“At first glance it seems random, chaotic, but it isn’t. There’s a pattern. For example, a flame will always travel toward the oxygen feeding it. It happens all the time. The first thing people do in a fire is open the door to get out, and the fire goes straight for them. Like it’s reaching out for them.” Again Enfield tugs at his T-shirt. “The experts, like me, will tell you this is predictable. That’s how we fight fire. It’s governed by the same laws of physics as everything else.” Their eyes lock together; Paul Enfield’s pupils are glossy black coals. “But it’s easy to believe otherwise.” He pulls down the collar of his T-shirt, exposing a mass of white and pink scarring across his shoulder. “Sometimes you get it wrong. Sometimes things don’t happen the way they’re supposed to and all of a sudden the flames are coming for you out of the darkness, and you know, beyond logic and reason, that this fire is alive. That it wants you.” He breathes out heavily. “So yes, you’re right, I do understand him. So do you, if you let yourself think about it. It’s like Bonfire Night when you’re a kid. It’s just that this guy is still staring into the flames, hypnotized. I know exactly what that feels like.”

“Did you get him?” Tyler wants to say more. He feels an urge to apologize, but he senses it’s too late for that.

Enfield nods. “Caught in the act. Sooner or later that’s how we always catch them. The compulsion to watch overrides their self-preservation.”

“I don’t want to wait until then.”

“We won’t. I have people looking at the crowd.” He nods subtly to the small crowd gathering around them in hushed whispers, in spite of the early hour. “Looking for familiar faces. Anyone that might have been present at the last fire. Or the next one.” He points at a security camera mounted on the wall of the cathedral. “And you never know, maybe this time we’ll get lucky.”

Tyler nods. “The locations aren’t random. At least, this one isn’t.” He fills Enfield in on Michael Denham and his relationship with Gerald Cartwright.

Enfield listens in silence and when Tyler’s finished, he says, “Where does that leave us?”

“Who did the allotment belong to?”

“It was rented to a Cyril Armitage. I’ve got someone checking, but so far we can’t see any obvious connection.”

“And the scout hut?”

“Run by the parish council.”

“The bus shelter—that would be council owned, too.”

“You think someone’s got a grudge against the council?”

Tyler smiles. “They wouldn’t be the first.”

Enfield laughs, and the tension is broken. “I suppose it’s worth looking into.”