Fire Damage (A Jessie Flynn Investigation, Book 1) (11 page)

‘Let’s go grab a coffee in my office and I’ll talk you through the findings.’

‘The smell.’ He forced a weak smile. ‘Not used to it any more.’

‘Come on.’

She put a hand on his arm, a motherly pat, which turned into a grip to support him when she realized that he was struggling to walk straight. In her office, she made him a coffee – decaf. Adding caffeine to the mix wouldn’t be helpful.

‘I’m pretty sure that the gunshot wound was not the cause of death.’ She sat herself across the desk from him, all business. He met her gaze, briefly, and a flash of understanding passed between them. A brief smile of gratitude crossed his face and was gone.

‘My money is on acute myocardial infarction.’

The term felt familiar, but his sluggish brain refused to respond, to enlighten him. ‘Right.’

‘Heart failure, in other words,’ Val continued, reading his mind. ‘Sudden death triggered by chronic heart failure. He was technically dead when he was shot. His heart had stopped beating when the bullet entered his stomach.’

‘Are you sure?’

She nodded. ‘You saw yourself – the blood. There wasn’t enough. If his heart had been fully pumping when the bullet passed through his stomach, there would have been significantly more. All the indications point to heart failure, though I am going to send his heart off to a specialist for a second opinion.’ She folded her arms across her chest, tipped back on her heels. ‘I know that I’ve already asked the question, but are you sure there was nothing in his medical records indicating heart problems?’

‘I’ve read his medical notes three times. There’s nothing. No medical problems. There is no way he would have been allowed to join the Army with a pre-existing heart condition, and if it developed after he joined and his superiors were aware of it, he would have been invalided out, no question.’

‘Smoking? Alcohol? Drugs? I’ve taken samples for toxicology, but we’ll have to wait a couple of days for the results.’

‘He was a smoker. And I imagine he also drank a bit. Drugs? I don’t think so. No one I’ve spoken to about him has mentioned drugs and it’s highly unlikely, given his job and where he was at the time.’

‘Smoking and alcohol are risk factors in heart disease, but in someone of this age it would be very unusual for them to be causal.’ Sighing, she glanced towards the window. It had started snowing lightly.

‘Could he have been pushed so hard during the run, by Starkey, beyond the point of absolute exhaustion, with the high temperature, that his heart just gave out?’ Callan asked.

Elbows on the desk, Val steepled her fingers, rested the tips against her lips and frowned. ‘It’s possible. Yes, it is possible. People have different tolerances to physical exertion, high temperatures, etc. Even fit young men. I assume that Starkey is also a fit young man, a similar age to Jackson?’

Callan nodded.

‘And he was fine.’

‘Yes.’

Val dropped her hands to the desktop. ‘The other option, of course, is shock.’

‘Shock?’

‘Such total and absolute fear that the heart gives out.’

‘Is that likely?’ Callan asked.

‘I’ve seen it. I have seen it.’ She frowned. ‘But admittedly only once, in a very young soldier, a private, who was serving in Iraq. He died of a heart attack brought on by pure fear.’ She paused, tapped a finger to her lips, thinking. ‘My money is on Jackson having a pre-existing heart condition.’

Callan folded his arms and leaned back in the chair. ‘That he knew about?’

Val shrugged. ‘My name’s not Mystic Meg, Callan, so, no, I can’t read minds. Especially not the mind of a corpse. Bodies, yes. Minds, sadly not.’ Shuffling some papers into a pile and moving them to the edge of her desk, she pulled her keyboard over. ‘Give me a minute.’

Callan’s eyes drifted around the room while he waited. It was small, white-walled, grey vinyl tiling on the floor – the ubiquitous military decoration, cheap and functional – made infinitesimally homely by the addition of a vase bearing a spray of lilac tulips, clearly not picked in the UK, given the weather outside.

‘Right, here we go.’ Val twisted the monitor so that Callan could see the screen. ‘It’s a report written by the American Heart Association. A study.’

Callan read the big black type at the top of the article out loud. ‘“Acute coronary findings at autopsy in heart failure patients with sudden death.” Riveting title.’

