by Vicky Newham
He was nodding. ‘One’s definitely male. The other one looks like it’s female.’ His eyes communicated possible interpretations of what they’d found.
Shit. Poor Indra. ‘Is he sure?’
‘We’re trying to check, but he’s pretty certain. The time on Andy’s breathing apparatus runs out in a few minutes so he’s got to come out, but we’re going to lower Bill in next. If we’re lucky, he can grab a few samples, but everything depends on the temperature.’
‘Do whatever you can, please. We have to find out who’s responsible for this. Rosa Feldman nearly died. Now we’ve now got two confirmed deaths and—’
‘What’s going on?’ Indra was striding towards us, yelling. ‘What’s he found? Is my husband in there?’
‘I’m sorry. I can’t confirm anything until we’ve made a formal ID.’
‘But someone is definitely dead?’ Her green eyes were pools of tears. ‘It’s Simas, isn’t it? I knew it as soon as I got the call.’ Her hand was clasped over her mouth as she stifled sobs. ‘Was it the gas?’ Suddenly, Indra winced with pain and clamped her hand to her belly. ‘We had cylinders . . . in the . . . ’ She grabbed hold of her sister’s arm, let out an agonised scream and fell to the ground like a dropped towel.
‘Help,’ Marta shouted. ‘Paramedics. Over here.’
Indra lay on the pavement, her slender frame writhing in agony, her face a deathly white.
Marta was kneeling at her sister’s side, leaning over, her hand on Indra’s forehead. ‘Hurry. She’s pregnant.’
Maya, 5.30 p.m.
Minutes later, Indra was in an ambulance. The vehicle rattled out of Brick Lane, siren shrieking into the evening air, blue lights slicing through the darkness.
‘I hope she’s OK.’ I was standing with Dan and Simon.
‘And the baby,’ Dan added as I marched over to Chapel. I had to fill him in on what Indra had said about gas cylinders in the shop.
His demeanour tightened. ‘Did she say where?’
‘No. Just “we had gas cylinders”. That was it.’
‘Shit. That means we could have an explosion. Oh Christ. The whole street could go up.’ He grabbed hold of his radio and sprang into action. ‘Right. Emergency procedures.’ Chapel pointed away from the soup shop. ‘Both of you,’ he said to Dan and me, ‘start moving people back. We need to extend the cordon a further five shops. Tell everyone who isn’t family to go home as soon as they’ve spoken to the police.’ He began shouting clipped instructions into his radio to the lift operator. ‘Gas alert. Get Andy down from the platform and over to us as quick as you can. Repeat. Get Andy down.’ He switched channels on his radio. ‘All crew. All crew. Gas alert. All crew away from the building. Repeat. Gas alert. All crew to me at the front of the barber’s shop. Prepare for emergency evacuation procedures. Over.’
Within seconds, fire officers reported in to their crew leader and Simon filled them in.
‘We don’t know the details or whether the cylinders have already gone up. We need to evacuate everyone three shops each side. Tell them to go to family, friends or a hotel until we give the all-clear.’ Simon fixed his gaze on each of his officers in turn and issued instructions.
The team burst into action and the fire officers each marched towards the premises they’d been allocated.
‘Gas emergency. Clear the area, please,’ Simon shouted at the emergency services staff who were still hanging around to the left of the soup shop. He checked progress with the lift and made sure the cordon had been widened adequately.
People streamed out of shops, onto the street, wide-eyed and terrified, and were herded to beyond the new cordon. The lift lowered Andy onto the pavement. The operator jumped out of his cab to meet him and steered him towards the cordon as quickly as he could. Here, we were waiting.
Andy began removing his breathing apparatus and climbed out of his protective clothing and head gear. ‘It’s definitely a man and a woman in there,’ he said. ‘They’re curled round each other on what looks like a bed.’
‘Did you manage to get any photographs?’
He nodded. ‘Let me grab a swig of water.’ He was laying his kit out as he removed it. Mask, oxygen cylinders, thermal suit, thermal imaging camera. Dust and debris flew everywhere. For a moment it made me think of the way people lay out bodies after disasters.
