“But we never knows wot’s hidden in each other’s hearts; and if we had glass winders there, we’d need keep the shetters up, some on us, I do assure you!”
CHARLES DICKENS
Martin Chuzzlewit
SHE HADN’T THOUGHT of what she would do with the child. She hadn’t thought past wanting to hurt him, to punish him for discarding her without even a thought of apology, as if she had never been more than a convenience.
Nor had she meant to come back to this house ever again. She’d locked it up after her mother’s funeral, set up an account out of her parents’ estate to pay the taxes, so that there’d be no connection with the new name she’d taken, and walked away. Why she hadn’t sold the place, she’d never quite been able to fathom. When she tried to think about it, her mind slithered sideways and the memories crowded, clamoring, at the gates she’d refused to breach.
But then Tony had betrayed her; she had taken his daughter – oh, so easily – and there had been nowhere else to go. And the house had settled back around her, the smells and sounds fastening into her flesh like little claws, making it more and more difficult to separate the past from the present.
The room drew her – but no, there was another child in the room now, a different little girl who had been bad. Or had she? The confusion made her feel ill. She hadn’t slept, despite the pills she’d taken from Fanny, nor had she eaten much. The bits of food she’d found in the pantry stuck in her throat, dry as the dust of the years gone by.
When she tried to close her eyes, she saw the stairwell spinning, the bottom rushing towards her like a vortex. What had she done? No, she hadn’t meant the girl to fall, hadn’t pushed her, no, not this time.
Or had she?
All she knew for certain was that she had to get out, out of this house, before it devoured her. But where could she go? Not back to Fanny’s, not back to her job at the hospital – all that was finished, a life that seemed as distant as another universe. But… she had created a new life before; she could do it again. A new name, a new place, a new story – any story but this.
But what of the child? She climbed the stairs and stood outside the door. There was no sound from within. What would she find if she looked inside?
She should open the door, she knew, but the fear swept through her, leaving her trembling and sick. What child would she let out, if she opened the door? Would she ever be free of the little girl who had lived in that room?
At last she turned and retraced her way down the stairs, and as she went out of the house, she locked the door behind her.
Rose wiped her hands against the legs of her jeans for perhaps the hundredth time. Her fingertips had begun to crack from the hours of contact with the dry and dusty paper, and her throat felt parched as sandpaper. She had shifted position from table to floor and back to the table, but her back ached as if she’d been carrying hose all day.
“Want some coffee?” Bill Farrell asked as he set another stack of folders beside her. The initial reserve she’d felt with him had evaporated over the long day, and by now she’d almost forgotten to think of him as a senior officer.
“No, thanks,” she said, looking at the cups littering the room. “If I get any more buzzed I’ll have to run laps round the room while I read these bloody things.” She stared in dismay at the number of boxes yet to examine and tried not to rub the dirt on her fingers into her eyes.
At least the photo brought by Superintendent Kincaid had allowed them to organize their search more efficiently. Farrell had begun by winnowing out only applicants who were male and Caucasian for Rose’s perusal – with the help of the photo he was able to narrow his selection to those applicants whose photos bore at least some resemblance to the man caught by the security cam.
But in the end, it was Rose, rummaging through a fresh box on her own while Farrell had gone for more coffee, who found the file.
“Holy shit,” she whispered, looking from the application photo to the print, then staring back at the file in stunned astonishment.
When Farrell came back into the room, she was standing, waving the folder at him. “You’re not going to believe this. His name is Jimmy Braidwood.”
“What?” Farrell set the coffee down among the files on the table, careless of the sloshing, and coming to stand beside her, looked at the file. “You’re not serious? As in James Braidwood?”
James Braidwood had been the celebrated superintendent of the London Fire Engine Establishment, and he had been killed in the great Tooley Street fire of 1861, crushed under a falling wall. “Yeah. Although it’s just ‘Jimmy’ on the application, not ‘James.’ No wonder this guy has such a thing about Victorian fires.”
“And you’re sure it’s him?”
She looked again at the photos, comparing them both with her memory of the man glimpsed so briefly at the scene of the fire, and a rush of nausea made her swallow hard. “Yes. And look,” she added, flipping through the file. “He aced both the written and physical exams. It says he was rejected due to psychological assessment. There’s a note attached by the interviewer.”
She read it aloud. “Mr. Braidwood demonstrates a profound lack of the cooperative skills needed in today’s firefighting environment. He also displays a marked bias against females and persons of color, and in my opinion, suffers from delusions concerning an imagined connection with the legendary James Braidwood, and is a likely candidate for antisocial behavior.”
Farrell whistled. “Good God. The bastard’s a psychopath.”
Rose’s queasiness gave way to an icy calm. “We knew that,” she said with cold conviction, thinking of Bryan Simms’s burned and broken body.
Bill Farrell took the file from her and flipped back to the opening page. “At the time of application, he was employed by a private security firm-”
“The uniform.” Rose saw again the flash of dark blue sleeve.