She looked up, catching his gaze. ‘Sarcasm. I like it. Feeling a bit more like your old self?’

‘I’m not sure my old self is the way to go.’

He had managed the title, but couldn’t focus on the rest. The type was tiny, jumping around in front of his eyes. ‘So what are the findings?’

‘Have you lost the ability to read, Callan?’ She broke off, could have kicked herself.

‘Reading was never my strong point. Why do you think I joined the Army?’

‘So what it says, if I gloss over all the tedious bits, is …’ She hummed as her eyes skimmed the lines of type, as much to cover her embarrassment as anything else. ‘Here.’ She placed a finger on the screen. ‘Forty per cent of patients with myocardial failure did not have the MI diagnosed during their lifetime. So basically, of the autopsied bodies in the study, four out of ten died suddenly of heart failure, having no idea, when they were alive, that they had heart problems.’

‘So it’s feasible that he had a pre-existing heart condition without realizing.’

‘It is. It certainly is. Now, does any of that help you, Callan?’

Sliding his chair back, he stood. ‘I’m sure it will when I get it straight in my mind. Thanks, Val, you’re invaluable as always.’

‘And you’re a charmer.’

‘Call me when you get the toxicology reports and DNA.’

She stood too, rounded the desk and laid a hand on his arm. ‘Get some help, Callan. A neurologist. I can find a good one for you.’

‘I’m seeing a neurologist,’ he muttered, refusing to meet her gaze. ‘But I think there’s fuck-all that anyone can do to help me.’

Standing at her office window, looking out across the manicured lawn to the car park, Jessie watched the snowflakes spiralling down. Though it meant a drop in temperature, snow was preferable to the continual bouts of cold rain and slushy sleet that had dogged the past few days. The snow looked as if it wasn’t going to settle though, the flakes too flimsy, melting into the wet tarmac as soon as they touched.

A knock at the door. She turned from the window. She was expecting Major Scott and Sami, had brought her iPad from home to keep Sami entertained with a film, under the watchful eye of the Defence Psychology Service’s secretary, Jenny Chappell, while she spoke to Scott.

Wendy Chubb stuck her head in through the door. ‘I’ve brought Sami for his session.’

‘Oh, hi. I thought—’

‘I know, you were expecting Major Scott. He called to say that he’s been held up at the hospital, asked me to bring Sami in and send his apologies.’ She walked into the room guiding a timid-looking Sami – head down, gaze hugging the floor – in front of her. ‘He’ll collect Sami in half an hour and you can have your conversation then.’

Unzipping Sami’s coat, she slid it from his shoulders. Taking it from her, Jessie hung it on the hook on the back of her door, smoothing down the sleeves quickly, levelling the hem with her fingers.

She turned back to the room. ‘Great, thank you, Wendy.’

Wendy didn’t appear to have heard her – she made no move to leave. She was staring towards the window, a pensive look on her face. Beyond the glass, the snowflakes were phosphorescent in the electric light from Jessie’s office, daylight now only a brief interlude between the curtains of winter darkness.

‘Wendy.’

Wendy started, glancing back from the window, brow furrowing as she met Jessie’s gaze.

‘I hate the winter,’ she murmured. ‘It makes me feel so …’ Pulling her scarf tight around her neck, she tailed off with a shrug.

‘So … what?’

A brief smile, the lines of concern etched in her forehead and around her eyes unchanged by it. ‘Oh … cold. Just cold.’

Jessie looked hard at her. Her posture was so rigid that it appeared every one of her muscles were tensed.
Fight or flight.

‘Are you OK, Wendy?’

Another smile, unconvincing in its fleetingness. ‘Yes, of course.’

‘I can ask Jenny to walk you to your car.’

‘Why on earth would you do that?’

‘Well … if …’ Jessie waved her hand vaguely towards the window. ‘It’s getting dark—’

‘What? And you think that I’m afraid of the dark?’ Wendy cut in with a sharp, bright laugh. ‘A great lump like me?’

