In A Dark House

14

HARRIET WOKE AS the room began almost imperceptibly to lighten. She lay in the narrow bed, watching as the shadows gradually took on familiar shapes, and as the square of window grew from a slightly lighter black, to pearly rose, to a dull gray. It was funny, she’d never realized how long it took for night to become day, and vice versa, because she was always doing other things.

When she could see well enough, she climbed out of bed and used the pail. Then she stood at the window, her face pressed to the murky glass. She heard church bells, faintly, and then the whoop of a fire engine’s siren. Were they coming for her? But the sound grew fainter until at last she heard only the echo in her mind.

After a bit, as the light grew stronger, she began to prowl the room, reexamining every nook and cranny, as if something different might have materialized in the night.

She was now more certain than ever that the room had once belonged to a child. There was the small bed, with its odor of old and secret accidents. There was the wooden stool, which she found, on closer inspection, bore the faint remnants of a painted design. In one of the drawers of the chest beneath the window, she discovered a chipped wooden horse and a yellowed deck of playing cards.

And of course there were the books, all worn and fragile, as if the pages had been turned again and again, as she had turned them the past two days. It was in Peter Pan, on the blank page before the back cover, that she found the writing. Tiny and cramped, done with a dull pencil, each line the exact repetition of the next.

I promise I will be good.

The words made Harriet feel sad and frightened, but nothing frightened her as much as the scratches around the keyhole of the door. What had happened to the child who tried to get out of this place?

She curled up under the worn blanket, even though the room was warm and stuffy, clutching the copy of Peter Pan to her chest. Her stomach was beginning to ache with hunger, as if something were gnawing it from the inside. It was getting late, she could tell that by the light, and the lady hadn’t brought her any breakfast.

Where was her dad? Why would he have left her here in this house, with this strange woman? Why had he picked her up from school, especially when it wasn’t his weekend? She screwed her face up in concentration, trying to sort out the fuzziness in her mind.

She remembered that her dad had said it was a treat, and that he’d looked a little odd, nervous and excited, his long fingers tapping on the steering wheel. She remembered that the woman had turned and smiled at her, and that her dad had told her the woman’s name, but she couldn’t remember what he’d said. It was as if there were a blank space in her brain where the memory should be, all mixed up with the Starbucks and hot cocoa.

Had the woman put something in her drink that made it hard for her to remember? Things only came back to her in a nauseating jumble of images that reminded her of the kaleidoscope her father had given her one Christmas.

Suddenly, Mrs. Bletchley’s face came into focus, creased in a suspicious scowl. Mrs. Bletchley had been watching, from the cottage yard, and Harriet had wondered if the old cow would tell her mother that her dad had picked her up from school. Her mum would be bloody furious.

The thought made her stomach churn. Would her mother keep her from seeing her dad ever again? A little whimper of distress escaped her and she pressed her hand to her mouth. She loved her dad, but she hated it when her mother was upset. Her mum was always feeling sorry for people, except for her dad, and everything he did made her angry. He tried, he really did, but somehow everything always seemed to go wrong.

She felt a longing for her dad then, so fierce that her throat tightened on a sob. She wanted them all to be home, in their own house, together. When she was very small, it had been different. Her parents had laughed, and her mother had sung to her when she’d tucked her into bed at night.

Was it something she’d done that had made things change?

Harriet pulled the blanket tighter, and after a while she dozed again, but it was a fitful and feverish sleep. She woke suddenly, sweating, and then she realized she’d heard the creak of footsteps on the stairs.

She sat up, her heart thumping in panic. She had to get out. There must be a way, if she could just think how, if she were just clever enough. Maybe if she could distract the woman, she could make a dash for the door. Maybe the lady had been lying when she’d said only she could open the front door. Maybe there really was a phone, or maybe there was someone else in the house who would help her.

Harriet knew she had to make an attempt – she couldn’t bear to be shut alone in this room another minute.

When the door opened, she stood and tried to smile.

As she waited in the second interview room, Maura Bell wasn’t sure if she was flattered or insulted that Kincaid had chosen her to join him in talking to Yarwood’s ex-wife. Not that she liked to admit that his decision mattered to her – yet as infuriating as she found his easy authority, there was a small part of her that wanted his approval.

Nor did she want to admit that she’d been hoping for a few minutes alone with Doug Cullen. She was beginning to think she’d imagined the chemistry between them on Friday night, and she felt a fool. Seeing the obvious camaraderie between Doug and Gemma James hadn’t improved her mood one bit, and she frowned as she thought of them searching Laura Novak’s house together. It was bad enough that Kincaid had brought James into the investigation without so much as a by-your-leave-

The opening of the interview room door interrupted her uncharitable thoughts. Kincaid ushered in a small woman in a lilac trouser suit, saying, “Mrs. Teasdale, this is Detective Inspector Bell.”

