Smoke Alarm (12 page)

M
artha waited for two days before she contacted Alex Randall again. She had had a busy couple of days – there had been a death on the operating table at the hospital and the relatives were naturally distraught. Spending time with them had distracted her from the Melverley fire, but now she wanted to know how the investigation was proceeding.

She'd hoped they would have made some headway but Randall sounded downcast on the phone. ‘We're a bit short of lines of enquiry, Martha,' he said. ‘None of the house-to-house calls has borne fruit. No one saw or heard anything.'

She tried to reassure him. ‘It's early days yet, Alex.'

‘I just can't seem to find a motive.' He paused. ‘Unless you count the life insurances Nigel Barton had on his family.'

‘That sounds promising.'

‘Amounts to a million on the three family members who died.'

‘And did he have a similar life insurance on Jude?'

‘I don't know. I must ask him.'

‘Was he in financial trouble?'

‘It appears not. The house is paid for. And that must be worth a million easily. He has plenty of savings. His business is small enough to be healthy but necessary enough to keep going even in these tricky times and his wife had a well-paid job. He doesn't appear to need money.'

‘Where's he living at the moment? I take it the house is uninhabitable.'

‘Absolutely – quite apart from it still being sealed up as it's a crime scene. He's staying at The Lord Hill. Naturally the insurance company are footing the bill.'

‘Of course.' Martha thought for a minute then made her decision. ‘Maybe it's time I met Mr Barton, Alex. I thought I'd invite him here this afternoon. I need to explain some of the procedures to him anyway.' She felt she needed to defend her involvement. ‘It's normal practice in a case like this.'

‘I'll be interested to hear your impression of him.'

She smiled at the formal politeness in his tone. ‘You know as well as I do, Alex, that an impression formed, particularly in such a strained situation, can be very misleading.'

‘No one knows that better than you, Martha Gunn.' There was mockery in his voice now. He was gently teasing her. ‘I'm trusting that you can slice through the grief and come out with some sort of valid impression at the end of it?'

She couldn't resist a smirk and caught sight of herself in the mirror looking decidedly coy. ‘And what about young Jude? Is he still in hospital?'

‘He went back to his father yesterday. He has to go in to the burns clinic for daily dressings but he appears on the mend.' Randall paused and she knew he was puzzling over something. ‘I don't think his injuries are as bad as they first thought. There's been no more mention of skin grafts anyway.'

‘Well – that's good news.'

‘Ye-es.'

‘Has he remembered anything else about the night of the fire?'

‘Not so far.'

‘Alex,' she hesitated. ‘It isn't my intention to teach you your job but I think you need to go public on this.'

‘You mean an appeal on the television?'

‘I think it would be a good idea. Throw your net wider and ever wider.'

Randall chuckled. ‘I think I might just do that, Martha. Thank you for the advice.'

‘You're welcome. Any time.'

‘Is there any particular reason why you think I should cast my net wider?'

‘As there appears no obvious motive for the attack I was wondering whether this involves someone or something
outside
the family. What about Barton's business associates?'

‘We're working on that line of investigation.'

‘My impression is that this isn't quite such a domestic affair as it would appear.'

‘Not an inside job then, Martha? You're still discounting Barton senior?'

‘Oh, I don't know. I simply have the feeling that to blame the fire and what is basically murder on a confused old man is a very easy option and an excellent way of diverting you from looking elsewhere for a killer.'

‘Mmm. Profound.'

Martha frowned – and again caught sight of herself in the mirror that topped a mahogany sideboard. This time the image was not quite so pleasant. She was frowning. She concentrated again on the phone. ‘It isn't profound, Alex. It's an instinct.' She hesitated. ‘Sometimes I fear I must have a criminal mind. I'm so good at thinking up nasty plots.'

On the other end of the line, Randall chuckled.

‘And now I must get Jericho to track Nigel Barton down. I'll be in touch.'

