The Sh0ut

by Stephen Leather

  Farmer looked around. ‘Not much damage downstairs.’

  ‘Yeah, the laptop was on her bed. The fire spread to the second bedroom and up into the attic.’

  ‘Have you got the laptop?’

  ‘What’s left of it,’ said Harding. He pointed at the kitchen table. The laptop was in an evidence bag and the charger was in another smaller bag. There was another blob of plastic in a third evidence bag, all that remained of a mobile phone.

  Farmer picked up the laptop and studied it. It was a misshapen mass of plastic, blackened with soot. ‘This was definitely the source of the fire?’

  Harding nodded. ‘There were no candles, she wasn’t a smoker. There’s a TV in the room which was damaged by the fire but it wasn’t plugged in.’

  Farmer put down the laptop. ‘Mind if we go up?’

  ‘Knock yourself out.’ He grinned. ‘Not literally, obviously. Do you want me with you?’

  ‘Your call,’ said Farmer. ‘It’s your crime scene.’

  Harding shook his head. ‘No crime that I can see, Des. Just a sad accident.’

  Farmer flashed Vicky another baleful stare before he went through to the hallway. There was a smoke alarm in the ceiling just outside the kitchen door. ‘Did that go off?’ he asked.

  ‘Doesn’t look like it, but then the fire was upstairs.’ Farmer went back into the kitchen and grabbed a chair. He set it down under the smoke alarm, then stood on it and reached up and pressed the test button. Nothing happened. He looked over his shoulder at Harding. ‘You okay if I open this up?’

  ‘Be my guest,’ said Harding.

  Vicky watched as Farmer opened the alarm. He smiled when he saw the battery and used his phone to take a photograph. ‘Have you got a fingerprint kit?’ asked Farmer.

  Harding pointed at his overalls. ‘This isn’t fancy dress,’ he said. ‘Of course I’ve got a fucking fingerprint kit.’

  Farmer waved an apology. ‘Do you mind dusting the battery for prints?’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  Farmer pulled out the battery and stepped down off the chair. ‘Humour me.’

  He put the battery on the kitchen table. Harding fetched his fingerprint kit and dusted it for prints. He frowned as he worked.

  ‘Okay?’ asked Farmer.

  Harding shook his head. ‘No, not okay,’ he said. ‘There aren’t any prints. Not even smudges. How the hell does a battery get into an alarm with no prints? Did she wear gloves?’

  ‘They were wiped,’ said Farmer.

  ‘You think someone put a dead battery in there?’

  ‘I’m sure of it,’ said Farmer.

  ‘Des, that’s one hell of a conspiracy theory,’ said Harding, shaking his head.

  ‘Give me another theory then?’

  Harding shrugged. ‘She came in wearing gloves and kept them on when she put the battery in.’

  ‘It’s a fiddly job, why wouldn’t she take the gloves off?’

  Harding sighed and threw up his arms. ‘I don’t know. Maybe she’s allergic to batteries.’

  ‘And that’s a more sensible theory than mine, is it?’

  Harding grinned. ‘Let me get back to you on that.’

  Farmer headed upstairs and Vicky and Harding followed him. There was more water damage on the stairs and black marks where the hose had scraped the walls. At the top of the stairs was a bathroom, blackened with smoke.

  The main bedroom was straight ahead, at the back of the house. Vicky could see the way that fire had spread from the main bedroom across the carpet, the flames blackening the hall ceiling and melting the plastic shade around the single light. The second, smaller, bedroom was to the right and it had been destroyed. The bed and an armchair had been reduced to ash while a pine dressing table had been charred, giving it an alligator skin effect.

  The carpet underfoot was soaking wet and squelched with every step. ‘What time did the appliances arrive?’ asked Vicky.

  ‘Just after midnight,’ said Harding. ‘A neighbour called it in, but by then the fire was well underway. The back bedroom isn’t really overlooked.’

  ‘Any way of finding out what time she went to bed?’

  ‘Her mobile was in the bedroom but it was very badly damaged. I can talk to the phone company, get a list of calls and texts she’d made. Why?’

  Vicky shrugged. ‘I’m just wondering how fast the fire spread, that’s all. There’s a lot of damage here.’

