Smoke Alarm (10 page)

Randall nodded and cleared his throat before continuing. ‘I understand that your daughter had a boyfriend of whom you disapproved?'

Barton pursed his lips. ‘My daughter was fifteen years old,' he said brokenly. ‘She was an intelligent girl with a potentially very bright future. She'd talked about going in for Law. She was certainly capable of it. Sean Trotter hadn't a patch on her intellect. He was a sporty boy without a brain. All brawn.'

Alex demurred. ‘Surely that's a bit of a cliché?'

Barton blinked. ‘In this case no. He was a thick boy with superficial good looks and plenty of muscle. He didn't have a brain.'

‘I see. And where does he live?'

‘In the village somewhere.'

Randall waited.

‘They were in the same school.'

‘Thank you.' Randall paused, knowing his next question would be sensitive.

‘I understand your father set fire to his bedroom last year some time.'

‘It was an accident.'

‘Did your father smoke?'

‘He smoked a pipe. After last year's incident we tried to stop him smoking in his bedroom but we'd catch the occasional waft of tobacco smoke drifting across the landing.'

‘We found a cigarette lighter in his dressing-gown pocket.'

Barton dropped his face into his hands and gave a loud sigh.

‘One more question, Mr Barton.'

Barton looked up warily, his eyes fixing on the detective as he waited.

‘Your wife, daughter and father. Were their lives insured?'

Barton went slightly pale, recovered himself and spoke steadily. ‘They were, as a matter of fact.'

Alex waited.

‘My wife's life was insured for half a million,' Barton began. ‘My daughter . . .' Raw emotion crossed his face. ‘My daughter and my father also had life insurance for a quarter of a million each if their deaths were not due to natural causes.' His eyes challenged Randall's. ‘Naturally sickness was particularly excluded in the case of my father.'

‘I see.' Alex let out a slow, thoughtful breath.

Two hours later he was relating the result of the interview to Martha, in detail, knowing she would be frustrated that she hadn't met Nigel Barton yet and anxious to hear Randall's opinion. ‘So what did you make of him?'

Randall didn't answer her straight away but frowned into the distance. ‘Difficult to judge after such extreme trauma,' he said. ‘I don't think he can really comprehend what's happened. I think he was too stunned to form any opinion of who set the fire.'

‘But he gave you some names of people who might have felt animosity towards him and his family?'

‘Yes,' Randall said.

‘So what's your next step?'

He stood up. ‘Jude.'

This was the second time Alex Randall had met Jude Barton. The first time had not been helpful. The boy had been sedated and still very traumatized by his experience. It had felt cruel to press him for details. Jude Barton looked like a poet, with pale skin and very dark hair that flopped over his eyebrow. He had long, fringed eyelashes and thin, sensitive fingers, also long. Randall wondered if he had an aspiration to become an actor. He certainly had the looks for it.

He settled down in the chair at the side of the bed and studied the boy. Jude's eyes were almost closed as though it was too much effort to keep the lids open. He looked weary. Both hands were still swathed in thick bandages. Randall wondered whether he would need the skin grafts the doctors had mentioned. After a minute's silence he realized that Jude was waiting for him to speak. ‘First of all, Jude,' Alex said, adopting a friendly tone, ‘I want you to know we're all very glad that you survived.'

The boy's attempt at a smile was heart-rending. Tears squeezed out of his eyes. He made no attempt to brush them away but let them roll down his cheeks.

‘And I'm really sorry about the rest of your family,' Randall continued.

‘Thanks,' the boy muttered, looking away.

‘Tell me a bit about the evening of the fire. Anything you remember about earlier on.'

‘It was just ordinary,' Jude said, his gaze wandering away from Randall towards the blank wall. He gave a cynical snort. ‘So very ordinary.' He turned his head back so his eyes stared straight into Randall's. ‘Mum made tea around seven.' He couldn't stop his mouth from curving into a smile. ‘Cottage pie. She was always making that.' His mouth twisted again into a look of obvious pain. ‘I went back into my room. I had some homework to do. Addy was in her room, listening to some music, I think. Mum and Grandad were watching TV downstairs. I went back down for a hot chocolate and some biscuits around ten. Addy was still in her room. I shouted goodnight to her but I don't think she heard me. She was probably listening to her MP3 player. Grandad was in bed too.' Another grin. ‘I could hear him snoring.'

