Death Trap

by Patricia Hall

  Evelina turned to Tess and Kate. ‘Thank you for coming,’ she said.

  ‘If we see Ben we’ll let you know,’ Kate said. There was no point, she thought, in raising the Mackintoshes’ hopes, but she wondered if she and Barnard could maybe track the boy down again and try again to persuade him to return home. Devine, she thought, should not be allowed to get away with so blatantly destroying a young life.

  DS Harry Barnard put a foaming pint of Watneys in front of his friend Eddie Lamb and wondered quite how to broach the subject he had lured him to this scruffy Soho boozer to discuss. Ever since he had filled DCI Jackson in on what he and Kate O’Donnell suspected had been going on in Notting Hill, he had been gnawing away at the problem of Eddie. He was too long in the tooth to ever believe that any officer in London’s CID was squeaky clean, but Eddie, he thought, was cleaner than most and deserved at least a hint that the roof might be about to fall in on the officers at Notting Hill nick.

  ‘Cheers,’ he said, raising his glass.

  Lamb took a healthy draft and looked at Barnard quizzically. ‘So why the hell have you dragged me up here?’ he asked. ‘For the good of my health is it?’

  ‘A word in your shell-like,’ Barnard confessed. ‘I had my DCI bending mine this afternoon,’ he added, neatly inverting what had actually happened. ‘He’s always picking my brains on what Ray Robertson might be up to. Apparently he’d had the Yard wanting to know what I thought Ray was doing in Notting Hill. So I told him that as far as I knew he’d reached some sort of deal with your boy Devine. That didn’t seem to surprise him that much, but he hinted that the Yard thought Devine was going too far, in particular he was in too deep with your nick. I got the feeling that you might be in for a roasting before long.’

  Lamb scowled into his beer for a moment, deep in thought. ‘I bloody knew Slim Hickman had gone too far this time,’ he said. ‘It’s one thing chivvying a few low-life monkeys on the street, quite another to set someone up for murder. Mackintosh’s lawyer was always going to make all sorts of waves. He’s a sharp beggar, even if he is black. He’s already talking to the newspapers about police corruption and bigotry.’

  ‘Is he? That must be what’s upset the Yard,’ Barnard said. ‘So is Hickman behind it?’ Barnard asked. ‘It’s obvious he hates the newcomers. He hardly makes a secret of it. Is it just him?’

  ‘Well, I’m bloody not behind it, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ Lamb said angrily. ‘As far as I can see the evidence the other girls in the street have come up with is a much better lead, but Hickman’s not interested. When I suggested following them up with an interview, he bit my head off. The latest word is the girls’ve scarpered, anyway. Manley will be lucky to get them anywhere near court. So it’s not over yet. Hickman’s certainly not given up the idea of pinning it on Mackintosh. No one’s looking for the two white men the girls said they saw, either. When I suggested following them up, Hickman more or less told me not to waste police time.’

  Barnard whistled quietly. ‘I was right then,’ he said. ‘There’s trouble on the way. What will you do?’

  Lamb shrugged. ‘Cover my back, I suppose,’ he said. ‘I’ll find those two tarts, whatever Hickman says. They won’t have gone far. And then look for the men they say they saw with Janice Jones. If Slim Hickman’s for the high jump I’m buggered if I’m going to go down with him.’

  ‘Good luck,’ Barnard said cheerily, raising his glass to his friend. With a boot behind him, he had no doubt that Lamb would do exactly what he promised, and with a fair chance of success. And the brass, when they descended on Notting Hill nick, would be duly grateful.

  Kate woke with a start. She had been dreaming, an uncomfortable dream from which she could only recall a desperate fear of being chased along a Merseyside beach where the deep, soft sand was slowing her down, allowing whoever was behind her to draw closer with every step. Her blankets had fallen on the floor and as her mind stuttered into wakefulness she knew that something was very wrong. The living room was extremely dark and when she rolled off the sofa and made her way to the curtains to look out of the window at first she could see nothing unusual in the dimly lit street outside. She glanced at her watch. It was three o’clock. And then suddenly, all her senses kicked in at once. She realised that there was a low crackling noise coming from the main part of the house beneath the flat, and, worse, a smell, faint at first but growing more insistent, of burning. Even before she turned away from the window she spotted a reflection of flames in the windows of the house opposite. Their house was on fire.

