A Taste For Burning Part 16

June Taylor was a woman of fifty, short enough and broad enough that even those who loved her could find no other description than 'dumpy'. She presented the same outline as Queen Victoria at the same age, and wore her greying hair in a not dissimilar style. There was also something slightly regal about her manner. She struck Liz as a kind woman but not necessarily a warm one.

There was little warmth in either her voice with its soft Scottish accent or her eyes when she said, 'Ian is my husband's brother, that's his role. He's here for his niece's wedding. But yes, he helps supervise our son. This is a family occasion, and Robin is part of our family. We 199.

wanted him here. lan's help made it possible.'

'Where does Robin live, Mrs Taylor?'

'In Switzerland. He tells people he works for the World Health Organization, but of course that isn't true. It's called a clinic but actually it's a residential home where they undertake to keep him out of trouble. Where, if they fail, at least he's off my husband's manor.' She spoke with such refinement that it didn't sound like slang, more as if the Superintendent were the laird of some great estate.

'Until this time?'

Mrs Taylor smiled, still without warmth, and ended the interview as smoothly as a professional. 'I don't think I wish to say anything more at this point, Inspector.' Stately as royal progress she turned towards the door. 'Come along and we'll find Robin.'

'You mustn't think,' said Superintendent Taylor, 'that we sent Robin abroad to get rid of him. The Amin Clinic has an international reputation in the treatment of sociopathic illness. Once we realized we had a major problem we had three priorities: to get help for the boy, to ensure that he couldn't hurt anyone and to protect the family. Too many families break up over mental illness. We didn't want that.

We had a daughter to raise as well as a son: if we'd tried to keep Robin at home our whole lives would've had to revolve around him, and that wouldn't have been fair to Alison. Any of us, in fact. We all had lives to lead. We needed to care for Robin without sacrificing ourselves.'

'When did you realize it was more than a phase he was going through?' Shapiro's voice was hypnotically quiet. His skill as an investigator lay only partly in his ability to ram home the pointed question with anatomical accuracy. He got as many results this way: gently, persistently probing, spinning a thread of sympathy between himself and his suspects. As the interview developed, many of them came to see it as a lifeline. He didn't make rash promises, but people whose lives had been turned upside-down by 200.

violence -even if it was their own -drew comfort from the solidity of his presence. They felt he was someone they could trust, and told him the truth because lying would be like lying to Father Christmas.

Of course, the Father Confessor approach didn't work with everyone. He could, at need, do a fair impression of the Spanish Inquisition as well.

Superintendent Taylor sighed. 'That episode at the school. It wasn't the first but it was the first serious one, the first where people could have got hurt. I couldn't believe he'd done that: deliberately started a fire in a building occupied by twelve hundred children.

'You were away that week, and DI Clarke was at the county court: I was about the only senior officer in the station so I went myself. Lucky I did; or perhaps not. If I hadn't been able to protect him, perhaps it wouldn't have gone this far.'

'We all try to protect our children, James,' Shapiro said quietly. 'Oh, sure. But some of us try too hard.' He paused to organize his thoughts. 'I was knocked sideways by Ms McKenna's suggestion. There was no proof, she said so herself; my first instinct was to tell her either to produce some evidence or keep her insinuations to herself. But when I thought about it, when I discussed it with June, we knew it was true.

'So I looked for some help. There were obvious advantages in sending him abroad -I didn't want it to become public knowledge in Castlemere, there would be times it would get in the way of my job -all the same, I wouldn't have sent him unless I'd thought they could help him. It was for six months initially. Then twelve. Then they said they couldn't guarantee his behaviour without continuing supervision. In effect they were saying that my son needed to be locked up for the foreseeable future if he wasn't to be a public menace. We talked about it and decided, 201.

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for the same reasons that we sent him there, that he should stay.'

Shapiro said, 'It must have been a difficult decision. It sounds like it was the right one.'

'Oh, it was.' Taylor cast him a look that spoke of more to come. 'It was the best we could do, the best life we could give Robin without endangering anyone else's, and it worked for six years. We visit him three or four times a year, write every week, send him photographs. We didn't abandon him, Frank. We didn't forget him. We didn't even stop loving him. And he seemed happy there. Settled. We thought the worst was over.

'When we started planning Alison's wedding, it seemed awful to exclude her twin brother. We asked the clinic: they said Robin had been better this last year, if we wanted to take him home for a couple of weeks as long as we kept an eye on him there shouldn't be any problem. I knew I couldn't be with him constantly, and June would have too much to do with the wedding, so I asked Ian if he'd baby-sit.'

