Smoked Havoc Read online

  SMOKED HAVOC

  An Urban-Smith Mystery

  Rupert Harker

  Smoked Havoc

  Copyright © 2019 by Rupert Harker.

  All Rights Reserved.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Cover design by Meghan Davies

  Please visit my website at http://r-harker.com/

  ISBN 978-1-913006-04-4

  For my wonderful wife, Jo,

  and all our beautiful animals.

  SPECIAL THANKS TO

  Becky Stewart

  Jeff Haddow

  Thank you all for your helpful suggestions.

  1. The Foot’s a Game

  By rights, the beginning of the year should have seen me in black and broken spirit, yet my heart soared like a pterodactyl with happiness, carrying me through each day on leathery wings of bliss. I had been witness to some of the most heinous and savage deaths of my career, been beaten, bound and held at gunpoint, almost eaten by a cross-dressing, prosthetically-enhanced crocodile, and discovered that my girlfriend, Nell, was in love with another woman, beautiful dominatrix, Clara. Oddly enough, it was this last item that was the cause of my uncharacteristically buoyant mood.

  In a selfless and desperate attempt to salvage our relationship, I had chivalrously agreed to act as something of a go-between in the bedroom, in order that Nell should not be forced to choose between the objects of her affection. Night after night, I toiled away eagerly, endeavouring to bring satisfaction to all parties, and it would have taken an industrial sander to wipe the smile from my face of a morning, but, as is so oft the case, it was not to last and, as always, it started with a death.

  *

  Monday the 22nd January, 2007

  It had been six months since I had accepted the position of Senior Teaching Fellow at the London Metropolitan Forensic Pathology Unit, located at St Clifford’s Hospital in the centre of London Town. As I arrived on this particular Monday morning, it looked as if I were in for a slow day in the mortuary, with just the one autopsy for me to perform.

  I spent a cheerful hour or so catching up on paperwork, and was just pondering whether to initiate the morning’s third cup of tea when none other than my friend and landlord, the celebrated detective, author and paranormal investigator and researcher, Fairfax Urban-Smith, came a knock-knock-knocking upon my office door.

  “Fairfax! What on Earth are you doing here?”

  The answer, of course, was obvious for he sported a blue plastic apron over his shirt and omnipresent Eton tie, and had his surgeon’s mask ready about his neck. His blue eyes burned with that fierce, penetrating intellect which had been the cornerstone of his success, and the faintest shadow of a smile played about the corners of his thin lips.

  “Danny texted me.”

  Danny, the mortuary attendant, was a stout chap in his mid-fifties whose bald dome, unflappable demeanour and mordant wit had been a staple fixture in the lowest levels of St Clifford’s Hospital for three decades. It was his wont to contact Urban-Smith in the event of an unusual or particularly notable case arriving in the department, and Urban-Smith’s presence indicated that my morning’s work was to be of singular interest.

  What an odd couple we must have made as we hurried from my office, the tall wiry detective striding purposefully ahead, and the small, slightly ample pathologist scurrying behind, my wire-framed glasses bouncing upon the bridge of my nose as I tried to keep pace.

  We headed without delay to the mortuary, where Danny was perched upon a stool, reading the sports section of The Daily Scrump (‘Keeping it up every morning,’ as the advertisements say).

  “What-ho, Danny,” I cried. “What have you for us this morning?”

  “Over there,” he replied tersely, indicating with his head towards the workbench, upon which was sat a square metal specimen tray, containing my client; at least, what remained of them.

  “It’s a foot,” said I.

  “Really?” Danny rustled his paper, but did not look up. “I thought it was a set of golf clubs. No wonder you get paid so much.”

  I picked up the foot and rotated it this way and that. The foot had been unevenly severed just above the ankle, and the stump was blackened and charred as if held in a fire.

  “It has been burnt off,” I observed. “What is bizarre is that this would have required an intense heat source, yet the foot itself is largely unaffected. Obviously a gentleman’s foot, about a size nine, I think. That would put his height at around five-ten. There is a good arch, a little callus formation beneath the ball of the foot, but the bones seem well aligned. In his thirties or early forties I think.” I handed the foot to Urban-Smith for his inspection. “Anything you can add?”

  “Little,” he conceded, “other than that he is right handed and has recently purchased a new pair of slippers.”

  I snatched the foot back from him and held it up to the light.

  “You cannot be serious, Fairfax,” I retorted angrily. “You cannot fathom that from this foot.”

  “Look at the nails, Rupert.” He sniffed haughtily. “The nails have been recently trimmed with a pair of short-bladed scissors. You can see that they have been trimmed from right to left. Assuming that he has trimmed his own toenails, as the vast majority of us do, he has done so right-handedly. There is a small piece of bright-red fluff snagged in a jagged part of the nail, which I believe has come from a pair of slippers. No self-respecting young gentleman would wear socks of such a garish hue. After a few weeks of wear, the average pair of slippers will have ceased to shed fur from the lining.”

  “Harrumph,” I harrumphed, and deposited the foot back into its tray. “Be that as it may, I fail to see the purpose of an autopsy. It is just a foot.”

