Playing With Fire

Chapter 1

“The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne, burn’d on the water,” Banks whispered. As he spoke, his breath formed plumes of mist in the chill January air.

Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot, standing beside him, must have heard, because she said, “You what? Come again.”

“A quotation,” said Banks. “From Antony and Cleopatra.”

“You don’t usually go around quoting Shakespeare like a copper in a book,” Annie commented.

“Just something I remember from school. It seemed appropriate.”

They were standing on a canal bank close to dawn watching two barges smolder. Not usually the sort of job for a detective chief inspector like Banks, especially so early on a Friday morning, but as soon as it had been safe enough for the firefighters to board the barges, they had done so and found one body on each. One of the firefighters had recently completed a course on fire investigation, and he had noticed possible evidence of accelerant use when he boarded the barge. He had called the local constable, who in turn had called Western Area Police Headquarters, Major Crimes, so here was Banks, quoting Shakespeare and waiting for the fire investigation officer to arrive.

“Were you in it, then?” Annie asked.

“In what?”

“Antony and Cleopatra.”

“Good Lord, no. Third spear-carrier in Julius Caesar was the triumph of my school acting career. We did it for O-Level English, and I had to memorize the speech.”

Banks held the lapels of his overcoat over his throat. Even with the Leeds United scarf his son Brian had bought him for his birthday, he still felt the chill. Annie sneezed, and Banks felt guilty for dragging her out in the early hours. The poor lass had been battling with a cold for the last few days. But his sergeant, Jim Hatchley, was even worse; he had been off sick with flu most of the week.

They had just arrived at the dead-end branch of the canal, which lay three miles south of Eastvale, linking the River Swain to the Leeds-Liverpool Canal, and hence to the whole network of waterways that crisscrossed the country. The canal ran through some beautiful countryside, and tonight the usually quiet rural area was floodlit and buzzing with activity, noisy with the shouts of firefighters and the crackle of personal radios. The smell of burned wood, plastic and rubber hung in the air and scratched at the back of Banks’s throat when he breathed in. All around the lit-up area, the darkness of a pre-dawn winter night pressed in, starless and cold. The media had already arrived, mostly TV crews, because fires made for good visuals, even after they had gone out, but the firefighters and police officers kept them well at bay, and the scene was secure.

As far as Banks had been able to ascertain, the branch ran straight north for about a hundred yards before it ended in a tangle of shrubbery that eventually became dry land. Nobody at the scene remembered whether it had ever led anywhere or had simply been used as a mooring, or for easier access to the local limestone for which the region was famous. It was possible, someone suggested, that the branch had been started as a link to the center of Eastvale itself, then abandoned due to lack of funds or the steepness of the gradient.

“Christ, it’s cold,” moaned Annie, stamping from foot to foot. She was mostly obscured by an old army greatcoat she had thrown on over her jeans and polo-neck sweater. She was also wearing a matching maroon woolly hat, scarf and gloves, along with black knee-high leather boots. Her nose was red.

“You’d better go and talk to the firefighters,” Banks said. “Get their stories while events are still fresh in their minds. You never know, maybe one of them will warm you up a bit.”

“Cheeky bastard.” Annie sneezed, blew her nose and wandered off, reaching in her deep pocket for her notebook. Banks watched her go and wondered again whether his suspicions were correct. It was nothing concrete, just a slight change in her manner and appearance, but he couldn’t help feeling that she was seeing someone, and had been for the past while. Not that it was any of his business. Annie had broken off their relationship ages ago, but – he didn’t like to admit this – he was feeling pangs of jealousy. Stupid, really, as he had been seeing DI Michelle Hart on and off since the previous summer. But he couldn’t deny the feeling.

The young constable, who had been talking to the leading firefighter, walked over to Banks and introduced himself: PC Smythe, from the nearest village, Molesby.

“So you’re the one responsible for waking me up at this ungodly hour in the morning,” said Banks.

