A Taste For Burning Part 12

146.

Talking big? Isn't that par for the course with teenagers?'

'Oh yes,' agreed Robin. 'I'm sure he grew out of the other stuff a long time ago.'

This was it then: she saw it coming. 'Other stuff?'

'I never believed half of it anyway,' he said blithely. 'People exaggerate, don't they? Chemistry labs are always catching fire, it's their nature. If he'd really cooked up a Molotov c.o.c.ktail, they'd never have let him finish the year.'

He may have intended to say more. Certainly there were things she wanted to ask. But just then somebody called his name and they turned to see the big man in the army pullover, whom Liz had taken for the gardener, striding towards them. Robin gave a quick dip of his head. 'I'll have to go now, my uncle's looking for me.' He backed away so smoothly that she might have imagined he'd been there beside her, speaking to her. After a moment she got in her car and drove back to town, slowly because she was thinking.

It sometimes seemed to Liz that the longer she knew Donovan the less she understood him. She thought he'd be ecstatic when she told him Shapiro was in the clear, that although something rather awful had happened it wasn't deliberate and it wasn't the chief's fault. But Donovan just perched there on the windowsill, arms folded, long legs crossed at the ankles, his narrow face expressionless, while she related everything that had pa.s.sed between Superintendent Taylor and herself.

What had pa.s.sed between Robin Taylor and her she was keeping to herself until she had thought a little more about it.

When she'd finished and Donovan still didn't say anything she snapped at him, exasperated. 'Now what's the matter?'

His voice was guarded and faintly apologetic. He knew he was rocking a boat it was in everybody's interests to 147.

keep steady. 'I don't know. Something. Did you believe him?'

Liz stared. 'G.o.d? Of course I believed him. Don't you?'

'I don't know. It's still awfully convenient, isn't it?'

She'd have liked to throw him out, send him back to his burglaries and put his weasel doubt out of her mind. But the last year had taught her that his instinct was one of the more reliable things about Donovan. 'Convenient for whom?'

'For both of them. OK, there'll be a stink over it and it'll set G.o.d's OBE back a year, but it won't reflect on him as badly as his detective chief inspector framing someone.'

Unable to contain her resentment, Liz came to her feet and paced the room, throwing angry glances over her shoulder. 'Is that really what you think? That the Chief sent Trevor Foot to prison for eight years when he knew he was innocent, and that when he found out Superintendent Taylor risked his own career to protect him? Is that what you believe?'

Donovan's short fuse reached its explosive end. 'G.o.d d.a.m.n it, I don't know what I believe! I've always thought the Chief was an honest man, I want to go on thinking that. But -I don't believe in coincidences; at least not convenient ones. I don't believe in vital evidence lurking at the bottom of a stationery drawer for eight years. And I don't believe that if G.o.d had found the photograph the way he said he'd have sent the Chief on leave while he looked into it. Why would he? He couldn't think Shapiro had hidden it there; if he'd wanted rid of it he'd have destroyed it.

'It stinks of cover-up. And I don't think Taylor would risk his pension covering up for you, or me or a careless desk sergeant or almost anyone else here. But he just might do it for a man who'd given him eight years' good work, who did something stupid just once.'

'Stupid? If he did what you think that wasn't stupid, it was criminal. Short of murder it's about the worst crime 148.

a policeman can commit. What has Frank Shapiro ever done to you that you think he's capable of that?'

Donovan shook his head, once, in anger and distress. 'Nothing! I mean ,..' He hadn't the words to say what he meant. 'For Christ's sake, I don't want to be right about this! Only, looking at the two of them, you can see how it could happen.'

Liz didn't understand. 'The Chief and G.o.d?'

'The Chief and Foot! Do I have to spell it out? The Chief's a Jew, isn't he? And Trevor Foot was too right- wing for the National Front.'

Then Liz understood what he was saying. Her eyes burned his face for a moment, then she turned away in disgust. 'You're sick, do you know that?'

'So what do you want me to do?' Donovan cried. 'Go along with it? Because I owe the Chief at least as much as you and Taylor do. For all the times he's spoken up for me, shouldn't I keep quiet for him? He's believed in me times when it took an effort of will like fire-walking. Times when it could have done him damage. Surely to Christ I owe him something in return?