  “That is not just an ordinary foot,” said a voice at my rear, causing Urban-Smith and I to whirl about like spinning tops. Danny looked up from his newspaper.

  Our visitor was of average height and slim build, immaculately attired in a dark suit and tie, but the thing that struck me immediately was his singular ugliness. His face was almost perfectly round, with shiny, pockmarked skin, like a child’s drawing of the full moon. Small, piggish eyes, gazed out from between heavy, puffy lids, and his nose was squat and flattened, obviously from some injury. As a result, he breathed through his mouth, revealing uneven, greying teeth. His chin was receded almost to the point of non-existence, and his skin was pockmarked and unevenly pigmented. Atop his head, he sported a thinning shock of red hair, stood on end as if attempting to distance itself from the grimness beneath.

  All in all, it was the type of face that one would normally only expect to see patrolling the seabed.

  “Am I addressing Dr Rupert Harker?” he asked.

  I eyed him with trepidation. “You are not a kissogram, are you?”

  “No, Sir.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “Then I am he.”

  I estimated his age at around forty, though possibly older. He regarded my gloves.

  “Forgive me if I don’t shake hands. My name is Thomas Church. I am with MI6.”

  “Church?”

  “Yes,” he confirmed. “Church.”

  “Is that Church with or without a spire?”

  “Without.”

  “What is MI6’s interest in this matter?” I
was in equal parts intrigued and apprehensive.

  “That foot,” he replied, nodding in the direction of said appendage, “belongs to The Rt Hon Kevin Ferno, Junior Transport Minister. The circumstances are suspicious; very suspicious. If it transpires that a member of Her Majesty’s junior cabinet has fallen victim to a terrorist attack, then….” He shrugged. “Well, you can imagine the scandal.”

  “I fail to see how I can be of assistance in this matter,” said I. “Without a body, I cannot be expected to comment upon the cause of death.”

  “Actually, it is not your assistance that I covet. It is that of author, detective and paranormal investigator and researcher, Fairfax Urban-Smith.”

  I was aghast. “MI6 requires the assistance of a private detective?”

  “Private consulting paranorensicologist,” corrected Urban-Smith, “and it would not be the first time.” He turned his attention to Mr Church. “What are the details of this case?”

  “It is bizarre, Mr Urban-Smith. Bizarre and macabre,” His voice dropped to a low whisper. “Bizarre, macabre and grotesque, Sir. Gruesome, macabre, grotesque and bizarre. Monstrous in fact. Monstrous, bizarre, grotesque, macabre and gruesome.” He shook his head in shock. “There are no words to describe it.

  “At around midnight last night, Mr Inferno’s upstairs neighbour summoned the fire brigade due to an intense aroma of acrid smoke. They were granted access to the apartment by the building’s doorman, and found it to be full of foul, sulphurous vapour, but no apparent flames.

  “They found his foot in the living room, in front of the television, but as for the rest of him; nothing. There were traces of grease upon the ceiling and scorch marks on the carpet, but the rest of the room seemed unscathed.

  “There was no evidence of cigarette smoking, the oven and stove-top were switched off, and there were no electric fires or candles in the apartment. It was as if the source of the blaze had been within the victim himself.”

  “Any signs of forced entry or arson?”

  “No."

  Urban-Smith peeled off his gloves and apron. “On the face of it, it appears to be a classic case of spontaneous human combustion. I have written several monographs on the subject.”

  “Pah!” I expectorated. “Pish, tosh and balderdash!”

  “Language,” muttered Danny from behind his newspaper, but I was not to be dissuaded.

  “It is simply not possible for a human being to burst into flames. There has to be a precipitating factor.”

  “Undoubtedly,” conceded Urban-Smith, “but there is at present little consensus as to which mechanism may be responsible, although I myself have a theory. However,” he continued, “judging by the expression upon Mr Church’s face, this is not the time to elaborate. Do you wish us to come and examine the scene of Kevin Ferno’s demise, Mr Church?”

  “Not only is it my wish,” was the inevitable reply, “but per procura, also that of Her Majesty The Queen.”

  Urban-Smith stood proudly to attention. “Are you ready to serve your Queen, Rupert?”

  I nodded and removed my gloves.

  “Ad infinitum et ultra, Fairfax [to infinity and beyond].”

  *

  2. In Ferno’s Rooms

  As is the case far more often that I am comfortable with, Urban-Smith and I were shown into the back of a black sedan, whilst Mr Church climbed into the passenger seat. The car was driven by a sullen, pale-skinned gentleman, whose honed physique and ferocious countenance spoke of a man whose primary function was to provide either protection or intimidation, depending on whichever was called for at any given time.

  Mr Church (without a spire) turned about in his seat to address Urban-Smith.

  “You speak most knowledgably of spontaneous human combustion, Mr Urban-Smith. What can you tell us of it? How is it that a man may burn so completely that all that remains are a single foot and a few globules of congealed dripping?”

