Downie looked up and smiled. ‘If that were the case, the glass would be sooted on the interior surface. It isn’t, which implies it must have been broken either in the early stages of the fire — or before it started.’
‘You mean a point of entry?’
‘Could be. I took samples anyway. But you might want to get that window examined for fingerprints or tool marks before the evidence is compromised any further.’
‘You don’t have to tell me my job.’
Downie just sniffed, as if she wasn’t even worth a reply.
Fry glared at the back of his head as he continued to lay out his equipment. Looking around for someone to give instructions to, she caught sight of the fire officer standing in the doorway, grinning.
At that moment, her phone rang. It was the sergeant in charge of the search team.
‘I thought you’d want to know straightaway, we’ve found an empty lighter fluid can. It’s butane, but quite an unusual brand, I believe. It looks like someone found a use for a hundred millilitres of Swan Extra Refined recently.’
‘Where did you find it? How near the house?’
‘It had been chucked in a wheelie bin a hundred yards down the street, near the corner of Lilac Avenue. The householder says no one at this address smokes, and she has no idea how the can got in her bin. She insists it wasn’t there on Sunday when she last put some rubbish out.’
‘You’ve got it bagged properly?’
‘You bet.’
‘Thanks.’
Fry ended the call and turned back to Downie. ‘Show me this side window,’ she said.
He sighed and stood up. Together, they made their way out of the house and into a side passage near the garage. Brian Mullen’s car still stood on the drive. It was a red Citroen, almost the same colour as the fire appliances that had surrounded it on Sunday night.
‘OK,’ sighed Downie. ‘Look, you have plumes of soot deposited on the exterior wall by smoke emitted from the window. But the broken glass on the ground beneath the window is unsooted. So, we can conclude that the fire didn’t touch this glass.’
‘Yes, I see.’
‘Even from here, I can see tool marks on the window frame,’ said Downie. ‘You might care to check whether the firefighters obtained entry this way.’
‘They didn’t. They came in through the doors.’
‘Right.’ Downie turned to look at her. ‘Pity about the shoe impressions, though.’
‘What shoe impressions?’
‘Precisely.’
Fry looked at the ground where they were standing. It was a muddy mess, covered in crushed vegetation and trampled by size ten boots.
‘Shit.’
Downie shrugged. ‘Think yourself lucky to get this much. The site of any fire is a challenge to the principles of crime-scene management.’
‘If the lab finds butane in your samples, it won’t be up to me any longer anyway, lucky or otherwise,’ said Fry. ‘It becomes a murder enquiry.’
‘I know, I know.’
Fry felt herself getting angry. ‘Three people died in this fire. The evidence mustn’t be compromised.’
‘I can assure you, Sergeant Fry, everything will be done by the book.’
Fry looked at the rest of the houses in the street. A few neighbours were clustered outside the cordon. By the book, eh? That was all she needed, some civilian lecturing her about procedure. She knew what ‘by the book’ meant.
She also knew the principles Downie was referring to: protect, record and recover. Crime-scene examiners said that contamination only really occurred after the scene had been preserved. Anything before that was normal procedure.
But in this case, procedures had involved smashing down the doors and flooding the place with water, then sending in firefighters in big boots to trample the sodden evidence. Well, the principles still applied. As long as compromises were recorded and reasons given.
‘By the way,’ called Downie, passing the RV point on the way to his vehicle, ‘the usual advice is not to fit a smoke alarm in the kitchen. Steam and cooking fumes can set it off too easily. For a two-storey house like this, the bottom of the staircase is the best location, with a second one on the landing as an extra precaution.’
‘I’ll be sure to let Mr Mullen know,’ said Fry.
‘Who?’
‘The householder. The husband of the dead woman, the father of the two dead children. He’s in hospital right now, but I’m sure he’ll be pleased to know that he installed the smoke alarm in the wrong place. I bet it’s the information he’s been waiting to hear.’
Downie scowled, and seemed about to lose his temper. ‘I’m just doing my job,’ he snapped.
‘So you said.’
She watched him stamp off in his scene suit, like an angry paper bag.
It wasn’t much of a moral victory, though. Fry knew how much she relied on people like Downie following procedures to the letter. If she didn’t have a watertight chain of custody when evidence was presented in court, it could undermine the whole case.
Now the scene was filling up with personnel. Scientific Support had allocated a couple of SOCOs, who’d waited for Downie to arrive from the lab at Chorley. And the two civilians she could see approaching the outer cordon looked as though they might be the insurance assessors. Great.
Fry tried to look on the bright side. This would make a good impression on her next personal development review. It was real team work.
Brian Mullen’s hands were still bandaged, and he fumbled a bit taking off the radio headphones when he saw his visitor coming. From the look on his face, Fry thought he was going to leap out of bed and make a run for it. The ward sister had said yesterday that he’d been so frightened he’d fought against being kept in hospital. But what was he frightened of? Not her, surely.
‘How are you getting on, Mr Mullen?’ she asked, pulling a chair up to the side of his bed.
‘Oh, not too bad,’ he said warily. ‘You’re the police, are you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Everyone’s been very good to me. A vicar came round. And there was a counsellor, to see if I needed help.’
Now the pinkness in his cheeks had subsided, Mullen looked very pale. He had the sort of narrow, angular face and waxy skin that she’d only ever seen in Englishmen and some Scandinavians. His voice sounded hoarse from the effects of smoke inhalation, and he reached for a glass of water standing on the bedside cabinet. He had to hold the glass carefully between the tips of his fingers because the bandages got in the way.
‘I hope the hospital have managed to keep the press away, sir,’ said Fry.
‘The press? I never even thought about them.’ Mullen looked suddenly panicked. ‘You’ve got to talk to the doctors. Tell them they have to let me go home. I need to get out of here.’
‘You’re much better here for now, sir. You’ll be able to leave when you’re fit. Meanwhile, we need to talk to you about what happened at your house.’
‘I’ve already given a statement, you know.’
‘An initial statement, yes. But that was only the start of our enquiries. There are a lot more questions to be asked.’
Mullen lay back on his pillows and sighed. ‘Oh God, I suppose it’s necessary.’
‘If we’re going to find out what happened, it is.’
‘Tell me something, though — is Luanne all right?’
‘Your daughter, sir?’
‘Yes. Is she safe?’
‘She’s with your in-laws. There’s no need to worry about her. Why shouldn’t she be safe?’
