Unforgotten (28 page)

‘Not to my knowledge, no.’

‘She worked at the Citizens Advice, I believe?’

‘Yes.’

‘She mention any troublesome customers there? People who might have threatened her?’

‘No. Some of her clients got upset now and then, when they got turned down for housing or whatever it was. But they didn’t take it personally. They knew it was the system that was against them, not Lizzie. But you should ask Angela Parfitt, her team leader. She’ll be able to tell you more than me.’

‘And outside her work? Your wife was involved in some high-profile campaigns, I believe.’

‘No. I mean, there was only one you could call high profile – the Denzel Lewis case.’

‘And what was her involvement there?’

‘She helped him find a new lawyer. And she did what she could on the campaigning side.’

‘What, leaflets, that sort of thing?’

‘More, contacting useful people, getting their help.’

‘What kind of useful people?’

‘Forensic experts, criminal barristers . . . And Chief Inspector Montgomery. She saw him a few times.’

Steadman’s impassive features showed something like mystification. ‘Oh?’

‘She saw him only last week, in fact. The day before she died.’

Steadman gazed at him while he considered this information. ‘You know why?’

Maybe it was his lawyer’s training which had taught him to divulge the minimum information, maybe it was his natural caution when dealing with something he didn’t fully understand, but Hugh said, ‘Best ask him yourself.’

‘Indeed.’ Steadman glanced around the other half of the kitchen before asking, ‘Your wife have any contact with Lewis’s associates? His fellow gang members?’

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘Or with rival gangs?’

‘No,’ Hugh said emphatically.

In a tone of enlightening him, Steadman said, ‘The Carstairs Estate is rife with gangs, Mr Gwynne. The Yardies are in charge at present. They make it their business to know who’s who. If she was going there on a regular basis, her presence would have been noted.’

‘Well, she never mentioned any trouble to me.’

Steadman wandered towards the side counter and peered at the half-drunk bottle of red wine, and beside it the corkscrew with a cork still in it. ‘You stated you’d seen a hoodie in the garden two days before the fire. Could you give us a description?’

It seemed so long ago that Hugh struggled to summon up an image. ‘I don’t know . . . He was about five nine or ten, I suppose. Skinny. Young. Fit. That’s about it. It was very dark.’

‘Ethnicity?’

‘White. I think so, anyway.’

‘You saw his face, then?’

‘For a second. But it was raining hard, I didn’t get a good look at him.’

‘And he was acting suspiciously?’

But Hugh had picked up the sound of an approaching car and was already moving towards the hall.

‘Traffic,’ Slater said, as he came energetically into the house. He was wearing a dark suit and crisp white shirt, and carrying a cabin bag which he set down on the floor. He looked around expectantly. ‘CID here?’

‘In the kitchen.’

Slater’s quick eyes brightened. ‘Excellent.’

Hugh took him in and made the introductions. Slater
handed Steadman his card. ‘Done quite a bit for the Met, Thames Valley, Hampshire Force,’ he announced. ‘Always glad to help in any way.’

Steadman put the card in his pocket without reading it.

Slater pressed his hands neatly together, like a lecturer summoning his students. ‘Well, shall we get started then?’

Hugh collected his memo recorder and followed the others into the living room, where they formed a loose semicircle around the absent sofa. Slater crouched down and, unzipping the case, extracted first a laptop which he opened and set up on the seat of an armchair, then some enlarged photographs of the sofa, which he offered to Steadman.

‘Right.’ Slater looked from face to face, as if to gauge the attentiveness of his audience, perhaps even to heighten the dramatic effect, and it occurred to Hugh that this was a high point of his career, a tale he would recount many times in the future. ‘Right . . .’

Hugh held his recorder out to catch Slater’s voice.