  “As to that aspect,” replied my learned friend and colleague, “there is little mystery. The human body, even one that is lean and toned, carries fatty tissue beneath the skin and between the viscera. If exposed to sufficient temperature, this fat will ignite and melt, seeping through the skin and saturating any clothing that is in contact with the victim. This effectively turns the victim into a human candle, the clothing acting as the wick, and the body’s fat stores as the wax.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “How unpleasant.”

  “Unpleasant, yes,” he concurred. “Mysterious, no. As to the chemical or physical process that begins the process, that is a little more controversial.

  “Some postulate that the cause is external, such as a nearby fireplace, or dropped cigarette, yet only a very few people fall prey to the pattern of combustion demonstrated in these cases, where the source of the flames appears to be inside the body itself.”

  “Impossible,” I spat. “People do not simply burst into flame for their own amusement, or yours.”

  Urban-Smith stared at me levelly, and in that moment, I realised that he had become accustomed to my scepticism far sooner than had I to his preposterous theories.

  “There are several hypotheses,” he continued, unbowed. “Some postulate that it is a defect in the cells’ mitochondria which causes them to work at an accelerated rate, thus producing increased heat; others suggest a disorder of the immune system which produces a rapid release of inflammatory substances, causing a catastrophic spike in body temperature. I personally subscribe to the theory of exponential cellular resonation.

  “On an atomic level, everything vibrates, but as each atom is vibrating independently of the others, there is no concordance, with each atom producing its own unique frequency, and therefore the vibration goes unnoticed. Should, however, a sizeable number of atoms happen to resonate at the same frequency, they may begin to influence neighbouring atoms, bringing them into phase much as a magnet can be used to magnetise a piece of steel. As the number of concordant atoms grows, the vibration becomes stronger and stronger, and as more and more atoms are recruited, greater and greater amounts of kinetic energy are produced. It is surmised that this kinetic energy produces the heat necessary to trigger combustion, and the rest we have already discussed.”

  “But what could cause the atoms to behave in such a way?” I asked. “If each atom generates its own frequency, the odds of a significant number of neighbouring atoms vibrating in harmony is infinitesimally remote.”

  Urban-Smith turned to gaze out of the window. “There are more than six billion people on the planet, Rupert, with the average life expectancy at around seventy years. If an event occurs roughly once every five years, then each person’s annual chance of being affected is less than one in thirty billion.”

  I shook my head vigorously. “But you are assuming that it occurs at all. None of the hypotheses you have postulated are robust enough to satisfy me that a person can burn from within without external influence, such as a heat source or…..”

  Urban-Smith turned to gaze at me. “Or?”

  “Or a device that can cause tissues of the body to resonate at a selected frequency.” I swallowed nervously. “My God, Fairfax. London has already borne witness to the effects of a machine that can vibrate the human brain until it haemorrhages. What if The Fervent Fist has refined Project Tremble to such a degree that they can induce a level of resonation within the human body sufficient to ignite subcutaneous fat?”

  “My thoughts exactly, Rupert,” he murmured thoughtfully, turning again to stare from the window at the countless pedestrians, bustling hither and thither in the dreary London drizzle. “I daresay we shall learn more very soon, for we appear to be reaching our destination.”

  And indeed we surely were, for our driver had slowed to a halt and was browsing for somewhere to park, no mean feat on a weekday in Chelsea. Church instructed the driver to double park and drop us off, and the three of us stood at the kerbside, admiring the façade of the late Mr Ferno’s apartment building, consisting of a trio of converted t
erraced townhouses.

  “Very pleasing,” I observed. “Georgian, I should think.”

  “Undoubtedly,” agreed Urban-Smith. “One can but admire the pilasters.”

  Less pleasing on the eye was the extremely surly officer posted at the building’s entrance, his patrol car abandoned at a jaunty angle across a set of double yellow lines in the roadway. Church was evidently recognised, and the officer stood aside without being addressed to allow us passage.

  Sadly, as is so often the case in converted properties, all the individuality and character of the property had been eradicated. The walls were painted a ghastly shade of magnolia, the original windows had been replaced with PVC-framed double glazing, and the original fittings and fixtures all substituted with the blandest and most generic modern substitutes. However, we had not come to critique the accommodation, and we followed Mr Church as he hightailed it up the stairs to the top floor of the building.

  The aroma of our destination struck us some time before we reached the apartment. It was a peculiar combination of grease, overcooked meat and acrid chemicals, and all three of us groaned and grimaced in protest. The rooms themselves were spacious, with an open-plan living room, dining room and kitchen that would have lent a light, airy quality to the surroundings had it not been for the cloying atmosphere and stench.

  Greasy droplets of congealed fat coated the living room ceiling above the late Kevin Ferno’s final resting place, indicated by the presence of a large, irregular scorch mark marring the otherwise pristine shagpile carpet.

  This was the area that Urban-Smith made for, and I was struck by the inconsistent manner in which he seemed to approach his examination of any given area. Sometimes, as was now the case, he would start with the area of greatest interest or activity and then circulate outwards like a ripple upon a pond; on other occasions, he would seem to ignore any feature of obvious interest and begin by focusing his investigation upon items seemingly unrelated to the matter at hand. Whichever method he elected to choose, he would invariably find some feature or minutia which others had overlooked.