The Shout

by Stephen Leather

Genres: Action & Adventure; Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

Sunday Times bestselling author Stephen Leather's latest edge-of-your-seat thriller.

A standalone thriller from Sunday Times bestselling author Stephen Leather that takes us into the world of the London Fire Brigade's elite Investigations Unit.

Vicky Lewis is a force to be reckoned with: not yet thirty and already Crew Manager in the London Fire Brigade, she's destined for great things.

But when she enters a burning building to save a man's life and leaves it with catastrophic injuries, all that changes. She's shunted over to the Fire Investigation Unit, where she's forced to team up with cantankerous veteran Des Farmer, aka the Grouch.

When Vicky stumbles across the Grouch's off-the-books investigation into the fiery deaths of a series of young, blonde women, she decides to join him in his search for the truth.

The answer is close - perhaps too close. Vicky's already been burnt once, and now she's playing with fire . . .

Release date: September 18, 2018

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 400

Sample

He smiled as he looked down at the body sprawled across the bed. Her name was Emma Fox and she was in her early thirties, a natural blond with shoulder-length hair splayed across the pillow. She had been dead for twenty minutes so she was still warm. Her eyes were wide and staring, the whites flecked with pinpricks of red. That was what happened when people were strangled. Petechial haemorrhages they were called, ruptures of the capillaries.

It had taken Emma the best part of forty minutes to die. He had wanted it to be longer but strangulation was an inexact science. He had tied her hands to the bedhead but left her legs free. She couldn’t struggle much because most of the time she was unconscious, but when she did struggle it felt so much better. He’d used a length of cord to restrict her air supply, looped twice around her pretty neck. It was a delicate balance, cutting off her air. He wanted her conscious, but if she was conscious she could scream and that would spoil everything, so he used pressure on the cord to keep her precariously balanced between being awake and being out cold. He had ejaculated inside her, and that was when he had pulled the cord too tight for too long and the life went out of her. The cord lay coiled at her feet. The fire would destroy it, the way it destroyed all the evidence of what he had done.

He dressed. He could smell her scent on him and he wouldn’t shower or bathe for two or three days, not until it had faded completely. He went over to the sash window and opened it a few inches. A fire needed three things to burn efficiently – heat, fuel and an oxidising agent. It was what they called the Fire Triangle. Oxygen was the perfect oxidising agent. The heat would come from the book of matches he had in his pocket. And the room was full of fuel. The bedding, the mattress, the carpet, the curtains, her clothes, all of it would burn nicely.

There was a nightdress lying across a chair in the corner of the room, pink and frilly and quite long. It would burn, but it was polyester so it would leave a residue, which meant she had to be wearing it. He picked it up and carefully pulled it over her head. It took him a while to get her arms through the armholes, but he took it slowly. Eventually he pulled the nightdress down her long, lithe legs. He found himself getting hard again and wondered if he had time to have sex with her one more time. He found himself growing harder as he pictured himself on top of her. He looked at his watch. It was eleven o’clock, the time that she usually went to bed. And sex with the dead was never as satisfying as sex with the soon-to-be dead. Better to set the fire and go.

He knew pretty much everything about Emma Fox. He had befriended her on Facebook with a fake profile and chatted to her on Twitter under another identity. He had watched her apartment from the cafe across the road and followed her to and from her work. She was a shop assistant in Top Shop in Oxford Circus. Early on in his stalking he had approached her in the store and asked her advice on buying a pullover for a non-existent sister. That was one of the most exciting things he had ever done. To stand next to her, to breathe in her fragrance and look into her eyes, knowing that one day he would own her. He had thanked her and walked away, almost shuddering with anticipation. That had been two weeks ago. And now she was dead.

He pulled the duvet from under her, then placed it on top of her. He took out a toilet roll and a plastic spray bottle he’d filled with diesel. He pulled a length of ten pieces of toilet roll and laid it on the floor, then repeated the process six times. He lined the lengths up so that they were touching and then sprayed them with diesel. Diesel in its natural state was almost impossible to ignite, but when sprayed over tissue it became deliciously flammable. He put the spray bottle into his backpack and then laid the strips of toilet tissue over the duvet. They would burn quickly and hotly and would be totally destroyed in the fire.

