Scared to Live bcadf-7

by Stephen Booth

  The farmer nodded almost imperceptibly. ‘I’ll keep an eye out.’

  ‘Thanks a lot.’

  Bernie waved and drove off, watching the tractor pull into the road again as soon as he’d passed. He’d probably get behind it again when he reached Bonsall. Sometimes he thought these farmers drove around the lanes all day just for the sake of it. They loved being a bloody nuisance with their tractors, and their trailers full of slurry. Now and then, Bernie wished he could put a bomb under one of them.

  4

  Lindsay Mullen’s parents lived on the hillside above Darley Dale, a couple of miles north of Matlock. Following the directions she’d been given, Fry watched out for the Shalimar Restaurant, then turned left into Northwood Lane and climbed the hill. The Lowthers’ address was near the top, a large bungalow with its rear windows looking down on the A6 from Bakewell.

  She and Murfin had to walk a long way up a garden path to reach the front door. This was a garden that seemed to be mostly gravel and stone flags, apart from the obligatory water feature, and dozens of terracotta pots that didn’t contain very much.

  ‘I like this sort of garden. No plants.’

  And Gavin was right. There was a birdbath, a sundial, a statue of an angel in ornamental stone. And so much furniture, too — a patio set on the terrace under a green parasol, a wooden bench in the shade of an arbour, and a garden barbecue on timber decking at a lower level. In the last few yards, they found themselves walking on cast-iron stepping stones in the shape of flattened tortoises, between solar lights like Edwardian gas lamps. Near the door stood a cast-iron chiminea with a mesh door, its surface just starting to rust.

  A few minutes later, they were sitting with Henry Lowther in a conservatory, on either side of an oak coffee table that matched the flooring.

  ‘Sorry to bring you in here,’ he said, ‘but Luanne is asleep, and we don’t want to disturb her. It’s going to be stressful enough for the child in the next few weeks, poor thing.’

  ‘Luanne is your youngest grandchild, sir?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did she come to be here with you last night?’

  ‘We’ve been looking after her for a few days. Luanne hasn’t been sleeping through the night, you see. Poor Lindsay wasn’t getting much rest, so we offered to give her a break for a bit.’

  ‘I see. And are you coping all right yourselves? Talk to your family liaison officer if you need any help, won’t you?’

  ‘No, we’re fine,’ said Lowther. ‘Luanne needs us, and it’s best to have something to concentrate on. You know what I mean …’

  Lindsay Mullen’s parents seemed to be quiet people — no sign of hysterics, or outbursts of anger. But Fry hardly caught a glimpse of Mrs Lowther before she disappeared, clearly on the verge of tears, her eyes already red from previous bouts of weeping.

  ‘My wife isn’t up to talking about it yet,’ said her husband. ‘I hope you understand.’

  ‘Yes, of course. I’m sorry to have to bother you with questions, sir.’

  ‘It’s something you have to do.’

  It was much too warm for Fry in the conservatory. Looking around, she saw that the central heating radiator had an individual thermostat control. She wondered whether Mr Lowther would notice if she surreptitiously turned it down. But he was watching her too expectantly, the way people did sometimes after a sudden death, as if they thought she might be able to bring their loved ones magically back to life.

  ‘Could you tell me when you first heard about the fire, sir?’

  ‘Yes. Brian phoned to tell us. That’s our son-in-law.’

  ‘Brian did? What time was that?’

  ‘Good heavens, I’m not sure. It was in the early hours of the morning. I was too shocked to check the time. Well, I might have looked at the clock, but I didn’t take it in. Brian said he was phoning from the hospital — I remember that. At first, I thought it was him that had been in an accident, and I didn’t understand what he was trying to tell me. I suppose I was still half asleep.’

  The conservatory was probably so warm because it was full of plants — fuchsia, tree ferns, bougainvillea. In the kitchen, Fry had noticed cacti and tradescantia, and a wooden herb wheel on the window sill. She might be ignorant of what grew in the countryside, but she was familiar with house plants. During a spell with a foster family who’d run a small-scale plant nursery in Halesowen, her job had been to write out the labels for the pots — and God help her if she got one wrong through not recognizing a species.

