Smoke Alarm (6 page)

Hughes was holding up a plastic evidence bag. They both peered at it. Inside was a small piece of metal.

Martha frowned. ‘What is it?'

‘It looks very much like part of a cigarette lighter,' Hughes said. ‘One of those disposable ones.'

‘Where did you find it?' Randall's voice was sharp and gravelly.

‘It was in the old man's dressing gown pocket,' Hughes said.

Martha's heart sank.

A
lex and Martha stepped past the body of William Barton, taking a swift glance at the body of the frail, elderly man. ‘Not much of an end to a life,' Martha observed, noting his foetal position and reflecting how strange it was that the majority of people lie like this within the womb and die in the same position. ‘I wonder where he was heading.' Her glance drifted towards the two splintered bedroom doors.

Alex's face tightened. ‘More like: what was he up to?'

‘He could have been trying to let the women out, thinking they might have been overcome by smoke.'

Randall looked unconvinced.

Martha spoke again. ‘I wonder if he was a smoker.'

Randall looked at her. ‘You're trying to find an innocent explanation for the fact that he had a lighter in his pocket. Where's that suspicious mind you're so proud of?' he teased.

But Martha's expression was sober. ‘William Barton is unable to defend himself. I don't want him taking the blame if he's innocent.'

Randall was already two steps ahead, anxious to examine the other two bedrooms for himself. He went first to Christie's room. A blanket covered her body now and the arc lights had been dimmed so the room had less of the atmosphere of a lit stage than an empty theatre when the show's over and the audience gone. The scene was clearly marked out, the story easy to read, helped by forensic markers, chalk lines and fingerprint dust – the smoke-blackened walls and furniture, the bodies of the mother and, in the other bedroom, her fifteen-year-old daughter. Each was covered with a sheet, the illumination through cracked and blackened windows making the atmosphere dingy, and everywhere there was this pervasive stink of smoke, a smell that seemed to epitomize destruction. Even as they were inspecting Adelaide Barton's room the mortuary van arrived outside and backed up to the front door. The three bodies were zipped efficiently into body bags and taken away, the attendants descending the stairs in careful steps. Martha watched the van take its cargo down the drive, heading for the mortuary where the post-mortems would be performed. She stood back, looking through the window for minutes after the van had turned left on to the B road that led back to Shrewsbury. Years ago she'd thought she had learned to detach herself from scenes like these, to forget the human story of suffering and pain and concentrate instead on the science and facts of the case – the job, or so she told herself. But every now and then cases caught her out, usually because of some common ground in her home life. In this instance Sukey, her daughter, and Adelaide Barton were about the same age. Presumably they would have had the same expectations of their lives. Exams, exams, exams, university, probably more exams, possibly marriage, a home, children. Not anymore. Adelaide's future had finished cowering under bedclothes locked in a smoke-filled room. It was unbearably cruel.

Martha was vaguely aware of Detective Inspector Alex Randall at her side, watching her with curiosity though he did not speak, clear his throat, move or remind her in any way of his presence. Yet she was well aware of the tendrils of empathy which reached out from him, the sympathy warming those perceptive hazel eyes, and almost of the bony hand touching her own. She did not dare look at him in case she was wrong; she didn't want him to read her vulnerability. So she analysed silently as she emerged back on to the landing, observing the patch of paler carpet which marked the spot where William Barton had recently lain. The case was this: two women, locked inside their rooms and an old man whom, in spite of her defence, she was already picturing as crazy and demonic, spilling petrol and setting fire to the house.

Yet, as she studied the shape on the carpet, she knew that something about that theory wasn't working. She scanned the landing, pictured the old man's body stretched out, in his dressing gown and slippers and apparently with a cigarette lighter in his pocket. Her eyes were drawn to another door at her side. ‘And the second floor?'

