by Diane Saxon
Revulsion stopped Jenna from closing her eyes, the vision too vivid to push from her mind.
Those poor children. The poor wife.
What of the husband? No evidence, but a deep concern that he’d murdered his wife and children. Had he committed suicide elsewhere? Had he made a run for it? She couldn’t dismiss it from her mind. From the initial mapping of the building, it appeared one figure, removed from the others, not in a room, but the hallway, had a shotgun by their side, the wooden stock burnt away, but the high alloy steel of the barrel had remained untouched by the fierce heat.
They’d had a case not too dissimilar ten years previously. A man had wiped out his entire family including the estate’s animals and taken his own life.
What insanity would drive anyone to commit such heinous crimes? What pain had they suffered that compelled them to murder their own children, their offspring?
She didn’t truly understand the depth of despair and agony that would cause a person to take their own life. It was such a desperate cry. It happened with so many people unable to come out of the darkness. But to take others with them, each one of them deeply loved, was beyond Jenna’s comprehension.
She sighed. It took time to piece together the puzzle and still they shouldn’t jump to conclusions. They may find him dead in another location. No relatives had yet come forward. Had mum gone for a weekend away with the girls? Run to a friend because she’d had a domestic? What about the children? Had any of them gone to stay over with a friend? No one had come forward yet. They had no linking evidence.
Domino stirred and came to his feet. Unsteady on the deep, soft bedding, he threatened to fall on her. As though undecided, his empathetic dark gaze met hers for a moment, he touched his nose to hers and then reluctantly stepped off the bed. He turned at the door and then trotted down the hallway in the direction of Fliss’s bedroom just as she came out of the bathroom. His instinct tied to her.
Exhausted, Jenna reached out a hand to rest it on Fleur. The poor little girl. No family of her own any more. Her eyes fluttered closed and darkness came to take Jenna down, down into a sleep beyond dreams.
33
Monday 20 April 2245 hours
The last of the Uncle Ben’s rice stuck in dry bits at the back of her tongue until she swished it down with Coke, swilling it around her mouth to get rid of the small grains wedged between her gums and lips.
Poppy sat propped up against one of the bales of straw, her knees drawn upwards. She had no idea how long she’d slept again. Scaling the wall of straw had whipped every lick of energy from her as fire streaked over her side, but she’d created a hidey hole at the top of it.
The light outside hadn’t faded, but it had changed to the warm glow of a night lit by a full moon.
She was about to spend another night in the barn, with no plan, no idea of what to do next.
She bit into the last of the Jammie Dodgers and chewed. She had one small bar of chocolate left and no more Coke. She still had a full strip of paracetamol and one of ibuprofen, but without some kind of fluid she could hardly dry swallow. With little memory of how much Mr and Mrs Crawford left the house, she could not rely on sneaking back in again for food.
Her side throbbed. She hadn’t looked since she slapped the dressing on it, reluctant to get any dust near it in case it became infected. With a bullet still in there, it probably would become infected.
She slipped her hand underneath her loose clothes and touched her flesh, working her way closer to the wound with tentative fingers.
Heat spread across her skin like a furnace the closer she came to the injury, but the flesh didn’t feel any more swollen than before. She’d been naked when Daddy shot her, so no material or debris would have punched through with the bullet.
Could she risk switching her phone back on?
Poppy picked it up and turned it over in her hand.
Irritation sparked life back into her. She was a coward. She needed to do something. Make a move. She couldn’t hide out there for the rest of her life. Her life wouldn’t last much longer if she didn’t do something.
Her whole body gave an involuntary spasm as annoyance fired up her muscles. She let out a yelp as the pain slashed through her. She grit her teeth determined not to be distracted from her mission and stabbed her finger to the on button. She chewed her lip as she waited for the screen to load without a clear idea of exactly what she was about to do.
With a delicate touch of her forefinger to WhatsApp, Poppy stared at the list of regular contacts. She ran her tongue over dry lips and hesitated before she selected the girls’ group at school.
The trickle of horror turned into a flood as she scrolled through the messages back and forth between Sophie, Olivia and Chanel. Her friends. Girls she loved and they loved her. The desperate outpouring of their grief proved that.
Her chest ached as she read their comments.
Dead.
In their minds, she was dead. And they were destroyed by the death of her. The power of their grief turned her muscles to water.
She covered her mouth with one hand as the screen in front of her shook with the strength of her muffled sobs. Unable to believe she had more tears inside of her, Poppy took her hand from her mouth and stared at the back of her wet hand.
Her family were dead. Even Mum.
Tears dripped from Poppy’s chin onto the screen and welled again in her eyes to blur the words. Words of love, of pity, of desperate sorrow. Even Chanel’s outpouring of heartache seemed genuine.
Limbs too heavy with grief to move, Poppy scrubbed the cuff of her sweatshirt across her face, swiping away the tears so she could see to type.
34
Monday 20 April 2350 hours
In the dark silence of the compact little office, fury built inside him until his body vibrated as he read to the end of the press release in The Shropshire Star one of the workers had left behind.
