Liar Liar

105

Helen and McAndrew were closeted away in Helen’s office, a list of dates and times in front of them. The door was closed, the blind down – this was a private conversation for now.

‘So I went back over the witness statements, the call operator logs, emergency service reports, and I found something interesting about the most recent fire. Agnieszka Jarosik crashed out on her sofa after a busy day’s work and while she was watching TV sent a few texts, posted a little on Facebook. The last text was sent at eleven fourteen p.m. The text looks genuine, so we can assume that she was still awake at that point. She probably fell asleep soon afterwards. Not long after that our arsonist entered the house.’

Helen nodded – so far nothing unexpected. They had found partial footprints outside the back door, but nothing that was of any tangible use.

‘Several people called the fire in. They were mostly neighbours who saw the smoke and flames and were worried that their own million-pound houses were about to go up.’

Helen let that one go – she knew McAndrew lived in a one-bed flat and was vocally bitter about it.

‘These calls came in in a flurry. Call operator logs show that they came in at 11.50, two at 11.51, 11.53, 11.54 – pretty much the whole street got in on the act.’

‘I’m sure they did.’

‘But one call came significantly earlier than that. At eleven thirty-eight – a full twelve minutes before the others.’

Now McAndrew had Helen’s attention.

‘Interestingly, this call didn’t come from a neighbour, it came from a payphone. And here’s the thing. It came from a payphone two streets away – there’s no way the caller could have seen the fire from there.’

‘So they saw the fire and ran to the nearest payphone?’

‘Possibly, but how come they saw this fire a full twelve minutes before anyone else? And why didn’t they stick around to help? If Agnieszka stopped texting at eleven fifteen p.m., she probably didn’t go to sleep immediately, so the arsonist gained entry at, what, eleven twenty-five p.m.? Eleven thirty? The fire was initially contained in the basement. The sofa burnt well, but it took a while for the fire to spread upwards as the basement stairwell did not connect with the main stairs.’

‘So on that basis,’ Helen said, picking up McAndrew’s thread, ‘the most likely explanation is that the arsonist set the fire at around eleven thirty p.m., left and walked the five-minute walk to the nearest payphone and called it in.’

‘It’s a theory,’ McAndrew replied calmly.

‘Ok, get me the audio from every fire over the last few days. I want to see if our arsonist has been in on the act from day one.’

McAndrew was halfway to the door when Helen called out:

‘One other thing. You didn’t say if the caller was male or female?’

There was a small pause, before McAndrew looked up at her and said:

‘Female.’