After the Fire (30 page)

‘Melissa seems to have been very cooperative with you.’

‘She was.’

‘But Mark Pell wasn’t charged with anything. He didn’t go to court.’

A heavy sigh. ‘We removed him from the premises and took him into custody, but it was decided not to proceed with the case against him.’

‘It was decided,’ I repeated. ‘Who decided?’

‘My skipper. He knows Mark quite well. They’re friends.’ There was a world of disapproval in her voice, and fatigue, and the frustration of working in a small town where everyone knows everyone else. ‘He felt that there was no evidence linking Mr Pell to his wife’s injuries. Especially given her history of mental health issues—’

‘What issues?’

‘A suicide attempt.’

‘A serious one?’

‘Well, she didn’t succeed, so your guess is as good as mine. But she did try. She threatened to throw herself off a bridge one night and two of my colleagues talked her out of it.’

‘When? Around this time?’

‘No, four years ago. Before she had the little boy.’

I was doing sums. ‘Was she pregnant then?’

‘Yes. She had already been diagnosed with depression. Her GP had her down as a high-risk pregnancy because of her medical history. Apparently the hormones can make it worse when you get pregnant. I’d never heard of that. I thought it was after the birth you had to worry.’

‘Did she say why she wanted to kill herself?’

‘No. But she had a spell in the local hospital. It was tricky, you see, because she didn’t want to take any medication, being pregnant, and there weren’t all that many resources available to her.’

‘So what happened? They kept her in for a bit and then let her go?’

‘That’s my understanding, yes. She got very good care and support for the remainder of her pregnancy. I saw her around town now and then. I used to talk to her about the little boy. I thought she was a lovely lady.’

‘Did she ever complain to you about her husband again?’

‘Not in so many words.’ A pause. ‘She didn’t trust us, really, after what happened.’

‘Her social worker believed her.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘Did you?’

A longer pause. ‘Mr Pell is very convincing. But I had reservations about it, put it that way.’

‘Were you surprised when she ran away?’

‘Not in the least.’ Crisp, confident, no doubt about that one.

I was playing with the cord of the telephone. ‘Look, off the record … should I be worried about Mark Pell?’

‘In what way?’

‘He’s in London. I saw him at the hospital. Do you think he might pose a threat to Melissa?’

‘I wouldn’t trust him for a second.’ She sounded definite.

‘Do you think he could have started the fire in the tower block?’

‘I couldn’t say.’ An unhelpful answer and I let a silence develop, waiting her out. ‘It’s a big leap, isn’t it? A bit of domestic violence is one thing, but arson on a large scale? I can’t see it. And it’s reckless. He’s not a reckless person. If he’d found her, I don’t know why he wouldn’t just terrify her into coming back to him.’

It was a good point. ‘Okay. Could he have commissioned someone to start a fire in the tower block if he decided that was the way to go about getting revenge? Is there anyone in your area who might do that sort of thing for a bit of cash?’

She considered it. ‘I can think of one or two characters, yes. Do you want their details?’

‘Yes, please. And if you can tell me what car Mr Pell usually drives, that would help too.’

I noted down the details and thanked her. ‘You’ve been very helpful.’

‘Can you give Melissa my best wishes? And little Thomas?’

‘I will.’

‘I wish we could have helped them.’

‘It’s not always possible, is it?’

‘Makes you wonder what we’re here for.’ She hung up and I listened to the silence on the line for a second. She wasn’t the first police officer I’d met who was disillusioned with the job, fed up with picking up the pieces, of not being allowed to stop trouble before it started. I put the phone down and looked up my new targets on the PNC. The men Karen Samuels had suggested certainly had extensive criminal records. I emailed their details to Colin Vale, who was sitting with his headphones on, in a world of his own, lips moving as he watched his computer screen with unwavering concentration.

‘Hey.’ I nudged his arm and he jumped, then paused the footage before lifting the headphones off.

‘I haven’t got as far as the CCTV from today if that’s why you’re here.’

‘I wouldn’t make it a priority,’ I said easily. ‘It’s about suspects for the arson.’

‘Oh.’ He brightened. ‘What have you got for me?’

‘Two candidates. Check your email.’

He had a look, frowning at the screen, and the picture of a bull-necked, bald-headed man that had appeared. ‘Hmm. No one like that. Let’s have a look at the other one.’

