blood thrown up by the electric saw. The table had a perforated, channelled stainless-steel top, pipes at each corner running down to drains in the industrial-grade linoleum floor. A hose dribbled water as Freya Berg cut into the body. Above her, dazzle-free lamps. Extractor fans hummed in the ceiling, ready to take away the stupefying odour of the stomach contents and internal organs.
Freya said:
‘Most fire victims die of smoke inhalation. Their bodies will be intact and recognisable, although some may reveal surface burns, particularly to the hands and face. In these instances the evidence is all there in the lungs. If there is little smoke residue in the lungs, then look for another obvious cause, such as failure of the heart. The most surprising subjects may succumb to heart failure under extreme stress. But this-this one’s, shall we say, been cooked.’
Together Freya and her assistant began to turn the body on the cutting table. Two patches of oily white colour in the blackness of the upper arm and the hip stopped them.
The assistant photographed the black flank of the body, and then Freya teased the fabric away with tweezers. ‘Ah. Cotton, I believe. A nightdress? T-shirt? She was lying on her side when the flames finally reached her.’
They completed turning the body over. Freya began to cut.
The student assistant grew agitated. ‘Epidural haemorrhage, Dr Berg,’ she said. ‘Bone fractures. Like she’s been beaten up.’
The pathologist smiled tolerantly. ‘Looks like it, doesn’t it? But don’t jump to conclusions. Haemorrhaging and bone fractures are one result of extreme heat.’
Challis stepped forward, still holding the Vicks under his nose. ‘So you’re saying she simply burnt to death.’
‘Preliminary finding only, Hal. I haven’t finished yet.’
‘I have,’ Challis said, and he pushed through the door to where the air was breathable.
Boyd had come to her in the early hours of the morning, smelling of soot and sweat and smoke, with a kind of snarling hunger for her body. ‘We fucked like rabbits.’ It was a phrase from twenty years ago, when she was a student, and each new affair started like that, hot and greedy, so you barely paused for breath. She hadn’t thought she’d ever find that level of intensity again.
But now it was lunchtime and she had clients to see. Boyd lay sprawled on his stomach. He looked beautiful- if streaked with soot. A nice neat backside, nice legs and a tapering back, but God, the smell-stale sweat, smoke and cum and her own contribution. She’d had to scrub herself in the shower. He’d be gone when she got back tonight. She’d have to wash the sheets and pillowcases and air the house. She had a beautiful house, and the clash between it and what Boyd Jolic represented never failed to puzzle and excite her.
Pam Murphy found the Tank in the canteen. ‘I’ve just seen van Alphen. He wants us to doorknock Quarterhorse Lane. Seems no-one knows anything about the woman who got burnt last night.’
Tankard forked rice into his mouth and chewed consideringly. ‘But Van knows her.’
‘Does he?’
‘Yeah. He went round there a few times. Her mailbox got burnt. He knows her.’
‘There’s knowing and there’s knowing.’
‘Oh, very deep, Murph. You must come from a family of brains or something.’
‘Look, the fact that van Alphen saw her when her mailbox got burnt doesn’t mean he knows where she came from or who her family is. That’s what we have to find out.’
Tankard scraped up the dregs from his plate. ‘I’m sure you’re right.’
Pam drove. Beside her, Tankard was racked with yawns.
‘I was directing traffic last night. Didn’t even go home. Showered and changed at the station. God I’m buggered.’
And I’m not, Pam thought. I worked through the night too, but that doesn’t count. ‘What do you think?’ she asked. ‘Was it accidental?’
Tankard shrugged. ‘Couldn’t say. They reckon it started in the kitchen.’
A short time later, as they turned into Quarterhorse Lane, Pam leaned forward to stare and said, ‘What’s going on?’
At least a dozen cars were parked along the fenceline on both sides of Quarterhorse Lane, restricting traffic to one narrow strip of corrugated, potholed dirt.
‘Gawkers,’ said Tankard contemptuously. ‘Ghouls.’
As they approached the ruin, they saw people with cameras. Twice, at least, Pam thought, their van was photographed as it passed along the avenue of cars and turned into the driveway of the burnt house. Tankard wound down his window and shouted, ‘Haven’t you people got anything better to do?’
‘It’s a free country.’
Pam wound down her window. ‘Move along please, or you’ll be arrested for obstruction.’
‘Police harassment.’
‘Yeah, I love you too,’ Pam muttered, following the driveway between small scorched cypress bushes. ‘God, they’re in here, too.’
Two women were aiming their cameras at a CFA volunteer, who was wearing his full fire-fighting kit. He was grinning, his overalls a streak of vivid yellow against the charred beams and blackened roofing iron.
A man wearing fireproof boots, grey trousers, a white shirt and a hardhat stepped out of the ruin. He was carrying a clipboard. ‘It’s like the Bourke Street Mall here.’ He cast a contemptuous look at the CFA volunteer. ‘Bloody cowboys.’
Pam read the ID clipped to the man’s belt. He was a fire brigade inspector. ‘We’ll clear everyone away, sir.’
‘Thanks. I actually caught someone nicking souvenirs earlier. This woman, could be your old granny, nicking ceramic dolls from out of the ashes.’
‘Sir, did you find anything to tell us who the victim was? Any papers, deed box, wall safe, anything at all?’
‘Not a thing,’ the fire inspector said.
Going home from work on his trailbike, bumping down Quarterhorse Lane at two o’clock in the arvo for a quick gawk at the house that got burnt, gave Danny an idea. All those cars, all those people with nothing better to do, people he knew… Well, if they were here, looking at the burnt house, they weren’t home in their own houses, now, were they?
‘Was that young Danny Holsinger?’
‘It was.’
‘Up to no good.’
‘Bet on it,’ Pam said.
‘I’ll radio it in, ask the others to keep an eye open.’
Pam turned right, away from the cars of the gawkers, and drove for one third of a kilometre to the next driveway, which took them to a large wooden structure shaped like a pergola. A sign said, ‘Tasting Room.’
‘Good wine here,’ Tankard said.
Pam stared at him. Had he liked the wine or had he simply liked the drinking? A woman came around the side of the building. She wore overalls and carried a small stepladder.
‘You’ve come about the fire?’
‘Yes.’
‘There’s not much I can tell you. We decided to evacuate, just in case. Didn’t come back till this