Mrs. Teasdale offered her small, cool hand, leaving no doubt that she’d been a well-trained politician’s wife, and Maura saw that her perfectly manicured nails matched her suit. Maura guessed her to be in her very well-preserved midforties, but not even the flawless makeup and carefully styled strawberry-blond hair could hide the lines of stress round her eyes and mouth.

“I’ve come about me daughter,” she said as she took the chair Kincaid held out for her, and the high voice and unaltered working-class accent caught Maura by surprise. “My Chloe. I want to know if you’ve found her – if you’ve found… anything? Mick says-” She stopped, clutching at the handbag she held in her lap. “He says you’re certain it was her, going into the warehouse.” Her eyes, pale beneath her mascaraed lashes, darted from Kincaid to Maura.

“Both your husband – ex-husband – and Chloe’s flatmate have identified her from the CCTV photo as going into the warehouse, yes,” Kincaid answered. “But we’re not sure of anything more at this point. There are tests-”

She shook her head, cutting him off as if refusing to contemplate it. “He’s keeping something from me. He’s in some kind of trouble, and if he’s hurt Chloe-” As she clenched her hands, her nails scored the soft leather of her handbag.

Kincaid hesitated, as if trying to decide which point to address first, but before Maura could speak he said, “Why do you think he’s in trouble, Mrs. Teasdale?”

“He told me he wants to sell the house. He says he’s found a buyer.”

Maura frowned. “I’m not sure I under-”

“It’s a listed building. Just round the corner from the Tate. I’ve been trying to get him to sell it for years, even before the divorce, but he wouldn’t have it. Oh, no, he said, it was only fitting that the member of Parliament for the Borough should show respect for the old places.” Venom had crept into her voice. “Never mind that it was built for pygmies and the plumbing only works when it’s in the mood. Never mind that it’s worth a small fortune these days, and Trev – that’s my husband, Trevor – Trev and me could use the cash for our business.” She leaned forward and tapped a nail on the table with a brittle sound that made Maura’s teeth hurt. “I’m telling you,” Michael Yarwood’s former wife went on, “he’s into something, and he’s got our Chloe mixed up in it somehow. He’s gone out, and he wouldn’t tell me where he was going.”

Was the woman more interested in snitching on her husband than in finding her daughter? wondered Maura. Had she not understood that Chloe might be dead? She’d taken a breath to speak when Kincaid fixed Mrs. Teasdale with a sympathetic smile.

“Mrs. Teasdale – it’s Shirley, isn’t it?” he asked. When Mrs. Teasdale nodded, he went on. “Did you ever know your husband to have a problem with gambling?”

She stared at him as if he were daft. “Michael? Gambling? He was brought up Chapel – he can hardly bring himself to have a drink.”

“Then what sort of trouble do you think he might be in?” asked Maura, trying to emulate Kincaid’s tone.

Shirley Teasdale seemed to sag in her chair, her momentary umbrage forgotten. “I don’t know. He won’t talk to me, but I know him – I know he’s keeping something back. He’s never forgiven me for Trev, but this is our daughter. He keeps saying she must be all right, but… she’d have rung me, wouldn’t she?” The look she gave them was pleading. “I can’t imagine why she wouldn’t have rung me.”

“I’m sure Chloe must confide in you, about her life, boyfriends, things like that,” Kincaid said. “Do you know anything about the man she was with in the video, Nigel Trevelyan?”

Shirley hesitated, and it seemed to Maura that even the crisp lilac suit lost a little starch. “You have to understand. Chloe likes to tease her dad with things. I think… I think she likes knowing she can make him angry. It’s like waving a red flag under the nose of a bull. She said…” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “She said if her dad knew about Nigel, he’d kill him. But it’s not Nigel that’s dead, is it?”

As she drove the now familiar route between Borough High Street Station and Park Street, Gemma glanced at the dashboard clock and gave a little groan of dismay. It was already midafternoon. She should be home; the boys would be back from their outing with Wesley, and she’d let the weekend slip by without doing any of the things necessary to prepare for the coming week. Tomorrow would be especially difficult, as she planned to take the afternoon off for the court hearing.

“Are you okay?” asked Doug Cullen, beside her.

“The boys will be home on their own by now. I never meant to abandon them for the entire day.”

“If you need to go, go,” he said, with his usual earnestness. “I’ll do the search, then wait for Duncan. No one could expect you to do more on this case-”

“And I should mind my own business, at least according to Detective Inspector Bell.” She softened the words with a smile. “Can’t say I blame her.” She wasn’t used to encountering such obvious hostility from other female officers, and she was surprised by how uncomfortable it made her feel.

“She’s all right, really,” Doug said quietly. “When you get to know her a bit.”

