by Peter James
She turned to run back in. The small officer stepped in her path. ‘The fire brigade will be here any moment. They’ll have equipment and they’ll go straight in,’ the officer said.
‘Do you know where in the building she is?’ Bella asked her urgently. In the distance she could hear the faint but distinct wail of multiple sirens. Then, as she looked up, she suddenly saw a dog, frantically barking and leaping against the window on the third floor. A beautiful golden retriever.
‘She’s in there with the dog! Megan! My daughter’s in there. Megan. Megan’s in there, she wouldn’t leave without him. Rocky. He wouldn’t move. The whole place was filled with smoke. I kept calling him and he wouldn’t come.’ The woman looked up. ‘I have to go back, I have to get Megan!’ She tried to sidestep the policeman but he blocked her path again.
‘No,’ the bespectacled police officer said. ‘You can’t go back in. I can’t allow you. My colleague will go.’
‘No, I’ll go,’ Bella said.
‘I HAVE TO!’ There was utter panic in the woman’s voice.
The retriever was getting increasingly frantic. Bella stared at its face, at the poor, helpless creature, and felt a stab in her heart for it. Where the hell was the little girl?
The woman pushed the shorter policeman so hard he almost fell. ‘I’m going in! I’ll just dash up and grab Megan!’ she said, and strode determinedly towards the front door in her slippered feet.
The taller officer ran over and grabbed her arm. ‘I’m sorry, madam, I can’t allow you to go back inside.’
‘Do you know where in the building she is?’ Bella asked her again, even more urgently, as she headed towards the front door herself.
‘It’s my child!’ The woman shook her head in bewilderment. ‘My child! She’s going to die. I can’t – I can’t leave her. Don’t you understand? Let me go!’
‘We can’t allow you to go in, madam, for your safety,’ the officer said. ‘The fire brigade will be here in a minute. They’ll go in with their breathing apparatus and get her. Meantime my colleague’s going in now.’
‘It’ll be too late!’ She raised her voice then shouted hysterically, ‘SOMEONE HELP ME! PLEASE, SOMEONE HELP ME GET MY CHILD!’ Then she broke free of the officer’s grip, and ran towards the door. One slipper came off and she ignored it. He ran after her and seized her arm firmly again. ‘I’m sorry, I cannot allow you to go back in.’
‘YOU HAVE TO!’ she screamed.
Bella called out, ‘What flat number?’
‘Five,’ the woman replied. ‘Third floor. Please hurry! Please, please, please hurry!’
Bella looked up at the window, where she could see the dog was physically hurling itself at the glass. She’d been here less than a minute but it seemed already much longer. ‘Megan’s her name, yes?’
‘Yes. And Rocky!’
Bella pushed open the front door. The smell of smoke was faint in here and the stairs looked clear. This wasn’t going to be a problem, she thought. She ran up the first flight, calling the girl’s name, and immediately entered a thin mist of vile-smelling smoke on the first-floor landing, swirling like tendrils around her. The stairs ahead were in darkness. Above her she could hear the frantic screams of the girl. ‘MUMMY! MUMMY! MUMMY!’
Bella threw herself up to the second floor. The smoke was thicker here and she could feel heat coming through the wall to her right. She coughed, her throat stinging, pulled off her coat and held the collar over her face, breathing through it as she ran on up to the next floor, which was in darkness.
The door marked Number 5 was open, with ghostly whorls of grey smoke, like seahorses, pouring out. ‘Megan! MEGAN!’ she shouted.
She heard the little girl crying and screaming nearby and the sound of barking. She took a deep breath and entered, feeling instantly disoriented, the smoke stinging her eyes, and shouted out, ‘Hello! Megan! Where are you! Call your name so I know where you are!’
She heard the girl shouting her name.
Bella called back, ‘Where are you?’ Then she gagged. She coughed and felt like she was inhaling oil-soaked cotton; her eyes were watering so much she was virtually blinded. She needed to get out of here, she knew, but she couldn’t leave the girl. ‘Megan!’ she called out again, then coughed, painfully. She stumbled over something in the narrow hallway, a toy of some kind, then crunched on some pieces of what felt like Lego. Coughing. Coughing. She could hear barking now.