‘Up here.' Paul Talith had climbed the stairs to join his boss. He pushed open the door and led the way. The stairs were boxed in with wooden planks behind the thick, pitch pine door. Badly scorched and blistered on the outside but intact. And while the inside also showed signs of fire damage it had held back the fire. Pitch pine contains a great deal of sweet sap and the heat had made this trickle down the wooden panels before cooking it as hard and black as basalt. Reaching out, Martha could still feel the heat retained in the wood. It was now more than fifteen hours since the fire at Melverley Grange had been extinguished and the surfaces still felt warm. But the door had done its job, acted as a firebreak and this, and the rope ladder, had saved Jude's life. Martha frowned. But having escaped he had then returned to the house to try and rescue his family? She was curious and wondered what he was like, this heroic teenager. She touched the door again. If the fire had reached beyond it and Jude Barton had not had the foresight to keep a rope ladder in his room he would have had no route of escape and would have died with the rest of his family. The staircase would quickly have become impassable and the sheer height of the house made it too high to jump without sustaining serious or fatal injury. Jude Barton had had a very lucky escape, which led Martha to wonder about the rope ladder. It seemed odd for him to have one. Had the boy half expected something like this? She filed the question away with all the others. In time she would ask them all. And get answers.

‘Shall we climb?' Alex invited then stood back politely, allowing her to walk up the narrow stairs ahead of him, their footsteps making a hollow sound. There was no stair carpet, only the painted wood of the treads.

There were five rooms on the top floor, two to the right and two to the left either side of a central bathroom. The two rooms on the right were patently only used for storage, suitcases, boxes of books and unwanted furniture, while Jude had occupied the two rooms on the left. Apart from the lingering smell of the smoke there was no evidence of the fire that had raged in the floors below leaving devastating carnage. Up here was relatively normal. The rooms on the left were much as you would expect a teenage boy's room to be: untidy, clothes and belongings everywhere, a computer, Xbox, an unmade bed, posters on the wall of robotic super heroes. The bathroom was the same. Spicy deodorant still scented the room, overlying the smoke, but the towels were on the floor, the shower tray lime-scaled, hairs blocking the plughole. It was an all too familiar sight to Martha. Sam, her son, had much the same attitude to bathroom hygiene. ‘
What's the point, Mum, it soon gets messy again
,' and ‘
it can't be
really
dirty – I only wash in it.
'

Inwardly she smiled and Randall picked up on it. His own eyes twinkled as he looked at her. ‘Are all teenage boys the same, do you think, Martha?'

She laughed but ill-advisedly used the opportunity to probe. ‘Yes,' she said with a chuckle, adding light-heartedly, ‘Don't you have any children, Alex?'

She regretted the question in the same instant that the words were out of her mouth. His face froze, shoulders stiffened and he looked away quickly, though not quickly enough. She had seen a look of intense pain cross his face, like a quick, black cloud over the sun. Silently she chided herself.
Big mistake, Martha.

‘No.' He answered the question shortly. ‘Not anymore.'

It was an odd answer. Martha took a surreptitious look at him but he kept his eyes away and volunteered nothing further. It underlined the fact that while her friendship with the tall detective might have grown it was still primarily a professional relationship which might develop into a closer friendship using slippery stepping stones to find a way to cross a deep river. It would be only too easy to fall in. And the water was ice-cold. Quite inhospitable. She did not want to fall in. So she concentrated on the job in hand, examining the boy's rope ladder, noting the steel ring screwed into the wall. It was a professional job. She tugged at it. There was no give. It was firmly anchored. This, then, had kept the boy alive although, she supposed, it was just about possible that the door at the bottom of the stairs would have kept the inferno away long enough for the firemen to effect a rescue. Fire engine, tall ladder, dramatic rescue. A Boy's Own dream. But instead Jude Barton had descended a rope ladder. Equally dramatic. She must find out the circumstances of his descent. She took a last look around his room before following the others back downstairs.

When they had finally returned to the hall Alex asked her: ‘Seen enough, Martha?' She noted a stiffness in his manner now, a distance in his voice and she sensed his resentment that she had stolen an unauthorized peep into the life he so zealously protected from outside view.

She retreated into formality. ‘Almost, Alex, thank you. I'd just like to have a quick word with one of the firemen and then I really should get back to the office.'