'So what went wrong?'

Taylor gave a little despairing laugh. 'Everything. Beginning with fog at Heathrow so that his flight was diverted to Stansted. Ian was picking him up on his way over -he's based in Surrey -and by the time he got to Stansted the boy had disappeared. This was last Friday week. He turned up with the milk on Sat.u.r.day morning, apologized for worrying us, said he'd got a lift with some people he met on the plane and ended up going to a party with them. Then when I went into the office my update included the fire at the corner shop.

'I'd no reason to suppose it was Robin. At that point it could have been an accident, an electrical fault, anything n.o.body even mentioned arson till later. So I can't say I was suspicious. It just made me extra-careful for a few days.'

'Until about Monday?'

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Taylor gave a helpless shrug. 'We thought he was asleep. I checked before I went to bed and he was there then. I locked up, set the alarm; I thought he was safe. And he was back in his room next morning, and the alarm was still working. But he must have figured out how to switch it off. I know that now. I know it was him burned the warehouse. But then I didn't think it could be. I want you to believe that.'

Shapiro nodded gravely. 'All right.'

'Tuesday night he went out again. Same thing: he switched off the alarm, let himself out and disappeared. He came back about six in the morning, the smell of smoke on his clothes and his hands reeking of petrol. I know because I was waiting for him. Ian had looked in on him quarter of an hour before -he's a soldier, he's used to an early start -and woke me when he found he was missing.

'But it was not my brother's responsibility,' he added firmly. 'The arrangement was, Ian would supervise him during the day when I couldn't be there, and I'd spell him at night when I could. What happened is my fault: not lan's, not Robin's.

'Well, now I knew what the situation was. Robin wasn't cured, he's still a very dangerous young man. He had no access to the cars, mine and June's, so he syphoned petrol out of the lawn-mower into an oil can he found in the lane. How can you antic.i.p.ate something like that?

'But once I knew what we had to do to keep him safe, we could do it. It was hard work, it meant precious little sleep for any of us, but it was possible. I could guarantee there'd be no more incidents. A few more days and Alison would be wed, and we could take him back to the clinic -I wouldn't risk him travelling alone again -and n.o.body any the wiser. If he went back early, before the wedding, people would wonder why. I was afraid someone would remember about the school and put two and two together. I decided to sit it out.'

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'A man died, James,' Shapiro reminded him softly. 'At the timberyard. A dosser, Robin probably never knew he was there. But the fire killed him. You had no right covering for him after that.'

Taylor's eyes blazed in a furious agony, the most emotion Shapiro had ever seen there. 'Do you think I don't know that? Do you think I can justify what I did? Even when I was doing it I didn't think it was right. I'm a policeman, for G.o.d's sake, I know the difference between right and wrong. But it goes deeper than that. He's my child: all the rules and regulations in the world don't alter the fact that when your children need your help you do what you can for them.'

'Even if it means hounding other people's?' Shapiro thought he'd kept the anger out of his voice but Taylor was aware of it.

) 'That wasn't my idea, Frank. Liz Graham thought it could be David. What was I to say? That I knew it couldn't be your son who was burning the town down because it was mine? I let her get on with it. I knew she couldn't prove anything. I knew there wouldn't be any more fires. It was a waste of her time, and a bit unpleasant for David, but that was all. No harm could come of it. All I needed was forty-eight hours and Robin would be safely back in Switzerland.'

'No harm?' echoed Shapiro breathlessly. Again it was a choice between saying nearly nothing and too much. He gave a little shake of his head. 'James, I've been worried sick.'

'Yes. I'm sorry. One way and another I've given you a hard time. I'm not proud of that. I did what I had to for Robin, for my family. I'm -ashamed -of what I did to you. But Frank, I was desperate. I don't expect your forgiveness but I'd like to think you could understand, just a little. You have children of your own. You know what you'd do for them.'

Which, though it wasn't meant to, hit Shapiro hard 204.

below the belt. Superintendent Taylor had sabotaged a manslaughter investigation for the sake of his son: David thought his father wouldn't wish him a happy birthday on police time. There must be a way of reconciling public and private duties, but Shapiro wasn't sure either where he would or even where he should resolve a conflict of interests between them.

He put the highest value on his integrity, wouldn't let it go without a struggle for the best cause in the world. At the same time he felt a lack in himself, as a man and as a father, that he couldn't imagine doing for a child of his what Taylor had done.

An echo came to him of what Taylor had said. He started to ask, 'What do you mean, "one way and another"?' But then the phone rang and, after a pause in which the two men eyed one another thoughtfully, Shapiro picked it up.

