“I’ve got Doug out looking for Yarwood as well as Chloe. Yarwood’s ex-wife says he’s not been home since earlier today, and that he’s desperately trying to raise money, even trying to find a quick buyer for his house, which he’s always refused to sell.”
Gemma frowned. “That might make it more likely that he torched the warehouse for the insurance money, if it weren’t for the small matter of the body-”
“Not if he needed immediate cash. Insurance payouts are never quick.”
“Forget the fire for a bit,” Gemma said slowly. “What would you think if you had a missing child and a prominent father trying to raise immediate cash on the quiet?”
Kincaid stared at her. “Ransom. Bloody hell.”
“It could be an attempt to collect Yarwood’s gambling debts. They – whoever he’s in hock to – lured Chloe to the warehouse, snatched her, then set the place alight to prove they meant business.”
After a moment’s thought, Kincaid said, “It might be plausible but for two things. Yarwood’s ex-wife, who has nothing kind to say about him, swears he’d never gamble. And-”
“The body.” Gemma grimaced and rubbed at her face. Her head was starting to ache. “It doesn’t explain the body, whether it’s Laura’s or not. And none of this is getting us any closer to finding Elaine and Harriet Novak.”
“Did you have any luck talking to Fanny?”
“No. She was too shocked. I’m not sure she took it in, about Harriet. Winnie’s promised to stay on with her.”
“I’ll talk to Fanny again tomorrow,” he said. “And to Tony Novak, and to Yarwood, if we can find him.”
“You won’t have much time.” The thought of the court hearing hovered in the back of her mind like a shadow, and she felt her stomach knot.
“I know.” He touched her shoulder, turning her to face him. The reflection of the river had turned his eyes gray as slate. “It’ll be all right,” he said, and she wasn’t sure if he meant to reassure her or himself. In the distance, a siren began to wail, then another. After a few moments, the sound faded away.
Fanny sat, chill and silent, as the light in the green room faded to gray. She seemed not to hear Winnie’s soft queries, or to feel Winnie’s chafing of her hands, or to notice the butting, purring overtures of Quinn, the cat.
Winnie lit the lamps and the candles, hoping to restore some sense of normality. Then she made a cup of tea, to warm her hands if she could not warm Fanny’s. She sat close beside Fanny’s chair and saw her own face reflected in the darkening window, lit by the flickering candle flame.
The petition came to her without thought. She had said it every night since her ordination, so that it was now as automatic as breathing. As the words ran through her mind, she realized she was speaking them aloud, her voice a rising and falling murmur of sound.
“Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love’s sake. Amen.”
When she’d finished, the silence seemed deeper. Fanny sat with eyes closed, her face so pale and pinched that Winnie began to think she had better call a doctor. But before she could rise, the cat jumped up in her lap. She stroked him for a moment, then put him down, and when she glanced at Fanny once more, she saw that her face was wet, her eyes open.
At first, the tears slipped silently down Fanny’s cheeks, as if she were unaware of them. And then her mouth began to twist, her shoulders to shake, and she was crying with the grief of the bereaved.
Winnie pulled her chair as close as she could and wrapped her arms around Fanny’s thin shoulders. “It’s all right,” she whispered. “You’ll be all right.”
“How could she do it?” choked out Fanny. “How could she let me think she loved me?”
To this Winnie had no immediate answer. She could only keep patting Fanny’s back, and when the sobs subsided to an occasional gulp, she provided a clean handkerchief from the pocket of her cardigan and sat back to let Fanny blow her nose.
“I think,” Winnie said slowly, when Fanny looked up at her with red and swollen eyes, “I think perhaps she was in terrible pain. I know there are people who are simply wicked, who hurt others for the pleasure of it… but because Elaine was good to you in so many ways, I can’t find it in my heart to believe that of her. She said, didn’t she, that her mother committed suicide and her father died from an illness when she was young? That might have-”
“She said a lot of things that turned out not to be true,” countered Fanny. “Why should we believe that?”
“Why would she have lied? Unless… unless there was something worse… something she couldn’t bear to talk about or perhaps even to remember.” Winnie shook her head. “We’re grasping at straws, love, and we may never know the truth.”
“I can understand, a little, about the doctor. I mean, people have affairs all the time… And it’s not as though there was anything physical, really, between us.” Fanny looked away, as if ashamed to have mentioned it. “There were only things that I might have… misinterpreted… But why… why would she take a child?”
“Did Elaine want children?” Winnie had seen it in her pastoral work, women – single or married – who reached a certain age and found themselves suddenly obsessed with the desire for a child so strong that it drove them beyond reason. It was a thought she’d kept in the back of her mind, a slender thread of hope on which to hang the safety of Harriet Novak.
“No,” whispered Fanny, the brief animation fading from her face. “No. She didn’t care for children at all.”
Rose sat in the rear cab of the pump, with Bryan and Steve Winston. Seamus MacCauley was driving and Station Officer Wilcox rode beside him. Beneath her heavy tunic, she could feel her T-shirt plastered wetly to her back. The day had gone from bad to worse – two more nuisance fires, one in a rubbish tip and the other in an abandoned car, two medical calls, then a road traffic accident that had injured an unrestrained child. She’d never had a chance to dry out properly from the morning’s fires, much less the afternoon’s, nor had she had any opportunity to return Station Officer Farrell’s call. And now they were on their way to another fire.
“Better gear up,” said Bryan. “We’re almost there.” In this warm and humid weather, they resisted pulling up their Nomex hoods as long as they could. The fire-resistant fabric stopped any air circulation inside their tunics, turning their already sweltering coats into sweatboxes.
They were headed west, along Webber Street, the pump ladder careening along right behind them. A fire had been reported in a warehouse tucked back between Webber Street and Waterloo Road. As they slipped on their hoods and resettled their helmets, the pump swung round a curve and Rose saw the smoke.
“Christ,” said Steven, his voice filled with awe. The building was old – Victorian, Rose thought, although with none of the architectural grace of the Southwark Street warehouse – and in poor repair. Its concrete surround was cracked and patched with weeds, a wire fence sagged listlessly to the ground in places, and broken windows gaped like sightless eyes. From the third-and fourth-floor windows, smoke dark as coal pumped furiously out. It looked as though a bomb had gone off in the place.
Pedestrians milled about in the street, shouting and pointing. MacCauley had to sound the air horn to scatter them so that he could maneuver the pump into a position near the hydrant. As soon as they rolled to a stop, Rose could hear the fire, crackling and hissing and groaning like a live thing. As they spilled out of the appliance she felt her chest tighten.