Bryant & May - The Burning Man (42 page)

‘What about the practical elements of this?’ Banbury asked. ‘Aren’t you going to talk to the local constabulary at all?’

‘Only at the very last minute,’ Bryant said. ‘If we do it any earlier they’ll have time to check on our authorization, and we can’t allow that to happen.’

‘We can worry about the form-filling after we’ve got him in custody,’ May agreed.

‘All this is supposing that everything goes according to plan.’ Banbury sat back in his seat, trying not to let his anxiety show.

‘I warned you all at the outset that this could be dangerous,’ said Bryant.

‘Yes, but I assumed we’d have someone watching our backs,’ Banbury countered.

‘We’ll only have each other,’ said May, bringing an end to the conversation as the train raced over the rainswept South Downs towards Sussex.

As they alighted from the train and followed the dense, slow-moving crowds from the station, they could hear the drumrolls and see the flickering red flares of Lewes High Street. Lit by the first of the bonfire parades, the sifting rain appeared to be composed of crimson needles. Even from this distance the noise was incredible, a pulsing beat interspersed with spectacular explosions.

‘Blimey, what’s that racket?’ asked Bimsley, turning his collar up.

‘Drummers and kids throwing bangers into the crowd,’ said Bryant. ‘Every parade has its own style. Most of them carry anti-papist banners and drag portable bonfires with them along the route.’

‘So you’ve done this before?’

‘Many times. It can get quite disorienting out there, so stay close. We’ll avoid the main parade path and go to the Cliffe bonfire field.’

Bryant knew that the bonfires would take place whether the rain stopped or not. Already, camera crews would be assembling in the fields around the town, getting ready to cover the biggest pyrotechnic display in the country. This year, more crowds than ever were expected. The full list of public figures to be burned in effigy had a distinctly financial tone; it included caricatures of the prime minister, the head of the World Bank and the chairman of the Bank of England.

As they passed the tail end of the parade, May looked back and saw that the torchlit procession extended the full length of the high street, a fiery scarlet ribbon of road that dipped through a valley between low hills. The buildings were awash with crimson firelight. The view that presented itself was apocalyptic; families in scarlet fox masks hammered drums while Zulu warriors marched beneath sputtering flambeaux, their burning carts releasing clouds of glowing firefly cinders, an anti-papal procession that seemed more like a pagan vision of hell on earth.

Banbury downloaded the map of the procession route on to his mobile and led the way through the back gardens of the town, out into the darkened fields. Here the security marshals had yet to admit the crowds, so they were able to gain clear access to the firework site.

‘Nobody warned me it was going to be muddy,’ Longbright complained, picking her way over the sludgy furrows.

‘You’re not much of a country girl, are you?’ said Renfield. ‘You shouldn’t have worn heels.’

‘I
always
wear heels. And I’ve been to the country,’ Longbright insisted. ‘I went to that crime-prevention conference last year.’

‘That conference was in Finchley,’ said Meera, stamping through the mud in her non-issue army boots.

‘It’s Zone Four on the tube. Practically the North.’

May returned from talking to one of the yellow-jacketed site marshals. ‘He says the effigies are being brought out right now. There’s no chance that anyone can get at them or doctor them in any way. They’ve been locked in a barn since they were towed out here. Are you sure you’ve got this right?’

‘We have to check every one of them.’ Bryant panted with the exertion of crossing the field. ‘I can’t go any further. Colin, can you and Jack get a look inside the Dexter Cornell statue?’

‘Sure thing, boss.’ Colin led the way towards the distant tarpaulins covering the statue group.

‘Are you OK?’ May asked.

‘I’ll be fine once I get my breath back,’ gasped Bryant, coughing. ‘I wouldn’t mind a sit-down, though.’

‘Come on, let’s get you over to those hay bales.’ May took his friend’s arm. ‘It’s drier under the trees. Colin and Jack can handle this. You really don’t need to be here.’

‘I want to see him caught,’ said Bryant doggedly.

‘And you will do, tonight.’

‘Well … I hope so.’

‘What’s the matter?’ May had seen this sudden change of mood before.

Bryant wiped the raindrops from his head. ‘I’ve missed something. If only I was thinking more clearly. My memory comes back after each attack, but there always seems to be a little less of it. I thought of something in the night, but now it’s gone.’

‘Then we’ll just have to do the best we can.’

May tried to see Renfield and Bimsley in the dark, but they had vanished. A fresh squall of drizzle rippled across the field, rattling the overhead branches and prickling the back of his neck.

Bimsley reached the covered statues first. Another of the marshals, a boy no older than sixteen, tried to stop him from passing through the perimeter fence, but backed away on sight of the police badge. Across the great field a train raced along the line of the embankment, its yellow windows passing like the pages of a flick book.

The smallest of the tarpaulin-covered effigies was at least fifteen feet high. ‘You’re sure no one’s been near these?’ Bimsley asked.

‘Yes, sir, someone’s been with them ever since we used the tractors to get them out here.’

‘Hang on.’ Renfield handed Bimsley a torch. The beam exposed the grotesquely distorted face of Vladimir Putin dressed like Mars, the god of war, wielding a flaming sword.

‘Are these things hollow?’

‘They’re chicken wire and papier-mâché over a wooden frame,’ said the marshal.

‘Where’s Dexter Cornell?’

‘Who?’

‘The city banker, the inside-trader.’

‘Oh, him. At the back. The really big one. He’s been made up to look like the Devil.’