Jericho soon contacted Nigel Barton over his mobile phone then put the call through to Martha. She was brisk and business like but, underneath, curious. The man had had a terrible loss. How would he be? she wondered. Traumatized? Still shocked?

‘Mr Barton,' she began, ‘it's Martha Gunn here. I'm the coroner for this area and as such will shortly be holding the inquests on the deaths of your father, wife and daughter. May I begin by expressing my sympathy? I am so very sorry. You must feel dreadful.'

Barton responded stiffly. ‘I do.'

‘It would be a good idea for you to come in to my office so we can sort out some of the details. It'll be easier. You understand there will have to be an inquest?'

Barton gave no response so Martha continued. ‘I know this is distressing for you and I don't want to make it worse but in cases like this I obviously have to work very closely with the police.'

Barton simply grunted which Martha took as an assent. But then he began speaking in a peevish, irritable tone. ‘Well, as you've probably realized, Mrs Gunn, my house is currently a crime scene so I do not have access to it except with a policeman present. It will also have to be assessed by my insurance company so for now I am staying partly in my office and partly in the Lord Hill Hotel. Do you want me to come to your office?'

‘That would be a good idea.'

‘This afternoon?' He spoke in a
let's get it over with
voice that again Martha found off-putting. But sometimes grieving relatives were like this – unpredictable in their responses. So she kept her cool. ‘No, Friday.'

He sounded defeated. ‘Three o'clock?'

‘I'll instruct my assistant to expect you. Do you know how to find my office? It's in Bayston Hill.'

‘No, actually.' And again the peevish tone was back. ‘I've never had anything to do with a coroner's office before.'

‘I'll put you back to my assistant. He'll give you directions. I'll see you on Friday, Mr Barton.'

It wasn't until she'd put the phone down that she realized why the peevish tone. Nigel Barton was simply sorry for himself, wondering why he had been singled out for such cruel treatment. People like this never failed to fascinate her, the ones who only saw dramatic, tragic events as they impacted on their own lives. If disaster did not touch them personally then it did not exist. World affairs, tragedies in far off countries, economic crises. It was as simple as that – to someone who was completely and utterly self-centred they were unimportant, the victims of such events as insignificant as ants.

Interesting, she thought. She was already beginning to form an opinion about Nigel Barton – even before she'd met him.

In the meantime Alex Randall had followed Martha's advice. In such a dramatic case it was not difficult to involve the TV and local radio stations who were always anxious to help the police with cases which were proving difficult to crack. He, too, had contacted Nigel Barton to ask him if he wanted to be present at the interviews or if he had anything specific he wanted to say, but Barton had declined. Randall hadn't asked him whether he minded the case ‘going public'. It was up to him as the SIO to decide how best to tackle the case, not a bereaved relative. He didn't mind tiptoeing round the man but in his sights was an answer – a solution and a final prosecution for murder. He would do all he could to reach that point.

By lunchtime the drive of Melverley Hall was packed with press and TV and the usual public who magically appeared at the sight of such drama.

Randall began by outlining the case, telling the wider world that the fire had been started deliberately, using petrol, that the two women had been locked into their rooms, that Jude had had a lucky escape and that Willliam Barton had suffered from Alzheimer's disease and had also died in the fire. He left out the fact that Barton senior had caused a previous fire. But he did toss into the fray the fact that Nigel Barton had been away on business on the night of the fire. He left this to fester in the suspicious minds of the ladies and gentlemen of the media as he appealed for information, knowing that someone would pick up on this fact and ask a relevant question. Sure enough, a tall, blonde woman whom he'd encountered on many a previous occasion opened the interrogation. ‘DI Randall.'

He inclined his head toward her.

‘Jennifer Purloin,
Daily Metro
. Are you assuming that it was coincidence that Mr Barton junior was away on the night of the fire?'