‘Megan!’
Coughing again, she fumbled for a light switch, keeping her coat collar firmly over her mouth and nose. The carpet beneath her feet felt warm, as if there was underfloor heating turned up too high. She found a light switch but nothing happened. The smoke momentarily cleared and she could see a closed door in front of her, and she could hear barking on the other side of it.
But she was aware of backdraft danger. Or, she wondered, was it flashover danger? She felt confused about whether or not to open the door. Suddenly, behind her, flames were filling the doorway. Melted, scalding plastic was dripping down onto her. Light fittings and cables were falling around her like scorching tentacles. Bella screamed in pain as one struck her cheek. Get low, she remembered from a previous fire she had attended, talking to the firefighters present afterwards. It wasn’t the fire that killed most people, it was inhaling the toxic fumes. She crouched lower and lower. Saw little flashes above her, like angels dancing. Then she saw the edge of a sofa burning, the flames getting increasingly intense.
Christ, how long did she have before flashover?
It sounded like the girl, screaming, and the barking dog were on the other side of the door. Bella seized the handle and carefully pushed it open. From the small amount of daylight in the room, penetrating the increasingly dense, acrid smoke, she could just make out the shape of a little girl cowering in the middle of the floor, holding the dog.
Suddenly the wall to her left began glowing, as if it was covered in red, fluorescent coral. The curtains and wallpaper were on fire, she realized. Christ. She was scared. Had to get out, now. She ran forward and grabbed the girl, and tried to grab the dog, which was whining in terror, but it ran out of reach and disappeared.
Which way?
Then she could see a figure at the window, and realized it must be the fire brigade.
She dragged the girl towards the window, keeping as low as she could, coughing more and more, increasingly blinded by the stinging smoke. The floor beneath her was getting hotter. She reached the sash window, and between her and the firefighter managed to lever it up sufficiently for her to push the girl through into his arms.
Almost instantly there was a deafening roar of flames behind her. She heard a splintering sound, and suddenly she was falling through air. The floor must have collapsed, she realized in her terror. She landed hard and fell forward in agony. It felt as though she had broken her leg. All around her the room was glowing. Her head was spinning. The floor was getting hotter. Her face was burning; she felt as if she was inside a huge oven. She was going to faint. Keep going. Must keep going. She lay flat on the floor. Then, suddenly, through the dense smoke above her, she could see flickering lights. Flames, she realized. ‘Norman,’ she mumbled. ‘Please come and get me, Norman, I’m scared.’
She knew she must not panic. Just keep focused. She tried to figure out where the window must be. Something searing hot fell on her face, and she desperately brushed it away, burning her hand. Then something else, hot and stringy. She pulled her coat over her head, sucking frantically through the fibres of the cloth for air, but all that came through were hot, oily fumes. She coughed again. Then again. Panicking from lack of air, totally blinded by smoke and tears now. ‘Help me!’ she cried out. Then she crawled forward again on all fours, keeping the coat pressed against her face. ‘Norman!’
Suddenly, she realized the coat was on fire.
Noooooo. In total panic, she pushed it away from her, and scrabbled forward as fast as she could go. Had to get to a window. Had to. Had to.
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br /> Then flames erupted right in front of her.
No. Please no.
She spun round and scrabbled away from them. And suddenly saw an entire wall of flame in front of her.
She spun sideways.
More flames.
Her face felt like it was cooking. She breathed in something that might have been scalding oil. It burned her throat and her lungs. ‘Please help me,’ she said. ‘Oh God, please help me. Where’s Norman?’
The floor was cracking beneath her. It was moving. Swaying. She rolled to her right, thrown by sudden movement. It was buckling. The floor was collapsing. She was gasping for air. But all she breathed in were increasing amounts of the oppressive, choking smoke.
Outside in the street there was chaos, with half the road taped off. Inside the cordon were three fire appliances, the fire officer’s car, two ambulances and two marked police cars. Water sprayed in through the lower windows from two powerful hoses.