‘Poor Indra,’ I said to Dan. Thank goodness she had her sister with her. Losing her husband and business were awful enough.
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Things are going to get even worse for her when she finds out about the other body.’
‘You know what the media are like. As soon as they get hold of the story, they’ll splash her personal life all over the TV. It’ll be on the internet and in all the papers. It’s going to be awful for her. And when we broadcast a public appeal for information on the woman, it’s going to increase speculation further.’ While Andy removed his gear, I was turning over in my mind who the best person would be to tell us – in Indra’s absence – whether the man in the photographs was Simas Gudelis. A reliable ID would depend on how burned the body was. Hopefully, we could identify the victims from the images the medical officer had taken and wouldn’t have to rely on dental records or DNA analysis. A thought occurred to me. ‘Dan, can you see if there’s an image of Simas online? A mug shot that we can use as a temporary reference point?’
He swiped his phone into life. ‘Here we go. The soup shop has a website.’ Dan was clicking through the website pages. ‘Simas Gudelis and Indra Ulbiene. Lithuanian. Both from Vilnius originally. They’ve lived in Tower Hamlets for three years, and before that they lived in Cambridgeshire for two years.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Agricultural labourers on various farm camps.’
He showed me an image of the two of them, outside their shop. They stood at their blue front door. The man was shaking a bottle of champagne and the woman was cutting a piece of yellow tape. She was recognisable as the one we had just met, although her build and muscle tone were heftier then and her hair was darker. Simas was taller than Indra. A brown line clung to his jawline and top lip, and he had thick eyebrows. At least we had something to go on.
Andy was rubbing his unmasked face as though wanting to shake off the things he’d seen. ‘Extremely unpleasant in there.’
‘I bet. Could we look through the photographs on your camera? We need to ID the bodies.’
‘Sure.’ He fetched it from the ground and passed it over.
With Dan looking on, I flicked through the camera’s memory card. The images showed two bodies, lying on a surface with their arms round each other. The pose – the man curled round the woman like a spoon – was a peaceful one but their melted, greasy appearance and the fire-charred room was a vision of agony.
‘Jeez.’ Unless they’d grabbed hold of each other out of terror, it suggested they’d been curled up in bed together when the fumes and flames got to them.
‘If it’s any consolation,’ Andy said, ‘the two people in that room would have become unconscious extremely quickly and died within minutes. The accelerant was focussed on the hall and staircase. The fire will have ripped through the centre of the building.’
In the image, the man’s face was shiny and burned back to tissues and fat, but his cheeks and the area around his mouth was much darker, which could be from having a beard and moustache.
Dan lined his phone up with the camera so that one of the internet images was next to the shot. ‘Looks like him, doesn’t it?’
‘There are definitely similarities but it’s hard to be sure from these images.’ It was frustrating. Facial profiling might help but it wasn’t a reliable method on its own. ‘We need to find out from Indra if she has anything of Simas’ which might have his DNA on.’
‘And whether he had any identifying marks,’ said Dan. ‘The sister might be able to help too.’
I glanced at the images again. ‘We can’t be certain it’s Simas, but it seems probable. Let’s hope
someone has reported the woman missing.’
‘I’ll get Alexej to check the MisPer Register.’ Dan began to dial on his mobile.
I faced Andy again. ‘Can we take a copy of a few of these photographs as an interim?’
‘Sure.’
It took Dan a couple of moments to copy a few of the images into secure cloud storage and we made our way off the crime scene.
Just as we reached the car, a tall, mousey-haired man strode towards us. ‘Hey. Police. Wait a moment.’ It was a clipped, East London accent. His black, military-style trench-coat flapped with each stride and his eyes were darting around the scene.
The voice was familiar.
Maya, 6 p.m.
‘Someone said my mother’s been taken to hospital.’ The man was peering through the window of the newsagent’s and looking over at the wreckage of the soup shop.
Of course. That’s why he was familiar. It was Tomasz Feldman. The man in front of me was tall, a couple of years older than I was – but last time I’d seen him, he’d been a teenager.
