Unforgotten

by Clare Francis

  ‘What about the living room?’

  Her eyes hunted from side to side, as if seeking help. ‘I had a small look, yes.’

  ‘Did you go inside?’

  ‘I . . . well . . . just a step.’

  ‘No more than a step?’

  Her face had turned a mottled crimson. ‘Maybe two.’

  ‘Well, was it two or was it more than two?’ Perhaps the words came out rather more sharply than he’d intended because there was a startled pause.

  Lou was the first to speak. ‘Dad—’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Hugh argued, looking at Sarah, ‘but I have to know if the room’s been disturbed.’

  ‘It was just a couple of steps.’

  ‘Did you touch anything?’

  Sarah shook her head rapidly.

  ‘What about the door?’

  ‘The door?’

  ‘Did you touch it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Has anyone else been into the living room?’ Hugh said to Pat.

  ‘Dad,’ Lou said insistently, trying to draw him away.

  ‘I’m sorry but I have to know. It’s important.’

  Pat hesitated and looked at Lou. ‘I didn’t go into the living room, no.’

  ‘Dad, would you lock up, please?’ Shifting the bundle under one arm Lou pressed the keys into his hand. ‘Sarah, Pat, thanks for all your help.’ She stood back to let the two women pass before following them out into the rain.

  When he joined her in the car she was staring impassively ahead.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Was I very rude? I didn’t mean to be. But it was important.’

  She gave a tight little nod. ‘Let’s get back.’

  As they set off he asked where Charlie was.

  ‘He’s at the Koenigs’, with Joel.’

  ‘Well, I suppose that’s marginally better than being with Elk or whatever his name is. Though I’m not convinced Joel isn’t into pot, you know. I’m sure I smelt it on his clothes the other day.’

  Lou said nothing but her forehead was clouded by a slight frown.

  ‘You don’t think so?’

  ‘Charlie wouldn’t hang out with him if he was into drugs, Dad.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  When they reached Oakhill he went ahead to open the front door while she followed with her bundle, walking unhurriedly through the rain.

  ‘I’ll make some lunch,’ she said, dusting the rain from her hair with a light brush of her fingers.

  While she put cold meat and salad on the kitchen table he elaborated on his story about the insurance people, how on Friday it looked as though they wouldn’t be sending their own investigator, how they’d changed their minds, how he’d got in a sudden panic about anything being touched.

  Again the slight furrow sprang up between her eyebrows, again she said nothing, and this time her silence was like a rebuke.

  He said, ‘No excuse for overreacting though. Sorry.’

  Lou accepted this with a slow nod. ‘What are they hoping to find?’

  ‘How the fire started. The fire brigade people did their best of course, but they don’t have the time or resources to make a proper job of it.’ Hugh held up a hand. ‘Oh, I know it’s not going to change anything, Lou. I know it’s not going to bring Mum back. But I need to know how the fire started. I need to know if there was anything that could’ve been done.’

  Lou went back to the fridge and took out a bottle of mineral water. ‘I thought the fire started in the sofa.’

  ‘Yes, but what set the sofa alight? How did it happen?’

  Lou poured the water and sat down, gazing at him anxiously.

  ‘Oh, I realise they might not find anything,’ he said, as if to answer some unspoken challenge. ‘But at least we’ll know there was nothing to find.’

  Lou gave another slow nod and, sliding the food towards him, urged him to eat. It wasn’t till they had finished lunch that she said, ‘Dad, about going to the house . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘When you asked if anyone had been in the living room, the answer was yes. Charlie went and got Mum’s computer to see if he could salvage anything from the hard disk.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It was because of what you said last night, about the friends we hadn’t managed to contact, the phone numbers we were missing. Well, Charlie thought he’d get Mum’s computer and see if he could retrieve her Christmas card list and e-mail addresses.’

  ‘He went to her desk?’

  ‘Just to get her computer.’

  Hugh groaned.

  ‘Dad, you said you’d been to Mum’s desk yourself.’