  ‘There was a lot of combustible stuff,’ said Harding. ‘And you know laptop batteries burn like fuck.’

  ‘It’s still unusual for them to burst into flames,’ said Farmer.

  ‘Well, yes, but once they’re put on a bed the cooling fan is a lot less efficient and the battery can overheat. It does happen. But I accept what you’re saying, laptop fires aren’t anywhere near as common as phones or TVs.’

  Farmer went into the bedroom. Vicky and Harding followed. There was a thick sludge on the floor and over all the surfaces that hadn’t been destroyed where the water had mixed with the ash and soot. All that remained of the bed was the springs in the mattress. A TV on the wall opposite the bed had melted and warped and the built-in wardrobes and the clothes and shoes they contained were a mass of ash. The heat had cracked the windows and the curtains had burned to nothing.

  ‘So what do you think, Garry?’ asked Farmer.

  ‘She left the laptop on the bed and she fell asleep. The laptop overheated and the battery burned and she was incapacitated by the fumes. Because the fire was upstairs and at the back of the house it had plenty of time to burn and spread. It took your guys a while to get the fire under control and by then …’ He shrugged.

  ‘Did Dale get here while they were fighting the fire?’

  ‘He was quick off the mark. They were just putting the fire out when I got here and he’d been here for a while.’

  ‘So you came in together?’

  Harding nodded. ‘As soon as they said there was a body we both came up. He took his photographs but left all the sampling to me. The body was well burnt and it was only when I went down to the kitchen that I saw she was a blond and thought of you.’

  ‘I appreciate that.’

  Harding laughed. ‘I knew you’d find out anyway so I figured I might as well go through it with you while it was fresh rather than having to look at my notes down the line. So you’re still on this serial-killer thing?’

  ‘This is number nine in London, Garry.’

  ‘This was an accident. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong laptop. You’re barking up the wrong tree.’

  ‘The batteries?’

  ‘She would have been dead upstairs long before the smoke reached the alarm.’

  ‘True. But if the alarm had gone off then a neighbour might have heard it and called nine nine nine and the appliances would have got here sooner.’

  ‘She’d still have been dead, Des.’

  ‘Yes, but there might have been enough left of the body to carry out a decent post-mortem. As it is, we don’t know if she was dead or alive when the fire started.’

  Harding shook his head. ‘Don’t you have enough on your plate without looking for phantom serial killers?’ he said. ‘It is what it is.’

  ‘It’s my time I’m wasting,’ said Farmer. ‘Are you okay if I take some photographs?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Harding. ‘I’ll be filling out my report in the kitchen. Let me know when you’re done and I’ll leave with you.’

  ‘I appreciate this, Garry. Thanks. By the way, do you remember that hotel fire in Kilburn a while back? It was abandoned but there were homeless people living there.’

  ‘Sure. That was where you got burned, wasn’t it?’ Harding asked Vicky. She nodded but didn’t say anything.

  Farmer nodded. ‘That wasn’t your case, was it?’

  Harding shook his head. ‘I was on days when it happened. I don’t know off the top of my head who handled it for us, but I’ll find out for you.’ He groaned. ‘Please don’t
tell me you think your hypothetical serial killer was behind it.’

  ‘Thought hadn’t crossed my mind,’ said Farmer.

  Harding went downstairs. Vicky looked over at Farmer. ‘Guv …’ she said.

  ‘Not now, sweetheart,’ he said brusquely. ‘We’ll talk about it later. Right now I’ve got work to do.’

  39

  Des spent more than an hour taking photographs with his phone before telling Vicky they were done. She followed him outside to the van. Vicky could see that he was angry, so she said nothing as he lit a cigarette and took a long drag. ‘What the fuck, sweetheart,’ he said eventually. ‘Seriously, what the fuck have you been playing at?’

  ‘Guv, I’m sorry.’

  ‘What did you do? Search my house?’

  ‘It wasn’t like that.’

  ‘How is not like that? When the fuck did you go in my bedroom?’

  ‘When I carried you home, that night you were drunk.’

  ‘And while I was passed out, you did what? Searched my house? What the fuck, Vicky?’ He shook his head angrily.

  ‘I didn’t search your house,’ she said patiently. ‘You wanted water, I went looking for the bathroom.’

