Aleksey heard the van start up once more. The headlights moved off from the scene but the engine was still idling outside.
Ben started to make a move, but Aleksey put his hand on his arm.
One man, one they’d not seen before, came in to the now dark space. He had a baseball cap on, which distinguished him from the other six.
This seventh man walked up to the little camp, and without any particular ceremony, kicked over the stove onto the still figure.
Flames immediately erupted over the body, travelling in the rivulets where his clothes were crumpled.
Hardly waiting to ensure the success of his action, the stranger turned and walked casually to the exit, vaulting off the loading ramp and disappearing once more into the rain.
Aleksey and Ben jumped down. Ben started to scramble over the rubble to get to the burning body.
Aleksey went to the exit and peered around the gap. The van was manoeuvring in the alley once more, beeping, turning, lights flicking over the old redbrick walls.
He ran back to Ben, who was trying to smother the flames with a blanket.
Suddenly, the dead man moved. The body began to writhe as burning heat penetrated thick clothing to skin.
A confused cry rang out.
Aleksey sometimes thought that if he went the rest of his life without hearing anyone screaming in pain, he’d be a happy man.
He stepped back, grabbing Ben’s arm as the man rose from the floor and began to whirl around, flames now engulfing him. Aleksey was reminded of their strange tribal dance around the bonfire by the lighthouse. But the man wasn’t dancing really, or certainly not in joy, but writhing, stumbling, trying to fling himself to the ground and roll, but then continually managing to stumble back to his feet.
As they tried to restrain and wrap him, Aleksey realised the terrified figure might be seeking the canal, desperately remembering he was so close to salvation, but unable to find a way to reach it. Perhaps Neil had not been thrown in after all, but had sought that relief for himself.
The blanket was useless. They ripped off their jackets and tried to grab him again and again to enfold him, suffocate the flames, but all they got for their troubles was scorched skin as his burning, flailing arms hit at them.
Suddenly, the bottle exploded into blue flame, and Aleksey dragged Ben away as white-hot heat engulfed the screaming figure. He didn’t shriek for long, and his cries soon muted to searing gasps and then to nothing but moans, until there was silence except for the crackle from the flames feeding listlessly on a few last puddles of liquid.
They were both panting. Both had burnt hands, blistered arms. Both phones were somewhere in the smouldering heap, along with their jackets.
Ben suddenly dashed past the frightful pile, grabbed a handful of concrete dust and threw it. Aleksey joined him and they finally managed to douse the final few flickers.
They stood together silenced by shock.
Aleksey made a conscious effort to rouse, to do something useful and squatted beside the body. Very gingerly, he twitched the man’s hood back.
The sight that greeted him made him recoil, and he fell onto his backside. This reaction was apparently so uncharacteristic that Ben immediately squatted and squeezed his shoulder. ‘What?’
Aleksey climbed quickly to his feet. ‘He’s…’ He couldn’t finish.
Ben, watching his face, cast his gaze lower. His eyebrows shot up. ‘Fuck. The fire didn’t do that.’
Aleksey agreed. The cheeks had great rivulets torn in the flesh, as if the man had been raked—whether by instrument or claws was anyone’s guess. One eye was missing, the socket just a bloody ruin. This injury was clearly fresh, as a few shredded ligaments still trailed on the exposed cheekbone.
Ben squatted and sniffed cautiously at the body. ‘He wasn’t wet from the rain. He stinks of alcohol.’
‘I think he was doused beforehand and they put that bottle in to stage the scene: an alcoholic with naked flames; he felt cold; he got too close—the inevitable happened. I think the police would go for that very easily—I’m not convinced they’d care too much one way or the other.’
‘What about his face though?’
Aleksey shrugged. ‘They’d assume he’d had a fight with someone? That’s why he was drinking so heavily—to dull the pain?’
They dragged their smouldering jackets away with a piece of lumber.
‘Phone?’
