The Messiah Secret

He splashed the contents of the other two cans liberally around the ground floor of the house, finishing just inside the front door. Then he took a small plastic bag from his pocket, and extracted a stubby candle through which he’d bored a hole from one side to the other about an eighth of an inch below the wick. Then he took a short length of twine which he’d soaked in paraffin and fed that through the hole. He positioned one end of the twine in a pool of petrol and placed the candle a few inches away. He’d experimented with different types of candles and knew that the wick would burn down to the twine in about five minutes, which would give him ample time to get clear of the area before the accelerant blew.

Killian lit the candle, made sure it was burning properly, then strode across to the front door and left the house.

* * *

‘Where the hell is it?’ Bronson demanded, looking frantically for a street sign – any street sign – that would tell them where they were in the maze of roads that made up Al-Gebel al-Ahmar.

‘Stop,’ Angela yelled, pointing. ‘There’s a sign.’

Bronson braked hard, slewing the car sideways, then reversed back up about twenty feet so Angela could see the sign clearly.

She read the letters, checked the map and then pointed ahead. ‘Keep going down this road,’ she instructed, ‘and take the second turning on the left.’

In the hall of Suleiman al-Sahid’s house the candle flame burnt steadily, the flame flickering slightly in the erratic air currents that worked their way under the front door. Four minutes after Killian had applied his lighter to the candle wick, the flame reached the length of twine. There was a sharp fizzing from the twine as it ignited, and then the flame started burning its way down it towards the petrol.

Killian had chosen paraffin for his fuse because it would burn more slowly. Even so, the flame reached the pool of petrol in less than thirty seconds. The moment it did so, there was the sound of a dull ‘whump’, and in an instant the hall was ablaze, the tendrils of burning petrol spreading out in all directions.

* * *

‘Are you sure this is the right address?’ Bronson asked. ‘It all looks really peaceful here at the moment.’ He switched off the car engine and opened the door. For a moment he just looked at the whitewashed property in front of them. Then he sniffed.

‘Do you smell burning?’ he asked.

Before Angela could reply, there was a thump from inside the house, and the first tongues of flame licked under the front door, bubbling the paint as the old wood caught fire.

‘Oh, shit,’ Bronson muttered, then started to run towards the house. ‘Call the fire brigade,’ he shouted.

Behind him, Angela yelled out in alarm. ‘Chris, don’t. Come back.’

Bronson knew something about fires and the way they spread. If he opened the front door, he would probably be immediately engulfed in flames. But there had to be a back door, some other way in to the house. He wasn’t bothered about the paintings – they would either survive the blaze or not – but he was worried about anyone inside the property. He didn’t know if Suleiman al-Sahid or his family were in there, but he was going to do his best to check out the house before the fire took hold everywhere.

Bronson ran around the side of the house, stopping at every window and peering inside. But he saw nothing until he looked in through the glass panel of a wooden door at the rear of the property and caught sight of the body of a man lying motionless on the floor.

He wrenched on the handle, but the door was locked.

There’s a technique to kicking down a door. Charging at it almost never works, despite the way TV detectives always seem to do it. Instead, the energy has to be concentrated, focused, as near to the lock – the weakest part of any door – as possible.

Bronson took a step back and kicked out, the sole of his foot connecting with the door right beside the lock. It didn’t budge, and felt as if it never would. The door was absolutely solid.

He looked around desperately, searching for anything he could use to break it down. On one side of the garden were some lumps of masonry, perhaps left over from some repair work. He ran over, grabbed the biggest lump of stone he thought he could handle, then crossed back to the locked door. Gripping the stone firmly in both hands, he swung it as hard as he could, smashing it straight into the door next to the lock.

The wood splintered and cracked, but the door still held. He glanced back into the room. As he did so, he noticed the man on the floor move slightly, little more than a twitch of his leg, but it proved that he was still alive. Bronson redoubled his efforts, swinging the stone as hard as he could.