by Hannah, Mari
They got out of the Toyota and stood for a moment viewing the scene. There was a media scrum behind police tape: reporters, photographers and local television crews all jockeying for position, capturing what they could through telephoto lenses. Some elderly neighbours were in the street too, offering tea to their unexpected guests. Just then a man in a forensic suit emerged from the crime tent to greet them. He ushered them inside so they could talk freely without fear of being quoted chapter and verse on breakfast news.
Fire Department Investigator Geoff Abbott was a man they knew well, a professional highly regarded in his field of expertise, as serious about his job as they were theirs. That didn’t stop him going tit for tat with Gormley over their poor response time.
‘Take the scenic route, did you?’ he said.
Gormley gave him a wry smile. ‘Don’t tell me you’re complaining about the ovies hitting your pay packet this month. Rumour has it your lot spend most of your service in bed. Why shouldn’t we? Figured we’d stop off for coffee and croissants on the way. The boss was feeling a bit peckish.’
Daniels was feeling anything but. The accident had sickened her and food was the last thing on her mind. She turned to Abbott. ‘What’s the story here, Geoff?’
‘Control room got a 999 call at one-o-four. We received a Persons on Premises call seconds later. Officers attending found two dead: believed to be Jamie Reid, ten months, and his father, Mark Reid. The house is leased by the boy’s mother, Margaret Reid. She’d been out for the evening, leaving her ex to babysit. The building was well alight when she came home.’
‘She called it in?’
‘Yep. And there are no other witnesses – at least none that have come forward since I got here. I’ll check with my lads. Call me a suspicious old git, but that sounds iffy to me. According to elderly neighbours, that way –’ Abbott pointed to his left – ‘the couple are still married. They get on fairly well, despite no longer living together since the baby was born. Reid kept in regular contact though, so I’m guessing the child was his. As far as the neighbours are concerned there was no animosity between them.’
‘Reason for their split?’
‘Same old, same old. Extra-marital is the word on the grapevine.’
‘His affair or hers?’ Gormley asked.
‘Didn’t say, didn’t ask. That’s your remit, not mine.’ Abbott eyeballed Gormley, his expression hard. ‘Don’t want to tread on anyone’s toes after what happened in December, do I?’
The venom in his voice was not lost on Daniels. In a previous arson case, inaccurate information provided by fire crews had been acted upon by a Murder Investigation Team – thankfully not hers – causing red faces all round. Inter-agency cooperation was all well and good, but intelligence still had to be checked out. It was as much the fault of the police for not covering the bases. It happened sometimes in the heat of the moment when resources were stretched. Nothing to fall out about.
Gormley eyeballed him. ‘No one blamed you, Geoff.’
Abbott bristled, holding his gaze. ‘That’s not what I heard—’
‘Hey, you two, cut it out!’ Daniels shot them both a look. ‘I’m in no mood for a punch-up. It’s old news. For God’s sake, move on!’ They didn’t need telling twice. She glanced towards the house. ‘Appreciate what you’ve given us, Geoff. Can we take a look?’
‘Be my guest. But I have to tell you it’s not pretty. You’ll be pleased to hear the young ’un’s been taken away already, recovered from his cot upstairs by officers first at the scene. They tried to revive him but . . .’
He broke off. Daniels could tell from his expression that he’d witnessed the rescue attempt and she was relieved to have escaped the immediate trauma of seeing the child herself. She had no kids of her own, or any intention of ever having any, but she got on with children and hated to see them hurt. The gruesome post-mortem would come later. Her promise to Detective Constable Lisa Carmichael that the next PM was hers would have to be broken. Lisa would have to wait a while longer. This one would be far too distressing.
Unzipping the holdall she’d brought with her from the car, Daniels noticed a heavy medical bag at the entrance to the premises, the initials TWS engraved on the side. It belonged to Home Office Pathologist, Tim Stanton. She wondered how he’d got there. His Range Rover wasn’t parked outside.
‘Kit off, Hank,’ she said.