  She ran to the bedroom door and flung it open. ‘Tess, Marie, wake up. Be quick. There’s a fire downstairs,’ she said.

  It took the other two less than a minute to join Kate in the living room, by which time the smell of burning was growing stronger. Kate went to the front door and was horrified to see tendrils of smoke already creeping above and beneath it. She opened it a crack and then shut it quickly again. Smoke was pouring up the stairs, too thick, she realised, to either see or breathe if they tried to make their way down the three flights to the front door, where she could see the intense glow of the fire. They were trapped.

  Kate took a deep breath and began to cough. Tess and Marie stood transfixed in the middle of the tiny living room, on the edge of panic.

  ‘We can’t get down the stairs,’ Kate said. She went to the window and flung up the sash, letting a gust of chilly night air in. ‘And we can’t phone for help because we can’t get to the phone.’

  ‘Shout,’ Tess said. ‘Try to wake someone up out there. She stood beside Kate looking down three stories her eyes wide. ‘We can’t climb down there without the fire brigade.’ There was an explosive sound beneath them and they watched in horror as glass shattered and flames poured out of one of the ground floor windows.

  ‘That might wake someone up,’ Kate said, trying to sound cheerful.

  ‘And it might not,’ Marie said from behind them.

  ‘Come on then, shout,’ Kate said. The three of them bellowed for help at the top of their voices, but nothing outside seemed to change, the darkened windows of the houses opposite reflected the flames but showed no sign of life, and the street was still deserted.

  Kate tried frantically to get her brain to work. Jumping would kill them, she knew that, and the fire might do the same long before firemen with a ladder could reach them. There was no sign yet that anyone outside had even woken up. No one would even have called the fire brigade yet.

  ‘Sheets,’ Kate said at last. ‘Did you climb ropes in gym lessons at school? If we make a rope we might be able to reach the top of the porch down there. Look, it’s immediately underneath us. Much nearer than the ground anyway. We could probably jump from there.’

  The other two peered out sceptically for a moment. Then Marie nodded. ‘It’s worth a try,’ she said, her breath coming in gasps as the smoke became a visible haze around them. ‘It’s far too far to jump from here and if we stay we’re going to fry. Let’s do it.’ They scrambled into the bedroom and stripped the beds and began to tie sheets into a rope.

  ‘Reef knots,’ Tess said miserably. ‘We don’t want to be killed by a granny knot that comes undone. I was a girl guide.’

  But Kate was looking round the living room seeking an anchor that would hold their weight for their makeshift rope. ‘Help me push the sofa to the window,’ she said to Marie. ‘We can tie the end to the wooden arm. I think it will take the weight.’

  Beginning to cough now as the smoke thickened inside the flat, they fixed the end of the sheet rope to the sofa and flung the other end out of the window.

  Kate leaned out. ‘It just about reaches,’ she said. ‘Who’s going first?’ She looked at the other two and could see that Tess was closest to the edge of panic. ‘You go,’ she said, pushing her to the window. ‘You might have to drop the last couple of feet.’

  ‘Bend your knees when you land,’ Tess said, her eyes glazed and her breathing harsh. She took hold of the sheet rope and
eased herself backwards over the window sill. ‘Be quick,’ she said. ‘I’ll shout when I’m down.’

  Kate and Marie watched her descent, unsure whether their makeshift rope would hold, but Tess landed safely on the porch roof and waved to them to follow. Kate helped Marie out next, and while she was climbing down she grabbed her bag and slung it round her neck. Whatever else was lost here, she thought, it would not include her camera. Then she too pushed herself over the sill, and lowered herself slowly hand over hand down to join the other two perched on top of the porch. Halfway down she felt the rope begin to tear above her and she half fell, half swung the last six feet to land awkwardly but safely beside her friends.

  Flames were pouring out of the main bay window on the ground floor by now and they realised that at last people in the neighbouring houses had woken up and were beginning to emerge blearily into the street to find out what was happening.

