DS Jessica Daniel series: Think of the Children / Playing with Fire / Thicker Than Water – Books 4–6 (66 page)

‘It’s been pretty shitty to be honest,’ Jessica said, feeling her voice croak before correcting herself. ‘This morning I had to phone my parents to tell them I was fine.
They live in Cumbria so luckily don’t get the papers or the same news as us. Before I’d even finished talking, my mum had jumped on the Internet and seen the pictures. They
wouldn’t believe that I was fine. I think my dad already had the car keys in his hand to come down before I managed to talk them around.’

‘That’s good though, right?’

‘Oh yeah, I didn’t mean it like that. I see all sorts of shite mums and dads and people who couldn’t care less about their kids. Mine are amazing. It was just that moment in
their voice where you tell them something bad has happened. It’s like you’re breaking their hearts. I hated it.’

‘My parents loved my wife . . . ex-wife . . . Keira. I don’t think they’ve ever come to terms with us not being together any more.’

Jessica wondered if she should ask what happened but Andrew stared at her, clearly expecting her to finish explaining her day. ‘That was just the first thing I did,’ she continued.
‘Then I had to go to the house. Have you any idea what it’s like to go to a burned-out house?’

‘No, I never went to Harley’s.’

‘It’s just . . . horrible. There are these fire investigators who first check the scene. They had already decided it was started deliberately and then you’re allowed back onto
the site. One of the fire guys escorted me around. I don’t know if they do it for everyone or if it’s just because it was me. It’s everything you can imagine but worse.
Everything’s black, even the bits that aren’t burned, because of the smoke. You see fragments of your things, part-burned, part-not. It’s not even those items that you think about
– it’s the memories that come with them.’

‘Was there much left?’

‘Unbelievably, most of the things in our bedroom. It sounds stupid but I keep my phone charger next to the bed and you wouldn’t have known anything had happened. Most of Adam’s
clothes are fine. Some of mine. A lot of the things we might need day-to-day are all right. Some of them are smoke-damaged but the ceiling didn’t collapse and the guy said it was lucky we
lived in a house built just after the war.’

‘Why?’

‘He says the new homes have thin walls and thinner doors. That the fire just goes straight through it. Either way, I’ve got a carful of clothes. It was lucky I left my car keys in a
pocket, else they would have been downstairs too.’

‘Where are you going to stay? I might . . . ?’

Jessica didn’t know what he was going to offer but she waved her hand. ‘I’ve sorted it. One of my friends, Caroline, she’s got this place on the Quays. She broke up with
her husband and it’s up for sale but it’s empty for now. I’m going there after here to dump everything.’

‘That’s nice of her.’

‘Well that’s what I’ve realised this morning. It was horrible being at the house but, beyond that, people are bloody good. I’ve had my mum offering to drive a few hundred
miles just to give me a cuddle. My mate’s letting us stay in her flat for free. I spoke to one of my colleagues who is on maternity leave. She was telling me I could have all her clothes
because they don’t fit anyway. She practically ordered me to come over for tea. She’s got a baby to be looking after but she was going to do that anyway. My phone’s not stopped
going all morning – it’s a bloody good job I found that charger. Sometimes I think I forget that people are generally pretty decent. I just end up dealing with most of the
shits.’

‘So what do you do now?’ Jessica started to reply but couldn’t stop another coughing fit charging through her. Andrew handed her a tissue as she doubled over. Unable to stop
herself, she checked it afterwards, seeing more flecks of black and spots of blood.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

Jessica nodded but only answered the first question. ‘Now? Now I have to sit around. I spoke to my DCI too. He told me he doesn’t want to see me for at least a week and, even then,
assuming they haven’t solved it by then, I won’t be working on the case about who burned down the house and whether it’s connected to the other ones – including
Harley’s.’

‘Why?’

‘Policy? I don’t know. I told him I’d speak to the superintendent and he said he already had – and that they were in agreement. I said I’d go to the chief constable
but he’d done that too. Aside from the Home Secretary, there’s not much else I can do. Basically, that’s it. Unless he changes his mind, I’m off for six more days and then I
go back as if nothing’s happened.’

‘But . . . don’t you think you should take the time off? Is your fiancé doing all right?’

