‘Use all of it,’ Ivana said. ‘Make sure it gets right to the bottom. Make sure there’s a lake of it down there. We’ve got to burn every scrap.’

‘You don’t think they could have linked this to the other jobs?’ Alyssa asked.

‘Don’t see how they could,’ Ivana replied. ‘But it’s weird, isn’t it? … and they’ll be asking lots of questions. Best to get rid properly.’

‘You put a torch to a police tent and it’ll look even weirder. They’ll know for sure that someone was trying to hide something.’

‘Yeah, but they won’t know what. Whatever line of enquiry this is, Lyssa, it’ll end here. Don’t fret, doll. They haven’t got enough men to worry for long about things that don’t make sense.’

When three and two thirds of the four cans were empty, they backtracked outside, Ivana trailing petrol behind them. As she’d calculated, there was just enough to get them forty or so yards beyond the tape. Alyssa then did the honours, dropping a lighted match onto it.

The fire-snake moved swiftly, winding sinuously away from them. When it touched the tent, the whole thing went up in an explosive cloud of flame whose brilliant glare flooded the tortured landscape. But that was nothing compared to the explosion when the flames ate their way down through the mangled canines and hit the lake of fuel at the bottom.

It was Vesuvius, Stromboli and Krakatoa all in one, a glorious upward torrent of flame and smoke, which seared their faces and frazzled their hair.

‘Who-hoa!’ Alyssa shouted, backing away further, shielding her eyes.

Just as quickly as it had risen, the inferno receded, but not greatly. The tent had all but vanished, only its blackened, blistered framework remaining, but fierce flames still roared from the charnel pit, feasting on bones and decay, the air greasy with the reek of melting, bubbling fat.

Ivana lowered her own hand and nodded, smiling. ‘That ought to do it.’

‘Hey … almost forgot.’ Alyssa edged forward, as close as the surging heat would allow her, and hurled the rolled-up newspaper. It disappeared into the conflagration, along with its small front-page story about police spokesmen refusing to comment on rumoured search activities out on the landfill site at Fairview.

‘Good job we saw that,’ Ivana said.

‘Doesn’t matter now.’

‘No.’

‘Good night’s work all round.’

‘Yep.’

‘Except …’ Alyssa indicated Peabody lying alongside them. ‘What about this one?’

‘You gave him a good whack, didn’t you? Won’t come around for a few minutes yet.’

‘Do we want that? Even in a few minutes?’

Ivana frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘What do you think?’ Alyssa laughed her eerie, whinnying laugh. ‘You said we need to finish the job properly. And he saw you, after all. So … let’s feed the flames some more.’

Chapter 35