He took out a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches from his jacket pocket and placed them on the bed. In his backpack he had a small can of lighter fluid. He poured a little of the liquid over the foot of the bed and watched it soak into the quilt. It was important not to use too much as that might leave a trace for investigators to find. He put the can back in the backpack and took a final look around the room, making sure that he would be leaving nothing behind.

Satisfied, he lit a cigarette with one of the matches, took two drags on it and then clipped the cigarette into the book of matches so that the burning end was about two inches from the first match. It was a Benson and Hedges, the same brand that Emma smoked, but they were counterfeits that he had bought at a car boot sale in south London, almost certainly manufactured in the Far East. Since November 2011, all cigarettes sold in the UK and the European Union had to be reduced ignition propensity cigarettes, designed to go out if not drawn on regularly. The RIP cigarettes had been designed to cut down on the number of fires started by smokers but the counterfeiters weren’t bound by the EU regulations and would burn down to the filter. He carefully placed the book of matches on the bed and stood up to admire his handiwork. The cigarette would take at least ten minutes to burn down to the matches by which time he would be long gone. The matches would ignite, the lighter fluid-soaked duvet would catch fire, boosted by the diesel-impregnated tissue and within minutes the room would be ablaze.

He shouldered his backpack, left the bedroom and headed for the front door. There was a smoke alarm in the hallway but he had taken care of that. By the time anyone realised the flat was ablaze the fire would have reduced the bed and the body to ashes. He took a final look around the hallway and left. He didn’t plan on waiting around to see the fire brigade arrive. Most arsonists were caught eventually because they stayed to stare at the flames. He wasn’t an arsonist. He took no pleasure from watching things burn. The fire was a means to an end, and that end was for him to continue to kill. That was what gave him pleasure, the taking of human lives. But not just any lives. He had a type. He knew that was a weakness, and that having a type was as likely to get him caught as watching the buildings burn. He knew that as well as he knew that night followed day, but he couldn’t help himself. It was in his nature. Or his genes. He wasn’t sure which, but then it didn’t matter, all that mattered was that he loved taking lives and he had found a way of doing it and getting away with it.

A cold breeze blew down the street as he stepped out on to the pavement. He turned up the collar of his jacket and walked away, whistling softly to himself.

The blue flashing lights were reflected off the shop windows either side of the fire engine, and the noise of its sirens cut through the night as the eleven-ton vehicle sped along the city streets. What little traffic there was had pulled over already and Dom Laffy was able to keep their speed close to forty miles an hour. There was a red traffic light ahead of them but just as Laffy was preparing to go through it changed to green and he pressed his foot down on the accelerator. He grinned. ‘I love it when that happens,’ he said.

‘What’s the story, Vicky?’ asked Gary Jones from the back. He was the oldest member of the crew, coming up to fifty, grey-haired and cheeks peppered with red veins, the result of his love for sailing.

Vicky Lewis scanned the printout she had torn from the printer before jumping on to the fire engine. She was crew manager and had taken the front passenger seat as usual. Vicky was approaching thirty, though she looked five years younger, with her upturned nose sprinkled with freckles and her blond hair cut short in a functional bob. She was still sometimes asked for ID in the pub, much to the delight of the guys on her shift. ‘Fire in an abandoned building,’ she said. ‘No alarm but a passer-by called it in.’

‘Probably another fucking hoax,’ said Laffy.

There had been more than a dozen hoax calls over the past week, all made from phone boxes. It was probably kids getting a kick out of wasting the fire brigade’s time, but it was close to midnight and most of the hoax calls had come in within an hour or so of the schools closing. With Jones in the back were Colin Noller – a thirty-something recent arrival at the Kilburn station – and Mark Beech, a beefy West Indian with almost twenty years’ experience under his belt. All were wearing full gear and had their yellow helmets on.