‘Is Mum OK? Where is she?’ He took in the scene of devastation. ‘Why’s the street being evacuated?’
‘Your mother has been taken to the Royal London Hospital.’ Perhaps he didn’t recognise me?
‘Christ. She’s asthmatic.’
‘She’s inhaled smoke and was in a bad way. I gather her condition is stable now. She was in the street when the fire broke out and must’ve struggled back into the newsagent’s. I found her on the floor behind the counter.’
‘Thank you so much. Sounds like you saved her life.’ He had the same kind manner as when we were kids. ‘I’ll get down to the hospital and see if she needs anything.’
‘I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Maya Rahman. My sister and I used to—?’
His face softened. ‘Oh, I remember you two. The pick-n-mix,’ he said with a note of amused affection. ‘I was sorry to read about your brother. Dreadful thing to happen.’
‘Thank you.’ I paused to recalibrate and tell him about the gas in the soup shop. ‘The reason we’ve evac—’
‘It’s very damp in your mother’s shop.’ Dan’s interruption broke my train of thought. ‘Couldn’t you help her to get the heating updated?’
I shot Dan an unimpressed look. ‘Er – this is my sergeant, DS Maguire.’
‘I’ve been trying, believe me,’ Tomasz replied. ‘Spent the last ten years trying to get Dad to sort it out. Even offered to organise and pay for the work myself but the old man wouldn’t hear of it. Said the place was fine.’ He raised his hand in a baffled gesture. ‘Everyone can see it’s been neglected for years. With Dad, unfortunately, I think it was pride.’ He focused his gaze on me. ‘But it’s created an impasse as Mum seems to feel some misguided sense of loyalty now that Dad’s dead, and she won’t agree to work being done either. I’ve offered to put her up in one of my properties while the work is done but she won’t hear of it. I’ve run out of ideas.’
‘What’s your line of business?’ I wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t followed his parents into running the newsagent’s. He’d always seemed ambitious.
‘I own some property and I have a bar.’
‘Around here?’
‘A bit further towards Shoreditch.’ He gestured behind him with his thumb.
Dan was already on his phone. He seemed to have taken a dislike to Rosa’s son.
‘Do you live up there too?’ I asked.
‘Yes. When my sister and I left home, she moved out to Newham and I stayed in Tower Hamlets. She had a family and when Dad got sick, it was easier for me to keep an eye on Mum when I was up the road.’
‘Are you in touch with your sister much?’ She’d been a few years younger than me I’d never got to know her.
‘Agnieszka? Oh, yes. We both do what we can to help Mum. Especially now Dad’s not around.’ He paused, as though he was deciding what to say. ‘It isn’t easy. I don’t think they make them like her anymore.’ He gave a small, frustrated laugh. ‘Perhaps it’s a generational thing: being born at the end of the war and emigrating . . . ? It must have been hard. She’s fiercely independent and not good at asking for help. The old man was extremely proud. He didn’t like help either.’ His smile creased the corners of his mouth, and the obvious affection made his thoughtful brown eyes shine.
His comments reminded me of my own mother, and I wondered how she would have coped, slogging away in a shop, organising orders and deliveries, and doing business accounts at the age of seventy-five, after losing her husband months earlier.
‘Agnieszka and I both told them to give up the shop years ago. Things have changed round here. All the people Mum and Dad knew have moved out of Brick Lane.’ He pointed, first at Alchemia, with its new glitzy shopfront, and then at his mother’s newsagent. ‘It’s sounds harsh but no-one needs Basildon Bond envelopes and jars of instant coffee when we are surrounded by espresso bars and supermarkets.’ He checked his watch. ‘I’d better shoot. I want to get to the hospital and make sure she’s OK.’
‘Before you dash off, we’ll need your contact details.’ I signalled for one of the uniformed officers. ‘When did you last see your mother?’
‘First thing this morning.’ The frown clouded his features briefly and I noticed that his hair was scattered with grey at the temples. ‘I helped her with a delivery. The boxes were far too heavy for her and the driver dumped them in the street.’
‘Did you see any activity over the road at the soup shop?’