It was Liz. She said tersely, 'We have a problem.'

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l Donovan blamed himself; with some justice.

From the path beside the house he saw two men going into a green and white marquee. Guessing that the bulky middle-aged man in the army pullover was G.o.d's brother and the tall young man his son, Donovan headed towards them, down the slant of the lawn.

Never Boy Scout material, Donovan lacked a formal education in the erection of tents. But even to his untutored eye there was something wrong with this one. Though it was plainly meant to have two poles, at the moment it had only one and that leaned drunkenly. Striped fabric sprawled on the gra.s.s like the hide of a badly skinned whale.

Presumably Major Taylor and his nephew hoped to improve matters from the inside. The big man had a heavy wooden mallet, Robin carried a coil of rope over his arm. Actually Donovan didn't care what they were doing as long as he knew where they were. He took up a position at the entrance to the marquee, waiting for Liz to come down from the house.

The sight of him idling there offended the Major's military soul. 'If you've nothing better to do you can help with this.' His voice was a meatier version of G.o.d's cultured brogue, developed by bracing cross-country shouts on windswept hillsides.

'Yeah, OK.' He could watch as easily from inside the tent.

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'Hold this.' Major Taylor gave him the end of a rope. 'When I tell you, pull.'

Donovan's mistake was to a.s.sume they didn't know who he was. He thought the Major had mistaken him for one of the small battalion of hired hands getting the house and garden ready for the wedding.

But soldiers spend their lives surrounded by faces, and it can be vitally important to remember which are which. Ian Taylor knew by name several hundred young men, could identify as friendly forces several hundred more. It gave him an advantage when it came to recognizing half- glimpsed faces. This one he'd seen briefly in the corridor outside his brother's office, but he'd have remembered it if the glance had been even briefer or the face less distinctive. Wedging his shoulder against the teetering tent-pole he said, 'Did my brother send you?'

Wrong-footed, Donovan glanced quickly between the two men. 'Not exactly.'

The big man frowned. 'But you are from his station?' The pole shifted marginally, settled back. He pa.s.sed the mallet to his nephew, rearranged his strong hands on the pole, dug his heels into the lawn. 'Well, whoever you are, you pull when I push.'

People who train animals for a living argue endlessly about which are the most intelligent, the most amenable, the most responsive. But on the whole they agree which are the most dangerous. Bears have no expression; or rather, their expression doesn't change with their mood. A bear which has, a dozen times a week for three years, trotted round the ring, got on to a barrel, reared up on its back end, taken a bun and got back into line, all with the same ironic smirk on its face, will look exactly the same the day it trots round the ring, gets on to a barrel and rips its trainer's arm off. Lions crouch, elephants flap their ears, but with bears there's no warning.

Donovan fastened his hands to the rope and leaned back, taking the strain. There was no movement that he 207.

could feel. He glanced at Robin Taylor but saw no cause for concern: he was between Robin and the entrance, and the young man met his gaze with a friendly smile. Donovan watched the Major, waiting for his signal.

Still smiling, Robin raised the mallet and swung it at Donovan's head.

Donovan never saw it. The first he knew was a bellow as the soldier threw himself forward, shouldering Donovan aside like a charging bull. With a startled yell Donovan went down and the big man swarmed over him.

Landed as aimed, the heavy mallet would have done murder. But when it reached the end of its swing the spot was no longer occupied by Donovan's head, which was down on the gra.s.s somewhere wondering which end of the sky had fallen on it, but by Ian Taylor's shoulder.

There was a sickening crunch of bone and the Major let out a soft, agonized grunt. For a moment he stayed where he was, frozen, on his knees with his left arm hanging. Then, quite slowly, he sat down.

Robin went to s.n.a.t.c.h the weapon up again, careless of the damage he'd already done in his haste to renew his attack. He wore no expression now, not even in his eyes which were dark and quite blank. Bears' eyes.

But Donovan had had a moment to work out what was happening. As the mallet came at him again he lunged for it. Robin didn't fight for it but let go abruptly, kicking out instead at Donovan's face.

There was no comparison between a sledgehammer to the head and a trainer to the jaw. But all the Taylors were substantial men, and it spilled Donovan across the half- erected tent and left him blinking dizzily in a tangle of striped canvas.

A third time Robin lifted the mallet. Speed, luck and surprise had enabled him to dispose of the opposition with remarkable ease: now the initiative was his. He could leave unhindered or remain un.o.bserved. He had plans that meant getting away from here, but enough time to 208.

indulge a whim first. He crossed the tent, stepped over Donovan's legs and carefully weighed up the best angle for beating in his skull.

