35

19 October

EVI PARKED HER CAR IN THE ONEREMAINING SPACE. THE huge hangar-style building of Goodshaw Bridge fire station was twenty yards away. She got out of the car and found her stick.

‘I struggle with stairs, I’m afraid,’ she explained to the fire officer at the reception desk. ‘Is there a lift I could use? Sorry to be a nuisance.’

‘No problem, love. Give me a minute.’

The fireman led her along the corridor. She tried to keep up but her back had been giving her trouble for days. Constantly leaning on her stick was putting too much pressure on the muscles on one side of her body and they were pressing against nerves. She should be using her chair more. It was just …

They reached the lift and went up one floor, then back along the corridor. Maybe on her way out she could just slide down the pole.

Ahead, her guide stopped at a blue door and rapped on it. Without waiting for a response he pushed it open. ‘Lady to see you, chief,’ he announced before glancing back at Evi. ‘Dr … er?’

‘Evi Oliver,’ she managed through gritted teeth. ‘Thanks so much.’

Inside the room, two more firemen were standing, waiting for her.

‘Dr Oliver, good morning,’ said the taller, older of the two, holding out his hand. ‘I’m station chief Arnold Earnshaw. This is my deputy, Nigel Blake.’

‘It was very good of you to see me,’ said Evi.

‘No problem. If the fire bell goes, you won’t see us for dust. Until then, we’re all yours. Now then, how about a coffee?’ He raised his voice. ‘Where you going, Jack?’

Evi’s guide reappeared, double-checked that his two superiors still took their tea milky with three sugars each and happily agreed to make Evi a white coffee.

All three sat down. Evi would have liked a moment to get her breath back but both men were watching her, waiting for her to begin.

‘I explained on the phone that I was interested in finding out more about a fire that occurred in Heptonclough a few years ago,’ she began. ‘It’s in connection with a case of mine, but I’m sure you’ll understand I can’t give you details. It’s a matter of patient confidentiality.’

Chief Earnshaw nodded his head. His colleague, too, looked interested, happy to help. She wondered if firemen were bored a lot of the time, actually quite welcomed distractions.

‘The fire was in the late autumn, three years ago,’ said Evi. ‘In a cottage in Wite Lane, Heptonclough, did I mention that?’

Earnshaw nodded and patted a manila file on his desk. ‘It’s all in here,’ he said. ‘Not that we really needed to look it up. That was a bad one. A little lass died.’

‘Were you there?’

‘Both of us,’ said Earnshaw. ‘Every one of our regulars and a few of our volunteers as well. What can we tell you?’

‘I understand that once the fire is contained, there are two basic questions that you need to answer,’ said Evi. ‘Where the point of origin was and what was the cause of the fire?’ Gillian still hadn’t told her how the fire had started. If it had been due to negligence on her part, or her husband’s, it might go some way towards explaining her anger, or her guilt. Both men were nodding at her.

‘Is that a good place to start?’ she asked.

Blake leaned forward. ‘You need three things to make a fire, Dr Oliver,’ he said. ‘You need heat, a fuel source such as paper or gasoline, and you need oxygen. Without any one of those, no fire.

Do you understand?’

Evi nodded.

‘In most circumstances, we can take the oxygen bit for granted. So, what we’re looking for is a combination of heat and fuel. After that, fire travels sideways and upwards from its point of origin. If a fire occurs at the foot of a wall, you’ll see the burn patterns spreading up and away from it in a V shape. Are you with me?’

Evi nodded again.

‘Some things in a house, like synthetic materials or stairways, can distort this, but as a rule of thumb you track the fire damage back to the point at which it was greatest and then look for the heat-and-fuel combination. At the Wite Cottage fire, the point of origin was pretty clear, even though the upper floor eventually collapsed. It was the kitchen, the area around the cooker.’

‘And do you know how it started?’ asked Evi.

