The Burning (4 page)

I sat down on the edge of the bed, trying to look unthreatening, and smiled.

‘Kelly? I’m Detective Constable Kerrigan. You can call me Maeve. And this is my colleague, DC Langton, who’s going to take some notes for me.’

Rob had folded himself unobtrusively into a hard chair in the corner of the room. She looked over at him, then up at me blankly. ‘Do you know when my mum is going to get here?’

‘No. I’m sorry. I’m sure she’s on her way.’

‘She’s bringing my clothes. I ain’t got no clothes. They took them.’

‘They’ll need to do a forensic examination of your clothes,’ I explained. Never mind the fact that they would have been unwearable, covered in Vic Blackstaff’s blood.

‘I want to go home.’

‘Very soon.’ My voice was gentle, as if I was speaking to a child. Which was a good point, actually. ‘How old are you, Kelly?’

‘Twenty.’

Good. No need to wait for a responsible adult to be present. ‘And are you a student? Or working?’

‘Student. Catering college.’ She looked a little brighter. ‘I’m in my last year.’

‘Do you want to be a chef when you’re finished?’

She shrugged, looking baffled. ‘Dunno.’

Enough friendliness. Back to the reason for talking to her in the first place.

‘I’d like to talk to you about what happened earlier. We have a few questions, and then we’ll let you go home.’

She rolled her eyes and said nothing.

‘Firstly, I’d just like to reassure you that you aren’t in any kind of trouble. We’re interviewing you as a witness, not a suspect, so please don’t feel that you need to watch what you say. We just want to know what happened before you – er, escaped.’ Somehow, ‘escaped’ sounded better than ‘stabbed a man in the stomach several times’.

She stirred. ‘Is he dead, then?’

‘No. He’s in intensive care. But he’s alive.’

‘Sorry to hear that.’ She lifted her chin defiantly, and I thought she was hoping to see shock in my eyes. If so, she was disappointed.

‘Right. In your own words, then, can you tell me what happened? Start from the beginning. What time did you head out to the pub?’

I can’t say that Kelly Staples was an easy interview. Fear made her bolshie. She battled me for the first few minutes, barely answering the questions I asked. But as the story of her night wore on, something seemed to take hold of her, and the monosyllables became sentences, and the sentences became paragraphs, and soon she was talking freely, the words running on like water into a gutter. I hoped Rob could keep up.

‘So of course, I’m thinking a minicab will be cheap and I’ll get home quicker. I mean, he was old. He was like my dad or something. Quiet, like. Just … helpful. I thought maybe I reminded him of his daughter and he wanted to see me get back safe. What an idiot. Total idiot. I should have run a mile, not that I could in my boots. I could barely walk.’

‘What happened when you got into the car?’

The words flowed on. His car, and what she’d noticed about it – a faint smell of petrol that had worried her, the more she thought about it. His refusal to take her home the way she knew. The alley he’d found, where he’d promised to turn the car. How dark it had been. How he’d stalled her, telling her the door wouldn’t open from the inside. How he’d sweated. How it was wrong, and what he’d said was wrong, and she’d just known it was him, the Burning Man, so she’d got in before he could do her the way he’d done those other girls.

‘I had this knife, see, in my boot. For protection. You can’t be too careful these days, my little brother said.’ She gave a laugh, high-pitched with nerves. ‘Well, this just goes to show, doesn’t it? I mean, if I hadn’t had it, who knows where I’d be? On a slab, maybe.’

Maybe, maybe not. I was beginning to feel edgy. ‘Go back to before you took out the knife, Kelly. What did he say or do to make you sure that he was a killer?’

‘He stopped the car, and he said he’d let me out.’

‘And?’

‘And nothing. As soon as he stopped the car, I just knew.’

I waited. The only sound in the room was Rob’s pen scratching across the paper. When it stopped, I said gently, ‘What did you know, Kelly?’

‘That he was a killer. That killer. You know, the burning one.’

I made myself look blandly understanding. But my mind was blank apart from one word repeating monotonously, over and over again.
Fuck
…
fuck
…
fuck
…

She finished off her story, telling us that she’d got to him before he could make a move on her, that he hadn’t seen her coming, finishing up with, ‘And I’ve been stuck in this room for two hours and I haven’t had a ciggie, so if you wouldn’t mind, can I go now?’

‘You’ll have to hang on for a little while,’ I said, trying to sound pleasant. ‘You’ll probably have to give another statement, I’m afraid. And the doctors haven’t signed you out yet.’

She looked as if she was going to cry. ‘I just want to go home.’

‘I know.’ I stood up, suddenly uncomfortable. I couldn’t lie and say she’d be leaving soon; if I wasn’t much mistaken, she would be arrested before too long. From her account of events, there was an obvious charge of Section 18, wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm.

