The Enemy Within Read Online Free

before the clock went off – smoke from the countless cigarettes which were being puffed at all over Mad Jack’s Field; smoke which the wind carried from the shift-work factories on the edge of town and the rows of terraced houses whose owners still stuck stubbornly to using solid fuel. But this smoke had an entirely different taste to it.
    It was
wood
smoke! Woodend thought. More than that – it was the kind of wood smoke which is thrown out as the flames lick persuasively around branches which have, as yet, refused to co-operate with the conflagration.
    The Chief Inspector had only just completed his analysis when there was a loud ‘whoosh’, and one side of the bonfire burst into bright, dazzling flame.
    The sudden heat – cutting through the chill November air – pricked against the skin of everyone close enough to feel the effect. The roar of the flames – and already it
was
a roar – filled their ears like the warning of an angry lion.
    The flames spread rapidly, greedily devouring the petrol that the older of the boys had thrown on the bonfire earlier. Twigs inside the inferno crackled. Thicker timbers groaned their resistance. Bright red sparks were already dancing above the apex of the bonfire to form a glowing halo.
    In the distance, a woman screamed. Somewhat closer, a panicked man shouted that someone should call the fire brigade. No one had expected this. No one knew what was really going on.
    Dr Shastri was still close to the blaze, Woodend noted – far too close for a woman who was dressed from head to foot in the kind of loose, flammable material that flames thrive on.
    The Chief Inspector took a step nearer the doctor, grabbed her arms in his powerful hands, and swung her clear of the fire as if she weighed no more than a doll. Once he’d placed her on the ground again, Woodend turned quickly back to the bonfire. The flames had spread rapidly, so that now they formed a fiery canopy over the hollowed-out middle. It could only be a few seconds – at the very most – before bits of flaming wood began falling on the corpse which was still lying there.
    Paniatowski had seen the same danger as he had, and was kneeling down in order to do something about it.
    Woodend pulled her back from the flames. ‘Leave the body to me!’ he shouted.
    â€˜But, sir . . . !’
    â€˜Get all these other silly buggers safely out of the way!’
    Woodend moved closer to the fire, and sank down on to one knee. He tried to see straight ahead, but the intense heat and smoke made normal vision impossible. His hands groped blindly in front of him, and the right one brushed against what could only be the dead woman’s ankle.
    He knew that, to make the cleanest job possible of pulling the dead woman clear, he should probably locate her other ankle with his free hand, but his brain – which was registering the fact that his eyeballs felt as if they were frying – counselled speed over elegance.
    Wrapping his thick fingers firmly around the ankle he already had hold of, he took a step backward.
    The dead body wouldn’t move! The bloody thing was snagging against something!
    He was tempted to take a deep breath before trying again, but the only effect of that would be to draw even more of the sodding smoke straight into his bloodstream.
    His cheeks felt on fire now, and he could smell cooking meat which he hoped wasn’t him. Behind him he could hear a distorted voice – it sounded like Paniatowski’s – screaming that he should come away. He ignored it. One more pull, he told himself – one last big effort on his part – and he would have the corpse free of the inferno.
    It came away with such ease this time that, for a moment, he almost lost his balance. He swayed, and in the second or so it took him to readjust his weight, the fiery arch collapsed into the hollow.
    The bonfire swayed dangerously, then a part of it began to topple