Laffy was driving a Mercedes-Benz Atego fire engine. It was equipped with a thirty-foot ladder, more than a thousand feet of hoses – though firefighters referred to them as lines – breathing apparatus, chemical suits and pretty much anything that might be needed to rescue people from burning buildings or crashed cars. About fifty yards behind them was another fire engine, this one a pump ladder carrying everything that was on Vicky’s vehicle but with a ladder that was fifty per cent longer. The driver of the pump ladder was Billy Moore, a veteran firefighter who had been a keen kick-boxer in his youth and who spent most of his down time in the station’s well-equipped gym. With him were Frank Westworth, Andy Mitchell and Mike Wells, who when they weren’t putting out fires ran a very profitable landscaping company. London firefighters worked two ten-and-a-half-hour day shifts followed by two thirteen-and-a-half-hour night shifts, and then four days off. Many firefighters put their off-days to good use and the station gossip was that Westworth, Mitchell and Wells were now making more from doing up gardens than they were from their LFB salaries.

Like Vicky, Westworth was a crew manager, his rank shown by the two black rings around his yellow helmet. Whoever got to the shout first would be incident commander and in charge. Vicky’s pump was in the lead partly because she’d switched Westworth’s boots around in the station, costing him a few extra seconds in the rush to pull on their protective gear.

Laffy indicated left and the tyres squealed as the truck took the corner at close to thirty miles an hour. A young couple walking arm in arm stopped to watch them hurtle by. Ahead of them a black cab switched on its hazard lights and pulled over.

The shout was the sixth Vicky had attended since she had started the night shift at 8pm. Three had been malfunctioning fire alarms, two in shops and one in an office block, one had been a kitchen fire caused by an elderly women pouring water on to a burning frying pan, and the last one had been a burning skip, probably caused by a passer-by tossing in a lit cigarette.

A set of traffic lights resolutely refused to change from red so Laffy slowed and looked left and right as they rolled through. The road was clear to the left but half a dozen cars had stopped to their right. Laffy accelerated. Vicky leaned forward and looked at the nearside wing mirror. The pump ladder was about a hundred yards behind them now.

The next lights were on green, then Laffy took a left and slowed. ‘Here we go,’ he said. A group of half a dozen onlookers were gathered on a street corner staring up at a building. Smoke was billowing up from the ground floor. Laffy parked at the side of the road opposite the building, making sure there would be enough room to unload the ladder. Vicky climbed out and surveyed the scene. She could see immediately that it was definitely more than a two-pump fire. Four appliances would be needed, possibly six. There was a bar on the ground floor of the four-storey hotel building. It had its own entrance to the left and to the right was the main hotel reception. The doors and windows were boarded up and there was an estate agent’s sign announcing that the property had been sold. The bar was clearly on fire, smoke was seeping out through the boarded-up door and around the sheets of plywood that had been nailed over the windows. There were no other buildings next to the hotel, which meant that its chances of spreading were limited. There were flats opposite the hotel and lights were on in many of the windows as the occupants looked out to see what was going on.

She looked up at Laffy. ‘Dom, get on to control. Make pumps four.’

Laffy grabbed for his transceiver to call for two more fire engines as Jones, Noller and Beech climbed out of the pump and joined Vicky on the pavement. ‘Let’s get two lengths of forty-five on it asap,’ she said. The pump had two sizes of hose – 45mm and 70mm. Vicky figured the smaller diameter would do the job and it was much more manoeuvrable than the 70mm version. ‘One of you do a three-sixty and let me know what’s happening around the back.’

Jones and Noller hurried to the pump and started pulling out the seventy-five-foot lengths of hose while Beech went around to the rear of the building to see what the situation was there.

There was a fire hydrant on the other side of the road so water wasn’t going to be an issue. The pump carried 300 gallons of water but that wouldn’t last more than a minute when it was pumping flat out and to deal with anything major it had to be connected to a water source.

Vicky looked around for the police but they didn’t appear to be there so she headed over to the crowd of onlookers. ‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ she shouted. ‘I know everyone wants to watch a fire, but you’re a bit too close for comfort! Can I ask you all to please move away a good hundred feet. For those of you using the metric system, that’s about thirty metres.’

No one moved.

