Long Way Home (2 page)

The house was 1930s, a pebble-dashed detached painted white, but not recently, with wooden windows done in the same expensively dingy green Anna had insisted they buy for their front door at home. It was still in the garage; Zigic told her you couldn’t put it on while there was a risk of frost. He was hoping she’d come to her senses and let him paint it red.

‘Morning, sir.’

The WPC lifted the perimeter tape for him and Zigic ducked under.

‘Any trouble?’

‘No, sir. Most of them are at work by now I reckon.’

‘Has the doc been?’

‘You just missed him.’

Zigic went through the gates into number 63’s back garden, the smell of smoke hitting him full force, an unmistakable meatiness to it which snagged at the back of his throat. Flecks of black swirled in the air and he tried not to think what they had been part of as he picked one from his bottom lip.

The charred hulk of the shed was tucked into the far corner of the garden, against a run of old red-brick wall. It was a standard issue eight by twelve larch lap with a felt roof collapsed in on itself and a stable door smashed off its hinges. Inside Zigic saw a twist of blackened metal and springs which could only have been a sunlounger, and a body caged by it, slumped in the middle. Only the head was clearly visible in a shaft of weak morning sun, scorched skin cracked and seamed red.

DS Ferreira was standing nearby with the fire officer, hands shoved into the pockets of her duffel coat.

‘What have we got, Mel?’

‘One lightly toasted corpse,’ Ferreira said. ‘Looks like he was in a sleeping bag.’

The fire officer nodded. ‘I’ve dossed down worse places.’

‘Me too.’ Ferreira turned away. ‘Expert witness says we’ve got accelerant.’

‘Smells like kerosene,’ the fire officer said, wiping his face with the front of his T-shirt. Neither were very clean. ‘Reckon it might have been stored in the shed but you take a shufti in there, Inspector.’

He stepped back and Zigic looked beyond the remains of the sunlounger and the body which was bigger than he first thought, definitely a man and a well-built one at that, saw a few empty bottles next to a melted crate and a galvanised metal bucket which was somehow perfectly untouched. Other than that the shed was empty.

‘Wish yours was that tidy, hey?’ the fire officer said.

‘It might’ve been an accident. He’d been putting some drink away by the look of him.’

‘And it might’ve been spontaneous combustion, but there was a padlock on here heavy enough to hold down an elephant.’

‘Inside?’

‘Outside.’

‘Where is it now?’

‘Still on the door,’ the fire officer said. ‘Knew you’d want your people in here.’

The mobile on his belt sounded a plunging tone and he was already moving as he checked it. ‘I’ll get my report over to you before five, Inspector. Mel – a pleasure as always.’

He jogged off towards the gates.

‘God, he fancies himself,’ Ferreira said. ‘What is it with firemen?’

‘I honestly couldn’t tell you.’

‘Man must be fifty.’

‘Mel –’

‘Just trying to lighten the mood.’ The shed roof gave an ominous crack and she stepped away smartly, kicking up water onto Zigic’s jeans. ‘Sorry.’

‘What do you think – a vagrant?’

‘Maybe. Or a tenant.’

Peterborough had a high proportion of illegally converted sheds and garages. The rents were running at four hundred pounds a month and the planning department was having trouble keeping on top of them. For every one they cleared out, another three sprang up.

Highbury Street wasn’t in their red zone though. Not yet.

Zigic looked to the back of the house, blinds drawn in every window, no lights on. There was a half-built conservatory poking out into the garden, brickwork up to knee height, a mound of waterlogged sand on a plastic sheet. Half a dozen plastic signs advertising Barlow Property Maintenance were stacked against the fence, a mobile number but no landline, a small fish decal so you knew the owner was a good Christian; old folk liked to see that.

‘Are they home?’

‘Yeah. They’re too shocked to answer any questions right now.’ Amusement flicked around Ferreira’s near-black eyes. ‘At least that’s what Mr Barlow’s saying.’

‘What about Mrs Barlow?’

‘Puffy eyes, snotty nose . . . she didn’t say much.’

‘Which one of them called the fire engine?’

‘Neither. Alec Lunka.’ Ferreira pointed to the neighbouring house, a red-brick terrace with wind chimes jangling near the back door and three blue towels stiff on the washing line. ‘He’s Romanian. His English is pretty good though.’

‘You talked to him?’

