Choked

6

The firefighters had all but finished and the cottage had burned itself down to charred, smoking remains. A charcoal-blackened skeleton with the life blazed out of it. Detective Sergeant Jessica James stared at it, hand over her eyes, squinting against the sun.

She had been briefed on the way from Ipswich. Holidaying copper and his family. Explosion. Fire. Probably a faulty gas supply, but maybe not.

‘Proceed with caution,’ her DCI had said. ‘One of our own, remember. Even if they’re not local.’

‘Brothers under the skin and all that,’ she had replied.

He had nodded. ‘Just be thorough. That’s all.’

And she would be. Probably nothing, just an unfortunate accident.

But …

A copper. Retribution? A villain nursing a bitter grudge against the guy who’d put him away, something like that? Fanciful, she would have said. The cliched stuff of desperate TV cop dramas. That would never happen in real life. Not round here.

But then if she’d been asked a few years ago whether a sexually sadistic serial killer could terrorise Ipswich and get away with murdering five sex workers, she would have said the same. A cliched TV cop show. Not in real life. Not round here. But it had happened. And she had no intention of being the one getting caught out if something like that happened again.

She ran her fingers through her hair, shook her head. Mentally blowing the cobwebs away. If she had known she was coming to work today, she wouldn’t have gone out drinking with the girls last night. Because those couple of drinks had turned into a couple more. Then a couple more. Then a curry, a half-remembered, slurry phone call home to say she’d be late, don’t wait up, then … what? Tiger Tiger? Dancing with some bloke? Flirting? Finally tumbling into bed at God knew what hour.

And now this. Called back in to work, her weekend off cancelled, and sent up to Aldeburgh. Knocking back mints, paracetamol and Evian all the way.

She crossed to a man giving orders to uniforms. Small, neatly dressed and holding a clipboard, he looked and acted like an Apprentice contestant focused on giving a hundred and ten per cent. More of a Sugary hopeful than a detective constable. But that was exactly what Deepak Shah was and it irritated her more than she let on.

‘What have we got, Deepak?’

Hearing her voice, he turned. ‘Early days, ma’am, but it looks like the fire started in the living room,’ he said, pointing helpfully to the front of the cottage. ‘We’ve got a couple of eyewitnesses say it was an explosion. Then it looks like the fire spread to the rest of the cottage.’

‘Any survivors?’

He nodded. ‘Only one dead. The father, it seems.’ He checked his clipboard. ‘He was in the room where the blast happened. Caught most of it. Died instantly. Two are critical. And there was one outside. She tried to get back in. That car stopped her.’ He pointed to a burnt-out wreck parked outside the cottage. ‘Explosion knocked her back. They’ve all been taken to the General in Ipswich.’

Jessica James nodded and tried not to let her irritation at Deepak’s organisation show. ‘Wasn’t there something about a baby?’

Deepak turned to her. The usual fussiness and officiousness were absent from his eyes. In their place was the professionalism she expected from her team, and something else as well. A kind of compassionate determinism. And that, she realised, was why she put up with him.

He shook his head. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘No sign.’

‘But there was definitely a baby there?’

‘Little girl,’ he said. ‘They booked a kid’s bed from the letting agency, for a three-year-old. We found some stuff, couple of toys, clothes, not much though. Might be a baby buggy in there.’ He pointed to the ruin once more. Three blue-suited people were making their way inside, stepping carefully. ‘Firefighters and forensics are still looking it over.’

‘Hope they’re careful,’ she said. ‘Mind what they’re standing on.’

Deepak didn’t reply.

Jessica James’s eye was drawn by an approaching car. It pulled up to the crime-scene tape that had been stretched across the gravel road that led down to the cottage. A uniform was standing there, stopping the car from going any further. It came to a halt and the driver emerged. Tall, burly, cropped head, dressed in a plaid shirt and jeans and seemingly uncomfortable in leisurewear, she noticed. He held something up and the uniform let him pass. He walked towards them. Jessica waited until he drew up next to her.

‘And you are?’ she said.

He held up his warrant card once more. ‘Detective Sergeant Michael Philips,’ he said.

‘Detective Sergeant Jessica James.’

They shook hands.

‘Major Incident Squad,’ he said, ‘Essex Police.’

Jessica raised her eyebrows. ‘MIS? You’re a bit off your patch, aren’t you? Is this a major incident?’

He nodded. Sighed, and some of the stiffness of his manner left him. ‘Yeah. I’m not here officially.’ He pointed to the cottage. Grimaced. ‘That was my boss in there.’

‘Never mind the was, Detective … what did you say?’

‘Philips,’ he said. ‘Mickey. And his missus. Marina. She’s a psychologist. One of our team too.’

‘Right. Mickey. Is your boss the younger one? There was a father and son.’

Mickey nodded.

‘Then don’t say was. He’s still alive.’

Mickey nodded again, clearly unconvinced.

Jessica decided to change the subject. If he had come to help, he would be no good in this state. ‘So why are you here?’ she asked.

‘I just thought … ’ He shrugged. ‘Just wondered if you could do with some help. It’s my day off.’

‘Join the club,’ she said, the ghost of a smile on her face.

‘Well, anything I can do … ’

She looked at him. He was a bull of a man. Muscular, physical. More like a rugby player or a boxer. But there was a softness to his eyes. An intelligence and compassion that Jessica found appealing. Very appealing.

‘Well … ’ It was her turn to shrug. ‘More the merrier, I suppose. You can fill us in on your boss. Phil Brennan?’

Mickey nodded.

She smiled. ‘Welcome aboard.’

Mickey was introduced to Deepak Shah and shook hands, but any further conversation was cut short by the approach of a blue-suited forensic officer. Jessica turned to him.

‘Well? Anything?’

‘No kid,’ he said. ‘We’ll look in more detail, of course, but there’s nothing there to indicate that a child was in that blast. Unless, you know … ’

‘Unless it was right at the centre, I know,’ said Jessica, swallowing hard. ‘Well keep looking.’

‘We will. It’s early days, but we think we’ve identified the area in the cottage where the blast originated from.’

‘Cooker? Fire?’ asked Jessica.

The forensic officer shook his head. ‘Neither, we don’t think.’

A shiver ran through Jessica. ‘You mean it was started deliberately?’

‘Let’s keep an open mind,’ he said, and walked away.

Suddenly the desperate, cliched plot of a TV cop drama didn’t sound so ridiculous after all.