  ‘But I was careful not to touch anything!’

  ‘I’m sure Charlie was careful too. He was only there for a minute—’

  ‘But he didn’t know what to be careful about!’ Hugh retorted, hearing himself at his fretful worst. ‘He could have trampled on something important, picked up stuff on his feet.’

  ‘Dad . . . please . . .’

  Hugh took a deep breath. ‘It’s just . . . I wish he could have asked me first!’

  ‘But this thing about not touching anything, it’s just come up today, right? So we couldn’t have known, either of us.’

  ‘But we were always going to have to wait for the okay from the insurers—’ Angry with himself for arguing the matter, angrier still for having believed his own fiction, he waved the rest of the excuse aside. ‘You’re right.’

  ‘He was only trying to help, Dad.’

  ‘I know.’

  She said in a small voice, ‘You won’t get stressed with him?’

  ‘Of course not. When do I ever get stressed with him?’

  ‘Well . . .’ She struck a diplomatic note of doubt. ‘Just now and then?’

  Hugh opened his mouth to protest before accepting the accusation mutely, with a grimace. ‘I haven’t since Mum died.’

  ‘I know you haven’t.’ Again the two small furrows creased the perfect smoothness of Lou’s forehead. ‘Another thing . . . Charlie’s still blaming himself about not getting home sooner on the night of the fire.’

  ‘But that’s crazy. He got there when he got there. He’s got nothing to blame himself for. Nothing at all.’

  ‘If you could just tell him that, Dad.’

  ‘But I have told him! I have!’

  ‘I mean, if you could just tell him again. You know how he is . . . he never believes anything first time round. He always thinks everything’s his fault.’

  Hugh gave a baffled nod. ‘Sure.’

  ‘He’s finding it really tough going at the moment. We all are, of course,’ she added rapidly. ‘But with him . . . well, he needs to feel you’re right behind him, Dad.’

  ‘Of course I’m right behind him.’

  ‘On the drug thing, I mean.’

  ‘Ah well, I do worry about that. I can’t pretend I don’t.’

  ‘Trouble is, he’s sort of picking up on that. Thinking you don’t trust him.’

  ‘But I haven’t said a thing about not trusting him, Lou. Not a thing.’

  ‘I know, Dad. I know. But if you could . . . perhaps, well, show your support when he goes to NA meetings. Tell him he’s doing well. That sort of thing.’

  ‘It’s that Elk creature I can’t take. Why does he have to spend so much time with him?’

  ‘Elk’s his mentor.’

  ‘Some mentor. Looks like he’s still using.’

  Lou said in fond exasperation, ‘Dad . . . Dad . . .’

  ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll try harder. I promise.’

  ‘Just tell him you’re proud of him. That’s all he needs. Just say you believe in him.’

  It was exactly the sort of thing Lizzie would have said. It might have been this thought or his sense of failure over Charlie but Hugh suddenly felt immensely tired, as if he’d run into a wall and lost the energy to pick himself up again. ‘You’re right . . .’ He rubbed his eyes vigorously. ‘I’ll talk to him. I’ll find a ti
me . . .’

  ‘That’d be great.’ She reached out and gripped his hand. ‘Really great.’

  The child becomes parent to the man, Hugh thought, controlling his emotions with difficulty. And so much sooner than you expect.

  ‘And, Dad? If there were some more jobs you could find for him to do? Computery things. And helping to choose hymns and readings for the service.’

  ‘I thought I heard you talking about hymns last night.’

  ‘We were. But it’d be better if it came from you.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Reading his expression, she came round the table and planted a kiss on his cheek. ‘Oh, Dad, don’t take it wrong.’

  ‘No, I’m glad you told me.’

  She bobbed down at his elbow, and for an instant she was a child again, wanting his attention. ‘For sure?’

  ‘For sure.’

  ‘Love you.’

  ‘Love you too.’

  She squeezed his arm. ‘I’ll make some coffee.’

