‘I’d dropped my bloody pocketbook at the camp,’ he says apologetically. ‘Sergeant sent me back to the camp on my own. Got myself lost. Found myself on this little country road a couple of miles from the camp. Pulled into a gap in the hedge to do a U-turn and get myself back in the right direction. There was an old outbuilding there. Holes in the roof. Looked like there’d been a fire a while before. Anyways, there were two cars parked up outside it. It didn’t look right. There was no reason to be there. I don’t know what I felt. Just some sensation that something bad was happening. So I killed the engine, and that’s when I heard the screams.’
‘Jesus,’ says Tremberg, half wishing she’d never asked.
‘I should have called for back-up,’ says McAvoy, rolling the salt cellar between his palms. ‘But I knew that whatever was happening in there couldn’t go on a second longer. I didn’t think. Got out the car and ran into the place. Caught them at it. These farmer boys, whooping and hollering and having their fun.’
‘Jesus,’ says Tremberg again.
‘I lost my temper,’ says McAvoy, staring at the backs of his hands.
Tremberg waits for more, and nothing comes. McAvoy is motionless in his seat; his usually red face now a deathly grey. She wonders if he’s ever talked about this before. Wonders what he did to them, this big, barrel- chested, soft-spoken man with the scarred face and the unruly hair and a love for his wife that makes her feel almost ashamed to have ever laughed when one of her colleagues cracked a joke at his expense.
She looks down at her plate and decides there is absolutely nothing left to eat on it.
Decides, too, that whatever McAvoy did in that shed, she will never judge him for it as harshly as he appears to judge himself.
She lets out a breath. Beats a little rhythm on the table top. Tries to get them both into gear.
‘Shall we make a move?’
McAvoy nods. Begins to stand. For an instant, their eyes meet. And for the briefest of moments she fancies she sees flames dancing on his pupils; a burning building, burning cars.
The double-glazed front door is already swinging open by the time McAvoy and Tremberg find themselves walking up the neat path to number 58. After spending the past hour being told to fuck off in a variety of colourful ways, and with McAvoy’s face still crimson from being called ‘Hoss’ by the naked fat woman who threw open the upstairs window at the house that had made the original 999 call, neither detective is sure whether the opening of a front door is a sign of welcome or a prelude to the emergence of a shotgun.
‘About yonder, is it?’
The man on the front step is in his mid-sixties and bald as a bowling ball. He’s short but wiry, and his Merchant Navy tie is fastened immaculately at the neck of a check shirt tucked into polyester trousers with creases so sharp they could be used to slice meat at a deli counter. He stands with a straight back, and although he’s accessorised the outfit with the old-man twinset of cardigan and slippers, there is something about him that commands respect. Although he’s standing in the doorway of a two-bedroomed terraced house on an abandoned street on the city’s worst estate, his manner puts McAvoy in mind of a country laird, opening the great double doors of a stately home.
‘Jack Raycroft,’ he says, offering McAvoy a liver-spotted but firm hand. He gives Helen Tremberg the same courtesy and then nods again. ‘Bad business,’ he says. His accent is local.
‘It is that,’ says McAvoy, after they’ve gone through the business of showing identification and introducing themselves.
‘Don’t know why it had to be that one,’ says Raycroft with a sigh. ‘Enough empty houses round here. Why pick one that somebody’s taken a bit of pride in, eh? It’s like pride’s the crime.’
The three of them stare at the house across the tiny street. There are few signs that up until two days ago, it had been a treasured home. It is now every bit as derelict and broken as its neighbours. The front wall is smoke- blackened, and the chipboard nailed over the broken front window has already been daubed with graffiti, a canvas of obscene drawings and spray-painted tags.
‘You’ve spoken to the uniformed officers, I understand?’
