‘So it’s definitely an accident, in your opinion?’
‘Don’t worry, Mr O’Hara, the SOCO team will back me up. We see this a lot.’
‘And the insurance company will pay out?’
‘I don’t see why not.’
O’Hara sighed with relief. ‘Thank God for that. When can I start clearing the place up?
‘We’ll be here for a couple of hours, but you’ll have to wait for SOCO to go over the place as well.’
O’Hara scowled. ‘This is a bloody nightmare.’
‘Sure, but look on the bright side. At least no one was hurt.’ Farmer took out his pack of tobacco. ‘Do you mind if I …?’
‘Sure,’ said O’Hara. He took out a pack of Rothmans. ‘I’m a smoker myself.’ He offered the pack to Farmer but he shook his head.
‘I prefer to roll my own,’ said Farmer. ‘Too many chemicals in the mass-produced ones.’ He pulled out a pack of cigarette papers. ‘Volvos are usually pretty reliable, right?’ asked Farmer as he rolled a cigarette.
‘Sure,’ said O’Hara. ‘Why?’ He slid a Rothmans between his lips and lit it.
‘I’ve got one but it’s been playing up. Sometimes it starts, sometimes it doesn’t. Any idea what the problem might be?’
‘Electrics, maybe. What model is it?’ O’Hara blew smoke up at the sky.
‘A V40.’
‘Petrol or diesel?’
‘Petrol.’
‘Could be electrics. Could be the fuel pump. Difficult to say without having a look at it.’ He waved an arm towards the devastation behind him. ‘And it’s going to be a while before we’re able to look at anything.’ He blew smoke at the ground and then nodded over at Vicky. ‘Your sidekick?’
‘Sort of a trainee.’
‘She’s okay with you treating her like that?’
‘Like what?’
‘Calling her “sweetheart”. The women who work here, if I tried that I’d get a spanner thrown at me.’
Farmer grinned. ‘It’s a term of affection.’
‘It sounds like sexual harassment.’ He shrugged. ‘Just saying.’
Farmer leaned towards O’Hara. ‘That girl there, she’s a bloody hero,’ he said, punctuating the words with jabs of his cigarette. ‘She saved lives at Grenfell Tower and those burns, she got them rescuing a guy in a burning building. Literally picked him up and carried him out before she got trapped. I’ve got nothing but respect for her, and so when I call her sweetheart, it’s because I like her. And if she thought otherwise then yeah, I’d expect her to hit me over the head with a Halligan bar.’
O’Hara frowned. ‘What the fuck is a Halligan bar?’
‘It’s like a spanner,’ said Farmer. ‘But bigger.’
29
It was midday before Vicky had finished photographing everything and they were back loading their gear into the van. ‘So it was an accident?’ she asked.
‘Accident is a funny term,’ said Farmer. ‘Most accidents aren’t accidents, not using the word with its true meaning.’ He grinned. ‘Pop test. What’s the definition of an accident?’
She frowned. ‘Something that happens unexpectedly,’ she said hopefully.
‘Close enough,’ he said. ‘Me, I’d go with an event that happens by chance or that is without apparent or deliberate cause. But yeah, “something that is unexpected” is okay. Now here’s the thing, how often in life do things happen without a cause? It’s very rare. As any traffic cop will tell you, the vast majority of what are called road accidents aren’t accidents at all. They’re people driving stupidly, or aggressively, or simply not paying attention because they’re on the phone or staring at their satnav. They used to call them RTAs, road traffic accidents, but a while back they stopped referring to them as accidents, now they’re RTCs, road traffic collisions.’
‘So you’re saying accidents don’t happen?’