PC Smythe paled. “Well, sir, it seemed… I…”

“It’s okay. You did the right thing. Can you fill me in?”

“There’s not much to add, really, sir.” Smythe looked tired and drawn, as well he might. He hardly seemed older than twelve, and this was probably his first major incident.

“Who called it in?” Banks asked.

“Bloke called Hurst. Andrew Hurst. Lives in the old lock-keeper’s house about a mile away. He says he was just going to bed shortly after one o’clock, and he saw the fire from his bedroom window. He knew roughly where it was coming from, so he rode over to check it out.”

“Rode?”

“Bicycle, sir.”

“Okay. Go on.”

“That’s about it. When he saw the fire, he phoned it in on his mobile, and the fire brigade arrived. They had a bit of trouble gaining access, as you can see. They had to run long hoses.”

Banks could see the fire engines parked about a hundred yards away, through the woods, where a narrow lane turned sharply right as it neared the canal. “Anyone get out alive?” he asked.

“We don’t know, sir. If they did, they didn’t hang around. We don’t even know how many people live there, or what their names are. All we know is there are two casualties.”

“Wonderful,” said Banks. It wasn’t anywhere near enough information. Arson was often used to cover up other crimes, to destroy evidence, or to hide the identity of a victim, and if that was the case here, Banks needed to know as much about the people who lived on the barges as possible. That would be difficult if they were all dead. “This lockkeeper, is he still around?”

“He’s not actually a lockkeeper, sir,” said PC Smythe. “We don’t use them anymore. The boat crews operate the locks themselves. He just lived in the old lockkeeper’s house. I took a brief statement and sent him home. Did I do wrong?”

“It’s all right,” Banks said. “We’ll talk to him later.” But it wasn’t all right. PC Smythe was clearly too inexperienced to know that arsonists often delight in reporting their own fires and enjoy being involved in the fire fighting. Hurst would now have had plenty of time to get rid of any evidence if he had been involved. “Heard anything from Geoff Hamilton yet?” Banks asked.

“He’s on his way, sir.”

Banks had worked with Hamilton once before on a ware-house fire in Eastvale, which turned out to have been an insurance fraud. Though he hadn’t warmed to the man’s gruff, taciturn personality, he respected Hamilton’s expertise and the quiet, painstaking way in which he worked. You didn’t rush things with Geoff Hamilton; nor did you jump to conclusions. And if you had any sense, you never used the words “arson” or “malicious” around him. He had been browbeaten too many times in court.

Annie Cabbot joined Banks and Smythe. “The station received the call at one thirty-one A.M.,” she said, “and the firefighters arrived here at one forty-four.”

“That sounds about right.”

“It’s actually a very good rural response time,” Annie said. “We’re lucky the station wasn’t staffed by retained men.”

Many rural stations, Banks knew, used “retained” men, or trained part-timers, and that would have meant a longer wait – at least five minutes for them to respond to their personal alerters and get to the station. “We’re lucky they weren’t on strike tonight, too,” he said, “or we’d probably still be waiting for the army to come and piss on the flames.”

They watched the firefighters pack up their gear in silence as the darkness brightened to gray, and a morning mist appeared seemingly from nowhere, swirling on the murky water and shrouding the spindly trees. In spite of the smoke stinging his lungs, Banks felt an intense craving for a cigarette rush through his system. He thrust his hands deeper into his pockets. It had been nearly six months since he had smoked a cigarette, and he was damned if he was going to give in now.

As he fought off the desire, he caught a movement in the trees out of the corner of his eye. Someone was standing there, watching them. Banks whispered to Annie and Smythe, who walked along the bank in opposite directions to circle around and cut the interloper off. Banks edged back toward the trees. When he thought he was within decent range, he turned and ran toward the intruder. As he felt the cold, bare twigs whipping and scratching his face, he saw someone running about twenty yards ahead of him. Smythe and Annie were flanking the figure, crashing through the dark undergrowth, catching up quickly.