Beyond the cordon stood the gaggle of residents forlornly watching the attempt to save their homes. Mingled with them were several reporters and photographers, and a growing crowd, even at this early hour, photographing or filming the scene with their phones. And some, no doubt, tweeting excitedly, Bryce Laurent thought. He was watching from a safe distance on the far side of Marine Parade, sitting in his van, smiling. Yes. The whole building was well alight now. Helped by the fact it had taken the fire engines so long to arrive. Thanks to his plan.
From his brief time in the fire service, he knew where all the fire appliances that served the city of Brighton and Hove were located. The nearest to here, in Kemp Town, were in Roedean. He had sent those ones going in the opposite direction by a 999 call to say there was a fire in an apartment building on the far side of Rottingdean. The next nearest were in Preston Circus, in central Brighton. He’d sent them to a fire in the AmEx stadium, to the north-east of the city, phoning on a different mobile phone and with a different accent, just in case it was the same operator. The ones that had finally arrived first had come from Hove, nearly ten minutes away. That was all the time that had been needed.
Flames were now leaping out of the window of the top floor, the fourth. The front window of the flat Red had taken her parents to see, that she was so excited to be buying. Where she had come out on the terrace with her parents, and talked excitedly about the view.
Not any more, kiddo.
The elegant front facade of the Royal Regent was already blackened with smoke, and flames were visible in every window. The firefighters had briefly run a ladder up the front, but they’d had to retreat soon after. Of course they had, they were up against a professional! It looked from here as if there might be someone trapped in the building. That was too bad, he thought. Collateral damage. Sad, but shit happened.
The important thing was that Red wasn’t going to be moving in here anytime soon. She wasn’t going to be moving in here ever! She wasn’t going to be moving in anywhere ever again.
He looked at his watch. 8.09 a.m. Time for some breakfast. He had a long and busy day ahead, with a very important appointment at midday.
He was all prepared for it.
Across the road there was a bit of a commotion. The woman in her dressing gown was with the little girl who had come down the ladder, and another child, at the back of an ambulance, was being treated by the paramedics. A camera crew was filming her and several people were gathering around, momentarily obscuring his view. Then, through a gap, he could see a dog. It was one of those golden retriever labrador dogs, wagging its tail. Although this one was far from golden – it looked like it had been rolling in soot.
In happier times, Red had talked excitedly about getting a dog like that. She said they were intelligent, caring pets, which is why they were used so much as guide dogs for the blind.
To him, they had always looked dumb. And that one across the road looked as dumb as they came.
Two firefighters in breathing apparatus and holding thermal-imaging cameras emerged from the front door. They had a defeated air about them. Hardly surprising, Bryce thought. He’d done a good job. No amount of firefighters were going to be able to put out what he had started here, he’d seen to that. This building was going to be a demolition project. It would be years before it was rebuilt.
How are you going to feel about that one, Red?
88
Monday, 4 November
Glenn Branson felt a little nervous taking this Monday morning’s briefing without Roy Grace present. True, Roy had been absent for both the ones yesterday, but at least he had been near Brighton, and easily contactable. Now the newlyweds would be getting ready to leave for the airport, for their honeymoon, and there was no way he could, or would want to, disturb them.
He’d spent much of yesterday closeted with a senior Surrey homicide detective, Detective Inspector Paul Williamson, reviewing where Operation Aardvark was to date. It was normal to have regular reviews by an outsider, to help the SIO ensure nothing had been overlooked.
Although Williamson agreed that the forensic evidence pointed to Matt Wainwright, he remarked that there was nothing in the man’s history to indicate that he would behave in this way. Wainwright’s reputation with the fire brigade was exemplary, and he was in a stable, happy family relationship. Yes, he had a motive, but they both felt it was a weak one. They reviewed the recording of Wainwright’s first interview, and Glenn had to agree the man’s protestations of his innocence were convincing.
Although Wainwright had not been eliminated from the investigation and was out on police bail, the focus remained on finding Bryce Laurent.