  ‘Stay there,’ one man shouted. ‘I’ll get a ladder.’

  ‘I’ve called the fire brigade,’ a woman shouted. ‘Is there anyone else inside?’

  Kate put her arms round her friends. They were shivering in the night air, partly from cold, having had no time to do more than fling a jacket or a dressing gown over their night wear, and partly from shock, as they watched in horrified silence while the flames began to appear at the first floor windows as the blaze worked its way up the stairs and into the flats above. Another window shattered as they waited and just as they heard the first sirens approaching in the distance the man from the house opposite appeared with his ladder, pushed it up to the porch roof and began to help them down. Someone else appeared with blankets and by the time the fire engine pulled up with a screech, closely followed by a second, the three flatmates were wrapped up and huddled together on the opposite side of the road as the hosepipes were unrolled.

  The senior fire officer walked across to them looking concerned. ‘Is there anyone else in there?’ he asked, and relaxed slightly when they confirmed that as far as they knew there was not. He glanced up at their tattered makeshift rope and the ladder still leaning against the porch, perilously close to the flames now leaping out of both the downstairs windows and one on the first floor.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ he asked. ‘Do you need an ambulance?’ He lost interest almost before they finished assuring him that they were unharmed. But he turned back for one last question. ‘Who’s the owner of the house?’ he asked. ‘We need to contact the official keyholder.’

  Kate shrugged. ‘The house was being sold,’ she said. ‘It belonged to Mrs Cecily Beauchamp but by now it may belong to Mr Lazlo Roman. We’re not sure.’

  ‘I’ll track him down,’ the fire officer said. ‘You did very well to get yourselves out of there,’ he added, before turning away to direct the firemen now beginning to pour water onto the flames.

  The middle-aged woman in a flowery dressing gown and hair in curlers who had brought them blankets urged them into her flat immediately opposite their own. ‘You need a nice cup of tea,’ she said.

  ‘Do you have a telephone we could use?’ Kate asked, her voice husky, though whether it was from the smoke or sheer emotion she was not sure. ‘I think we all need to find somewhere to stay.’

  ‘There’s a phone in the hall,’ the woman said. ‘Have you got any coins?’

  Kate unhitched her bag from round her neck. ‘I have,’ she said, realising with a different sort of panic, that the only person she could sensibly call was Harry Barnard.

  Barnard drove from Highgate to Notting Hill far faster than the law allowed, and pulled up in Argyll Gardens with a screech of brakes and a gasp of horror as he saw the firemen still directing hoses at the smouldering wreck which was number 95, the whole road wreathed in smoke and steam. Kate had sounded very distant when he had picked up the phone which roused him from sleep, and he now realised why. He got out of the car and walked over to the officer in charge of the fire crew and introduced himself. ‘Was it accidental?’ he asked.

  ‘I doubt it,’ the fireman said. ‘It shows all the signs of starting in the hallway, close to the front door. An accelerant through the letterbox maybe. We’ll know more when we get inside and that won’t be for a while yet.’

  ‘And everyone got out safely?’ Barnard asked, his mouth dry.

  ‘As far as we know the place was empty apart from the three girls in the top floor, and they’re all safe. Showed remarkable initiative in the circumstances. They could all have been killed by the smoke if they hadn’t decided to climb down with sheets. Anyone older and less agile wouldn’t have stood a chance.’

  ‘Where are they now?’ Barnard asked.

  ‘In the house opposite. Some woman took them in.’

  He crossed the road, tapped on the half-open door of the house opposite and went in. He found Kate and her friends huddled in blankets in the sitting room being plied with tea and comfort by a tired-looking middle-aged woman in a dressing gown with a worried expression who looked immensely relieved to see him. He kissed Kate on the cheek.

  ‘That sounds like a very lucky escape,’ he said dryly. He was aware of Kate’s tired eyes lighting up when she saw him, but studiously addressed himself to all three of them.

  ‘Have you got anywhere to stay for tonight?’ he asked.