Smythe and Annie were by far the fittest of the three pursuers, and even though he’d stopped smoking, Banks soon felt out of breath. When he saw Smythe closing the gap and Annie nearing from the north, he slowed down and arrived panting in time to see the two wrestle a young man to the ground. In seconds he was handcuffed and pulled struggling to his feet.

They all stood still for a few moments to catch their breath, and Banks looked at the youth. He was in his early twenties, about Banks’s height, five foot nine, wiry as a pipe-cleaner, with a shaved head and hollow cheeks. He was wearing jeans and a scuffed leather jacket over a black T-shirt. He struggled with PC Smythe but was no match for the burly constable.

“Right,” said Banks. “Who the hell are you, and what are you doing here?”

The boy struggled. “Nothing. Let me go! I haven’t done anything. Let me go!”

“Name!”

“Mark. Now let me go.”

“You’re not going anywhere until you give me a reasonable explanation why you were hiding in the woods watching the fire.”

“I wasn’t watching the fire. I was…”

“You were what?”

“Nothing. Let me go.” He wriggled again, but Smythe kept a firm grasp.

“Shall I take him to the station, sir?” Smythe asked.

“Not yet. I want to talk to him first,” said Banks. “Come on, let’s go back to the canal.”

The four of them made their way through the woods back to the smoldering barges. Smythe kept a firm grasp on Mark, who was shivering now.

“See if you can scrounge up some tea or coffee, would you?” Banks said to Smythe. “One of the fire crew’s bound to have a flask.” Then he turned to Mark, who was staring at the ground shaking his head. Mark looked up. He had pale, acned skin, and the fear showed in his eyes, fear mixed with defiance. “Why won’t you let me go?”

“Because I want to know what you’re doing here.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“I don’t know. That’s your problem.”

Banks sighed and rubbed his hands together. As usual, he had forgotten his gloves. The firefighters were resting now, most of them in silence, sipping tea or coffee, smoking and contemplating the wreckage before them, perhaps offering a silent prayer of thanks that none of them had perished. The smell of damp ash was starting to predominate, and steam drifted from the ruined barges, mingling with the earlymorning mist.

As soon as Geoff Hamilton arrived, Banks would accompany him in his investigation of the scene, just as he had done on that previous occasion. The fire service had no statutory powers to investigate the cause of a fire, so Hamilton was used to working closely with the police and their scene-of-crime officers. It was his job to produce a report for the coroner. There had been no one hurt in the warehouse fire, but this was different. Banks didn’t relish the sight of burned bodies; he had seen enough of them before, enough to make fire one of the things he feared and respected more than anything. If he had to choose a floater over a fire victim, he’d probably choose the bloated misshapen bulk of the former rather than the charred and flaking remains of the latter. But it was a tough choice. Fire or water?

And there was another reason to feel miserable. It was now early on Friday morning, and Banks could see his planned weekend with Michelle Hart quickly slipping away. If, indeed, the fire had been deliberately set, and if two people had been killed, then it would mean canceled leave and overtime all around. He’d have to ring Michelle. At least she would understand. She was used to the vagaries of the police life, being a DI with the Cambridgeshire Constabulary, still living and working in Peterborough despite the controversial outcome of the case she and Banks had worked on there the previous summer.

PC Smythe came back with a vacuum flask and four plastic cups. It was instant coffee, and weak at that, but at least it was still hot, and the steam that rose when Smythe poured it helped dispel some of the dawn’s chill. Banks took a silver hip flask from his pocket – a birthday present from his father – and offered it around. Only he and Annie indulged. The flask was full of Laphroaig, and although Banks knew what a terrible waste of fine single malt it was to tip it into a plastic cup of watery Nescafé, the occasion seemed to demand it. As it happened, the wee nip improved the coffee enough to make the sacrifice worthwhile.

“Take the cuffs off him, would you?” Banks asked Smythe.

“But sir…”

“Just do it. He’s not going anywhere, are you, Mark?”

