Liar Liar: DI Helen Grace 4 (A DI Helen Grace Thriller) (34 page)

Helen took the stairs three at a time, as DCs Lucas and Edwards struggled to keep pace behind. Sanderson was busy organizing a perimeter cordon, in case Ethan Harris tried to escape, but Helen was determined to deny him the opportunity. After the fire, the Harris family had moved into a rented apartment in Upper Shirley, supported by a new carer, Anastasia Teplova. It was amazing how soon normal life re-established itself in the Harris family. Both parents were already back at work, leaving the care of their son to paid help.

Helen quickly reached their apartment on the third floor. She had wasted too much time chasing shadows on this case, when the solution had been under her nose all along. There had definitely been something ‘off’ about the way the Harris family behaved together and Helen now realized it was because they were acting – pretending to be a loving family. Ethan had been acting for many months now, cloaking his plans and later his nocturnal activities from his parents and carers. The one thing he wasn’t able to conceal was the burn mark on his left hand. When she’d glimpsed it at the hospital, Helen thought it had been sustained in the fire, but now the cross-shaped pattern was plain to see. Firstpersonsingular had referenced burning himself in his blog – was this
the pact that he and Naomie had sealed, testing their commitment to each other through fire?

As DC Edwards joined her, Helen didn’t hesitate, ordering him to break down the door. She had considered using the concierge or even knocking on the door herself, but she couldn’t sanction even the tiniest delay. Edwards took a run up then launched himself at the door. The latch tore from the woodwork with a satisfying scream and the door swung open. Helen was through it in a flash, to be confronted by a very surprised-looking Bulgarian, who was playing Fruit Crush on her phone, rather than attending to her duties.

Anastasia Teplova stammered some protestations in broken English, but shut up when confronted by Helen’s warrant card. The young woman was barely older than her charge and clearly had a very basic command of English. Just how uninterested were these parents in their son?

‘Where is Ethan?’

Anastasia just stood there, still speechless with shock, so Helen gestured to Edwards and Lucas to start searching. Then she approached the home help, putting her warrant card away.

‘You’re not in any trouble, but I need to talk to Ethan. Is he here?’

There was another long pause, before she finally said:

‘He’s in his room.’

With that she gestured to a small, ancillary bedroom towards the back of the apartment. Helen ran towards it now and, throwing open the door, stepped inside.

To find an empty room.

Nothing on the walls yet. Nothing on the bedside table. Just an old laptop, closed and powered down, sitting next to a dirty coffee mug on the table. Ethan clearly had been here but, as the open window by the fire escape revealed, he was long gone now.

‘Can I ask what it’s regarding?’

She was a new receptionist – not one he’d seen on his fleeting visits before – but every bit as snotty as her predecessors.

‘It’s regarding her son. That’s me, by the way.’

Ethan Harris enjoyed watching the expression change on her face. His mother ran a prestigious architects’ firm in Ocean Village and generally hired beautiful but flinty young women to guard the gate. They were practised at dealing with salesmen, tardy couriers and freeloaders. Had this new one mistaken him for the latter? As she first took in his face, his limp arm, his stooped posture, her look had belied a curious mixture of distaste and awkwardness. But when she realized who he was, her strangulated expression wrenched itself round to an unconvincing smile. Just one more reason to hate her.

‘One moment, please,’ she purred, ringing up to the penthouse office. Ethan watched her intently, picking at the scar on his left hand all the while – it had become a nervous tic of late. Moments later, she handed him the phone. Didn’t that say it all? Any other parent would have just told her to send him up.

‘What’s going on, Ethan? Is everything all right?’

‘Everything’s fine. I’m just bored and thought I would pay you a visit. I can visit my own mother, can’t I?’

There was a brief pause before she responded:

‘Ok, but I’ve got a meeting at twelve, so it’ll have to be quick.’

‘It won’t take long,’ Ethan replied, before handing the receiver back to the earwigging receptionist. His hand quivered more than usual, making the handover clumsy and awkward. Funny how even now he felt embarrassed by these small things.

The receptionist buzzed him through and he walked towards the lifts. Here he paused and as the phone on the front desk rang once more, he took advantage of this timely distraction, diving past the lifts and through the fire stairs that led to the basement. He had no intention of seeing his mother.

Indeed, if he had his way, he would never see her again.

For a moment Luke Simms was unable to speak, the blood draining from his face. Charlie hadn’t expected such a strong reaction to her question and now put her arm on to Luke’s, worried the young boy was about to faint.

