Burning Greed

by Diane M Dickson

  Tanya had no choice but acquiesce, but she hadn’t missed the smirk that had crossed Sue Rollinson’s face. Had she made a mistake bringing her instead of one of the blokes, or Kate? Ah well too late now.

  “So, when will I be able to have access?” she asked.

  “Tomorrow, probably late morning, maybe later depending on the extent of the damage. The mezzanine level will be unsafe for longer and may have to be demolished. I can have someone call you.” He held out a hand and Tanya passed over one of her business cards.

  “Thanks.” She turned to Simon Hewitt. “Doesn’t seem a lot of point hanging around now. Will you let me know before you come and take the body? I’d like to see it in situ.”

  “Of course. I’ll have Moira call you.” They smiled at each other, acknowledging the ongoing tension between Tanya and the snarky receptionist who ran the morgue with a rod of iron.

  “Thanks for that!” She turned and walked away, knowing that Sue would have no choice but to follow and counted it a small, if petty, victory when she heard the dull thud of the Doc Martens splashing through the puddles to catch up.

  Once they were away from the worst of the muck and out of the way of the fire brigade, Tanya said, “Right, Sue, I’ll have to speak to the DCI but I don’t think we can start much just now. I’m going to assume that we’ll be assigned. Can you call the others and let them know? Ask them to report in the morning, eight o clock will be early enough under the circumstances.”

  She stopped and pointed high up on the corner of the wall. “CCTV. First thing I want you to get on to that. We need to see who’s been in and out of here. Get me copies. Right, can you get yourself home okay?”

  As she turned and stalked back towards the waiting squad car, she dialled the number for Bob Scunthorpe, the Detective Chief Inspector, to bring him up to date and confirm that it seemed that there was a case to investigate. She knew that she had probably caused herself a problem leaving Sue to get a cab, but the smirk on her face in front of the bronze commander had rankled. She felt just a bit smug as the driver opened the car door and she slid into the rear seat.

  Chapter 4

  Tanya was awake early making notes, planning her first actions. There were calls to make, and at seven-thirty, which she judged late enough, she called Bob Scunthorpe. She was keen to have him confirm first off that it would be her case. The DCI was being driven to his office and had nothing more than she had told him the previous evening.

  “Have you anything new?” he asked.

  “Not as yet. Doctor Hewitt was there last night, I am going back with him today as soon as the fire service tell us it’s safe. They contacted the key holder last night on his mobile. Name of Alan Parker. He’s away. Dubai. At a car show apparently, but is heading back soonest. The secondary keyholder is his wife, Julie. She was away also, visiting her mother in Cornwall. She is going to be available this afternoon.”

  “No idea who the victim is?”

  “Not as yet, sir.”

  “Okay, come in and see me in an hour. I think your team is still available.”

  “Yes, sir, great.” This would have been a chance to change things, but it was already too late. After last night, given the obvious problem that still lurked between them, she wanted Sue removed but then, how could she explain why she had taken her to the scene? She couldn’t explain it to herself, it would have been so much more logical to have taken Kate, who had seniority, or Dan. Why Sue? Was she trying to impress the woman? No, stupid thought. Was she trying to win her over, and if so why? She had never been bothered about making friends before. Maybe this was just some odd disquiet, a leftover from their first encounter, and now she was stuck with it. Well, they’d just have to be grown up about it, wouldn’t they?

  With an exception for the Control’s number and Bob Scunthorpe’s, her phone had been in ‘do not disturb mode’. It had seemed logical. She’d wanted a good night, wanted to start the day bright and ready to go. She hadn’t been alerted to the texts coming in from Scotland. One after the other – Call me. Call me please, urgently, it doesn’t matter what time. Where are you, please call me. And then the final one at just after four in the morning. Tanya, For God’s sake call me, Serena is missing.