Randall interrupted. ‘So your grandfather was asleep then?'

The boy read nothing into this. ‘Yeah, he sort of catnaps half the time then wakes up in the middle of the night all confused, not knowing where he is. He sort of wanders around. Once or twice he's even wandered up the stairs and into my room in the early hours. Gives me a right shock. He looks like a ghost and hasn't a clue where he is. Whoever finds him just takes him back to bed.' Jude grinned. ‘Like a sleepwalking child. He's quite obedient. It's not a problem,' he added finally and defensively.

He seemed to have forgotten the fact that his grandfather was now dead and there was the question whether he had been the one who had set the fire. But at this point in the investigation it would have been unkind to remind Jude of this fact.

‘Go on. Finish telling me about the evening.' Randall wasn't sure how or even whether this glimpse into the Barton's family life would help but it was worth a try.

‘Mum was just coming upstairs with a mug of tea.' Again his eyes clouded as he remembered, probably realizing that this had been the last time he had seen his mother, wished his sister goodnight and heard his grandfather breathing. Randall didn't want to remind him, but had to prompt, ‘Ye-es?'

‘I went up to my room. I had my headphones on.' He hesitated. Swallowed with a noisy gulp. ‘I can't hear a thing when I've got them on.' A look of mischief lightened his expression. ‘Drives Mum mad.'

‘And a thousand other mothers, I expect.' Randall joined in. ‘Then?'

‘I must have dropped off to sleep.' He paused. Frowned. ‘
Something
must have woken me but I'm a long way off all the others. I opened my door and I could smell smoke.' He looked away. ‘I panicked, Detective Randall. I didn't know what to do. I thought Grandad must have . . .' His voice trailed away miserably but Randall knew what he had thought: that his grandfather had started another fire.

‘I made a plan. I shut the door. Then I thought I'd take my keys down with me and climb down the rope ladder.' There was another brief spark of mischief. ‘I'd tried out my rope ladder before. I knew it was safe. I thought I'd climb down,' he said again, ‘and see what was happening. When I got down I went round the front of the house. Then I could see it was worse. Much worse than I'd thought. It was terrifying. There were flames and smoke bursting out of the front windows. The bedrooms, too, where Mum and Addy sleep. I got in through the back door. But it was hopeless.' He buried his face in his hands and groaned.

Alex interrupted. ‘Was the back door closed or open, locked or unlocked?'

The boy looked at him with respect, as though he had just realized that DI Alex Randall was a real policeman. ‘As far as I remember,' he said carefully, ‘it was unlocked but closed. I might be wrong but I don't remember having to use my key. I think it's probably still in my pyjama pocket.' Jude Barton's pyjamas were currently in forensics. He looked anxious. ‘I closed the door behind me to stop the draught making the fire worse.

‘Did you decide which key you needed?'

‘I had both,' Jude said carefully. ‘Front and back. But when I'd looked out of my window I could see that the fire was worst at the front. I could either hang the ladder from a hook at the front or at the back but I could never have climbed down the front of the house or got in through the front door so I went round the back. I got into the kitchen but not much further. It was like hell.'

‘Could you hear anything else?' He meant the women screaming, the grandfather calling, but he didn't labour the point.