Kelly was rubbing her eyes, smearing moisture and the remains of her make-up across her pale cheeks. From behind her hands came, ‘I just want my mum.’

I had got to the door and I yanked it open, pushing Rob out in front of me. ‘Thanks for your help, Kelly. We’ll be in touch.’

The sound of sobbing was cut off by the door swinging shut. Annoyingly, it was the kind of door you couldn’t slam. I looked around for something to kick instead. Anything to vent my feelings.

‘What a lovely girl.’

‘Don’t be mean about her.’ I felt protective of poor, unlucky Kelly, even though I was furious with her as well.

‘Who’s being mean?’

‘You are and you know it.’

‘I just said she was lovely.’ Rob blinked at me innocently. ‘Not the kind of girl you want to make a move on without fair warning, but sweet all the same.’

‘Blackstaff was up to something naughty. What was he planning to do with her?’

‘We’ll never know. And what we do know doesn’t justify what she did to him, does it?’

I had to admit he was right. ‘By her account, he didn’t do a thing. OK, he was a bit creepy – I’m sure she was right to be suspicious. Maybe he thought she was too drunk to know what she was doing and he could take advantage. But she completely overreacted. There isn’t a shred of evidence linking him to the other murders, not one concrete thing that would confirm her story that he’s the killer. And let’s be honest, her story isn’t going to stand up in court, is it?’

‘She might have been right. Maybe he got rid of the stuff before we got there.’

‘What, a container of petrol and at least one blunt instrument? The stun gun? There wasn’t any of that in the car, was there? Or around it. We’re screwed. Completely screwed.’

‘Yep. And you’re the one who’s going to have to tell Godley.’

‘Don’t think that hasn’t occurred to me.’ I looked at him. ‘You don’t give a stuff, do you? This is a total disaster and you’re just not bothered.’

He shrugged. ‘Nothing we can do about it now. Bad luck for Mr Blackstaff. But we’re no worse off than we were before.’

‘Oh yeah, we’re doing great. Four women dead and no leads. You’re right, this is just a minor blip. Otherwise, we’re gold.’ I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose, sighing.

‘Headache?’

‘Like you wouldn’t believe.’

‘I’ll see if Nursey can give me an aspirin or two.’ Rob patted me on the arm. ‘It’s the least I can do.’

‘Don’t get me started on what you can do.’

‘Oh, I know what you’d
like
me to do.’

‘Never in a million years, Langton.’

‘Nothing to be ashamed of, Kerrigan. You wouldn’t be the first to fall for me. It’s probably best if you don’t fight it.’

‘Fight what? The urge to throw up?’

We retraced our steps along the corridor, bickering all the way. It was a relief, somehow. It took my mind off what I was about to say to Superintendent Godley. The chorus of bad language at the back of my mind had cranked up a notch, adding a little variety at least
. Shit bugger piss damn fuck
…

We rounded a corner, and in spite of myself I was laughing at something Rob had said, looking at him rather than where we were going, so it was only when his face slipped to neutral, uncertainly, then snapped into straight lines that I stopped grinning and turned my head. Godley and Judd were waiting for us, jackets on, grim expressions on their faces and I felt my own face mirror theirs. I was ready to let them know the worst.

‘It’s not him.’

I stared at Judd, wrong-footed. ‘That’s what I was going to say. How did you—’

‘There’s another body. Another young woman. He’s done it again.’ Godley sounded drained. ‘Vic Blackstaff couldn’t have done it. Best guess is that it happened in the last three hours. While Blackstaff was here, being operated on.’

I nodded. ‘From Kelly Staples’ statement, there was nothing to suggest that he was the killer, even if it does sound as if he was up to something he shouldn’t have been. Unluckily for Victor, she got spooked and lashed out. She just got it wrong.’

‘She wasn’t the only one,’ Godley said tersely.

DI Judd took over. ‘She’ll need to be charged. We’re not going to waste time dealing with it. I’ll call the borough CID office and get the on-call DC to take over. You’ll have to fill me in, Kerrigan.’

I should have been grateful that he hadn’t stuck me with letting borough CID know about their new case, but I managed to control my gratitude. It meant I had to talk to him, for one thing. I smiled brightly. ‘No problem.’

‘Then get going,’ Godley said. ‘I’ll see you at the new crime scene.’

And just like that, we were done with Kelly Staples; her fate was for someone else to decide. I couldn’t help but think she was one more victim of the Burning Man, one more bit of fallout from his crimes.

We needed to catch him, and soon. But the fact that we were on our way to see another body proved that we weren’t even close.