Helen let her words hang in the air. The brief looked shocked, whereas Naomie just looked beaten.
‘Now I know you’re a capable girl,’ Helen continued. ‘But an elaborate scheme like this, well it doesn’t feel very you, does it? You’ve been hurt, neglected and belittled more than any girl should be and you’re angry with your dad, your mum, with the world. But ultimately you just want your family back together, don’t you? You don’t want to burn this town down, do you?’
Naomie just stared at her through tear-filled eyes, but didn’t commit either way.
‘All that planning, the endless scouting, the diversionary fires, was that really your idea?’
Helen could tell Naomie had to think for a moment to work out what diversionary meant and in that instant she knew she had her answer.
‘And the idea of putting yourself forward, to sell us the big lie about seeing a guy with a Fire and Rescue tattoo? You came up with that, did you?
Naomie faltered, then replied:
‘Sure. Like I said -’
‘I’m going to discount what you’ve told me so far, as you have already lied to me on tape on a number of occasions, but there is something I’d like you to tell me the truth about. Who is firstpersonsingular?’
Naomie’s reaction was hard to miss. She looked like she’d been caught with her hand in the till – initial astonishment morphing into a desire to disengage, to retreat. She picked hard at the scar on her hand, wanting to be anywhere but locked in a room with her accusers.
‘We know you’re close,’ Charlie went on, more softly. ‘That you feel loyalty to this person, that perhaps they even control you a little bit. But it’s our view that this person is principally responsible for these fires, so it would be in your best interests to tell us who they are.’
Naomie shook her head vigorously but refused to look up at them. Helen felt a strange mixture of sympathy and contempt as she looked at the shambolic teenage girl who still clung to the person – to the ‘project’ – that made her feel special.
‘We will find out, Naomie. Make no bones about that,’ Helen said. ‘And this is your one chance to help us bring this to an end. It could make all the difference when this goes to trial.’
Now Naomie did look up and Helen caught the fear in her eyes.
‘You’ve nothing to fear. If you need protection we can arrange that. And you don’t need to go back to your old life, once you’ve done your time. We can set you up somewhere new – new name, new place, new future. But only if you help us now. Who is firstpersonsingular?’
‘I won’t help you,’ Naomie said suddenly, before receding into herself once more.
‘Then I’m calling time on this interview. I’ve done all I can and I would urge your lawyer to use the break to talk some sense into you. Cooperation is your only option.’
‘I’ll never give him up to the likes of you,’ Naomie spat back bitterly.
‘So firstpersonsingular is a “he”?’ Helen returned quickly. ‘Well that’s a start, I suppose.’
The blood drained from Naomie’s face, as she felt the guilt of her first betrayal.
‘We will find out his name, Naomie. It’s only a matter of time. So now you have to ask yourself if you’re brave enough to speak up or whether you want to spend the rest of your days behind bars for something that wasn’t your fault.’
And with that Helen left, Charlie following close behind.
128
‘Let’s take this from the top, shall we?’
Helen had pulled the entire team into the incident room and they crowded round, keen to hear the very latest developments.
‘Naomie Jackson has a male accomplice, whom we strongly suspect of having been the instigator of the recent arson attacks. He goes by the online moniker of “firstpersonsingular”. DS Sanderson has put together a short profile of everything we know about FPS, which includes his most recent posts on the net, social media and so on. He is male, appears to be local and is probably in his mid- to-late teens.’
Immediately a buzz went round the room – this was not the standard arson profile, which commonly placed offenders in their twenties or thirties.
‘He makes several references to schooling or teachers. He doesn’t give specifics but the incidents he refers to seem to be recent and would put him in GCSE year or slightly above. He could of course be lying to gain Naomie’s trust, but the overall tone of his posts is one of teenage anger and rebellion, infused with deep cynicism and bitterness, particularly towards his parents and authority figures in general. He types much less fluently than Naomie, which is curious. Is he a man of few words or is his access to unsupervised computers limited?’
The team were passing the sheets around now, but their eyes were glued to Helen.
‘We’re trying to trace his IP address, but if he’s using a tablet with 4G or similar, then this may be a dead end, so for now let’s keep focused on his character. His posts reveal clear evidence of depression, but also strong feelings of superiority. He craves control and seems to relish the effect that the fires have had. He seems to be calling the tune. So we are looking for a teenage male who until recently has been powerless, overlooked or neglected.’
‘What’s the tenor of their relationship? FPS and Naomie?’ McAndrew asked. ‘Were they lovers?’
‘Looks that way,’ Sanderson interjected. ‘They communicated every day during the summer and well into the autumn. He makes great play of idolizing her – calling her “Angel” repeatedly – and is always trying to boost her self-esteem. She in turn is very protective of him – seemingly worrying if he’ll come to any harm – though whether at his own hands or someone else’s is unclear. She keeps referencing the first time they met as if that explained the root cause of her anxiety.’
‘Had they been intimate?’ DC Lucas asked, to a few quiet sniggers.
‘Tough to say,’ Sanderson answered. ‘It’s hard to imagine they haven’t been but there is no mention of sex or intimacy in their communications.’
Sanderson continued her dissection of their relationship, but Helen’s mind was already arrowing away in a different direction, hidden connections forming now. Without warning, she walked away from the group, marching towards her desk. She picked up her files and searched through them quickly, until she’d located the hospital reports from the fires’ survivors. She flicked through them until she came to the page on Ethan Harris. Her eyes ran over the text, words and phrases now leaping out at her: ‘cerebral palsy’, ‘persistent shaking of the left hand’, ‘historic burn injuries’. Suddenly Helen knew why Agnieszka Jarosik had been singled out for special treatment. She knew why their arsonist had fumbled the matches during the second and fourth attacks. And she knew where she had seen Naomie’s scar – the burnt cross on the left palm – before.
Most importantly, she knew why Naomie had called 999 twelve minutes before anybody else after the Harris fire started. It wasn’t fear or excitement that motivated her to call too early that night. It was love.
129
Blog post by firstpersonsingular.
Saturday, 12 December, 10.30
She was a funny-looking angel. But she was beautiful to me.
Her sad face was framed by that crazy, afro hair and the shadow of a black eye haunted the left side of her face. Her face was so close to me, I could feel her breath and at first I was confused. Who was this person? What did they want with me? I thought I was seeing things – she had a kind of aura that framed her head, her voice was smooth and comforting – but later I knew I had seen right. She was an angel. More than that, she was my angel.