‘If you don’t feel up to this, I can wait, but it would be useful to know at –’

‘He was only there a term. I hardly knew him.’

Luke had regained his speech, but not his colour. His father watched on, confused, anxious and not a little scared.

‘What’s this about? Who is Ethan Harris, for God’s sake?’

‘He’s a person of interest in our enquiry,’ Charlie replied evenly.

‘And you know him, Luke?’

‘I did. A bit. I mean he was at school for such a short time before he had to leave, but we were friends for a bit. He visited me in hospital after the fire, for God’s sake. He sat at the end of the bed and offered me his sympathies …’

The devil’s in the detail, as Helen had often told Charlie. Scrolling through Ethan Harris’s educational background she had alighted on the coincidence of him attending the same posh secondary school in Millbrook as Luke Simms. Harris had been at the school for less than eight
weeks – the reason for his sudden departure was not yet clear – and his stay there was so brief it hadn’t grabbed anyone’s attention in their initial enquiries. But now it seemed supremely relevant, especially after Luke had revealed that Harris had visited him in hospital after the fire. Helen had been right – their killer had been inserting himself into the narrative from the off.

‘How would you characterize his time at your school, Luke?’

‘Unhappy’ was Luke’s bleak reply. ‘He was a tricky character – hostile, suspicious, quick to take offence if anyone mocked him. And there were plenty of people who were happy to do that. You know what school’s like.’

‘Why did people mock him?’

‘Because he was different.’

There it was. Charlie had read Ethan’s hospital report on the way over. In addition to an assessment of his burns and the various tests done to determine the effects of smoke inhalation, there was a small, dispassionate summary of his past health issues. It noted drily that Ethan had suffered from Foetal Alcohol Syndrome since birth. This was caused by his mother’s heavy drinking during pregnancy and had affected the development of both his brain and his limbs. While intelligent and articulate, Ethan had had many health problems as a result of his FAS, not least mild cerebral palsy and epilepsy. It was some inheritance to gift to your child.

‘He just looked different to everyone else,’ Luke continued. ‘His features were softer, like … you know … like they weren’t quite formed. And people used to take the piss.’

‘Did you mock him?’

‘No … No, not at first. I
liked
him, for God’s sake.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he was good at writing. Creative writing, comprehension, reviews – all that stuff. He could do it standing on his head. And he helped me – I’ve never been good at that stuff. He would have done mine for me if I’d asked him to. We got along.’

‘So what happened?’

Luke hesitated now, his breathing becoming short. Charlie gave Thomas Simms a quick look, but he gently gestured to her to proceed. Like her, he was desperate to know what Luke was going to say next.

‘Luke?’ Charlie prompted gently.

‘Some of the other lads – the football guys – they didn’t want me hanging around with him. Told me to cut him off. I refused, so they cut
me
off. Out of the school team, out of their gang, out of
everything
. I stuck it for a while but …’

‘But then you wanted back in?’ Charlie finished for him.

‘Yes, so they set me a challenge. A test … and I bloody did it.’

Now tears came, coursing down his cheeks.

‘They told me to humiliate him. I wanted my old life back so … the next time he came up to me – it was in the canteen – I told him I didn’t want him talking to me. When he asked me why … when he asked me why, I told him it was because he was a fucking freak …’

Luke broke down now, the full import of his actions finally making itself felt. His father rocked him back and forth in his arms, trying to stem the tears. Charlie stayed
for ten minutes more but there was little she could do now and she felt that her presence was neither helpful nor welcome. She would keep an eye on them of course, but this was something they had to face alone. Luke had done something unpleasant and mean-spirited and had been repaid in savage fashion by a boy unable to cope with the slingshots life constantly threw at him.

It was an awful retribution out of all scale to the crime and Charlie hoped that in time Luke would come to see this and learn not to blame himself. Some hope, Charlie thought to herself, as she walked disconsolately back to the car, Luke’s cries still ringing in her ears.

He had never been in the basement before, which added to the thrill. He had seen it on the building’s plans, which he’d ‘borrowed’ from his mother’s home office, but he had been wary of scoping it in advance for fear of drawing attention to what he was up to. It was unheard of for him to turn up at his parents’ place of work unannounced.