  Serena. Which one was Serena? The oldest girl, was that Serena? She glanced at the framed picture on the wall in the hallway. Yes, and then Janet the younger girl and little Danni – Danielle – although she must be more than ten now. There had been nothing since the text at four, nearly five hours ago. Probably the girl had turned up, some teenaged tantrum that her sister had overreacted to. The phone had been on for a while now and there had been no calls. She would ring later. Fiona would be steaming, she didn’t like to be ignored. There would be a long tense conversation and all the past imagined slights would be paraded. There wasn’t time for that now, there was important work to do. Anyway, if the family had been up until four o’clock waiting for the girl to come home they’d still be in bed.

  Chapter 5

  Bob Scunthorpe offered her coffee and for once Tanya accepted. She had meant to call at Costa on the way in, but there were still detours around the fire site, and she had needed to be at work.

  Bob picked up his mug and leaned back into the big, black desk chair. He nodded and waited for Tanya to take the lead.

  “We don’t have any more than last night, sir. Once I have the incident room set up, I’ll get back in touch with the fire service’s bronze commander, to see if I can hurry things up a bit. I’m seeing Mrs Parker this afternoon, she confirmed by text that she’ll be available after lunchtime. Her husband has told her that he will be in tonight. They are not aware that there is a victim as yet. I wanted to tell her myself, gauge her reaction for one thing and of course, if there is a chance that it is a family member, we need to be sensitive. There are no children, but it could be a staff member or another relative. I am hoping that I’ll have more information from Dr Hewitt, gender at least, before I speak to her. Apart from that, it’s a bit of a hiatus right now. I’m waiting for CCTV from the entrance, I’m hopeful that will give us something concrete to work with.”

  “Plenty for you to be getting on with, setting up and so on,” Scunthorpe replied.

  “Oh yes, sir.” Tanya took the hint, gulped back the last of her coffee and left.

  The incident room was the same one they had used before. Tanya opened the door just long enough to glance round and say good morning. The team had automatically claimed the same desks and set the room up in the way that was familiar. On the whiteboard was the name Locksmith, the operational name generated by the computer. There were already a few images, the fire-blackened interior of the building and the twisted shape lying in filthy water which could only be the corpse. Kate was in organisation mode, labelling the pictures.

  Tanya strode past, on the way to her own office to take a minute to look at personal messages and listen to her voicemail. Charlie was sitting behind the bigger desk, the one he had been using since they had first shared the space. He looked up as she spoke.

  “Oh, it’s you,” she said.

  “Hiya, Tanya. I’ll move. You’ll be using this one, yeah? I came in to finish some last-minute paperwork, grab some of my bits.” Charlie pointed to the cardboard box on the chair, his framed family pictures and pen pot in the bottom.

  “You’re okay, Charlie. I didn’t expect to see you, that’s all. You carry on, really, I’m going through…” She waved a hand in the direction of the other room and the activity. He nodded. He seemed embarrassed.

  “I’ll see you later, maybe? Coffee perhaps?” she asked.

  “Great. Listen, do you mind if I…” He jerked his head in the direction of the incident room. “I’m not going up to Liverpool until the end of next week now, bit of a delay their end – something administrative. I’m going to be hanging around like a spare part.”

  “You could go home.” As she spoke she realised how unfriendly it sounded. “Well, what I mean is, you must have plenty to d
o, with the house move and all.”

  He lowered his head, nodding, his mouth turned down.

  She took a breath, “No, actually why don’t you come in? If you’re going to be here anyway.”

  He looked up and grinned. “Right, good. Carol’s already up at her sister’s and the house is half packed. She went up this morning and it’s a bit grim and quiet, you know.”

  “Well, come on, sit in. It’s all good.” They walked down the corridor together. Though it was fun to see the surprise on the faces of the others when they walked into the room together she couldn’t decide how she really felt, having him there, but not part of it. Sue’s eyes had widened as she grinned at Charlie.

  “Okay, Charlie’s hanging about like a spare part so he’s sitting in for a day or so, unofficially. Let’s get on with things.”