“And it gives his home address as Blackfriars Road. If we’re right, he’s certainly set his fires close to home.”
“And he’s escalating in leaps and bounds. What I don’t understand is why he killed Laura Novak. Could she have somehow learned what he was doing?”
“There’s no obvious connection between them.” Farrell looked again at the CCTV photo, his brow creased in concentration. “From the video, it looks as if he happened to see the door that Chloe Yarwood had left open. But he works for a security firm, so he might have known, or guessed, that the premises across the street had a surveillance camera-”
“So he checks out the side entrance, just in case, and finds it unlocked, too,” said Rose. “What if – We know that Laura Novak had a connection with the women’s shelter, which overlooks that door. Maybe she was at the shelter for some reason, saw Braidwood go in, and confronted him.”
“If she saw him, why didn’t she just call the police?” argued Farrell. “And that doesn’t account for the conversation Chloe Yarwood overheard, unless Laura knew him. His uniform alone wouldn’t have been enough to prompt her comment.” He shook his head. “I don’t think we can go any further without more evidence. We’ll have to-”
“I think we’re running out of time, sir.” Rose faced him, tense with the sense of foreboding that had plagued her since the first fire. “He took a huge risk yesterday. I think he’s been working up to something, something big, and now he’s out of control.”
“What could-” Farrell stared at her, enlightenment and dismay dawning in his face. “You think he means to recreate Tooley Street, where Braidwood died a hero. Not just with similar fires, but the real thing. Hay’s Galleria?”
“What would be more fitting?” Hay’s Wharf, known as “the Larder of London,” had, like Cotton’s Wharf, been one of the great Victorian riverside warehouses. It lay between Tooley Street and the Thames, and been beautifully restored as Hay’s Galleria, a Bankside complex filled with restaurants, shops, and crafts stalls. A fire there would be disastrous, and if started in daylight, as the last fire had been, could cost civilian lives.
“Dear God. If you’re right, Rose, we can’t wait. We’ll have to bring him in now, and hope we can find substantiation. But we can’t talk to him without police present.” Farrell pulled out his mobile phone. “I’m calling Kincaid.”
Kincaid had accompanied Maura Bell back to Borough station, leaving the uniformed officers to search Beverly Brown’s meager belongings and contact social services regarding care of the children. But while Bell and Cullen tried to find an address for one Gary Brown, husband of the late Beverly, thought by Kath Warren to live somewhere in Walworth, he stood at the window overlooking Borough High Street and thought.
He knew he’d come across the name on the shelter’s file somewhere else in the course of the case; it was simply a matter of dredging through all the accumulated information until he found the right bit.
When it came to him, he turned and said to Cullen, “Hey, Doug. Gemma copied out a list of names you found at Laura Novak’s. Did you keep the original?”
“Sorry, guv. I left it for forensics, in case it had prints. Was it important?”
“I don’t know yet.” He remembered Gemma showing him the copy she’d made in her notebook. Would she have it with her now? He’d rung her to ask when Maura called out that she’d found an address for Gary Brown and that Brown had a previous conviction for assault. Covering the phone’s mouthpiece, Kincaid said, “Gemma, hang on a second. Somebody find me a pen and some paper.” When Cullen complied, he copied the list Gemma read to him. Clover Howes was one of the six names.
Ringing off, he said to Cullen and Maura, “I’m going back to the shelter. There’s something we’ve missed here. I’d be willing to wager that these other women on the list were shelter clients, but what was Laura Novak’s interest in them?”
“You think Kath Warren can tell us?” asked Cullen.
“It’s worth a try. Maura, if you want to follow up on Brown-”
“I’ll be damned if you’ll send me haring after a domestic if you’ve got a real lead.” She gave him a ferocious glare. “That’s bollocks. I’m going with you.”
Kincaid grinned. “Right, then. Brown can wait. Doug?”
“Count me in.”
They found Kath Warren alone in the office, tidying up in preparation for the end of the day. Lines of exhaustion aged her usually pert face, and she looked up at them anxiously. “If this is about the children,” she said, “we’re still waiting for social services. I’ll stay until they come. We haven’t been able to locate any other family to contact-”
“No, Kath, sit down a minute, please,” Kincaid said, motioning her back to her desk. “We just have a few more questions we need to ask you.” She sat slowly, and Kincaid took the chair that had previously been occupied by the stack of files while Cullen and Maura stood unobtrusively at the back of the room.
He unfolded the list from his pocket and handed it to Kath. “Are these women all clients of the shelter?”
“What-” Kath glanced at the sheet, and he thought she paled beneath her makeup. “Where did you get this?”
“From Laura Novak’s desk. Why would Laura have made a list of these names?”
Kath looked dismayed. “I’d no idea Laura knew. This wasn’t something we were eager to advertise to the board of directors.”
“What did Laura know, Kath? What’s special about these women?”
The paper trembled in Kath’s hand. “I told you the other day. Sometimes, when we place women in new situations, in spite of all our precautions, their abusers find them. These women – all of these women were tracked down by their husbands or boyfriends. One of them, Clover Howes, is dead. Her husband assaulted her with a poker.”
