by Russ Thomas
Tyler considers that possibility. “If it is her, then Edna Burnside lied to us. She said she spoke to Cynthia after she left.”
“There was a mistress as well,” Doggett says. “A Sandra or Sarah or something or other. We never did track her down. Not to mention any number of prostitutes who visited the place. Some of them might not have been missed.”
Elliot gestures to the other SOCOs to carry on, and the three of them move as one away from the body and back toward the cellar steps.
“Did you know her?” Doggett asks Elliot.
“Who?”
“Cynthia Cartwright.”
“No.” Elliot frowns. “Why do you ask?”
“You knew Gerald.”
“I played golf with the man. As did you, I believe.” He’s calm enough outwardly, but there’s an edge to his voice. “Am I a suspect now, Jim?”
“You did go to one of his parties.”
“With my wife, Loretta. I can assure you it wasn’t anything like the ones written about in the papers. If memory serves, your DCI Jordan was in attendance as well. Perhaps you’d like to ask her what went on?”
Doggett holds his gaze for a few seconds while Elliot stares him out, then he shrugs and turns to Tyler. “Let’s get out of here.”
They leave Elliot in the cellar muttering obscenities under his breath that call Doggett’s parentage into question. The DI either misses them or chooses to ignore them. They climb the uneven stone steps back up into the house.
“Why didn’t you tell me you knew Cartwright?” he asks Doggett as they walk back along the long corridor to the front door.
“You didn’t ask.”
“Wouldn’t you call that a conflict of interest?”
“I don’t know, would you?”
From ahead of them there comes the sound of raised voices. They emerge into the early morning air, the darkness ripped away by the stark illumination of police floodlights. Oscar Cartwright is barely recognizable. He seems almost possessed. There are dark bags under his eyes, and his forehead is furrowed with deep lines. The floppy fringe of hair has been swept back off his face, revealing the early signs of a receding hairline and a glimpse into the future. It has been only a few hours since their conversation at the lake, and yet the man looks ten years older. He doesn’t look as though he’s slept, which raises the question of where he’s been all night.
“It’s my fucking house!” he shouts at Daley. This is neither the vulnerable, boyish Oscar nor the self-assured, cocky lover. This is a new version. One not seen before. Angry and ugly.
Tyler claps a hand on Daley’s shoulder and steps around him. “This is a crime scene, Mr. Cartwright.” He emphasizes the title, trying to make it clear that however things were between them earlier, it’s different now. “You can’t go in there.”
Oscar deflates a little. “Look, Ad— . . . DS Tyler. I just want to know what’s going on.”
“Who says anything’s going on?” Doggett answers for him.
“The reporters . . . they said . . .” Oscar trails off; the vulnerable boy is back with his big glassy eyes and quivering lip. He turns to Doggett. “You must be here for something. It’s the middle of the fucking night!”
The DI smiles, but there’s nothing pleasant about it. “And what are you doing here, Oscar? You were told not to return until we gave you the all clear.”
“I was visiting a friend in the village.”
“It’s a bit early for house calls, isn’t it?”
Oscar doesn’t answer.
“Since you are here, perhaps we could have a little chat?” Doggett gestures across to his car. “If you’d like to step into my office.”
When Tyler moves to go with them, Doggett blocks him with a hand across his chest. “Maybe I should handle this.”
He wants to argue but he’s suddenly aware Daley is still there, watching, taking it all in. They stand together and watch Doggett and Oscar pile into the battered old Saab. Daley frowns, his bald head wrinkling with the effort. “How come he’s not using the incident room?”
Tyler glances at the car and then back at Daley. It seems unlikely he noticed Oscar’s slip with his name. On the other hand, the man is a detective, even if he’s a shit one. “I don’t know, mate. Maybe he doesn’t want him in there with all those blown-up glossy photos of his mummified father’s corpse.”
Daley’s lip curls and he storms off back to the incident room, no doubt to finish an interrupted game of solitaire.