‘I won’t ask you twice!’ she shouted. ‘If you’re still on this corner in ten seconds, I’ll get those nice men over there to spray you with freezing cold water. Your call.’ The onlookers were already moving away like startled sheep as she strode back to the pump, just as the Kilburn pump ladder arrived. Frank Westworth climbed out of the pump ladder and jogged over to her. ‘Don’t think I don’t know it was you who fucked with my boots,’ he said, wagging a finger at her face.

‘No idea what you’re talking about, Frank,’ said Vicky, straight-faced. ‘Anyway, I’ve made pumps four.’

Westworth nodded and looked up at the building. ‘I might have gone for six.’

‘The building’s abandoned so I’m assuming most combustibles will be out. It’s a standalone building so there’s no immediate risk of it spreading. And no risk of casualties.’

Westworth nodded. ‘Yeah, I hear you,’ he said. He looked over at the hoses being prepared. ‘Do you think two lines of forty-five is enough?’

‘It could do with a covering jet as well,’ she said. ‘It seems to be confined to the bar. We get the boards off the windows and open the door, then attack it front to back. Can you handle the covering jet?’

‘Sounds like a plan,’ said Westworth. ‘Cops not here?’

‘Probably too busy handing out speeding tickets and hassling people on social media.’ Just as she spoke a police car arrived, siren off but blue lights flashing. ‘Speak of the devil,’ she said. She went over to talk to the cops as Westworth walked quickly to the pump ladder.

The driver of the police car was an overweight West Indian woman who was having trouble getting out of the front seat. Vicky tried not to grin as the officer swung her legs out of the vehicle and then used the door to pull herself up. The cop in the front seat was younger and considerably thinner, but looked to be barely out of his teens and his stab vest was a couple of sizes too big for him. ‘The fire looks as if it’s confined to the downstairs bar,’ said Vicky. ‘Can you block off the road and stop all traffic coming down? Also, there’s a crowd of rubberneckers over there, it’d be great if you could move them away.’

‘No problem,’ said the cop. He turned to his colleague. ‘Mary, maybe use the car to block the road, yeah?’

Mary sighed and began lowering herself back into the vehicle as Vicky hurried over to the pump. Mitchell and Wells were dragging hoses out of the fire engine, while Moore was pulling out a Halligan bar. The Halligan bar was a souped-up crowbar, designed and named after a New York fire chief. Hugh Halligan came up with a design back in 1948 that could be used for a multitude of tasks. It was the Swiss Army knife of firefighting kit with a claw, a blade and a tapered pick. It could be used to break open doors and windows, as a crowbar or an axe, and was strong enough to smash through a wall. The claw was perfect for shutting off valves and the pick could bust open any padlock in seconds. Moore was planning to use it to rip off the wooden boards covering the windows and door.

Noller had connected the pump to the hydrant while Beech and Jones were fitting nozzles to the hoses.

Two more police cars arrived and they helped block off the road. The onlookers had been moved back to a safe distance, though there were now more of them, several dozen men and women, most with their smartphones out. Vicky looked back at the building. Smoke was billowing out through the wooden boards over the ground-floor windows but there were no flames that she could see.

‘Where is Stefan?’ shouted a man behind her. Vicky turned around. A bearded man in his fifties was standing with his hands on his head. ‘Stefan!’ he shouted. ‘Stefan!’ He was wearing a heavy leather jacket over stained brown cargo pants.

‘Sir, you have to move away from the area,’ said Vicky, but he didn’t seem to hear her.

‘Stefan!’ he shouted again.

‘What’s wrong?’ Vicky asked him.

‘I think Stefan is inside,’ he said, waving at the building. His accent was Eastern European and from the state of his clothes he was homeless. His nails were bitten to the quick and those teeth that weren’t missing were stained yellow.

‘Why do you think that?’ asked Vicky. The man frowned and so Vicky repeated the question, slower this time.

The man pointed up at the top floor. ‘We sleep there.’

‘You sleep there? How do you gain access?’ The man frowned again. ‘How do you get inside?’ asked Vicky.

‘We break window, round back,’ said the man. ‘Please, you have to find Stefan.’ He pointed at the top floor. ‘Stefan is inside. I know it.’

‘And how many people sleep up there?’ asked Vicky.