“That’s why you were moving her file,” Kincaid said slowly. “Six women? In what time period, Kath?”
“A year.” She put the sheet of paper down on her desk and smoothed it flat. “Six in the last year.”
“That’s pushing the law of averages, I’d say. And you didn’t tell your board about this?”
“We… we wanted to try to resolve it. We suspected that one of the regular clients, like Beverly, might have been selling information to the other women’s partners. Or even one of our own staff – I told you we’d had suspicions about Shawna, who works the night desk. We know she’s taken bribes from the residents to overlook minor infractions.”
“Like sneaking out at night?”
“Or alcohol in the rooms, that sort of thing. But we had no proof of anything more-”
“Wait a minute.” The pieces had begun to fall into place, all too clearly. Motive, means, opportunity – and the fact that when Kath Warren said we she wasn’t using the royal first person. He stood, leaning over the desk. “Kath, where’s Jason?”
“Oh.” Kath looked round, as if expecting Jason to pop up. “He left early. A family emergency, a sick auntie in Kent. He had to drive down on Saturday as well.”
“Really? That’s very interesting.”
“Why? What are you talking about?” Kath sounded baffled, but she’d shrunk back from him.
Kincaid thought of the subtle relationship cues he had seen between the two of them, and changed tack. “Tell me what happened on Thursday night, Kath. What was Jason doing here?”
“He wasn’t here,” she protested, more firmly than he’d expected.
“How can you be so sure?”
She looked at him, then at Cullen and Bell, who had moved up quietly to flank him on either side, and seemed to come to a decision. “Because I was. And he never came.”
“Was he supposed to?” asked Maura, with surprising sympathy.
Kath swallowed and looked down at her hands, as if avoiding their eyes made her shame easier to bear. “He was supposed to meet me here at half-past ten. I’d told Shawna she could take a couple of hours off to see her boyfriend. But I waited and waited, and Jason never came. So if you’re thinking he had something to do with Laura’s death, you’re wrong.”
Kincaid thought of Laura, making a list of women and checking off names as she discovered what had happened to them; of Laura, dropping Harriet at the sitter’s before ten o’clock, making up a story for Harriet and the sitter, because she meant to investigate something that was not appropriate to discuss with a child, and she didn’t know how long it would take. She had meant to go home that night, after she’d had a look round the shelter office on her own – that’s why she’d left the washing up in the kitchen sink – and she’d meant to go to work the next morning. But she never got to do either.
“Kath,” Kincaid said, “what time did you actually get here on Thursday night?”
“A few minutes after half-past ten. I got held up at home, with the kids.”
Kincaid thought of Jason coming in early, quietly, seeing Laura Novak digging through the files. Perhaps she’d been asking questions already that had made him suspect she knew something, so he moved back into the shadows, watching, and when she left, he had followed her. Or had he gone ahead and waited, knowing she would pass by him on her way home?
What had happened then? Had he ducked into the shelter of the warehouse door, and discovering it unlocked, pulled Laura in when she walked past? Or had he confronted her in the street? Perhaps as they began to argue, he had pushed her against the door, and it had swung open, and a terrible opportunity had presented itself.
You, of all people, should have known, Laura had shouted in the darkness of the warehouse. Jason had known all too well what would happen to women trying to make new lives, if their abusers found them.
Kincaid thought of Jason’s designer clothes, no doubt bought with money earned from others’ misery, and he remembered the way Beverly Brown had flinched away from him when he passed. Kincaid had assumed it was dislike, but perhaps it had been fear. Poor little Mouse, up that night with a fretfully ill child – what else had she seen from her window? And how had Jason lured her to a rendezvous in a deserted graveyard?
He thought of Jason’s easy tears when they’d told him of Beverly’s death, of his casting suspicion on Beverly’s husband by his willing assumption of guilt, and fury coursed through him.
Jason had choked Beverly Brown, as he’d choked Laura, but in Laura’s case he must have hoped he could prevent any connection being made between the shelter and the victim. Why he had set the fire after taking so much trouble to disguise Laura’s identity, Kincaid still hadn’t worked out, but he knew enough.
“We’re going to need Jason’s address, Kath, then we’ll take you straight to the station so that you can make your statement. After all” – his smile held no humor- “we wouldn’t want you making any urgent phone calls.”
Gemma and Fanny listened intently as Winnie spoke to Roberta from her mobile phone. Winnie had given a brief synopsis of what had happened and then had described Elaine. “Yes,” she said now. “Elaine Holland, that’s right.”
Winnie’s body slumped as she listened to the reply, her face growing glummer by the minute. “Right, Roberta, thanks. I’ll ring you la-” she’d begun when Gemma grabbed her arm.
“Winnie, wait. Tell her to hold on. Look, there’s no point in giving her Elaine’s name. I doubt that’s any more real than anything else she’s said about herself. Does Roberta have a fax?”
“There’s one in the vicarage office.”