Tyler relaxes a little and turns back to watch the car. There are two dark silhouettes visible in the pre-dawn light of Doggett’s car, one with its head bowed while the other gesticulates wildly. It’s while Tyler’s watching them, trying to imagine what’s being said, that he smells the smoke. The early morning air is thick and still, and at first he thinks he might be imagining it. But gradually the scent grows stronger and he becomes certain.
Despite the early hour, the news about the second body is well and truly out, and he has to inch his way through the flashing white lights of press photographers, his hand placed firmly on the car’s horn. He drives through the village slowly, windows rolled down, letting the smell come to him on a new breeze. Woodsmoke. Then he sees it, an intermittent twinkle of blue and orange lights through the trees that guides him to his destination.
It’s a big wooden structure, a church hall or something. At least, it was. Black smoke billows high into the night sky, but there’s a relaxed nonchalance about the firefighters that tells him the hard fight is over. This is mopping-up work. A uniformed police officer he doesn’t recognize detaches himself from the operation and trots over to the car. Tyler raises his warrant card.
“Old scout hut, sir,” says the officer. “They’ve got it under control.”
“Arson?”
“Looks like it. Probably just kids, little bastards.”
“Can you keep me informed? You know where we are.” He’s about to pull off again when he thinks of something else. “Who’s the fire officer in charge of the investigation?”
“Enfield, sir. Paul Enfield.” He looks over his shoulder. “He hasn’t arrived yet, but I can probably get his contact details.”
“That’s all right,” Tyler tells him, remembering the small white business card Daley threw at him. “I think I have them already.”
He sits there for a moment and considers. He’s not keen to head back to the vicarage again, not with Oscar still there. He pulls out his mobile and the card from Guy Daley and dials the number.
* * *
—
Paul Enfield is curt with Tyler on the phone, no doubt because of Guy Daley’s poor attitude, but the fire officer is still keen to meet and so, forty minutes later, Tyler is pulling up outside the brand-new headquarters of the South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue service. As he gets out of the car he stifles a yawn. It’s not even 8 a.m. and it already feels like he’s done a full day’s work. Then he remembers, he has.
The building is an orange-bricked sore on the sandstone face of the city. Tyler gives the designers their due—they’ve at least tried to insert some architecture into the project; the front is dissected by a ground-to-roof slash of colored glass. Unfortunately, or quite deliberately for all he knows, the chosen colors—reds, yellows, and oranges—appear to be licking their way up the side of the building like so many PVC flames. Inside, a smell of fried and baked goods hangs in the air, mixed with a chemical odor, like burning plastic. He sits in an enormous tub of a chair in the reception area, all chrome and faux black leather, his back to the flaming window. It throws panels of colored light over his head and across the tiled floor.
“DS Tyler?” A giant of a man looms over him, his broad frame blocking out the fluorescent glare from the ceiling. His black skin is mottled by the colored light from the window, making him look like something from a psychedelic movie from the ’
70s. He smiles broadly, exposing a row of even white teeth. “Paul Enfield,” he says, extending a deep-ridged palm. Tyler takes it, the calluses rough against his fingers. He stands, still holding the man’s hand so they end up standing too close to each other. Enfield is half a head taller; Tyler has to crane his neck to meet the man’s eyes. He becomes aware of a tight gray T-shirt that cuts into biceps the size of most people’s thighs. They let go of each other’s hands.
“Would you like a coffee?” Enfield holds out a tree-trunk arm in the direction of what Tyler supposes is the cafeteria. The smell of burning plastic, however, forces him to decline and, whether or not Enfield takes this as a slight, the smile fades. He pulls across another of the gigantic faux-leather tub seats with a casual single-handed movement. On him it looks normal sized.
“Thank you for seeing me,” Tyler says, sitting back down. “Firstly, I should apologize for my colleague.”