‘I’m saying that true accidents are very rare.’ He gestured with his thumb at the garage. ‘Like I said to O’Hara, it was an accident caused by stupidity. The mechanics overloaded the circuit. Did they mean to? Of course not. Did they realise they could cause a fire? No, obviously not. But from the look of it, the wiring wasn’t in great shape to start with. I’m sure it was up to code but it was old and could have done with being replaced. If the wiring had been better then the circuit probably wouldn’t have overloaded.’ He shrugged. ‘What we’ve got is a chain of events. The wiring wasn’t in great condition. The mechanics were running too much equipment off a single plug. Someone had put combustible materials close to the plug. If any one of those steps hadn’t been in place, there wouldn’t have been a fire. Or at least the fire wouldn’t have been as bad as it was. The insurance will pay out because it wasn’t a deliberate fire, but it certainly wasn’t what I’d call an accident.’
Vicky nodded. ‘And what about the assessor? Why didn’t he see what you saw?’
‘Oh he did, he just read it differently. Multiple seats of a fire is often a sign that the fire was set. But not always. I know that because I’ve been to thousands of fire scenes over the years. But for insurance assessors and SOCO investigators, fire is just a small part of what they look at, probably less than ten per cent of their workload. A SOCO investigator is more likely to be investigating an assault or a rape or even a murder, so unless someone dies a fire is pretty low down their list of priorities. Most insurance assessors are chasing up water damage, theft, weather, they maybe only get to see fire damage a few times a year. But we see fires every day, they’re our bread and butter.’
They climbed out of the side door, Vicky slammed it shut, then they got into the front. Vicky started the engine, but then she turned to look at Farmer.
‘Guv, can I ask you something?’
‘Sure.’
‘What you were saying to Mr O’Hara there. And what Paddy was saying about two seats of a fire meaning it’s arson.’
‘Sweetheart, as I’ve already told you, it’s only arson if there’s potential loss of life. You need to remember that because one day you’ll be in court giving evidence and you’ll say arson when it isn’t arson and a barrister will tear you a new one.’
‘Got it. Sorry. But what he was saying, if you have two seats of a fire then it’s usually malicious.’
Farmer grinned. ‘You heard what I said. It doesn’t mean that at all.’
‘No, with respect, you showed Paddy that in that case an accidental fire could look like it had been set deliberately. But what he said made sense too. If a fire has two points of origin then that can’t be a coincidence, it has to be a sign that the fire was deliberate.’
‘Okay, yes. If you have two ignition sites, two places independent of each other, at the same location, then yes, it’s probably a fire-setting. The problem is that sometimes it can appear that a fire started in several places when in fact there is a chain reaction in play. That’s what I told Mr O’Hara there. Things aren’t always what they seem. I’ll give you an example. Say you’ve got curtains either side of a window, and a valance linking them over the top of the window. The fire starts on the left, and climbs up the curtain. It moves across the valance and sets fire to the curtain on the right. The burning curtain falls to the ground and continues to burn. Once it’s all over, it could well appear that there were two seats to that fire, one on the left of the window and another on the right.’
He frowned as he realised she wasn’t listening to him. ‘What’s on your mind?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Spit it out, girl.’
She sighed and gripped the steering wheel with both hands. She stared at her gloved left hand, and shuddered at the thought of what the skin looked like underneath the black material and protective gel sheet. ‘Okay, it’s that whole seat-of-fire thing,’ she said. ‘The fire that I was at, the hotel, looking back it feels to me that there was more than one point of origin.’
‘How so?’
She looked across at him. ‘When we got there, the fire was
confined to a bar, on the ground floor, to the left. The hotel entrance was to the right, and there were rooms above. The BA team went into the hotel. There was smoke. Initially not much but it got thicker the higher we went.’
Farmer frowned. ‘So there was more smoke on the upper floors than on the ground floor?’
Vicky nodded. ‘By the time we were on the top, visibility was close to zero.’
‘But no fire?’
‘We found fire in one of the rooms, on the top floor. It looked like it had come up from the floor below.’
‘It’s possible it moved up from the bar.’
‘But the room was at the back of the hotel. The bar was at the front.’
