Smoke Alarm

by Priscilla Masters

  They left the scene to the scrutiny of the firemen and forensics team who were carrying on with their work and entered the second bedroom, the one across the hall, adjacent to the main bedroom, again accessed through a locked door splintered by an axe. And yet again the lock was shot across, the key dropped to the floor and the bolt inside the bedroom open. Talith frowned as he stepped through. He could put two and two together. Locking her in? Deliberately? To die? It was as cruel as . . . He was at a loss. Then he realized. As cruel as the Holocaust. Or as cruel as the burning of martyrs. His mind kept busy. Was it possible that the old man on the landing had been making an attempt to reach his daughter-in-law and granddaughter, without realizing that the landing would have been smoke-filled and he would quickly be overcome? Or was it possible that he had locked the doors from the outside in a misguided effort to keep the women safe? He heaved a big sigh. In the end there had been no escape for any of them – except the boy, Jude. Talith and Roberts stepped forward. Adelaide Barton was lying in her bed, underneath a duvet discoloured by the smoke but still recognizable as patterned with pink cupcakes. The duvet was drawn over her head, her body a small, slim shape beneath the smoky bedclothes. And again Talith tried to fit together the evidence with a plausible theory. Why had Adelaide hidden underneath the duvet? Had she been trying to protect herself from the smoke? Or had sheer terror forced her to seek refuge in a familiar place where she felt, ironically, safe? Who knew? An insinuating wind blew in through the window as though trying to whisper something chilling in his ear. Talith knew one thing at least: both women had been aware of what their fate would be. He lifted the duvet.

  The girl was dead, her face, like her mother’s dusky and discoloured but, unlike her mother’s, Adelaide’s features were peaceful as though she was merely asleep. ‘Poor thing,’ he muttered. ‘Poor . . . little . . . thing.’

  This room, too, had been badly affected by the smoke, but not quite as badly as her mother’s. Smoke damage rather than the fire was what had discoloured the walls, ceiling, furniture. Everything was covered in a layer of oily smoke. The windows had cracked and the fire hoses done their work through broken panes. But it was obvious that without the fire service this house would have been nothing but a blackened shell, the three bodies buried beneath rubble and the task of the police to find the perpetrators would have been that much harder. It was lucky that Mrs Lissimore had been returning from Theatre Severn, noticed the fire and raised the alarm. Melverley was a quiet village. It was quite feasible that the fire would have gone unnoticed and four members might have died last night. It was a terrible thought and for once even Gethin Roberts was not focusing on what he would say to his beloved Flora about the fire but reflecting on the sheer tragedy of the situation, a beautiful house ruined, three lives lost, a family torn apart by tragedy. He heaved out a great big sigh.

  Talith glanced at him. ‘You all right there, Roberts?’

  Gethin managed a half grin. ‘Yeah.’

  Talith clapped him on the shoulder and said nothing more.

  Now there were the formalities, form filling and protocol and waiting for the police surgeon to confirm what they already knew without a medical degree between them: all three were dead. But until pronounced so they could not be moved to the mortuary for the post-mortems. So they waited.

  Alex rang Martha at two forty-five. ‘I’ve got Nigel Barton here, Martha,’ he said, ‘at the station. He got back an hour or so ago. Naturally he wants to go to his home but we’re waiting for Delyth Fontaine to confirm death on his father, wife and daughter.’ There was a brief pause. ‘I don’t want him to see his family like that. Not there. I want them moved before he sees it all. Tidied up. I’ve suggested he go straight to the hospital and comfort his son.’

  ‘That seems like a good idea.’ Correctly she read the request behind the words. ‘Did you want me to come out to the house?’

  ‘Would you? That’d be great. I could do with your perspective.’ She could hear relief lighten his voice. ‘I’ll give you a lift, Martha. Pick you up in twenty minutes?’ He sounded almost jaunty.

  She knew it was unusual, to say the least, for police and coroner to work quite so closely together but Martha and Alex had fallen into this way of tackling violent death. Shrewsbury was, in general, a peaceful town but all towns have their crimes and need their solutions. The dead deserve justice. It was Martha’s mantra. So they both derived some benefit from these shared opinions.