  He drank two cups, but it was the gnawing sense of lost time that did most to recharge his flagging energy. Going into the dining room where he had set up a temporary office, he found a phone number for the fire brigade headquarters and called to find out if Ellis was based there, little imagining the switchboard would put him straight through. At the sound of Ellis’s voice he rang off abruptly, fearing a rebuff if he made his request over the phone.

  Before leaving the house he laboured over a text message to Charlie. Great idea to search computer. Back about 7. Much love, Dad. This, like so many of his communications with Charlie, seemed inadequate, but it was the best he could do, though that didn’t prevent him from fretting over how it could have been improved.

  When he called upstairs to tell Lou he was going out, she leant over the banisters and listened to his story about needing to go into the office with the same faintly troubled expression as before, so that for the second time that day he felt he had managed to disappoint her in some crucial way.

  The rain had eased off and he drove towards the city through a light drizzle that seemed to infiltrate the car, misting the screen. He fiddled with the ventilation controls, but either there was too little air or it was too cold, because suddenly the screen fogged completely. Almost blind, he slowed down and rubbed at the glass with the palm of his hand. Pushing at the ventilation controls again, he was finally rewarded with a blast of air and looked up to see a red light with a mother and child walking across. He stopped in time, there was never any danger, but his nerves were so taut, his dread so acute that he felt cold suddenly, he gave an involuntary shiver.

  He parked in his allocated place beneath the Dimmock Marsh office and walked the four blocks to fire brigade headquarters.

  ‘Mr Ellis is away from his desk at the moment,’ the receptionist announced after speaking into the phone. ‘He’s expecting you, is he?’

  ‘I was hoping so,’ Hugh said.

  She wrote his name down and gave him a professional smile, bright but detached. ‘If you’d care to wait?’

  The fire brigade obviously had a better class of visitor than the police: the waiting area was open plan, the seats comfortable, the windows large and unbarred. There were stands containing leaflets with such titles as Fire Safety in the Outdoors, Caring for your Smoke Alarms and Candle Safety. He picked up Candle Safety and read it through twice. His eye kept returning to a caution halfway down the list: ‘Keep candles out of draughts and away from furnishings and clothing.’ Had it really been that simple after all? Had she put a lighted candle on her desk then gone to the kitchen to make some supper and forgotten about it? That much was just about possible. But she’d still have gone back to turn off her computer. When it came to saving energy she was a proselytising green; she liked to quote the fact that machines left on standby overnight burn enough energy to light two large cities. Unless there had been something to distract her. Ranging through the possibilities, he gave her a bad headache and saw her taking an aspirin and lying down, intending to close her eyes for just a minute or two, only to fall into a deep sleep. He gave her food poisoning, so virulent that she could get no further than the bathroom before collapsing into bed. He saw her getting uncharacteristically frustrated with her work and finding comfort in another few glasses of wine. But no matter which scenario he chose he couldn’t see her abandoning their deeply ingrained night-time ritual of turning off all the lights and checking the doors and windows. Even with the lights on she could hardly have failed to notice a candle burning: candles were brighter than you thought; the Victorians had read by them after all.

  He had just started on a leaflet entitled Close that Door! when the receptionist called him over. ‘Mr Ellis says he wasn’t expecting you.’

  ‘Oh?’ Hugh made a show of mild surprise. ‘Could he spare me a few minutes anyway?’

  She went back to the phone and relayed the message. ‘He’ll be right down.’

  In a short while Ellis appeared through a swing door, looking wary. ‘Mr Gwynne,’ he said with a taut nod, ‘what can I do for you?’

  ‘I was wondering if we could have a quick word.’

  ‘Concerning what exactly?’ He was more than wary, he was defensive.

  ‘A couple of things I wasn’t clear about.’ Sensing that Ellis was about to turn him down, Hugh added quickly, ‘Just small details.’

  ‘Mr Gwynne, I’m sorry but I’m unable to enlarge on my report or discuss any issues relating to my report. If you want further information then you’ll have to apply to the coroner’s office.’

  Aware of the receptionist a few feet away, Hugh dropped his voice a little. ‘Off the record?’