‘How old was the building?’
‘I don’t know. More than fifty years. Maybe closer to a hundred. They said it was listed.’
‘So brick-and-wood construction, lathe and plaster. Fire can move in all sorts of directions.’
‘Yes, but when I took the casualty downstairs, there was fire in the stairwell on the second floor. I took the casualty back up to the third floor because there was no fire there. They got a ladder to a window and I got the casualty out, then the floor burned through.’
‘So the room below you was burning?’
Vicky nodded. ‘And that was at the front.’
Farmer’s frown deepened. ‘So you had a fire on the top floor at the back? And a fire on the second floor on the front?’
‘And fire in the stairwell on the second floor. You can see what I’m thinking? There was fire at the back, and fire at the front. But when we got there on the shout, the only fire that was burning was in the bar.’
He shrugged. ‘Like I said, it can move with a life of its own in an old building.’
‘Sure, but if it was the wooden floor supports that were burning, they burn at three-quarters of an inch an hour.’
‘That’s charring, not burning,’ said Farmer. ‘Fire can move a lot faster than that across surfaces. And there are lots of variables. The condition of the wood, ventilation, contamination. Who knows what they used for insulation between the floors. Plus decades of dust and whatnot.’
‘The floor must have collapsed because the floorboards and joists burned through,’ said Vicky. ‘That must have taken time. But the BA team was only in for twenty minutes at the most. I don’t know. It’s been playing on my mind, that’s all. I hadn’t given it much thought until I heard what you said to Paddy.’ She nodded at the garage. ‘And then when you explained all that to Mr O’Hara.’
Farmer nodded. ‘Okay, I’ll tell you what, I’ll pull the file when we get back to the station and let you know what I think.’
‘Thanks, guv.’
Farmer pointed ahead. ‘Now let’s get going, time’s a wasting.’
30
As soon as they arrived back at Dowgate station, Farmer asked for a coffee. Vicky did the honours, then took her own coffee back to her office. She spent the next hour filling out the report on the garage fire, attaching a dozen of the most relevant photographs and putting the rest in a separate file.
When she’d finished, she stared at her screen thoughtfully for the best part of two minutes before tapping a name into the database’s search engine. SAMANTHA STEWART. That was the name of the model who had died in the south London fire and whose picture and details had been up on the wall of Farmer’s spare room. She called up the initial fire report and read through it. The newspaper cutting she had read had got the story right. Samantha had fallen asleep on the sofa, a candle had set fire to a curtain and she had burned to death. The investigating officer was Danny Maguire. Vicky frowned, wondering why Farmer would have one of Maguire’s cases on his wall.
She tapped in the second name she remembered. JULIA SILK. In Julia’s case, the investigating officer had been William Campbell, her predecessor. She read through his initial report. Julia had died in an upstairs bedroom when a faulty plug had ignited downstairs. The fire had spread quickly because a sofa wasn’t up to British safety standards and the living room had been full of combustibles.
‘It’s not going to pull through,’ said Farmer.
Vicky jumped. She hadn’t seen him appear in her doorway. She fought to regain her composure and forced a smile. ‘Sorry, what?’ He couldn’t see her screen from where he was standing but he had only to take two steps and he’d be able to see everything. She wanted to clear her screen but worried that he might wonder if she was hiding something.
Farmer nodded at her rubber plant, which was now on one of the filing cabinets. ‘I think you’re flogging a dead horse.’
‘It takes time,’ she said.
‘You could just buy another one.’
‘I like this one. It deserves a chance, right? We all do.’
‘Plants aren’t people,’ said Farmer. He gestured at her terminal. ‘Are you all done?’
She nodded. ‘Yup.’
‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Grab your gear and I’ll see you down at the van. We’ve got a fire in Kilburn.’
‘Be right there,’ she said, and switched off her screen.
31
‘What’s the story?’ Vicky asked as she drove the van north to Kilburn.