When she glanced at him, he was studying the spots on her windscreen with great deliberation. Gemma seemed to remember hearing him say the same thing once about Stella Fairchild-Priestly, but with less conviction.

“I suppose you’ve not had much time for Stella this weekend,” she ventured, her curiosity roused.

“She’s away. Another country house party.” Doug didn’t meet her eyes. “And I suppose I’m in the doghouse for not joining her.”

Gemma had always wondered what the very polished Stella saw in a lowly detective sergeant who didn’t share her social aspirations, but if he was developing an interest in prickly Maura Bell, he might be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. “Doug,” she began, meaning to deliver the standard warning about the pitfalls of relationships on the job, then realizing how absurd that would sound coming from her. And besides, Doug and Maura didn’t normally work on the same patch, and who better to understand the demands of the job than another copper?

Having reached Park Street, she pulled up the car in front of Laura Novak’s house and said instead, “I want to come in with you, Doug, just for a bit. But thanks for the offer.” She’d come too far not to see for herself if the house held any clues that would tell them what had happened to Laura and Harriet.

Nor could she go home until she’d done one other thing. Fanny Liu would have to be told that her flatmate was alive, and that she might have abducted a child.

Gemma knocked and rang the bell, then stood listening for a response. The air was hazy and still, the neighborhood quiet, as if its inhabitants had all decamped for fresher climes. She heard the rustle of Doug’s jacket as he shifted beside her, and the quick rhythm of her own breath, but there was no sound from within the flat. Next door, the curtains were drawn.

Slipping on a pair of latex gloves, Gemma put the key in the lock and called out, “Police! We’re coming in.” Her voice echoed back at her, an intrusion into the close silence, and she felt a bit silly.

The door swung open easily and they stepped into the hall. The house smelled stale and a little musty, as if no one had been home in several days, but there was no dreaded hint of decay.

Gemma let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d held.

“No body, then,” said Doug, and she knew he’d been thinking the same thing. “There’d be no question, in this warm weather.”

“I thought, when Laura left Harriet with the sitter on Thursday night and lied about having to work, that she might have meant-”

“To kill herself?” Doug’s eyes widened behind his round glasses. “That hadn’t occurred to me. I was thinking more along the lines of Novak having conveniently forgotten to tell us he’d offed his wife when he stopped by on Friday morning.”

Gemma stooped to gather the mail scattered on the tile floor. There was nothing more personal than a few advertising circulars and credit card solicitations – one still addressed to Dr. Antony Novak – and a couple of bills. The postmarks bore Thursday’s and Friday’s dates, so Gemma assumed the mail represented both Friday’s and Saturday’s deliveries.

On a narrow table against the wall, more mail was neatly stacked, but when Gemma examined it she found only envelopes marked “Resident” and a few pizza delivery menus.

An umbrella stand in the corner contained a large black umbrella and a cricket bat, while a few pegs mounted on the wall held a woman’s fleecy jacket and a smaller Gap anorak in dark green. Harriet’s, Gemma thought, her heart contracting. Kit had one that was identical.

Doug moved forward, opening doors, peering into empty rooms, and Gemma followed. The house was long and narrow, with the same beautiful proportions and detailing as the neighbors’ next door, but here no effort had been made to highlight the period features. A sitting room faced the front of the house, then came a dining room, then the kitchen – all neat enough, but none showing any evidence of visual or sensual flair. The furniture was of good quality, and a few pleasant prints were hung haphazardly on the magnolia walls, but Gemma saw little that reflected a personal life. The house obviously belonged to a woman whose interest lay in other things. For the first time, Gemma wondered about Laura Novak’s background. There were no family photos, not even of Harriet.

“No sign of a struggle or of a hurried exit,” she said as they reached the kitchen. Nor was there any obvious sign that a child inhabited the house. The refrigerator, unlike her own, held no school reports or drawings, and there was no sign of a calendar marked with family schedules. “Look, Doug,” Gemma added, frowning, as she drew closer to the sink. “This is odd, don’t you think? For a woman this tidy, she’s not done the washing up.”

Two plates, two glasses, and a saucepan had been stacked and hastily rinsed. The pot still bore traces of what looked like marinara sauce, and there was a very faint smell of spoiled food.

“Maybe she meant to come back and finish up?” suggested Doug. “That’s what you do, when you’re in a hurry. Or at least that’s what I do.”

Was this Thursday evening’s supper? wondered Gemma. Mrs. Bletchley said Harriet had already eaten when she arrived. Had Laura meant to come straight back after she’d dropped Harriet at the sitter’s? And if so, what had prevented her?

