The Fire Man (3 page)

Leaving the Hellenic directors clustered in the doorway, the adjusters moved away to the shelter of an adjoining lean-to that housed an aging cycle rack.

‘Right, so what are your initial impressions?' enquired McRae. Grim's response was a shrug, followed by a terse, ‘Too early to say, mate. Let's crack on.'

‘Fair enough. You start on the structure, while I have a gander at the stock. We can compare notes in, say, half an hour, eh? Don't forget to take plenty of photos.'

The couple separated; Grim started to measure up and quantify the structural damage while McRae made a beeline for the warehousing.

The damage was undoubtedly far more severe at the rear, and it became abundantly clear that the fire must have originated close to the rear exterior door of the central section of Warehouse B. The pitched, profiled-steel sheet roof of this section of the building had totally collapsed, and the structural steelwork, formerly supporting the roof, had buckled and was now sagging across the centre of the warehouse like some kind of giant colander. The perimeter walls had been pushed outwards by the expansion of the steel wall plates and in some areas the walls had been fractured, allowing shafts of daylight to penetrate the gloom. The whole place was swimming in ankle-deep, sooty extinguishment water, and, not for the first time, McRae was glad that he had remembered his boots.

Looking towards the rear, it was clear that each of the bays incorporated individual personnel access doors and that Unit A, to his left and C to the right, also benefitted from wide roller-shuttered loading bays. Despite the murkiness of the weather, the massive gaping breach in the roof enabled McRae to see sufficiently well, so as to make out the principal features.

As they had been told, the bulk of the stock had been stored in the central area, Bay B, while to his left, a couple of what seemed to be burnt-out fork lift trucks, hanging rails and storage racking was evident. Damage on his right in Bay C, was far less severe and stacks of pallets and what he assumed to be some type of wrapping machines were clearly visible.

Enormous stacks of heavy duty, double-walled cardboard flatpack boxes were teetering precariously in an alcove adjacent to Bay C. They were sodden and scorched but remarkably intact. McRae took a closer look and saw that they were clearly used boxes, many of which still carried yellow labels bearing a large black ornamental, almost gothic, letter K logo, below which was the legend
Viktor Kaloudis Ltd – Vlastou 15, Thessaloniki, Greece.
He pulled one of the sodden labels free and inserted it into his file.

It was getting darker by the minute and the wind was getting up, driving gusts of rain into the areas where the roof no longer provided shelter. He decided to take an alternative view, from the rear of the warehouse before attempting the more daunting task of penetrating into the heart of the warehouse.
The heart of darkness,
he suddenly thought, for no good reason.

From the rear access door to Unit A, it was possible to get a fairly panoramic view of the interior, so he rested his clipboard on the steel-framed seat of a gutted forklift, extracted his compact camera from the pocket of his anorak and took a couple of general shots. It was important to do this while there was still sufficient daylight. They wouldn't be brilliant with the inbuilt flash, but he would get some professional ones taken later. Deciding to continue his general survey for the moment, he picked his way carefully amongst the charred timber, broken glass and fallen bricks, parallel with the rear wall, in the general direction of the despatch unit, C.

In the course of his tortuous progression he looked closely at the three loading bay doors, each of which seemed well secured by newish twin closed-shackle padlocks. The two timber-framed personnel doors also seemed well protected, being lined externally with sheet steel and secured by five lever deadlocks.

Spotting a collapsed section of the rear wall, McRae clambered gingerly through the gap and outside for a general view. Stepping as far back as he reasonably could from the rear wall, he took two pictures showing the complete rear elevation and then moved quickly to his right to get a shot along the side wall.

