Smoke Alarm

by Priscilla Masters

  Palfreyman’s lips twitched. He flicked a hank of grey hair away from his face and picked up the internal phone.

  Alex heard Martha’s voice respond and then Jericho put the phone down and without another word strode to the door and flung it open.

  ‘Detective Inspector Randall,’ he announced pompously.

  Martha was not sitting at her desk but was standing at the window, staring out. She turned as Alex Randall entered and suddenly he felt embarrassed, as though he was intruding. Then he caught the glint of humour in her wide green, Irish eyes. ‘Alex,’ she said, moving forwards gladly. ‘Jericho makes it up. I wasn’t really working hard, you know.’

  Behind him Palfreyman closed the door with an irritable snap.

  She gave a sigh. ‘To be honest I was tussling with a personal problem.’ She gave another sigh and felt compelled to confide in him. Bugger the consequences. ‘It’s so much harder dating when you’re middle-aged,’ she said ruefully. ‘And I don’t even feel I know the rules any more. It was all so instinctive and natural when we were younger,’ she said frankly. ‘Now it feels stilted, forced. To be honest, I’m not enjoying it.’

  He moved closer. Whatever he had been expecting it had not been this. He scraped his throat noisily and with acute embarrassment. ‘I take it you’re talking about a specific man?’

  She nodded. ‘Someone who has all the attributes.’ She laughed and sank back into her chair; her chin rested on her cupped hand and she met his eyes with a regretful smile. ‘A complete recipe book of all that a woman might want in a man. Handsome, rich, single. And yet . . .’ She folded her arms and shook her head.

  Randall dropped down into the seat opposite her. ‘He isn’t the right one then, is he?’

  A shadow darkened her features and made her face look pinched and unhappy. ‘I wonder if such a person as “the right one” even exists. He did. But –’ She glanced at the corner of her desk and the photograph of Martin with the twins that had stood there for so many years. Then she scooped in a deep breath and recovered the customary brightness in her voice. ‘Anyway, you didn’t come here to listen to my whingeing and ruminations, did you, Alex? What is it?’

  He related the conversation he’d just had with Monica Deverill’s friend, adding, ‘You can see it opens up all sorts of possibilities.’

  ‘I do see that,’ she said. ‘It not only links Monica Deverill with the Barton family but – why – it opens an absolute can of worms.’

  He frowned and nodded. ‘If we find her we’ll know about the fire at Melverley,’ he said.

  She looked at him curiously. ‘You think she’s alive?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know,’ he said. Then smiled. ‘I know we’re near to breaking it but –’ Although he emphasized the word ‘know’ there was no inner confidence in his voice.

  Martha leaned back in her chair, half closing her eyes. ‘As I see it, Alex, you have two ports of call here.’

  He raised his eyebrows.

  ‘One,’ she continued smoothly, ‘Monica Deverill’s sons.’

  ‘I did wonder about checking their mobile phone records.’

  ‘That seems a good idea to me. If she’s alive she will have been in touch. I’m a mother and I know it.’ She met his eyes. ‘Believe me. If she’s alive she’ll be in touch with her sons.’

  ‘And the other one?’

  She laughed. ‘You know it yourself, don’t you?’

  He grinned back at her, held that grin for a fraction of a second too long and she flushed.

  Damn her red hair and florid colouring. And the blush had embarrassed him.

  ‘I’d better go,’ he said, struggling to his feet.

  ‘Wait.’

  But as he turned she knew that had been a mistake too. His eyes warmed and then he drew back a step, frowning uncomfortably.

  ‘I just wanted to say thank you for listening, Alex,’ she said, putting her hand on his arm. ‘It’s good to have a friend.’

  ‘My pleasure.’ And he was out of the door before she could say another word but she knew he would have understood her second point. The old man’s stories.

  Mobile phone companies were necessarily obliging when it came to surrendering their records to the police and WPC Delia Shaw and Sergeant Paul Talith spent a while checking back for details of the accounts of Gordon and James Deverill. The two brothers were busy little bees on their mobile phone lines. There was a great deal of activity. It was going to take some time to cross-reference all their contacts.