Mark said nothing. After Smythe had removed the handcuffs, Mark rubbed his wrists and clasped both hands around the cup of coffee, as if its warmth were sustaining him.

“How old are you, Mark?” Banks asked.

“Twenty-one.” Mark pulled a dented packet of Embassy Regal out of his pocket and lit one with a disposable lighter, sucking the smoke in deeply. Seeing him do that made Banks realize they would have to have the boy’s hands and clothing checked for any signs of accelerant as soon as possible. Such traces didn’t last forever.

“Now, look, Mark,” said Banks, “what you have to realize first of all is that you’re the closest we have to a suspect for this fire. You were hanging about the scene like a textbook arsonist. You’re going to have to give us some explanation of what you’re doing here, and why you ran when we approached you. You can either do it here and now, without the handcuffs, or you can do it in a formal interview at Eastvale nick and spend the night in a cell. Your choice.”

“At least a cell would be warm,” Mark said. “I’ve nowhere else to go.”

“Where do you live?”

Mark paused for a moment, tears in his eyes, then pointed a shaking hand toward the northernmost barge. “There,” he said.

Banks looked at the smoking remains. “You lived on that barge?”

Mark nodded, then whispered something Banks couldn’t catch.

“What?” Banks asked, remembering that the firefighters had found a body on that barge. “What is it? Do you know something?”

“Tina… Did she get off? I haven’t seen her.”

“Is that why you were hiding?”

“I was watching for Tina. That’s what I was doing. Did they get her off?”

“Did Tina live with you on the barge?”

“Yes.”

“Was there anyone else?”

Mark’s eyes burned with shame. “Yes,” he said. “That’s where I was. A girl. In Eastvale. Tina and I had a row.”

That wasn’t what Banks had meant, but he absorbed the unsolicited information about Mark’s infidelity. That would be a tough one to live with; you’re screwing another woman and your wife, or girlfriend, burns to death in a fire. If, that is, Mark hadn’t set it himself before he left. Banks knew that Tina’s was probably one of the two bodies the firefighters had found, but he couldn’t be certain, and he was damned if he was going to tell Mark that Tina was dead before finding out what he’d been doing when the fire broke out, and before verifying the identity of the bodies.

“I meant, was there anyone else living with you on the barge?”

“Just me and Tina.”

“And you haven’t see her?”

Mark shook his head and rubbed his nose with the back of his hand.

“How long had you lived there?”

“About three months.”

“Where were you tonight, Mark?”

“I told you. I was with someone else.”

“We’ll need her name and address.”

“Mandy. I don’t know her last name. She lives in Eastvale.” He gave an address and Annie wrote it down.

“What time did you get there?”

“I got to the pub where she works – the George and Dragon, near the college – a bit before closing time. About quarter to eleven. Then we went back to her flat.”

“How did you get to Eastvale? Do you have a car?”

“You must be joking. There’s a late bus you can catch up on the road. It leaves at half past ten.”

If Mark was telling the truth – and his alibi would have to be carefully checked with the bus driver and the girlfriend – then he couldn’t possibly have started the fire. If it had been set before half past ten, there would have been nothing left of the barges by half past one, when Andrew Hurst reported the blaze. “When did you get back here?” Banks asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t have a watch.”

Banks glanced at his wrist. He was telling the truth. “How late? Twelve? One? Two?”

“Later. I left Mandy’s place at about three o’clock, by her alarm clock.”

“How did you get back? Surely there are no buses running that late?”

“I walked.”

“Why didn’t you stay the night?”

“I got worried. About Tina. Afterward, you know, sometimes things start to go around in your mind, not always good things. I couldn’t sleep. I felt bad. Guilty. I should never have left her.”

“How long did it take you to get back here?”

“Maybe an hour or so. A bit less. I couldn’t believe the scene. All those people. I hid in the woods and watched until you found me.”

“That was a long time.”

“I wasn’t keeping track.”