Jessica knew the newspaper article, and presumably the news broadcasts, had only made a passing reference to someone other than her being involved in the fire.

‘We both slept in the hospital last night,’ she said. ‘I saw him before leaving this morning and dropped in again before coming here. The doctor says he’s doing okay but
he probably won’t be released until tomorrow.’

Andrew spoke nervously. ‘Maybe he’d like to spend the week with you . . . ?’

Jessica knew what he was saying was true. She had been telling herself the same thing but above that was an overriding feeling that she wouldn’t be able to feel safe until whoever had set
fire to her house was caught. She ignored him, finally moving onto the reason she was there.

‘What have you got on Ryan and the people he hangs around with?’

The investigator seemed surprised by her abruptness, certainly by the fact she had changed the subject so quickly. His eyebrows shot upwards as he looked off to one side as if thinking.
‘I’m not sure. Only what I’ve told you. I gave you the number plate of the girl but never heard back from you.’

Jessica knew she shouldn’t be passing on the information but, given what had happened, didn’t even hesitate. ‘It belonged to a nineteen-year-old woman called Lara Sullivan. I
visited her house and although I didn’t specifically ask about the money, I did ask her about Ryan.’

‘What did she say?’

‘Not much. Every girl I mention his name to has a similar response. I’m not sure if it’s fear or unease but there’s something there.’

‘I don’t have anything else. I’ve not been following him everywhere but I’ve kept an eye on him in the evenings. He’s not been doing much.’

Jessica gave him Lara’s address and the details she could remember. ‘Will you see if you can find anything on her?’ she asked.

‘Wouldn’t it be better if someone you knew from the station did that?’ he asked.

‘They won’t work with me, let alone help.’

‘I’ll do what I can but it won’t be much.’

‘I want you to keep following Ryan too. I would but he knows me. If he meets this Lara again, call me.’

‘Do you think he was the one who . . . ?’ Andrew tailed off, clearly not wanting to say, ‘burned down your house’.

‘I don’t know. But there’s no one else I can think of. His dad was in hospital. I know my colleagues are going over his past to see if there’s anything else but they
either haven’t got anything – or won’t tell me.’

‘What’s he got to gain though?’

Jessica didn’t want to mention that she had slapped him. She wondered if that was reason enough.

‘Say fire was his thing,’ Andrew continued, ‘I guess that could be a reason but what about the other things you were talking about with the girls and everything? What could he
be involved in?’

‘Money and girls have always made the world go around,’ Jessica said.

‘True but what would he have been paying Lara for? Sex? How would that connect to the other girls? Do you think he paid them too?’

‘I don’t know but everything has happened since his father was released from prison. That can’t be a coincidence.’ Andrew shrugged as if to say he couldn’t think of
a reason to disagree. ‘Is Harley still paying you?’ Jessica added.

‘Sort of. He is but I’m putting all the money in a separate account and I’ll either give it back if he’ll take it or give it to charity. I’ve told him there’s
nothing I can do. He’s been so different. When he first hired me, he was short and to the point, now he wants to have conversations. I don’t know what to say. He’s lost his house
and daughter, it’s not like I can take him down the pub to drink it off. He keeps asking what can possibly happen next.’

‘When was the last time you saw him?’

Andrew shrugged sadly. ‘Not for a while. He’ll call but I think he’s embarrassed about being seen. I asked if he wanted to meet and he couldn’t get off the phone quickly
enough. I think the biggest thing is that he has no closure because he doesn’t know why it all happened.’

It was something Jessica could understand as well as anyone. ‘Perhaps if you can get to the bottom of everything that’s happening with Ryan, Lara and whoever else, you’ll find
him an answer after all?’

There was very little that annoyed Jessica more than having to act girly. In order not to be recognised from the morning’s coverage in the papers and on television, she
wore her hair down and found a low-cut top in the pile of clothes salvaged from the house. Rather than wear something over it, as she would usually, Jessica wore just that and a skirt to ensure the
garage owner would be looking at her chest and legs as opposed to her face.