  Finding him there, in the office, had thrown her and she’d forgotten to log on to her personal email account. When she opened her laptop and booted it up, she was hit with multiple messages from her sister, the last one just half an hour ago. She didn’t have time now, but that was something she’d have to deal with.

  It didn’t take long to share the small amount of information with the team, and then the call came from Moira at the morgue. Taking Sue, because it seemed logical after the night before, and she was being ‘adult’ about it, they left for the scene of the fire.

  In the car, Sue was quiet, no mention was made of the abandonment of yesterday and the silence felt loaded and awkward. Tanya was irritated. This was something that she was going to have to deal with or the junior officer would have to go. She knew that to do that would put a black mark on her record though, and as a woman, she felt a degree of loyalty to others of her gender. Still, it wasn’t enough to be a woman, you had to shine, you had to stand above the rest and Sue wasn’t doing that. In fact, she was behaving like a spoiled kid, still holding a grudge; and it wasn’t even her own grudge, it was on behalf of Charlie. It was time to move on.

  “Chase up the CCTV footage, we need that as quickly as possible and we need to talk, Sue. Come and see me later, before you go home,” Tanya said.

  “Okay.”

  “Okay ma’am, okay boss. Either is fine.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Sue muttered as she turned her face to stare out of the window.

  Tanya’s sighed, she really didn’t have time for this.

  Chapter 6

  There was still a fire appliance parked at the end of the short alleyway. There were no hoses and the crew were tidying up around the site, no sign of urgency now, just routine. A small red van was nearer to the warehouse and as Tanya and Sue picked their way across, Chief Fire Officer Bartlett emerged, stretching up to his full height and putting on his uniform hat. He held out his hand to Tanya, nodded at Sue.

  “Dr Hewitt is inside already,” he said. “We have some protective gear for you.”

  Tanya held up the blue bundle of her forensic suit.

  He nodded. “You’ll need more than that.”

  They walked to the van where a young firefighter issued them with hard hats, to go over the hoods of the all-in-one suits, and they grinned at each other – a moment of lightness.

  “Firefighter Morley will take you in. Stick close to the route she shows you and don’t lean on anything. Do not make any attempt to access the upper areas and keep away from the staircase. We are still making safe. If you need anything more from me just let me know.” With a brief smile he turned and marched back down the alley to his waiting car, his courtesy at an end. Before he had disappeared, they were being ushered forward into the warehouse.

  The smell was chemical, acrid and harsh. As they reached the bottom of what had been a staircase but was now a blackened and broken skeleton of one, Simon Hewitt stood from his crouched position. He rubbed at his back, stretched his arms above his head and rotated his shoulders.

  “Detective Inspector, good to see you. Shame it always has to be under these sorts of circumstances. We should do something about that.”

  Tanya was peering down at the ghastly vision on the ground. Teeth grinned obscenely from a grimacing, lipless mouth and the rest of the body was shrunken, the arms reaching upwards, knees drawn towards the torso. She knew she could never unsee this, and the only thing to do – for it to sit more easily in her mind – was to find out why and how someone had been reduced to this dreadful thing, barely recognisable as a human.

  “What can you tell me?” She had knelt on the filthy floor and she turned to peer up at Dr Hewitt.

  “From the size of the body, I think what we have here is a female, or possibly a slight male, maybe a teenager. The charring is extensive, and I would suggest from my own preliminary examination, and from conferring with the fire investigator, that this poor woman, probably a woman, was already laid here when the fire started. As you can see, although we haven’t turned it yet, the body is burned much more extensively on the front. He had crouched beside Tanya and indicated what they could see of the back where the skin wasn’t so black and burned. I think that when we move her, we may find less damaged tissue and that will give us a chance for DNA. No fingerprints obviously, but we will have the teeth and jaw to work with for dental records.”

  Tanya looked at the victim. “Laid down?”

  “Yes, I think – and again this is very early, almost speculation to be honest – that she was already on her back, then the accelerant, which was most likely petrol, was poured onto her and set alight.”

  “So, she may have already been dead when the fire started?”