“Did you see anyone else in the woods?”

“Only the firemen.”

“Mark, I know this is hard for you right now,” Banks went on, “but do you know anything about the people on the other barge? We need all the information we can get.”

“There’s just the one bloke.”

“What’s his name?”

“Tom.”

“Tom what?”

“Just Tom.”

“How long has he been living there?”

“Dunno. He was there when me and Tina came.”

“What does he do?”

“No idea. He doesn’t go out much, keeps himself to himself.”

“Do you know if he was home last night?”

“I don’t know. It’s likely, though. Like I said, he hardly ever went out.”

“Seen any strangers hanging about?”

“No.”

“Any threats made?”

“Only by British Waterways.”

“Come again?”

Mark gave Banks a defiant look. “You must have worked out that we’re not your typical middle-class folk.” He gestured to the burned boats. “Those were clapped-out hulks, hadn’t been anywhere in years, just sitting there, rotting away. Nobody knows who owns them, so we just moved in.” Mark glanced at the barge again. Tears came to his eyes and he gave his head a little shake.

Banks allowed him a moment to collect himself before continuing. “Are you saying you’re squatters?”

Mark wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands. “That’s right. And British Waterways have been trying to get rid of us for weeks.”

“Was Tom squatting, too?”

“Dunno. I suppose so.”

“Was there any electricity on the boats?”

“That’s a laugh.”

“What did you do for heat and light?”

“Candles. And we had an old woodstove for heat. It was in pretty bad shape, but I managed to get it working.”

“What about Tom?”

“Same, I suppose. They were both the same kind of barge, anyway, even if he had done his up a bit, slap of paint here and there.”

Banks looked back at the burned-out barges. An accident with the stove was certainly one possible explanation of the fire. Or Tom might have been using a dangerous heating fuel – paraffin, diesel or Coleman fuel, for example. But all that was mere speculation until Geoff Hamilton and the pathologist had done their jobs. Patience, Banks told himself.

Were there any motives immediately apparent? Mark and Tina had had a row, and maybe he had lashed out and run off after starting the fire. Certainly possible, if his alibi was false. Banks turned to PC Smythe. “Constable, would you put the cuffs back on and take Mark here up to headquarters. Turn him over to the custody officer.”

Mark jerked his eyes toward Banks, scared. “You can’t do that.”

“As a matter of fact, we can. For twenty-four hours, at least. You’re still a suspect and you’ve got no fixed abode. Look at it this way,” he added. “You’ll be well treated, warm and well fed. And if everything you’ve told me is true, then you’ve nothing to be afraid of. Do you have a criminal record?”

“No.”

“Never got caught, eh?” Banks turned to Smythe. “See that his hands and clothing are checked for any signs of accelerant. Just mention it to the custody officer. He’ll know what to do.”

“But you can’t believe I did this!” Mark protested. “What about Tina? I love her. I would never hurt her.”

“It’s routine,” said Banks. “For purposes of elimination. This way we find out you’re innocent, so we don’t have to waste our time and yours asking pointless questions.” Or we find out you’re guilty, Banks thought, which is another kettle of fish entirely.

“Come on, lad.”

Mark hung his head and Smythe put the handcuffs on again, took his arm and led him to the patrol car. Banks sighed. It had already been a long night and he had a feeling it was going to be an even longer day as he saw Geoff Hamilton walking along the canal bank toward him.

Mist clung to the blackened ruins of the two barges as Banks, crime scene photographer Peter Darby, SOCO Terry Bradford, and FIO Geoff Hamilton climbed into their protective clothing, having been given the green light to inspect the scene by the station officer, who was officially in charge. Annie stood watching them, wrapped tightly in her greatcoat.