'This? Tell me this is how I pay him back and I'll do it. Tell me it's more important to protect a man who's done as much good as Frank Shapiro than a little toe-rag like Trevor Foot, who'd probably be in prison for something else if he wasn't there for this, and I'll believe it. I'll do my d.a.m.nedest to believe that. Only, it isn't what I've always thought. It isn't what I thought we were here for.'

Liz stared at him, amazed. The strength of his pa.s.sion, the depth of his feeling and the intimate way he was in contact with it, reaching down into the heart of himself with b.l.o.o.d.y shaking hands, both startled and moved her. She was not herself an emotional person. Her strengths were the cerebral ones of clarity, judgement, perception. These were the tools with which she had shaped her personal and professional lives, and for the most part she was content with the result. She had a comfortable 149.

relations.h.i.+p with her husband, an easy one with colleagues, a job that gave her challenge and satisfaction and a kind of amused tolerance for hotter-blooded souls whose emotions got them into trouble.

But for a split second, watching a young man rip himself apart in front of her, Liz Graham wished there was something she wanted as much as Donovan wanted not to be Frank Shapiro's Nemesis.

After a moment she blinked and swallowed. He'd racked himself in front of her, and it was hard to go on talking with that livid in her mind. But he was waiting for a reply, his eyes molten on her face.

She fell back on the calm that had served her in the past, though this time she was simulating a detachment she didn't feel. She said quietly, 'I'm not going to say that. Of course I'm not. I hope you're wrong about this, but if you're right then no, it makes no difference who Frank is and what he's done since he did this. Or only to us, not to what we do about it.

'Listen, Donovan. The wheels are in motion, Foot'll soon be free. That takes the urgency out of it. Wait a few days, see what happens. Maybe once the Chief's back you'll feel differently. If not, if you still think there's been a deliberate perversion of justice, well, then you have to decide what you want to do about it. If you want to go on the record. It's a h.e.l.l of a thing, but you don't need me to tell you that. If you're wrong you won't be able to go on working here.

'If I thought you were right I'd back you. I don't know if you believe that, but I would. Even if it meant us collecting our cards together. But I don't. I don't believe Frank Shapiro would do it, whatever the provocation. So unless you can produce some serious evidence you're on your own. Before you go any further, be sure you know what the consequences are likely to be. Right or wrong, you could lose everything.'

She left him to think about that. As she pa.s.sed him, 150.

heading for the corridor, she folded a tissue into his hand. "There's something in your eye.'

He didn't know what she meant. But when she was gone and he raised an exploratory finger it met the damp of tears.

151.

III.

Liz put the Foot case out of her mind, was glad to do it. It was Sunday now: tomorrow night Castle Mall would welcome the public with a fanfare of marching bands and fireworks, and she remained convinced that the man with flames in his eyes -would be among the crowds unless she could find him first.

Though she was reluctant to add further to Shapiro's problems, she knew she'd have to check what Robin Taylor had told her. But, at least in the first instance, she could do it discreetly. Brian could give her the information she needed. 'Who's head of the science department at Castle High?'

He stared at her over the breakfast table. 'Bill Freeman. For Heaven's sake, why?'

She didn't want to explain, even to him. 'How long's he been there?'

'Two or three years: something like that.'

'That's no good. I need to talk to someone who's been in the science department for six years or more.'

'There's Big Mac. She was Head of Science before she got the heads.h.i.+p.'

Liz had met Mary McKenna on a handful of occasions in the year Brian had worked for her. The first was a 'Meet the Spouses' evening when Liz had gone determined to play the supportive housewife and ended up describing the factors governing the decomposition rates of corpses. She thought there was every chance Ms McKenna would 155.

remember her. 'Do you have her home number?'

He had. 'But she's probably in her office. She's usually there Sunday mornings, she reckons running a school would be easy without all the pupils and teachers getting in the way.'

She called first to make sure, then she went round. Ms McKenna met her at the side door. 'How can I help?'

McKenna remembered the fire in the chemistry lab. It had been her job to deal with the insurance, and the police. 'It wasn't the first fire I ever had, and it wasn't the worst. They're all nasty until they're under control. There's a lot of stuff in a lab that shouldn't be exposed to a naked flame.' She chuckled. 'It's our own fault, really. The first thing we do in chemistry is set fire to different substances and get the kids to describe what they see. It captures their imagination. There's always the risk of one of them getting too imaginative.'

