“I’d say anytime, but I’d be lying,” she said dryly. “Try to survive without my help for a bit, hm?”
“You got it,” I said, my attention focused on the messages.
“Is there any mention of the thing Mickey was telling you about?” Stephen asked once Keira had left.
“I’m looking for it.”
But the messages were mostly angry rants, with three or four different teens bouncing off each other and working themselves up. Others popped up to contribute on occasion, and there were over fifty in total who could read the chat.
Stephen brought up the message board on his computer, too, using Keira’s link to bypass the need for an invitation of any kind and, presumably, to cut through the encryption they were using.
“Do you think Jules is the one who knows the tech stuff?” I wondered aloud. “He’s the oldest, isn’t he?”
“I don’t know. He might be delegating that. He’s the leader and, presumably, charismatic enough to get a whole bunch of teens to follow him. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s the brains behind this.” He gestured towards the messaging site. “Right?”
“True. He could have recruited one of the younger teens to do that bit.”
I read through more of the messages, scrolling right back to the start to see when they began. Much as I’d expected, they started shortly before April this year, when the first of the fires had happened. The name of the chat itself was ‘Phoenix’ as if we needed any more confirmation.
“Some teenager probably thought that was right clever,” I muttered when I noticed it.
“Probably,” Stephen snorted. “Rising from the ashes. Poetic.”
“Hardly,” I muttered.
The phone on my desk rang just as I came back from fetching myself a cup of coffee. The day was already too warm for it, but I needed the caffeine.
“DCI Mitchell speaking,” I said before wincing as I took a sip of coffee.
My shirt was clinging to my back, and I shifted uncomfortably, sending a wistful look outside, where a breeze was making the limp branches of a nearby beech stir lazily.
“Uh, hello,” a woman’s voice said, one that I didn’t think I recognised. “You called about some patches that had been ordered?”
“Oh!” I put my coffee down. “Right. What’s your company name, please?”
She told me before going on to explain that they’d had an order for patches just like the ones I’d described.
“We haven’t been asked to do any orders like this before,” she added. “I double-checked back through our recent ones after you called. This order came through about an hour ago.”
So they’re using different companies, I thought.
“What can you tell me about who ordered them? Their name, address, phone number?” I asked.
She was a little reluctant to share customer information with me, so I offered to hold a video call with her to show her my badge. She agreed after that, filling me in on the information she had.
“The order should be delivered to the address within a few days, though it is a bigger order, so it may take longer.”
“How many patches do they want?”
“Fifty.”
“Crikey,” I muttered as I took notes on what she’d said. “Can you let me know when they’ve been dispatched, so we can track them? And if they order any more.”
“Of course.”
I thanked her and hung up a moment later, settling back in my seat. The patches would cost a fair amount of money, more than I would’ve thought comfortable for an average teenager, so I wondered where they were getting it from.
“Maybe they charge membership or something,” Stephen guessed when I mentioned it.
“More importantly, if they’re ordering fifty more patches,” I thought aloud, “they must be expanding their ranks, right?”
“As if this wasn’t enough of a mess already,” Stephen grumbled.
“Aye, but we have an address now. Most likely, they don’t live there, judging from how careful they’ve been so far, but hopefully, we can grab one of them in the act, hm?”
“We’ll see.” Stephen didn’t look too hopeful. “It might just be the house of a lackey, someone even lower than Mickey who knows next to nothing.”
“Maybe so. But maybe we’ll strike lucky, and Jules himself will come to pick them up, right?”
“Is it worth stationing a car to keep an eye on them, though? I don’t know that Rashford will sign off on it.”
“We can try.” I gave a shrug. “C’mon, it’s not like you to be so pessimistic. This is progress, mate.”
“I’m too damn hot, that’s the problem.” He fidgeted with his collar, tugging it away from his neck.
“We can try to fix that.” I got up, picking my phone up from my desk. “We’ll meet Sam if she’s free and have our lunch outside, okay? You can get an ice cream, or an iced coffee, or something.”
“Alright, you’ve convinced me.” He grinned.
Ten minutes later, the three of us were on a bench outside the station, shading our eyes from the sun. I’d already eaten my sandwich, not wanting the bread to dry out in the heat, and Sam and Stephen were engaged in a conversation about some drama show they’d both been watching.
I flicked through my phone, which I usually used for little more than texting and calling, and loaded up my emails. I got onto the messaging website the teens had been using, curiosity making me keen to see what they were talking about, as they sent new messages frequently.
“What’re you looking at?” Sam asked, leaning over to put her chin on my shoulder.
“Mm, a work thing.”
“Looks like a messaging site to me,” Sam said doubtfully.
I huffed a laugh. “It is. It’s also a work thing. A bunch of teenagers have been meeting on it and getting themselves…” I trailed off, frowning.
As I’d been speaking to Sam, a flurry of new messages had come in all of a sudden.
“Something’s happening,” I muttered and saw in my peripheral vision that Stephen had looked up.