‘Briefly – just wanted to keep him from going anywhere. I asked him to hang on until the boss got here. He’s happy to cooperate.’ She tucked her chin down into her plaid scarf. ‘Thought I should try and get what I could out of the Barlows while they were still raw. So much for that. Didn’t even get a cup of coffee.’

‘Have you called forensics?’

‘On their way.’

‘Door-to-door?’

‘Bobby’s on it. He’s got hold of a couple of off-duty CSOs. There’s some new guy at London Road who speaks Hungarian – he’s a techie or something but they’re bringing him too.’ She shrugged. ‘It’ll be a total washout this time of day, you know that? Anyone who might have seen anything will be at work now and anyone who’s home now would have been on shift when this happened.’

‘Lunka saw something.’

Zigic started for the gates. As he did, the kitchen door opened.

‘Mrs Barlow, I’m –’

She slammed the door so hard that the wooden blinds clattered against the glass. The lock turned and a few seconds later turned back again but the door stayed firmly shut. Ferreira gave him a questioning glance and Zigic put a hand out to stop her. A man’s voice cut sharply into the quiet and there was a sound like a stack of plates smashing, then another door slammed and the crying started.

‘Try her now,’ Zigic said.

GEMMA BARLOW WAS
pale under her fudge-coloured spray tan and Ferreira guessed that without it she’d be just another blotchy pink lump of English womanhood. She made a lot of effort though – three different colours in her shoulder-length hair and a French manicure with half-inch tips. She was missing one on her thumb and she worried at the ragged stump while Ferreira gathered together the pieces of broken crockery.

‘They just slipped out of my hands.’

‘They’re only plates, don’t worry about it.’ Ferreira dumped them into the bin and Gemma flinched at the sound like she’d been slapped. ‘It must be a shock for you.’

‘We didn’t know he was in there.’

‘You don’t expect some guy to bed down in your shed, do you?’

Gemma took a packet of Silk Cut out of her cardigan pocket and lit up, the lighter flame wavering as her hand trembled. She wore a thick gold wedding band over a diamond chip, thin rings biting on two more fingers.

‘We didn’t even know there was anything wrong until we heard the sirens,’ she said. ‘Was it an accident?’

‘It’s still too early to say.’

Gemma nodded, took a deep drag. ‘Sorry, do you want a cuppa or something?’

‘Coffee if you’ve got it.’

‘Instant alright?’

‘Tea then.’ Ferreira took a tobacco tin out of her handbag. ‘You don’t mind?’

‘My grandad used to roll his own,’ Gemma said. ‘Cheaper, in’t it?’

‘I prefer the taste of them.’

Gemma leaned back against the worktop, eyes on Ferreira’s hands as she rolled the tobacco between her fingertips, packing it tight inside a liquorice paper.

‘You’re not English, are you?’

‘I was born in Portugal. We came over when I was seven.’

‘No work over there, was it?’

‘Not much opportunity.’ She ran her tongue along the edge of the paper and twisted it into a slim torpedo. ‘We went to Spalding first, then when my parents got enough money together they moved us here.’

‘Do they work?’

‘Yeah.’ Ferreira lit up. ‘They’ve got a pub.’

‘They’ve done all right out of it then.’

Out of what, Ferreira wondered, grafting sixteen hours a day, seven days a week, Dad in the fields, Mum in freezing cold pack-houses, living in a caravan for two years, then a barely habitable pit for another five, four kids sharing two bedrooms; her and three younger brothers?

‘They must be proud of you, getting into the police.’

‘It was a pretty big deal, yeah.’

‘They always send you when an immigrant gets killed?’

‘What makes you think he was an immigrant?’

The skin around Gemma’s small blue eyes tightened and Ferreira bumped her age from mid-twenties to early thirties.

‘Well, you know, they’re all foreign round here now.’

‘You’re not.’

She picked the kettle up before it hit the boil and poured water into their cups, sloshing some onto the fake terrazzo worktop.

‘I just thought – who else’d be sleeping in our shed? No English person’s going to do that, are they?’

‘There’re plenty of English people sleeping rough.’

‘Not round here there’s not.’

The kitchen door opened and Phil Barlow filled the gap, a bulldozer of a man in badly cut jeans and a designer T-shirt. He was older than Gemma by ten years or so but he was wearing a lot of gold and Ferreira guessed that probably helped.

There was a smudge of yellowish bruising under his right eye.

‘Making a brew, love?’ he asked, holding his voice calm while he brushed one big hand over his bald head. ‘Good idea. ’Spect you could use one too, Constable.’