Gormley’s shoulders fell. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’
Daniels was already down to her underwear. ‘Come on, don’t be shy.’
Gormley dropped his pants. He was wearing a pair of Union Jack shreddies his wife had bought him – his lucky World Cup shorts she called them – an infrequent gesture of affection these days. He’d felt obliged to put them on. It was either that or face more argy-bargy from Julie when he got home. He hadn’t figured he’d be sharing the spectacle with his female boss and the fire investigator.
‘Where’s that camera?’ Abbott laughed. ‘Got to get this for The Burning Issue.’
Daniels grinned at his reference to the fire and rescue bimonthly magazine.
‘Move and you’re dead meat,’ Gormley warned.
10
A camera flashed as they picked their way into the hallway where crime scene investigators were doing their bit. Tim Stanton looked up from the body as they walked through the door, greeting them with a nod. The house hardly resembled a house at all. Everything was black and smouldering, the air heavy with the nauseating stench of burning flesh – like barbequed meat left on too long. Ceiling tiles had caught fire, melted and dropped down igniting furniture below. There was a gaping hole above their heads and the sky could be seen where the roof once was. A body, unrecognisable as man or woman, was lying on what was left of the staircase, beaten back by the flames, its hand fused to the metal pin securing the charred remains of a banister.
Another volley of shots from the CSI camera.
Beneath her mask, Daniels tried to breathe. It was like a manifestation from hell. She’d seen enough death and destruction for one day. But as horrific as the scene facing her was, the accident she’d come from had been much worse. Dead bodies were dead bodies, whereas people alive and in pain really got to her. She could avoid the eyes of a corpse, but never those of the living. Helplessness in a situation like that was what kept her awake at night.
Psychologically wrung out, she stared at the body on the stairs, her mind drifting back to the RTA. One casualty, Bridget McCabe, a pretty girl of about eighteen, had clung on to her, begging her to ring her dad, himself a policeman on nightshift. Though the DCI didn’t know the officer personally, it made her feel sick to think of him going about his business not knowing his daughter had come to harm.
In her years in the force, she was used to dealing with the fallout from major road accidents. But somehow it seemed more personal because this was a fellow officer’s child. As Bridget was finally lifted into an ambulance, she’d contacted Hexham station to break news of the accident to Sergeant McCabe, hoping his daughter would make it to hospital.
11
When she got home, Daniels stripped off her clothes at the front door. She carried them straight to the laundry room, dumped them in the washing machine and set it to a hot cycle. Then she walked upstairs to the shower, keen to wash away the muck and the grime from her body, wishing she could do the same thing to the images in her head. Had her mother still been alive, she’d most probably have called her for a sympathetic ear. She always did that whenever she felt unwell or down or just pissed off. Sadly that was no longer an option.
As the water pulsed from the shower, Daniels checked the diver’s watch her mother had bought for her thirtieth birthday. Six-thirty a.m. She needed to get a wriggle on: a quick change of clothes, a coffee to go, and then a race back to the Murder Incident Room before the troops arrived – an opportunity to get her shit together on the drive into town.
As she stepped from the shower, her landline rang. That would be Gormley checkin
g on her. Something he’d done frequently in the past few months, aware she had no one at home to offload on after a day like today. He was a little over-protective sometimes.
The phone stopped ringing.
Daniels hated living alone. Her former partner, Jo Soulsby, had moved on and so must she. That was easier said than done when the woman was the department’s Criminal Profiler, still part of her world, working alongside her, eating in the same bate room – tantalizingly close and yet a million miles away.
The phone rang again.
Gormley was such a softie.
He knew all about her nonexistent love life and the reasons behind it. He seemed to know when she was feeling rough and tried his best to comfort her. Once or twice he’d gone too far, attempting to play Cupid between her and Jo, interfering in matters that didn’t concern him. Smiling, Daniels dried her hands, threw herself on her bed and picked up.
‘I’m fine, Hank. But thanks for asking . . .’
