by an officer on his rounds at eleven thirty p.m. and midnight, when he was seen to be asleep. Why? Do you think it wasn't him?'

Dean answered, ‘Not sure yet … I don't wish anyone dead, but I hope to hell it was Tasker or heads might be rolling.'

‘Hear, hear,' Flynn said.

‘Can we go back to earlier in the evening?' Dean asked Milne.

‘Sure.'

Milne pressed a few buttons and the image changed from a fiery inferno to a more sedate split-screen view of the prison landing. A couple of inmates leaned on the railings overlooking a quadrangle below; another pair walked along, chatting amiably. Tasker's cell door was open wide and then, suddenly, there he was in the picture, walking along with another prisoner. Tasker paused at the cell door in conversation with the man. They chatted for a good minute, then Tasker casually turned face on to one camera, then to the other one at the opposite end of the landing. After this he went into the cell alone and the other man walked away.

‘So, you see, he went into his cell at eight thirty p.m.'

‘“Look at me, look at me,”' Flynn said cynically. ‘“I'm going into my cell.”' He remained unimpressed.

‘He did not come out again,' Milne said with certainty. ‘We've been over these tapes quite a few times and he definitely did not re-emerge that night, except in a zip-up body bag.'

Flynn's mouth twisted. He shook his head at Santiago, then folded his arms grumpily.

Milne ran through the footage until the point where three other men entered the cell a while later, all managing – casually, it seemed – to keep their faces away from the camera lens. One was wearing a cowboy hat.

‘This is the pontoon crew,' Milne said.

‘The pontoon crew?' Dean asked.

‘Yes, you know, Twenty-one, the card game? They were regular players and met up in Tasker's cell to play for matchsticks. They never caused a problem. Just like Tasker himself, in fact, despite his reputation.'

‘My arse,' Flynn grumbled, not taking any of this well.

Milne continued, ‘They were seen on several occasions by prison officers, one of whom stepped into the cell for a chat on a couple of occasions, as he reported on his log.'

‘Who were the men?'

‘Tasker you know. The others were Felix Loveday, double murderer; Sam Rawtenstall, in for sexual assault; and Ben Dudley, a serial …' Milne caught his words.

‘Serial what?' Flynn said. ‘Killer?'

‘In a way, yes … he was responsible for killing three students at their digs in Preston.'

‘So, yeah, serial killer.'

‘No,' Rik Dean interrupted. ‘I know him … Henry Christie dealt with him a while back.' Dean looked at Flynn, who fidgeted at the name Christie. ‘He was a firestarter, a serial arsonist, from when he was a kid. Used to set fire to rubbish skips, then animals … only a matter of time before he killed people; then he did. He was suspected of killing more than three students.'

‘So he knows how to start fires?' Santiago said.

‘Oh yeah … an expert. The other guy,' – Dean looked at Milne – ‘Sam Rawtenstall, his name rings a bell, too … can't quite …' He shot a glance at DS Bromilow. ‘Find out who he is, will you?'

‘Will do, boss.' Bromilow rose and left the room, his phone to his ear.

‘You on my line of thought here?' Dean said to Flynn and Santiago.

They nodded. Santiago said, ‘Individuals who could be useful to him.'

‘You're making things fit how you want them to fit,' Milne said.

‘Maybe, maybe,' Dean admitted. ‘Tell us about the other guy.'

‘Felix Loveday, a gay man, convicted of double murder when he was a teenager thirty years ago … he's the one who went in with the cowboy hat on.' Once more Milne's voice faltered. ‘He was released on licence the day after the fire … well, the same morning as the fire.'

Flynn, Santiago and Dean rubbed their foreheads.

‘Let's see the footage,' Dean said.

Milne skipped through the remainder of the evening in the prison. It was uneventful until, at 22:45 hours, a prison officer was seen standing at Tasker's cell door. Then he stepped into the cell out of camera shot, closing the door behind him. He reappeared a few moments later, closely followed by the three men who had entered Tasker's cell earlier for a night of cards. They were dressed in exactly the same clothes as when they had gone in and fell casually into single file as they came out.

