They descended the spiral stone steps, steadying themselves with their hands on the white washed walls.
'God, what a stink,' said Kelly as the burning smell got stronger and threatened to overpower them.
'Look at this,' said Kelly. He was standing in front of a large door that had been tooled in leather and inset with heavy brass studs.
'Try it,' said Fenton.
'I feel like Jack and the Beanstalk,' said Kelly as he turned the heavy ringed handle. The door swung slowly back to reveal a stone floored dungeon lit exclusively by wall torches set in wrought iron holders. In the middle of the floor lay the black smouldering remains of something they both recognised barely as the body of a man.
Fenton covered his face with a handkerchief and approached slowly. He knelt down beside the bundle as smoke rose from charred flesh like the pall from burning leaves on an autumn day. He recoiled in revulsion as he suddenly realised something. Kelly looked at him and then the corpse and saw the same thing.
'He's…not dead,' said Fenton, unwilling to believe what he himself was saying.
Kelly saw the smoke come from the man's blackened mouth in short regular breaths. 'He must be,' he whispered. 'Is it Saxon?'
'Yes,' murmured Fenton, steeling himself to kneel down again. 'Saxon?' he whispered. He looked for some part of the man that he could touch without hitting raw nerves, some way he could make contact but it was useless. A groan came from Saxon's throat and threatened Fenton's own nerves. 'Die man, for God's sake…die.' he murmured. As if in response a convulsion quivered through the burned flesh and a hoarse gurgle came from Saxon's throat. It culminated in a brief sigh and his head moved to one side.
'He's dead,' said Fenton.
'Thank God,' said Kelly.
Kelly looked round the room and said, 'Will you look at this?'
Fenton could see what he meant for the dungeon theme had been pursued in meticulous detail. The bare stone walls were decked with manacles and other articles of bondage. Whips of varied size and material stood erect in a long chain link rack next to some kind of table equipped with stirrups and iron wrist clamps. The whole place was the manifestation in wood and iron of some medieval nightmare.
Kelly found a leather bound book and opened it. It was a photograph album. 'Jenny was right,' said Fenton as he saw the photos. 'She thought that Saxon was bent, sounded too macho, tried too hard, she said.'
'Bent is not the word,' said Kelly, looking through the pages of the album.
'Takes all sorts as my grandmother used to say,' said Fenton.
'So what happened here?' said Kelly, putting down the book and looking at Saxon's body. 'Some trick go wrong?'
“ No,' said Fenton. 'His hands are still bound. He couldn't have set light to himself.' He looked at the blackened corpse for a moment before starting to search round the room. He found a green jerry can and sniffed the contents. 'Paraffin,' he said to Kelly. 'Some bastard shackled him, doused him in paraffin and started throwing matches.'
'Where does that leave us?' asked Kelly quietly.
'Up to our necks in something I'd rather you didn't make waves in,' said Fenton ruefully.
Fenton could see that he was in trouble no matter which way he turned. If he phoned the police it would be tantamount to admitting that he had known the whereabouts of Nigel Saxon and had failed to inform them. If he kept quiet and Jamieson found out later then that might even be worse. Jamieson might even suspect that he had been Saxon's killer with revenge for Neil Munro as the motive.
'You are sure it's Saxon aren't you?' Kelly asked.
Fenton nodded. 'I'M sure,' he said. 'Even like that, I knew him well enough to recognise him.'
'So what do we do?'
'Get out of here and pray that no one saw us come in,' said Fenton.
ELEVEN
Fenton and Kelly stood still for a moment in the quiet of the basement area and courted the shadow of the wall while they listened for sounds coming from above. When they were sure that all was quiet they climbed the steps quickly to the pavement and started walking.
Like Christians cast into some Georgian Coliseum they looked furtively out of the corners of their eyes for signs of lions. They saw nothing but Fenton was far from convinced. He imagined hidden faces behind every tall rectangular window. Their description was already being noted and telephones were being lifted. They suppressed the urge to run but doing so filled them with the nervous tension of thorough-bred horses held under rein.
'Up here,' said Fenton, seeking the earliest opportunity of returning to noise and bustle. The lights of a white painted pub attracted them like harbour buoys and the crowd inside absorbed them into welcome anonymity.
'God, I needed that,' said Kelly after downing his whisky in one gulp. Fenton ordered two more and they began to take stock of their surroundings. The clientele were mainly young, fashion conscious and noisy. The bar list boasted sixteen different cocktails. It said a lot about the customers.
'Why! Steven Kelly!' said a loud female voice behind them. Fenton froze but he felt Kelly's eyes on him before he turned round.
'Fiona Duncan, how nice,' said Kelly, failing his audition for RADA, thought Fenton.
'Whatever brings you here?' continued Fiona at the top of her voice. Kelly was struggling but Fenton realised that it did not matter for Fiona was not listening to the answers. She was only interested in her own performance. Fenton knew the type. Conversations were opportunities for self projection, chances to display an ever changing slide show of facial expression to whoever might be watching. The loudness of the voice was designed to swell that number.
'Tom, meet Fiona Duncan,' said Kelly looking like a wet spaniel. 'She used to be a nurse at the Princess Mary.'
Fenton nailed Kelly with a glance before shaking hands with the loud girl. 'And where are you now Fiona?' he asked politely.
'The Western General!' said Fiona. She announced it like the winning number in a raffle and her right hand gave a little cheer.
Fenton smiled, passing her back to Kelly.
'So what are you doing with yourself these days Steve? Behaving?” asked Fiona.
Fenton saw the look that passed between Kelly and the girl and knew what had gone on in the past. He marked time with a fixed smile on his face until Fiona decided that she had to 'dash'. Her friends were waiting for their drinks. He almost felt the spotlight go out as she moved her cabaret to the bar.
'Sorry about that,' whispered Kelly, looking sheepish.
'They should have cut them off at birth,' muttered Fenton.
Jenny welcomed them with a sigh of relief and a barrage of questions that made Fenton hold up his hands. 'You had better sit down,' he said. He told her what they had found, trying to leave out as many of the gory bits as possible. Jenny kept probing. He added the gory bits.
'But supposing he lies there for weeks before anyone finds him?' Jenny pointed out. 'Could our nerves stand it?'
The consensus was no. 'How should we do it?'
'Anonymous call,' said Kelly. 'I'll do it on my way home. Go to 24a Lymon Place. There's a dead man there.'
The story was too late for the morning papers but local radio carried it in their morning bulletins. Nigel Saxon, son of the owner of Saxon Medical, the company at the centre of the lethal plastic affair, had been found dead in a city flat and the police were treating the death as murder. There was no more. Fenton thought that it seemed so clinically clean and tidy, nothing at all like the hellish reality of what had lain in that basement. Nothing to convey the sight, the smell. Only the police would know that. It made him wonder how many other stories were deodorized every day, cellophane wrapped, sanitised for public protection. Did it matter?