“Let’s have a look upstairs,” she suggested, and let Doug lead the way back to the stairs in the entrance hall. The first floor contained two bedrooms and a bath, the front-facing room obviously Laura’s. It was more feminine than Gemma had expected, papered in pale blue and cream, with cream curtains at the window and a cream quilt on the double bed. The bed was made, but a blouse and trousers had been left tossed across a chair. Beneath the chair lay a pair of shoes, one turned over on its side. There was no sign of packing, or indication that anything had been removed from the room or the wardrobe.

A white-painted dressing table held a few cosmetics and a hairbrush, and in a silver frame, a black-and-white photo of a toddler with curly dark hair. Harriet, wondered Gemma, or Laura herself?

Lifting the brush with a gloved hand, Gemma saw hair nestled in the bristles. “Doug-”

“I’ve got it,” he said, opening the evidence collection bag he’d brought with him and taking the brush from her.

Gemma thought of all the times she and her sister had sat at their mother’s dressing table, using her hairbrush and trying out her lipsticks. “We can’t be sure that some of the hair doesn’t belong to Harriet,” she said.

Using a pair of tweezers, Doug carefully transferred the dark, curling strands into the bag. “It should be a close enough match, regardless.”

Leaving him to it, Gemma glanced briefly into the bathroom. Towels hung on the warmer, bottles of shampoo and bubble bath crowded the tub’s edge, and on the basin, a ceramic cup held two toothbrushes.

She carried on into the back bedroom, undoubtedly Harriet’s. The hastily made bed sported a navy coverlet with gold stars. Under the window, brightly colored plastic crates held a jumble of books and school projects, and above the desk, a corkboard was jammed with drawings and photos of pop singers and movie stars, cut from glossy magazines.

Next to the desk stood a wardrobe, one of its doors half open, spilling out a jumper and a pair of frayed-bottomed jeans. Opening the doors all the way, Gemma checked the built-in drawers and found them stuffed to bursting with T-shirts and panties and mismatched socks – all expected, and all heartbreakingly ordinary.

Hearing a step behind her, Gemma turned as Doug came into the room. “I’ve had a look upstairs,” he told her. “There’s a box room and an office. The boffins will have to have a go at the computer, but I found this under the desk blotter.” He handed her a piece of scratch paper. In blue ink, in a neat, firm hand, was a list of women’s names.

Mary Talbot. Amy Lloyd. Tanika Makuba. Clover Howes. Ciara Donnelly. Debbie Rufey.

The first three and the last had been checked off; the fourth and fifth bore tiny penciled question marks.

“It could be anything,” said Gemma. “An invitation list for a birthday party, or a school outing. A professional group…” She took out her notebook and copied down the names, then glanced up at Doug. “But it was under the blotter?”

“Just a corner showing. There was nothing else obviously interesting on the desk itself, just the usual bills and household paperwork, and stacks of literature from different causes, mostly neighborhood things – meals for the homeless at St. John’s Waterloo, the food bank, family violence outreach. Oh, and the file drawer containing personal documents was standing half open. Seems to support Novak’s story about the passport.”

Gemma’s phone rang. Even from her pocket the sound was unexpectedly loud in the quiet house. Her first guilty thought was of the boys, needing her at home, but a look at the ID told her it was Kincaid.

When she answered, he said without preamble, “I’ve just had a call from Konnie Mueller.”

Gemma felt her doubts dissolve, leaving a hard and implacable certainty, and a spasm of grief for a woman she would never meet. “It’s not Chloe Yarwood, is it?”

“How did you know?”

She thought of the dirty dishes in the sink, the kicked-off shoes, the unopened mail, all the small telling details of a life interrupted. “Because Laura Novak didn’t run off with her daughter,” she said. “Because when Laura Novak walked out of this house on Thursday night, she had every intention of coming back.”

“We need to talk,” said the message from Kincaid as Gemma checked her voice mail an hour later. “Ring me and we’ll meet somewhere… How about the Anchor, Bankside.”

Gemma stood by her car in Ufford Street, having just come away from an exhausting visit with Winnie and Fanny Liu. When she’d told Fanny that Elaine Holland’s DNA did not match that of the victim of the warehouse fire, Fanny had pressed a hand to her mouth, stifling a sob of relief.

But Fanny’s relief soon turned to dismay when Gemma explained, as gently as she could, that they thought Elaine might have abducted ten-year-old Harriet Novak. She told of Elaine’s masquerading as the mysterious “Beth,” of her affair with Tony, of her agreeing to help him kidnap his daughter, then of her disappearance with Harriet on Friday morning.

As Gemma spoke, Fanny seemed to retreat further and further into herself, mutely shaking her head and clutching at the shawl in her lap. “No,” she whispered when Gemma stopped. “No. I don’t believe it. I don’t believe any of it. She was… we were… I thought we were… happy.”