Scooping up her handbag from the floor and hooking it over her shoulder, she strode towards the door. But at the threshold, she stopped, turned back slowly.

‘You can help him, can’t you?’ she said in a low voice, glancing towards Sami, who had found his way to the toy corner, was sitting there motionless, gaze fixed on the farm box that Jessie had bought. ‘You can help him?’

‘I’ll do everything that I can.’

Stepping back into the room, reaching out, she grasped Jessie’s arm with a firmness, an urgency that took Jessie by surprise.

‘Please. Promise me. He needs help, that little boy. He really needs help.’

‘I can’t promise anything, but I will do the best I can. Nothing happens overnight with severely disturbed children.’ Jessie pulled her arm gently from Wendy’s grip. She didn’t want to leave Sami too long without attending to him, needed to manage his first encounter with the farm. ‘I’d better start his session now.’

Brow furrowing, Wendy nodded. ‘Yes, of course. Sorry. I’ll go.’

‘Hey, Sami.’ Jessie knelt down.

He was sitting in front of the farm box – it had clearly piqued his interest – but he hadn’t yet tried to open it. His body was statue-still, his gaze fixed on the box, the torch cradled in his lap. His face, his expression, was a closed book.

‘I bought myself a farm, like your farm,’ Jessie said. ‘Shall we open it?’

Without looking up at her, he gave a slight nod.

She had opened the farm herself earlier, sorted through the animals. None were black, so she was glad that she had bought the two Schleichs, even if it had led the sales girl to believe that she was committable. She had put all the animals in a separate box, left only the plastic farmhouse and tractor inside the original one.

‘Do you want to open it, Sami?’

Another nod, infinitesimally more certain than the first.

Jessie indicated the zips on the four corners. ‘The box unzips and lays out flat,’ she said. ‘Go ahead. Open it.’

Hesitantly, he unzipped each corner and the heavy-duty printed vinyl fell open, revealing the plastic farmhouse and tractor.

‘Tractor,’ he cried, with uncharacteristic delight, rolling the torch off his lap. He picked the tractor up, turned it around in his hands, testing that the wheels moved, opening and closing each of the doors. Placing the tractor carefully back in the cobbled farmyard, he shifted it backwards and forwards until it was lined up exactly next to the farmhouse, which Jessie had positioned on its grey printed concrete foundation.

Leaning forward, he pointed at the play-mat. ‘There’s the farmyard.’

‘That’s right. There’s the farmyard.’ Jessie reflected back what he had said. She wanted to engage him without, at this stage, leading the conversation, or his thoughts, in any particular direction.

‘There’s a field.’

‘Yes. A big field,’ Jessie echoed.

‘Another field.’ He dragged his finger down the muddy track separating the two fields. The track led to a wood. ‘Here’s a wood.

‘Yes, there are lots of trees in the wood.’

His finger continued tracking across the play-mat.

‘Here’s a pond.’ Sami stopped, his finger at the edge of the pond. He looked up at Jessie, his brow furrowing. ‘Where are the waves?’

‘Waves? What do you mean, Sami?’

‘Waves on the pond.’ Leaning forward, he ran his flat hand over the smooth blue printed surface of the vinyl pond. ‘Where are the waves?’

‘It’s probably a sunny day. You only get waves when it’s windy.’

He glanced over to the window. It was snowing, the flakes heavier now; perhaps they would settle. Eyebrows raised in query, he looked back to Jessie.

‘Snow.’ His voice quivered.

Jessie kept hers even. ‘Yes, but we’re playing a game. We can pretend that it’s summer on our farm, that it’s sunny, even though it’s snowing outside.’

He sat for a moment, in silence, his body absolutely still. Only his hands and eyes moved. His hands tensed around the handle of his torch; his eyes flickered backwards and forwards across the play-mat, his brain, behind the mask of stillness that was his face, clearly working feverishly. Hauling the torch back on to his lap, his fingers found the switch, but he didn’t slide it into the ‘on’ position.

‘Waves on the pond,’ he muttered. ‘Waves on the pond. Sunny. It’s sunny. Waves on—’ He stopped muttering, a sudden look of surprise crossing his face. ‘Where are the animals?’

