“I’m not sure I should be telling you this,” Stephen said, calling me on the phone on Wednesday afternoon.
“Go on,” I urged. Sam was out at work, and I had her house to myself.
“There’s been reports of another fire.”
I sat up quickly and swore, partly from the news and partly because of my still-healing ribs.
“Darren? You alright?”
“Fine,” I said, grimacing as I climbed to my feet and headed over to the bedroom to change.
No way was I sitting this one out, not when we’d advanced the case this far already. During my absence, Stephen had been given another officer to help him out with the investigation, but they hadn’t made any major breakthroughs in that time. I couldn’t fault their work since they were doing everything I would’ve, but I still itched to be a part of it and not sitting at Sam’s in my pyjamas, watching daytime TV.
“Where is it?” I asked as I dragged on a pair of work trousers.
“It’s a house, lived-in this time.”
“Dammit, is anyone hurt?”
“No, the couple who lived there got out in time, with their cats too. But this is a big step up. If their smoke detector hadn’t worked or they couldn’t get out, we could have been looking at homicide.”
“Attempted murder, aye, Jesus,” I muttered, putting the phone down briefly to finish getting changed. “Where’s this house?”
“It’s over near Rowan Wood school, y’know the one? It’s the headmaster’s house.”
I grunted in acknowledgement, stepping over to the kitchen to fill up my water bottle. Just walking around made my ribs twinge and twisting my torso or running was both a no-go. Similarly, my breathing was still heavy from my broken nose, and my face looked none too pretty with the swelling around my eyes. But I was determined that I could manage a brief drive in the car and then standing around for a while as I asked people questions. If there were any teenagers that needed tackling, I thought wryly, I’d leave that up to Stephen. He was the rugby player, anyway, not me.
“I’ll meet you there,” I told him firmly.
“Mitchell,” he groaned. “I knew this would happen if I told you, you can’t be running off-”
“I’m not running anywhere, but I am getting in the car. Ten minutes, mate.”
“Damn you, you stubborn-” he muttered.
I hung up the phone on him as I stepped out the door and checked that I had everything. I’d spent plenty of time out in Sam’s garden whilst I’d been recuperating, but I hadn’t been out the front door in several days. I’d slid on sunglasses to hide the worst of my bruising, which wasn’t exactly comfortable resting on my nose, but it was better than the stares, I thought.
Sam’s car took up the drive, so mine stayed on the pavement, and I walked gingerly over to it and climbed in, immediately sweating at the heat inside. Blasting the air con, I got the car started up and drove myself over to Rowan Wood school, trusting that I’d know exactly which house Stephen had meant once I got there.
Small things like changing gear, holding my arms up to grip the wheel, and the light pressure of the seatbelt against my chest were all uncomfortable and reminded me that I really did still have a lot of healing up to do. Regardless, I was out of the house now, and it wasn’t long before I pulled up close to the house fire, the smoke of which was visible from streets away.
Stephen was already there when I arrived and didn’t look best pleased to see me.
“You look awful.”
“I know.” I grinned, giving a half-shrug that made me wince. “What’s been going on? Have the teenagers been caught?”
Stephen gave me a long look to express his disapproval of me being here before he relented and answered my questions. We walked slowly towards the scene, ducking under the police tape as he filled me in.
“No, the kids weren’t caught. The fire wasn’t called in until they were long gone. The headmaster and his wife who live at the place have been carted off to the hospital for smoke inhalation, but they seemed otherwise okay when I saw them.”
“Thank god for that.”
“I don’t know if they actually saw the teens, but I’d guess not. The kids probably set it and ran.”
“Efficient,” I said bitterly. “Did they set it on two sides of the house this time?”
“I haven’t been able to grab a fireman to talk to yet. We’ll have to ask.”
“Is the fire out?”
“Pretty much, I’d say.”
We’d gotten as close to the smoking house as we could and stood looking up at it. It seemed like a too-perfect day for something like this to be happening, the sky bright blue behind the burnt house, and the heat of the fire made me sweat under my chest bandages. The house itself was mostly intact thanks to the firefighters’ quick work, but showed significant damage on the left side that’d probably be painfully expensive to repair. And the house itself was nice enough, but it wasn’t anything so flashy that I thought the owners were rolling in money. A headmaster probably got paid pretty well, I thought, but this would put a dent in most people’s pockets and their lives.
“You think the insurance will shell out?” I mused.
“I’d ruddy hope so. They’re crooks if they don’t.”
I made a noise of agreement as I looked up at the ruined house. The small front garden was neatly maintained, though much of it had wilted in the fire’s heat, and it seemed particularly poignant somehow to see how it’d gotten covered in ash and trodden on by the firefighters as they put the flames out.
“We need to know why the headmaster and his wife were targeted specifically,” I said, leaning my hip tentatively against a nearby garden wall. “Do we know what she does for