Randall met her gaze unflinchingly. ‘I don't know is the true answer.' He decided to take a step outside his usual stick-to-the-truth method. ‘But my instinct tells me that if our fire-raiser was inside the house and able to lock the two women in their rooms he or she would also have been likely to know that Mr Barton junior was away from home for the night.'

The next question came from a very skinny guy with a tattoo on his neck. ‘You say that . . .' He glanced down at his pad, ‘Jude Barton was injured?'

‘That's correct,' Randall said testily. He knew he was walking over uneven ground here.

‘Are you able to tell us how Jude Barton managed to escape the fire?'

Randall replied tersely, uncomfortable with the story, and told him that the boy had secured a rope ladder outside his bedroom which he had escaped down, that he had re-entered the house in the hope of saving his family but had been beaten back by the ferocity of the blaze. Even as he said the words he had an uneasy feeling, as though he was relating a script. The story of heroism. He frowned, wound up the press interview and sneaked a glance at his watch. One o'clock. Just in time for the lunchtime news.

Nice timing.

In a modest house in Sundorne, Shrewsbury, Monica Deverill was ironing while also watching the lunchtime news. As the detective made his appeal she stopped for a moment, the iron in her hand. Barton. William Barton. She stood still, remembering. Fire Officer Barton. She remembered that terrible encounter, recalled his voice, so different on the second occasion from the first.

He had said,
‘It isn't safe here. Now come along, Mrs'
. . .
She stopped. What was the woman's name?

She remembered her impatience on that night, her irritability with the woman's slowness, with the little sequence of formalities that had to be taken before she would climb into bed along with all the others before she could switch the lights off. It was a rule. Everyone had to be in their beds before the lights were switched off. But she would not be hurried. The sleeves of her garments had to be turned round the right way, the slippers peeping out from under the bed. As she had waited she had thought she would die of boredom and irritability.

It had been her job to check the day room, make sure all was safe. But that night she had been too impatient, in a hurry, her actions careless. This was her last night shift. Tomorrow she'd had a date with the love of her life – Bill Deverill. Her mind had been fixed on that.

What was the woman's name he'd been trying to rescue?
As she recalled the events of that night she remembered the more recent occurrence and started breathing fast. William Barton? Oh my word. Her hand smothered her mouth.
She'd just remembered the name.

The horror, the embarrassment, his accusations. Mad. He must have been mad. But the feeling of guilt and nausea made her sink into the nearest chair. As the contact number flashed across the screen she rushed into the next room and found a pen and pad, repeating the number over and over again so she would not forget it. But she didn't dial straight away. She sat and thought and planned, feeling a creeping sense of horror. ‘0800 . . .' She copied the number down carefully then went back to her ironing. She needed time to think.

At three o'clock precisely Nigel Barton arrived. Martha took stock of him as he sat down opposite her. Considering the tragic circumstances of the last few days there was little outward evidence of the grief he must surely be feeling. He simply looked tired. No – more than tired. Exhausted. Even when she invited him to sit he dropped into the chair as though glad to be taking the weight off his legs. Yet he was a spare man, his shoulders bent as though he was years older. Even lifting his eyes to meet hers appeared to be an effort. But he held himself in check. He was neatly and soberly dressed, with fish-pale skin and green eyes magnified by glasses with thick black rims, dark hair liberally streaked with grey. There was little to mark him out as the victim of such a tragedy besides the fact that his mouth seemed permanently down and this aura he had around him, that life itself was simply too exhausting. She introduced herself and then began to explain the machinations of the coroner's office.

‘You are entitled to a copy of the post-mortem report,' she said smoothly, ‘if you so wish, but I can assure you that all three died from smoke inhalation. I can't tell you whether their deaths were quick. There is evidence that your wife tried to get out of the bedroom. Her body was found just inside her bedroom door. The door itself was locked.'

‘Yes, the police told me that.' A look of pain twisted his features.

Martha paused before adding, ‘Your daughter was found in her bed, underneath the bedclothes.'