  Tess nodded. ‘My friends in Holland Park Avenue can put two of us up on sofas. But they haven’t got a car to come and fetch us. We were going to get a taxi but we’ve got no money. Only Kate had the sense to grab her bag . . .’

  ‘I’ll take you over there,’ Barnard said quickly. ‘And Kate can come back to my place. You can begin to sort everything else out tomorrow after you’ve had some sleep. I think you’ve had enough for one night.’

  NINETEEN

  Neither Kate nor Harry Barnard slept much that night. When they arrived at his flat he had plied her with a stiff whiskey and put her into his own bed, saying that he would sleep on the sofa. But she had tossed around until dawn, and when she decided to get up and made her way to the kitchen, with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, she found him already sitting at the breakfast bar looking tired and sipping at a mug of coffee.

  ‘Do you want some?’ he had asked, waving at the Italian coffee pot on the stove. She nodded.

  ‘You look rough,’ she said.

  ‘And you,’ he came back with half a smile. He poured her coffee and she added milk and plenty of sugar.

  ‘Someone set the house on fire deliberately, didn’t they?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘I think so,’ Barnard admitted. He could see no point in hiding the truth from her. She would find out soon enough.

  ‘To kill us?’ Kate asked. ‘Was it the people who didn’t like me taking pictures?’

  ‘Much more likely to be a way to get at the landlord. There’s a war going on down there to get protection money out of landlords. You were probably just collateral damage.’

  Kate shuddered. ‘That’s not much comfort, la,’ she said. She sipped the sweet, reviving brew. ‘But I need to go back,’ she said. ‘I need to see the others and find out if anything survived in the flat.’ She glanced down. ‘I’ve got absolutely nothing to wear,’ she said, and for the first time she felt as if she would cry. He slipped off his stool and put an arm round her shoulders.

  ‘Leave it to me,’ he said. ‘Have a bath, you still smell all smokey, and have some breakfast, help yourself to whatever you fancy. I’ll go and see a friend of mine who lives not far away and see what I can borrow for you. Will that do for the moment?’

  ‘I can’t go to work today,’ she said. ‘Ken won’t be best pleased.’

  ‘Of course you can’t. You can ring the old bastard later, explain what’s happened and take the day off. I’ll run you back to Notting Hill when you feel up to it. You can talk to the fire brigade and the police, and then meet your friends. And you can stay here for as long as you need to, so you’ve at least got a roof over your head. Will that suit?’

  Kate attempted a smile, her eyes brimming
. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘No strings?’

  ‘No strings,’ he agreed hoping that did not come out with any sign of the reluctance he felt. For the moment, he thought, this was as good as he was going to get.

  Notting Hill police station was in turmoil when Kate O’Donnell and Harry Barnard eventually arrived there about midday. She slipped out of the Capri feeling self-conscious in borrowed slacks she had had to pull in round the waist and a loose sweater. But as soon as she announced at the desk who she was, she was hustled away to an interview room to make a statement about the previous night’s events, and Barnard found his way to the CID room to seek out DS Eddie Lamb, who was at his desk and looked astonished to see his friend.

  ‘I brought Kate O’Donnell in to make a statement about the fire,’ Barnard said. ‘Someone tried to kill my bird and I’m not happy.’

  Lamb looked around the room quickly. ‘I’m not sure you’re persona grata in here,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Slim Hickman seems to have got word about your interference, as he calls it, and is complaining to your DCI. Best if we slip out for a quickie and have a chat, I think.’

  Barnard shrugged, glancing round the room angrily. Most of the shirt-sleeved detectives avoided his eye. ‘My DCI’s fully in the picture,’ he said. ‘I’m not stupid. Hickman’s the one who needs to cover his back.’

  Lamb winced and urged Barnard back towards the door.

  ‘Just let me tell Kate where we’ll be,’ Barnard said to Lamb as they went downstairs.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Lamb said and put his head round the interview room door on the ground floor to relay the message.

  ‘So was it arson?’ Barnard asked as they crossed Ladbroke Grove and went into a pub Barnard did not know, where the lounge bar was almost empty and still smelled of the previous night’s cigarette smoke and stale beer.