  ‘Look for a number,’ Talith advised his colleagues, ‘that only appears recently.’

  In the meantime, Martha had been correct. Randall had understood her second point perfectly but he still had his work cut out persuading Nigel Barton that he needed to talk to his son – again.

  Barton was in a foul temper. ‘I’m sure you’ve squeezed everything out of Jude, Inspector,’ he barked down the phone. ‘This is just making things worse for the boy. I really can’t see that yet another interview is justified. Do I have the right to refuse?’

  Unfortunately, yes, Alex thought miserably, unless he arrested the boy. Sometimes he decided that the law was not on the side of The Law. ‘We still haven’t found out who started the fire that killed your father, your wife and your daughter,’ Randall reminded him deliberately.

  It didn’t do a lot to help his cause. Barton snorted derisively. ‘Well, that’s your shortcoming.’

  Randall didn’t respond to the jibe so Barton took up the cudgel again. ‘And you think my son has the answer?’

  ‘I think there are things that he knows which will help us, Mr Barton,’ Randall responded, affecting a mildness he did not feel.

  On the other end of the phone there was silence. It felt as though Nigel was going to refuse permission for the police to interview his son again. Randall felt he must push a little harder.

  ‘If I had lost my family in that terrible way, Mr Barton, I think I would do anything in the world to find out who had committed the crime.’

  ‘My son is alive and has been through a dreadful experience,’ Barton said tightly. ‘As his father I have a duty to protect him.’ His face changed. ‘He’s all I have left. I must put him first – above all else.’

  Alex empathized. He could quite understand the man’s dilemma. ‘I understand that you may be torn in your decision, Mr Barton,’ he said, ‘but please, we really think he may be able to help us. I wouldn’t ask otherwise. We are as anxious to find out the truth behind your house fire as you almost certainly are.’

  On the other end of the line there was silence. And then Barton spoke in a much softer voice. ‘My son has already been traumatized by the events, Inspector. I have engaged the services of a counsellor who tells me Jude is suffering from what they are calling Survivor Guilt, a feeling that he could, should have done more to help his family. It’s difficult knowing three family members did not survive the carnage and that you are the sole survivor of the family.’

  ‘Apart from you, sir.’

  And for some reason Alex Randall felt that the remark needled Nigel Barton.

  There was a tense pause and then he said, ‘Very well then, Inspector, but if he shows signs of any distress. Any distress,’ he emphasized, ‘the interview is to be terminated immediately. You understand?’

  ‘Perfectly.’

  ‘When would you like us to come?’

  ‘As soon as possible, please, sir.’

  ‘Then we may as well come at once and get it over with.’

  Fifteen minutes later they arrived at the station. Randall greeted the boy with a warm handshake and a swift glance at Nigel, whose lips were pressed firmly together. He locked eyes with him for a second and gave a terse nod as though to underline the conditions of this interview.

  Randall chose one of the interview rooms which had been brightly painted in yellow. Yellow for sunshine and optimism. It was often used to speak to children, hoping that ‘nursery yellow’ would minimize the impact of being inter
viewed by the police.

  Jude glanced around him and settled back into one of the two chairs covered in red leatherette. Alex used the coffee table for the tape recorder and settled back in his chair which was Mastermind Black. He smiled again at Jude Barton. ‘You don’t mind if I record the interview?’

  The boy gave his father a swift glance then shook his head vigorously.

  ‘I’m interested in your grandfather, Jude,’ Randall began.

  The boy’s expression was as alert as an eagle’s. His shoulders bunched up. He was wary.

  Randall continued in a conversational tone. ‘I found it really interesting that he was a fireman.’

  The comment agitated the boy. He licked his lips which were so dry the action had a rasping sound to it.

  ‘He must have told you a few stories about his work.’

  Jude gave a jerky nod. ‘I already told you he did.’

