30
They left the station and headed out to Daniels’ Toyota. Naylor was very quiet as they drove off. She wondered if the press conference scheduled for later was bothering him, an appeal for witnesses to the A1 crash. Or maybe the possible amalgamation of the Durham and Northumbria forces, a report on which had landed in her in-tray that morning.
What bright spark thought that one up?
If implemented, it would affect them both, scuppering his plans to return to the Durham force as Chief Constable one day, the reason he’d made the sideways move to Northumbria in the first place. It would diminish her own chances of promotion too. Right now, though, she didn’t have the time or the inclination to indulge that thought.
‘You’re not going to like this, Kate.’ He turned in his seat to face her. ‘I’m having second thoughts about you running the A1 incident. I think you should step away from it, you and Hank both. I vote we split the squad up. You two stay on the arson with Robson. I’ll act as SIO on the A1 incident with Carmichael, Maxwell and Brown.’
‘Hank won’t like that.’
Daniels meant she wouldn’t. She’d like to run both incidents herself. Already she was beginning to regret involving him. If he got a feel for the hands-on approach, knowing Naylor, he’d get used to it. Friends or not, she didn’t want him to cramp her style.
As she glanced sideways, he turned his head away.
He knew she was rattled.
‘I’m afraid Hank will have to lump it, Kate.’ He stared out of the side window, avoiding her eyes. ‘We need to be above reproach on this one and you were both present at the scene. Potentially, you could end up as suspects, as ridiculous as that sounds. At the very least, you’re material witnesses. Hank is, anyway. He actually saw the woman alive, you said so yourself.’
Something outside of the car caught Daniels’ attention. She jabbed the heel of her hand on the horn.
In front of Ken’s Motorcycles on Westgate Road a couple of petrol-heads they both knew were chewing the fat over a fag and a take-away snack. One was an off-duty motorcyclist from Traffic, someone they often rode with in the Cumbrian countryside at weekends. He waved at Daniels, delighted he wasn’t on duty. But all she managed was a slight nod in return.
Naylor waved as they drove by and then swivelled in his seat to face her. ‘Come on, Kate. You know it makes sense. We can run both incidents from the same MIR. I have no problem with that. All the other rooms are busy anyway and the one downstairs is still in the throes of redecoration. We need some demarcation, obviously, but we can handle that.’
‘You’re the boss.’ Her tone was chilly.
She drove past the bowling alley and the West End nick. Naylor was about to say something more but his voice was drowned out as an ambulance passed them travelling in the opposite direction, its lights and siren engaged. She watched it disappear through her rear-view mirror, noticing that it was the very same vehicle that had taken poor Bridget away from the scene of the RTA. The siren faded to nothing as the ambulance cleared the traffic lights and turned left into the General Hospital heading for Accident and Emergency.
‘Kate?’
‘Sorry?’
‘I asked you about the arson?’ he said pointedly. ‘We any further forward?’
‘Maybe . . . fire investigators found a small fragment of yellow rubber glove caught on a nail in the kitchen cupboard at Maggie Reid’s house, the area least affected by the blaze. It’s identical to the one the search team recovered from a bin a few streets away. I’m waiting for a match report from Forensics. It’s too early to tell if it was an inside job or not. Can’t see it myself. Maggie Reid is too badly traumatized and I don’t think she’s faking it. Hank would have you believe otherwise. He’s convinced she lied about where she was and who she was with at the time the fire started.’
‘You talk to her alibi yet? The woman she claims she was with.’
Daniels shook her head. ‘Stella Drew is keeping a low profile. I have people out looking for her.’ She glanced at Naylor. ‘It bothers me that Maggie was the one who called the Fire Brigade, of course it does, especially in light of the party going on across the road. She claims she had better things to do, but that in itself was unusual.’
‘How so?’
‘A neighbour three doors down told the house-to-house team it was unheard of for Maggie to miss out on a big do, let alone a full-blown street party. She’s the life and soul apparently, into karaoke, footie too, I believe, both of which were on offer that night.’
At a zebra crossing, two Asian women in traditional dress hurried across in front of the car. Their saris looked colourful and cool on such a baking hot day. Daniels watched them safely to the other side and then set off again. She took a sharp left, narrowly missing a scrawny kid who’d rushed out into the road after a ball. When she tooted her horn to let him know she was there, he pulled up sharply, dropping his head as they drove by.
‘You watching the footie tonight?’ she asked.
‘Why don’t you join me? I could rustle up a few beers at my place.’
‘Think I’ll pass. I’m going to work late.’
He didn’t take offence, just suggested they must do something together soon. Daniels suddenly felt guilty. She’d not seen much of him socially since he’d moved to Newcastle. He’d bought a house near Heddon-on-the-Wall, a dilapidated farm cottage he planned to upgrade, and had recently invited the whole squad to christen it in the adjoining barn, a celebration she’d missed.
‘I’m sorry, Ron.’
‘For what?’
‘Want a list? And don’t tell me you didn’t notice me getting arsy about your involvement either. You’re right, obviously . . .’ She grinned, covering her embarrassment. ‘I’ve not been much help to you since you moved here, even turned down your invitation to your house-warming party. I’m sorry.’
‘You should’ve come. It was a good do.’
‘Never known you to throw a bad one.’
They had reached the crime scene. She parked the car a little way up Ralph Street and they sat for a while discussing the case. Daniels didn’t know why she felt compelled to take him there. Just a case of two heads most probably. She was finding it hard to imagine anyone starting a fire with so many people partying nearby. Why risk being seen? Unless the risk was greatly reduced because the perpetrator was local – no one would bat an eyelid then, would they?
They got out of the car. Locking it, she led Naylor to the terrace opposite in order to view the blackened building from across the road. They stood in silence for a while. For her part, she was trying to imagine the place in darkness with a noisy party going on in the lane behind her. Offences she’d dealt with as part of the Murder Investigation Team and before that in the Serious Incident Squad floated in and out of her head. Motive. Opportunity. Means. She couldn’t decide if the arson was a prank gone tragically wrong or an offence that had been carefully planned, executed in cold blood with calculated intent to cause death.
‘First impressions?’ she said.
Naylor was thoughtful a moment. ‘What would Jo make of it, I wonder?’
It was a good question, one Daniels didn’t immediately answer.
‘More importantly,’ he added. ‘What advice would she give?’
‘She’d tell me to think like an offender, get inside their head, be their shrink. She’d point out that arsonists can be habitual, remind me there’s often an element of voyeurism associated with such offences, a thrill-seeking element too, no doubt. Hard to imagine, I know, with a baby in the house.’
She fell silent, trying to stem images of Jamie Reid’s body on a cold slab in the examination room of the morgue. Closing her eyes, she brought to mind the picture of the child on the murder wall: a happy snap of a little boy with dimpled cheeks and a mass of dark, curly hair. That made her more depressed but all the more determined to catch his killer. She looked past Naylor, her eyes locking on to something on the wall over his right shoulder. He turned to see what had caught her interest, homing in on a blackened mark where a cigarette had been stubbed out. Its residue was still embedded in the brickwork. Beneath it, a single cigarette butt lay on a concrete flagstone.
It hit them simultaneously.
Had someone been watching the place burn?