‘The fire brigade and ourselves agree on the source of the fire – that it started on the sofa which stood here, under the window. The right-hand side of the sofa, to be precise. On the seat, close to the arm.’ He directed Steadman to the photographs. ‘You can see the frame at this point was burnt right through to the wood.’ He waited for Steadman to look up again. ‘And the fire damage clearly emanates from this area, spreading sideways, but mainly up and over. The window behind the sofa was slightly open, the door fully open. So, once the fire had got a grip it travelled towards the door and out into the hall, getting as far as the upper landing before it was extinguished.’ He paused enquiringly to make sure everyone was with him so far. ‘Now, in cases of suspected arson I’m looking for one or both of two things – first, how the fire was started, and second, the way or ways it might have been encouraged to spread. As you’ll be aware, most arsonists are what you might call amateurs, they use accelerants like petrol which leave detectible residues and telltale burn patterns, and
they often start more than one fire at the same time. But our arsonist was in a different class. He had two clear aims: a) to leave as little evidence as possible, and b) to be well away from the scene by the time the fire started. So he didn’t use an obvious accelerant, and he started only one fire.’ A glimmer of satisfaction crossed Slater’s face. ‘But that doesn’t mean he left no evidence.’

DI Steadman inclined his head a little, as if to urge Slater to get on with it.

‘So . . .’ Slater said, gaining pace. ‘Because the sofa was the sole source of the fire we were able to concentrate our examination there. And we found evidence of a simple but effective method by which he could be away from the scene by the time the fire started. If I could demonstrate . . .’ Like a conjuror producing a rabbit, he reached down and took a packet of cigarettes out of his case and extracted one. ‘He lights a cigarette . . . he places it on the sofa . . .’ In the absence of the sofa, Slater perched the cigarette on the edge of Lizzie’s desk. ‘Then . . .’ Reaching down into the case again, he brought out a book of matches, the sort restaurants and hotels used to give away before smoking was banned. ‘He flips the matches open, he bends the cover right back so the matches are standing up . . . and he places the matches over the near end of the cigarette . . .’ Slater took a moment to balance the book of matches in the right position. ‘Now, a cigarette takes between seven and eleven minutes to burn to the end, then the cover of the matches will catch light, then the matches themselves. From that point on, the fire will take anything between ten and twenty-five minutes to take hold, depending on the proximity of flammable materials and the use of accelerants. So, adding it all together, our man had at least a quarter of an hour to get away. How do we know he used this method?’ He went back to his case and extracted a sealed, transparent plastic bag. ‘We know because all book matches, no matter where you obtain them, are fastened with the same unique staple.’ He held up the plastic envelope in front of him, the staple just visible in one
corner. ‘And it was just such a staple we found at the epicentre of the fire. A staple, in other words, that could only have come from a book of matches. As the fire got going, the staple worked its way down through the foam and ended up on the sofa frame, which is where we found it.’

Hugh tried not to imagine the number of ways a clever lawyer would find to challenge this sort of evidence. Where was the proof that the book of matches hadn’t been lying down the side of the sofa for years? Or hadn’t fallen onto the sofa with an unattended candle?

‘But it’s not enough for this arsonist to start his fire,’ Slater said. ‘He has to make sure it’s going to get a good hold. The way our man achieved this was very simple. He took the floor-length curtains that were hanging at the window here and brought them forward over the front of the sofa onto the seat cushions, in close proximity to the cigarette and matches. How do we know he did this? Because we found residues of the curtains on the sofa. If I could just demonstrate . . .’ He went to the laptop and brought up a diagram showing a line-drawing of a sofa, sideways on, with the curtains brought forward onto the seat cushions. He pressed a key and the diagram came to life. A small red flame appeared on the cushion and began to spread up the curtains towards the ceiling. As the curtains burnt, the residue, shown as a series of bright green specks, formed on the cushions of the sofa. When the lower halves of the curtains had burnt through, the top halves swung back towards the window and the residues began to fall onto the floor. ‘This is the only scenario consistent with the evidence,’ Slater said. ‘The curtains were used to get the fire going.’

Here was proof, but Hugh felt no elation, no triumph, only a dull, persistent anxiety.

Slater was facing them with an eager enquiring look, as if to invite questions, but it was a full half minute before Reynolds asked, ‘There was no accelerant used?’

‘We’ve found no evidence so far, certainly nothing obvious like petrol, but absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence
when it comes to accelerants. In my opinion it’s highly likely one
was
used, but since this guy knew what he was doing, he’d have chosen acetone or something similar, which leaves no trace.’

Hugh’s recorder clicked as the tape ran out. He extracted the cassette and turned it over.

‘Your reasons for thinking an accelerant was used?’ Steadman asked.