  He shook his head in disgust.

  ‘I wasn’t snooping. I opened the wrong door, that’s all.’

  ‘And when you saw it wasn’t a bathroom, what did you do?’

  ‘Oh come on. What would you have done?’

  ‘I’d have shut the door and gone about my business.’

  ‘The hell you would. You’d have done exactly what I did.’

  ‘Snoop?’

  ‘I had a quick look, that’s all I did. I saw the crime-scene pictures, the cuttings, the photographs. And the map.’

  ‘How long were you in there?’

  ‘Not long. I was … intrigued.’

  ‘Intrigued?’

  ‘It’s a pretty impressive display. A lot of work has gone into it. I wondered what it was, that’s all.’

  ‘It’s private, that’s what it is,’ he said. He stared out of the side window. ‘Private business.’

  ‘Private investigations, that’s what you mean. You’re looking into cases, in your own time. Cases like this Jayne Chandler fire. Am I right?’

  He took another long drag on his cigarette and then blew smoke up at the sky. ‘I’ve no choice,’ he said eventually ‘The powers-that-be say I’m crazy.’

  Vicky laughed. ‘I have heard it said, that’s true.’

  ‘I mean batshit crazy,’ he said. ‘They told me to drop them, told me that the cases were closed and I was to leave them alone.’

  ‘What sort of cases?’ she asked. ‘Garry said the Chandler fire was one of yours. What did he mean?’

  ‘Why do you care?’

  She pulled a face. ‘If you care, I care.’

  ‘If that’s the only answer you’ve got, you’re as crazy as I am.’

  She smiled. ‘Maybe that’s it.’

  ‘You really want to know?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Fuck it,’ he said. ‘After work. You can see for yourself. But you say not one word to anyone, do you understand?’

  Vicky nodded. ‘Yes, guv.’

  ‘To anyone,’ repeated Farmer.

  They got into the van and Vicky drove them back to Dowgate. The pump ladder was already back in position. Two of the firefighters had left their boots and leggings by the rear doors, ready for the next shout. Vicky parked the van and she and Farmer climbed out. Watson came bounding over and Vicky squatted down to pat him and let him lick her face. Farmer grimaced.

  ‘You’re not a dog person, are you?’ asked Vicky.

  ‘Horrible things,’ said Farmer.

  ‘What about cats?’

  Farmer grunted and shook his head.

  ‘I guess you’re just a people person,’ said Vicky. Jamie Hughes walked over, holding a copy of the Evening Standard. ‘Ah, the lady of the hour,’ he said. Watson went over to him, his tail wagging furiously.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Vicky, standing up.

  ‘You haven’t seen the paper?’

  Vicky shook her head. ‘Human spontaneous combustion not being a thing?’

  Hughes frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘I spoke to a journalist about human spontaneous combustion not being a thing.’

  ‘Well that’s not what she wrote. Hero firefighter sidelined, that’s what she wrote.’

  ‘Sidelined?’ repeated Vicky.

  ‘Says you hate being in fire investigations but that you’ve been blocked from going back into firefighting.’

  ‘That’s not what I said,’ protested Vicky.

  Farmer grabbed the paper and ran his eyes over the article. ‘So you’re wasting your time in fire investigations, are you?’

  ‘I never said that.’

  ‘The journalist says you did.’

  ‘Then she’s lying. Or mistaken.’

  ‘So it’s fake news, is it? It says here the brigade has assigned you to investigations since you returned to duty despite you asking to go back to your station.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘And it says you’d rather be up a ladder than sitting behind a desk.’

  ‘I definitely didn’t say that,’ protested Vicky.

  ‘Well, that’s what it says here.’

  She peered over his shoulder at the article. ‘None of that is in quote marks. She’s paraphrasing.’

  ‘There is one quote there. “I just want to do my job and hopefully one day get back to fighting fires.” Did you say that?’

  ‘I guess. But it’s true. Everyone knows that I want to get back to firefighting.’

  ‘But this makes it sound like you’ve been exiled to Siberia.’

  ‘I can’t help that. But that’s not what I said.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, sweetheart, I told you to put her straight about spontaneous combustion, not cry about being in the wrong job. You make us look like a bunch of arseholes.’