‘Largely guesswork,’ replied Blake, ‘because the damage in the area was so extensive. But we understand cooking oils were kept around the cooker, never a good idea. We suspect a pan was left with a gas flame underneath. It happens a lot with omelette pans. People make an omelette, concentrate on tipping it on to a plate without breaking it and they put the pan down, forgetting they’ve not turned the gas off. The pan gets hotter and hotter until the oil left in it catches light. If a plastic bottle of olive oil was close by, the plastic would melt and the oil run out. You can see how …’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Evi, making a mental note to move the bottles of cooking oil she kept close to her own hob.

‘In this case, though, the real problem was the Calor gas,’ said Earnshaw. ‘The cottage wasn’t connected up to the mains gas supply, so the family used a cooker that was powered by Calor gas. It’s not uncommon in rural areas, but in this case, the family had three spare canisters stored in a small room just to one side of the cooker. Once they caught fire …’

‘I see,’ said Evi, wondering if she really had the nerve to ask her next question. ‘I know this is a difficult question and please excuse me for asking it, but did you ever consider the possibility of arson?’

Earnshaw leaned back in his chair. Blake was frowning at her.

‘We always have to consider arson,’ said Earnshaw after a while.

‘But on this occasion, there was nothing to cause us any undue concern. The fire had an easily identifiable point of origin.’

‘One that could be readily explained,’ chipped in Blake.

‘Had it started in a wastepaper bin in a bedroom,’ said Earnshaw, ‘or if we’d found a trail of petrol around the house, it would have been a different matter.’

‘The house was rented, so there was no possibility of insurance fraud,’ said Blake.

‘And the couple lost their child,’ said Earnshaw, as though Evi should have thought of that herself. The arson-to-disguise-accidental-death theory wasn’t going anywhere. Evi began to think she might be outstaying her welcome.

‘I do understand that,’ she said. ‘I know I’m asking insensitive questions. I’m sorry I can’t explain why.’

‘Hiding evidence of arson really isn’t that simple,’ said Blake. ‘Arsonists often use matches and then just throw them away, thinking the fire will destroy them.’

‘And it doesn’t?’

Blake shook his head. ‘Match heads contain something called diatoms,’ he said. ‘Single-celled organisms containing a very tough compound called silica. Silica survives fires. Sometimes we can even identify the brand of match used.’

‘I see,’ said Evi. ‘I’ve got one last question, if I may, then I’ll leave you in peace. How soon after the fire was extinguished did you realize that the child’s body had been completely destroyed?’

The two men looked at each other. Blake’s frown had deepened.

‘The fire burned for several hours, I understand,’ Evi went on. ‘Even after it was extinguished, you would have had to be sure the structure was safe.’

‘The upper floor collapsed,’ said Blake.

‘Yes, exactly,’ said Evi. ‘So you would have had to search through the wreckage, it must have taken quite some time, before you were sure.’ And all that time, Gillian had been traipsing over the moors, willing herself to keep believing. ‘Before you were sure the fire had obliterated the child’s body.’

‘Dr Oliver, it’s very rare for bodies to be completely destroyed in fire. Very rare indeed,’ said Earnshaw.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t quite …’

‘People who imagine otherwise don’t know their chemistry,’ said Blake. ‘When bodies are cremated, they’re exposed to temperatures of around 1,500° Fahrenheit for at least a couple of hours. Even then, you’ll still find human remains among the ashes. Most structural fires, particularly in a residential house, don’t burn hot enough or long enough to destroy a body. The house itself just doesn’t provide enough fuel.’

‘In this case, of course, the fire did get very hot because of the Calor gas acting as a fuel supply,’ said Earnshaw.

‘And is that why the little girl’s remains …’

‘We found her the next day,’ said Blake. ‘Very little left, of course, but even so … What made you think her remains weren’t found?’

Evi’s hands had flown to her mouth. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she managed. ‘I’ve been completely misinformed.’

‘What we found was very similar to what we’d expect after a cremation,’ said Blake. ‘Ashes and bone fragments. They were identified as human. There wasn’t really any doubt that we’d found the child.’

‘And what happened to the remains?’

‘They were given to the family,’ said Earnshaw. ‘To the mother, from what I can remember.’