Scared to Live

‘We believe the fire started in the sitting room. It must have been obvious when you entered the house that the smoke was coming from there. Are you quite sure you didn’t go into the sitting room, or even touch the sitting- room door?’

‘Yes, I’m sure.’

Mullen was starting to look sulky and irritable. Fry gave Cooper a look that told him to take over for a while.

‘Do you smoke, sir?’ asked Cooper.

‘No.’

‘What about your wife? I’m sorry to ask — ’

‘No, Lindsay didn’t smoke either. I can see what you’re driving at, but we both agreed not to smoke a long time ago, for the sake of the kids. Passive smoking is very damaging to young children. Their air passages are so small they breathe in far more smoke than an adult would.’

‘I see. What about other members of your family?’

‘There’s only John who’s ever smoked. But he knows not to when he’s in our house …’

‘… for the sake of the kids, yes,’ said Fry.

Cooper consulted the notes Fry had given him. ‘John? That would be John Lowther, your brother-in-law?’

‘Yes.’

Fry noticed a nurse hovering in the background. ‘We’ll let you rest now, Mr Mullen. I realize you’ve had a terrible ordeal, and we appreciate your time and co-operation.’

‘It’s OK. Obviously, I want to help. I mean, it was my wife and kids who got killed in that fire. If some bastard — ’

Fry stood up. ‘I understand. Well, until we speak again, Mr Mullen, I’d like you to see if you can remember who else you spoke to that night at the Forester’s Arms and at the Broken Wheel, and the names of everyone who was there that you knew.’

‘What?’

‘Well, think about it, sir. If that fire was started deliberately, it might have been done by someone who knew that you’d be out of the house at the time. Someone who’d seen you partying at the Broken Wheel with your friend Jed, perhaps.’

Mullen nodded silently.

‘Still can’t think of anyone?’

‘No.’

‘Well, we’ll keep making enquiries.’

‘You’ve talked to Henry and Moira as well, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, I visited them the day before yesterday.’

‘Why did you have to bother them? They’re devastated about Lindsay and the children. We all are.’

‘There might be some detail that Mr and Mrs Lowther have noticed. A person they’ve seen near your house, for example.’

Mullen’s expression darkened further. ‘You’re not letting go of this idea that the fire was started deliberately?’

‘No, we’re not letting go of it, Mr Mullen,’ said Fry. ‘Is there some reason that you think we should?’

‘I just don’t see how it’s possible.’

‘We’ll know that better when we get the results of the forensic examination.’

His shoulders sagged at the mention of forensics. Sometimes, the word seemed to carry a symbolic power, as if it was a scientific magic that human beings were helpless to challenge. And perhaps that was right. Forensic evidence could kick-start a process that was impossible to stop until the criminal justice juggernaut had crushed everyone in its way.

‘Leave me alone,’ he said. ‘Leave us alone. Someone has got to look after Luanne.’

‘I thought you were a bit rough on Mr Mullen,’ said Cooper as they left the hospital and walked to the car park.

‘Yes, I was. And wouldn’t you have expected him to complain a bit more?’

‘But if he had complained more, then you’d be saying he protested too much, and that was a sure sign of guilt.’

Fry laughed. ‘Look, you know the husband is by far the likeliest candidate in a case like this.’

‘Statistically speaking, yes.’

‘So we have to look at him thoroughly. There shouldn’t be any question of letting him get away with conflicting statements, just because he’s supposed to be the grieving husband.’

‘Conflicting statements?’

‘Yes, like when “out with mates” suddenly becomes just one mate when he’s pressed. It sounds to me as if good old Jed is the only mate Mr Mullen actually had lined up for an alibi. He had to change his story when he was asked for names. Not enough attention to detail, you see.’

‘Diane, you’ve got him well and truly in the frame already, haven’t you?’

‘We’ll see. What’s the betting there are a few more little details Mr Mullen hasn’t paid enough attention to?’

‘You’ve given him a chance to work out his story now, though. You warned him you were going to ask for more names.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Well, if Mr Mullen wasn’t at the Broken Wheel that night, he wouldn’t be able to make up names off the top of his head, would he? So shouldn’t we have asked him right there and then?’

‘My guess is he’d have said he couldn’t remember. And if I tried pushing him, I’d look like a heartless bitch.’

‘True.’

‘And Mr Mullen would have got all stressed, and a doctor would have come and kicked us out.’

‘So …?’

‘So this way, I’ve done the caring and considerate bit and given him time to think about it while he’s recovering from his injuries. If I’ve judged him right, the longer he has to think about it, the more anxious he’ll get. Then he’ll start trying to think up something to give us when we come back. That’s where he’ll go wrong.’

‘Diane, I wouldn’t have believed it possible, but I think you’re getting more devious than ever.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You really think these tactics will work on Brian Mullen?’

‘Yes. Don’t you?’

‘Only if he’s guilty.’

For once, Keith Wade wasn’t out in his garden supervising operations in Darwin Street. Not that there was much to see now, apart from the tent, a few metres of tape outside number 32, and a different member of the chorus from Pirates rehearsing his act at the gate.

Cooper had to ring the bell of Wade’s house for several minutes before there was a thumping on the stairs in the hallway and the door opened. Wade glared at Cooper, then recognized Fry standing behind him.

‘What’s happened?’ he said. ‘What’s the panic?’

He was unshaven and bleary-eyed, dressed in tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt that looked as though it had just been thrown on. Well, at least he didn’t sleep in the woolly sweater. And he hadn’t said ‘where’s the fire?’, which might have seemed tasteless.

‘Sorry, did we wake you up, sir?’ said Fry.

‘Yes, I told you — I do late shifts.’

‘We won’t keep you long. This is my colleague, DC Cooper.’

Wade glanced up and down the street. ‘You’d better come in a minute.’

His house was pretty much what she would have expected from a divorced man living on his own. Stale smells of cooking and body odour, mingling with cigarette smoke. He had to move piles of newspapers off chairs to let them sit down, and one glimpse of the kitchen told Fry that its condition wouldn’t compare to Lindsay Mullen’s, even after a disastrous fire.

‘Yes, of course I remember Brian arriving that night,’ said Wade when she prompted him. ‘How is he, by the