The boy closed his eyes wearily. ‘I don't know. There was so much . . . drama . . . and noise going on. I don't know what I heard or what I thought I heard. I might even have been screaming. There were sirens and . . .'Again he paused. ‘I've thought and tried to remember if I did hear Mum or Addy or Grandad but I don't really know. Not for sure. I don't know what was in my head and what was real. When I close my eyes I seem to hear them screaming but I still don't know whether it was my imagination or what.' Again he covered his face with his hands. ‘I don't know what's real any more. And then I saw the policeman coming for me and my clothes were on fire. My hands felt hot. I couldn't find the door because the smoke was thick. I
think
I was shouting for Mum and Addy but I don't know. The screaming might all have been inside my head. I just don't know.' His mood shifted slightly. ‘And what good will it do? It won't bring them back whatever I remember. Then the policeman dragged me out.' The dark eyes met his. ‘I'd have died in there if it hadn't been for him. I would have died with Mum, Grandad and Addy.' He leaned back on the pillows, exhausted, before adding softly, ‘Maybe I should have done.'

Alex allowed him his silence before asking very softly, ‘Who do you think started the fire, Jude?'

The boy shook his head. ‘I can't think of anyone,' he began then stopped abruptly. ‘I don't know anybody that horrible.' His eyes closed. ‘That wicked,' he said. There was another brief silence before he finally said a firm, ‘No.'

‘Did you hear anyone else in the house that night, other than your family?'

Jude shook his head.

‘Your father tells me that your sister had a boyfriend.'

For the first time during the interview the boy grinned. ‘Oh, you mean Hotter Trotter.'

Randall smiled along with him.

‘It wasn't anything like Dad thought,' Jude said. ‘Dad thought it was really serious and Addy was going to drop out of studying.' He grinned again. ‘To go off with that spudhead? I don't think so, Inspector Randall. It was just Dad.'

‘You mean your father didn't want Adelaide to have a boyfriend?'

‘He couldn't have cared less,' Jude said, ‘as long as it didn't interfere with her going to uni.'

For the first time, Alex reflected, as he left the hospital minutes later, he could perceive a crack in what had appeared such a perfect family. He could almost hear Martha snort that there was no such thing – except when it was long dead and gone, and retrieved from an inaccurate and fantasy-producing memory.

T
he Armoury was an eighteenth-century building to the north-east of the town. A neat Georgian building, it had the atmosphere and décor of a London wine bar, the walls lined with bookshelves, scrubbed tables and high windows which overlooked the Welsh Bridge and the River Severn. It was a popular meeting place with a warm and friendly ambience but there were dark corners too, hidden from the public gaze, where acquaintances could meet surreptitiously, or so they might think. Shrewsbury is not really a big enough town to hide in.

Nigel Barton tried his best to sidle in, arouse no attention, find one of these corners and wait. But he was fully aware that anyone who happened to glance in could and probably would see him. And that was just what he didn't want.

Not right now.

Detective Inspector Alex Randall knew that the investigation needed to start somewhere. It was no use floundering around like headless chickens. They had to begin by eliminating suspects. He had made the decision to start with the three business associates of Nigel Barton but he wasn't overly optimistic. Already he had the feeling that this would be a long and tortuous case. They had no real leads but Alex Randall was as determined and tenacious as a python, enveloping people in its coils before tightening.

So the first step had been to send DS Paul Talith to speak to Yusuf Karoglan.

As Barton had told them, Karoglan had set up a rival business in Chester, just outside the town walls. It was a smart-looking place overlooking the racecourse, modern in contrast to the ancient city, with bright advertising and neat parking spaces at the front. Outside stood a silver grey Lexus ISF. Roughly £60,000's worth of car. Talith wasted a few minutes admiring it, wishing he had one of these instead of the eminently practical Ford Focus which he and his wife shared. Then he turned away. Ah, well.

He knocked on the door and it was opened by a secretary wearing an expensive-looking and well-fitting black suit, very, very high heels, black, straight, shining hair and scarlet lipstick. Talith stared at her, taken aback. She reminded him of Morticia Adams. There was a vampirish, almost predatory air about her which the DS wasn't quite comfortable with. For the second time in as many minutes his mouth dropped open and he stood and stared, then remembered his manners and flashed his ID card, mumbling that he wished to speak to Mr Karoglan.

‘Then I invite you in, Sergeant,' she said with a flirtatious curve of those very red lips. ‘Although I don't suppose I have any choice, do I?'

Talith had recovered himself. His response was a bland smile of his own. ‘Is Mr Karoglan in?'