Liz was all ears. 'You mean, one of the kids started it deliberately?'

McKenna was cautious. 'Do you want what I think or what I know?'

'Let's start with what you know.'

'There was a fire,' enumerated the Princ.i.p.al. 'The Fire Brigade reckoned it started about the end of the school day though it wasn't spotted until an hour later. It was confined to the chemistry lab. There was a lot of smoke damage, and the bench where it started -apparently in the cupboard under the sink -was a write-off. No one was hurt.'

'All right,' said Liz. 'Now what you think.'

'We all thought it couldn't have started spontaneously. There was no power supply to the bench so it wasn't that. The gas was off at the mains, and the only one who might have got away with having a quiet cigarette at the end of the day was me and I don't smoke. I had the last cla.s.s of the day in there. When the bell rang I packed them off and locked up, and went to a staff meeting. We were still 156.

talking when someone raised the alarm. I don't see how it could have been an accident. I think one of the little sods left a firebomb.'

Liz's eyes widened. 'Is bomb making on the curriculum?'

McKenna laughed. 'Hardly. The average teenage boy is enough of a menace to society without knowing how to make an incendiary device. But you don't need an M.Sc. to rig something simple. Like a stub of candle burning in a saucer of petrol: when the wax burns down there's a flash and anything combustible within a metre or so will flare up. I don't know if that's how it was done, but that would work and so would half a dozen other devices well within the scope of a chemistry student. He could have done it while I was in the room. You can't watch them every second, and even if I'd seen one of them with his head in the cupboard I'd have a.s.sumed he was putting equipment away.'

'Did you see anyone in the cupboard under the sink?'

'Your chief asked me that at the time. I couldn't remember then, and that was six years ago. Those cupboards are in constant use, it just wouldn't have registered.'

'All right. So there was no evidence but you thought it was probably one of the boys. A prank that got out of hand?'

'Let's be generous,' McKenna sniffed, 'and say so.'

'Did you suspect anyone in particular?'

'I had no reason to suspect anyone in particular,' the Princ.i.p.al answered obliquely. 'No one was ever accused.'

Liz recognized that as an evasion. 'But one name suggested itself above the others. A boy in that last cla.s.s of the day?'

McKenna regarded her speculatively. 'Inspector, why do I get the feeling you know as much about this as I do? Ah,' she said then, as if understanding had dawned. 'Well, of course, I had to tell him what I was thinking: that the lad had been in trouble before, even though it hadn't 157.

come to anything it was enough to make us wonder. I know I embarra.s.sed him but he was the investigating officer, it really wasn't an occasion for tact. If he'd ever shown his face on parents' night, maybe I could have put him wise before his son was prime suspect in an arson case.'

Shapiro also spent Sunday morning in his office, studying everything Liz had collected on the fires. There was less than he'd hoped for. Forensics had been of limited a.s.sistance, the trail of the oil can petering out somewhere between its being discarded by Ted Burton and picked up by the man with a different hobby. The DCI put his head round Liz's door in case she could add anything, but she wasn't there.

Then Superintendent Taylor called to say they both had an appointment with the Chief Constable, to be followed by a brief press conference. He might like to be thinking what he'd say if invited to comment.

Before he left the building he summoned Donovan. 'You're still looking for missing VCRs, yes?'

Donovan nodded warily. 'n.o.body's told me different.'

'Right. Well, if you're off the arson inquiry I have a job for you. The Foot case.'

He wasn't expecting that. The mask of detachment veiling his eyes slipped for a moment. 'Foot's innocent, for G.o.d's sake! He couldn't have done what you said he did.'

'Do you think I don't know that?' Shapiro's voice was savage. 'Do you think I don't know that an innocent man's been in prison for eight years because I thought he was lying when he wasn't? Eight years, Sergeant. You think I'm bothered by what the Chief Constable's going to say? By what the Press are going to say? I made an a.s.sumption that cost another human being eight years of his life. Do you think that anything anyone has to say can make me feel worse about that?'

Donovan swayed under his vehemence as if his face 158.

had been slapped. He desperately wanted to believe that Shapiro's distress was genuine. But he worried that the explanation offered was both too pat and too improbable to be true, in which case Shapiro was still lying. Donovan deeply resented being lied to.

'Then what do you want me to do? I don't understand.'