He obviously felt constrained too. ‘I'll get one of the officers to drive you,' he offered. ‘I need to do some more work here.' He was avoiding her eyes, she noticed. She wanted to apologize for storming his castle but knew it was best to say nothing more. What was it her mother was always saying? Least said soonest mended. Her Irish mother had a phrase for all occasions. But even though the phrase was a cliché Martha was well aware that words would not heal the rift that had opened between them. Better then to stay quiet than make any attempt to smooth it over with words.

She found Colin Agnew outside the property, inspecting the damage around one of the downstairs windows. Martha introduced herself and regarded the devastation alongside him. ‘How long do you think the fire had been burning before the alarm was raised?'

‘Well over half an hour,' Agnew responded. ‘It had really taken hold.' He looked at her. ‘It took us two hours to get it under control. There were six fire engines all pouring water into the place. And one of the clocks on the mantelpiece of the downstairs sitting room had stopped at just after eleven.'

Martha almost burst out laughing. ‘Oh, don't give me that old mushroom,' she teased. ‘“The clock stopped at –” It's always a fake.'

‘Well, it would fit in with the damage and everything else,' Agnew said, standing his ground.

‘OK.' Martha turned to go then stopped. ‘Oh, and the rope ladder?'

The fireman nodded. ‘Still attached to the wall.'

Alex had moved behind her, watching her very carefully indeed. So hard that one would have thought he was trying to divine her thoughts, poach them and take them for his own, but in reality he was probably wondering where her line of reasoning would take her.

Her mobile phone rang then. It was Mark Sullivan, the pathologist. ‘Hello, Martha,' he said. ‘Sorry to call your mobile. I did try the office but Jericho said you were out.' He chuckled. ‘Naturally he wouldn't tell me
where
you were. He protects your privacy with admirable zeal. Where
are
you?'

‘At the scene of the fire,' she answered. ‘I thought I should take a look.'

‘I was wondering about the post-mortems,' he said. ‘Will you want to attend?'

‘It depends, Mark. When were you thinking of doing them?'

‘Tomorrow morning?'

‘Then, no. Sorry, Mark, I can't make it. Prior engagement. Perhaps you'd drop by my office on Monday morning and run through your findings?'

‘Sure. See you then.' And he ended the call.

PC Gethin Roberts drove her back to her office. She couldn't resist asking him about his dramatic rescue. ‘Are you all right, Constable?'

‘Slight burns to my hands,' he said, indicating a bulky dressing on one of them. ‘Apart from that I'm fine.' His eyes slid across to her. ‘Bit shaken up, to be honest.'

‘It was very brave of you.' She hesitated. ‘Jude, the boy, he escaped using his rope ladder. How come he went back in to the house?'

‘He wanted to try and rescue his mum and sister.'

‘And grandfather?'

‘He only said his mum and sister. But then he was in shock. His clothes were alight. He was hysterical. He must have been in a lot of pain. He was babbling on about his mum and sister but didn't mention his grandfather. Mind you, there was so much noise, shouting and confusion that he might have done and I just didn't hear him.'

They'd reached her office. ‘Thank you, Gethin.'

The PC blushed.

‘I hope your hand isn't too painful?'

He shook his head.

‘And that it gets better soon.'

‘Thank you, ma'am.'

She closed the door.

Martha spent the rest of the afternoon doing paperwork, dictating letters and signing forms, but her mind kept drifting back to that smoke-blackened house, the sad sight of the three bodies, the destruction of the rooms in which the two women had been locked, the thought of Adelaide cowering underneath her bedclothes, her mother desperately trying to escape. And the boy, Jude, shimmying down the rope ladder like a superhero. The rope ladder itself, which he had thought to acquire as his escape route. Why?

And when her mind drifted from this it was to relive the mortifying embarrassment she had felt when DI Alex Randall felt obliged to answer her probing and intrusive question. Even now she felt hot with embarrassment at the thought and wished her brain would erase that particular memory.

Eventually, although the rest of the day dragged, like all Friday afternoons, she finished her work and was ready to leave.