“I’ve a copy of Elaine’s photo. Tell Roberta to expect a fax. We can go to the police station-”
“No. I’ve a fax in the church office. We can send it from there,” offered Winnie, her eyes beginning to sparkle again. She passed this on to Roberta, adding that they would soon call her back.
As they walked from the pub back to the church, their progress slowed by Fanny’s chair, Gemma’s impatience was tempered by dread. She feared they were wrong, and she feared that if they were right, they were too late.
When they reached the church office, Fanny suddenly put a hand on the chair’s wheel and brought it to a jerking halt. She twisted around so that she could look at Winnie.
“Winnie.” Her face had lost its animation, and she looked small and frightened. “I’m not sure I want to know. Maybe it would be better if I could just go on thinking of her as she was. As Elaine.”
Winnie seemed to consider this. “Do you think so?” she asked. “I can take you home, if you want.” She held Fanny’s gaze, her face gentle with understanding, and after a moment, Fanny sighed.
“I can’t, can I? I know too much to go back, and it was never real. None of it was real.” She wheeled the chair forward of her own accord, and Winnie and Gemma followed.
The tiny office was cramped with Fanny’s chair and warm from the heat that had built up during the afternoon. As Winnie fed the photo into the fax machine, Fanny looked away until Gemma had tucked it back into her bag.
“There’s a speakerphone,” said Winnie. “Shall I-”
Gemma nodded. Winnie dialed, and after a moment Roberta’s voice filled the room, rich and warm, with the huskiness of the chronic asthmatic.
“It’s just coming through now, Winnie. Let me-” Roberta fell silent.
“Roberta,” said Winnie, “are you still on the line?”
“Dear God,” whispered Roberta.
“What-”
“I’m sorry, love.” Her voice came through more strongly. “It’s just – I’d never have thought.”
“Do you know her?”
Gemma could hardly breathe.
“It’s Elizabeth Castleman,” said Roberta. “Her parents were parishioners of mine. They were elderly – Elizabeth was a child of their dotage, I suppose. They died, both of them, several years ago, after extended illnesses. Elizabeth looked after them.”
“Roberta, what is it?” prompted Winnie, hearing the hesitation in her friend’s voice.
“They were churchgoing people. You know it’s not our place to judge, Winnie, but their ideas were… harsh. And their house, it was a terrible place. Old, dirty, and neglected. I paid pastoral visits the last year or two, and I always dreaded them. I remember Mrs. Castleman telling me they cared nothing for material things, that it was the spirit that mattered, but there was no love in that house.”
“And Elizabeth?” Winnie asked quietly.
“She must have been past her midtwenties by the time they died. Like a moth trapped under glass, I always thought her. Pale and futile. Then Mr. Castleman died in his sleep, and a few weeks later Mrs. Castleman fell down the stairs. It often happens that way with elderly couples, even those bound more by habit than fondness. But… I don’t know. I don’t feel comfortable speculating even now.”
Gemma leaned nearer the speaker. “Roberta, this is Winnie’s friend, Gemma. I know Winnie’s explained that this is a police inquiry and a little girl’s life may be at stake. Please tell us if there’s anything you remember that might help.”
After a moment, Roberta’s gusty sigh came over the line. “It’s just that I’d visited the day before Mr. Castleman died, and he seemed very strong. I know that doesn’t mean anything, heart failure can happen at any time. But… I remember Elizabeth, standing in the corner, watching with such intensity, as if she were waiting for him to die. Then Mrs. Castleman, only a few weeks later, such a dreadful accident. And then, at her mother’s funeral, just for an instant, I’d swear I saw a look of triumph on Elizabeth’s face.”
Fanny clasped a hand to her mouth, and Winnie sank onto the corner of her desk, her eyes wide with horror.
“You think she killed them,” said Gemma.
“I – I suspected it. But I told myself it was purely fancy, and the coroner ruled death from natural causes, in both cases. I wanted to be charitable. I let it go.”
“Roberta, what happened to the house?”
“I don’t know. I never heard it had sold. And Elizabeth just disappeared not long after her mother’s funeral. I always assumed she’d moved away from the area, found somewhere free of old memories.”
“Where is it?”
“Why, it’s just off Copperfield Street, near All Hallows Churchyard. Not far from you at all.”
Jason Nesbitt lived on a council estate, near the junction of The Cut and Waterloo Road, not far from Ufford Street. The estate was early-sixties purpose-built, with all the concrete-block charm that implied. Some of the small balconies had been cleaned and decked out with late-season flowers; most held a jumble of rusted household items, the overflowing detritus of crowded low-income living. All the walls were liberally decorated with graffiti.
They had dropped a shaken but still protesting Kath Warren at the station to give her statement, and Kincaid had called for uniformed backup to meet them at the council estate. If Kincaid was right and Jason Nesbitt had killed at least two people, he wasn’t going to take his team in unprotected.
They found the flat on the back side of the estate. The paint on the door was bubbled and flaking, and half the number hung askew. There was no bell.
