Brushing these thoughts aside, Helen climbed on to her bike and fired it up. Her fate would have to be addressed later, there was important work for her to do now and she had to focus. Three more fires had been set. One at a nursery, one at a cash and carry and the third at a terraced house in nearby Lower Shirley. It wasn’t hard to work out the exact location of the last fire. Not half a mile away, a giant plume of black smoke climbed ever higher, blocking out the moon’s gaze and casting a shadow over Southampton.
Helen raced towards it now, all thoughts of her own future temporarily forgotten. Their killer was at play once more.
84
Buzz, buzz, buzz. The phone was on silent mode and appeared aggrieved to be neutered in this way, buzzing its irritation angrily over and over again. It lay in a Marc Jacobs bag underneath the small table, temporarily forgotten by its owner.
Jacqueline Harris drained her glass and reached over towards the bottle. She pulled it out of the ice bucket, a few drops of icy water spilling on to the white tablecloth, and was aggrieved to find that it was empty. She cast a suspicious glance at her husband, Michael. He had been in ebullient mood, telling stories, joking and refilling his companions’ glasses at every opportunity. Wouldn’t it be like him to finish the bottle without ordering another – he wouldn’t want to break the flow of his delivery, now that he had a captive audience.
Signalling to the waiter, Jacqueline sat back in her chair and let out a heavy sigh. It had been a pig of a day – a day when every one of her pet projects had taken a step backwards. She had lost the pitch for the new building at Solent University, a client had complained about rising costs on another project and, to top it all off, she’d run into more planning problems on her luxury flats overlooking Ocean Village. She’d get over them, of course, it was too big a development to be stymied and she was a big enough name locally to cut through the red tape, but still it was irritating. Sometimes it seemed to her as if the world delighted in throwing small-minded pettifogging bureaucrats into her path just to see how she would react. By now it should have known – she reacted badly.
The waiter was on his way over now and Jacqueline relaxed a little. Her eye wandered to Michael, who was building to the end of another of his stories – adventures from the front line of psychiatry. He would never tell stories of current patients of course, but when it came to serving up the gory details of past fruitcakes he’d treated he was utterly shameless. He was currently dissecting the neuroses of a former patient – Katie B – who’d suffered from a condition called Objectum Sexuality, in which the victim became sexually obsessed with inanimate objects. Washing machines, car bonnets and the like were common, but Katie seemed to have a particular flair for her condition, having developed an unhealthy and somewhat unnerving obsession with Ferris wheels. She had been arrested in various states of undress at funfairs up and down the land and seemed to have no desire or ability to combat her addiction, despite the best efforts of her family and Michael too.
Jacqueline regarded her husband – he was expanding his theme now to bring in the real-life cases of two other female sufferers who’d married the Eiffel Tower and Berlin Wall, respectively. Despite her mild irritation with him and her high stress level, she couldn’t help smiling. When he was in this mood he was kind of irresistible – he would happily entertain their large party deep into the small hours if given the chance.
Jacqueline ordered another bottle of Sancerre and gave in to the flow of the evening. As the crisp white wine hit the back of her throat, she felt her whole body relax. She’d only had a couple of glasses and they hadn’t done much, but this one landed. It was late and they should probably be getting home, as they both had hectic days tomorrow, but somehow she knew they wouldn’t. They were night birds and didn’t really do sleep – they were never happier than when entertaining together. So she refilled her glass, launched herself into the conversation and forgot all about the woes of her day.
All the while, her phone buzzed violently underneath the table, out of sight and out of mind.
85
Adam Latham stood in front of the blaze, trying to stem the fierce anger rising inside him. Ever since his crew had arrived on the scene – their third fire of the night – they had been on the receiving end of catcalls and abuse. A knot of young lads hung on the cordon, swearing at them and accusing them of being killers, firestarters and more besides. A plastic bottle had been thrown at one of his officers, at which point the police had finally done their job, dragging the offender away for a night in the cells. But in general the boys in blue had done nothing to protect his team. No doubt they were in thrall to DI Grace, believing every ugly lie that came out of her mouth.
Every instinct was urging him to charge over to those scrawny kids and teach them a lesson they’d never forget. But he wasn’t an excitable rookie any more, he was Southampton’s Chief Fire Officer, which meant that though it stuck in his craw, he had to suck it up for now. They had more urgent priorities as the imposing house in Lower Shirley continued to rage, but he made a private vow to himself that if any of his officers were harmed or hampered in fulfilling their duties tonight, he would have Grace’s head on his wall before the month was out.
‘What shall we do, boss?’
Simon Cannon, the team captain, hurried up to him. His face was smeared with dirt and riven with tension.
‘Have we had any joy reaching the parents?’
Cannon shook his head.
‘Their car’s not here and Mrs Harris’s PA confirmed that she and her husband have gone out to dinner tonight. But we’ve got no way of knowing if they’ve got their son with them or not.’
‘How mobile is he? Could he get out himself? Call for help?’
‘Hard to say. He’s epileptic and has some physical disabilities according to the neighbours. He can get around, but he might have been asleep when this started. Even if he was awake, the stress of the situation might get to him and…’
‘Jesus Christ.’
Adam Latham had recurring nightmares about moments like these. He had faced enough of them over the years but they still haunted him – those moments when you had to make the big calls, when innocent lives were at stake and it was down to you to decide which way to jump. His team had already been in the building for upwards of ten minutes and it was touch and go as to how much longer the structure would hold. The fire appeared to have started in the basement and ripped through the old terraced house – it was a very real risk that the flooring would collapse, sending four officers to their deaths. He couldn’t have that on his conscience, but if they pulled out too early and allowed a disabled boy to die in the conflagration, they’d be slaughtered. And rightly so.
‘What are the boys saying? What’s it like in there?’
His deputy pulled a face.
‘They’re getting barbecued. They’ve got three or four minutes at best.’
Cannon paused and looked at his boss. Latham looked at him, then up at the house, before saying:
‘Give them two more minutes. If they haven’t found the boy by then, tell them to pull out.’
Cannon was immediately on his radio, as he hurried back towards the house. Adam Latham watched him go, hoping and praying that he’d just made the right call – and that he’d be able to live with the consequences.
86
The fire swirled around him, but still he pushed on. He had to keep going. The temperature in the house was savage now – it wouldn’t be long before his protective suit started to melt – but he had no choice. The intelligence was that there was a teenage boy in the house and he was damned if he was leaving without him. The order to pull out could only be seconds away – their bosses were very cautious when it came to officer safety and he was profoundly grateful for that.