Shapiro was used to a certain truculance from his sergeant, but not to having it directed at him. 'Come on, Donovan, get your head together. If Foot wasn't at BMT, somebody else was. Several people, in fact, and I want them.'

'You always knew there were others,' objected Donovan. 'If you couldn't find them then, what makes you think I can find them now?'

'I was dealing with students who were high on principles and low on responsibility. Eight years on those same young men are going to have good jobs, families, a different perspective. Start with the darts players, their names and addresses are in the file. Go and see them, tell them what's happened. Eight years ago they were covering for someone whose ideals they sympathized with. They approved of bombing a vivisection lab, reckoned it was just bad luck that a night.w.a.tchman got hurt.

'Well, maybe what happened to Stan Belshaw was an accident. But what happened to Trevor Foot was cold blooded and deliberate. The people on that raid knew that he wasn't there, they could have cleared him at any time, without even putting themselves at risk. But it suited them for me to be chasing the wrong d.a.m.n fox. They knew Foot couldn't give them away, so as long as I concentrated on him they were safe. They let him go to prison rather than tell me that I'd got the wrong man. That was unforgiveable. With luck, one of the darts players will think so too. They may not have known who organized the raid or who was on it, but they knew who asked them to create a diversion at BMT. Get that name and we're in business.'

159.

'What if they're worried for their own skins?'

'I can't promise immunity if that's what you mean. But you can tell them that I'm not looking to charge them. They were only ever involved on the periphery: until now they probably thought Foot was there. We could do them for obstruction, I suppose, but this long after it's hard to see any great public benefit in it. It would be my view that if they co-operate now we should consider their obligation discharged.' He sniffed. 'Perhaps you shouldn't mention that my view may not carry much weight after today.'

Donovan regarded him in silence, his expression hardly flickering. Then he said, 'It isn't a resigning matter. Not if it happened how you say. You didn't send Foot to gaol, a jury did. On the basis of all the evidence that reached you he looked guilty: you thought so, they thought so. They can't make you resign for that.'

'No, they can't sack me for that,' Shapiro agreed wearily. 'It was an honest mistake. But it cost too much. If you're in a position to deprive people of whole chunks of their lives, you don't make mistakes, even honest ones. It's a question of professional competence. You wouldn't employ an epileptic pilot and you shouldn't employ a detective chief inspector who can't recognize the truth when he hears it.'

'You're serious? You're going to chuck it over this?'

The ambivalence in his inflection troubled Shapiro. He had expected shock, anger, indignation: what he got was the steely precision of someone who wanted to be absolutely sure he had the facts straight. But reacting oddly was Donovan's stock-in-trade, it didn't have to mean anything. Shapiro sighed. 'At my age it's called early retirement.'

'It'll look like an admission of guilt.'

That put the spark back into Shapiro's eyes and the edge back on his voice. 'Well, maybe to you it will, Donovan. Fortunately, the people who've been in this business long enough to learn a bit about it will recognize it as the honourable thing to do. But I'm wasting my time, aren't I, talking to you about honour?'

160.

It was not only a cheap shot, it was wide of the mark. Often, as now, it was Donovan's very personal sense of honour that made him difficult. Recognizing that, belatedly Shapiro began to apologize. 'I'm sorry, lad, I didn't mean--'

But Donovan's eyes flared at him, hot like a cornered animal's; then he turned on his heel and left without further comment.

Only after he'd gone did Shapiro catch the echo of something he'd said earlier. He frowned. '// it happened how I said?'

161.

Shapiro was leaving with Taylor as she parked in the yard so Liz knew she didn't have to face him yet. The queasy little flutter of relief under her breastbone gave her no pleasure. She'd have to talk to him sooner or later, and better before she interviewed his son than after.

a.s.suming that she had to. The possibility could not be discounted that she'd got this wrong: made one leap of intuition too many. She'd have a better idea after talking to Donovan, who could also be relied on to keep it to himself if she was wrong. That would be the best outcome: if Donovan could tell her that David Shapiro wasn't out of his sight long enough to have started the fire at the timberyard.

She found him in the collator's office copying addresses off the computer screen, blinked at the heading on the file. 'Now what?'

His eyes were sullen. 'Not my idea, boss. The Chief wants me to find out who did what Foot didn't. He seems to think it'll be easier now than eight years ago.'