“I don’t think there’s any doubt. Tony Novak identified Elaine’s photo. It explains so many things, including why she left without telling you on Thursday night.” Gemma reached out and took Fanny’s cold hand in her own. Beneath her fingers, the bones felt as delicate as a bird’s. “Do you have any idea why she would have taken a child? Or where she might have gone?”

“No. I – no. No, I can’t imagine.”

“Did she ever say-” began Gemma, then stopped as she saw Winnie give a barely perceptible shake of her head. “I’m sorry,” she said instead, and pressed Fanny’s hand before letting it go. “I know this is a shock. We can talk more tomorrow.” Even as she spoke, impatience gnawed at her. She knew Winnie was right, that she couldn’t push Fanny past the limits of her physical and emotional endurance. But she also knew that Harriet’s safety might be at stake, and that no one knew Elaine better than Fanny. “Ring me tonight, please, if you think of anything at all,” she added, standing to go.

Fanny’s tears had stopped. The face she turned to Gemma was bleak and empty as a paper husk, and she drew herself up with obvious effort. “She’s not coming back, ever,” she’d said then, coldly, clearly. “She might as well be dead.”

Gemma felt the skin tighten between her shoulder blades as she remembered Fanny’s expression. There was nothing more cruel than betrayal, and here they had a web of betrayals. There was Laura, who had perhaps meant to betray Tony; Tony, who meant to betray Laura; and Elaine, who had betrayed both Tony and Fanny. But while Tony’s and Laura’s motivations seemed at least understandable, Elaine’s did not.

And if it was Laura Novak who had died in the warehouse, who had killed her? Where were Elaine and Harriet, and how did Chloe Yarwood fit into it all? For if they had proof of anything, it was that Chloe Yarwood had been in the warehouse that night.

Kincaid was right; they had to talk.

Setting a fire in daylight took nerve and cunning, but he had both, and he was more than ready for the challenge. Since the burning of the warehouse on Thursday night, he had slept only feverishly, his brain teeming with images of flames and shouting firefighters.

The pleasure had been more intense than any he’d experienced, and yet it had left him with a niggling shard of discontent. He’d held the open flame of the pocket lighter to the furniture – oh, yes – but he’d missed the careful planning and plotting that had preceded his other fires; it had been like orgasm without foreplay. Now he knew he had to own the fire from beginning to end, and the desire to get it right drove him like an itch under his skin.

But this one, this one he’d worked out well in advance. He knew the building from a job he’d had some years ago, and he’d marked it then on the map he carried always in the back of his mind. The place was perfect, a neglected Victorian warehouse, set back from any main thoroughfare. This meant not only that he’d be less likely to be seen, but that the blaze would have more time to take hold before it was reported. And best yet, he knew the building had an illegal propane tank. Once he’d set alight the cardboard boxes accumulated on the ground floor, the warehouse would burn like fury.

They would come, the firemen – firefighters, he corrected himself, his lip curling at the politically correct term – like little gods in their coats and helmets and boots, and he would show them.

He thought of the photograph he kept by his bed, a faded sepia image of a Victorian fire company, all Southwark men, in full regalia. They might look like Gilbert and Sullivan caricatures to the modern eye, with their luxuriant whiskers and pointed helmets, their mongrel dogs in their laps, but these men had been real firefighters who had fought real fires. Heroes. They had been heroes the likes of which the fire service would not see again.

They had breathed smoke like dragons, and they had conquered fire with the poor means at their disposal. And if sometimes the fire had conquered them, there had been no shame in it.

Stepping out of the shadows, he crossed the empty road and eased open the ground-floor door of the warehouse. He’d cut the padlocks the previous night, on his way home from work, gambling that the damage wouldn’t be noticed on a Sunday. He looked round the cavernous space, adjusted a cardboard box filled with the crisp packets he’d collected for the purpose, and pulled his lighter from his pocket.

Oh, they would come, these great new firefighters, little gods in their arrogance – and then they would run like rats.

Kincaid was waiting for her on the terrace of the Anchor, leaning on the railing overlooking the Thames. The day had stayed damp and dull, and now water, sky, and the City across the river seemed to meld one into the other, like a Turner painting with all the color leached out.

“Samuel Pepys watched the City burn from here, did you know that?” He gestured at the prospect as Gemma joined him.

“From the Anchor?”

“I don’t think the Anchor was built until a century or so after the Great Fire. But somewhere near here, on the Southwark bank. It must have been terrifying, but thrilling in a way, as well,” he added, his gaze fixed on the distance.

Gemma had no patience at the moment for daydreaming about fires. They had more concrete matters to deal with. “I’ve rung the boys,” she said, accepting the half pint of cider he’d bought for her. “They’ve been home to let the dogs out and have gone back to Wesley’s. They’re having a jam session, apparently, with Wes’s cousins, and eating until they’re sick.”

“That’s good for Kit.” Kincaid looked relieved. “He’s hardly touched anything for days.”