Precisely as his finger began to depress the shutter, a short stocky figure in a high visibility jacket materialised on the very edge of the viewfinder and quickly turned his face away from the camera.
Friar Tuck?
he wondered, as he lowered the camera, only to find that the figure had disappeared as quickly as he had arrived. He then retook the shot before retracing his steps to the right-hand warehouse door. As he approached the door, he could clearly see that one corner of the steel sheet seemed to have been levered, almost peeled, away from the frame. Looking more carefully, it was also apparent that the inner tongued and grooved woodwork had been splintered. He took several close-focus pictures for the record.

Time to get stuck into the heart of darkness,
he thought.

Re-entering the warehouse and climbing with care over a fallen stack of sodden heavy-duty cardboard packing cases, McRae moved into what had evidently been a two-tier aisle of hanging rails. Filthy, charred, part-melted and sodden piles of reeking garments, most still clinging to deformed plastic hangers, formed a valley through which he negotiated an erratic path. After twenty minutes, McRae had gained a clear idea of the original layout.

It was evident that Unit B had indeed contained the bulk of the stock. There had been ten long aisles with double-height hanging rails, adjoined at each end by metal Dexion racking that consisted of multiple shelves. It appeared to the adjusters' untrained eye that dresses, skirts and similar items had been hung up, while the shelving had contained blouses and tops in silk, cotton and mixed man-made fabrics each packaged in clear plastic sleeves. Not exactly being a fashionista himself, McRae was unable to determine how good the stuff was but, he thought he knew someone who could.

Thinking of Karen made him realise that there was now little chance of making their agreed dinner date. It was nearly five o'clock already and they would not get away for at least another hour or two. Traffic on the Aston Expressway would be at a standstill anyway
. Fuck, better ring her.

Astonishingly, Karen responded with a rare good humour to his apologies. However as the call ended she had said: ‘It'll cost you!' He knew she wasn't joking.

Replacing the phone in his pocket, McRae observed Grim zigzagging his way towards him

‘I'm done with the buildings for now,' he panted. ‘It's looking good. Want me to get on with the machinery or have you done it already?'

‘Not even started, my friend, so feel free. I'm still trying to get some idea of the bloody stock numbers. Actually, I don't think they have too much in the way of plant anyway. Mind you, there could be a fair bit of smoke damage in the admin block, even though it seems intact.'

‘You're not wrong,' responded Grim. ‘I've already been through it. Nothing has been totally destroyed but all the computers have been knackered. There will be fuck all salvageable, I reckon. Incidentally, the ‘canteen' is just about bearable as a dry meeting room, if we need to bring old George in for a few questions later.'

‘Great, but what I'm more bothered about right now is getting forensic in. We are talking millions here. Can you get onto Balfour and see how soon he can get down?'

With this value of loss, it would be essential to get forensic consultants involved. It was a no-brainer. Normally McRae would contact the insurer first to seek approval, but CFG would absolutely insist on someone being engaged here, he was certain. As he thought about it McRae realised that CFG would almost certainly engage someone else, one of the major international forensic companies, but McRae had total confidence in Steve Balfour of Balfour-Grange. As a small, keen-as-mustard, independent practice, he knew that Balfour would do everything himself. There would be no delegation of certain mundane aspects of the investigation to junior members of staff, which so often happened with the larger companies. No, Steve, he was decided, was the man.

He hesitated, as he noticed Grim staring at him. Already, the little man had acquired a patina of soot on his face and his eyes were gleaming.

‘Yes, I know what you're thinking, but Steve won't let us down and I really don't want to report back, in any way, before we've got all our ducks in a row.'

Grim shook his head sorrowfully as his eyebrows rose. ‘You're taking a hell of a chance, Drew.'

‘I know,' he replied, quietly, ‘but the way I see it, if we get back to them now and give ‘em a reserve of umpteen million, we'll be off this case before we even get started – and that much is certain! This way, so long as we take all the right steps and get our feet a little bit under the table, it might be easier for them to stick with us than twist.'

Cairns looked dubious. ‘Phew, I really don't know. It might be smarter to put them fully in the picture now and take our chances.'