‘Five. Six.’ The man shrugged. ‘Sometimes more.’

Vicky waved Westworth over. ‘Frank, we’ve got people in there, top floor,’ she said, before turning back to the man. ‘What is your name, sir?’ she asked.

‘Alexandru.’

‘Okay, Alexandru, I need you to think very carefully. Are you sure Stefan is inside?’

The man nodded. ‘He didn’t feel well. We were working and he came home.’

Vicky frowned. ‘Working? You have a job?’

‘Selling Big Issue is job. That is how we earn money.’

‘Does he have a mobile phone?’

‘Yes. But he not answer.’

‘And you say there are five or six people sleeping up there?’

He nodded again.

‘Is it five?’ asked Vicky. ‘Or six? We need to know for sure.’

‘Sometimes five. Sometimes six. Me. Stefan. Maria. Maria is Stefan’s wife. They have two children.’

‘Are Maria and the children up there?’

‘No, they are working.’

‘It’s after midnight,’ said Vicky. ‘Why are they working so late?’

‘They sell more magazines at night.’

‘And you’re sure Maria and the children aren’t up there?’

‘Sure. They stay out until one o’clock every night.’

‘And who else sleeps up there?’

‘Silviu. But he is staying with his friends tonight. Cristian and Clara, but they went back to Romania.’ His eyes widened. ‘Oh, one of Stefan’s friends went back with him. Dorian. Dorian is probably up there.’

‘So there are two people up there?’

The man nodded. ‘I think so. But it is difficult to be sure. People come and go.’

Vicky went over to the cab of the pump and shouted up at Laffy. ‘Persons reported, Dom,’ she said. ‘Call it in. And make pumps six.’

‘Will do,’ said Laffy, reaching for the transceiver.

Vicky turned to Westworth. ‘We need to clear the upper floors. If they’re not out by now they’re either trapped or overcome by smoke.’

‘We’re going to be short-handed on the lines,’ said Westworth.

‘Four more pumps are on the way,’ she said.

‘Okay, that makes sense’ said Westworth. ‘But I’d advise against sending in a BA team until the rest of the pumps are here.’

Alexandru put a hand on Vicky’s shoulder. ‘You will help?’ he asked.

‘Of course,’ said Vicky. ‘Do you have electricity in there?’

He shook his head. ‘No. But there is still water.’

‘So how do you cook food? What light do you have?’

‘We have a gas stove. And candles.’ He shrugged. ‘It is not easy but at least we do not have to pay rent.’

‘And you sleep on the top floor?’

‘We have a room each,’ said the man.

‘But no one sleeps on the floors below?’

‘Only the top floor.’

‘And where is Stefan’s room? The front or the back?’

The man frowned as he considered the question. ‘Back,’ he said eventually.

‘Would Dorian stay in the same room as Stefan?’

‘I don’t know.’ He looked up anxiously at the top floor of the hotel. ‘Please, you have to help them.’

‘We will,’ said Vicky. Two pumps from Paddington arrived and Vicky hurried over to the lead vehicle. Watch Manager Tony Abbey climbed out. He was a big Mancunian who had inherited his Jamaican father’s build and burnished brown skin and his Irish mother’s sharp tongue. As a senior officer he was wearing a white helmet and had two pips on his shoulder. ‘We have possibly two trapped on the upper floor, guv,’ Vicky said. As senior officer, Abbey was now incident commander in charge of the fire and the first order of business was for Vicky to brief him on the situation. ‘The fire seems to have started on the ground floor but the occupants have been using candles and gas stoves. I’ve two lines ready to attack the seat of the fire and Frank is setting up a covering jet. I’d like to send teams in with breathing apparatus now that you’re here.’

Abbey looked up at the hotel. ‘You think it’s safe to send BA teams in now?’

‘The fire seems to be confined to the pub,’ said Vicky. ‘The stairs to the hotel floors are to the right with its own entrance. There’s some smoke but no fire.’

‘But if the fire moves across, any BA team would be trapped.’

‘We’ll have all the lines up and running in a minute or so. That should hold the fire back. Sir, there are two men possibly trapped here. Now that you’re in charge I’d like to take a team of four in. That would mean your guys operating my hoses.’