“This isn’t too difficult or dangerous a scene,” Hamilton said. “There’s no ceiling left to fall on us, and we’re not likely to sink or fall in. Watch how you go, though. The floor is wooden boards over a steel shell, and the wood may have burned through in places. It’s not a closed space, so there should be no problem with air quality, but you’ll still have to wear particle masks. There’s nasty stuff in that ash. We’ll be stirring some of it up, and you don’t want it in your lungs.” Banks thought about all the tobacco smoke he’d put in his lungs over the years and reached for the mask.

“Got a film in your camera?” Hamilton asked Peter Darby.

Darby managed a smile. “Thirty-five-mill color. Okay?”

“Fine. And remember, keep the video running and take photos from all angles. The bodies will probably be covered with debris, and I want photos taken before and after I remove it. Also, photograph all possible exits, and I want you to pay particular attention to any hot spots or possible sources when I tell you.”

“Basically every square foot, at least twice, while videotaping the entire search.”

“You’ve got it. Let’s go.”

Darby shouldered his equipment.

“And I don’t want any of you under my feet,” Hamilton grumbled. “There’s already too many of us going over this scene.”

Banks had heard the complaint before. The fire investigation officer wanted as few people as possible on the boats to lessen the chance of destroying evidence already in a fragile state, but he needed police and SOCO presence, someone to bag the evidence. Not to mention the photographer.

Banks adjusted his particle mask. Terry Bradford picked up his bulky accessory bag, and they entered the scene, starting with Tom’s barge. Banks felt a surge of absolute fear as he stepped onto the charred wood. One thing he had never told anyone was that he was terrified of fire. Ever since one particular scene back when he was on the Met, he’d had recurring nightmares about being trapped on a high floor of a burning building. This time it wasn’t so bad, he told himself, as there were no flames, only soggy debris, but even so, the mere thought of the flames licking up the walls and crackling as they burned everything in their way still frightened him.

“Go carefully,” Hamilton said. “It’s easy to destroy evidence at a fire scene because you can’t see that it is evidence. Fortunately, most of the water the fire hoses sprayed has drained over the side, so you won’t be ankle-deep in cold water.”

All Banks knew, as he forced himself to be detached and concentrate on the job at hand, was that a fire scene was unique and presented a number of problems he simply didn’t encounter at other crime scenes. Not only was fire itself incredibly destructive, but the act of putting out a fire was destructive, too. Before Banks and Hamilton could examine the barges, the firefighters had been there first and had probably trampled valuable evidence in their attempts to save lives. The damage might have been minimized this time because the firefighter who spotted possible signs of arson had some knowledge of fire-investigation techniques, and he knew they had to preserve the scene as best they could.

But of everything, Banks thought, it was probably the sheer level of destruction caused by fire that was the most disturbing and problematic. Fire totally destroys many things and renders others unrecognizable. Banks remembered from the warehouse fire how burned and twisted objects, which looked like nothing he had ever seen before – like those old contests where you’re supposed to identify an everyday object photographed from an unusual angle – had definite shape and identity to Hamilton, who could pick up a black shapeless object, like something from a Dalí painting, and identify it as an empty tin, a cigarette lighter or even a melted wineglass.

The barge was about thirty or thirty-five feet long. Most of the wooden roof and sides were burned away now, exposing the innards as a maze of blackened and distorted debris – sofas, shelving, bed, chest of drawers, ceiling – all charred by the flames and waterlogged from the firefighters’ hoses. One part of the room looked as if it had been dominated by a bookcase, and Banks could see soggy volumes lying on the floor. He couldn’t smell the place now, through his mask, but he’d smelled it from the canal side, and the acrid odor of burned plastic, rubber and cloth still stuck in his memory. As most of the windows had exploded, and the stairs and doors had burned away, it was impossible to tell if anyone had forced access.

Banks walked carefully behind Hamilton, who would stop every now and then to make a quick sketch or examine something, instructing Terry Bradford to pop it into one of his evidence bags. The three of them moved slowly through the ruins. Banks could hear the whir of the camcorder, which he held while Peter Darby took still photographs on Hamilton’s instructions.

“This looks to be where it started,” said Hamilton as soon as they got to the center of the living quarters.