‘Here.’ Jessie reached behind her. ‘I put them in a separate box. An animal box.’ She pushed the box over to him.

She had kept the Schleich black cow aside, but had put the black-and-white collie dog in the box, tucking it at the bottom, under the other animals.

As before, when he had been playing with the farm in his own house, Sami switched on his torch and dipped it into the cardboard box, highlighting the tangle of plastic bodies. One by one, he picked out the animals, holding each in the beam of light, studying it with a focus uncharacteristic in someone of his age, before placing it on the play-mat.

‘Here is the sheep …’ He placed the sheep in the small field.

‘Here is the horse …’ The large field.

‘Here is a pig …’ The sty.

‘Here are the ducks …’ The pond. He took longer over the ducks, placing them in the centre of the pond and retrieving them, running a flat hand over the surface of the pond, that same quizzically concerned expression on his face as earlier. ‘Waves,’ he murmured. Hesitantly, he withdrew his hand.

Reaching back into the box, his fingers closed around the collie dog. Jessie sat quietly next to him, her hands folded into her lap, trying to keep the tension she felt from creeping into her muscles. Though she was watching him intently – every facial cue, every tic – she couldn’t afford to betray the anxiety she felt with her own body language. It was imperative that she remain neutral.

Lifting the collie dog from the bucket, he held it at arm’s length, highlighted in the beam of his torch. The hand holding the collie shook.

‘Do you like dogs, Sami?’ Jessie asked softly.

He didn’t answer; he was biting his lip.

‘Is the dog burnt?’ His voice barely a whisper.

‘Of course not. It’s just a black-and-white collie dog. You must have seen them on the farm near where you live. Or maybe on television? The farmers use them to round up their sheep.’

‘The dog isn’t burnt?’

His words so quiet that Jessie strained to hear them.

‘No. The dog isn’t burnt,’ she answered. ‘The dog is fine.’

Holding the collie close to the torch – so close that it was pressed hard against the glass lens – Sami studied it. Jessie remained silent, watching him turn the dog over and over in his fingers. He had to be the first to speak, to reveal his train of thought without prompting.

Finally, he placed the dog on the play-mat, in the same field as the sheep.

‘The girl likes dogs,’ he murmured.

The girl.
Again.

‘Are you the girl, Sami?’

‘Grrrr.’ The growling sound from deep in his throat.

Reaching out, Jessie touched her fingers to his arm. He flinched away.

‘Sami. Are you the girl?’

‘Mummy says Sami is the girl.’ His voice was robotic, as if the words had been pre-programmed inside him. ‘Daddy says Sami is not the girl.’

Jessie’s mind cast back to her conversation with Nooria at the RCA this morning.
He’s four. I insisted that I was a boy when I was four. Nobody gave a hoot.

‘So you are the girl, Sami?’

He shook his head, tears welling in his eyes. ‘Daddy says Sami is a boy.’

Jessie knew that she should pull back, but she felt as if she was on the cusp of something important, that she was finally making headway. She could feel the adrenalin rush, the feeling that always came when she broke a barrier with a patient. She had to push a little further.

‘Why does Mummy say that Sami is the girl?’

‘Sami not the girl.’ His voice cracked on the words. ‘Daddy says … Daddy says Sami not the girl.’

‘Is the Shadowman your father, Sami?’

Sami looked up, his tear-filled eyes wide with fear. ‘Shadowman under the covers,’ he whispered.

‘What do you mean, Sami?’

‘Mummy and Daddy fighting. Mummy says my fault. Daddy says my fault.’

‘What were they arguing about?’

‘Grrrr.’ Louder this time. Dragging his torch with him, he shuffled on his bottom across the carpet until his back was pressed against the wall. Swinging the torch from side to side in front of him like a watchtower light, eyes fixed on Jessie, he muttered, ‘Go back to bed. Stay in bed.’ His head bent to his chest as if it had become too heavy to hold upright. ‘You’re bad, Sami. Stay in bed or the Shadowman will come.’