“Definitely no urban regeneration going on here,” muttered Cullen, a sure sign that he was nervous.
Kincaid pounded on the door. He’d expected reluctance or refusal to answer at all, since Nesbitt had vanished from the shelter like a man with flight on his mind. He’d sent one of the uniformed officers round the back to cover the balcony and windows, and fully intended to wait at the front until they could get a warrant, if there was no response to his knocking, but the door swung open almost immediately.
Jason stared out at them, then gave a panicked glance towards the rear of the flat. His hair stood on end, his tie was loose, and the tail of his lilac shirt hung half out of his trousers. “Keep it down, will you? Me mum’s asleep in the back.” His carefully cultivated accent seemed to have slipped, as well as his tie. “Look, I’ve already told you everything I-”
“And you’ve been very helpful, so I’m sure you won’t mind if we come in and ask a few more questions,” Kincaid said.
“I’ve got to go. My auntie’s not well-” The blood ran from Jason’s face as he glimpsed the two uniformed officers behind Cullen and Bell. “What-”
“I don’t think you lads need come in quite yet,” Kincaid told the uniforms, then stepped neatly by Jason. When Cullen and Bell followed, Jason retreated to the center of the room.
The place was a tip, and stunk of alcohol, old cigarettes, and unwashed flesh. Not Jason, Kincaid thought, as the young man had always appeared scrupulously clean at work. At the back of the room an open suitcase lay on the floor, half filled, not with clothes, but with expensive electronics.
“Taking the telly, too, are you, Jason?” Kincaid asked conversationally.
Maura looked round the room appraisingly. “I’m surprised someone hasn’t relieved you of this stuff, in this neighborhood. Or of your car.” They’d spotted his new-model Renault, reluctantly described by Kath Warren, on the side street nearest the flat.
“Is this what you normally pack for a visit to your sick auntie?” Kincaid poked about in the suitcase. “Kent, I think Kath said? And you drove to Kent on Saturday as well. You’re a very conscientious nephew.”
Jason swiveled another panicked glance at the front door, then the rear of the flat. “Look, tell me what you want, then bugger off, okay? I’ve got to go.”
“Were you in such a hurry on Saturday, too?” Kincaid asked mildly. “Friday must have been hard for you, waiting, with the police all over everything like flies. Where did you keep Laura’s clothes, in the boot of your car? And yours, too – you must have got blood all over one of your expensive shirts. A shame, that.” Kincaid felt his phone vibrate, an unwelcome distraction. He ignored it and let the call go to voice mail.
“Is there really an aunt in Kent?” asked Maura, taking the ball. “Or did you just drive outside London somewhere and chuck the things in a roadside bin? Only thing is, you’d be surprised at what people manage to find and turn in to the police. Nosy buggers, humans.”
A sheen of sweat had appeared on Jason’s brow, and his eyes rolled wildly. “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, but his voice cracked.
“And then there’s the forensics,” Maura went on with a smile. “In spite of all the shows on the telly, people still underestimate the forensics. You will have left traces in your car, Jason, and we will find them. A smudge of Laura’s blood, a single hair. Oh, and we found a fingerprint in the blood on the board you used to bludgeon Laura – a good print, very clear.”
“And that’s not to mention Beverly Brown,” Kincaid added. “The pathologist found skin cells under her fingernails. That’s the problem with choking people, they do tend to struggle a bit. Did she see you arguing with Laura that night, from her window?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jason shouted at them, his voice rising into a sob.
“There’s one thing I don’t understand, though. Why did you set the fire in the warehouse, when you’d already bashed Laura’s face in?”
“I didn’t set any fire,” said Jason, shaking his head, spittle forming on his lips. “You don’t understand. You have to let me – I have to go-”
The smell of urine reached Kincaid’s nose, and he looked away from the spreading stain on Jason’s trousers, feeling sick. “You don’t seem to understand, Jason. I doubt you’re going anywhere for a long time. We’re processing a warrant for your arrest for the murders of Laura Novak and Beverly Brown. We may be able to charge you as an accessory in the death of Clover Howes as well.
“What did Laura find out, Jason? Did one of the women’s husbands have an attack of conscience and talk to her? Or did she threaten to track them all down until one of them admitted the truth?”
Emotions flitted across Jason’s mobile face – fear, caution, then venom won out. “Laura was an interfering bitch who could never keep her nose out of things that didn’t concern her,” Jason spat at them, his face contorting with hatred. “She should have-”
“Jason!” The woman’s voice came from behind Kincaid. “Jason, I told you to keep yer bloody noise down, din’t I?”
Kincaid turned and stared, appalled. Past middle age, blowsy, the woman had a rat’s nest of peroxided hair and a mask of makeup that had slipped down her face as if she were melting. She was clad only in a stained wrapper that revealed far too much of her sagging breasts, and she reeked of gin, but not even the weight and the paint could completely disguise the resemblance to her son.