  Alex Randall leaned forwards. ‘Did he ever talk to you about the fire he attended in the sixties at Shelton Hospital?’

  Jude dropped his gaze. ‘He might have,’ he said, shrugging. ‘I can’t remember every story he told me.’

  Randall persisted. ‘I think you would remember this one. Shelton Hospital is a psychiatric hospital. Some of their patients were disturbed so they had to be in a locked ward.’ He continued in a softer voice. ‘There was a fire. A lot of patients died in that fire.’

  Jude shrugged. ‘He might have told me that one. I seem to remember something about some mental patients dying. I couldn’t remember the name of the hospital – or any other details about it.’ His eyes slid along the floor towards Randall’s feet – and upwards, stopping somewhere near the detective’s chest.

  Randall continued. ‘As your grandfather got a bit older his recent memory would have faded and his past memories become clearer. Also his judgement of what was politic to tell you would have been impaired.’

  The boy paled and shot a look at his father. It was a silent appeal for help in a difficult situation. But Nigel Barton was looking at his son with some abhorrence, almost as though he was a stranger and this was the first time he had really seen him.

  Again Randall lunged his question forward. ‘He told you something else, Jude, didn’t he? Something he really shouldn’t have told you. Something he’d never told anyone else.’

  Jude said nothing but his eyes swivelled upwards right into Randall’s face with a look of suspicion, as though he suspected the DI of sorcery. He nibbled his lip and shook his head. ‘No,’ he said flatly.

  There was nothing to be gained here so Randall turned his attention back to Nigel. ‘Tell me more about the fire your father started.’

  ‘There’s nothing to . . .’ And then a further penny dropped; both father and son’s shoulders jerked as though both were held by an invisible puppet master. The same idea had occurred to both of them simultaneously.

  And Randall began to see through the gauzy film that had hidden the truth so tantalizingly and effectively from him. He tapped his forehead with his fingertips in the old gesture of comprehension. ‘He didn’t start it, did he?’ His eyes met those of both father and son. ‘That’s why you couldn’t banish him to an old people’s home, isn’t it? He’d done nothing to punish, had he?’

  Barton was regarding him with a frozen look, as though he dreaded Randall’s next sentence. Randall continued sadly. ‘It wasn’t your father, was it?’

  He looked back to Jude. He leaned forward, switched the tape recorder off and regarded father and son. ‘Thank you for your help,’ he said. ‘I appreciate it.’

  ‘So what now?’ It was Nigel who spoke.

  Randall assumed the blandest of expressions. ‘You’re free to go.’

  They scuttled out like crabs on the beach. Ungainly: feet, legs everywhere. Alex sat back in the chair, steepled his fingers and had a long ponder. He was going to need evidence or a confession, preferably both, to put in front of the CPS like a fresh and juicy bone. He smiled again. The image of a bone pleased him, something bloody to gnaw on.

  WPC Delia Shaw arrived opportunely. ‘We have something for you, sir,’ she said.

  EIGHTEEN

  As the door had closed behind Detective Inspector Alex Randall Martha had drawn in a deep breath. She was unsettled. She needed to talk. She needed lunch with a friend and there was only one friend who fitted the bill. Miranda Mountford. She sent her a text, reflecting that these wonderful ways of communication had transformed friendship. Instantly accessible. A minute later her phone was responding. She read the message, smiled and felt better already.

  Miranda had had a disastrous marriage to a guy named Steven who had practically turned psycho, threatening her, stalking her, playing tricks on her, appearing and disappearing until her friend had wondered about her sanity. At one time Martha had fretted for her friend’s safety. Steven had been so very unpredictable. But all that was behind her now. A restriction order had been placed on him and it appeared to have worked. So far.