Enfield shrugs but says nothing. He’s clearly still smarting from Daley’s cold shoulder at the incident room. He pushes a folder across the table. Tyler opens it and flicks through the reports inside. “Three fires in the Castledene area over three consecutive nights: a bus shelter, an allotment shed, and the scout hut you saw this morning.”
“Linked?”
Enfield stares at him and raises a thick eyebrow. “Two fires within a mile of each other in the same week? That’s not exactly within statistical norms. What do you think the chances are of three?” He speaks quietly and precisely, but there’s an edge to his words.
“Arson, then?”
“There were traces of accelerant at each of the scenes. Petrol. We’ll probably narrow it down to a specific company, but other than that, it could come from any forecourt in the country.”
Tyler thinks about the words of the officer this morning. Probably just kids. “Are we talking about a single arsonist or a group?”
Enfield hesitates. “One,” he says.
“Why? Why not just a bunch of kids messing around?”
Enfield brushes a square jaw with thumb and finger, looks down at the table while he thinks. He seems to be working out exactly what he wants to say before he opens his mouth. “There’s usually other stuff first,” he says. “Cigarette butts, candles, that sort of thing. There’s no evidence of this kind of experimental fire setting in the area. Castledene’s a quiet country village. They don’t have kids roaming the street at night setting light to things. If they do, someone notices and the kids’ parents get a visit from a concerned neighbor.” His brow creases with faint lines. “I suppose, to be honest, this just feels different.”
“Different how?”
Enfield frowns again, apparently at a loss to know how to articulate what he means.
Tyler lets it go. “What made you come to us?”
Another long pause; he can almost see the cogs grinding. Enfield is clearly not a stupid man, just careful. But what is he frightened of giving away exactly? “The fire at the vicarage,” he says. “I think it’s related.”
“What do you know about it?”
“Only what the records say. I came to Sheffield a few months ago, so it was before my time. I assume you’ve read the file?”
“The file says it was kids. Squatters. Why do you think it’s related?”
Enfield just stares at him, but this time Tyler waits patiently for an answer. After a few moments Enfield says, “Considering what you found out there this week, I think we’re moving out of the realms of coincidence, don’t you?”
“I agree. But is that all you have? Coincidence? Or is there something more concrete? Something that indicates this is the same arsonist as six years ago.”
Enfield frowns again while he thinks.
It’s excruciating. Tyler tries to bite his lip, and fails. “Look, if you know something that relates to my case, I need to hear it.”
Enfield snorts out a laugh. “Jesus Christ, one minute you’re not interested; the next you’re accusing me of withholding information.” His hands tighten on the arms of the chair. “If you don’t want to hear this, don’t waste my time.”
A temper. He thinks before he acts because he’s a big man with a short fuse. Tyler holds his hands up in mock surrender. “Sorry. I just want to know what you think. You clearly have more experience of these things than I do.”
The hands relax and Enfield smiles, the tension gone as quickly as it appeared. He laughs again, but this time he seems genuinely amused. “Nice try at buttering me up.”
“I thought I was being subtle.”
“As a sledgehammer.”
He has a nice smile, nicer than the scowl anyway.
“Same arsonist, or not? Gut feeling.”
“Six years is a long time,” Enfield says, rubbing his chin again. “Arsonists are creatures of habit. It would be highly unusual for someone to stop setting fires for that length of time and then start up again.”
“But not impossible? What might cause it?”
“Pyromania is an impulse-control disorder, a mental illness. The fire starting is either for gratification or to relieve tension. In either case, a major event in the perpetrator’s life could stop the cycle. And restart it.”
“A death in the family?”
Enfield nods slowly. “It’s possible.”
“What about the discovery of a body?”
The hand moves round to the back of his head, and there’s a crunch as the man cracks his neck. “There’s another possibility. He could have been in prison, or he could have moved to the area recently from somewhere else. I can look into that.”
“‘He’?”
