The Sh0ut

by Stephen Leather

  Farmer tilted his head on one side as he looked at her. ‘You’ve read the manual, have you?’

  Vicky nodded enthusiastically. ‘Front to back and back to front.’

  ‘There’s no such thing,’ said Farmer. ‘The brigade doesn’t have a manual.’

  ‘I meant NFPA 921 and Kirks Fire Investigation.’

  ‘And you read them both?’

  Vicky nodded.

  ‘Really? So you’ll know the five steps of risk assessment at a fire scene?’

  She nodded earnestly. ‘Sure. Step one: determine the hazards present in the working area. Step two: determine who may be exposed to the hazards. Step three: evaluate risks and decide if existing precautions are adequate. Step four: record the risks and any actions taken to eliminate or mitigate these risks. Step five: review the risks regularly.’ She smiled, knowing that she’d nailed it.

  Farmer didn’t appear to be impressed. ‘And if you determine that it is safe to proceed, what questions are we looking to answer?’

  ‘Where did the fire start? What caused it? How did it spread? Was it accidental or deliberate?’

  ‘Anything else?’

  Her eyes narrowed as she tried to remember what she’d read. ‘The people in the fire. What did they do? And how did the fire precaution measures perform?’

  Farmer stared at her thoughtfully for a few seconds, then nodded and stood up.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, reaching for his tunic and helmet. ‘Dump your bag in the corner and come with me.’

  13

  They went downstairs into the station and Farmer handed her a set of keys and nodded at a red Volkswagen Transporter with a yellow stripe around it and Fire Investigation Unit markings. ‘I assume you can drive,’ he said curtly.

  ‘Yes, guv,’ said Vicky, unlocking the door and climbing into the front seat. She reached for the satnav. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Don’t use that thing,’ he said. ‘I’ll talk you through it.’ He slammed the door and fastened his seatbelt.

  She drove out of the station and he told her to head east to Whitechapel. The traffic was light and it took them less than half an hour to reach their destination. Farmer didn’t say anything during the drive, or while she parked in a side street of terraced houses. As soon as she climbed out of the van, Vicky saw the reason for their trip – one of the houses had clearly been damaged in a major fire. Plywood panels had been nailed across the downstairs window and two planks had been nailed across a badly burnt door. The brickwork was streaked with soot, but only on the ground floor.

  ‘This was a fire two days ago,’ said Farmer. ‘Four pumps. No one hurt but it could have very easily turned nasty.’

  ‘Arson?’ asked Vicky.

  ‘You tell me,’ said Farmer.

  Vicky walked up to the front door and peered through the gap between the planks. Someone had sprayed capital letters in red paint across the wood. ‘ASYLAM SEEKERS OUT’.

  ‘Spelling wasn’t their strong point,’ said Vicky. ‘Was the graffiti done the same time as the fire?’

  ‘Apparently. Right, we can go in the back way. I just wanted you to see the damage to the front. Any initial thoughts as to the seat of the fire?’

  ‘Downstairs, obviously,’ said Vicky, pointing at the scorch marks. She peered at the burnt door, then looked at the boarded-up window. ‘Was the window smashed?’

  ‘It was, but by the firefighters. The front room was well alight so they put water in through the window.’ He started walking down the street and Vicky hurried to catch up with him.

  ‘Does this happen a lot around here?’ she asked.

  ‘Fires? No more than anywhere else.’

  ‘I mean attacks like this? Are there racist groups locally who would do something like this?’

  ‘There’s racists everywhere,’ said Farmer. He turned left and took her to an alley that ran behind the houses. Wooden doors led off the alley, left and right, and they walked along to the one that led to the burnt house. There was police tape across the door and Farmer pulled it away. The door had been kicked in. Farmer pushed it open. ‘More brigade damage,’ he said. ‘They sent two men in the back just to make sure no one was trapped there.’ The door led to a paved garden the width of the house and about ten feet deep. There was no fire damage and two plastic rubbish bins stood against the wall. Plywood had been nailed across the back door and Farmer ripped it away. The door was lying on the kitchen floor. There was a strong smell of smoke but there didn’t appear to be any fire damage in the kitchen. There was no water damage in the kitchen either. ‘So they didn’t bring a line around the back?’