‘I saw Indra leave around nine. The shop was shut up. That’s extremely unusual for them.’
Maya, 6.15 p.m.
As Dan and I walked away from the crime scene, my thoughts shifted from Rosa Feldman. It was clear that the fire was arson, so we now had a double murder and two people in hospital, both extremely ill. I’d need to report in to Superintendent Campbell and request she appoint me SIO. Questions were swirling in my mind, and I was determined that whoever was responsible would be brought to justice.
I dialled the hospital and asked to be put through to the ward. Rosa was much better but was refusing to go and stay with her daughter. ‘Rosa has been having more nightmares,’ I told Dan once I’d rung off. ‘She’s waking up screaming, convinced she’s back in Warsaw.’
‘Poor lady. If she was born at the end of the war, the German army razed the city to the ground. The Soviet troops finished it off a year later. I’m not surprised the fire has triggered traumatic memories.’
‘Once she’s awake she knows she’s not back in Poland, but she insists that the only place she feels safe is at the newsagent’s . . . ’
‘. . . which may be true but isn’t necessarily what’s best for her.’
‘How on earth can she return to the shop after inhaling all that smoke?’ I asked.
Dan was pensive. ‘I’m sure her kids will see her right. Tomasz has gone to the hospital, so he’ll find out about the dreams. It sounds like he’s got property to put her up in.’
As we walked away, a gaggle of reporters swarmed towards us, clutching microphones and filming equipment, and shouting questions. Cameras flashed in my face, blinding me temporarily. I blinked and recognised a slim figure in a full-length coat at the front of the group. Her usual long black tresses had been pulled up into a faux-casual top-knot, and she was wearing her trademark four-inch heels.
‘Inspector Rahman.’ Suzie James’ rasping voice was unmistakeable. ‘What can you tell us about the fire?’
I took a deep breath and gathered my thoughts. At this stage of the investigation, I couldn’t afford to antagonise the press or get into a skirmish with Suzie.
‘Has anyone been killed and was it arson?’ Another reporter shouted and shoved a microphone at me.
I stopped and prepared to address the group. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Maya Rahman. An investigation is underway following the fire at the Brick Lane Soup Company this afternoon. The fire is being treated as deliberate, and my team and I are working hard t
o piece together the sequence of events and to apprehend whoever may be responsible.’ I paused, wanting to emphasise our request for help from the community. ‘We are appealing for a number of critical pieces of information. Firstly, we want to hear from anyone who was at the flash mob or in the shop area this morning. If you saw anyone acting suspiciously, or have smartphone video footage, please contact us. Secondly, anyone who has been unable to contact a friend or loved one since the fire, please call us. At the moment, we have two fatalities, and we need help identifying one of these. We are keen to hear about anyone who is missing or from anyone who cannot contact a female friend, sister, mother or daughter. Any information, no matter how insignificant it may seem, please contact the incident room at Limehouse Police Station. Thank you.’ I checked my watch. ‘I’ll take a few quick questions.’
A cacophony of voices broke out.
‘Where is the shopkeeper, Mr Gudelis?’ a local journalist shouted.
‘We are trying to establish his whereabouts,’ I replied.
‘Is this a hate crime?’ shouted a reporter for The Messenger.
‘We have no evidence of that.’
‘You’re not ruling it out though?’
‘We are pursuing a number of lines of enquiry.’
‘We’ve seen Mrs Gudelis. Who is the other fire victim?’
‘We’re waiting for a formal ID.’
‘Are we likely to see a wave of arson attacks in East London? Copycat flash mobs and property torching? Bit like the way the London riots spread.’
The man’s question hit me like a smack in the face. Tony was a reporter who’d worked for the City Eye for as long as I could remember. He was famous for his sensationalist headlines.
‘We have no reason to believe that’s going to happen and would urge you not to scaremonger, Tony, please. We want to encourage people to come forward with information, not send the city into panic.’
‘That’s a yes, then.’
I gritted my teeth.
‘Does this case have personal involvement for you too, Inspector?’ Suzie’s question purred through a beautifully lipsticked mouth, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to catch her jeer.
