Deadly Deceit (5 page)

He gave her a smile, testing the water.

A lad not much older than herself, he was wearing a shiny suit and open-neck shirt. Couldn’t be very important if he didn’t warrant a photographer. Chantelle looked away. What was
this? Some kind of a joke? She’d tonged her hair to within an inch of its life, put on her slap and made herself presentable. So where were the nationals, the TV crews and stuff? Probably
stuffing their faces at a café on Westgate Road. Best fry-up for miles around. As much toast as you could shake a stick at – white not brown – with lashings of butter and mugs of
watery tea to wash it all down. Lovely.

‘Miss, have you got a moment?’

The skinny journo had arrived at her side,
News Desk
written on his press badge.

Divvi. Did she look like she was in a rush?

Chantelle didn’t answer. She spat her chewy on the ground to show some respect as a handheld recording device was pushed under her nose. Deciding to make him sweat a little longer for her
comment, she put on her saddest face and wiped away an escaping tear. It wasn’t just an act either. Torching a house was one thing. Killing the folks inside was something else, an innocent
kid especially. Chantelle dropped her gaze and hung her head in shame, knowing full well that a phone call from her might’ve saved them. She felt really bad about that. But what was done was
done. It made her snaps all the more newsworthy.

Sensational even.

She could name her price.

The journo turned away as a car approached. Across the road, a Toyota pulled up behind a fire engine on standby in case any embers in the house should reignite. The same cool lady cop
who’d arrived in the middle of the night got out with a fat fucker in tow. Cameras flashed as they ducked under the police tape. Suddenly there was a riot of activity as the press surged
forward, seemingly out of nowhere. The journo ran too, leaving Chantelle standing on the pavement like a spare part. Affronted didn’t quite cover it.

Damn cheek!

‘Well, piss off then!’ she yelled, almost stamping her feet. ‘And don’t come crawling back to me! You’ll get fuck all from her!’

G
eorge Milburn drew himself away from the grim scene beyond his blackened window. As the curtains settled back in position, a million dust particles hung in the air forming
silver streaks across the room where the sun streamed in through the living-room window.

He sat down for a moment to think.

Word on the street was that two had died in the fire, a man and a young child.
Tragic.
In the forty-odd years he’d been living there, bad news had been a frequent visitor. Even
so, this event set a new low that sent him spiralling into a deep depression. Draining his tea, he carried the mug to the kitchen sink where he rinsed it under the tap. He dried his hands, opened
the kitchen drawer and took out a Philips screwdriver. Then he walked upstairs, got down on his hands and knees, and pulled back the bedside rug.

Unscrewing the floorboard, he lifted it out and reached inside for the plastic bag, hell bent on giving the contents away. He couldn’t think of a finer recipient than his grandson, Elliot.
A great kid. Always lent a hand down the allotment when George wasn’t feeling up to the heavy stuff. Never asked for so much as a red cent for the hours he spent there.

Counting the cash into hundred-pound bundles took George a while because his hands became stiff. He kept losing his place and had to start all over again. When he was satisfied he’d
calculated the total amount correctly, he bundled it up in a brown paper parcel and called Elliot, arranging to meet him within the hour at the Ford garage on Scotswood Road where his daughter once
worked. There was a car there, in good condition with a manufacturer’s warranty, according to the lad. Only the price tag was too steep.
Well, not any more.
Not if George had any say
in the matter.

‘I’ve decided to help you out, lad. Call it an early nineteenth-birthday present.’

‘What?’ Elliot was excited. ‘Why? Are you sure?’

‘You want the money or not?’ George asked. ‘You can pay me back in spadework.’

‘I will, Granddad. Every weekend, I promise.’

‘Aye, that’ll be reet. You’ll be too busy driving the bloody thing. I’ll probably not see you for dust. Can you meet us off the ten-past bus?’ George realized
he’d have to get a move on if he was going to reach the bus stop in time. ‘It’s a secret, mind, Elliot. No telling your dad.’

‘Are you OK, Granddad?’ Elliot’s excitement faded. ‘We heard the news. Mum and I were worried about you. You should have called. I would’ve come round.’