Slater acknowledged the validity of the question with a quick nod. ‘Partly a gut feeling – this guy was leaving nothing to chance. Partly the intensity of the fire, the pattern of the damage. But that’s just my opinion,’ he added, with an eye to his expert status. ‘Nothing I could swear to in court.’

Hugh pushed at the cassette but couldn’t get it to click into the slot. Giving up, he asked Slater, ‘How would someone acquire this sort of know-how? Is it freely available?’

‘They say you can get it off the Internet if you know where to look. Anarchists, terrorists . . . they’ll post up anything.’ He looked to Steadman for confirmation and got none. ‘But if it’s there it’s in a deep, dark place, because I’ve never managed to find it.’

‘But the method’s well known in your profession?’

‘Oh yes. We share this sort of info, pass it around. Particularly when it’s something sophisticated, designed to pull the wool over our eyes.’

Another pause. ‘Thank you,’ Hugh murmured. Then again with genuine gratitude: ‘Thank you. Your people must have worked flat out.’

‘They did,’ Slater declared with a puff of pride. ‘They stayed late on Tuesday evening. And the lab people dropped everything to help out. But they were glad to, in view of the urgency and importance of the investigation. Oh!’ He made a gesture of memory and plunged his hand back into his case to bring out a charred, vaguely rectangular object in a plastic bag. ‘We found this on the sofa frame as well. Bound in leather, ring-binder. A diary or Filofax. Must have been lying open because all the
leaves were destroyed.’ He offered it to Steadman. ‘Need this for evidence, Detective Inspector?’

‘Everything you’ve got. When will your report be available, Mr Slater?’

‘Interim report Monday. Final report two weeks max. Unless you need it sooner?’

It wasn’t needed sooner, and almost as one they began to move, Slater to pack up his laptop, Reynolds to go back through his notes, Hugh and Steadman to stroll to the front door and stand in the porch, gazing out at the wind-blown garden.

Steadman said tautly, ‘I owe you an apology, Mr Gwynne.’

Hugh shook his head. ‘So long as you can get things moving. Find this man.’

‘Most arsonists are rank amateurs. They usually make it blindingly obvious. Never seen anything like this before.’

‘That’s what worries me. What kind of person would plan something like this? Go to so much trouble to kill my wife.’

‘Like I said, if you could think about any enemies your wife might have made, Mr Gwynne. Someone who had an obsession about her. Or a grudge. A local troublemaker . . . A neighbour . . . Someone she’d been kind to who’d got the wrong idea. A road rage incident she’d been involved in, maybe recently, maybe some time ago. A client from the Citizens Advice who started playing the blame game. Any yobs, crackpots, gang members who’d come her way.’

‘Well, it’s not likely to be a yob, is it? They wouldn’t have the brains.’

‘Ah, but you get bright yobs just like you get stupid ones,’ Steadman said in the tone of having seen it all. ‘And drug users are often the brightest of the lot . . .’

Hugh shot him a defensive glance, wondering if he knew about Charlie.

‘. . . Mrs Gwynne must have met a few in the course of her work. Maybe she encouraged one of them to shop a dealer? Maybe she aggravated a gang member without realising it?
That’s what I’m getting at, Mr Gwynne. We can’t rule out anything at this stage.’

Dazed by this new range of possibilities, Hugh said, ‘What next?’

‘The house will have to be sealed off until the SOCOs have had a chance to go over the place. Meantime, we’ll set up an incident room, start gathering statements. We will of course keep you fully informed of any developments.’ Behind the rigid composure Hugh thought he detected a note of pessimism in Steadman’s voice, a sense that the case had got off to a bad start and would continue as it had begun. Or maybe Steadman was simply careworn from a heavy caseload and too few resources. Either way, Hugh made a mental note to keep the pressure up.

Steadman took out a card and wrote on it. ‘My mobile number. Call me or DS Reynolds if you have any thoughts. Anything at all.’

A gust of wind hit them. Reaching a pale hand up to smooth his hair, Steadman turned to go back into the house.

‘You talked about Lizzie getting noticed for going to the Carstairs,’ said Hugh, following him. ‘But apart from the Lewis family the only people she visited were families wanting to be rehoused or people with mental health issues or old age pensioners too frightened to leave their flats. Why would that have attracted attention?’