‘Sergeant.’

‘Sorry, yeah, Sergeant.’ He blew out a long breath. ‘What happens now then?’

‘We’ve got a forensics team on the way; they’ll conduct a thorough search of the shed and your garden. When they’re finished we’ll take the body away –’

Gemma gasped and pressed her fist to her mouth.

Phil put his arm around her shoulders and she started to cry.

‘Come on, love, come on, it’s all going to be alright.’ He gripped Gemma’s forearm. ‘She’s a bit upset, that’s all. Why don’t you go in the front room? Have a sit-down. I’ll talk to the sergeant.’

‘I’ll be alright in a minute.’ Gemma wiped her eyes on the cuff of her cardigan. ‘It reeks in here. The whole house reeks of it.’

Ferreira stubbed out her half-smoked cigarette, almost put the rest in her pocket but caught herself in time; old habits.

‘Why don’t we do this in the sitting room?’ she suggested.

It was gloomy with the curtains drawn in the bay window, aubergine paint on three walls and gaudy damask paper on the fourth, not much of it on show between the huge black marble fireplace and the forty-six-inch flat screen hung above it. The smell was fainter in there, just an acrid hint under the bludgeoning sweetness of a magnolia room spray which puffed at Ferreira as she walked past it, going to a shelf of family photos, Phil and Gemma on holiday, beaches and swimming pools, toasting the camera inside a little hut with a banana-leaf roof. There were a few of a teenaged boy, chubby and freckled.

‘Is your son here, Gemma?’

‘He’s my son,’ Phil said. ‘Craig. He stays with his mum during the week. We have him weekends.’

Gemma shifted her weight on the black leather sofa, punched her elbow into a cushion.

‘I’ll need to speak to her,’ Ferreira said. ‘Just to confirm.’

‘He didn’t set fire to the fucking shed.’

‘It’s routine, Mr Barlow, there’s nothing to panic about.’

She took out her phone and entered the details he gave her; his ex still using his name, living in Woodston. Close enough for the boy to have come over on his bike in twenty minutes. If he felt like causing trouble. Close enough to disappear this morning too. It was still dark when the call came in, who’d notice him slip away?

‘You two don’t have kids?’

‘We’re trying,’ Gemma said, a whole payload of want and frustration in her voice.

Phil sat down on the sofa next to her and took hold of her hand.

‘What happened to your eye?’ Ferreira asked.

He touched it quickly, glanced away.

‘I was fitting a security light at a place over in Dogsthorpe, didn’t have it hung right.’

‘Looks nasty.’

‘It’s not that bad.’

‘You’re a builder? That right?’

‘Property maintenance,’ he said. ‘Have to do a bit of everything.’

‘You’re multidisciplined.’

‘Jack of all trades,’ he said and gave a self-deprecating smile laced with bitterness. ‘I was a kitchen fitter before, but the way the building is now . . . not many people want new kitchens when they can’t afford the mortgage.’

‘Looks like there’re plenty of sites running around town,’ Ferreira said.

‘Can’t get on them unless you’re with an agency and you know what that’s like, they’re not going to pay me two hundred a day when they can get some Polack for sixty.’

‘Just you, is it?’

‘Same for everyone.’

‘I meant, do you work alone?’

He nodded. ‘I had an old boy with me last year but I had to let him go. He’s working in Asda now, trained City & Guilds chippie and he’s stacking fucking shelves. Way it is.’

Ferreira sat down on a fat leather footstool, moved aside a copy of
Grazia
with Cheryl Cole on the front cover.

‘OK, so this morning . . . why don’t you tell me what happened?’

Phil and Gemma Barlow looked at each other but he spoke.

‘We don’t know what happened. First we knew of it was sirens blaring out here.’

‘We never thought anything of it,’ Gemma said.

‘There’s always sirens round here. You ignore it.’

‘Where’s your bedroom?’ Ferreira asked.

Phil Barlow pursed his lips for a moment. ‘Over the kitchen.’

‘So the shed’s right outside your bedroom window and you didn’t notice it was on fire?’

‘We’ve got blackout blinds,’ Gemma said.

‘Which one of you’s the light sleeper then?’

‘Neither of us,’ Phil said quickly.

‘But you’ve got blackout blinds.’

They nodded in unison, didn’t try a proper answer.

‘When did you finally work out what was going on?’

‘One of the firemen near battered our front door down. I got up then,’ Phil said. ‘I couldn’t believe it.’