  “Oh, I sincerely hope so, Inspector; or at least unconscious. I’ll let you have my report as soon as I’ve had a chance to have a look at her in the morgue.” He called out to a couple of suited figures who had been standing to one side, labelling evidence jars and placing them carefully into boxes. “If you could help me, gentlemen?”

  Tanya didn’t want to watch. She stood and walked to another group who were photographing the vehicles. She held out her hand to the senior investigator and introduced herself and Sue. “What have we got here?” she asked.

  “Well, as you can probably tell, we’ve got two cars. I think they’ll need a bit of a touch up to the paintwork.” The photographer gave a sharp laugh. Tanya forced a smile. Although her mouth was hidden by the mask she knew that her face would lift, her eyes crease and they would tell she was joining in with the fun and games. She didn’t want this, but it was the way people coped. Gallows humour to get them through the horrors. It had never worked for her, but she heard Sue give a little giggle beside her. She tipped her head to one side, raised her eyebrows, and waited for further information.

  “I think we have identified that one.” The man pointed with a gloved finger to a low car, the red paint blistered and stained, tyres burned away, but recognisable. “Probably a Ferrari, we’ll have to wait until we have the VIN to know exactly. And this other...” He turned and nodded at the heap of charred fabric and twisted metal. “Well, not sure, but it’s not a minibus.” Again, the hollow laughter.

  “So, a Ferrari, that’s pretty special, isn’t it?” Tanya said.

  “I’d say so, yes. The other one is much more badly damaged, but I reckon it’s a sporty Honda. What do you think, Dave?” he said, addressing his colleague.

  “Yeah, Honda almost certainly.”

  Tanya blew out a breath, nodded. “Okay, thanks. How soon will we be able to get up there?” She pointed towards what was obviously an office on a mezzanine floor, suspended and unreachable above the remains of the staircase. The safety rail was all but gone, but the walls were still standing. However, the underside of the floor was blistered and warped by the heat.

  “Oh, that’ll be a while, you can see the danger. I’ll make sure they let you know, could be it’ll never be safe enough for you to go up.”

  “Thanks.” Tanya turned to go, and as she stepped away, she twisted back. “Oh, just one more thing, who called it in, do you know? Who reported the fire?”

&
nbsp; “Hold on.” Tony Lyle clicked on his tablet. “Hmm, a member of the public smelled the smoke. I’ll send the details on, shall I?”

  “Yes, please, I’ll leave a card with someone outside.” Tanya nodded and then, with their suits rustling and feet splashing through the pools of water, they made their way out into the relatively fresh air of the narrow alleyway.

  Chapter 7

  Back in the car, Tanya made a few notes on her tablet before driving out towards the main road.

  “So, you going to take him up on it, boss?” Sue sounded friendly.

  Tanya glanced across the car, frowning. “Sorry?”

  “Dr Hewitt,” Sue said, “meeting him away from dead bodies and stuff?”

  “I haven’t a clue what you mean.”

  “Right, okay. Sorry.” Sue turned back to the window, the attempt at conversation over, her shoulders hunched slightly away. Tanya shook her head and drove on.

  The mobile phone had connected automatically to the in-car audio system, so when the tweet came from her sister, Tanya was left with little choice but to listen to it, read out in the robotic voice of the device.

  ‘Christ Tanya ring me.’ It said, ‘I have been trying to reach you for hours we are out of our minds here. Ring me.’ The call ended with the question from the phone, ‘Do you wish to send a message?’

  Sue, turned, her eyes wide. “Hmm, somebody sounds upset.” There was a short pause before she added, “Boss.”

  “Oh hell. Yes, it’s my sister. Apparently, her daughter has gone missing. I should have got back to her, but I haven’t had the chance and I thought that by now it was all okay.”

  “How old is she?”

  “My sister, she’s older than me by seven years.”

  “No, the kid. How old is the kid who’s missing?”

  “Oh Serena, erm… I’m not sure. Maybe she’s about sixteen?”