Milne paused the video and pointed at the screen. ‘The one in front is Rawtenstall, the one in the middle is Loveday and the one at the back is Dudley.' He started the action again. The men walked along the landing, and the men at the front and rear both appeared happy to have their features recorded by the CCTV; the one in the middle, however, kept the brim of the cowboy hat down over his face, obscuring it, and stayed quite close to the man in front, Rawtenstall, so that his physical features could not be made out.

Flynn rolled his eyes. ‘That ain't Felix Loveday,' he said. ‘If it is, I'll show my arse in Burton's window.'

A minute later the same prison officer returned to Tasker's cell. He did not enter but stood on the threshold, as though he was conversing with the inmate. He even gave a good night wave before closing and locking the cell door. He walked away.

Milne insisted, ‘His report clearly stated that he spoke to Tasker before lockdown.'

The door opened and Bromilow stepped back inside. ‘Doctor Sam Rawtenstall, life for serious sexual assaults on four female patients and twelve others lying on file. He drugged them and raped them. He was a GP, now struck off the register for life … obviously.'

‘Fuck,' Flynn said with exasperation. ‘So Tasker goes to bed, sets fire to himself and dies? I don't think so.'

All eyes turned to Milne.

‘Prisoners being discharged? I'm assuming that process is videotaped?' Dean asked him.

He nodded. ‘I'll have to get the disks for that … different system.' He left the room.

‘Thanks, mate,' Dean said to Bromilow, who sat down and asked, ‘What have I missed?'

‘A sleight of hand,' Flynn said.

‘Or a sleight of identity,' Santiago said.

‘And with the collusion of staff and other inmates,' Dean said.

‘Bets, anyone?' Flynn said. ‘Because I'll lay odds on three things: one, that Brian Tasker walked out of this prison as Felix Loveday; two, that the prison officer we've just been watching is the one who signed him out when the prison was in chaos the morning after because of the fire; and three, that Mr Loveday, much against his wishes, is now nothing more than ashes.'

‘You're faced with this: to all intents and purposes, Brian Tasker was locked up alone in a cell which then caught fire,' Flynn said. ‘So it was Tasker who died. Everything points to that. No need to question it. All the evidence appears to be there … or not.'

‘Confirmation bias, kind of,' Santiago said.

They all looked at her.

‘What you see supports what you think happened – to put it in very simple terms.'

‘Ahh,' they said wisely.

Tight-lipped, Milne slid a disk into the laptop.

This time the view that came up was from behind the desk at which prisoners to be released were processed. Except that on the day of Felix Loveday's release the camera had somehow been knocked slightly askew and all that could be seen were the feet of the staff behind the counter. According to the duty roster that Milne brought back with him the staff included the officer who was on duty the previous evening and who had visited Tasker's cell on a number of occasions and then locked him up for the night.

Flynn, Santiago, Dean and Bromilow were mute.

‘The facts are the facts as they are seen and presented,' Dean said eventually, ‘and I can't really jump down anyone's throat for accepting them as such. A body burned beyond recognition, a trustworthy prison officer, CCTV footage that supports everything on the face of it – what could go wrong?' He rubbed his face and looked very pale. ‘That said, the DI who dealt with this will be on my carpet first thing tomorrow.'

‘What about DNA?' Santiago asked. ‘Presumably a sample was taken from the body and tested?'

‘I don't know,' Dean admitted. He took a breath. ‘Anyway,' he said, looking at Milne, ‘I want some things to happen without any fuss. Sam Rawtenstall and Ben Dudley … I want them brought here separately. I will then arrest them on suspicion of murder and I want them conveyed – still apart and each unaware that the other has been arrested – to Preston nick and booked in.' He looked at Bromilow. ‘Fix that, will you?' Bromilow nodded. ‘Then I want the same to happen to that prison officer who, you say, is on duty as we speak. And I want those CCTV images. I'm not completely convinced that your hypothesis is correct yet,' he said to Flynn, ‘so let's check it out by speaking to these individuals, and if I have to' – and at that point his eyes flickered to Milne – ‘I'm going to break some heads.'

Milne nodded numbly.

‘My boss, again,' Santiago said to Flynn, waggling her phone at him.

He responded sadly. ‘I know.'

Detective Santiago, now very much a legend in the Canary Island police service despite the short time she had been stationed there, had received further texts urging – almost begging – her to return. As a result she had booked a late night flight back.