Banks could see that the fire damage here was greater and the charring went deeper in certain areas than anywhere else they had seen yet, in places gathering in pools. They had to go slowly to make their way through all the debris littering the floor. Hamilton’s voice was muffled by his mask, but Banks could make out the words clearly enough. “This is the main seat. You can see that the burning on the floor is more severe than that on the underside of this piece of roofing.” He held up a piece of partially burned wood. “Fire moves upward, so the odds are that it started at the lowest point with the worst degree of burning. This is it.” Hamilton took off his mask and instructed Banks to do the same. Banks did so.

“Smell anything?” Hamilton asked.

Amid the mingled odors of ash and rubber, Banks thought he could smell something familiar. “Turps,” he said.

Hamilton took a small gadget from his accessory bag, bent and pointed a tube at the floor. “It’s a hydrocarbon detector, technically known as a sniffer,” he explained. “It should tell us whether accelerant has been used and…” He flicked a switch. “Indeed it has.”

Hamilton instructed Terry Bradford to use his trowel and shovel two or three liters of debris into a doubled nylon bag and seal it tight. “For the gas chromatograph,” he said, sending Bradford to other parts of the room to do the same thing. “It looks as if it’s multi-seated,” he explained. “If you look at the pattern of burning closely, you can see more than one fire occurred in this room, linked by those deeply charred narrow channels, or streamers, as they’re called.”

Banks knew that a multi-seated fire was an indication of arson, but he also knew he wouldn’t get Hamilton to admit it yet. Peter Darby handed him the camcorder and clicked away with his Pentax. “Hasn’t the water the firefighters used got rid of any traces of accelerant?” Darby asked.

“Contrary to what you might imagine,” said Hamilton, “water cools and slows the process down. It actually preserves traces of accelerant. Believe me, if any was used, and the sniffer indicates that it was, then it’ll be present in these bits of carpet and floorboards.”

Terry Bradford bent to remove some debris and uncovered the mostly blackened human shape that lay twisted on its stomach on the floor. It was impossible to tell whether it was a man or a woman at first, but Banks assumed it was most likely the man known to Mark only as Tom. Though he looked quite short in stature, Banks knew that fires did strange and unpredictable things to the human body. A few tufts of reddish hair still clung to the cracked skull, and in some places the fire had burned away all the flesh, leaving the bone exposed. It was still possible to make out patches of a blue denim shirt on the victim’s back, and he was clearly wearing jeans. Banks felt slightly sick behind his particle mask. “That’s odd,” said Hamilton, stooping to look at the body more closely.

“What?” said Banks.

“People usually fall on their backs when they’re overcome by flames or smoke inhalation,” Hamilton explained. “That’s why you often see the knees and fists raised in the ‘pugilistic’ attitude. It’s caused by the contraction of the muscles in the sudden heat of the blaze. Look, you can see the pooling where the accelerant trickled into the cracks of the floor around the body. Probably under it, too. The charring’s much deeper around there and there’s far more general destruction.”

“Tell me something,” said Banks. “Would he have had time to escape if he’d been conscious and alert when the fire started?”

“Hard to say,” said Hamilton. “He’s on his stomach, and his head is pointing toward the source of the fire. If he’d been trying to escape, he’d most likely have been running or crawling away, toward the exit.”

“But could he have got out, if he’d seen it coming?”

“We know a part of the ceiling fell on him. Maybe that happened before he could escape. Maybe he was drugged, or drunk. Who knows? You’ll not get me speculating on this. I’m afraid you’ll have to wait till the postmortem and toxicology screens for answers to your questions.”

“Any signs of a container or igniter?”

“There are plenty of possible containers,” said Hamilton, “but not one with ACCELERANT written in capital letters on it. They’ll all have to be tested. Odds are he used a match as an igniter, and sadly there won’t be anything left of that by now.”

“Deliberate, then?”