‘Okay, right,’ he said, staring at the sea of faces of his team gathered around the table in the conference room. ‘Any overnight developments?’
Haydn Kelly, dressed in a black pinstriped suit, white shirt and brushed silk black tie, raised his hand. ‘Glenn,’ the forensic podiatrist said. ‘I’d like everyone to look at this whiteboard.’ He pointed to a new one which had been erected alongside the boards displaying the crime-scene photographs of Dr Karl Murphy’s body at the golf course and the association charts.
On the left side of the board, there was a close-up of a single boot print in wet grass, and another photograph of a row of them in the same wet grass. To the right of these, a profile photograph of a firefighter’s boot and a zoomed image of the sole of that boot. There were two computer printout graphs beside them, marked A and B.
Using a laser pointer, Kelly put the red dot first on the close-up of the print taken at the golf course. ‘Firstly, let’s view the single boot print in the grass.’ After a few seconds’ pause to allow the audience to digest the observations, he then moved the dot onto the image of the firefighter’s boot. ‘This is a photograph of one of the matching pair of boots found in Fire Officer Matt Wainwright’s car.’ He swung the dot over to the zoomed image of the sole. ‘This is the sole of that boot. This is an exact match of the boot print in the grass taken at the golf course.’ He moved the beam to the next photograph of the row of prints. ‘And these are an exact match, also. There is no doubt that these prints found at the crime scene were made by this pair of boots.’ He paused.
‘Which puts Matt Wainwright at the crime scene, right?’ DS Batchelor said.
Kelly gave him the kind of benign smile a teacher might give to a pupil who’d had a good but unsuccessful guess at an answer. ‘Let’s have a look at these two graphs.’ He swung the red laser dot onto the one marked ‘A’. Then he ran the dot over it, tracing the zigzag pattern. ‘I fed CCTV images of Matt Wainwright in the custody block into my forensic gait analysis software, and this graph shows his gait pattern.’
‘Looks a bit pissed if you ask me – all that zigzagging!’ Norman Potting said. There were a few titters of laughter, and he looked around with a grin.
‘I don’t think so,’ Kelly said, humouring him politely. ‘Now, this is where it gets interesting.’ He moved the dot across the graph marked ‘B’, and again traced the zigzag line.
‘Quite different, yes?’ He gave the team a quizzical look.
Several people nodded.
‘There’s a reason,’ Kelly said. ‘As those of you who’ve been on other recent investigations with Detective Superintendent Grace know from my previous work, we are able to identify the gait of someone from their footprints.’ He pointed the laser dot back on graph A. ‘This is the gait of the person who left those footprints at the crime scene at Haywards Heath Golf Club. He was wearing Matt Wainwright’s boots, for sure.’ He paused for emphasis. ‘But it wasn’t Wainwright who made the prints.’
‘So who did?’ Dave Green asked.
‘Well,’ the forensic podiatrist said. ‘I’m sorry to rain on your parade, but my guess is it was the killer.’
‘Which means Wainwright isn’t our man?’
‘Quite possibly,’ Kelly said, nodding.
It didn’t come as a total shock to Glenn, after yesterday’s review, and the result of some of their enquiries.
A doctor had been murdered and his body set on fire; a restaurant had been burned to the ground; a supermarket had been torched; a car had been set on fire; a house had been burned down. A yacht that was a potential floating time bomb was in Naval custody. The banner headline of this morning’s Argus read: SUSSEX ARSONIST SUSPECT ARRESTED.
He was now faced with the realization that Red Westwood was still in deadly danger. He asked, ‘How certain are you, Haydn? There must be some margin for error, right?’
Before Kelly could answer, an internal phone rang. DC Alexander, who was nearest it, picked it up. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Oh, yes, sir. He’s right here.’ He turned to Branson and passed the receiver over. ‘Boss, it’s Chief Superintendent Kemp.’
Branson frowned. Nev Kemp was the Divisional Commander of Brighton and Hove. He would be unlikely to be calling him personally unless it was an important matter. Mouthing an apology to the team, he took the receiver. ‘DI Branson,’ he said deferentially. ‘Good morning, sir.’
