“Aren’t most fires set at night?”
“Not necessarily, but more often than not, yes.”
“So what other possibilities do we have?”
“There’s always the simple profit motive. You know, insurance frauds, eliminating the competition, that sort of thing. That’s probably the next most common motive. But these weren’t commercial fires.”
“Not the caravan, certainly. It belonged to Gardiner. But I suppose the boats were commercial properties, to some extent,” Banks said. “We’ve traced the owner and I’ll be talking to him tomorrow. Even so, I can see someone burning empty boats for the insurance, but not deliberately drugging Thomas McMahon and setting fire to him in order to do so.”
“Lives are often lost in commercial fires,” Hamilton argued. “Often by accident – the arsonist didn’t know there was anyone in the building – but sometimes deliberately. A nosy night watchman, say.”
“Point taken,” said Banks. “And we’ll try to keep an open mind. What about pyromania as a motive?”
“Well, first of all you should bear in mind that pyromaniacs are extremely rare, and they’re usually between fifteen and twenty.”
“Mark Siddons is twenty-one,” Banks said.
“I wouldn’t rule him out, then. Anyway, they generally use whatever combustible comes to hand. I mean, they don’t plan their fires. And there’s no particular pattern in the kind of places they burn, or even where they strike. They’re impulsive and often act for some sort of sexual gratification. The main problem here is that I can’t see a pyromaniac doping or knocking someone out before starting a fire. They’re usually loners and shun social company. Contrary to rumor, they don’t usually stay at the scene, either. They’ll be long gone by the time the fire brigade arrives. It’s starting the fire gives them their thrill, not watching firefighters put it out.”
“Any chance it was a woman?”
“There are female pyromaniacs,” Hamilton said. “But they’re even rarer. Oddly enough, they usually set their fires in daylight. They also set them fairly close to their own homes, often don’t use accelerant, and they generally start small fires.”
“I suppose we men like to start bigger ones?” said Banks.
“It would seem so.” Hamilton sipped some coffee. “You know, I don’t like to say it, but all these profiles are pretty much… well, I won’t say a load of bollocks, they have been of some use to us on occasion, but they’re pretty vague when you get right down to it.”
“Under twenty-five, loner, bed wetter, harsh family background, absent father, domineering mother, not too bright, problems at school, problems at work, can’t handle relationships.”
“Exactly what I mean. Fits any sociopath you’d care to point out. From all that, you’d think we’d be able to spot them before they strike.”
“Oh, we can,” said Banks. “We just can’t do anything about it until they commit a crime. Anyway, I’m inclined to dismiss the pyromaniac in this case. I mean, from what you’ve seen, would you call these fires impulsive?”
“No. But there are also vanity fires, you know,” Hamilton went on. “Someone wants to draw attention to himself through an act of heroism. Those are the sort of blokes who stick around and watch, or even help out.”
“There weren’t any heroes here, except the firefighters. Andrew Hurst hung around for a while, but he didn’t get close enough to be a hero.”
“What about the boy you found at the scene of the first fire?”
“Mark Siddons?”
“Yes.”
“He hung around because his girlfriend was on one of the boats. His alibi held and his clothing and hands checked out clean. He also didn’t have anywhere nearby he could have gone and cleaned up or changed. All his belongings, including his clothes, perished in the fire. I don’t know, Geoff. I’m inclined to believe his story. Even so, he could have acted out of anger, I suppose, and covered his traces somehow. I just can’t see the girl, Mandy, giving him an alibi if he wasn’t, in fact, there. Annie said she had a tough enough time getting her to admit to having Mark in her bed in the first place. Didn’t want to be known as ‘that kind of a girl.’ We could talk to her again. I don’t suppose you found any trace of a timing device?”
“Not yet. But we’re still sifting through the debris. Is it possible that the boy drugged McMahon, if that is indeed what happened, but someone else set the fire?”
“Possible,” said Banks, “but highly unlikely, wouldn’t you say? Don’t forget, someone drugged Gardiner, too.”
“Could that also have been the boy?”
“He was in the vicinity of Jennings Field at the right time,” Banks admitted, “but there’s no trace of a motive. Don’t worry, though, we’ll keep him on our list of suspects. I’m hoping to have another chat with him soon, when we find him.”
“You let him go missing?”
“We had no reason to keep him locked up. He had an altercation with a friend and hoofed it. We’ll find him. Okay?”
Hamilton put up his hands in mock surrender. “All right. All right.”
Banks smiled. “So what’s left as far as motive is concerned?”
“Well, there are fires started to conceal a crime.”
“Which is also a distinct possibility here,” Banks said. “Fire destroys evidence. Maybe not as much as the criminal thinks, but often it’s enough.”
“Evidence of what, though?” Hamilton asked.
“That’s what we don’t know yet. It looks as if Thomas McMahon might have been involved in art forgery, and Gardiner was fired for fiddling the company he worked for, but that’s all we’ve got so far. We’re still digging. First we need to know if there was any connection between the victims. If there was, and if we find it, that might lead us to some enemy they had in common.”
“Sounds fair enough. I’m just hoping to hell there aren’t any more fires.”
“Me, too,” said Banks.
“There is one ray of hope,” said Hamilton.
“What’s that?”
“The use of petrol as an accelerant might be a godsend.”
“How come?”
“Well, you know that different brands of petrol contain different additives, so you can tell, say, Esso from Texaco from Shell through spectral analysis?”
“I’ve heard about that,” said Banks. “But it won’t do us a lot of good in this case. Millions of people use Esso, Shell or Texaco.”
“Yes, but it doesn’t stop there,” Hamilton went on. “When the petrol is pumped into a station’s underground tank, then more contaminants are added unique to that tank.”
“Are you telling me we can discover what garage the petrol came from through spectral analysis of the debris at the scene?”
“Not only that,” said Hamilton, “but when you put the petrol in your fuel tank, another unique blend is created. By checking all local petrol stations and sampling each tank, we can actually determine which station the petrol came from and link it to the scene, or to a specific car’s fuel tank.”
“You’re not serious?”
“I always take my work seriously, double-oh-seven.”
Hamilton didn’t crack a smile, so it took Banks a moment to catch on. A Bond reference. Geoff Hamilton clearly had hidden depths.
“But in order to find a possible match,” Banks said, “we’d have to sample every underground tank in every petrol station in the area?”
“That’s right. It helps if you have other information that helps you narrow down the search field.”
“Not yet, we don’t, but it’s something to think about,” Banks said. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure,” said Hamilton. He glanced at his watch. “And believe it or not, I’m going home now. My wife’s beginning to wonder whether we’re still married.”
“I remember the feeling,” said Banks, who planned on spending the evening at home catching up with the Sunday papers, maybe with a dram or two of Laphroaig. After meeting Maria Phillips in the Queen’s Arms at half six, of course.