  There would be spiders and small insects crawling among these plants, too. She’d tried to sit in the middle of the two-seater cane settee to keep away from the jungle, forcing Murfin to take one of the chairs.

  ‘How did Brian describe what had happened?’

  ‘Describe it? Well, he said he’d arrived home and found the house on fire. I gather he’d been out for the evening. Brian was very distressed, you know — understandably. And he’d suffered some injuries trying to get into the house. In the circumstances I’m surprised he had the presence of mind to call us at all. But I’m glad he did. I don’t know how we’d have heard about the fire otherwise.’

  ‘Well, we’d have found your details somehow, and a police officer would have called on you.’

  ‘That would have been worse, I think,’ said Lowther. ‘If anything could be worse than this.’

  Mr Lowther was officially described in the forms as a managing director. In Fry’s experience, most managing directors looked as though they’d eaten too many corporate lunches and Rotary Club dinners. But Lowther didn’t. He was a big man, but had kept his leanness. Regular squash, or business not so good?

  For a moment, Mr Lowther was distracted by the fronds of a tree fern that hung near his chair. He reached out to tear a bit off the plant, with the air of someone who had no idea what he was doing. When he leaned over, Fry noticed that Mr Lowther’s shirt buttons weren’t fastened properly. One hole was empty, and its button had been fastened too low, so that part of his shirt hung untidily over his waistband.

  ‘That was all Brian could tell me, really. He said that the house was on fire. And that he thought Lindsay and the children were still in there.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘We went up there, of course — to Darwin Street. But the fire was all over by the time we arrived. They wouldn’t let us go into the house. So then we went to the hospital, but Brian was sedated. We sat around for hours before someone came and told us that Lindsay and the boys hadn’t survived. It was horrible. It seemed as though we were almost the last to know.’

  ‘It can feel like that sometimes. But people have their jobs to do.’

  ‘Yes, I know. But it doesn’t really make it any better. Can I ask you something now?’

  ‘Go ahead, sir.’

  ‘Do you have any idea how the fire started?’

  ‘Not yet. We think the seat of the fire was downstairs in the sitting room, but we need to examine the house more closely before we can be sure about anything.’

  Mr Lowther’s gaze drifted away again, and Fry’s attention was caught by the traffic on the A6. It had slowed suddenly as an unexpected type of vehicle mingled with the cars and vans, displaying an entirely different pattern of movement. Even through the double glazing, Fry thought she could hear the creak and rattle. For a moment, she wondered if Pride and Prejudice was being filmed again somewhere nearby.

  ‘A stagecoach has just gone past on the road down there,’ she said. ‘It was being pulled by four big grey horses.’

  ‘Yes, they’re Dutch Gelderlanders.’

  Fry turned, surprised to see Mrs Lowther standing in the doorway, her eyes dried, her voice almost steady, as if she’d made a great effort to bring herself under control.

  ‘Beautiful, aren’t they?’ she said.

  ‘Right. You’ve seen them before, then?’

  ‘Sometimes there are two of them drawing a landau.’

  Henry Lowther glanced at the window, but
didn’t seem interested. ‘The fire must have been caused by faulty wiring or something, I suppose. They’ll find out what went wrong, won’t they?’

  ‘We don’t know yet whether it was an accident,’ said Fry.

  But Lowther shook his head. ‘No, no. It can’t have been started deliberately. I might just about imagine one of the boys playing with matches. But not arson.’

  ‘We should know soon enough, Mr Lowther.’

  ‘You don’t understand. There’s no one who could have had any reason to start that fire deliberately,’ he said. ‘It just isn’t possible. Lindsay would never upset anybody. And as for Jack and Liam — ’

  He stopped, as if finding himself unable to express the impossibility in the case of his grandsons. His anguished expression suggested that the idea of harming them was physically beyond comprehension. His wife caught a surge of his emotion and began to cry all over again.

  ‘What about Brian?’

  ‘He wasn’t even at home,’ said Lowther.