‘Yeah, yeah. Not that there was much to tell. My pal Warren was in hospital with a spot of angina. Joyce, his missus, was with their lass out in one of the villages. We were inside watching some costume thing on BBC. We heard the sirens about the same time we saw the flames. Not that we pay much attention to the sirens. You hear them all day and night round here. But they were definitely heading our way. I looked out of the window to see what was going on and there was smoke pouring out the front door opposite. Even with the smoke it was the open door that struck me first. It’s funny how your mind works, isn’t it? You just never see an open door around here. Least of all over there. They’ve been here almost as long as we have. Know better.’
Tremberg reaches into the pocket of her waterproof and pulls out a sheaf of typed papers that she had printed off before leaving the office last night. It’s a basic breakdown of the investigation so far, and is woefully short. ‘The lock was picked,’ says Tremberg, nodding, as if to congratulate herself on remembering the fact. ‘Professional job, too.’
‘Must have been,’ says Raycroft. ‘Double glazed job like that. Bought it with security in mind.’
From inside the house comes a woman’s voice. ‘Is it more police, Jack?’
He rolls his eyes at the two officers, who return his slight smile. ‘The wife,’ he says. ‘Taken it badly.’
‘I’ll bet,’ says McAvoy, nodding.
‘I’d invite you in but I think she’d get upset.’
‘We’re fine,’ says McAvoy, content to loiter on the doorstep. From the floral print on the walls of the small section of hallway he can see behind Raycroft, he imagines the living room will be a chaotic fusion of antimacassars and lace, grandchildren and wall-mounted flying ducks, and he knows instinctively that seeing all that will make him sad. He has a great admiration for people who refuse to be intimidated and refuse to move on when all common sense dictates that they should cut their losses and sell, but deep down, he knows their stand is a futile one. That when they die, the house will be flogged to whatever private company decides to clear the land and build flats for asylum seekers.
‘Odd business, isn’t it? Leaving the photographs and all that?’
McAvoy finds himself nodding politely, then realises he’s no clue what the man is talking about. ‘I’m sorry, sir?’
‘I told the uniformed chap who came yesterday. On the front lawn of the house, there was a big holdall full of all Warren and Joyce’s photographs. They kept them on the mantelpiece. I don’t know if the victim was on the rob and chucked the stuff, then went in for a kip, but at least that’s one good thing out of all this — none of their photos were ruined.’
McAvoy looks at Tremberg, who shrugs. This is news to her too.
‘Where are the photos now?’
‘I’ve got them,’ says Raycroft, matter-of-factly. ‘Picked them up off the lawn, still in the bag. I’ll give them to the daughter when she comes round. That’s OK, isn’t it?’
McAvoy turns away. Looks back at the burned-out house. Tries to work out what it might mean. Why somebody would go to the trouble of saving the family pictures before setting fire to a house with a human being on the sofa. He thinks back to what had been said the day before. About the homeowner’s daughter being pleased that her parents would now have to leave the area. For a moment, he wonders if her concerns for her parents’ safety could be enough to persuade her to light a fire at their home or whether this was all coincidence and foolishness.
‘Jack, love. Is that police?’
‘Won’t be a minute, pet,’ shouts Raycroft over his shoulder.
‘We won’t be much longer,’ says Tremberg, taking the lead while her colleague stares into the distance and runs his tongue around his mouth as if he’s chasing something.
‘Do you know who the silly bugger was yet?’ asks the old man, turning his gaze on Tremberg and surreptitiously standing a little taller, as if uncomfortable at having to look up to keep eye contact with a woman half his age. ‘Why he chose that house to fall asleep in? We heard on the news that there was a fire at Hull Royal in the burns unit and that the victim had been involved. When they took him out of here he didn’t look like he was ready to roll himself a cigarette …’
McAvoy and Tremberg exchange a glance and decide that this nice old boy deserves a little honesty.
‘The fire at the hospital was deliberately started,’ says Tremberg. ‘Somebody came onto the ward, went into his room, doused him in lighter fuel and set fire to him.’
