No Way Out

The oven alarm goes off and I go to get my anaemic-looking lasagne. Then I start the video again. It's the people who knew Foster I find most compelling. The personal assistant who calls him competitive and controlling, the brother who says he abused him as a child. And then there's a psychologist talking about whether it wasn't only the imminent financial ruin that pushed Foster to do it `“ whether there'd been another side to his personality that he'd never been able to reveal, and was suddenly threatened with public exposure `“

Then the doorbell rings and when I open the door I'm momentarily thrown. Fluorescent yellow waterproof, black leggings, bumbag, cycling helmet. He looks like one of those Deliveroo guys.

`Sorry, you must have the wrong house. I didn't order anything.'

`DI Fawley?' he says. `It's Paul Rigby. The Fire Investigation Officer?'

`Shit `“ sorry. I didn't recognize you.'

`I hope you don't mind me calling unannounced. I only live a mile or so from here so it was easier than phoning.'

`Of course,' I say, standing back to open the door. `Come in.'

He steps over the threshold and starts wiping his feet on the mat.

`I can't stay long,' he says. `My wife's out tonight so I need to be back for the kids. But we've had some results that I think you'll want to know.'

I gesture towards the kitchen and follow him down. He declines to join me in a glass of wine but accepts the solitary low-alcohol beer I find at the back of the fridge.

He glances at the laptop and the screen paused on an image of Foster's house after the fire; the roof collapsed, the whole building a smouldering shell, and a forensics tent over where the bodies were found.

`That's not Southey Road, is it.'

`It's the Christopher Foster house.'

Evidently I don't need to say any more. He nods. `It seems my team aren't the only people who think it was an inside job. You've got there too, have you?'

I pass him the bottle opener. `We've just found out Esmond came back to Oxford that night. In plenty of time to set the fire.'

`With his wife and kids inside.' But it's a statement, not a question. Rigby's been doing this job a long time.

I take a deep breath. `So what did you want to talk to me about?'

He reaches back and pulls his phone out of his bumbag, and flicks through the photo app.

`We found this.'

It's a cigarette lighter. Blackened, like everything else in that house, but underneath metallic. Golden.

`Made in 1954, according to the hallmark,' says Rigby.

I look up with a question and he nods. `Solid gold. Must be worth a bomb.'

`And you found this where?'

`In the sitting room. We haven't cleared the whole area yet, but I assumed you'd want to know about this straight away. We didn't realize what it was until we scraped the crap off it.'

`I assume it's too much to ask if there'll be any fingerprints?'

He shakes his head. `Fire will have done for that. But there is something else.'

He finds another picture and hands me the phone. One side of the lighter is engraved.

To Michael, On your 18th birthday, Love Mum Dad.

I look up at Rigby and he shrugs. `There is, of course, no way of knowing where it was before the ceiling came down. It could have been in one of the upper rooms, on a coffee table, anywhere.'

`But he'd have carried it about with him, wouldn't he `“ as a smoker?'

`Don't you?'

Of course I do. It's one of the things I check automatically, without even thinking: keys, phone, lighter.

`But if he set the fire he wouldn't have left the lighter behind, surely? He must have known we'd find it eventually.'

Rigby shakes his head. `I've seen this before. People completely underestimate how suddenly an accelerant can ignite. It's like recoil `“ the heat hits you so fast you'll more than likely drop anything you're holding. And if you do, there's no way you're going to get it back.' He makes a face. `Even if it is a bloody heirloom.'

* * *

`So he just burned down his life,' says Baxter, `and swanned off to start a new one somewhere else? Just like that?'

It's the morning meeting and I've just spent the last half an hour going through what Gow told me, and what Rigby found.

`Well, I'm not buying it,' says Quinn. `If Esmond wanted to start all over again he'd need money. Lots of money. And OK, he did take out that two grand in cash, but that wouldn't be anywhere near enough. No way. And why do it on a day when his car's in the garage?'

Everett shakes her head. `He wouldn't have used his own car anyway. Far too easy to trace.'

In the silence that follows Gislingham picks up the marker pen and goes over to the whiteboard to mark up the new evidence. The new hypothesis, the new questions we need to answer. As he writes the word `Escape' and adds a question mark, Somer speaks into the silence.

`He didn't need to murder his family, if all he wanted was to start again.'

I glance across at her. `No, he didn't. But the picture everyone is painting is of a man under acute strain. Remember, he's run away before.'

`That time it didn't involve burning his own kids to death,' mutters Everett, in an icy undertone.

`A lot of men who walk out on their lives are really walking out on their wives,' begins Somer.

`True,' says Gislingham. `Most blokes don't want to live on their own `“ they're crap at it.'

`Worked out how to use the washing machine yet, Sarge?' someone calls out at the back to general laughter.

Gislingham grins `“ a flash of the old Gis. `Hey, I even know what the `њDelicates`ќ setting is for. So there.'

I wait for the noise to subside. `We've found no suggestion Esmond had a girlfriend.'

`What about this `њHarry`ќ?' says Ev, giving me a meaningful look. `We've been assuming he must be the plumber or something `“'

`Unlikely,' says Baxter stolidly. `Esmond was calling him far too often for that.'

``“ but what if he's the lover? What if Esmond is gay?'

Quinn folds his arms, clearly sceptical. `All the while playing the happily married man in public?'

Ev shrugs. `Well, it's not absolutely impossible, is it?'

`There was that incident when he was still at school,' says Somer quietly. `His brother thought it was just teenage experimenting, but what if he's wrong? What if Esmond has had those feelings all his life? Only now, finally, he can't hide them any more.'

`Right,' says Ev. `And if he did have a gay lover he strikes me as the sort who wouldn't have wanted people to know.'

`Have we found any other communications between him and Harry?' I ask, looking around. `Social media? Emails?'

`I'm still waiting for access to his university account,' says Baxter. `But there isn't likely to be, is there. Not if what Ev says is true.'

`What about the private one?'

Baxter flushes a little. `Still haven't worked out the password for that, boss. Sorry `“ it didn't seem a priority `“'