“I’ve got to get home soon,” said Gemma, her guilt over her absence only slightly tempered by the knowledge that the boys were in good hands. “I want to be there when they get back.”

“I know. But I’ll be a while yet.” Running a hand through his hair, as was his habit when he was tired, or exasperated, he sighed, then drank off some of his pint. “God, what a day. I’ve rushed Laura Novak’s hair sample to Konnie. He’s not happy, I can tell you, but he said he’d start on it straightaway.” He turned from the river to study Gemma’s face. “You’ve not much doubt, have you, that it was Laura’s body in the warehouse?”

“No. I don’t think Laura took Harriet. And if she’s not with her daughter, there’s only one thing that would keep her from moving heaven and earth to try to find her. But if Laura’s dead, who killed her, and why?”

“Novak’s the obvious suspect,” Kincaid said. “Maybe he decided he couldn’t keep Laura from taking Harriet back, even in Czechoslovakia, so he arranged to meet her Thursday night. He killed her, intending to take Harriet out of the country the next day, before Laura’s death was discovered. And he’d have wanted to delay identification of the body, hence the stripping and the fire.”

Gemma was shaking her head even before he’d finished. “Why would Laura have arranged to leave Harriet with Mrs. Bletchley if she were just meeting Tony for a talk? Why would she have lied about having to work that night? Why would she have agreed to meet Tony in an empty warehouse? That wouldn’t make sense even if they’d been on good terms. And” – she waved a hand to stop him from interrupting- “you didn’t see Tony’s face when you rang the bell at his flat and he thought it was Laura. He was genuinely terrified.”

“He’d also been on a bender and was barely coherent. Maybe he was having guilt-induced hallucinations. Like Lady Macbeth.”

“Now you’re really stretching it.” She wrinkled her nose at him.

Kincaid grinned. “Admitted. But tell me if you’ve a better idea.”

Resting her elbows on the railing, Gemma gazed out at the river, as he had done. A train rumbled by over the railway bridge, but the pedestrian walkway along Bankside was fairly quiet. The weekend was winding down, the time she could give to this case was running out, and it seemed they’d made little progress. “Why would Laura have gone to Michael Yarwood’s warehouse? Is there some connection between them we haven’t seen?”

“I’ve got Doug out looking for Yarwood as well as Chloe. Yarwood’s ex-wife says he’s not been home since earlier today, and that he’s desperately trying to raise money, even trying to find a quick buyer for his house, which he’s always refused to sell.”

Gemma frowned. “That might make it more likely that he torched the warehouse for the insurance money, if it weren’t for the small matter of the body-”

“Not if he needed immediate cash. Insurance payouts are never quick.”

“Forget the fire for a bit,” Gemma said slowly. “What would you think if you had a missing child and a prominent father trying to raise immediate cash on the quiet?”

Kincaid stared at her. “Ransom. Bloody hell.”

“It could be an attempt to collect Yarwood’s gambling debts. They – whoever he’s in hock to – lured Chloe to the warehouse, snatched her, then set the place alight to prove they meant business.”

After a moment’s thought, Kincaid said, “It might be plausible but for two things. Yarwood’s ex-wife, who has nothing kind to say about him, swears he’d never gamble. And-”

“The body.” Gemma grimaced and rubbed at her face. Her head was starting to ache. “It doesn’t explain the body, whether it’s Laura’s or not. And none of this is getting us any closer to finding Elaine and Harriet Novak.”

“Did you have any luck talking to Fanny?”

“No. She was too shocked. I’m not sure she took it in, about Harriet. Winnie’s promised to stay on with her.”

“I’ll talk to Fanny again tomorrow,” he said. “And to Tony Novak, and to Yarwood, if we can find him.”

“You won’t have much time.” The thought of the court hearing hovered in the back of her mind like a shadow, and she felt her stomach knot.

“I know.” He touched her shoulder, turning her to face him. The reflection of the river had turned his eyes gray as slate. “It’ll be all right,” he said, and she wasn’t sure if he meant to reassure her or himself. In the distance, a siren began to wail, then another. After a few moments, the sound faded away.

Fanny sat, chill and silent, as the light in the green room faded to gray. She seemed not to hear Winnie’s soft queries, or to feel Winnie’s chafing of her hands, or to notice the butting, purring overtures of Quinn, the cat.

Winnie lit the lamps and the candles, hoping to restore some sense of normality. Then she made a cup of tea, to warm her hands if she could not warm Fanny’s. She sat close beside Fanny’s chair and saw her own face reflected in the darkening window, lit by the flickering candle flame.

The petition came to her without thought. She had said it every night since her ordination, so that it was now as automatic as breathing. As the words ran through her mind, she realized she was speaking them aloud, her voice a rising and falling murmur of sound.

“Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love’s sake. Amen.”

When she’d finished, the silence seemed deeper. Fanny sat with eyes closed, her face so pale and pinched that Winnie began to think she had better call a doctor. But before she could rise, the cat jumped up in her lap. She stroked him for a moment, then put him down, and when she glanced at Fanny once more, she saw that her face was wet, her eyes open.

At first, the tears slipped silently down Fanny’s cheeks, as if she were unaware of them. And then her mouth began to twist, her shoulders to shake, and she was crying with the grief of the bereaved.

Winnie pulled her chair as close as she could and wrapped her arms around Fanny’s thin shoulders. “It’s all right,” she whispered. “You’ll be all right.”

“How could she do it?” choked out Fanny. “How could she let me think she loved me?”

To this Winnie had no immediate answer. She could only keep patting Fanny’s back, and when the sobs subsided to an occasional gulp, she provided a clean handkerchief from the pocket of her cardigan and sat back to let Fanny blow her nose.

“I think,” Winnie said slowly, when Fanny looked up at her with red and swollen eyes, “I think perhaps she was in terrible pain. I know there are people who are simply wicked, who hurt others for the pleasure of it… but because Elaine was good to you in so many ways, I can’t find it in my heart to believe that of her. She said, didn’t she, that her mother committed suicide and her father died from an illness when she was young? That might have-”

“She said a lot of things that turned out not to be true,” countered Fanny. “Why should we believe that?”

“Why would she have lied? Unless… unless there was something worse… something she couldn’t bear to talk about or perhaps even to remember.” Winnie shook her head. “We’re grasping at straws, love, and we may never know the truth.”

“I can understand, a little, about the doctor. I mean, people have affairs all the time… And it’s not as though there was anything physical, really, between us.” Fanny looked away, as if ashamed to have mentioned it. “There were only things that I might have… misinterpreted… But why… why would she take a child?”

“Did Elaine want children?” Winnie had seen it in her pastoral work, women – single or married – who reached a certain age and found themselves suddenly obsessed with the desire for a child so strong that it drove them beyond reason. It was a thought she’d kept in the back of her mind, a slender thread of hope on which to hang the safety of Harriet Novak.

“No,” whispered Fanny, the brief animation fading from her face. “No. She didn’t care for children at all.”

Rose sat in the rear cab of the pump, with Bryan and Steve Winston. Seamus MacCauley was driving and Station Officer Wilcox rode beside him. Beneath her heavy tunic, she could feel her T-shirt plastered wetly to her back. The day had gone from bad to worse – two more nuisance fires, one in a rubbish tip and the other in an abandoned car, two medical calls, then a road traffic accident that had injured an unrestrained child. She’d never had a chance to dry out properly from the morning’s fires, much less the afternoon’s, nor had she had any opportunity to return Station Officer Farrell’s call. And now they were on their way to another fire.

“Better gear up,” said Bryan. “We’re almost there.” In this warm and humid weather, they resisted pulling up their Nomex hoods as long as they could. The fire-resistant fabric stopped any air circulation inside their tunics, turning their already sweltering coats into sweatboxes.

They were headed west, along Webber Street, the pump ladder careening along right behind them. A fire had been reported in a warehouse tucked back between Webber Street and Waterloo Road. As they slipped on their hoods and resettled their helmets, the pump swung round a curve and Rose saw the smoke.

“Christ,” said Steven, his voice filled with awe. The building was old – Victorian, Rose thought, although with none of the architectural grace of the Southwark Street warehouse – and in poor repair. Its concrete surround was cracked and patched with weeds, a wire fence sagged listlessly to the ground in places, and broken windows gaped like sightless eyes. From the third-and fourth-floor windows, smoke dark as coal pumped furiously out. It looked as though a bomb had gone off in the place.

Pedestrians milled about in the street, shouting and pointing. MacCauley had to sound the air horn to scatter them so that he could maneuver the pump into a position near the hydrant. As soon as they rolled to a stop, Rose could hear the fire, crackling and hissing and groaning like a live thing. As they spilled out of the appliance she felt her chest tighten.

“Seamus,” Wilcox shouted, “get on to Control. Tell them to make pumps four. Then get us police backup, and get these people out of the way until the police get here to take over crowd control.” He turned to the others. “You three, rig in BA. We’ll need to get a hose in through the main doors and make an assessment.”

Wilcox turned to the ladder crew. “Get us entry, then get a ladder up to the roof. And someone have a look round the back side, see what the status is there.”

Both crews sprang into action. It was chaos, but it was the controlled chaos of those who knew their jobs and were prepared to give whatever was required of them. As Rose settled the BA pack on her back and handed in her tally, marked with her set number and the amount of air in her cylinder, she felt the tightness in her chest ease. A rush of adrenaline surged through her, making her feel light-headed and razor-sharp. She was going to be okay.