She kept her phone in her hand just in case Andrew called, explaining to the person who worked there that her vehicle was making ‘a funny sound’. She giggled and flirted in a way
that disgusted her but it at least had the desired effect as she noticed the man’s gaze constantly drifting down towards her chest before he realised what he was doing. If he knew the amount
of padding that was being used to create the illusion, Jessica suspected he wouldn’t be quite so impressed.

‘Do you want us to give you a bell when it’s ready, love?’ he asked.

‘I’ll just wait around, it shouldn’t be long, should it?’

The mechanic took one final glance across at her chest before replying. ‘No, I’ll start on it right away.’

Jessica’s plan to poke around the garage Ryan worked at wasn’t exactly high-tech. Andrew was keeping an eye on the college waiting for him to leave, while, after dropping her clothes
off at Caroline’s flat and checking in on Adam, she had driven to the garage and made up something that sounded plausible. Andrew had pointed out the flaw in the idea that her face was all
over the news and someone could recognise her, which had led Jessica to the current position she found herself in.

She remembered her old vehicle and thought that, if she had brought that by, it could have been a good two or three days before she saw the beloved thing again. With her new car, she knew there
was nothing wrong with it.

As the mechanic and someone else went to work under the bonnet, Jessica looked carefully at the surroundings. There were large plastic cans marked ‘petrol’ and ‘diesel’
pushed into the far corner and another area held cans of spray paint. Jessica didn’t check them any more closely but it didn’t really matter if there was a yellow one now because there
could have been at some point. She wondered if Ryan could have tried to frame Anthony by leaving the items in his back garden and the shed. Could he have burned down his own house for the same
reason? It seemed far-fetched but then there was a likely insurance payout to come – and it could have landed Thompson in trouble. It didn’t explain why the back of the house had been
blocked to try to keep Martin inside but she was sure there would be a reason somewhere.

Jessica made her way through to the garage’s reception area and then outside into a small car park. She took out her phone and called Rowlands. As it rang, she huddled close to a wall,
trying to keep warm. Although the late afternoon wasn’t exactly cold, her outfit wasn’t really suitable for the time of year.

‘What took you so long?’ Jessica said, showing her agitation when the constable answered.

‘Sorry, I was busy. What’s up?’

‘That’s what I was phoning you to ask. What’s going on?’

Rowlands paused for a second. ‘Jess . . . you’re supposed to be off.’

‘Sod off, Dave, just tell me.’

He sighed. ‘You know I shouldn’t but we’re all working hard for you. People are going over your statement, we’re checking the times, we have spoken to your neighbours. We
have got the initial report from the fire investigator. Honestly, we’re doing everything we can.’

‘But you’ve not got anywhere yet?’

‘Jess . . .’

‘There haven’t been any other suicides, have there?’

‘No, but . . .’

Jessica was too annoyed at his stalling to let him finish his sentences. ‘Will you call me if you find anything?’

Rowlands sighed again. ‘Jess, don’t put me in this position. Just get yourself better and we’ll see you soon.’

Jessica knew she wasn’t going to get anywhere. ‘All right, fine. Bye.’

She hung up and put the phone in the bag she was being forced to carry because there were no pockets in what she was wearing. She went back into the reception area and sat looking around at the
various posters on the wall.

‘Are you all right, love?’ asked the female receptionist. She was only a teenager herself and Jessica could see her holding a puzzle book as she stared over the counter.

Jessica nodded. ‘Fine, thanks.’

‘You seem familiar.’

Jessica looked at the coffee table she was resting her feet on and noticed a copy of that morning’s
Herald
with her photo on the front. She stood, stepping between the table and
reception desk. ‘Do you watch morning chat shows?’ she asked.

The woman put her puzzle book down and beamed. ‘Oh God, yeah. I love ’em.’

‘I was on one a few weeks back. You probably know me from there.’

‘Oh wow, you’re famous! Which one were you on?’

Jessica turned around and picked up the newspaper, casually folding it over as if she were reading but shielding the picture from view before turning back to face the woman. ‘It was called
“My brother’s really my dad”.’

The woman’s eyes were wide with surprise. ‘Really? Your brother’s your dad?’

‘Yeah and my aunt’s my uncle. It was this big thing they did over two days. My brother, who is really my dad, ended up having a fight with his brother, who’s really his
cousin.’