They found their way to Cornell. ‘Jack, can you give me a leg-up?’ Colin called. Renfield lent a broad shoulder as Bimsley first knelt, then stood on the laughing figure’s folded arms, wedging himself between them as if he was climbing a rock face. ‘Do these things have any openings?’ he shouted down.

‘There’s a door in the back,’ said the marshal. ‘In case they don’t catch fire properly we load them with special starter packs of fireworks. They don’t go in until the last minute.’

Bimsley clambered around, looking for the hatch, and found a four-foot square held shut with loops of wire. Untangling the ties, he wrenched at them until the door came open. The torch beam revealed nothing inside but wooden prop-beams. ‘It’s empty,’ he yelled.

‘He must be waiting until it’s on the pyre,’ said Renfield. ‘Hey, kid, how big are these starter packs?’

‘They’re pretty big.’

‘Big enough to hold someone inside them?’

‘Yeah, they’re the size of coffins.’

‘That has to be it,’ Renfield said. ‘Colin, get down here. We’re going to stay with this thing until it burns.’

While he was waiting for the DC to descend, Renfield walked back towards the darkened storage barn. As he reached it, he realized that the vehicle parked in the mud ahead of him was the gas board van that had been seen leaving Moon Street, Islington – the one with Cornell inside.

Back in King’s Cross, Fraternity DuCaine found himself sharing an office with a disconsolate Raymond Land.

‘What do they honestly think they’re going to find in Brighton?’ asked Land.

‘It’s Lewes, a town outside of Brighton,’ DuCaine explained. ‘That’s where they’re burning the effigy of Cornell.’

It had been a long time since Land had seriously followed the working details of an investigation, but he made an effort to do so now. He looked back at the images of the four victims, their dates of birth, their CVs and family histories neatly printed on to cards, their connections woven together with lengths of red and blue wool. Surrounding them were the components of their fates, each murder site a grim memento mori of a life cut short. Handwritten on loose pages were other details: the jobs they held; the pubs and clubs they visited; the restaurants they frequented; the families they lost. To these, Bryant had added a still from
The Wicker Man
in which the star was being burned alive.

Land tipped back in his chair, studying the blackboard.
‘The Wicker Man,’
he said aloud.

‘What about it?’ Fraternity did not raise his eyes from his screen.

‘It was a tiny British B-movie. Why do people always go on about it?’

‘I guess they like it for what it represents,’ said DuCaine distantly. ‘Pagan fire. It appeals to the rebel in everyone.’

‘What, a copper goes to an island to investigate a murder and gets his fingers burned? The mob out on the streets, you reckon they like stuff like that?’

DuCaine finally set down his pen and looked up. ‘You mean specifically
The Wicker Man
?’

‘Yeah.’

‘It’s a key film in the counterculture movement. It’s about taking back power from right-wing authority. I suppose it makes a collective, pagan way of life preferable to a fascist Christian police state.’

Land scratched at his jaw. ‘Grammar-school boy, are you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I can tell. You could hardly call the need to investigate a murder fascist.’

‘The ending comes as a surprise if you haven’t seen it before.’

‘Yes, but that’s sort of the point. Everyone knows what happens at the end.’

‘I don’t see what you’re getting at.’

‘Forget it, I’m going mad.’

‘No – go on.’

‘It’s just … they’ve all gone haring off to Sussex, expecting to find this bloke stuffing Cornell inside his own effigy, yes? Because Bryant’s thinking of
The Wicker Man
. Fire, riot, all that stuff. Wouldn’t it be truer to this pagan element of surprise to do something else? Surely that’s the point. It’s all a trick. He makes sure that the police arrive in anticipation of finding a bloke about to be burned alive, and then fools them by doing the opposite. Like the film, but in reverse.’

‘So – what?’

‘Well, maybe the killer thinks if he sends them off on a wild-goose chase, it leaves him free to do whatever he likes. He’s never operated outside of London before. Why would he start now?’

‘Tonight’s protest march on the Bank of England,’ said DuCaine, tapping in a request for details. ‘It starts at Cannon Street and ends with a police-sanctioned bonfire right outside the bank at nine tonight. Two hours from now.’

‘We’ll have to cover it,’ said Land. ‘See if you can get a couple of them back here in time.’

But there was no mobile reception in the field in Sussex, and nobody answered the call.

‘Sir, we’ve found the van.’ Renfield punched his chest, out of breath. ‘It’s parked over by the shed where they store the statues. It’s unlocked and empty. The engine hasn’t been run for several hours. Something’s not right.’

May looked about for the others. ‘Take Dan back with you to give it the once-over. Janice and Meera just checked out the other bonfire pyres; they’re clean.’

‘We’ve been had,’ said Bryant. ‘He wants us to think that the sacrifice will take place here but it’s somewhere else. Can you call out?’

May held his mobile high. ‘No connection. Everyone’s on their phones. Let’s get back to the town centre.’

Bryant had a go. ‘Wait, I’ve got a signal.’

‘You? That’s impossible. Your phone
never
works.’

Just then, it rang. Raymond Land was calling in. ‘Hello! Arthur Bryant here!’ Bryant bellowed above the sound of exploding rockets.

‘Yes, I know who it is,’ said Land. ‘You’re in the wrong place. They’re building a bonfire on the pavement in front of the Bank of England.’

Bryant took this in his stride. ‘Can you get it stopped?’

‘The City of London police have sanctioned it as a legitimate right of protest. Part of a deal to get the protestors off the streets at midnight.’