  She unhooked her coat from the door and went outside to tell Jericho that she was going to visit the scene of last night’s fire. Needless to say, he pursed his lips, shook his iron-grey hair and looked disapproving, but wisely said nothing.

  Twenty-five minutes later she was sitting in Alex’s car.

  As he drove the eleven miles west of Shrewsbury to the village of Melverley he filled her in on the details so far. ‘We’ve found the three bodies.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘The two women in their bedrooms and William Barton outside on the landing near the top of the stairs. He was facing towards the women’s rooms, whether to try and rescue them or what we can’t tell yet. And we may never know.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Delyth Fontaine should be on her way to confirm the deaths right now. Oh, and there is confirmed evidence of accelerant – petrol in both downstairs rooms and on the stairs.’

  ‘A deliberate fire then, which killed three people – nearly four? Murder.’

  Alex nodded.

  ‘Tell me more about the Bartons.’

  ‘Barton is a successful businessman; his wife teaches music in a few schools. Adelaide Barton is fifteen years old and was due to take her GCSEs this summer. Her brother, Jude, is fourteen. Come on, Martha . . .’ He took his eyes off the road for a second to meet hers. ‘What can this ordinary family possibly have done to warrant this?’

  She met his gaze unflinchingly. ‘You know the answer to that as well as I do, Alex. They were either the deliberate target or our arsonist chose Melverley Grange at random, perhaps because it is a lovely old house. Have there been other arson attacks in the town or the surrounds?’

  Randall concentrated on the road again. ‘There have been a bunch of moronic teenagers but their modus operandi is entirely different. Their fires are pretty half-hearted. They’ve only ever chosen targets in the town. And they tend to torch four or five properties in the same road. Besides, they’ve got the best alibi of all. They’re banged up in Stoke Heath. No.’ His frown was deep and troubled. ‘It isn’t them.’ He turned right up the B road.

  She was silent for a minute then asked, apparently innocently, ‘How did Nigel Barton sound?’

  Alex Randall took his eyes off the road again before giving her a grin. ‘Nail on head, Martha?’

  She gave a wry smile. ‘Just think of it as a nasty, suspicious mind at work.’

  ‘That’s very nasty,’ he said, frowning.

  She looked out of the window at the country road, small cottages, peaceful green fields. ‘Yes – well, fires are, aren’t they? And my nasty and suspicious mind has had a lot of material to feed on over the years.’

  Alex gave her a quick look but carried on driving without comment.

  She continued. ‘And Jude? How’s he?’

  Alex grimaced. ‘In a lot of pain. They’ve had to give him morphine.’

  ‘Right.’

  They travelled the rest of the way in companionable silence, each mentally working through the drama. They were in the village of Melverley ten minutes later.

  It was easy to pick out the property. Quite apart from the extensive damage and the blackened building, there were crowds of people simply looking and more cars parked along the verge than attend an average church bazaar. Martha climbed out of the car, her eyes fixed on what was left of the house. The destruction, even from the outside, was terrible – quite apart from the knowledge that three people had died inside. She frowned, her mind already trying to piece the drama together, to make sense of it all and find a logical explanation. She had some ex
perience of house fires but the inquests she had conducted on the victims had, in general, been accidental fires in terraced houses with dodgy heating equipment where exits were limited to front door, back door and windows. This was a large, Victorian detached property with plenty of nice big windows and multiple exits for escape. Only they hadn’t.

  She had conducted the inquest on a case only three years ago when a business man had deliberately set fire to his house after murdering his wife and daughter. The incident had scarred the people of North Shropshire and she had never thought she would have to conduct another inquest as traumatic as that. But here it was. Again.

  Randall was eyeing her. ‘Penny for them,’ he said softly but Martha shook her head at him.

  ‘My thoughts aren’t for sharing – at least not yet, Alex,’ she said with a returning smile, though he could easily have guessed at them. They were, after all, predictable.