George felt his anger rising. There was no mention of his son being concerned for his welfare following the fire next door. Some things never changed. The bastard wasn’t interested in
anyone but himself. Wouldn’t know how to show affection if his life depended on it. He was like one of them psychopaths George had read about in the papers. Hard on the outside. Same on the
in.

‘I know you would, son. That’s why I never asked.’

George put down the phone. Pulling his jacket and cap down from a peg on the wall, he put them on, then picked up his parcel and left the house. As soon as he closed the door, he was mobbed by
reporters wanting to talk to him, get his take on things, probably after some dirt on the folks next door. A community beat officer held them back, allowing George to scurry off.

Three-quarters of an hour later, Elliot met him off the bus as it pulled into the stop. They crossed the road, then the boy set off towards the showroom as if he were in a race to get there.
George toddled along behind. His pins weren’t so good nowadays. Bit of arthritis in his hips and knees made him waddle like a duck. He’d considered getting one of them motorized scooter
things but decided against. He figured it would make his legs even worse than they already were.

‘Use ’em or lose ’em,’ his GP had told him.

They entered the yard round the back where the garage stored the second-hand trade-ins.

‘Show us which one it is then,’ George said.

Elliot’s face dropped. The car he’d set his heart on had gone. It had been parked near the perimeter fence yesterday. Now only a space remained. They looked around for another but
couldn’t find one he liked for the price they were willing to pay. Reluctantly they agreed to wait a week or two and try again. The boy seemed to accept that. If it was worth having, it was
worth waiting for.

T
he morgue was only a few streets away from the station. Carmichael sat in silence looking out of the side window. Having second thoughts, Daniels suspected. She had no time to
chivvy her along. The young DC had made her bed. Now she’d have to lie in it. Her own thoughts were on the fire. The most likely scenario, assuming the dead were actually identified as Jamie
and Mark Reid, was that the father had been watching the game, had a few beers and fallen asleep, only to wake too late to save his son.

In most murder enquiries, crime scene investigators would lift forensic traces of hair, blood and skin. But the fire had been so intense such evidence had been destroyed. Daniels didn’t
need telling that there’d be very little to go on. Arson, with or without intent to endanger life, was a senseless act, an offence most right-minded people would baulk at. But then Daniels
knew she wasn’t dealing with right-minded people. You had to be switched wrong to set fire to a house with people inside.

So who was she dealing with?

And what was the motive?

A scare tactic, perhaps? A random attack carried out by idiot kids? A drunk from the party in the back lane last night? A joke that went horribly wrong? It wouldn’t be the first time. The
crime scene was bang smack in the centre of the area most visited by the city’s fire service, if recent reports were anything to go by. She’d read once that nearly forty per cent of
fire-setters were aged between ten and seventeen. Of those, the majority were male. But she couldn’t afford to make that assumption. So was it the house or the person inside who was the
target? Maggie Reid was the tenant. The dead man no longer lived there.

By the time they reached the morgue, Mark Reid’s identity had been confirmed by dental records faxed to the pathologist, Tim Stanton. The victim’s name was being withheld from the
press and public until his extended family were informed. Both his parents were alive. But given the state of their son’s body, they wouldn’t be asked to view it. There was really no
point. Mark Reid was unrecognisable as the man he once was.

‘With no dental records to go on, the child’s identity is more difficult to establish,’ Stanton told her. ‘I’ve sent his DNA for analysis, although it’s
almost a foregone conclusion that it is Jamie Reid.’

Daniels nodded, her eyes drifting past him to a bank of freezer units along the far wall, each one containing a cadaver. In cases where identity had not yet been established, they were assigned
a number; the rest were labelled with the name of the deceased – Bridget McCabe among them.

A
few feet to her left, Carmichael was finding it difficult to drag her eyes away from the charred remains laid out in front of her. She’d never seen anything like it
before and never wanted to again. Daniels’ argument that this one would be too harrowing a case for her was proving to be spot on, though she would be the last to admit it.