A woman’s voice came on the line, one she didn’t recognize.
‘Am I speaking to DCI Kate Daniels?’
‘You are.’ Daniels’ stomach tightened.
‘My apologies, I thought you might have been someone else.’ Palming her forehead, Daniels listened. ‘Yes. Yes I did . . . OK, no, I didn’t know her personally. Yes, tragic . . . Thank you for taking the trouble to call.’
Replacing the handset gently on its charger, a sob caught Daniels’ throat.
Bridget McCabe hadn’t made it.
12
The RTA and the fire played second fiddle to World Cup football on the radio, the sporting achievements of eleven men dominating the news headlines. Daniels had watched the game alone at home, unmoved by the hysteria that was going on in the rest of the country. Not that she didn’t like sport. She did. But she could’ve done without the hype beforehand. Her team had talked about nothing else for weeks. The tournament hadn’t lived up to its billing – not by any stretch of the imagination.
A murder enquiry was well underway by the time Daniels reached the incident room, launched by her new boss, Superintendent Ron Naylor. She could feel the tension in the office the minute she walked in. She was expecting that. The nature of the crime, the death of a young child, affected everyone. But like the components of a well-oiled machine, each member of her team had a part to play and it was business as usual.
She watched them from the doorway, brooding on her visit to Bridget McCabe’s home on her way in. She’d gone to offer comfort to the girl’s father, not knowing if she’d be welcome at such a difficult time. He was a widower, a single dad of three girls, who’d lost his wife to a malignant brain tumour a year ago.
Poor sod!
In a moment of confusion, Daniels’ jaw had dropped when Bridget opened the door. Except it wasn’t her at all. It was her identical twin, Becci.
McCabe had come to the door, pulling the surviving twin inside. ‘Fuck’s sake! What is wrong with you people?’
The DCI had shown her badge to reassure him she wasn’t press. Inside the house, she’d managed to convey, she hoped, a sense that Bridget had no idea of how poorly she was, that she was conscious, joking even – that she wasn’t alone. Mick McCabe appreciated that. There was nothing more to be said.
Such traumatic situations made Daniels question her decision to join the force. But then the opposite was also true. Those same events compelled her to remain in the job for as long as possible. Nevertheless, at the McCabes’ front door she’d had a sudden urge to run and keep running, not to get involved, let the traffic and welfare departments do their jobs. It was their remit to support bereaved police officers, not hers. But she liked to think that her timely intervention had made a difference in some small way.
Gormley looked up, probably wondering why it had taken her so long to dash home, shower and change. She thought of offering an explanation but then decided not to get into it. They both needed their minds on the job. They had an arson case to solve and, as brutal as it might sound to the wider public, Bridget McCabe was history. Reflection was a luxury Kate couldn’t afford. It was time to move on.
Her DS looked weary. He’d not gone home, hadn’t wanted to disturb his wife – at least, that’s the reason he gave. Instead, he’d opted for a shower in the men’s locker room. Like the rest of the team, he kept a change of clothes there for such an eventuality. Daniels’ attention shifted to a nearby desk.
The squad rookie, Detective Constable Lisa Carmichael, was a bright and bubbly twenty-five-year-old with more nous than her age would suggest. A whizz-kid on the computer, she was an officer of exceptional talent, ripe for promotion and tipped for the top. A young woman keen to put a recent setback behind her, having been slipped a Mickey Finn by some freak in a nightclub on the team’s last, her first, undercover operation.
Right now, she was entering data into the HOLMES system. As she typed, information was updated automatically on a state-of-the-art murder wall, a digital, touch-screen facility in the relatively new murder suite. The identities of victims Nominal One and Nominal Two – Mark and Jamie Reid – were highlighted, along with their ages, dates of birth, relationship to each other. Daniels had instructed Carmichael to upload only images of Mark and Jamie Reid alive. She didn’t want civilian typists seeing the harrowing crime-scene photographs displayed. More importantly, she wanted her officers to relate to the victims as people, which was difficult to pull off if badly burned corpses were constantly in their faces. It was a skill, knowing how to get the most from her team.