  While Paul Talith followed up his own lead Delia Shaw was checking through the numbers on the Deverill sons’ mobile phones. It was tedious work. There were eighteen which coincided with both of them, a cluster of calls, both to each other and to these numbers around the time that their mother had last been seen. There was four days’ silence and then the number cropped up again. Comparing the two lists it looked as though Gordon and James had rung round the same people at the time when the police had been looking into their mother’s house fire. Probably a frantic hunt round relatives and friends when they had realized that their mother was missing and not dead inside her house. She cross-checked them with the numbers the brothers had given the police of possible locations for their mother. Some were landlines, others mobiles. The numbers danced in front of her eyes, seeming to mock her. Who would have thought there could be so many different combinations of ten Arabic numerals? She yawned and stretched, deciding that concentrative computer work was more tiring than an hour or so at the gym. She peered again at the list of numbers. It was perfectly logical that the brothers would have been ringing the same numbers. And comparing the printouts there were a lot of duplicated calls. Looking more closely at the timing they must have been dialling the numbers practically simultaneously. Shaw gave a smirk. Typical male behaviour. Women would have sat down and divided the list, not gone scurrying around like rats in a cage, stepping on one another’s toes. They had phoned each other frequently too, probably to check whether the other had found the missing mother.

  Shaw had begun by concentrating on the beginning of March, the time when Monica had last been seen, rather than the time around the fire at Sundorne. Previous to that they had rung their mother, either on her landline, or on the mobile registered to her, about twice a week and the pattern of calls the brothers had made had been different. Gordon and James wouldn’t have been ringing round relatives and friends then – there had been nothing to alert them to the situation until March the eleventh, the night of her fire. They had been in contact with each other before then but infrequently. Shaw sat and stared at her computer screen. Well? They were brothers. Nothing abnormal about that. Then she went back into late February. There was one number which particularly interested her. It had appeared first on Friday the twenty-fifth of February, the evening after the fire at Melverley Grange, and it cropped up fairly regularly after that, both incoming and outgoing and the calls had lasted for up to thirty minutes to both brothers. Shaw’s pulse quickened. She had an instinct about this 077 number. She checked both statements back into early February and then January. This number initially appeared just once in the early evening on the night of February twenty-fifth on James’s phone and cross-checking the statements he had immediately called his brother. For four days the number did not appear again on either James or Gordon’s phone but from the Monday, the day they were assuming Monica Deverill had disappeared, there was activity on that number. It began to appear quite regularly on both Monica’s sons’ phones. Delia Shaw cupped her
chin in her hands and thought.

  Monica Deverill had claimed that she knew something significant about the fire at Melverley. She had been convinced enough to ring the police and had been due into the station the very next day. The fire at her house was patently no coincidence but cause and effect. The fire-raiser must have realized she knew something important that she was about to relay to the police. Monica had left her home. She had been running from the arsonist who had torched her fire, maybe knowing, maybe not knowing, whether she was inside. WPC Shaw thought further. Her car had probably been missing at the time the fire was started so the arsonist might have realized the bird had already flown.

  Shaw tried to work it out by asking herself questions. What if the fire at Melverley had created panic in the ex-nurse? She had bought the phone and then – poof – Delia Shaw’s hands went up involuntarily. Like a magician’s assistant she had disappeared. She glanced across at Talith, who was also peering into his computer screen with the absorption of an online gambler. She returned her attention to her own screen. She was going to need a bit more than this to impress her sergeant, giving a little smirk to herself. Talith’s shirt was getting tight around his middle. He’d popped a button and a bulge of hairy stomach protruded. She peered closer at her own screen, searching for some clue, some indication that all this was worth the little frisson of excitement she was experiencing. Then she sat back. The timing of the calls from the mystery number was interesting too, always either a little before nine a.m. on weekdays, when the brothers would have been out of the house, away from wives and families who might have been curious as to the call. Or around six p.m., again at a time when they would probably have been on their way home from work, out of the house, away from eavesdropping ears. And they had often phoned each other shortly afterwards.

  She had three alternatives. One: she could ring the number and see if anyone answered. That was obviously the simplest. Two: she could speak to the mobile companies to see who this phone was registered to, although she suspected this would prove to be a pay-as-you-go phone on a false address. Three: she could ask the brothers who was on the end of this line.