Harsh words, spoken by Gormley during her very first involvement in a murder enquiry almost a year ago, echoed in her head as she stood there now. A dressing-down, uttered in anger to curb her
over-exuberance back then:
Murder victims are people, Lisa . . . flesh and blood, like you and me . . . it’s not a game.
At the time, Carmichael had slunk away to a quiet corner to
lick her wounds, taken aback by the harsh tone of his voice.

How right he was.

In her wildest dreams, she could never have imagined her first post-mortem would be like this. The gruesome corpse she was looking at was but ten months old, someone’s treasured child,
nephew, grandson. His father lay on the next slab along, a hero in Carmichael’s eyes, dying in a heroic attempt to save the boy from harm. The fingers on his hands fused together as
he’d attempted to mount the stairs of 23 Ralph Street.

Carmichael looked away as a wave of revulsion hit her.

‘Y
ou OK, Lisa?’ Daniels had seen more experienced officers than Carmichael buckle at the sight of victims far less horrific than the ones in front of them now.

The DC nodded, probably scared to open her mouth in case no words came out. Daniels had known she wouldn’t learn much from this post-mortem. Normally, forensic examination could aid
detectives in so many ways. It could identify the size, type and shape of a weapon, shotgun or handgun, if a firearm was used. How tall or short an offender might be, based on the angle of a wound.
It was even possible to deduce whether the assailant was left- or right-handed. But this case was very different. From what Stanton was telling them, there was no physical contact between victim
and perpetrator . . .

‘No obvious wounds to inspect,’ he concluded.

Carmichael breathed a sigh of relief as Stanton put down his scalpel and declared that he was done. He moved to a stainless steel sink and scrubbed up with a stiff brush, rinsing his hairy arms
under a running tap, which he expertly turned off with his right elbow. He dried his hands and pulled down the sleeves of his scrubs.

His findings were conclusive and said with confidence.

‘Cause of death, smoke inhalation and nothing more. No evidence that either victim has sustained any pre-mortem injuries. I’m sorry, Kate. That’s all there is. There is
absolutely no evidence here to suggest an attempt to hide or disguise an alternative cause of death.’

M
inding the gap between the platform and the step-board, a tall redhead entered the first-class carriage of the 13.28 Newcastle to King’s Cross train with only one minute
to spare. A young male porter showed her to her seat. He smiled, handed back her ticket, and wished her a pleasant journey, then scurried off with a big fat tip burning a hole in his pocket.

The redhead sat down, conscious of eyes turned in her direction.

An attractive man followed her on: white shirt, red tie, good watch. Removing his jacket, he hung it on the peg provided, then took the seat opposite, his nose twitching as he picked up her
scent, a smile playing on his lips that said:
I ’d like to fuck you right there in your seat
.

She smiled at him with her eyes as well as her mouth.

He took out a MacBook and began work, concentration etched on his face. She wondered how long he could keep up the pretence. As a little girl she’d always been the centre of attention,
always been told that she was special. Too special for her own good, her mother used to say; a comment that was usually accompanied by a good hard slap.

She settled back for the boring journey south, leafing through magazines and then staring blankly out the window at the lush green countryside, the occasional church steeple in the distance, a
row of terraced houses close to the track, unsettled by thoughts of her unhappy childhood. A ticket inspector interrupted her reverie before they reached Durham, where three Japanese men boarded
the train, one wearing a face mask like they do in Tokyo.

Takes all kinds.

‘Any refreshments, Madam? Sir?’ a young woman asked as they got going again.

She ordered coffee and her admirer did the same. Someone close by ordered lunch. The redhead’s hunger had nothing to do with food. The man opposite looked up, the sexual chemistry between
them now crystal-clear. She moistened her lips, allowing her tongue to linger a little longer than was necessary. It worked every time. The guy was practically drooling.

Melting under her gaze, he loosened his tie, placed his hands on his laptop to make out he was working.
Pushover.
He was hers for the taking. And there was still a whole two hours and
– she glanced at her watch – forty-eight minutes to go until they reached their destination.