“Jason, did you get me ciggies, like I asked yer?” She looked round at the detectives blearily. “Who’re these wankers? Get ’em out of me frigging sitting room before I knock yer silly.”
“Shut up, Mum.” Jason looked at the others, and his mouth twisted in a bitter smile. “You self-righteous bastards,” he said, levelly now. He made a gesture encompassing the flat and his mother. “You fucking, self-righteous bastards. Why don’t you ask yourselves what you would do to get out of this?”
The window of the flat above the Indian takeaway was flung wide. A curtain at its edge moved lightly with the breeze, then hung still again. The sound of a radio could be heard, faintly, above the noise of the busy road.
Rose and Bill Farrell stood on the pavement, studying the place as unobtrusively as they could manage. They were both wearing civvies, and had left the FIT van a block away. They didn’t want to put the wind up Braidwood until they’d had a chance to talk to him.
“Someone’s living there,” said Farrell. “Let’s have a word in the takeaway.” They went in, assaulted by the smell of hot oil and spices, and Rose felt herself salivate from hunger while her stomach cramped with anxiety over what they might discover. She let Farrell go up to the counter.
“We wondered if you knew the guy who lives upstairs?” Farrell asked the dark-skinned Indian working the cash register. “We were looking for a Jimmy Braidwood.”
“Don’t know his name. Funny bloke. Never speaks. No hi, how are you, how’s the weather - you know what I mean?”
“No chitchat,” offered Rose, smiling, and the man smiled back.
“I have to remember that. Chitchat.” He looked at them more closely. “You official something? No badges, but you have that look.”
Farrell produced his identification. “Fire investigator. Do us a favor, though, don’t tell your neighbor we were asking about him before we’ve had a chance to talk to him.”
“Hey. The guy’s done something wrong, I don’t want to talk to him.” His teeth flashed white as he grinned. “You take him away, maybe I get a pretty neighbor. But if you want to talk to him, you better talk soon.” He glanced at the clock on the shop wall. “Guy usually leaves for work about now. Some security job.”
Farrell and Rose both thanked him, but the lingering smile he reserved for Rose.
“I should take you round with me more often,” Farrell teased as they stepped out onto the pavement again.
“Now what do we do?” asked Rose. They had left messages for Kincaid and for Jake Martinelli, explaining their situation, but neither had yet responded.
Farrell rubbed his beard. “I say we go ahead. We’re just going to have a friendly chat, see what he has to say for himself – assuming it is Jimmy Braidwood in this flat. I’ve told Kincaid and Martinelli to meet us here, and Martinelli to bring the dog, just in case this guy’s left any trace of accelerants about.”
“Won’t we need a warrant?”
“Not if he lets us in, and for that we’ll depend on your charm. Like I said, it’s just a friendly visit.”
Rose couldn’t quite see how you could accuse someone of arson in a friendly way, and as much as she liked Bill Farrell, she had a brief wish for Kincaid’s comforting presence.
There was no bell at the flat’s street entrance, and the door opened easily. From the bottom of the stairs, they could see that the door at the top stood open, and as they began to climb, Rose realized she no longer heard the radio.
Farrell stopped at the top landing and rapped on the door-frame. “Mr. Braidwood?”
As Rose slipped up behind him, she saw a small room, drab and dingy, but neat as an army barracks. A man stood at an ironing board in trousers and cotton vest, carefully ironing a blue uniform shirt. He was thin, thinner than she’d realized, but his bare arms were well muscled. His acne-pitted cheeks were hollow, and his eyes, when he glanced at Rose, seemed curiously flat and passed over her without a sign of recognition.
She shuddered and made an effort to keep her expression pleasantly neutral.
“What can I do for you, folks?” said Braidwood. Turning off the iron, he set it on the end of the table, then slipped into his shirt, buttoning each button with careful deliberation. “I’m afraid I don’t have much to offer in the way of hospitality.”
He didn’t invite them to sit but didn’t seem to object when Farrell led the way farther into the room. Rose could see now that the walls held a collection of framed Victorian prints, many from the Illustrated London News, showing Southwark warehouses and docks, and the horse-drawn engines of the original London Fire Establishment.
“We’re from the fire brigade,” said Farrell. “We’d like to ask you a few questions about the fire on Southwark Street last Thursday night.” When Braidwood merely looked at him, Farrell went on. “A security camera recorded you looking in the open warehouse door a short time before the building burned.”
“I may have,” Braidwood answered slowly. “But is that a crime, Mr.- what did you say your name was? Farrell?”
“Most citizens would have reported an unsecured door,” countered Farrell, “especially someone in your profession.”
“My profession?” Braidwood gazed at them and Rose couldn’t tell if the flat eyes were interested or mocking. “How is it that you know my name and my job from a CCTV film?”
“We know quite a bit more than that, Mr. Braidwood,” said Rose. “You see, I saw you at last night’s fire, directing firefighters to save someone who didn’t exist – deliberately putting firefighters at risk. It seemed to me that only a person with a grudge against the fire brigade would do such a thing, so we started looking through the files for applicants who had been fairly recently rejected. We found you, and your file photo matched the CCTV film, as well as my description.