She had comms, the breathing apparatus radio, and would be responsible for letting Wilcox know what they found inside. As they unreeled the hose, the ladder crew broke down the remainder of the fence and charged at the main doors, axes swinging. The doors splintered under the blows and Rose had a brief glimpse of the padlock flying, then she and Bryan and Steve were pushing through, Bryan at the tip.

A blast of heat jetted out, knocking them back. They crouched, moving forward again, Bryan sending controlled pulses from the hose into the dense black smoke. The jets turned instantly to roiling steam, and Rose felt her face sear through the faceplate of her mask.

Bryan pulsed the hose another half a dozen times, but there was no change in the temperature. They could see nothing but black clouds of smoke mixed with steam, and then, out of the corner of her eye, Rose caught a flicker of flame within the fumes: flashover.

“Guv!” she shouted over the radio. “It’s all going to shit in here. We can’t control it!”

“Back out!” Wilcox yelled in her ear. “Get out now.”

She grabbed Bryan and Steve and pulled at them, feeling the heat of their tunics even through her gloves. “Out,” she repeated. “We’re moving out.”

They backed out the way they’d come, Bryan continuing the short bursts from the hose, Rose keeping a grip on them both. She only knew they’d reached the door when Bryan’s helmet materialized in front of her.

As they staggered away from the building they heard a rumble and a pop, and a jet of flame shot out, licking at them. “Jesus,” she heard Steve say again as they scrambled away.

When they reached Wilcox and MacCauley, they pulled their masks off, and Rose took a deep, gulping breath. In the distance, she heard the faint double tone of sirens.

“We’re going to have to tackle this bastard from the outside,” said Wilcox. “And we’re going to need help. I’ve made it pumps six. Get the hose back on the door-”

“Hey!” The shout had come from the crowd. A man’s finger pointed upwards, and Rose caught a glimpse of a pale face, and the blue arm of a uniform sleeve. “There’s somebody in there! I saw somebody in there!”

“Where?” said Wilcox, scanning the building.

“Third floor,” the man called out. “In the window. Third from the left. A face.”

Rose looked, saw nothing but billowing smoke.

“Persons reported,” Wilcox called over the radio. “I’m sending crew up.” He turned to Rose and Bryan. “The ladder crew’s venting the roof. You two will have to take a look.”

Bryan gave her a quick bright grin, then they moved in unison, raising the ladder and hauling up the hose, Rose leading the way. She felt a moment’s relief that the constraint between them had vanished; then she thought of nothing but the job at hand.

When she reached the window, she grabbed the frame and straddled the sill, feeling her way with her foot. She could feel the wood’s heat through her gloves, but there was no flame showing inside, only the dense, oily smoke.

“Okay,” she said as her foot found solid floor. Swinging her other leg over, she inched forward, testing the surface with the toe of her boot. She kept hold of the window frame with one hand and groped outwards with the other, exploring the darkness like a blind person in an unfamiliar room.

She’d expected, if there had been someone at the window, to find them crumpled beneath it, but she felt only the solid floor. Bryan climbed in behind her, bumping against her as he crouched and steadied the hose on his knee. He gave two bursts of the jet, and this time she felt the temperature drop.

“Anybody here?” Bryan shouted, his voiced muffled by his mask.

Rose listened, her senses straining, hearing nothing but the hiss and crackle of the fire.

Rising, Bryan pulsed the hose again, then stepped forward. Rose felt a sudden vacuum beside her, heard an exclamation cut short. She swung her arm out wildly, towards the spot where Bryan had stood a moment before, and almost lost her balance as she encountered only air.

“Bryan!” She fell to her knees and inched forward, her hands sweeping in an arc through the smoke. When her knee touched something solid she gasped in relief, but her exploring fingers felt not a leg, but the round shape of the charged hose.

“Bryan!” she shouted again, panic rising in her throat. She felt along the hose until she touched the nozzle, then swept her hands across the floor in front of it. He must have caught his foot on something, fallen, but she could find him, she could get him out.

She tried to think calmly, to regulate her breathing. She couldn’t afford to use up all her air. Keeping one hand on the stationary hose as a guide, she crept forward, her free hand patting the floor. Vaguely, she heard a voice shouting into her headset, but she shut it out. Her world had narrowed to the tips of her gloved fingers.

Then, the floor disappeared beneath her hand. She jerked back instinctively, then felt again. Nothing. She ran her hand sideways, touched the hard edge of the floor, then she reached forward again. Nothing. The other side was the same. The floor dropped away in front of her, as far as she could reach.

“Bryan!” she screamed, but only her own voice echoed back inside her mask.

She kept calling, gripping the edge of the pit, until strong arms came round her from behind and pulled her away.