The messages kept coming from a whole variety of users, and I scanned through them, trying to make sense of it all. Once I did, I swore, getting to my feet fast enough to jolt Sam.
“Darren?” She looked up at me, clearly taken aback, but I didn’t have time to explain.
“Stephen, we gotta go,” I made a move towards the car, glancing back at Sam. “I’m sorry, I’ll catch you later, okay?”
“Sure,” she said, giving me a sad smile.
“What’s going on?” Stephen asked as we bundled into the car, him in the driving seat and me busy putting a call through to the fire service.
“Get us over to Acomb,” I told him, just before the firefighters picked up, and I relayed the information I had before asking if there’d been any new fires reported.
There had.
I got off the phone and swore, hitting the door with my palm. Stephen swung us around a corner, the sirens wailing as we cut through the city.
“Darren?” Stephen prompted sharply. “Did you get this from the messaging site? About another fire?”
“Aye, they’re all talking about it,” I grunted. “That it’d been set off, and how it was burning, and who ran off early. All of that.”
“Jesus.” Stephen shook his head. “Where am I going exactly? Is it a house that’s on fire?” He sounded alarmed.
“The firefighters said an abandoned property was set alight just now. They’re still making their way over.”
“Thank god it wasn’t inhabited.”
“Aye, I just hope nobody was inside, anyway.”
Stephen glanced at me. “Homeless, you mean?”
“Right. In this heat, I’d take any shade I could get.”
“Let’s just hope no-one was hurt.” Stephen’s hands tightened around the wheel, and he pressed his foot down on the accelerator. We saw the billows of black smoke, like a shadow against the bright sky, long before we’d gotten
close-by.
We pulled up sharply, getting as close as we could to the house, and jogged over to the scene. Multiple firefighters were tackling the blaze which was producing enough smoke to sting my eyes and make me cough.
“Get back!” a firefighter yelled at Stephen and me. We retreated a short way but stayed close, watching as the hoses were deployed on the house and the fire hissed and spat in defiance.
“It’s so dry,” I shouted over the roaring of the flames.
The grass all around the abandoned property was worryingly long, looking very much like available tinder. One of the fire hoses was being used to dose the ground, cutting the fire off, while the other tackled the fire itself, which was tearing up the right side of the house.
I turned away from the brilliant heat, my face hot and black dots dancing in front of my eyes from the brightness, and scanned the gathered crowd for teenagers. But it was mostly adults, lingering and watching in horrified fascination as the house burned. The teenagers had run already, no doubt, sprinting off as soon as they were sure that the fire had taken. Or maybe they’d lingered for a few moments to cheer and gloat over what they’d done before they slipped away.
Someone must have seen them, I thought. On a day like this, the pavements were busy with people moving around, even in a residential area like this. There had to be someone who walked by or looked out of their window at the right moment to see the teens who did this. Better yet would be a CCTV camera, but I couldn’t see any when I looked around.
The fire was uncomfortably hot, making me sweat heavily and leaving my face feeling like it was sunburnt. On a cold night in November, a piled-up bonfire was exactly what you wanted, but the very opposite was true on a broiling day in July. Stephen and I moved back to the edge of the crowd to escape the worst of the heat and smoke, which the breeze nudged in our direction every few minutes.
While we were waiting for the firefighters to wrangle the blaze down to something manageable, I called into the station to let Rashford know what was happening and where we were. She cursed when she heard about there being another fire and that this one wasn’t out in the middle of nowhere, either.
“Stay and talk to the fire service,” she encouraged. “Find out what you can. I’ll send over a junior officer to help you keep an eye on things and fend off anybody wanting to stick their nose. This is escalating, and we need to get on top of it, particularly before the press starts poking around.”
“I agree, thank you, ma’am,” I said, grateful that she recognised the severity of this.
The fire team, much to my relief, had managed to contain and tamp down the fire by the time I was off the phone. I looked up at the smoking remains of the house which had already been dilapidated but now looked war-torn with the burnt, blackened rip down its flank.
“Let’s go talk to one of the firefighters,” I said to Stephen, who gave a nod.
We moved forward, looking for a firefighter who wasn’t in the middle of something and might tell us what they knew. But the team was all occupied, and I was reluctant to get in their way, so we waited on the side as they moved purposefully around, efficiently doing their job.
The crowd of onlookers had started to drift away once the fire was out, though many remained to gawk at the damage and the commotion. I kept an eye on a journalist who’d turned up, presumably someone from a local paper. For the last few minutes, they’d been trying to get up close to the house so that they could get a good picture of it, and I left them to it since they didn’t seem to be bothering the firefighters too much.
But a moment later, they’d darted forwards and pestered one of the fire team for a comment, even after they’d been repeatedly rebuffed.
“Let’s go have a word,” Stephen said, who’d been watching what had been going on, too.
We headed over, and the journalist faltered when she saw us, only to brighten again, turning the microphone on Stephen and me.
“What do you think the cause-?”