‘Fire in a hostel, one fatality,’ said Farmer. He pointed ahead. ‘Next left.’
‘You really never use the satnav?’
‘Never,’ he said. ‘The one day when you rely on it is the day it’ll let you down. Trust me.’
‘Sounds luddite-ish to me, but you’re the guvnor.’
‘Indeed I am,’ said Farmer. ‘Next right and that’s us. Park where you can.’
Vicky found a parking space down the road from the hostel. A pump from West Hampstead was double-parked outside the building, its blue lights flashing. Several firefighters were rolling up hoses and packing them away. There were a dozen men standing around outside, middle-aged and older and wearing cheap clothes. Most were unshaven and smelled of drink.
Vicky and Farmer climbed out and put on their helmets. Grant Parker – a thirty-five-year-old former soldier who had served in Afghanistan – was crew chief. He was talking to the pump driver but jogged over when he saw Vicky and Farmer.
Parker punched Vicky gently. ‘How the hell are you, Lewis?’
Vicky grinned. ‘All the better for seeing you, Granty. Managed to put this one out, did you?’
Parker laughed. ‘We did our best. So what the bloody hell are you doing in fire investigation? I thought you always wanted to fight fires, not write reports on them.’
Vicky shrugged. ‘You’d have to ask the powers-that-be about that.’
‘Maybe I will, you’re wasted in fire investigation, you need to be doing a real job.’ He grinned at Farmer. ‘No offence.’
‘Yeah, fuck you too, Parker,’ said Farmer. ‘So what’s the story?’
‘Fire on the second floor, confined to one room. One fatality, male, hard to tell the age. The cops are treating it as a crime scene. They got here about ten minutes after we did and they’ve called for SOCO.’
‘Cheers. Safe to go up?’
‘We haven’t dampened everything down because we wanted to preserve the scene as much as possible, but you’re good to go. You might get an earful from the manager, he’s banging on about compensation.’ He punched Vicky again. ‘You’re looking good, kid.’
The thought that flashed across her mind was that he was only saying that because the helmet covered most of her injuries, but she and Parker went back a long way and she knew that his heart was in the right place. ‘You too, Granty.’
Farmer and Vicky crossed the road. There was a locked glass door and next to it a uniformed PC. He pressed the intercom button for them and spoke to whoever was inside. The door buzzed and he pushed it open for them. ‘Any idea when SOCO will be here?’ asked Farmer.
‘They tell me nothing, sir, just to stop anyone going in,’ said the PC. ‘Sergeant Rowling is inside. He’ll be able to fill you in.’
Farmer thanked him and went insi
de. The lights were off and it was gloomy and there was a strong smell of smoke. There was a linoleum floor showing dirty boot marks and there were marks all over the walls. Firemen were generally big guys carrying a lot of equipment and usually in a rush. A bearded man in his early thirties was standing by a counter above which was a sign saying RECEPTION – PLEASE TREAT OUR EMPLOYEES WITH RESPECT. He was talking into a mobile phone and rubbing the back of his neck with his left hand. He ended the call and came over to them. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I’m Clive Morrison, one of the managers here.’ He was wearing a green turtleneck sweater and camouflage pattern cargo pants.
Farmer shook his hand. ‘Des Farmer. I’ll be handing the investigation for the fire brigade,’ he said. ‘I’m told there has been a fatality.’
Morrison nodded, then pushed his thick-framed spectacles higher up his nose. ‘Yes, up on the second floor.’
‘What was the victim’s name,’ asked Farmer.
‘Anthony Lawson.’
‘How old was he?’
‘Mid-fifties, I think. I can check.’
‘Please.’
The man went around the counter and tapped on his computer. He cursed and slapped his forehead theatrically. ‘I’m sorry, the power’s off, obviously. He came back around to their side of the counter. ‘Anthony was fifty-seven, fifty-eight maybe. He moved in three months ago.’
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