  ‘They were able to deal with it at the front,’ said Farmer. He pulled open the door that led to the hallway. The side away from them was burned black but it had obviously held the fire back. ‘Shows the value of closing all doors at night, if nothing else,’ said Farmer. ‘Be careful here, it’s a wooden floor and it’s been compromised in several places.’

  She moved into the hallway. The smoke smell was much stronger now and she stopped. She gasped as she pictured the hallway in flames. The vision was so strong that she could almost feel the heat on her face and she took a step back.

  ‘Sweetheart, are you okay?’ asked Farmer.

  Vicky took a deep breath. ‘Yes, guv.’

  ‘You looked like you’d seen a ghost.’

  ‘Yeah, I don’t know what happened. But I’m okay. Really, I’m okay.’

  ‘Come on, then, have a look around and tell me what you see.’

  There had been a carpet covering the hall floor but much of it had been destroyed in the fire. Most of the floorboards were charred and around the bottom of the stairs they had burned through in places. By the look of it the fire had spread up the stairs, charring the walls and covering the ceiling with soot. The firefighters had soaked everything to stop the fire reigniting and there was a thick layer of sooty mud across the floor and stairs.

  Vicky watched where she was putting her feet as she walked up to the front door. Farmer was right: the floorboards had burned through completely in places. The inside of the front door was much more damaged than the side facing the street, and there was a V-shape of more serious damage spreading up from the bottom of the door, suggesting that the fire had started at the floor and moved up.

  She knelt down and looked at the floorboards in front of the door. It looked as if they were more damaged than the boards at the sides of the hall. The charring was more severe. There was also a semicircle of darker charring spreading out from the door that looked as if a doormat had once been there, but which Vicky assumed had been produced by an accelerant being poured through the letter box. She straightened up and turned to see Farmer watching her expectantly. ‘So what do you think?’ he asked.

  ‘Arson,’ said Vicky.

  ‘Because?’

  ‘I think the petrol poured through the letter box is a bit of a giveaway,’ she said.

  Farmer smiled. ‘So who was the perpetrator?’

  ‘Presumably racists,’ said Vicky.

  ‘And you say that because?’

  ‘The racist graffiti on the door.’

  He smiled and shook his head. ‘Wrong.’

  ‘Wrong how?’

  ‘Well, let’s see if you can work it out,’ said Farmer. ‘Yes, we have racist graffiti on the front door and we have petrol apparently poured through the letter box. So tell me how the fire spread.’

  Vicky frowned, wondering why she was being asked to state the obvious. ‘The petrol was poured through the letter box. Then ignited. So the fire spread from the door along the hall and to the stairs.’

  ‘Ignited how?’

  ‘A match, maybe.’

  ‘We didn’t find a match.’

  ‘It could have been completely destroyed in the fire. Or the firefighters could have moved it.’

  Farmer nodded. ‘That happens. But suppose I were to tell you that there was a higher concentration of accelerant at the base of the stairs than th
ere was at the door.’

  Her eyebrows shot up. ‘That’s not possible,’ she said. She went over and examined the bottom of the stairs. He was right. The charring there was more severe than it was in the middle of the hallway.

  He wagged a finger at her. ‘The evidence is what it is,’ he said. ‘You start with that and you use it to tell you what happened. You’re approaching it the other way, you only want to accept the evidence that backs up your theory.’ He wagged his finger again. ‘Forget your preconceptions and stick with the facts. It is a fact that there was more accelerant at the base of the stairs than there was at the doorway. We sent samples to the lab and they confirmed it. So what does that tell us?’

  ‘That means the fire was set from the inside.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘But the fire started at the letter box and spread down the hallway.’

  ‘Yes. That’s what the evidence suggests. Which means what?’

  Vicky frowned. ‘That whoever set the fire wanted to make it look as if it had been started from outside.’ She could hear her own uncertainty in her voice.

  Farmer smiled. ‘There you go.’