“No comment from us,” I said firmly. “Put that away and leave the firefighters be, alright?”
She looked put out. “C’mon, give us a hint, detective. Should people be worried about their own houses? This time of the year-”
“Alright, let’s go,” Stephen said, gently guiding her away from the irritated-looking firefighter. “You want a comment, you can call the fire department later.”
“Thanks for the hand,” the firefighter said, giving me a nod.
“No problem. Though I’m afraid I’ve got questions too, but only when you’re done, of course.” I gestured vaguely towards the charred house.
“Give me five, and I’ll be with you,” he said with an easy-going smile and stepped away.
Stephen returned after a minute, and we waited for the firefighter to return to give us some answers, if he had any, that was.
“The journo didn’t give you any trouble?”
“Nope, not after she realised she wasn’t getting anything.”
“Good.”
I patted my pockets for my handkerchief and rubbed it across my forehead, my curly hair limp and damp in the heat. Stephen had a water bottle on his belt and passed it over to me. The water was metallic and warm, but I drank it gratefully, thinking longingly of Sam’s lemonade sitting at home in the fridge.
“Sorry about the wait,” the firefighter said, coming back ten minutes later. The team was beginning to pack up now, and the majority of the crowd had moved on. “I’m guessing you want to know how it started?”
“That would be our first question, aye,” I agreed with a smile.
The firefighter pulled off his helmet and ran a hand over his short-shorn hair, which was speckled through with grey.
“Well, by the looks of things, it was fuel splashed up the wall on the right side. Definitely set on purpose, that’s for sure.”
“It was lit on just the one side?” I asked.
“Yeah. Given time, it would’ve burned to the other end, but it was certainly set on the right.”
“Did you notice anything else?” I asked. “Anything that could help us?”
“Afraid not.” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Probably teenagers messing around, I’d guess.”
The teenagers part I agreed with, but I wasn’t sure that this was them just messing around. As part of the bigger pattern, there seemed to be an intent behind it all that went beyond rebellious acting out.
“Thanks for telling us. D’you mind if we have a scout around? We’ll stay outside the house, obviously.”
The firefighter turned to look at the building for a moment before giving a slow nod.
“I’d say it’s structurally sound at the moment. Don’t go too near, though, and no poking around.” He gave us a smile to show that he was joking, and I smiled back.
“I wouldn’t think of it.”
He left us to it, and Stephen and I headed closer, moving over the long grass the fire hoses had wetted down. The stench of smoke was strong here, and I coughed, putting my nose in my elbow as we went closer to the right side, where the fire had originated. It had also burned most fiercely there, I could see, and I scanned the area, looking for discarded matches or a disposable lighter.
I didn’t spot either of those, but Stephen gave a holler, and I looked up to find that he’d moved away into the back of the overgrown garden, behind the burnt house.
“What’ve you found?” I asked as I came over.
“Fuel can. We might get prints off it.”
“Good job,” I said as I saw what he was looking at; a cheap, discarded jerry can. The case was big enough now that we could ask forensics to look it over for us, in case there was some bit of evidence that we couldn’t see.
Stephen left to go back to the car to fetch a large enough evidence bag, plus the fingerprints kit to try on the jerry can’s handle. I wasn’t confident that we’d get much off the flaky paint, but it was worth a shot.
Whilst he was doing that, I moved around the house, checking ou
t the left side once I’d spent several minutes scouring the source of the fire. This side of the house looked relatively untouched, except by time and neglect. The grass was long and dry here since the fire had never reached this side, and the ash that had drifted down was caught in it, sticking to my damp shoes and trousers.
As I looked it over, I caught the strong smell of fuel and frowned. My first thought was that the breeze had carried the smell over from the jerry can, but I changed my mind when I moved further along the side of the house, and the scent intensified.
I knew I looked strange as I crouched down, trying to figure out where the fuel smell was coming from, but there was no-one around to see, and I wanted to know. The alcohol had all but evaporated in the heat, but it’d sunk into the grass at the base of the wall, and I touched my fingers to it, recoiling from the stench of fuel when I brought my hand to my nose.
Moving back over to Stephen, I called him over to have a look. I took a couple of pictures of the spot, but there was little to see, so I wanted Stephen to back up my account in case it was useful.
“I’d thought it was strange that they’d only set fire to one side,” I mused aloud as Stephen crouched down near where the fuel had been spilt or deliberately poured. “I think they intended to set it alight on both sides, but they couldn’t for some reason.”
“Perhaps they freaked out after lighting the other side,” Stephen said, getting to his feet with a wince. He gave his bad knee a rub before straightening up.
“Or maybe they were interrupted by someone walking by, for example.”
“Possible. We’d need that witness to come forward, though, if they exist.”
“Or we track them down, aye,” I agreed. I glanced around the spot and shook my head. “I think they’re learning, you know. They only set fire to one side of that barn, remember? And the whole structure didn’t burn, meaning that the farmer could save his animals. But this time, I think they wanted the whole thing to go up before the firefighters could get here.”
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