Playing With Fire

But when Banks was on a case, especially one that seemed so near to its conclusion, he was always on call one way or another. She had never, in all the time they had worked together, been unable to get ahold of him at any hour of the day or night.

Annie felt confused and uneasy. She couldn’t just sit there. This had to be settled one way or the other, and it had to be settled now.

“Winsome,” she said. “Fancy a drive out in the country?”

Chapter 18

It was a struggle just to cling to consciousness, Banks found. But the longer he stayed awake, the better his chances of staying alive. He could hardly move; his body felt like lead. He knew that he had to conserve whatever strength he had, if he had any, because when Keane set the fire, as he was certain to do, he was going to leave, and Banks might have just one slight opportunity to get out alive. If he was still conscious. If he could move. Neither McMahon nor Gardiner had got out alive, and the thought sapped his confidence, but he had to cling to what little hope he could dredge up.

“I’m doing this,” Keane said, “because you’re really the only one who suspects me. Annie doesn’t. And she won’t. I know you haven’t shared your suspicions with her or anybody else. I’d have been able to tell from the tone of her voice. I’m not an official suspect. And I’m pretty certain I’ve covered my tracks well enough that with you out of the way, I’m in the clear.”

Burgess, Banks found himself thinking, in his muddled, muddied way. Dirty Dick Burgess. Keane had no way of knowing that Banks had enlisted Burgess’s help. He also knew that if anything happened to him, Dirty Dick would have a good idea who was behind it, and that he wouldn’t rest until he’d tracked Keane down. But a fat lot of consolation that was to him if he was dead.

Banks felt himself slipping in and out of consciousness as Keane’s words washed over him, some of them resonating, some not connecting at all. All he could think, if you could call it thinking, was that he was going to die soon. By fire. He remembered again the image of the little girl etched forever into his mind, sculpted by the fire into an attitude of prayer, kneeling by her bed, a charred angel. “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”

Banks heard the door open and felt a brief chill as the draft blew in. It revitalized him enough to make that one last attempt to move, but all he could manage was to roll off the sofa and bang his head on the sharp edge of the low coffee table. As he lay on the floor, the blood dripping in his eye, fast losing consciousness, he heard the door shut again and then the sloshing of petrol from the can. He could smell it now, the fumes overwhelming him, and all he wanted to do was hug the floor and fall asleep. The andante from “Death and the Maiden” was playing, and Banks’s final thought was that this was the last piece of music he was ever going to hear.

Annie felt no real sense of urgency as they drove along the Dale to Banks’s cottage. Only that she had to see Banks, to talk to him about what she had discovered and what she was beginning to suspect. But Winsome was behind the wheel, and whatever inner alarms were ringing in Annie seemed to have communicated themselves to her, and she was doing her best Damon Hill imitation.

She slowed down as they passed through Fortford. A few lights showed behind drawn curtains, and here and there Annie could make out the flickering of a television set. One bent old man was walking his collie toward the Rose and Crown. There was a long stretch of uninhabited road between there and Helmthorpe, nothing but dark hills silhouetted against the night sky, distant farm lights and the sleek shimmer of moonlight on the slow-flowing river.

There were a few people out on Helmthorpe High Street, mostly heading for folk night at the Dog and Gun, Annie guessed. The general store was still open and the fish-and-chip-shop queue was almost out into the street. Annie was still hungry, despite the salad sandwich. She thought of asking Winsome to stop. She didn’t eat fish, but if the chips had been cooked in vegetable oil, then they might go down nicely with a pinch of salt and a dash of malt vinegar. But she held her hunger pangs at bay. Later.

Winsome turned sharp left, past the school, with only a slight screeching of rubber on Tarmac, and slipped smoothly down into second for the hill up to Gratly. Just before the village was a narrow laneway to the right, leading to Banks’s cottage, and as they approached, a car came out and turned right, heading away from them. It wasn’t Banks’s Renault.

“That looks like Phil’s car,” Annie said.

“Are you sure?” Winsome asked.

“It can’t be. He told me he was still in London.”

Winsome stopped before turning into Banks’s drive. “Shall I follow it?”

Annie thought for a moment. It would be good to know for certain. But if it was Phil, what on earth had he been doing visiting Banks? “No,” she said. “No point in a car chase over the moors. Let’s do what we came here for and see if Alan’s in.”

Winsome turned into Banks’s drive, and ahead she and Annie could see the flames climbing up the curtains in the living room. Christ, no! Annie thought. No. Not after all this. She couldn’t be too late. But they were flames, all right, and they were all over the front room.

“Call the fire brigade,” Annie said, unbuckling her safety belt and jumping out before the car had even come to a full halt. “And tell them there’s danger to life. A police officer’s life.” That might speed them up a bit, Annie thought. The local station was staffed by retained men, and it would take an extra five minutes for them to respond to their personal alerters and get to the station. Rural response time was eighteen minutes, and there’d be nothing left of the cottage by then.

Annie couldn’t just stand there and watch the place burn. She knew that the worst thing you could do with a fire was open the door and supply more oxygen, but opening the door was the only chance she possibly had of getting Banks out alive. If he was still alive.

Annie pulled the wool blanket from the boot of the car. Luckily, the rain had left a few puddles in Banks’s potholed drive, so she rolled it around quickly to soak it, then she wrapped it around herself, paying special attention to covering her hair and face.

Winsome had her car door open by now, mobile still in her hand. “What are you doing, Guv?” she yelled. “You can’t go in there. You know you can’t.”

“Did you ring?”

“Yes. They’re coming. But you-”

Annie went up to the door.

Locked.

“Guv!”

Rearing back, she kicked at the area around the lock. It took her three tries, and it hurt her foot like hell, but she succeeded in the end. The door flew open and the fire surged, as she had expected. She heard Winsome shouting behind her against the roar of the flames, but she couldn’t stop now. She took a deep breath and rushed inside. She had only seconds, if that.

The smoke was thick and the petrol fumes seeped through the blanket she had wrapped around her mouth and nose. As soon as she was inside, Annie could feel the intense heat licking at her, the tongues of flame on her legs and ankles. She hadn’t believed fire could make so much noise. She called out Banks’s name, but she knew he wouldn’t be able to answer. He would be drugged, just like the others. It was a small living room and Annie was fortunate to know her way around. She had been there often enough to know about the low coffee table between the sofa and armchairs, for example, so she wasn’t going to trip over that.

The flames roared and smoke billowed. A painting fell off the wall and the glass smashed. Annie’s eyes were stinging. She needed to breathe again. Her lungs felt as if they were exploding.

Then she saw him, just a leg, through the smoke down on the floor near the table. She rushed over to him. No time for subtleties, now, Annie, she told herself, as she threw the table over, grabbed Banks’s legs with both hands and tugged. The limp body slid across the carpet. Annie’s arms strained at her shoulder sockets.

Banks banged his head on the leg of the table as Annie pulled him around its edge. She couldn’t see clearly, but