‘Yes,' responded McRae, patiently, ‘but the trouble is that it could come across as if we are nervous of handling a large loss. You know how these guys work, the slightest sniff of some decision that head office might not like and they'll be saying, ‘Sorry about the mistake, let's have your bill. The Big Three are taking over tomorrow.' You know that's true.'

Grim gazed into space a moment before eventually sighing, somewhat theatrically and saying, ‘Okay, okay, it's your call, but don't say I didn't warn you.'

McRae needed no warning, the potential politics of this case had been absorbing him from the second he had picked up the Hellenic file. In some inner recess of his mind he was fully conscious that he was taking chances, but… needs must.

‘Okay, let's give this another half hour and meet in the canteen at...' he glanced at his watch, ‘say, six? You can tell me then how soon Balfour can get here and we can finally decide on how we're going to approach CFG.'

While Grim began poking around the adjoining bays, individually examining and painstakingly listing the damaged equipment in his usual methodical fashion, McRae continued with his own detailed examination of the stock. He started in the first aisle, the one nearest to the loading bay.

There seemed to be three major brands which were discernible on the soiled labels,
Anastasia
,
Dido
and
Xenia
. Inside each garment were further tags indicating the nature of the material, the washing instructions and the legend “Made in Greece”. What surprised McRae a little was that the mounds of sodden fabrics in the aisles, while forming a considerable obstacle to his progress, were perhaps rather less formidable than the extensive rails and racking might have suggested.

Pausing alongside a particularly unappealing mound of neon yellow shift dresses McRae decided, reluctantly, that it was time to get down and get dirty, literally. He bent his protesting knees, settled onto his haunches and began to pull away the reeking top layers. More and more of the same were revealed, but as he delved deeper, the dresses located in the centre of the heap seemed noticeably drier and less smoke damaged. By the time his efforts had finally revealed the concrete floor, the garments uncovered were dry and crumpled but virtually clean. Surprised, McRae commenced a similar exercise on another mini-Everest towards the rear of the bay. The pattern was repeated.

Macabrely, within many of the garments, the warped and twisted plastic hangers, deprived of their chrome hooks, had remained in place like distorted black skeletons. Looking up, McRae could see a line of hooks, bereft of their plastic shoulder pieces, still hanging pathetically on the bent and sagging clothes rails.
Aha
, he thought,
maybe that explains it?
The intense heat had resulted in the weight of the dresses pulling the softened plastic hangers away from their hooks. It made sense, and yet... on closer examination, many of the dresses at the base of the pyramid contained either completely intact hangers or no hangers at all?
How had that come about?

Truth was, he didn't get it. Still, no doubt Balfour would have more of a clue. He gave an inward shrug and moved into the adjacent aisle.

By now it was clear from the degree of distortion to the roof structure and the bleached appearance of the structural steelwork that he was very close to the seat of the fire. This area, between the second and third aisles, had been truly gutted.

Looking above his head, through the large openings in the roof left by the collapsed sheeting, McRae felt the rain washing his upturned face. The sky was, however, turning a lighter shade of grey and had acquired a subtle pink streak. The worst of the weather was over.

Checking his watch, he noted with alarm that the time had evaporated and that it was now just gone six. He realised he could no longer detect any sign of activity on the far side of the warehouse, so, pausing only to capture a few extra pictures, he hurried towards the administration block on his way to the canteen.

‘Fancy a coffee?'

McRae turned and was confronted by a spotty young woman wearing a floral headscarf and round pink-framed glasses. She appeared to be guarding a small selection of thermos flasks.

‘Oh yeah: definitely. Black with two sugars please,' he replied.

The canteen, which turned out to be a poky, warm, almost steamy room, housed merely a sink stand, a microwave oven, a couple of Formica-topped tables and half a dozen bentwood chairs. It was, as Grim had suggested, relatively dry apart from the puddles of sooty water that had been dripped onto the vinyl floor from the boots of firemen – what it wasn't – was quiet. The room was heaving. Firemen, a couple of disconsolate looking people who McRae assumed to be employees, George, Spiros and Grim were all standing awkwardly around sipping from polystyrene cups.