  Fry watched him, trying to detect an accusatory note in his voice. But perhaps it hadn’t occurred to the Lowthers yet that their son-in-law ought to have been at home with his family, should have been there to protect them, even if it meant he’d have died in the fire too. It would come later, that anger, the readiness to find someone to blame, if only for not being there.

  ‘Nevertheless, do you think there might be anybody he could have got on the wrong side of? Someone who might want to take revenge on him?’

  ‘You’ve met him, haven’t you?’ said Mrs Lowther, between sniffs. ‘You can see he’s harmless. What could he have done to anybody to make them commit an evil act like that, just to get back at him? It doesn’t make sense.’

  Her husband nodded. ‘Besides, Brian doesn’t mix with people who’d do that sort of thing. He’s a despatch manager in a distribution centre.’

  On the corner table was a set of photographs in silver frames. Smiling faces, boyish grins, a baby balanced on someone’s knee — the Lowthers’ grandchildren. Fry could see that Jack and Liam were fair-haired, with the pale look of their father. But the baby, Luanne, was much darker. The biggest frame contained an entire family group — Brian and Lindsay with all three children, their youngest child held proudly out front, taking centre stage as if it was her birthday or something.

  Fry felt an urge to pick the photos up and look at them more closely, but she was afraid it would distract the Lowthers’ attention. Pictures of the fire victims had already been obtained for the case files and the media. She could look at them back at the office, more safely.

  Instead, she looked down at her notebook. ‘Could we talk about the house for a few minutes? I mean, your daughter’s address in Darwin Street. I presume you know it quite well?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Mrs Lowther. ‘We go there often. We were with them when they moved in. I helped Lindsay choose some of the furniture.’

  Hearing that, Fry knew she’d have to pick her words carefully when she asked the next few questions, or she was likely to lose Moira Lowther altogether. The untreated polyurethane foam wasn’t her fault, but guilt knew no logic.

  ‘First of all, the smoke alarm. They had one installed in the kitchen.’

  ‘Yes, it was installed as soon as they moved into the house. Brian insisted on it.’

  ‘Who advised him where to put it?’

  ‘Advised him? I don’t think anyone did. The kitchen was the obvious place. It’s where accidents are most likely to happen.’

  ‘I see.’

  Of course, in one way the kitchen was the obvious place for a smoke alarm. Every day, the fire service could be guaranteed a tea-time call-out to an overheated chip pan somewhere. But if Brian Mullen had bothered to read the manufacturer’s instructions he would have seen a different recommendation. If he’d taken any notice of it, he might have kept his family alive. But there were too many ‘ifs’ in that equation.

  Nevertheless, Fry filed away the impression of Brian Mullen as the sort of man who’d toss the instructions disdainfully aside as he whipped out a screwdriver and relied on his masculine instincts to get the job done.

  ‘Lindsay was proud of her kitchen,’ said Mrs Lowther. ‘It’s not six months since she had new units put in, and a canopy cooker hood with a double extractor. It was immaculate.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve seen it,’ said Fry. ‘I wonder, during the past few weeks, did Lindsay or Brian mention anyone hanging around near their house, or someone suspicious coming to the door?’

  ‘No, not at all.’

  Before much longer, Fry had exhausted her questions. To be honest, she was glad to get out of the conservatory and away from the plants.

  ‘What sort of business do you run, sir?’ she asked.

  ‘I own a very successful export company. We deal mostly in machine tools, which we sell all around the world. We’ve been planning a shift towards computer technology, but that’s not our core business right now.’

  Not a wholesale florist’s, then. She’d just wondered. As they went back through the house, she saw begonias and chrysanthemums in the living room. And there were foliage plants everywhere: monstera, yucca, palms. It was like the hothouse at Kew in here.

  ‘Oh, you have a visitor,’ she said when they reached the door.

  A man was coming up the path towards the Lowthers’ door. He was taking his time, pausing to smile sadly at the stone angel, stepping carefully on the flattened tortoises. He looked to be in his mid-twenties, smooth faced and wearing an overcoat of a kind that you didn’t see very often these days. Fry wondered if he was a journalist.

