The Burning (8 page)

The snowploughs had cleared the main streets of the city, but any roads smaller than major thoroughfares remained treacherous rivers of frozen slush. It was 29 December, a Friday, and Bristol
seemed to have sunk into a torpor from which it would only awake on New Year’s Eve. There was no traffic, the shops were shuttered, and along the entire length of Whiteladies Road the only
signs of life were a vagrant pushing a heavily laden shopping trolley, and a postman. She had no trouble parking outside her office in Jamaica Street, but the cafe where she bought her morning
coffee was shut up for the rest of the week, and even the convenience store that she had never once seen closed for business had given up hope.

There was a reason all sane people abandoned their workplaces between Christmas and New Year, and as she strained to turn the key in the frozen lock of the heavy front door, Jenny remembered
what it was. The inside of the Georgian building felt even colder than it was outside. She could see her breath as she made her way along the ground-floor passage to the entrance to her modest
offices. Inside the reception area a vaguely damp smell hung in the air. She switched on the heaters and went to the kitchenette in search of instant coffee, which in the absence of milk she would
have to drink black. She hoped she could make it a short day.

Films of ice had formed on the panes of the large bay window overlooking the pavement, making huge snowflake patterns that stretched the entire width of the glass. Jenny’s room felt as if
it had lain abandoned for years rather than days. Eager to make progress, she huddled at her desk still wearing her coat and ski-hat, and lifted the phone to call the number for Kelly Hart that
Ryan had jotted on the file. After six rings there was no answer and Jenny was ready to give up, when she heard a quiet female voice.

‘Hello?’

‘Good morning. This is Jenny Cooper. I’m the coroner for the Severn Vale. Am I speaking to Kelly Hart?’

There was a momentary silence. ‘Yes. That’s me.’

‘I don’t know if you’re familiar with what a coroner does—’

‘The police explained. Inspector Ryan told me you’d call.’

Kelly spoke with a soft Gloucestershire accent, but Jenny also detected a subtle hint of her London origins in her vowels. It was an oddly distinctive voice, and after hearing her speak only a
few words, Jenny knew that she wouldn’t forget it.

‘Did he tell you I’d like to talk in person?’

‘Yes.’

‘Would midday suit you?’

‘Where?’ A note of alarm sounded in Kelly’s voice.

‘Why don’t I come to you?’

‘No, I—’

‘That’s all right.’ Jenny appreciated her concern: the police would have promised to keep her whereabouts strictly confidential. ‘Are you able to come to my
office?’

‘Can we meet outdoors somewhere?’

Jenny wondered if perhaps the fire had left her phobic about confined spaces.

‘Where would you like?’

‘The Observatory.’

‘That’s fine,’ Jenny said, confirmed in her suspicion. The old Observatory stood on the edge of the open parkland of the Downs high above the Avon Gorge and commanded a view
across the entire city. Nowhere in Bristol was less confined. ‘I’ll be the one in the pink anorak.’

‘I remember what you look like – I saw you at the house.’

Jenny hesitated for a moment before answering. ‘Good. I’ll see you at twelve.’

Setting down the receiver, she tried to remember seeing Kelly catch sight of her face, but couldn’t. She’d seen her with the female officer and watched her climb into the car and
drive away. But as far as she could recall, Kelly had been staring at the ground or straight ahead. Memory could be fickle, though – you only had to spend a day in court and hear five
different witnesses give an account of the same event to be left in no doubt of that.

Jenny turned back to the papers on her desk and searched out the map of BP filling stations. With a little luck she might recover CCTV footage of Ed Morgan buying the diesel he used to start the
blaze. There were three of them within a twenty-minute drive of Blackstone Ley. The closest was six miles away, at a service station on the M5 motorway. Seven miles to the west there was another at
the south end of the Severn Bridge. The next closest was more than ten miles distant on Gloucester Road in the north of Bristol.

Her flow of concentration was interrupted by the sound of the front door opening and closing. In the silence of the empty building she could hear footsteps in the passageway making their way to
her office. She recognized them at once – Alison’s.

‘I’m back,’ Alison called out brightly as she stepped through the door into reception. ‘Passed my driving test. All legal again.’ She was dressed in her best navy
suit and snow boots and was carrying a carton of milk. She took it through to the kitchenette. ‘I didn’t think you’d remember. Am I right?’