  ‘So the racist graffiti is separate from the fire?’

  ‘Let’s leave the graffiti for a moment. Let’s go back to the facts. We know where the fire started. We know what caused it. We know how it spread. We know that it was deliberate. What do we ask next?’

  Vicky frowned as she tried to recall what was in the manuals she had read. ‘The people in the fire. What did they do?’

  ‘Well, I can tell you that Mr and Mrs Qadri and their five children were out on the street when the first pump arrived. Safe and sound.’

  ‘What time was the fire?’

  ‘Two o’clock in the morning.’

  She wrinkled her nose. ‘How did they get out?’

  ‘According to Mr Qadri, he heard a noise and came downstairs, saw what had happened and managed to get his family out through the kitchen before the fire spread.’

  ‘They came down the stairs?’

  ‘According to Mr Qadri, yes.’

  ‘That’s not possible.’

  Farmer smiled. ‘Because?’

  ‘Because there was accelerant at the base of the stairs. It would have spread from the door to the stairs in seconds. The chimney effect would have filled the stairs with smoke and hot gases so quickly that there wouldn’t have been enough time for the family to escape that way.’

  ‘Well, that’s what Mr Qadri says happened.’

  ‘But the evidence says otherwise.’

  He smiled. ‘Exactly.’

  She wrinkled her nose. ‘So Mr Qadri set fire to his own house?’

  ‘That’s what the evidence suggests. So why would he do that?’

  She looked up the stairs. ‘How many bedrooms are there?’

  ‘Two, but there’s a box room, as well.’

  ‘So a family of seven are living in a three-bedroomed house?’

  ‘They have bunk beds in the box room. The three girls sleep there. The two boys are in the second bedroom. And Mrs Qadri is pregnant.’

  ‘And this is a council house?’

  Farmer smiled. ‘They’ve been here for two years since the family fled from Iraq.’

  ‘Have they by any chance been asking the council for a bigger house?’

  Farmer’s smile widened. ‘Pretty much from the first day they arrived in this country. And they want to be nearer their friends in Holland Park. Mr Qadri calls around to the council offices every Monday to plead his case. The house is too small for his needs, he says, and he doesn’t like the area.’

  Vicky bit down on her lower lip.

  ‘So now what do you think happened?’ asked Farmer.

  She sighed. ‘He set the fire himself. Did the graffiti himself. His English isn’t great so he gets the spelling wrong. Probably got his family out before he lit it. Then blames it on a racist attack knowing that the council is duty-bound to find him alternative accommodation.’

  ‘They did that within twenty-four hours. They’re already in a four-bedroom house, only a couple of Tube stops from their relatives.’

  Vicky frowned. ‘But you told the council what happened?’

  Farmer flashed her a cold smile. ‘I gave them my report and I told them what I’d found. But I think they preferred the scenario that Mr Qadri gave them.’

  ‘But they realise what happened? He set fire to the house to get what he wanted.’

  ‘If that is what happened and he ends up in court, how does that make the council look? The evidence is circumstantial so a good lawyer might get him off. But if he is found guilty then he’ll claim that he was pushed to the end of his tether by a council that refused to do right by his family. The more he plays the victim, the worse the council looks. Better to just move him to a bigger house. And there’s the money. If he goes to prison, that’s forty grand a year for his keep. Plus his wife speaks almost no English, so there’s a chance the kids would end up in care. That’s another hundred grand at least. So the council is probably thinking that the most cost-effective way of dealing with this is to keep the family together.’

  ‘You’re serious?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘He set a fire. His family could have died. So could the neighbours. What about the police? Do they know what happened?’

  ‘They’ve seen my report as well, but because it was logged as a racist incident they have to investigate, no matter what.’ He shrugged. ‘But that’s not the point. The point is that we know how the fire started. That’s all our role is in this. We don’t prosecute, that’s up to the police. We just investigate, and that’s what I did.’

  His mobile phone rang and he answered it. He listened, muttered a reply and put the phone away. ‘Vehicle fire they want us to have a look at,’ he explained. ‘Not far from here.’

  ‘Anyone hurt?’

