The Burning (6 page)

‘But I’ve never made him feel secure, never made him feel loved the way he wanted – not like a proper mother does.’

Michael stroked his fingers along her neck and shoulders. ‘I don’t think there’s any such thing as a proper mother. It’s a myth designed to make women feel bad about
themselves.’

‘It works.’

‘Don’t you think it’s time to move on from that now? The one thing I did take from therapy was that raking over the past gets you nowhere.’

‘I try, but it feels like unfinished business.’

‘Everything’s unfinished business. While we’re still here there’s no other kind.’

Jenny drifted into silence, asking herself if she really could forgive herself and move on. The thought of a life without Ross’s affection felt like wandering through a desert.

‘It will all work out, I promise you,’ Michael said, and Jenny allowed herself to believe him.

She rolled onto her side and felt herself yield as he slid his hand behind her waist and drew her closer. She’d been alone for long enough, and there was plenty of night left for
sleeping.

‘H
EY
. W
AKEY-WAKEY
!’

Jenny forced her eyes open, squinting in the glare of the snow-reflected light streaming through the bedroom window.

‘Phone for you. Someone called Ryan.’

‘What time is it?’ Her voice was thick with sleep.

‘Just gone eight.’

Michael was standing naked at the foot of the bed with his hand cupped over the phone. ‘Shall I tell him you’ll ring back?’

‘I’d better take it.’ Jenny eased herself upright, shivering at the cold air on her bare shoulders. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d fallen asleep without
pulling on a T-shirt. She felt an unaccountable twinge of shame as Michael handed her the phone. He grabbed his clothes and headed out to the shower.

‘Good morning, Inspector.’

‘Mrs Cooper. Sorry to disturb you.’ She thought she detected a hint of mocking humour in Ryan’s voice. ‘I thought you’d want to know that my super has formally
closed our file. He sat down with the CPS last night and they decided there was no evidence warranting further investigation. Do you want the physical statements or will email do?’

‘I suppose I’d better have the originals.’

‘I’ll be at the Vale mortuary around ten, if that suits you. I’m taking dental records over to Dr Kerr just to confirm the identifications – not that there’s any
doubt.’

‘I’m not sure I’ll be able to make it this morning,’ Jenny said. ‘You’ve seen where I live.’

‘I’ll leave it up to you . . .’ Ryan paused, as if he was holding something back.

‘Is there anything else?’

‘Well, just between ourselves, I’m feeling a little guilty on my department’s behalf – towards Kelly Hart, I mean. I know it’s not for me to tell you how to do your
job, but it feels wrong just to leave her hanging. It’d be nice if she felt someone was looking after her interests, moving things along.’

‘You’re still searching for her son, aren’t you?’

‘Of course. But finding his body isn’t the same as delivering closure with Ed.’

‘She accepts he did it?’

‘I think so.’

‘You only
think
so?’

‘It’s only been thirty-six hours. Look, all I am asking is would you mind paying her some attention.’ Another pause. Jenny sensed there was something he was avoiding
saying.

‘What exactly is it that you think I ought to be doing?’ Jenny asked.

‘It’s just I’ve seen one or two similar cases, not exactly the same, but I know this is the danger time – while the bereaved is waiting for all the wheels to start
turning.’

‘You’re worried Kelly might do something stupid?’

‘I saw her again last night. She was very quiet. I can tell she’s very bright – more than you’d think – but she’s fragile. We offered her a counsellor but
she’s not interested. That worries me a little.’

‘Are you sure you’re in the right job, Mr Ryan?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You’re not sounding much like a detective.’

Ryan laughed. ‘You’re right. I’d probably have been happier without the psychology degree.’

There. He wanted her to know he wasn’t just any detective inspector. He was a DI with an education. Her equal.

‘Has she mentioned a man called Darren Brooks?’

‘Not specifically. Why do you ask?’

‘I heard she was involved with him before Ed. He tried to get into the burning house.’

‘I knew that.’ Jenny heard another phone ring at Ryan’s end. ‘Hey look, that’s my super chasing me. I’ll catch up with you later.’

‘Just one more thing – Kelly’s number.’

‘I’ll send an email.’