‘Yes,’ Jenny said, trying to hide her surprise. She had been so absorbed in her case and with Michael that somehow she had managed to forget Alison’s threat to return to work
this morning.

‘No wonder you’ve kept your coat on. It’s arctic in here.’

‘I haven’t been in for a week.’

‘I can see that,’ Alison said, bustling over to her desk. ‘I’ve never seen it so tidy. I don’t know how you’ve managed that, we’re usually rushed off
our feet this time of year.’ She settled in her chair and adjusted its height. ‘You’ve had a temp in? I hope she hasn’t interfered with my things.’ She opened and
closed the drawers in her desk, checking her belongings.

‘The last one was a man, actually.’

‘Oh yes? Young and good-looking, I hope.’

‘Not bad.’

‘No condoms or girly mags. He must have been vaguely civilized.’ Satisfied that her space had not been violated, Alison looked up expectantly. ‘What would you like me to get on
with?’

For a moment Jenny allowed herself to believe she was looking at the Alison she had always known, but then she couldn’t help notice the deep scar across her temple that was only partially
hidden beneath her dyed blond fringe. Her eyes had altered subtly, too: they were slightly misaligned and seemed to stare intently and demandingly, the damage to her brain having dulled the
subconscious reflex that keeps healthy eyes making constant tiny movements. Jenny realized she had no choice but to confront the issue head-on.

‘I appreciate you want to get back to work,’ Jenny said, ‘but didn’t we agree that you’d be declared fit by your consultant first?’

‘I still know how to wipe my own bum, Mrs Cooper.’

Jenny ignored the uncharacteristic crudeness of the remark. ‘What if it all proves too much for you?’

‘You’ll be able to tell, won’t you? Far better than any doctor would.’

‘You may not appreciate my honesty.’

‘I think I might have lost the part of my brain that gives a damn about dressing things up. Shoot from the hip, Mrs Cooper, I can take it.’

The phone on Alison’s desk started to ring before Jenny could reply.

‘Severn Vale District Coroner’s Office,’ Alison answered with exaggerated politeness. ‘Yes, I am,’ she glanced up at Jenny, ‘all things being well. Now
don’t tell me you’ve called up to wish us a happy New Year.’

Jenny knew that she had already lost the fight. Alison was perfectly aware that she wouldn’t pass the detailed competency assessment recommended by the Chief Coroner’s office, so had
called her bluff. She had offered Jenny a bald choice between taking her back on trial and betraying her. While Jenny hadn’t asked her to lay down her life for her that night in the Savernake
Forest, she could hardly claim that she would have preferred to take the head-on impact from a Range Rover herself. And it wasn’t only Jenny’s life that had been saved; Jenny had
escaped from the scene of the confrontation with the antibiotics that had pulled Ross back from the brink of death. Viewed that way, there was no question of Jenny refusing her.

Alison took notes in large, childlike script as the caller, a DI Ballantyne from Broadmead, passed on details of another traumatic death.

‘Yes, I’m sure Mrs Cooper will want to see for herself,’ Alison said, giving Jenny a look that said she knew the answer without needing to ask. ‘If you can leave him
where he is for now, she’ll be along shortly. Thank you.’ Alison rang off and handed Jenny her note. ‘Suspected suicide in Henleaze. Male, mid-thirties, found hanging in his flat.
Been there a few days, apparently.’

‘He lived alone?’

‘Apparently so.’

Jenny looked at the address and recognized it as one of the smarter streets in the North Bristol suburb. Solitary hangings were more usually the stuff of tower blocks and bedsitters. A lonely
suicide at Christmas. There was always one.

‘I could go if you like, but I thought you’d prefer to,’ Alison said. ‘I mean, you don’t know how many of my marbles I’ve got left, do you? I could be a
complete nutcase with all this grey matter missing.’ She tapped her flattened temple with the end of her pen.

Jenny smiled, grateful to see light return to Alison’s eyes. ‘We’ll play it by ear, shall we?’

‘I’m happy with that if you are, Mrs Cooper.’

‘It’s good to see you.’

‘There’s no need to over-egg it.’ Alison switched on her computer. ‘We both know the score.’

‘You’d think they’d clear the pavements. What the hell did we elect a mayor for? Look at it – solid ice. Someone’s going to break their bloody
leg.’