The second mugshot was of a thinner man, with the dead-eyed stare of the very intoxicated.

‘Maybe.’ Colin shuffled through some printouts on photo paper beside him. ‘This guy.’

I peered. It was an image taken from the other side of the car park, of a man with a dark jacket and jeans entering Murchison House. The camera angle showed his back but he had turned his head slightly so you could see pale skin and dark eyebrows. There was nothing to say it wasn’t the man in the second picture, but not much that you could be certain about.

‘Is that the best you’ve got?’

‘From the car park, yes. But I’ve also got hold of the footage from the eighth floor of Murchison House.’

‘Melissa Pell?’

‘Exactly.’

‘You can see her being attacked?’

‘Oh yes. The lighting is horrible,’ Colin warned me as he handed over a bundle of images. ‘But we can probably sharpen them up a little if you find a good suspect for me. We can get an expert in facial mapping to work up the measurements.’

I was shuffling through the pictures. They were like a flip book, a crime occurring in front of my eyes. An empty corridor. The door opening. Melissa falling through, shoved from behind to land on her knees. A figure following her, grabbing her by the hair, smacking her head off the ground. He stood over her, looking down, gloved hand to his face, and then ran away.

‘The angle isn’t great, is it?’ The camera was high up, looking down on them, so they were foreshortened. The fisheye effect didn’t help, distorting them further. It was hard to judge the man’s build: he looked bigger in comparison with Melissa than in the image from the car park.

‘Do you recognise him?’ Colin asked.

‘No.’ He was wearing the red baseball cap, pulled low over his face, and the smudgy image didn’t give me anything like enough detail to see if it was someone I knew. I went back to the shot of him looking at Melissa lying on the ground in front of him. ‘Is he touching his mouth?’

‘Looks like it.’

‘And then the door handle.’

‘DNA?’

‘You’d have to hope so.’ I handed Colin a list. ‘Here’s some vehicle information for you from possible suspects. Makes, models, number plates. Worth checking on CCTV and ANPR from the area.’

‘Fantastic.’ Anyone else might have been sarcastic. Colin was genuinely delighted. ‘I’ll get on with it straight away.’

I rang Kev and left him a message, knowing that he would probably, almost certainly have thought of swabbing the door handle on the eighth floor. There was no harm in being sure. When I hung up, I turned and caught myself before I swore in surprise. Una Burt was standing beside my desk.

‘I want a word with you.’ She stumped off towards her office and I followed, catching Mal Upton’s eye as I went. He made a throat-slitting gesture and I tried not to laugh, pulling my face straight just in time as Burt glanced back at me. ‘Where’s Derwent?’

‘He’s trying to track down Carl Bellew, the dad from flat 101.’ It was technically true. It was on his list, anyway. ‘We’re still trying to work out if Bellew was involved in some kind of illegal activity that he ran from his flat.’

She frowned, fiddling with a pen on her desk. ‘Why is Bellew hard to track down? Don’t you have an address for him?’

‘He’s living with his brother, according to what he told the hospital. But we really need to talk to his wife or his sister-in-law. We both think the brothers are too scared of their mother to tell us anything.’

‘Okay. What else have you been doing today?’

I blinked, discarding all the information I couldn’t possibly share with her, which was practically everything. ‘Um … finding out what I can about whoever vandalised the car. And I’ve just been talking to the police officer who dealt with Melissa Pell’s domestic violence complaint.’

‘Why?’

‘I’ve just been helping Mal and Chris Pettifer out.’

‘Don’t you have enough to do?’

‘They had a futile trip to Lincolnshire today to see Mark Pell, who’s currently in London. It’s a good thing you have the coppers in the hospital still because that was the only reason he didn’t get to terrify Melissa today.’

‘That’s something, I suppose.’ She sat down at her desk, looking exhausted. Her face was puffy, especially around her eyes, and there was no colour in her cheeks. ‘How many patients have we still got in the hospital?’

‘Three. Melissa, but she’s being released tomorrow. Becky is still in intensive care and it doesn’t look good.’

Burt rubbed her eyes. ‘Who else?’

‘Mrs Hearn, the very useful witness from flat 104. Unfortunately she’s had a stroke.’

‘A bad one?’