  ‘Oh, it’s John,’ said Mr Lowther. ‘Our son.’

  ‘Does he live here?’

  ‘No, he has his own apartment, in Matlock. Poor John, he’s very upset — he and Lindsay were so close.’

  ‘Is he older than your daughter?’

  ‘No, two years younger.’

  John Lowther looked at Fry and Murfin curiously as they met on the porch step.

  ‘These people are the police, John,’ said his father. ‘They’re here about Lindsay and the boys.’

  ‘We were close. Did they tell you?’

  ‘Your parents? Yes, they did.’

  ‘I’m shut up completely.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  But Lowther was looking at Gavin Murfin. ‘I like your tie.’

  Murfin looked aghast at getting a compliment. ‘Er, thanks.’

  ‘Are you all right, Mr Lowther? I know it must be a very difficult time for you.’

  His eyes travelled back towards her, but failed to focus. ‘Pardon? What did you say?’

  ‘Have you thought of seeing your doctor?’

  Lowther laughed. ‘I don’t see my doctor, because he’s not here.’

  He went into the house, where his mother greeted him with a sob and a hug. Fry and Murfin walked back to the car. For a few moments, neither of them spoke. Then Fry started the engine and drove slowly back down the road.

  ‘A bit of a teacake,’ said Murfin.

  ‘What?’ said Fry, thinking he was talking about food, as usual.

  ‘That Lowther bloke. He’s a bit of a teacake.’

  ‘You mean John? Come on, Gavin, you just didn’t like him because you thought he was gay.’

  ‘What if he was?’ protested Murfin. ‘I don’t judge people like that. Well, not any more. I’ve done the course.’

  ‘Yeah, right. You’ve learned not to say out loud what you’re thinking, that’s all.’

  Murfin sniffed, but didn’t deny it.

  ‘Besides,’ he said, ‘you don’t have to be gay to admire my tie.’

  ‘No, just colour blind.’

  ‘Well, did you like him?’ asked Murfin.

  ‘He was a bit odd, I suppose.’

  ‘Two sandwiches short of a picnic, more like.’

  Fry sighed. ‘Is it getting near lunchtime by any chance?’

  ‘Well, now you mention it — ’

  ‘
All right, all right.’

  Fry knew when to give in to necessity. She couldn’t understand the way Gavin lived to eat, instead of the other way round.

  Sometimes she thought that most of the people around her had life upside down, or back to front. Take the Lowthers, for instance — they had a garden full of furniture, and a house full of plants. Something wrong there, surely?

  In Foxlow, a police patrol arrived outside the gates of Bain House at about a quarter past one that afternoon. Thirteen sixteen hours, according to the incident log. PC Andy Myers pressed the intercom button on the gatepost a few times, but got no response.

  ‘Maybe it’s not working,’ said his partner.

  ‘I can hear it buzzing.’

  ‘Well, Control can’t give us a phone number for her.’

  ‘She must be ex-directory.’

  ‘So what do we do, then?’

  Myers looked at the wrought-iron gates and the stone pillars on either side. ‘One of us has to get his arse over these gates. There should be a release on the other side. Mind the spikes when you get on top, Phil. They look lethal.’

  ‘Oh, thanks a lot. Don’t strain yourself, will you?’

  ‘I’m the driver. I have to stay with the car.’

  Myers watched his partner struggle over the gates, grumbling all the way as he tried to avoid ripping his uniform or impaling his hand on a spike. Finally, his boots crunched down on to gravel at the other side and he found the release button to open the gates.

  ‘The bloke who phoned in was a farmer name of Cross,’ said Myers from the window of the car. ‘He says there’s a bedroom window open round the back somewhere, and a light on.’

  ‘Why didn’t he climb over the bloody gate, then?’

  ‘Him? He’ll be long gone, ploughing his sheep or something.’

  ‘You don’t get out into the country much, do you, Andy?’

  The two officers went up to the front door and knocked. They still got no reply. Myers began to walk round the side of the house.

  ‘Yes, I can see the open window,’ he called. ‘I’m trying the back door.’

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘No.’