As the woman poured the drink, McRae glanced across the room towards Grim who appeared to be engaged in a conspiratorial conversation with a watch officer from the brigade. As Grim turned his head, McRae inclined his head towards the door. Grim nodded in acknowledgement.

A few minutes later as he stood in the entrance porch trying and failing to light a damp cigarette, Grim joined him.

‘So, what time is Balfour due? If he doesn't get here soon, it'll be too dark to even start!'

Grim glanced at his watch. ‘Should be here in about a quarter of an hour, if he's still running to plan. I told him he'd need a generator anyway.'

‘Good, how are you getting on?'

‘Not bad, I've almost done as much as I can today anyway.

You?'

‘The same,' replied McRae. ‘What we need is to get away from here and put our heads together. Lets' wait for Steve, tell him what we need and get out of here.'

‘Good plan, I could murder a fucking drink,' replied Grim.

Funnily enough, for what felt like the first time in years, it had gone six and McRae had not given a thought to alcohol. He had hardly had a cigarette all day, either – this case was interesting alright. Interesting, because there was some indefinable whiff in the air and it wasn't just smoke. He had no idea why yet, but something was troubling him.

He looked across the sorry remains of the Hellenic business that lay scattered across the paved frontage. He saw that two of the appliances were in the process of departing. Just a single engine and a tender remained to ensure that the fire didn't reignite.
Fat chance of that with the number of hoses and oceans of water used
, he reflected.
Still, the brigade had managed to save the offices
. In fact, despite looking more than a little sorry for itself, the whole administration area was still structurally intact.

Stepping away from the porch and looking backwards to gain a better view of the façade, McRae was amused to see that the plastic lettering that had proudly announced the existence of Hellenic Fashions to the world (or at least Walsall) now simply read “
Hell”.

A loud blast from a car horn interrupted his moment of silent mirth. McRae turned to see that the cavalry had finally arrived in the somewhat dumpy, bespectacled shape of Dr Stephen Balfour BSc. PhD. The best forensic investigator known to McRae was now stepping out of his Saab estate, while waving a greeting.

‘Looks like a nice case, Drew, but a bit out of your league,' he jested as McRae approached.

‘It better hadn't be out of yours!' the adjuster retorted.

Grim had also heard the car and was picking his own way across the parking area towards them.

‘Oh my God, if it's not the Grim Reaper as well,' said Steve, stretching out his hand towards Cairns.

Grim smiled. ‘Nice to see you too, Steve.'

‘Right, time is obviously pressing, Steve,' said McRae, ‘and Grim and I are off for important deliberations in the nearest watering hole, so can we just tell you quickly what we know so far and what we are looking for here? Then we'll let you get on with things, while we start planning our next steps.'

They climbed into the fortunately roomy Saab while the two proceeded to give Balfour a rapid rundown on the case.

After providing as much detail as he could, McRae summed up their concerns. ‘The thing is, it's obviously arson; the spread and the obvious use of accelerant are a dead giveaway, even to us lesser mortals,' he stated, looking to Grim for assent. ‘However, the devil is in the detail, so what we want to know is everything else you can tell us. If there's any initial conclusion you can reach, with all the usual caveats of course, we need it tonight as we're gonna be giving an initial report to CFG tomorrow morning.'

Balfour looked at McRae with incomprehension writ large on his round face. ‘Drew, it is now just gone six. It'll be dark in no time and even though I've brought a lighting set, it will be bloody difficult, if not impossible, to establish anything at all before tomorrow. If – and it's a bloody big ‘if' – you two are right, and frankly that's unlikely, I may be able to give you an indicator by late this evening, but don't count on it!'

‘I knew that's what you'd say,' replied McRae,' but this is massive for us, Steve, so do what you can, eh?'