Abbey frowned. ‘You’re sure about this?’

‘Two men trapped. I don’t see we have a choice.’

‘We’re light on manpower.’

‘Two more pumps on the way. I’ve called it six pumps.’

Abbey rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘Always leading from the front, huh, Vicky? Have you called in persons reported?

‘Yes, guv.’ The ‘persons reported’ message would automatically trigger an ambulance being sent, along with a command unit and a station manager.

He nodded. ‘Okay, go for it,’ he said. ‘I’ll send my guys over to your pump. Who’s going to be entry control?’

‘I was going to use Dom Laffy.’

Abbey shook his head. ‘It’ll have to be a stage two entry control, which means you’ll have to use a crew manager.’

Vicky wrinkled her nose. ‘Frank is overseeing the jets on the bar.’

‘I’ll send you Dave Potter, he’s crew manager on the Paddington pump ladder.’

‘Thanks, guv,’ said Vicky, throwing him a mock salute.

‘But at the first sign of the fire spreading to the hotel, I’ll be pulling you out. When did you ask for the extra pumps?’

‘Just now.’

‘Euston is closest but they’re attending a burning skip on the Charing Cross Road and a possible false alarm in an office block down the road from them. False alarm or not they’re going to be tied up for a while. I think it’ll be Soho that attends. They’ll be a few minutes yet. Five. Six, maybe.’ He looked back at the hotel. ‘Only two persons in there? You’re sure?’

‘They’re sleeping rough, so there’s no way of being sure how many, but I’m told two.’

‘There are a lot of rooms, Vicky. A BA team could be searching all night if there’s smoke up there.’

‘I’m told they’re in the top-floor rooms, at the back. A team of four should do it.’

Abbey scrunched up his face. ‘Thing is, if we are going to need lines in the hotel we might have to move up to eight pumps.’ He looked over at Vicky. ‘Take two teams of two. That way I only need a two-man crew on standby.’

‘Will do. Two two-man teams it is.’

Abbey nodded. ‘Okay. Get your teams ready. But you’re not to go in until there’s an emergency crew in place.’

‘Yes, guv,’ said Vicky. She hurried over to the pump where Beech and Noller had finished preparing their hoses. ‘Colin, Mark, prepare your BA gear.’ She waved over at Jones. ‘You too, Gary.’

‘What about our lines?’ asked Noller, holding up his hose.

‘Paddington will take over,’ said Vicky. ‘Colin, bring the thermal-imaging camera.’

The hand-held thermal-imaging camera was a relatively new piece of kit and all the firefighters were impressed with it. They had all been trained to search smoke-filled rooms by touch, but the camera enabled them to find casualties no matter how bad the visibility. ‘Righto,’ said Noller. He dropped the hose and went over to the pump where Beech was already pulling out his breathing apparatus from the cab.

Andy Mitchell and Mike Wells were running hoses from the Kilburn pump ladder. The pump was already connected to the hydrant and another hose connected the pump ladder to Vicky’s pump to supply it with water.

Abbey began shouting commands to the Paddington firefighters but they were a well-drilled team and were already setting up their hoses and connecting to the hydrant water supply. Two of the firefighters hurried over to the Kilburn pump to take over from Beech and Noller. Abbey spoke to Dave Potter who went over to his pump ladder to retrieve the control board from the crew cab. The electronic control board was a relatively recent piece of brigade equipment – in the past clocks and pens were used to keep track of who was where in a breathing apparatus operation, and how much air they had left. Now it was all done by computer. Sensors on the firefighter’s equipment sent data on the amount of air in the tank and the firefighter’s breathing rate, and was used to transmit man-down alarms and evacuation acknowledgements. All the firefighters wore man-down alarms – automatic distress signal units – which activated a loud warning after fifteen seconds of no movement and a full alarm after thirty seconds. The ADSU warning would also sound on the board and a light flash, letting the entry control officer know that a firefighter was in trouble.

Vicky joined Noller, Beech and Jones at the side of the cab and grabbed an air cylinder. She slung it on to her back, bending forward as she fastened the straps that kept it in place. She hung h. . .