  Farmer shook his head. ‘Probably an insurance job.’

  ‘So much for your policy of not letting your preconceptions affect your judgement.’

  ‘That’s not what I said,’ replied Farmer gruffly. ‘You have to go into every fire investigation assuming there is a possibility that it was deliberate. You’re looking for evidence either way. But cars are a bit special because the stats show us that half of all vehicle fires are down to the owners trying to put in a dodgy insurance claim. And in this case the car is in a car park and the owner’s nowhere to be found, so that’s a red flag right there. Two red flags, as it happens. If the car’s parked where it’s normally kept and the owner has dialled three nines, then there’s a good chance it’s down to mechanical failure. Otherwise we go with the stats which means there’s a fifty per cent chance the owner did it.’

  14

  The burnt-out car was in a pub car park. A pump was parked nearby and the crew manager hurried over to talk to Farmer when he climbed out of the van. The two men shook hands.

  The crew manager was an old friend, Terry Jenner. She’d worked on numerous shouts with him and he had been a regular visitor when she was in hospital. He grinned when he saw her getting out of the van. ‘No fucking way, he said. ‘They put you with the Grouch?’

  ‘Guilty as charged,’ said Vicky.

  Jenner hugged her and patted her on the back. ‘Haven’t seen you for donkey’s,’ he said. ‘They said you’d left.’

  ‘They’re not going to get rid of me that easily.’

  Jenner gestured at the burnt vehicle. ‘We’ll leave that in your capable hands,’ he said to Farmer. He flashed Vicky a thumbs-up. ‘Good to see you again.’

  ‘You too, Terry.’

  Jenner climbed back into the pump and it drove off. The burnt vehicle was soaking wet and there were pools of water around it. It was far enough away from the pub that the building hadn’t been in any danger of catching fire but the pump had obviously got there early because only the front half of the car was damaged. It was a blue Ford Mondeo. The bodywork was badly burnt but didn’t seem den
ted. ‘It doesn’t look as if there has been a collision,’ said Vicky. ‘So vandalism, maybe?’

  ‘Vandalism tends to happen where cars are parked in the street or in driveways,’ said Farmer. He looked around. ‘I don’t see any CCTV cameras. So we’re probably not going to be able to ID the driver.’

  ‘You think the driver torched the vehicle?’

  ‘It’s an option. Tell me what you see.’ Farmer took out a pack of tobacco and a piece of cigarette paper. He turned and rested against the van as he rolled a cigarette.

  Vicky put her head on one side as she stared at the wreckage. The bonnet was blackened and the windscreen had cracked. The front tyres had burned away completely and the car had sagged forward on its metal rims. The driver’s door was ajar.

  ‘The fire started at the front,’ she said.

  Farmer didn’t turn around as he continued to roll his cigarette. ‘And?’

  ‘The driver’s door is open.’

  ‘Any other doors open?’

  Vicky walked around the car. All the other doors were closed. ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘Which means?’

  ‘It might just mean the firefighters opened the door and left it that way. Or that the driver left the door open.’

  ‘What condition was the car in before the fire?’

  ‘Difficult to say,’ said Vicky.

  ‘Try,’ said Farmer. He turned around, slipped the roll-up between his lips and lit it with a disposable lighter. He blew smoke as she slowly worked her way around the car. Most of the paintwork was burned and blistered from the fire and streaked with dirty water.

  ‘I don’t see any signs of damage other than the fire,’ she said.

  ‘And it’s what, ten years old?’

  She checked the rear licence plate. ‘Eight,’ she said.

  ‘So probably not worth much, insurance-wise,’ he said.

  Vicky frowned. ‘So it’s not arson.’

  ‘Strictly speaking, it’s only referred to as arson if there’s a human life at risk,’ said Farmer. ‘If no one is in danger then it’s a malicious firing. The question is whether or not the fire was deliberately set. And to determine that, we need to know the cause. Now, from the look of it, we can assume the fire wasn’t external.’ He blew smoke up at the greying sky. ‘So let’s look inside the vehicle. Check for the seat of the fire.’