It was pitch dark and no amount of fumbling could locate the light switches, so Ethan pulled the heavy torch from his rucksack and clicked it on. As he did so, a broad smile spread across his face. Sometimes the apples really did fall into your lap. There were several pieces of discarded office furniture – mostly desks and chairs – which would provide adequate fuel, but the real gift was the huge amount of shredded paper that lay on the floor in loose plastic sacks. They would help to get the fire going and after that …

Ethan quickly set about moving the old bits of furniture to the centre of the room, using his hips to shove the heavier pieces in the right direction. He knew from his mother’s plans that the base of the lift shaft was located here and that’s where he intended to make his fire. The flames would leap up the shaft, spreading quickly to upper floors while also taking the lift out of action as a means of escape. This fire would be the biggest one yet and he couldn’t wait to see it. He could feel his fingers tingle as the excitement grew.

When he’d first rehearsed this climax to their project with Naomie, she had raised objections. Too much collateral damage – meaning the seven other businesses that occupied this sizeable building. But that made it all the better in his view. By the time the dust settled,
everybody
would know that his parents were to blame. These deaths would be on their conscience and while his father mourned his mother, he would have plenty of time to contemplate
that
.

As planned, there would be no diversionary fires today. There would be no warning of this attack. Ethan walked back now to gather the shredded paper, then suddenly jumped like he’d been shot. A piercing alarm rang out, long and loud, echoing around the dingy brick basement.

‘What the fuck … ?’

This had to be a joke. It
had
to be. They couldn’t be having a fire drill today. He’d checked his mother’s diary. Fire drills were on the first of the month, regular as clockwork. What cosmic fuck-up could make them have one today … ?

Now a thought seized him. There was a chance, of course, that this alarm wasn’t a coincidence. That somehow they
knew
. Naomie wouldn’t have said anything – he was sure of that – and he had only posted his most recent offering an hour or two ago, but even so …

Now Ethan was on the move. Something told him that Helen Grace was here. That for the first time since this started she was ahead of him. And now he wasn’t thinking of fire.

He was thinking of flight.

‘Everybody out. We need to get everybody out.’

The alarms were still wailing but the flow of office workers exiting the building was still just a steady trickle. It was what Helen had expected but still it infuriated her. Why did office workers assume every fire alarm was a drill or a mistake? Did it never occur to them that the fire might be real, that the nightmare which had visited several other families in the run-up to Christmas might be visiting
them
?

Helen grabbed the fire officers as they presented themselves, urging them to get people moving faster. She couldn’t smell burning, but instinct told her that Ethan Harris was here somewhere, plotting his final move in the game. McAndrew had alerted Helen to Ethan’s latest and possibly final post as ‘firstpersonsingular’, and as soon as Helen read the text of it, she knew that his mother would be his last victim.

Jacqueline Harris was a workaholic and reading between the lines probably an alcoholic too, so unless he was going to burn down her favourite bar, there was one obvious place to strike. The business she had spent twenty years building up. The realization had sent a chill down Helen’s spine: the number of innocent victims from a fire in this building would be pushing a hundred – and Helen was determined not to let that happen.

The human flow seemed to be picking up pace now and Helen scanned the faces that went by. If
she
were Ethan, where would she go? What would be the best place to start a fire? Ethan had taken the lift up, according to the receptionist, but had never arrived at his mother’s office. So where? The floor beneath? Possible but that was an open-plan office – how easy would it be for Ethan to talk his way in there and start a fire?

Something told Helen that that was too localized anyway, not grand enough for Ethan’s finale. And as her mind turned on this, her eyes alighted on the lift bank. That was more like it. The fire would spread quickly that way, fanning out on to the other floors. If you started a decent enough blaze at the bottom …

The basement. If he was smart, he would have gone to the basement. Helen’s eyes moved to the left of the lift bank, then to the right. And there it was. A simple, unassuming door marked ‘Staff Only’.

Helen took a step forward, but suddenly cannoned backwards. Immediately, she raised her arms to defend herself – but it was just a tearful PA racing for the main exit. The mood in the building had changed now, as the fire wardens scoured the floors, accompanied by uniformed officers, urging people to leave. The sight of a police presence had obviously spooked the building’s occupants – perhaps now they were making the connection between this alarm and the spate of recent fires. They looked scared, confused and very keen to be elsewhere.

Now Helen was fighting a torrent of humanity, surging past her, knocking her this way and that, as she fought her way towards the basement door. She did her best to let
them pass, but instinct told her to move fast, so she dodged the fleeing workers as best she could, stumbling as she went. She was so involved in the fight, so determined to get through the human barrier in front of her, that she didn’t see the young guy, dressed in the dirty overalls and cap of the building’s maintenance team, gliding past her on his way to the exit and liberty.