With the business at the forefront of his mind, he’d carried out brief checks throughout the day. A fire. A country house. Bodies. Missing persons.
Nothing concrete, nothing solid.
Good. The longer it took the police, the more time he had to prepare for his unexpected future. But they were moving far faster than he’d anticipated. The fire service had got in there sooner than imagined, opening up the possibilities of identification. Once that happened, he was fucked.
He slapped the paper down on the cot and stared at photographs of his family in the press release, re-reading it again.
Five bodies have been discovered at the country home of the Lawrence family after fire ravaged the fifteenth-century hall.
Detectives confirmed the bodies remained unidentified, but that Mr Gordon Lawrence, his wife Linda and their four children Poppy, Joshua, Geraldine and Talisha were still being treated as missing. No leads had revealed next of kin as yet.
The remains of the bodies will be examined by the Coroner to establish the cause of death.
DI Taylor stated that he could not confirm the age or gender of the bodies at present, but DNA and dental records would be used as all lines of enquiry were followed.
No longer able to contain the black fury, he surged to his feet.
Five bodies!
Five.
With the boyfriend, there should have been six. That had been the whole point all along. The extra body should have bought him time.
So who the fuck had escaped?
He paced the small room and tugged his hair until his scalp stung while he played back in his mind each step of Saturday night with detached mercilessness.
His son was definitely dead. No one could have survived that amount of blood and grey matter sprayed over the walls.
Impassive, he thought the process through.
The twins both took a central hit to their brains. He’d killed them outright. No fear. No pain.
His wife, Linda, had died. He’d checked her pulse with detached disinterest. She’d never meant anything to him. Nobody
ever had. He didn’t understand the need for emotions but was intelligent enough to understand others did. He could emulate it. When the need arose.
He’d blown the boy’s face off before he’d set fire to the house with the vague concept that if there were no teeth left, they couldn’t be identified and if the fire burnt long and hard enough, the police would struggle with DNA.
He narrowed his eyes. Played back each scene in his mind.
That left Poppy.
Gordon snatched up his phone and wrenched the charging cable from the bottom.
Poppy!
His heart kicked up a beat. He’d not gone back to check on her. In the red mist of his fury, his mind had whirred to a halt as an alternative to his original plan had opened up.
An extra body.
Only there was no extra body. Not now.
He pressed his thumb against the button on his phone and swiped sideways to find the WhatsApp icon. He tapped his finger on his daughter’s name and found the confirmation he needed at the top of the screen.
Last seen today at 2303
35
Tuesday 21 April 0845 hours
Gritty-eyed from a poor night’s sleep and a tough hour in the interview room with Lena and her solicitor, Jenna looked up as the door cracked open. Surprise and delight chased each other as Adrian poked his face around the door and then nudged it open with his shoulder, holding on to the two large takeout cups of coffee in his hands.
‘Good morning.’
‘Adrian.’ A spontaneous smile spread across her face as her heart gave a gentle flutter. ‘I wasn't expecting you. I thought you were supposed to be in London.’ She came to her feet, attention centred on the coffee ready to take one of the cups from him. Ambrosia, she knew it would be. Her gaze tracked upwards.
‘I was.’
Her smile whipped away at the strain evident on his face and gave her a moment's pause as to the reason he was there. Ice froze her heart and her spine stiffened, instinctive pride kicking in as the warmth in her voice turned cool. ‘Come in, make yourself at home.’
His serious gaze crashed into hers as he stepped into the room and kicked the door shut with his foot. ‘Thanks.’
He reached out to offer the coffee to her, accompanied by a tense smile.
As the breath jammed in her chest, she made a quick assessment of him. ‘What’s the matter? Is there something wrong?’ A tremor of uncertainty ran through her as she accepted the cup, the heat burning straight through the skin on the palm of her hand to make her wonder how he’d carried it. She placed it on the desk in front of her to replace the white plastic cup of watery station coffee she’d been obliged to grab on her way back from interview. She took her seat again, not taking her attention from him. She’d come to learn bad news was best delivered fast. She coped. She always did.
He raised his free hand to rub his fingers across his chin. ‘There is… yes, there is something wrong.’ He took a long slow breath while he centred himself before he spoke again. ‘This fire, the one you were called out to.’
With a jolt of surprise, Jenna blinked at him, confused by the direction he’d taken. For some reason, she’d thought he was there to discuss something personal. Their relationship. Her past record with relationships hadn’t work out too well, so her little flutter of insecurity wasn’t unjustified. Work matters had not even crossed her mind as he’d come through the doorway.
Oblivious of her reaction, Adrian pulled out the chair opposite and slipped onto it as he placed his own takeout cup in front of him on her desk. He cupped both hands around it and leaned in. ‘Gordon Lawrence. His home is out at Farley. I’ve just heard it was his place that went up in flames. Do you have any news on it?’ Strain tightened his mouth to give his jaw a hard line and the implication he knew something about the case screamed at her, but she gave him a moment while she took the time to consider what information she should divulge to him if he knew the potential victim.
