There was a pause, as Emilia took this in. Behind her, the ancient cisterns murmured quietly to themselves.
‘Go on.’
‘I want to talk to you off the record about Helen Grace. I can trust you to be objective in your attitude to her, can’t I?’
‘We only print the facts here, Adam.’
‘I’m very glad to hear it. I obviously don’t want to be named or quoted, but I want to give you the inside track on Grace’s handling of this case. It’s my firm belief that her bungled approach has endangered the public and cost lives. And I’d like to give you the details.’
Emilia sat down on the nearest loo seat and pulled the door to. So Latham wanted to do a hatchet job on Helen. She was happy to listen – finally she would have the inside track on the investigation and potentially a scapegoat too.
Emilia smiled to herself. This juicy story had just got a lot juicier.
92
Jacqueline Harris stared through the glass window at her son and felt a sharp stab of guilt. Ethan had never been an easy child and she had spent less time with him than she should have – hiring help to allow Michael and her to pursue their professional lives unchecked. But now, when she really wanted to be with her son, to reassure him that everything was going to be fine, she couldn’t.
The doctors had asked her to leave the room while they carried out further tests. Why hadn’t she spent more time with him? Why had she been so preoccupied by work? If she had lost him, she would never have forgiven herself. Things would be different now, she vowed.
In some ways, they had been extremely lucky. Ethan’s room was at the top of the house and though he had sustained scrapes and minor burns while being dragged from the blaze, they were superficial and would heal in time. He had of course inhaled a significant amount of smoke and that was what doctors were really concerned about, given that he already suffered from a mild form of brain damage, present since birth. Could this boy, who’d already been dealt a fairly tough hand, suffer yet more indignities? For all his physical problems, he was still bright and articulate – please, God, don’t let that be taken away from him too, Jacqueline prayed.
Jacqueline heard steps behind her and turned to see a young woman in a smart suit approaching, a police warrant card held out for inspection.
‘Mr and Mrs Harris? I’m DS Sanderson.’
‘Jacqueline. And this is my husband, Michael.’
They shook hands.
‘How’s he doing?’
‘Good, I think. He’s awake, and alert, and seems to be passing all the tests fine. We want to get him discharged as soon as we can, but obviously that’s in the hands of the doctors.’
‘That’s great news.’
Jacqueline nodded, suddenly ambushed by emotion. Had things turned out differently, she would have been at the police mortuary today.
‘We’ll need to ask Ethan a few questions.’
‘Of course.’
‘You’re welcome to be present and if it gets too much for him at any point, we’ll call a halt. But he could be a vital witness to last night’s events, so…’
‘That’s fine,’ Michael Harris chipped in. ‘We understand. Can I ask about Agnieszka Jarosik? I’d like to be able to tell Ethan what her condition is.’
Jacqueline Harris watched DS Sanderson closely. She saw a cloud pass across her face and knew immediately what the officer was about to say.
‘I’m very sorry, but she died of her injuries last night. The fire was too fierce in the basement for the emergency services to get to her.’
Jacqueline turned to Michael. He looked as sick as she felt, but reached out his hand to take hers.
‘Will you need us to identify her? She’s from Poland and doesn’t have any family over here,’ Michael said, trying to sound as business-like as possible.
‘Thank you, but that won’t be necessary. We have other ways in which we can identify her without putting you through that.’
Jacqueline shut her eyes. That could only mean one thing – that Agnieszka had been so badly burnt that a visual identification was impossible. An image of her charred corpse now shot into Jacqueline’s mind, turning her stomach. None of this felt real but it was happening nevertheless. As Jacqueline stood there, dutifully answering the officer’s polite questions, she had the feeling that the axis of their world was shifting. Their home had been destroyed, their son injured, their nanny murdered. They had now become the news story – the collateral damage of someone else’s insanity.
93
Smoke rose gently from the ashes. Only the shell of the building now remained – everything inside it had been consumed by the fire. Twenty-four hours ago this had been an expensive terraced house in the one of the most desirable parts of the city. Now it was a smouldering wreck and, worse still, a murder scene.
The body of a young woman had only recently been removed from the scorched basement flat. The fabric of the building was still impressively hot and Helen had to wear protective boots, as she carefully traversed the site with Deborah Parks. The latter had been on site for a couple of hours already, braving the unpleasant atmosphere and risk of falling debris, in order to try and gain an understanding of what had happened last night.
‘Our arsonist is developing his or her MO,’ Deborah said, after the formalities had been concluded.
‘In what way?’ Helen asked, alarmed by Deborah’s concerned expression.
‘The seat of the fire was here,’ Deborah answered, gesturing towards an area in the middle of the small, basement living room. A partially melted TV stood nearby, surrounded by the remnants of charred furniture. ‘The smell has cleared now that we’ve ventilated the site, but when we first arrived, we had to wear these,’ she explained, tapping her mask. ‘The aroma of cyanide oxide was still very strong.’
‘Burning foam?’
‘This leather sofa – or what remains of it – would have been stuffed with polyurethane foam. Highly flammable and highly toxic.’
‘Is that what would have killed Agnieszka?’
‘Nothing so pleasant, I’m afraid,’ Deborah said, pulling a face. ‘We found a melted paraffin container about five yards from the sofa. My suspicion is that your arsonist entered via the back door and poured the paraffin directly on to the sofa before setting light to it.’
‘No delay timer?’
‘I haven’t found any evidence of one and, believe me, I’ve looked.’
‘And you think Agnieszka Jarosik was on the sofa when this happened?’
‘Best guess is that the fire started just before midnight. If Agnieszka was on the sofa, we can guess she didn’t fight back because she didn’t have time or -’
‘Or because she was asleep,’ Helen interrupted, earning a measured nod from Deborah. ‘She’d had a busy day, sticks the TV on, falls asleep on the sofa. And the next thing she knows she’s being doused in paraffin…’
‘It’s all supposition,’ Deborah replied. ‘But it’s our best guess. The body was directly over the seat of the fire. She never moved.’
‘She burnt to death,’ Helen said, her heart sinking even as she said it.
‘Jim Grieves will be able to tell you more,’ Deborah added, ‘but if you were an optimist you might think that she died of shock. When an individual is set on fire like that, their heart often gives out straight away, the initial conflagration proving too much for them.’
‘What a way to die.’
There was silence for a moment, then Helen continued:
‘What makes you think the arsonist came in through the back?’
Deborah gestured at the back door and the pair of them picked their way cautiously through the wreckage towards it.
‘It’s an old-fashioned wood and glass door with a solid, traditional lock. The bolts weren’t across, but when we turned up this morning, the door was locked – from the outside. Look, the key is as we found it.’