The reminder that his personal problems were microscopic compared to those facing humanity in general gave Jerome the idea that he should adopt a more relaxed attitude in life. He knew exactly the kind of story Anne wanted—so all he had to do to squelch the matter was to write the one she did not want to see. It had to be cold, factual, rational and—above all else—dull. He switched off the radio and began checking street numbers. The address he wanted was in the SE twenties and it turned out to be a framed bungalow of medium size, elevated from the street by a neatly tiered rock garden. Its masses of red, white and blue alpines might have been planted with a patriotic theme in mind. The house itself, Jerome noticed, bore no external signs of fire.
He parked, got out of the car and was locking the door when it occurred to him that he had been too preoccupied with logical arguments to think about the human tragedy involved. A woman had lost her father in particularly disturbing circumstances only a few days earlier, and there was no telling how she would react to finding a newsman on her doorstep. Now that he considered the matter, he should have telephoned for an appointment and perhaps have saved himself a journey. Maeve Starzynski could be staying elsewhere with relatives, for all he knew. Half hoping that was the case, Jerome went up the steep concrete steps. He was breathing heavily by the time he reached the front door and his knee felt as though the joint interfaces had been dusted with powdered glass. Only fifty years on the clock, he thought as he rang the doorbell, and the damned machine is wearing out fast.
The chimes were answered almost immediately by a youngish but tired-looking woman, and he knew at once she was the dead man’s daughter. She was wearing a charcoal suit and her face was round and pleasant, giving the impression of a bookish intelligence which Jerome found appealing.
“Good morning,” he said. “My name is Rayner Jerome and I’m a reporter with the Examiner. I hate to intrude at a time like this, but my editor asked me to call…”
“It’s all right,” she said in a resigned monotone. “Come in.”
“Thank you.” Jerome followed her into the house, noting that though her hair and clothing were acceptably neat they did not have the precise control he instinctively associated with her character type. He guessed she was making her own way through purgatory, seeking no help from outsiders, and his natural sympathy became stronger. He had been along the same road. She led the way into a copper-glinting kitchen, picked up a carton of tea bags and gave him an enquiring glance. Jerome nodded gratefully.
“I wasn’t sure if anybody would come out to see me,” she said as she prepared two mugs of tea. “I don’t know your editor personally, but a friend in the Pythian Sisters said she would speak to her on my behalf. I’m glad you were able to call.”
“So am I,” Jerome said, floundering a little as he realized a new complication had been added to the situation. The bereaved woman had views of her own which might or might not coincide with those of Anne Kruger, and which in any case constituted another editorial pressure on him. He began to feel impatience, an urge to have done with the sad affair as quickly as possible.
“People can be so silly, so vindictive,” Maeve Starzynski went on. “They’re saying my father had so much alcohol in his system that he flared up like a torch…as if alcohol isn’t converted into other substances in the body…as if you store it up inside you like a gas tank…That’s just plain silly, isn’t it?”
“Extremely.” Jerome drank some tea and set the mug down. “May I see the room where you had the fire?”
“Through here.” Maeve led the way along the central hall and turned left into a sitting room which Jerome had passed when coming in. It was a corner room, with windows on two adjoining sides, furnished for comfort rather than style with deep settees and home-made bookshelves. Orange throwrugs on a floor covering of café-au-lait vinyl added to the general brightness and cheerfulness of the place. The walls and ceiling were close to being immaculate and the air was fresh. Jerome, who was familiar with the acrid stench which lingers for weeks at the scene of a house fire, looked around with some puzzlement. The only discrepant feature was a square of hardboard which had been placed on the floor near an empty television stand.
“There has been remarkably little damage,” he said tentatively. “Usually when a house catches fire there’s a lot…”
“The house didn’t catch fire,” Maeve interrupted. “It was my father who caught fire and burned away to nothing.” Her gaze wavered for an instant. “Almost nothing.”
Jerome indicated the piece of hardboard. “I know this must be distressing for you, but is that where you found the body?”
Maeve shook her head, her face stubborn. “There wasn’t any body to find. This is what I can’t make people understand. My father was turned into a heap of fine ash. Cigar ash, almost. It was in there.” She stooped and slid the hardboard aside, revealing a roughly circular black-edged hole about a metre across. It was traversed by floor joists whose upper edges were badly charred, and at the bottom of the cavity were visible the laths and plaster forming the ceiling of a basement room.
Jerome studied the strangely circumscribed fire damage, noting that there was only slight blistering on the nearby skirting board, and his mind balked at what he was being asked to accept. The amount of heat needed to incinerate a human body to the extent Maeve Starzynski had described should have seared everything within a sizeable radius, should have started a serious blaze. He waited a few seconds then abruptly raised his head and scanned the woman’s face. Her gaze locked with his, her eyes candid, intelligent and very troubled.
I respect this person, Jerome thought. But where is she trying to take me?
“Would you mind telling me exactly what happened?” he said, beginning to walk around the room and examine the rest of its contents.
“It has to be done,” she replied steadily. “The first point is that my father was smoking his pipe when I last saw him, and he had just gotten some hot ash on his cardigan.”
Jerome paused in his circuit of the room, feeling an immediate stirring interest.
“No,” Maeve said, anticipating his question. “I only mention it because the men from the coroner’s office made such a fuss about it. There wasn’t nearly enough ash to set his clothes on fire. And even if there had been it wouldn’t explain anything important, would it?”
“I see what you mean.”
“Secondly, my very last words to my father were, ‘I wish you would burn yourself to death’.”
Jerome halted again, shocked, aware of the conversational focus making an uneasy slide from straight reportage into murkier regions. Refraining from comment, he stroked the cool curvature of a millefiori paperweight which was sitting on a bookshelf.
“The main reason I mention that,” Maeve went on, “is that it happened and it’s the sort of thing some women would be stupid enough to develop a neurosis over, but I’m going to keep it up front and let the fresh air blow around it. We were having a tiff about his smoking. I’m quick-tempered and that’s what I said and we both knew I didn’t mean it.”