  ‘Guv, that’s not fair.’

  He thrust the paper at her and stormed towards the entrance.

  Vicky opened the paper and read the article in full. The only quote the journalist had used was the one Farmer had read out. There were photographs of the hotel fire in Kilburn, the Dowgate station and a fire investigation van. The only picture of her was the one all the newspapers had used at the time of the fire, taken just after she had joined the Fire Brigade, her posing in front of a fire engine. It was a good picture, so good that her mum had paid to have it blown up and framed and had hung it with pride on the wall. Now it only served as a reminder of how she used to look, before the accident. She looked so pretty back then, fresh-faced, her eyes sparkling, thrilled to be doing the job she had always wanted to do.

  ‘To be honest, I thought it was a good piece,’ said Hughes. He tapped the paper at the bottom. There was a photograph of a dark-haired bearded man and Vicky realised it was Stefan, the man she’d rescued. ‘They even got a nice quote from the guy you pulled out of the building.’

  ‘Pushed him out, you mean. Before I came a cropper.’

  Vicky looked at the caption under the photograph. ‘Stefan Petrescu: Vicky Lewis saved his life in hotel fire.’ Vicky scanned the article and found a quote from the man: ‘She saved my life that night. I will always be grateful. Because of Vicky Lewis my wife has a husband and my children have a father.’

  ‘Don’t worry about Des,’ said Hughes. ‘There’s a reason they call him the Grouch.’

  ‘Yeah, you said. His sunny disposition.’

  ‘He’ll get over it.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘Haven’t you realised that his bark is worse than his bite? That’s what Watson always says.’

  Watson barked as if echoing his point and Vicky laughed.

  ‘See, even Watson agrees,’ said Hughes. He smiled at her but she realised there was no warmth in his eyes. She wondered if he was still unhappy about the way she’d turned down his offer of
a meal.

  ‘Jamie, about the Chinese thing.’

  ‘It’s fine. I get it. It was unprofessional of me, I’m sorry.’

  ‘It caught me by surprise, that’s all.’

  He held up a hand to cut her off. ‘No need to explain, I was out of order.’ He bent down and patted the dog, then whistled and walked off, the dog sticking to his heels. Vicky wanted to call after him but she figured that might just make the situation worse so she turned and headed inside. As soon as she got back to her office Vicky sat down and phoned India’s mobile. She answered immediately. ‘So how did you like the piece?’ asked the journalist.

  ‘I didn’t see anything about spontaneous combustion.’

  ‘We’re waiting for a quote from the coroner on that, but my news editor thought there was an article in you working for the investigation unit.’

  ‘You might have told me what you were going to do.’

  ‘It was all a bit frantic and we had a deadline,’ said India. ‘But I thought you came over really well. You’re a hero, Vicky. People should know about you.’

  ‘Well, I’d have preferred a lower profile, to be honest,’ said Vicky. ‘But I was interested to see that you tracked down Stefan. That must have taken some doing.’

  ‘It wasn’t that hard. The Romanian community is fairly tight-knit.’

  ‘So where is he these days?’

  ‘Still squatting with his wife and kids.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind saying hello to him,’ said Vicky.

  ‘Are you serious.’

  ‘Why not? Where can I find him?’

  ‘How about this?’ said India. ‘I’ll take you to him and we’ll get a photograph. Deal?’

  Vicky thought about it for several seconds. She wasn’t happy about being in the paper again, but at least she would have the opportunity to make things right with Des Farmer. And she really wanted to talk to Stefan. ‘Okay, why not,’ she said.

  ‘After work?’

  ‘I’m pretty busy today. What about first thing the day after tomorrow?’

  ‘Sounds like a plan. Can you come to our offices in Derry Street? Just off Kensington High Street. I’ll make sure Stefan is here.’

  ‘See you then.’ Vicky put down the phone and leaned back in her chair. If a journalist had tracked down Stefan so easily, why hadn’t Willie Campbell tried to talk to him? An investigator was supposed to talk to as many witnesses as possible, and Campbell didn’t appear to have even tried to contact Stefan. And if he had done, he would have known that the squatters hadn’t tampered with the electrical supply. And if the squatters hadn’t, then who had?