‘No promises, Drew. I'll call you at ten either way,' said Balfour. ‘Now, let the dog have a chance to see the bloody rabbit.'

After introducing Balfour to George, who had been openly observing the Saab summit from the window of the canteen, McRae explained the forensic expert's role and requested that the Greek provide all necessary assistance to him. Once the niceties were dispensed with, Balfour waddled off into the recesses of the warehouse with Gallo, leaving the adjusters alone.

‘Before we leave, I think we'd better have a ganders at the executive offices,' suggested McRae, and so they trudged carefully up the open-sided staircase to the first floor. The doors leading to the designers' and directors' rooms were both ajar.

‘Kanelos is right,' remarked Grim. ‘No real structural damage here.'

It was heavily smoke-logged, with a thick coat of greasy soot coating every conceivable surface. In the gloom of the unlit designers' room, a large drawing table was littered with blackened sheets upon which garment designs could be dimly discerned. Various fashion magazines were open with notes of differing colours acting as page markers or highlighters. On a high-level rail that ran around the circumference of the room, the pathetic remains of dresses and blouses dangled from pitifully distorted plastic hangers. McRae pulled several of the clothes to one side and began inspecting them; in particular, he noted the brands.

At a superficial glance it seemed that almost all the garments were high-end continental marques, such as Dolce and Gabbana and Chanel, but then, as he looked more closely, McRae could see there were equivalent similar items from high street retailers like Marks and Spencer, Next, Topshop and so-on, all interspersed with unlabelled garments that he guessed were Hellenic's own.

Standing back from the rail, he thought he could perceive a crude pattern in the arrangement. For most articles, there appeared to be one Hellenic own-brand item that, in essence, broadly matched the others.
A bit of piracy?
he wondered, before quickly concluding that all fashion was essentially copycat stuff anyway. Distracted from his cogitations by a shout from Grim, he realised his colleague had wandered next door into the executives' office.

This office turned out to be of comparable size. It was similarly ruined and oily smoke revealed, as it invariably did, a disturbing number of otherwise invisible cobwebs. A suggestive but nominally “artistic” calendar took pride of place on one wall. The space was dominated by a single large conference table, as well as a number of mismatched chairs, filing cabinets and what looked as if it had once been a rather swish set of matching suede-leather settees positioned on either side of a glass coffee table. Grim was using his torch to illuminate the contents of one of the filing cabinets. In particular, he was keen to draw McRae's attention to what seemed to be a file of bank statements. As McRae drew close to him, he carefully opened the file but was disappointed to see that it was empty. The pattern of smoke staining showed that whatever had been inside had been removed after the event.

‘Bit of a pity eh?' he remarked.

‘Yeah, might have been useful.' He peered at his watch. ‘Anyway, if you can tell Spiros that we're leaving for the evening, I'll bring the car up and we can get off,' suggested McRae. ‘Oh, and maybe it would be just as well to tell him we'll be back tomorrow, eh?'

‘Oh great,' sighed Cairns. ‘Just what I need – a deluded optimist.'

* * *

It was a little after 6.30pm when the Audi pulled onto the forecourt of The Fountain pub. A bit rundown, but that was the way Grim liked his pubs. All that mattered to him was an ostentatious absence of pretension and the quality of the ale. They had driven well out of their way in order to satisfy Grim's arcane requirements. It had turned out he hadn't visited The Fountain before and he wanted to see whether it lived up to its reputation in the CAMRA Guide as a true drinkers' pub.

Hardly likely to get a decent glass of wine in here
, thought McRae as he gazed around the unashamedly brutal interior of the public bar. He eventually settled on a bottle of Stella Artois for safety, while his expert colleague debated whether or not to select the Wadworth 6X or the Hook Norton. Finally, nursing their respective drinks, accessorised with packets of dry roasted nuts, the men chose a heavy teak-topped, cast iron table in the corner of the snug. The filthy overflowing ashtray reminded them both that within a few short months the new fascist-inspired no smoking laws would be coming into force. In the meantime, however, they were overdue a smoke and like the condemned men they were, they duly lit up.