Detective Inspector Jack Ballantyne smelt of last night’s booze and had cut himself shaving. Last time they had met at a scene of death his beef had been what the lawyers were charging him
for the privilege of divorcing his unfaithful wife. Living alone hadn’t been good for him: the broken veins across his cheekbones had migrated upwards into his eyes and he looked more like
sixty than forty-five. Jenny suspected he spent most nights alone with a whiskey bottle.

She ducked under the cordon tape and followed him over the few yards of pavement the police had shovelled clear leading to the Edwardian terraced house in Janus Avenue. It was a family area to
which young middle-class professionals flocked for the schools, but number 15 had been divided into two single-bedroom flats. The occupants of the ground floor had been away for the holidays,
Ballantyne said, and had returned home to a choking smell that had permeated the whole building.

He dug into his coat pocket and pulled out a crumpled paper mask. ‘Here, have mine. I’m used to it.’

‘Thanks,’ Jenny said, trying to sound grateful, and pulled it uncertainly over her face as they approached the front door. The mask was impregnated with a sickly pine scent that was
invariably as hard to stomach as the odour that started to reach them as they stepped inside the tidy communal hall.

Ballantyne led the way up the single flight of stairs to the first-floor landing, breathing heavily with the effort. ‘Our forensics boys have done their bit, but I doubt we’ll be
looking for a third party.’ He paused to catch his breath at the top, then pushed open the door to the flat. ‘After you, ma’am. You’ll find him at the end there.’ He
pointed along the short passageway.

The detective hung back where the air was still breathable, as Jenny made her way to the partially open internal door ahead of her. The flat felt light and modern, with cream-coloured walls and
matching carpet – not what she had been expecting. It told her to expect a neat suicide: the kind where the deceased left things in order for those who would have the unpleasant task of
cleaning up. She encountered several such cases each year: often a man who had been diagnosed with a terminal illness or who was facing investigation for a shameful crime. Alison called them
‘considerate suicides’.

She pushed the living room door open gingerly, resisting the impulse to gag as she connected the stench of decay with its source. She fought the urge to close her eyes. ‘Is this how
everything was, with the chair on its side?’

‘Just like that,’ Ballantyne answered.

Jenny stepped forward into a sitting room which the dead man had used partly as an office. There was also a mini-gym against the far wall. Barefoot, and dressed in tracksuit bottoms and a
training vest, Daniel Burden was hanging by a short length of nylon rope from the steel pull-up bars. He was a small man, probably no more than 5'6", with a closely shaved head and of stocky build.
He had worked hard on his biceps and had a neat goatee beard. To the right of the mini-gym and lying on its side, was an office-style chair on castors, which it seemed he had stood on to gain the
height he needed to hang himself. His flesh had started to decay and was speckled with large patches of gangrene that were slowly joining up, like ink blots on blotting paper.

Apart from the upended chair, the room was in perfect order, right down to the plumped-up cushions on the sofa and the DVDs lined up precisely on a shelf above the TV. Opposite the mini-gym was
a small, orderly workstation. A laptop sat on the desk, its standby lightly blinking unerringly.

‘What’s on his computer?’ Jenny called over her shoulder.

‘Take a look,’ Ballantyne answered. ‘You won’t be long, will you? I think I might puke.’

‘Give me a moment.’

Keeping her eyes off the body, Jenny crossed over to the computer and pressed the on button. The screen flickered into life. Burden had been watching porn. As far as Jenny could make out, the
movie clip involved men and women in various combinations, all having fun in a hot tub. By internet standards it was relatively innocent. She opened a new tab to call up his browsing history and
found that, apart from the record of his final visits to the porn site on the night of 23 December, it had been cleared. It was what she would have expected, and hinted that his usual interests
might have been a little stronger.

Reaching the limits of her tolerance, she swept the room one last time with her eyes, looking out for anything that might lend an insight into Burden’s state of mind, or even evidence that
his death could have been what she had learned to call a ‘3A’ – an accidental autoerotic asphyxiation. There was nothing. He’d been thorough. All she noticed was that a pair
of training shoes lined up at the side of the desk were only a size six. She wondered if they might belong to a girlfriend, but on the way out she checked a pair of loafers in his wardrobe. Size
six again. Burden simply had small feet.