What Will Burn by James Oswald (ebook reader web .txt) 📕

keyboard with two crooked arthritic fingers. The screen jumped, this time showing the wide corridor that served the two flats on the third floor. McLean watched as the couple went to Fielding’s front door, and then inside.

‘Again, there’s nothing happens until about an hour later.’ Harry tapped and the screen jumped once more. A couple of seconds, and Fielding’s door opened. Elmwood stepped out, pulled the door closed behind her without looking back, and headed for the lift. It must have still been sitting at the third floor as she barely had to wait at all before it opened and she stepped inside.

‘Well, at least we know what time she left. And he didn’t wave her off or anything.’ McLean stared at the screen, the scene unchanging save for the slow ticking timestamp in the corner. ‘What about the other flat on that floor? Nobody come and go last night? Have we spoken to them?’

Harry tapped his keyboard a final time, reached forward and plucked a memory stick from the slim box underneath the screens. As he handed it over, McLean noticed it bore the same logo as the one on his uniform.

‘Nobody there just now, sir. Terrible story, it was. Young lad, nice chap but more money than sense. Seems he lost control of his car up the road there.’ Harry the guard nodded his head in the vague direction of the Lothian Road and Tollcross. ‘Such a terrible waste.’

53

‘News coming in of the death of leading lawyer and men’s rights activist Tommy Fielding . . .’

Gary stares at the screen, mouth open in disbelief. It’s got so bad now he hardly gets up before ten in the morning, slouches about in his boxers and a hoodie against the cold. Can’t afford much heating, can’t afford anything better to watch than the crappy little screen on his knackered old laptop. At least the neighbour’s too stupid to put a password on their Wi-Fi, otherwise he’d not even have that. Clicked on the news and this was the first thing he saw.

‘. . . Senior partner of DCF Law, Fielding was apparently found dead in his Fountainbridge apartment by a cleaning lady early this morning. Police have yet to issue a statement other than to confirm the death and that they are looking into it . . .’

Fuck. He was there. Just last night. He sat with Fielding and his two lawyer mates in the bar. Drank with them. And then that bitch came along and ruined it all. No. Not just her. There were others. All those polis bitches spying on him, spying on Fielding. Waiting ’til he was alone and they could fuck him over. Just like Bella fucked him over. Like all those women thinking they were better than him, better than all of them.

‘. . . Colourful and controversial career, first in London, where he came to prominence following . . .’

Gary shuts off the noise by closing the laptop lid. He doesn’t want to know. Doesn’t need to know anything about Fielding’s past. The lawyer was there when it mattered. He was helping. Going to get Gary back with his wee girl. Get him his job back too. Now that’s all gone to fuck and they did it. Those witches killed Gary’s hope. Killed him. She killed him.

‘So what are you going to do about it?’

Gary should be surprised. He’s alone in this pokey wee one-room flat. Hasn’t had any visitors since Bazza helped him move in. Only the wart-faced old witch of a landlady constantly pestering him for rent. Well fuck her. Only, not fuck fuck her. That’d be gross. She’s like, eighty or something. And hideous.

Gary shakes away the thought, looks around. There’s nobody here, and not exactly anywhere they could hide anyways. He can even see into the wee shower cubicle toilet space that’s probably not health and safety compliant. He’s left the door open because otherwise the smell gets so bad you can hardly breathe in there. Better to let it out, isn’t that what Bazza always used to say?

‘You just going to sit here moping, Gary?’

The voice is in his head, but it sounds like Tommy Fielding. Well, not exactly like Tommy Fielding. It’s like the way the lawyer used to speak to him, only with a different accent.

‘Tommy’s no use to me any more, Gary. He let them in and they destroyed him.’

‘Let them in? Who’s them?’ Gary speaks the words out loud, even though there’s nobody to hear him.

‘The witches, Gary. The evil hags who sold their souls to the devil. Fornicated with him in exchange for ungodly power over men. You know who I am talking about.’

And Gary does. The young redhead screaming at him, calling him disgusting names. The queer pair in the pub, one a cop, the other who the fuck knows? And the queen bitch, head of the polis.

‘Yes. Her. She’s the one you need to focus on, Gary. The one you need to destroy.’

‘I . . . Destroy?’

‘Would you let her get away with it? With everything she has done? Her and all the others?’

With the words come images, feelings, sensations. Gary sees Bella holding a wailing Mary, body turned away from him as if he’s some kind of monster. Bella’s poisonous lies already infecting Mary’s innocent soul. He sees a woman he’s never met before but instinctively knows is Jim’s wife, the woman who took his twin daughters from him and persuaded the judge their father was a child molester. He sees other women and knows who they are, what they have done, the scheming, the lies and injustice. They stand in rows, their numbers swelling, all screaming at him like the protesters at the meeting. All baying for his blood. And in that moment he knows that they are a cancer growing in the heart of good society. They are not women, but witches. An evil abomination that must be swept from the face of the earth lest good men like him drown in their terrible filth.

There is no rumble of thunder. No drum roll or magic explosion. There is