“We also found that you have an obsession with James Braidwood and with Victorian fires. You like to recreate them, and you are especially fascinated by Tooley Street, where James Braidwood died.”
Braidwood’s eyes held open dislike now, and a spark of respect. “That’s very clever of you, but it doesn’t prove anything about anything.”
“Oh, but we will,” said Farrell. “Now that we know who you are and where you are, we’ll be rechecking every bit of forensic evidence from those fires – not just the last two, but the half-dozen before that. And then we’ll be checking your work schedule and your movements against the times of the fires, we’ll be checking into your background – and we’ll be searching your premises for trace evidence connecting you to the fires. So, you see, we’re all going to be very busy together for a good while.”
“Don’t mock me,” snapped Braidwood, and for just an instant, Rose glimpsed the blazing anger that hid behind the flat, expressionless eyes. “You think you’re so clever,” he went on. “But you’re not clever enough. I’ve always been one step ahead of you.
“Do you think I’ll let you paw through my life, my things, as if I were some sort of exhibit?
“Yes, I set those fires – although Southwark Street was an unexpected gift, divine intervention, I like to think-”
“And the woman who died in the fire?”
Braidwood shrugged. “Not down to me. I didn’t know she was there until they pulled her out the next day. But it was a nice touch, I thought. I would have tried it again.” He turned to Rose. “Now, as to your firefighter, he really should have been more careful. The fire brigade is not what it used to be,” he added with a sigh.
Farrell dug his fingers into Rose’s shoulder, paralyzing her before she could react.
“I told them that,” Braidwood went on, “but they wouldn’t listen.”
Rose could feel the tension in Farrell’s fingers. He said with great sincerity, “I’m sure they’ll listen now, Mr. Braidwood.”
Braidwood showed his yellowed teeth, and the menace in the smile made Rose really afraid for the first time. “Oh, I’m sure they will. The question is, will you live to tell them what fools they were?”
Reaching down behind his ironing board, he lifted a gallon can and in one fluid motion twisted off the top and sloshed the liquid all over himself. Then he swept his arm out in an arc, flinging the liquid towards them, and threw the can into the door. As the fumes hit Rose – it was acetone, dear God, acetone – she saw what Braidwood was lifting from the corner of the sofa, where it had been concealed behind a cushion. It took her brain an instant to process such a familiar thing in an unexpected circumstance, then it all clicked and she shouted with terror. It was a road flare, and she saw his hand grip the cap to twist it.
“Rose, out!” Farrell was shouting in her ear. “Out the window. It’ll blevy! Jump, God damn it! Jump!” He was pushing her and she was climbing, sliding, and then with a gasp dropping to the pavement, wrenching her ankle as she fell.
She looked up at Farrell, half out the window, hands grasping the sill, when there was a great whomp of sound and a ball of flame blew out the window and Farrell was falling, crumpling to the ground. She hobbled to him, pushing bystanders out of the way, shouting, “I’m a firefighter, let me through.” One of his legs was twisted at an odd angle, and the tops of his hands and his forehead were burned, but he was conscious and shouting, “That crazy bastard!! He’s going to burn down the whole goddamn road. Get the pumper – make it pumps two-”
“I’m calling, Bill, I’m calling,” said Rose, who had managed to fumble her phone from her pocket and make her fingers push the right buttons. “Just lie still, please, they’re on their way, and there’s an ambulance coming, too.”
“That crazy bastard,” he said again, but with less force, and she knew the shock and pain were setting in.
Looking up, Rose saw Kincaid and Martinelli running towards her, and they were lifting her, hugging her, and shouting questions over each other.
But before she answered, Rose knelt and put her arms around Martinelli’s dog, burying her face in Scully’s soft coat until she could choke back a sob.
Then she looked up once more at the fire blazing above her, and just for an instant, she thought she saw Jimmy Braidwood, dancing in the window like a human torch.
Gemma slowed the car as she passed the small rectangle of All Hallows Churchyard. Some part of her mind noted the gate’s graceful iron flowers, echoed by the stone arch beyond it, even as she searched for the street name Roberta had given them.
“Here,” said Winnie beside her, pointing, and Gemma made a sharp, screeching left turn.
Scanning the faded numbers, she quickly found the one she sought and stopped the car with an unexpected stomp on the brake. “This is it. This must be it.”
She and Winnie slid out of the car and stood staring at the house before them in dismay. Its flat front was as inhospitable as a prison, its windows opaque with years of grime. To one side, a wall the height of the ground floor sported coils of spiked wire and a frosting of broken glass.
“It looks like no one’s been here for years,” said Gemma. But as she looked more closely she saw that the sill of the door was free of accumulated rubbish and that the windowpane nearest the door had a spot about the size of a fifty-pence piece rubbed clear of grime. “No, I take that back,” she whispered. “She has been here, and recently.”
“What should we-” began Winnie, but Gemma was already striding towards the door.
