Rose shook her head. “No – I don’t know. It wasn’t a brigade uniform. I’d have seen that instantly. This was something else, almost like a mock-up of a real uniform. But wait – Say he has a grudge, this guy, against firefighters. Or maybe not just firefighters, but the whole brigade. Look at the dates of the fires, from the first one. When was the last hiring take-up?”
“Jesus.” Farrell rubbed at his beard furiously, as if it had caught a cinder. “You think this guy might have been a rejected applicant? And you think you’d recognize him, if you saw him again?”
Rose nodded once.
“Right,” muttered Farrell, half to himself. Then he grasped Rose by the shoulder. “We’ll go to the station, pull the entire brigade files if we have to. Jake, can you oversee the forensics team when they get here?” He turned to Kincaid. “And, Duncan, I still don’t see where the Southwark Street body fits into this, but if Rose is right, Bryan Simms’s death is a homicide. Can you-”
But Kincaid’s phone was ringing, and he excused himself, turning away as he unclipped it from his belt.
When he answered, Konnie Mueller said, “Bingo.”
“Sorry, Konnie – what was that?”
“I said ‘Bingo,’ mate.” Konnie sounded tired but jubilant. “One out of three is not bad. You’ve got a match on all points. Your Jane Doe is – or was – Laura Novak.”
16
…a being, erect upon two legs, and bearing all the outward semblance of a man, and not of a monster…
CHARLES DICKENS
KINCAID FELT A growing unease as he returned to Borough High Street Station. They’d made progress, with the discovery that Bryan Simms’s death was a possible homicide, and the positive identification of Laura Novak as the victim in the Southwark Street fire, but he couldn’t shake the sense that he was missing something crucial, and that his time was running out.
He’d taken what action he could, leaving the search for the arsonist in the capable hands of Bill Farrell and Rose, and mobilizing every resource in the search for Harriet Novak and Elaine Holland, but now he had to face giving Tony Novak the news about his ex-wife.
He’d had Novak brought into the interview room where they had spoken the previous day. The man looked a bit more tidy this morning, clean-shaven and dressed in a pressed shirt and chinos, but more hollow-eyed and gaunt than ever.
Cullen had rung while Kincaid was at the fire scene, saying he was still trying to trace Chloe Yarwood and Nigel Trevelyan, so Maura Bell would be assisting with the interview.
“Is there some news about Harriet?” demanded Tony as soon as Kincaid and Maura had taken their seats.
“No, we’ve heard nothing about your daughter,” Kincaid said, unwilling to keep him in suspense any longer than necessary. “But I have to tell you that Laura is dead. I’m sorry.”
“Laura?” Tony sounded shocked, but it seemed to Kincaid that there was the slightest easing of tension in the man’s body, as if the news had been expected. “But why – How did you-”
“We informed you yesterday that we were going to search your ex-wife’s house, Mr. Novak,” said Bell. “Her DNA sample matched that of the victim of the warehouse fire.”
“Dear God,” Tony whispered, blanching. “That fire… Laura… I can’t-”
“We think she was already dead when the fire started, if that’s any comfort,” Kincaid told him. “She didn’t suffer from the burns.”
“But who would – You don’t think Beth-”
“What time did Beth – Elaine Holland – leave you on Thursday evening?”
“It wasn’t late. Before ten, I think.”
Was it possible, Kincaid wondered, that Elaine had left Tony’s flat, somehow lured Laura to the warehouse, killed her, then returned to Fanny’s in time to watch the ten o’clock news without a speck of blood on her? And what would she have done with Laura’s clothes? She had no car, and she couldn’t possibly have walked out of the search area in that time. Nor did that explain the fire.
“Why would she do such a thing?” Tony asked.
“I don’t think she did.” Maura leaned towards Tony as if inviting a confidence. “I think Laura found out what you meant to do. I think she left Harriet with the sitter and came to confront you. You argued. Things got out of control. Maybe you didn’t mean to kill her, but she was dead, and you had to dispose of the body. You took her to the warehouse, stripped her of any identification, then set the place alight. Then you drove out of London and dumped her clothes.”
Tony stared at her as if she’d gone utterly daft. “I live in Borough High Street, for God’s sake. How am I supposed to have carried Laura’s body out to my car without anyone noticing?”
“Wrapped in something, of course,” retorted Maura. “People carry rubbish out all the time, and no one thinks anything of it.”
“That’s bollocks, and you know it.” Tony had begun to let his temper show, and Kincaid had to give Maura credit for knowing how to wind up a suspect. Wearing a black leather coat and a bright blue sweater this morning, she looked tough and surprisingly sexy. He sat back, content to let her play bad cop for the moment.
“Okay,” she said, and smiled, but before Tony could relax, she dived at him again like a pecking gull. “Maybe Laura didn’t find you out, but you were afraid she would. Maybe you tried earlier on Thursday to get the passport, and a neighbor saw you. You knew it was only a matter of time before Laura heard you’d been in the house, and then she’d never let you get your hands on Harriet. So you lured her to the warehouse-”
“You think Laura would have agreed to meet me in a deserted building?” Tony shook his head in disgust. “You really are daft.”
“I didn’t say she agreed to meet you. I think you needed Elaine Holland’s help for more than one thing. You got Elaine to call Laura that night, pretending to be an abused woman who needed her help. You knew that was the one appeal she couldn’t resist.”
“No,” said Tony, but he was beginning to look frightened.
“That would explain why Laura left Harriet with the sitter – perhaps she thought she’d have to bring this distressed woman back to her own house.
“Of course you didn’t tell Elaine you meant to kill Laura,” continued Maura, her eyes alight with conviction. “She came to help you with Harriet on Friday morning, just as you’d agreed. Then, when she learned about the fire and the body, she realized what had happened. That’s why she took Harriet, to keep her safe from you.”
It was good, Kincaid admitted, inspired, even. But there was one problem with Bell’s scenario. He didn’t believe it.
There were too many gaps. It didn’t explain what Chloe Yarwood had been doing at the warehouse that night, or what had happened to her. It didn’t explain Elaine Holland’s strange and secretive behavior with Fanny, or how she could have managed to disappear with a ten-year-old child without leaving a trace. Why, if she had believed Tony guilty of murder, had she not come to the police?
Nor did it leave a place for Rose Kearny’s arsonist, unless that fire had not been part of the pattern – and yet it fit too well. After last night’s blaze, he was convinced that Rose was right and they were dealing with a serial arsonist.
And then there was Gemma. Kincaid had learned to trust Gemma’s instincts, and Gemma didn’t believe Tony Novak was a murderer.
Tony turned to Kincaid with a look of desperate appeal. “Tell her. Tell her it’s not true. I’d never have hurt Laura.”
“I’m sorry, Tony,” Kincaid said with genuine sympathy. “We have to follow up every possibility. Our forensics