Enfield grins again. “Ninety percent of pyromaniacs are men. Other than that there’s nothing to exclude the possibility this is a woman.” Then the brow furrows and he grows serious again. “Look. I’ve seen this before. I can’t prove it, I don’t have the evidence you’re looking for, but this is a pyromaniac. Sooner or later someone is going to get hurt, probably by accident, but still, that’s why I came to you. You need to take this seriously.”
Tyler meets the man’s eyes and nods solemnly. “Will you keep me up to date?”
Enfield extracts another of the small white rectangles and scribbles a number on the back. “My mobile,” he says. “You can reach me on that. Anytime.” There’s something about the pause before the last word that suggests something more.
Tyler takes out his own card and they make the exchange silently, fingers brushing lightly against one another. They stand and shake hands, and once again the handshake lingers a moment too long. Then the fire officer is walking away without another word. As he reaches the lift, though, Enfield turns and glances back, and Tyler is sure he didn’t imagine it. Then the giant of a man ducks his head and disappears into the lift.
* * *
—
When he gets back to the Old Vicarage, Doggett is standing in the driveway.
“Where the bloody hell have you been?”
“Auditioning for The X-Factor.”
Tyler sketches out his visit to the fire station and the possible link between their case and the recent arson attacks.
The DI grunts and stares up at the scorched bricks around the windows. “I’m not convinced.”
“I felt sure you wouldn’t be.”
Behind Doggett, Rabbani emerges from the incident room with a sheet of paper in her hand and tries to catch Tyler’s eye.
“What do you think, then?” Doggett asks.
“I think he might be right.”
“I felt sure you would do. All right, look into it, but let’s get some sleep first. Neither of us are gonna be use nor ornament if we don’t get at least a couple of hours.”
He wants to ask about Oscar, but with Rabbani hovering within earshot this isn’t the time. “I’ve set up an interview with Michael Denham this afternoon.”
; “The solicitor? You think he’s involved?”
“I got the feeling he might be trying to hide something. He certainly didn’t want us talking to his daughter.”
“Could just be a protective father.”
“I don’t know, there was something about the way she tried to distance herself from Gerald, making out they only met a couple of times. I felt she was being a little disingenuous.”
“Disingenuous, is it?” Doggett’s smirking at him now. “Well, we can’t have that now, can we? You’d better speak to her again.” Then, without turning round, he shouts to Rabbani, “All right, Miss Marple. Out with it. What have you got for us?”
Rabbani steps forward. “I’ve been looking into the vicar, sir?” She’s clutching the paper in her hand as though her life depends on it. Or at the very least her career. “You said you thought he might be a bit dodgy and—”
“All right, luv, final score, eh?”
She hesitates, mouth open.
“He means give us the highlights,” Tyler says before Doggett can start shouting again.
There’s the tiniest trace of frustration on Rabbani’s face, but she hides it well. “When Gerald Cartwright first put his company together, he had a number of regular business partners, including a bloke named Felbridge. I checked them all out, but Felbridge is the one that stands out. He’s got convictions for drug possession and assault. He never did any time, though. I’m guessing his money, or his friend’s money, got him off. Then, in the late eighties, Felbridge disappears.”
Doggett looks at Tyler and shakes his head in mock frustration. “I hope this is going somewhere, lass, because I’m not getting any younger here.”
Rabbani bites her lip. “Felbridge changed his name by deed poll, sir. Shortly before he was ordained. Sebastian Felbridge is the Reverend Sebastian Thorogood, vicar of All Souls Church, Castledene.”
Doggett’s mouth widens into an evil smile. “I knew that bastard name was made up!”
“There’s more.” Rabbani thrusts the page in her hand at Tyler, and he reads it as she speaks. “Thorogood came to Castledene in 1995 after an allegation were made about him at his previous post. A woman accused him of molesting her. The case was thrown out when the woman withdrew her complaint, but guess who arranged his transfer for him?”