  Melverley Grange might have been a lovely house once but now it was a sorry sight. Like a woman who had once been beautiful the contrast of the present to the past made the tragedy all the more poignant. As though to underline their sentiments as they regarded the wreck a woman stepped forward, added a bunch of flowers to the tributes at the gates, looked up at the house, shook her head slowly and wiped away a tear with the sleeve of her anorak. Then she turned and walked away. She said nothing to either Martha or Alex, and her silence was more eloquent than any words she could possibly have said. The air of gloom and depression enveloped the entire scene. The flowers the woman had laid joined the others on the grassy bank outside the gates with various notes, the word Why? written on many of them, together with expressions of love and loss. Martha and DI Randall threaded under the Do Not Cross tape, walked up the drive together and left the bunches of flowers and sentiment behind. They had a job to do.

  They met Delyth Fontaine, the police surgeon, at the back door, just stripping off her forensic suit. She pulled off her over shoes and greeted Martha warmly. ‘Hello, Martha.’

  Martha’s response was equally warm. She liked Delyth, a large, untidy woman who cared a lot less for her own appearance than her beloved herd of Torddu mountain sheep. ‘So what have we got, Delyth?’

  ‘Elderly male and two females. Probably all died of smoke inhalation. They weren’t burnt to death, that’s for sure.’ Delyth’s voice was matter-of-fact, almost cheerful. ‘The older woman – almost certainly Christie Barton – suffered the worst injuries: burns to her legs caused by her nylon night clothes melting. According to the forensic team the women appeared to have been locked in their rooms, which makes the incident worse. Much worse.’ Her voice remained unemotional, uninvolved. ‘Are you happy for me to move the bodies to the mortuary, Martha?’

  Martha nodded. ‘And perhaps you’ll have a word with the pathologist, Mark Sullivan – see when he can do the post-mortems?’

  ‘Will do.’ The police surgeon’s job over, she left and Martha and Alex threaded their way into the house.

  Martha had visited crime scenes before – even fire-damaged crime scenes – but the destruction of what must have been such a beautiful and luxurious home was beyond her experience. She could only look around in pity and shock as she, too, slid into a forensic suit and overshoes. It certainly wouldn’t do for the coroner to sully a crime scene. She and Alex paddled into the kitchen, Martha looking around her, trying to imagine family life here. But it was difficult in the smoky, blackened remains.

  Alex led her into the sitting room and pointed out the window. ‘This was where the petrol was introduced, according to the forensic team, and Talith and Roberts are in agreement.’

  She turned to him. ‘I thought you said the window was forced.’

  He nodded.

  ‘It looks more to me as though it was raised,’ she observed. ‘Look.’

  DI Randall moved closer. It was a sash window that had splintered and virtually been destroyed.

  ‘The weight and then the window itself would have dropped,’ Martha said, ‘when the sash cord was burnt through. I think it was pushed open and the fire caused the glass to crack. Besides,’ she looked across at him, ‘surely the firemen would have broken this window anyway to get their hoses through?’

  DI Randall nodded without making comment. But he was frowning as he slipped a glove on and fingered the scorched wood. ‘It’s got a window lock on the inside,’ he said. ‘And as far as I can tell it’s undone.’

  They both tried to work out the implication of this.

  ‘Melverley’s a peaceful little village,’ Martha pointed out, ‘hardly a major crime hotbed. I think it very possible that the Bartons would close their windows at night but not necessarily bother to lock them.’

  ‘OK,’ Alex agreed slowly. ‘Here’s my theory: someone breaks the window with this rock.’ He indicated a large stone on the floor.

  ‘And where did the rock come from?’

  ‘There’s a wall outside,’ Randall said. ‘The stones are quite loose. Then he climbs the stairs, locks the two women in their rooms. Doesn’t bother about the old man who wanders, confused, on to the landing. Our arsonist then splashes petrol down the stairs and in both downstairs front rooms, sets fire to the place and escapes again through the window.’

  ‘Possibly,’ she said.

  DI Randall gave her a sharp glance but said nothing.