Ryan rang off. He’d played it very cool, but she’d got the message: he was worried that Kelly Hart was a suicide risk and Superintendent Abbott didn’t give a damn. In fact, it
would probably suit him if she were to swallow a handful of pills – that way there would be no victim left for the media to parade as a reminder of his past failings.

Ryan’s warning was still weighing on her mind as she made her way downstairs in her robe. She had no idea how little sleep she’d had, but the heaviness in her limbs told her that it
could only have been a few hours. She was making coffee at the stove when Michael appeared wrapped in a towel.

He came up behind her and kissed her neck. ‘What’s the hurry? I thought we were being lazy.’

‘Change of plan. I’ve got to go to Bristol this morning.’

‘Have you seen outside the window?’ He rested his hands on her hips. ‘You’re not going anywhere.’

‘Want a bet?’ She slipped out of grasp and reached into an overhead cupboard. ‘And while I’m gone, you’re going to cook lunch and stack the last of those logs like
you promised.’

‘They’re under a foot of snow.’

‘You’re full of beans, you’ll enjoy the exercise.’ She handed him a cup. ‘Deal?’

‘And I get what, exactly?’

She looked playfully into his eyes. ‘To be a real man.’

The Land Rover seemed at home with the deep snow hugging its wheels, and held steady around the tight series of bends leading down to the foot of the valley. Briefly forgetting
the purpose of her journey, Jenny soaked up the vivid cloud-flecked sky and the whitewashed fields that seemed to offer the hope of new beginnings. It was one of those rare and precious mornings on
which anything seemed possible – even Michael being content to stay with her for more than a few hours. He had set to work outside without a word of objection, and she had even felt a twinge
of guilt as she pulled away from the house leaving him shovelling snow. But now that she thought about it, wouldn’t any decent man have done the same? Wasn’t this how people who loved
each other behaved?

Love
. It wasn’t a word she often used when thinking of Michael –
frustrated, exasperated, mystified
more often came to mind – but this morning had been different.
Talking easily over breakfast they had seemed to mesh in a way they had never previously managed, as if they’d both let down defences and been surprised at what they had found. It was nothing
urgent or melodramatic, simply a sense of peace in each other’s presence; an effortless and unconditional connection. If that was love, Jenny was more than happy. She could dare to
acknowledge its name and find courage to hope it might last.

Death, like the British weather, seldom relented. Jenny followed a black undertaker’s van along the untreated roadway around the outside of the Vale Hospital to the
separate and unmarked single-storey mortuary. While Jenny carefully manoeuvred over the icy tarmac into a parking space, she glanced over to see two body bags being unloaded. The undertakers
chatted amiably as they wheeled the corpses through the loading bay; theirs one of the few businesses to which the freezing weather was a boon.

Jenny sensed the busy atmosphere as soon as she was admitted through the security door and stepped into the vestibule. She was met with the sound of voices, the high-pitch buzz of surgical saws
and the clang of metal gurneys being moved. Entering the main corridor she found several technicians rearranging the queue of twelve or more gurneys, each loaded with a body awaiting its turn in
the autopsy room. At peak times, when the mortuary had more corpses than fridge space, the staff operated a complex system of rotation in an attempt to keep as many chilled as possible. The foul
smell of human decay indicated that they weren’t being entirely successful. Jenny instinctively reached a hand to her face as Joe, a sprightly sixty-year-old with an ex-boxer’s
flattened nose and slightly vacant, punch-drunk eyes, approached her.

‘We’re snowed under, Mrs Cooper, if you’ll pardon the pun.’ He spoke not with the local Bristol accent, but with the slow, rich Somerset vowels that seemed to emanate
from a previous century.

‘I can see.’

‘D’you think anyone would mind if we parked the buggers outside?’

‘I should imagine they would – very much.’

Joe grinned, showing missing front teeth. He was a recent addition to the mortuary team and seemed to relish his work a little too much for Jenny’s comfort.

‘Is Dr Kerr on duty?’

‘Dealing with them fire victims.’ He nodded towards the door to her right. ‘And I thought I’d seen it all.’

Jenny proffered a stiff smile and turned quickly into the autopsy room, keen to be out of his presence.