She slipped the lid from her coffee and blew the steam from the top while she watched the black liquid ripple outwards with the pebble-in-the-pond effect.
Was Adrian about to lob a bloody great brick into this pond?
Coffee too hot to drink, Jenna pushed back in her seat to give herself the chance to study him and consider the ripples he could cause.
‘As of right now, there’s very little news because the fire service and SOCO have only begun preliminary investigations, having not been able to get into the building until yesterday.’ She blew out a breath. ‘The fire was so hot. The Watch Manager explained it was over a thousand degrees, that’s five times the temperature of your oven when you’re roasting potatoes.’ At his flat stare, she jiggled the scenario in her own mind. ‘Pizza. Five times the heat. Like when you open the oven door to peep in at your Yorkshire puddings and poom! You’re hit by a wall of heat that singes your eyebrows and melts your mascara, making your eyelashes stick together so you can’t open your eyes.’
Expression still serious, his mouth nonetheless twitched up at the edges. ‘Can’t say I’ve ever had either of those issues.’
‘Well, from your face, I was starting to wonder whether you even use an oven.’
His eyebrows took a slow ride up to crinkle his brow. ‘I can cook.’
‘Really?’ He’d fed her, even brought fresh, hot food around, but he hadn’t cooked it himself, it had been take-out food.
‘Yep. I’m a damned good cook, if I say so myself. I just can’t recall sticking my face so close to a hot, open oven that I’ve managed to singe my eyebrows. Never applied mascara, not really interested in trying it, especially if that’s the result you get.’
She reached for her coffee and risked a sip. Still hot, but no longer so hot that it would scald her tongue. She shot him a grim look, squinting at him through the wisps of steam. ‘So, Adrian, back to the fire, how do you know Gordon Lawrence?’
‘I don’t know him personally, but I certainly know of him and I think we have a problem.’ He stroked his fingers across his chin. ‘Possibly a significant one. This guy, Gordon Lawrence, he’s amongst a group of people we’ve been investigating in relation to one of my major cases I’m prosecuting on based in London. I’d just started to dig deep into his connection. So far, I haven’t found anything, but I just need to find the right thread to pull.’
Sufficiently interested, Jenna leaned her elbows on her desk and cupped her chin in her hands as she squinted at him. ‘Major case in relation to…?’
‘Drugs.’
Surprise rippled over her senses. ‘Oh great.’ Now she’d have the Drug Squad all over her patch and she’d never get to the bottom of the reason for the fire. It threatened to turn into a circus. She’d already passed over her barista to them. ‘So, what are we talking? From initial findings, they believe it’s arson, but we have no idea yet the whys and wherefores, we’ve been left holding our arses in our hands, if the truth be told, and I need answers.’ She’d wanted them when she’d arrived at the station two hours earlier, but nothing further had come to light. Forensics took time. No one had stepped forward to claim next of kin despite the press release.
‘Don’t we all?’
She tapped the screen on her phone and glanced at the time, an idea formulating in the back of her mind. Early yet. ‘We’re not due a debrief for another couple of hours.’
‘The Drug Squad are going to be all over this shortly.’
Damn. Just as she thought. She already had them nudging their way in on her other case. She’d enough balls in the air. She needed to keep them all there and the only way to do that was with information. Currently, she didn’t have enough.
‘The Drug Squad are going to have to wait their turn. As I said, the fire service has only just let forensics into the house. It’s been too much of a hot spot to investigate. We’re hoping for another update from NILO in the next couple of hours. Hopefully, SOCO have something more to give us, but the scene is still causing them problems with the heat.’
&nbs
p; She considered how much she should tell him. Maybe not her theory, but the facts were all there if he cared to ask anyone he knew in the station for them. He only needed to go to Chief Superintendent Gregg. Since Adrian’s involvement with Fliss’s disappearance, it appeared Gregg and Adrian had become best buddies. Almost. There was always a line between officers and prosecutors. There needed to be for when matters went to court. And Adrian would possibly be taking this matter to court at some point in the future.
‘We have five bodies in situ at present.’ That was common knowledge, it had been in the press release.
Adrian inclined his head, dark eyes intense as she continued.
‘Obviously, we need to verify the identities, but as of today they still couldn’t do it. As it is a family of six, that makes us short one body.’ She tapped the desk with her forefinger. ‘That is an assumption at present as a full inspection of the scene is still taking place. The sixth body could be under the rubble. There was a family party, everyone, it appears, went to bed early. As all the bodies have been located from the first floor where the bedrooms are, in the east wing of the building some of the floors have collapsed inwards, so forensics will verify that at a later stage. But, and again an assumption, we think they’d all gone to bed as they were in different parts of the building.’ Jenna blew out a breath and wrapped fingers turned to ice around her cup. ‘SOCO sent photos of the bodies.’ She dropped her hands back down to the desk and squinted at him. ‘Last night.’
‘Ah.’ He made a slow inspection of her and inclined his head again. ‘You should have called. I was back home. Available.’
Her smile came with ease at his understanding as she raised her cup and took another drink. ‘I’ll remember that in future. I just assumed you’d be asleep after a long day.’