10
A camera flashed as they picked their way into the hallway where crime scene investigators were doing their bit. Tim Stanton looked up from the body as they walked through the door, greeting them with a nod. The house hardly resembled a house at all. Everything was black and smouldering, the air heavy with the nauseating stench of burning flesh – like barbequed meat left on too long. Ceiling tiles had caught fire, melted and dropped down igniting furniture below. There was a gaping hole above their heads and the sky could be seen where the roof once was. A body, unrecognisable as man or woman, was lying on what was left of the staircase, beaten back by the flames, its hand fused to the metal pin securing the charred remains of a banister.
Another volley of shots from the CSI camera.
Beneath her mask, Daniels tried to breathe. It was like a manifestation from hell. She’d seen enough death and destruction for one day. But as horrific as the scene facing her was, the accident she’d come from had been much worse. Dead bodies were dead bodies, whereas people alive and in pain really got to her. She could avoid the eyes of a corpse, but never those of the living. Helplessness in a situation like that was what kept her awake at night.
Psychologically wrung out, she stared at the body on the stairs, her mind drifting back to the RTA. One casualty, Bridget McCabe, a pretty girl of about eighteen, had clung on to her, begging her to ring her dad, himself a policeman on nightshift. Though the DCI didn’t know the officer personally, it made her feel sick to think of him going about his business not knowing his daughter had come to harm.
In her years in the force, she was used to dealing with the fallout from major road accidents. But somehow it seemed more personal because this was a fellow officer’s child. As Bridget was finally lifted into an ambulance, she’d contacted Hexham station to break news of the accident to Sergeant McCabe, hoping his daughter would make it to hospital.
11
When she got home, Daniels stripped off her clothes at the front door. She carried them straight to the laundry room, dumped them in the washing machine and set it to a hot cycle. Then she walked upstairs to the shower, keen to wash away the muck and the grime from her body, wishing she could do the same thing to the images in her head. Had her mother still been alive, she’d most probably have called her for a sympathetic ear. She always did that whenever she felt unwell or down or just pissed off. Sadly that was no longer an option.
As the water pulsed from the shower, Daniels checked the diver’s watch her mother had bought for her thirtieth birthday. Six-thirty a.m. She needed to get a wriggle on: a quick change of clothes, a coffee to go, and then a race back to the Murder Incident Room before the troops arrived – an opportunity to get her shit together on the drive into town.
As she stepped from the shower, her landline rang. That would be Gormley checking on her. Something he’d done frequently in the past few months, aware she had no one at home to offload on after a day like today. He was a little over-protective sometimes.
The phone stopped ringing.
Daniels hated living alone. Her former partner, Jo Soulsby, had moved on and so must she. That was easier said than done when the woman was the department’s Criminal Profiler, still part of her world, working alongside her, eating in the same bate room – tantalizingly close and yet a million miles away.
The phone rang again.
Gormley was such a softie.
He knew all about her nonexistent love life and the reasons behind it. He seemed to know when she was feeling rough and tried his best to comfort her. Once or twice he’d gone too far, attempting to play Cupid between her and Jo, interfering in matters that didn’t concern him. Smiling, Daniels dried her hands, threw herself on her bed and picked up.
‘I’m fine, Hank. But thanks for asking . . .’
A woman’s voice came on the line, one she didn’t recognize.
‘Am I speaking to DCI Kate Daniels?’
‘You are.’ Daniels’ stomach tightened.
‘My apologies, I thought you might have been someone else.’ Palming her forehead, Daniels listened. ‘Yes. Yes I did . . . OK, no, I didn’t know her personally. Yes, tragic . . . Thank you for taking the trouble to call.’
Replacing the handset gently on its charger, a sob caught Daniels’ throat.
Bridget McCabe hadn’t made it.