Major Taylor was helpless to intervene. He was conscious, more or less upright with his back against the pole, but he couldn't have risen unaided. He could have shouted, but even if he was heard help could not have reached them in time. He had seconds to stop this, and nothing to do it with except his numbed wits. He croaked, 'Robin, no.'

Robin looked at the injured man, bulky as a downed buffalo. He looked at the implement in his hand as if he'd only just noticed it. He looked at the other man in a dazed sprawl at his feet. Then he looked at the Major again. 'Yes,' he said simply.

It was a time for desperate measures. Ian Taylor had seen men die. He didn't want to watch this one die this way. 'Fire, Robin.' The boy paused. For a moment something registered in the blank eyes. 'Fire?'

'Flames,' said the soldier, like a waiter tempting a faddy diner. 'Dancing, flickering flames. Lovely roaring flames. All blue and red and gold.'

'Yes,' whispered Robin, his eyes distant.

'They'll catch you if you waste any more time. They'll lock you up where you can't make flames.'

'Flames,' Robin said thoughtfully. 'They are lovely.' Still he hesitated, considering the relative merits of two things he very much wanted to do.

Donovan hadn't been knocked out but he had lost his direct line to reality for a minute. His senses had scattered like a flock of startled birds, but now they'd had a bit of a flap round the tent they were settling back on their perches one by one. When enough had come back he remembered what was happening and in sudden panic fought to get control of himself, to get off the ground and away from the maniac with the maul. But his body 209.

wouldn't co-operate. Even as he struggled to his hands and knees he knew he couldn't stay ahead of a fit young man with a tenting mallet and the scent of blood. 'It's all right,' a gruff voice said wearily. 'He's gone.' Donovan whirled round, still on his knees, but all he saw was the injured man propped up against the tent- pole, watching him with heavy eyes. 'Robin?'

'He's gone,' Taylor said again. 'I had to let him go, he'd have killed you if I hadn't. But if you can stagger as far as the door, I think you should raise the alarm. The sooner he's caught, the better.'

'I'm going straight to the Mall.' Liz called Shapiro from the Taylor house. 'I'm sure that's where he's heading. I could use some help; particularly anybody who knows Robin Taylor well enough to spot him in a crowd. I'll know him, and Donovan will, but the uniforms round the door probably won't.'

'I have some bad news about that,' murmured Shapiro. 'The extra men you got Taylor to allocate? He cancelled them when you brought David in for questioning. He said he couldn't justify the overtime when you had the probable culprit. The real reason, of course, was that he knew who'd set the earlier fires and believed there wouldn't be another.'

'Oh, s.h.i.t,' Liz said feelingly and rang off.

Shapiro put the phone down, thought for a moment, made a decision. 'Come on, James, let's see if we can help. If anybody's going to pick the boy out of a crowd, it's you.'

He was halfway down the corridor before he remembered his own son. He pushed open the interview room door. 'Come on, sunshine, you're in the clear.'

David's eyes gleamed. 'So it was Robin?'

'Yes. it was.'

'You're bringing him in?'

'When we find him.'

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'You've lost him?'

Shapiro explained in a few words, over his shoulder as he headed for his car. 'We're going to the Mall, see if we can spot him before he does any more damage. You left the van at Payne's house, didn't you? Can you make your own way there? I can't spare anyone to take you just now.'

'Stuff the van,' said David indignantly, 'I'm coming with you.' He still had his camera, brandished it as if he'd been drinking.

'It's a public place,' Shapiro allowed tersely. He turned away. 'The same cannot, of course, be said for my car.'

But David fisted a hand in his sleeve and yanked, and Shapiro rounded in surprise. David's face was dark with anger, his eyes afire. 'Don't you turn your back on me! You people brought me here, now you can d.a.m.n well get me where I need to be. The van or the shopping centre, I don't care which, but you're not leaving me here when I've got a job to do.'

Neither of them was about to give way. Superintendent Taylor said quietly, 'Let him come. I think we owe him that much.' After a moment Shapiro nodded and they hurried out to the yard.

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8.It was too late to cancel the opening. It was too late to turn people away in an orderly fashion. The Mall could have been evacuated, but with the crush of people already there the danger was that panic would cause as many casualties as an actual incident.

On the plus side, Robin had left hurriedly and without the chance to take anything with him. If he had money in his pocket he could walk into any garage, say he'd run out of petrol and buy a gallon in a can; but a man carrying a can would be noticed in a crowd of window-shoppers.