  They heard a noise coming from upstairs and Sergeant Paul Talith appeared at the doorway. ‘Sir,’ he said. ‘Mrs Gunn? Hughes has found something. Upstairs.’

  They climbed up to the first floor and picked their way towards Roddie Hughes, the crime scene investigator coordinating all the evidence. Efficient and meticulous at his job, he was an Essex boy who had come to Shrewsbury for a holiday and never quite made it home. He was universally liked in the force.

  Hughes was holding up a plastic evidence bag. They both peered at it. Inside was a small piece of metal.

  Martha frowned. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It looks very much like part of a cigarette lighter,’ Hughes said. ‘One of those disposable ones.’

  ‘Where did you find it?’ Randall’s voice was sharp and gravelly.

  ‘It was in the old man’s dressing gown pocket,’ Hughes said.

  Martha’s heart sank.

  FOUR

  Alex and Martha stepped past the body of William Barton, taking a swift glance at the body of the frail, elderly man. ‘Not much of an end to a life,’ Martha observed, noting his foetal position and reflecting how strange it was that the majority of people lie like this within the womb and die in the same position. ‘I wonder where he was heading.’ Her glance drifted towards the two splintered bedroom doors.

  Alex’s face tightened. ‘More like: what was he up to?’

  ‘He could have been trying to let the women out, thinking they might have been overcome by smoke.’

  Randall looked unconvinced.

  Martha spoke again. ‘I wonder if he was a smoker.’

  Randall looked at her. ‘You’re trying to find an innocent explanation for the fact that he had a lighter in his pocket. Where’s that suspicious mind you’re so proud of?’ he teased.

  But Martha’s expression was sober. ‘William Barton is unable to defend himself. I don’t want him taking the blame if he’s innocent.’

  Randall was already two steps ahead, anxious to examine the other two bedrooms for himself. He went first to Christie’s room. A blanket covered her body now and the arc lights had been dimmed so the room had less of the atmosphere of a lit stage than an empty theatre when the show’s over and the audience gone. The scene was clearly marked out, the story easy to read, helped by forensic markers, chalk lines and fingerprint dust – the smoke-blackened walls and furniture, the bodies of the mother and, in the other bedroom, her fifteen-year-old daughter. Each was covered with a sheet, the illumination through cracked and blackened windows making the atmosphere dingy, and everywhere there was this pervasive stink of smoke, a smell that seemed to epitomize destruction. Even a
s they were inspecting Adelaide Barton’s room the mortuary van arrived outside and backed up to the front door. The three bodies were zipped efficiently into body bags and taken away, the attendants descending the stairs in careful steps. Martha watched the van take its cargo down the drive, heading for the mortuary where the post-mortems would be performed. She stood back, looking through the window for minutes after the van had turned left on to the B road that led back to Shrewsbury. Years ago she’d thought she had learned to detach herself from scenes like these, to forget the human story of suffering and pain and concentrate instead on the science and facts of the case – the job, or so she told herself. But every now and then cases caught her out, usually because of some common ground in her home life. In this instance Sukey, her daughter, and Adelaide Barton were about the same age. Presumably they would have had the same expectations of their lives. Exams, exams, exams, university, probably more exams, possibly marriage, a home, children. Not anymore. Adelaide’s future had finished cowering under bedclothes locked in a smoke-filled room. It was unbearably cruel.

  Martha was vaguely aware of Detective Inspector Alex Randall at her side, watching her with curiosity though he did not speak, clear his throat, move or remind her in any way of his presence. Yet she was well aware of the tendrils of empathy which reached out from him, the sympathy warming those perceptive hazel eyes, and almost of the bony hand touching her own. She did not dare look at him in case she was wrong; she didn’t want him to read her vulnerability. So she analysed silently as she emerged back on to the landing, observing the patch of paler carpet which marked the spot where William Barton had recently lain. The case was this: two women, locked inside their rooms and an old man whom, in spite of her defence, she was already picturing as crazy and demonic, spilling petrol and setting fire to the house.