I nodded.

‘Is she going to be able to help us identify Armstrong’s girlfriend?’

‘I’d be surprised. I managed to get to talk to one of her doctors but I couldn’t get much out of him. He didn’t seem to think she’d be leaving hospital in the foreseeable future.’

‘Damn. I can’t give her a permanent police minder.’

‘Do you need to?’ I asked tentatively.

‘I don’t know. I can’t be sure.’ Burt squeezed the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes again. ‘I don’t want to make the wrong decision. I don’t want her to come to any harm. Any more harm, should I say.’

‘She’s given us what she can.’

‘But whoever started the fire doesn’t know that. If they think she’s a valuable witness, she could be in danger.’

It struck me that it was rather to Una Burt’s credit to value the elderly lady just as much as any other potential victim.

‘We’re making progress,’ I said.

‘Of a sort.’

‘Colin’s got some visuals.’

‘I’ve seen them.’ She shifted in her chair. ‘Where are we on Armstrong?’

‘Um …’ I tried to think of anything I’d found out that she didn’t know already. ‘Still trying to track down the girlfriend.’

‘It would be very nice if you and Derwent could make that a priority instead of wasting time on other inquiries.’

‘It is a priority for us.’

‘Then I would like you to start acting like it.’ She took a moment. ‘I’m getting a lot of hassle from the bosses about Armstrong. I need a result.’

‘We’ll get there.’

‘I admire your optimism.’ She leaned back. Almost to herself, she said, ‘It would make it so much easier if I didn’t feel Derwent was actively working against me.’

‘He’s not,’ I said quickly.

‘He does what he wants, when he wants. He is irresponsible and unreliable. And he likes winding me up.’

None of it was deniable. I sighed. ‘I know he’s not the easiest person to manage, but he is a good police officer. That’s why Godley wanted him on the team.’

‘And that’s what has kept him here.’

That and the fact that Una Burt was caretaking and didn’t have a say over who stayed on the team and who left. I didn’t think I’d point it out.

‘I don’t think,’ Burt said steadily, ‘that it’s unreasonable to expect a senior officer – an inspector – to be capable of following orders.’

‘No, it’s not.’

‘And I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want my team to behave in a professional manner.’

I stared at her, unsure of what she wanted me to say.

‘I know everyone is missing Charlie. I know I’m not like him.’
Charlie
. It was always jarring to hear her refer to Superintendent Godley that way.

‘You’re doing a good job,’ I offered lamely.

The response came back straight away, in an irritable tone of voice. ‘I know. But that doesn’t matter if we don’t get a result.’

‘We’re doing our best,’ I said. ‘Even Derwent. If you ignore the smart remarks, he’s working harder than anyone.’

‘That is precisely what makes him so frustrating.’ There was a glimmer of humour on her plain face. ‘Thank you, Maeve. Now go and find me something on Armstrong.’

I left Una Burt’s office wondering why it was that I’d allowed myself to adopt Derwent’s hostile attitude to the DCI. She had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer but she was dedicated and tougher than any man had to be. She’d made her way up through the ranks through sheer determination. If I had any sense, I would try to be just like Una Burt, instead of worrying about being liked, or judged. I would keep my head down and work hard and unleash the ambition I generally wouldn’t admit to possessing.

But I thought about all that Una Burt had sacrificed to get to where she was – all that she continued to sacrifice, in her lonely journey to the top – and I wasn’t sure I had it in me to do the same.

I WOKE UP
on Sunday morning to the luxury of an empty flat. Derwent had stayed at his own place, wary of letting Melissa Pell’s mother have as much as a moment to herself. I didn’t know how he’d explained his sudden need to spend the night there when he’d promised to leave the flat to them for as long as they needed it, but that was his problem. Also his problem: explaining to Una Burt where he’d been and what he’d been doing, if she asked. I’d texted him briefly to tell him what I’d said about his whereabouts and that was as much as I could do.

So why I was worrying about it, I couldn’t say.

For once, there was nowhere I had to be. I made myself a cup of tea and drank one mouthful before I abandoned it, but at least it was my choice this time. I curled up on the sofa, staring into space, listening to the Sunday morning silence pressing on the windows. My phone was on the table in front of me. If Chris Swain was listening to me, he was going to be bored.