She pounded the tarnished knocker against the wood, calling out, “Elaine Holland! Police! Open up!”
The house seemed to stare back at them in malevolent silence. Gemma tried the door, but the latch held fast. She pounded once more, then stepped back, her hand smarting from the effort. There was no sign of a watching eye at any of the windows.
“Can you get a warrant?” asked Winnie worriedly.
“Warrants take hours.” Gemma moved back several more paces, until she stood in the street and could survey the entire house and its heavily fortified yard. “And there’s certainly no other way to get in.” The wall was impossible to scale, the windows French-paned, and she suspected that even if she could gain access to a latch, the windows wouldn’t open. Still, it was worth a try, and if Elaine was inside it might get a reaction.
There was nothing in the street of accommodating size and weight, so she popped open the boot of her car and pulled out a spanner. She cracked the pane above the center sash smartly, then tapped the glass out. No one in the neighboring houses stirred – the entire street seemed eerily abandoned.
Gemma could see the latch now. She reached in and flipped it open, then pushed upwards on the sash, straining until her arms ached. The window didn’t budge. “Okay, that’s out. These windows haven’t been opened for a very long time.”
“Then we’ll have to wait,” Winnie said. “Although I hate to think-”
“No. We’re not going to wait.” Gemma rubbed her sweaty palms against the jacket of her best suit, flipped open her mobile phone, and hit the speed dial for 999.
When Control answered, she gave her name, rank, and location. “There’s smoke coming out of the house,” she said, “and we think a child is trapped inside. I can’t rouse the resident.” She suspected the panic in her voice sounded genuine enough.
Winnie gaped at her as she hung up, then looked frantically back at the house. “But, Gemma, I don’t-”
“When they get here, tell them you saw smoke coming from the back of the house, over the roof.” Gemma could already hear the two-tone of the siren and she sprinted to her car, pulling it up well out of the way.
Rejoining Winnie, she said, “I’ll be in enough trouble without blocking access,” but she was grinning with the euphoric rush of having taken action.
The fire brigade’s pump ladder careened around the corner, air horn sounding, and screeched to a stop. As the crew jumped out, Gemma showed the officer her badge and gave her explanation once more. One of the firefighters banged on the door and tried the latch, but the door didn’t move.
“A fire, ma’am? Are you sure?” asked the officer. He’d had time to examine the prospect himself and had seen no sign of smoke.
“Yes.” Gemma pointed over the roof. “I definitely saw smoke coming from the back.”
“All right, ma’am. On your head be it.” The officer studied the map brought to him by his driver, then added, “No way to get in from the back. Place is a regular fortress.” He gestured at his men. “Okay, lads. Let’s have some fun.”
One of the firefighters took an axe to the door, reducing the heavy barrier to kindling within a few minutes. The leading firefighters rushed in, Gemma and Winnie right on their heels. Ignoring the furious shouts of the officer, Gemma ran from room to room. There was no sign of Elaine or Harriet, or any evidence that the house had recently been occupied at all.
“Thought you said there was a fire, ma’am,” said one of the firefighters, coming out of the kitchen. “Have to admit the bloody old place is a firetrap, though.”
“Upstairs. It was upstairs, in the back. The smoke was curling over the top of the house.”
“Right, then.” He motioned to his partner. “Let’s have a look-see.” They climbed, Gemma trying to make herself invisible as she trod in their wake, with Winnie behind her.
The first-floor rooms were empty, and to Gemma the air seemed impregnated with age and illness, barely masked by the odor of dust. She felt an unwanted stab of pity for the child who had grown up in this place, but the pity only fueled her rage towards the woman that little girl had become.
“She’s gone,” murmured Winnie. “Elaine’s gone, isn’t she?”
Gemma sensed she was right – there was no watchfulness here – and her heart gave a lurch of despair. Had she taken Harriet with her?
But another, narrower flight of stairs continued upwards. Following the firefighters, Gemma looked back only once, to give Winnie a reassuring glance, then had to drag her mind away from the vision of old Mrs. Castleman tumbling down the dark chute.
When they reached the top landing they found only one door, locked. The leading firefighter pounded, then looked at Gemma and shrugged. She nodded. “Step back, then, ladies,” he said, and swung his axe.
The old locks were no match for the force of the blade. The door swung wide and the smell hit them like a blow, a sickening miasma of human waste, illness, and fear. Peering past the bulk of the firefighters’ shoulders, Gemma took in the chest with its ewer and basin, the bookcase, the pail in the corner. She pushed forward, and the firefighter let her by.
Then she saw the bed, and the frightened, feverish eyes of the little girl who lay huddled beneath the tattered blanket.
“Jesus Christ,” said the firefighter, shaking his head, his weather-beaten face creased with horror. “I’ll swear to any amount of smoke you like, ma’am.”
But all Gemma’s focus was on the child, still alive, still aware. Safe. Moving to the bed, she dropped to her knees. “It’s all right, sweetheart. It’s all right now,” she whispered, and then she lifted Harriet in her arms.