  Ellis said under his breath, ‘Your idea of being off the record doesn’t appear to be the same as mine, Mr Gwynne.’ The note of injury was unmistakable.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I understand you’ve made a complaint as to the quality of the investigation.’

  Hugh thought: I’m getting slow, I should have realised the police were bound to tell him. ‘My complaint was with the police.’

  ‘That’s not what they told me.’

  ‘Well, they told you wrong. I never complained about the quality of your investigation, only its scope, and I laid the blame for that firmly at their door, not yours.’

  ‘Scope?’ he queried touchily.

  ‘The fact that they didn’t treat the house as a crime scene. Didn’t bring in a whole team of experts to go through everything with a fine-tooth comb.’

  Ellis’s expression relented a little, but he wasn’t quite ready to abandon his sense of injury. ‘They’d need good reasons to do that.’

  ‘That was my point – there were good reasons.’

  Ellis exhaled slowly. ‘Look, Mr Gwynne, while I have every sympathy for you at this difficult time, I regret that it’s impossible for me to be of any further assistance. I’ve made my report, and that’s as far as I can go.’

  ‘I loved my wife, Peter.’

  The declaration and the use of his first name caught Ellis off-balance. He shot Hugh an awkward glance.

  ‘I feel I owe her this one last thing – to try and find out what happened. I realise there may be nothing to find. But I have to try.’

  Ellis began to shake his head.

  ‘Just a couple of questions.’

  ‘Listen, Mr Gwynne, when we make a report we offer an opinion as to the cause of a fire, that’s all. We offer it in good faith, to the best of our knowledge. But the way the world is now, people try to sue us. It’s got so bad that the lawyers have told us not to discuss our findings with anyone, and that includes people like yourself . . . relatives, loved ones. So you see—’

  ‘I won’t sue. I give you my solemn promise.’

  Ellis’s round face betrayed his indecision. ‘But telling the police you knew about my report – it landed me right in it.’

  ‘I apologise if I betrayed a confidence,’ Hugh said humbly. ‘It was unintentional. It won’t happen again, I promis
e.’

  When Ellis gave in, it was with a small sigh, as though he was still going against his better judgement. With half a glance towards the receptionist, he led Hugh closer to the window. He said, ‘Nothing gets quoted, officially or unofficially, to anyone under any circumstances?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  Another sigh. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘The window,’ Hugh began. ‘You said a window had been left open?’

  Ellis frowned with concentration. ‘One downstairs. A second upstairs.’

  ‘The one downstairs was where?’

  ‘In the lounge, about a metre from the sofa where the fire started.’

  ‘Opposite the door then.’

  Ellis thought about that. ‘On the other side of the room, certainly.’

  ‘And which upstairs window was open?’

  ‘In the en suite bathroom.’

  ‘The one in the bedroom was closed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Hugh nodded, as if this tallied with his existing knowledge. ‘The window in the living room, was it open very far?’

  ‘Depends what you mean by far. It was on the stay.’

  ‘The stay . . . ?’

  Ellis mimed a push–pull action. ‘The long handle at the bottom of the window that fits over the pin and stops it banging about.’

  ‘Of course, yes. Yes . . . So what are we talking about? A few inches?’

  ‘The fire officer observed that the window was open. It’s beyond his remit to take measurements.’

  ‘I just wanted to be clear that the window wasn’t on the vent setting. There was a second groove – slot, do I mean? – on the main latch so you could open the window just a crack but still leave it secure.’

  ‘According to the lads it was on the stay.’

  The stay. A new word for his window vocabulary. ‘And the living-room door had been left open?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the bedroom door?’

  Ellis hesitated, as if he could see where these questions were leading and didn’t want to be implicated in the conclusions. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the window in the bathroom, how far open was that?’

  ‘A couple of inches, no more.’

  Hugh suppressed the picture of choking darkness that threatened to engulf his imagination. ‘What about the smoke alarms?’ he asked. ‘Were they working?’