Her relief was only momentary. Jenny entered the large, brightly lit space to find the senior pathologist, Dr Andy Kerr, working at one table, and his locum, Dr Jasmine Hope, opening a cadaver
at the other. Dr Kerr was a tall, muscular Ulsterman; Jasmine a beautiful Ghanaian woman with an air of constant melancholy behind a kindly smile. Not yet thirty, she had already lost her only
child in infancy and been deserted by a husband who had disappeared back to Accra. Andy had taken her under his wing and was angling, in his understated way, to get her a permanent contract. Jenny
suspected he had other plans, too. Jasmine nodded in greeting. Jenny had seldom heard her speak.

‘I didn’t think a few inches of snow would keep you away, Mrs Cooper,’ Andy said, glancing up from his work. He invariably stuck to formal titles in a professional setting,
which suited Jenny very well. Informality and dead bodies had never seemed to her an appropriate combination.

She took a paper mask from the dispenser on the wall and pulled it over her face as she crossed the room. At first she couldn’t bring herself to look directly at the blackened skeleton
laid out on the steel autopsy table. Thankfully, what she took to be the other two recovered from the house in Blackstone Ley remained on gurneys in cocoons of white PVC. Drawing closer, she was no
longer able to avert her eyes. It was only bones – no tissue could survive the extreme temperatures in the heart of a house fire – but they smelt disconcertingly of burned fat, like the
remnants of a summer barbeque.

‘I always have the same reaction. It’s enough to put you off your chops,’ Andy said dryly. He was peering inside what remained of a skull with a slender LED flashlight.

‘I take it this is Ed Morgan,’ Jenny said.

‘I’m still waiting for the police to arrive with the dental records, but yes, it’s a male, mid-thirties or thereabouts.’

Jenny noticed that the rear of the skull was missing and that the surrounding bone was jagged and shattered. ‘The police said they found a shotgun next to him.’

‘There it is.’ He pointed to a clear plastic evidence bag on the dissection counter to his right. ‘I measured the barrel – it was physically possible for him to have
placed it in his mouth and pulled the trigger.’

‘So you’ll corroborate their conclusion it was suicide?’

‘It seems the most likely explanation. The angle the shot was fired at was slightly unconventional, though – in most cases the victim will hold the gun more upright and blow the top
of the skull off rather than the back – but I’m sure this fellow was strong enough to have held it out in front of him.’

‘I’ve seen a picture,’ Jenny said. ‘He was a big man.’

Andy nodded, satisfied with his observations of the skull, then turned to look at Jenny thoughtfully over his mask.

‘What do we know about what happened before the fire?’

‘Very little, at this stage. Why, what have you found?’

He leant over the table and indicated the bones of the right arm. ‘The right ulnar and radius are fractured midway between the elbow and wrist. He suffered a violent impact – a
strike from a blunt object.’

‘The building collapsed on top of him,’ Jenny said.

‘It could have been falling debris, but it’s in a very specific spot – just where your forearm might be if you were protecting your head from a blow. There are no other broken
bones. It’s only circumstantial evidence, but not insignificant, especially when you take into account the injuries of the other victims. Particularly the older one.’

He went over to the nearest of the two gurneys and pulled back the flap of plastic, revealing not just skeletal remains, but a shrunken, carbonized body that bore more than a passing resemblance
to an unwrapped Egyptian mummy.

‘She was shot in the back, between the shoulder blades,’ Andy said dispassionately. ‘The entry wound is nearly 100 millimetres wide. I’ll need some data on the scatter
pattern from this particular gun, but I say she was shot from a range of twenty feet of so. In a small house you’re probably talking about a shot fired in the hallway and stairs. She was
found amongst the debris from the upper storey, so I’d be tempted to speculate that it was fired from the foot of the stairs while she was at the top running away.’

‘Shot by a man whose right arm was broken?’

‘It’s not impossible to imagine, but you’ve got to wonder if there was some sort of altercation between them downstairs. She could have flung a chair at him, or hit him with
something else in self-defence.’

Jenny’s mind filled with violent and disturbing images of Layla Hart fighting off her murderous stepfather. At moments like these she envied Andy Kerr his ability to remain so relentlessly
forensic.