“I’m not committing myself yet, but I don’t like the looks of it. It’s hard to predict what happens with fires. Maybe he was drunk and spilled some accelerant on his clothes and set fire to himself and panicked. People do, you know. I’ve seen it before. And smoke inhalation can cause disorientation and confusion. Sometimes it looks as if people have run into the flames rather than away from them. Let’s just call it doubtful origin for now, okay?”

Banks looked at the blackened figure. “If the doctor can tell us anything from what’s left of him.”

“You’d be surprised,” said Hamilton. “Rarely is a body so badly damaged by fire that a good pathologist can’t get something out of it. You’ll be having Dr. Glendenning, I imagine?”

Banks nodded.

“One of the best.” Hamilton instructed Terry Bradford to take more samples, then they moved toward the bow of the barge, to the point where it almost touched its neighbor’s stern. They waited while Peter Darby changed the film in his camera and the cassette in his camcorder.

“Look at this,” Hamilton said, pointing to a clearly discernible strip of deeply charred wood that started in the living quarters, near the main seat, and continued to the bow, then over to the stern and living quarters of the other boat. “Another streamer,” he said. “A line of accelerant to spread a fire from one place to another. In this case, from one barge to another.”

“So whoever did this wanted to burn both barges?”

“It looks like it.” Hamilton frowned. “But it’s not very much. Just one narrow streamer. It’s like… I don’t know… a flick of the wrist. Not enough. An afterthought.”

“What are you getting at?”

“I don’t know. But if someone had really wanted to make sure of destroying the second boat and anyone on it – and I’m not saying that’s what happened – then he could have done a more thorough job.”

“Maybe he didn’t have time?” said Banks.

“Possible.”

“Or he ran out of accelerant.”

“Again, it’s a possible explanation,” said Hamilton. “Or maybe he simply wanted to confuse the issue. Either way, it cost another life.”

The body on the second barge lay wrapped in a charred sleeping bag. Despite some blistering on her face, Banks could see that it was the body of a young girl. Her expression was peaceful enough, and if she had died of smoke inhalation, she would never have felt the fire scorching her cheeks and burning her sleeping bag. She had a metal stud just below her lower lip, and Banks imagined that would have heated up in the fire too, explaining the more deeply burned skin radiating in a circle around it. He hoped she hadn’t felt that, either. One charred arm lay outside the sleeping bag beside what looked like the remains of a portable CD player.

“The body should be fairly well preserved inside the sleeping bag,” Hamilton said. “They’re usually made of flame-resistant material. And look at those blisters on the face.”

“What do they mean?” Banks asked.

“Blistering is usually a sign that the victim was alive when the fire started.” Making sure that Peter Darby had already videotaped and photographed the entire scene, Hamilton bent and picked up two objects from the floor beside her.

“What are they?” Banks asked.

“Can’t say for certain,” he said, “but I think one’s a syringe and the other’s a spoon.” He handed them to Terry Bradford, who put them into evidence bags, taking a cork from his accessory bag first, and sticking it over the needle’s point. “The fire’s sure to have sterilized it,” he said, “but you can’t be too careful handling needles.”

Hamilton bent and scraped something from the floor beside the sleeping bag and Bradford put it in another bag. “Looks like she was using a candle,” Hamilton said. “Probably to heat up whatever it was she injected. If I wasn’t so certain the fire started on the other barge, I’d say that it could have been a possible cause. I’ve seen it more than once, a junkie nodding off and a candle starting a fire. Or it could even have been used as a crude timing device.”

“But that’s not what happened here?”

“No. The seats of the fire are definitely next door. It’d be just too much of a coincidence if the two fires started simultaneously from separate causes. And this one caused so much less damage.”

Banks felt a headache coming on. He glanced at the young girl’s body again, nipped the bridge of his nose above the mask between his thumb and index finger until his eyes prickled with tears, then he looked away, into the fog, just in time to see Dr. Burns, the police surgeon, walking toward the barges with his black bag.