‘So, any thoughts?' opened McRae.

‘Plenty, but none of them good,' responded Grim. ‘My main worry is obvious. We should have got back to CFG this afternoon and warned them of the scale of the loss – not just sailed on regardless. If they chuck us off the job now, we've wasted a day and they'll never touch us again!'

McRae gave a deep sigh. He knew only too well the risk they were running. From the moment they had stepped through Hellenic's doors, he had been debating with himself how best to manage their client insurer's expectations.

Over the next ten minutes he outlined his thinking to Grim, before eventually summarising his conclusion. His view was that if they were able to go back to CFG the following morning with a well-thought-out and thorough report, and with a solid reserve that covered every base, there was at least a chance CFG would leave them to complete the handling of the case. God only knew, he hoped so.

Grim, while patently continuing to harbour his own doubts, decided there was nothing to be gained from further debate. He gazed morosely at the shiny, shabby, gum-encrusted Wilton carpet through the base of his quickly emptied glass and finally spoke. ‘Refill?'

Returning from the bar with the replenished glasses, the adjusters turned to considering the detail of the case. In particular: the cause.

Both agreed the fire had, without doubt, been deliberate. The senior fire officer, with whom Grim had been in a huddle in the canteen had confirmed as much, although the brigade's own enquiries were continuing. Interestingly, the fire brigade had been called to a number of small deliberate fires in other units throughout the estate over the last few months, which they had attributed to some local yobbo's idea of recreation. This fire had been different, though, both in terms of the apparent sophistication and the scale of the damage.

‘Did you spot that broken panel in the right-hand loading bay door?' asked McRae.

‘Yeah, course, got a couple of pictures of it, too' came the response. ‘Place reeked as well, didn't it? Couldn't make out whether it was petrol or diesel but it had an oily smell, I thought. Didn't spot any obvious container though.'

‘No,' said McRae, ‘you're right. No sign of any container, but there is so much crap about that it could be anywhere. Anyway, when I went through the stock, some of the dresses at the bottom of the piles had a really strong odour of some form of accelerant. Anyway, Steve will be able to tell us what it was, no doubt. The other thing that bothered me was the quality of the stock. God knows I'm no expert, but some of it didn't strike me as being quite as upmarket as Mr Kanelos implied. What do you reckon?'

‘Not a clue,' said Cairns, ‘I didn't pay much attention to the stock, to be honest, but I can tell you that some of the forklifts seemed past their best. It was a bit hard to tell, with the extent of the smoke. Appeared to be a load of lock-stitch and other types of sewing machines in one corner of Bay A as well, which I couldn't understand the necessity for.'

‘So, what do you reckon for the reserves?'

‘Mmm,' Grim murmured, leafing quickly through his annoyingly neat site notes. ‘My first thoughts are about £1.5 million for the building and somewhere around half a million for the plant. What about the stock?'

‘Well, if we believe Kanelos, the stock stood at £8 million last Friday and I don't reckon there is more than a few hundred grand's worth of salvageable material, if that. So effectively, we must be looking at an overall £10 million reserve, plus fees. So, let's say £10.5 million to be on the safe side.'

‘CFG are going to be sick.'

‘Absolutely, but the main thing is how we tell them. It's obvious to me that we need to fix an appointment with that claims manager, Smyth.'

‘Smythson… Derek Smythson,' interrupted Grim.

‘Okay, Smythson… Anyway, we need a meeting with him mid-morning and it needs a decent report, plenty of photos and us looking totally on the ball.'

‘Us?'

‘Yes. Us, we have to look credible. If I show up alone, we may look a little lightweight, don't you think? One man band? The sodding nobility usually roll up with a complete bloody army of techies on their major jobs.'