Carmichael was scratching to find information to input at present. A video of the crime scene would be shown at the briefing later. But there was a lack of witness statements coming in from the house-to-house team. Unbelievable in a street where most of the residents had been up when the fire began. Daniels’ guts were telling her that the person she was looking for would be among them, or else not so very far away from Ralph Street. Only time would tell if she was right in that assumption.
Carmichael logged off. She’d just removed her warrant card from its slot when her landline rang. She took the call, gesturing to Daniels not to move away. She obviously needed a word. After a moment or two, she thanked the caller and put down the phone. ‘That was Tim Stanton,’ she said. ‘He needs to get an early start in view of the unprecedented number of bodies lying in his morgue. You heard about the RTA?’
‘Yeah, I heard.’ Daniels explained that she and Hank had been delayed by it on the way to the fire. ‘Tell Stanton I’m nipping back to the crime scene with Hank and then I’ll be with him.’
Carmichael’s face dropped. ‘But you said the next one was mine.’
‘Don’t whine, Lisa. I know what I said. Trust me, this isn’t the right one for you. You don’t want to go there. Postmortems are gruesome, more so when the cadaver no longer resembles a human—’
Carmichael looked at Gormley, a plea for support.
‘What?’ Daniels said. ‘You got something to say, Hank? Spit it out!’
‘You did promise her. No point putting off the evil day.’
The DCI listened carefully as he made a case for Carmichael. It reminded Daniels of when she was starting out. Keen to experience a murder enquiry down to the last detail, she’d pleaded and cajoled, using every trick in the book in order to tick all the boxes and impress her senior officers. Countless times, her former boss and mentor, Superintendent Bright, had warned her she needed to walk before she could run. But did it make a difference? Did it hell! As far as Daniels was concerned, she knew best. From the begging expression on Carmichael’s face, her DC thought she did too.
Daniels had to hand it to her: the girl had guts. Problem was, she didn’t know what she was letting herself in for. But, knowing how protective of their protégé Gormley was, the DCI knew he’d given the matter serious thought and not jumped to a decision they’d all live to regret. If he reckoned Carmichael was ready, that was good enough for her.
‘OK,’ Daniels relented. If the truth we
re known, she was too tired to argue. ‘I’ll drop Hank off and pick you up in half an hour. Get yourself some mints.’
‘Mints?’ Carmichael queried.
‘That’s what I said.’ Daniels walked away.
13
The newspaper reporter took out his pen, flipped open his notepad and made a beeline for a group of kids milling around the crime scene. They were making fun of a puny bouquet and a teddy bear tied to the black railings outside number twenty-three. Chantelle Fox glared at them. She’d stolen the flowers from a neighbour’s garden and wrapped them in paper that was entirely inappropriate. But it was all she could manage at such short notice.
Improvisation, she called it.
It was another fabulously sunny day. Yet most of the curtains in the houses were drawn, the neighbours still half-cut from the party the night before. A team of police officers at either end of Ralph Street obviously hadn’t heard of letting sleeping dogs lie. They were working their way from house to house, banging loudly on doors, refusing to take no for an answer. They’d get to her eventually. Not that Chantelle had anything to say. Not to them, anyhow. Or to the young journo who was eyeing her from across the road.
He gave her a smile, testing the water.
A lad not much older than herself, he was wearing a shiny suit and open-neck shirt. Couldn’t be very important if he didn’t warrant a photographer. Chantelle looked away. What was this? Some kind of a joke? She’d tonged her hair to within an inch of its life, put on her slap and made herself presentable. So where were the nationals, the TV crews and stuff? Probably stuffing their faces at a café on Westgate Road. Best fry-up for miles around. As much toast as you could shake a stick at – white not brown – with lashings of butter and mugs of watery tea to wash it all down. Lovely.
‘Miss, have you got a moment?’
The skinny journo had arrived at her side, News Desk written on his press badge.