Peter Robinson: Playing With Fire

“Blistering is usually a sign that the victim was alive when the fire started.” Making sure that Peter Darby had already videotaped and photographed the entire scene, Hamilton bent and picked up two objects from the floor beside her.

“What are they?” Banks asked.

“Can’t say for certain,” he said, “but I think one’s a syringe and the other’s a spoon.” He handed them to Terry Bradford, who put them into evidence bags, taking a cork from his accessory bag first, and sticking it over the needle’s point. “The fire’s sure to have sterilized it,” he said, “but you can’t be too careful handling needles.”

Hamilton bent and scraped something from the floor beside the sleeping bag and Bradford put it in another bag. “Looks like she was using a candle,” Hamilton said. “Probably to heat up whatever it was she injected. If I wasn’t so certain the fire started on the other barge, I’d say that it could have been a possible cause. I’ve seen it more than once, a junkie nodding off and a candle starting a fire. Or it could even have been used as a crude timing device.”

“But that’s not what happened here?”

“No. The seats of the fire are definitely next door. It’d be just too much of a coincidence if the two fires started simultaneously from separate causes. And this one caused so much less damage.”

Banks felt a headache coming on. He glanced at the young girl’s body again, nipped the bridge of his nose above the mask between his thumb and index finger until his eyes prickled with tears, then he looked away, into the fog, just in time to see Dr. Burns, the police surgeon, walking toward the barges with his black bag.

Andrew Hurst lived in a small, nondescript lockkeeper’s cottage beside the canal, about a mile east of the dead-end branch where the fire had occurred. The house was high and narrow, built of red brick with a slate roof, and a satellite dish was attached high up, where the walls met the roof. It was still early in the morning, but Hurst was already up and about. In his early forties, tall and skinny, with thinning, dry brown hair, he was wearing jeans and a red zippered sweatshirt.

“Ah, I’ve been expecting you,” he said when Banks and Annie showed their warrant cards, his pale gray eyes lingering on Annie for just a beat too long. “It’ll be about that fire.”

“That’s right,” said Banks. “Mind if we come in?”

“No, not at all. Your timing is immaculate. I’ve just finished my breakfast.” He stood aside and let Banks and Annie pass. “First on the left. Let me take your coats.”

They gave him their overcoats and walked into a room lined with wooden shelves. On the shelves were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of long-playing records, 45-rpm singles and EPs, all in neat rows. Banks exchanged a glance with Annie before they sat in the armchairs to which Hurst gestured.

“Impressive, aren’t they?” Hurst said, smiling. “I’ve been collecting sixties vinyl since I was twelve years old. It’s my great passion. Along with canals and their history, of course.”

“Of course,” said Banks, still overwhelmed by the immense collection. On any other occasion he would have been down on his hands and knees scanning the titles.

“And I’ll bet I can lay my hands on any one I want. I know where they all are. Kathy Kirby, Matt Monro, Vince Hill, Helen Shapiro, Joe Brown, Vicki Carr. Try me. Go on, try me.”

Christ, thought Banks, an anorak. Just what they needed. “Mr. Hurst,” he said, “I’d be more than happy to test your system, and to explore your record collection, but do you think we could talk about the fire first? Two people died on those barges.”

Hurst looked disappointed, like a child denied a new toy, and went on tentatively, not sure if he still held his audience. “They’re not filed alphabetically, but by date of release, you see. That’s my secret.”

“Mr. Hurst,” Annie echoed Banks. “Please. Later. We’ve got some important questions for you.”

He looked at her, hurt and sulky, but seemed at last to grasp the situation. He ran his hand over his head. “Yes, I know. Pardon me for jabbering on. Must be the shock. I always jabber when I’m nervous. I’m really sorry about what happened. How did…?”

“We don’t know the cause of the fire yet,” said Banks, “but we’re definitely treating it as suspicious.” Doubtful was Geoff Hamilton’s word. He knew as well as Banks that the fire hadn’t started on its own. “Do you know the area well?” he asked.

Hurst nodded. “I think of this as my stretch of the canal, as my responsibility.”

“Including the dead-end branch?”

“Yes.”

“What can you tell me about the people who lived on the barges?”

Hurst lifted up his black-rimmed glasses and rubbed his right eye. “Strictly speaking, they’re not barges, you know.”

“Oh?”

“No, they’re narrow boats. Barges are wider and can’t cruise on this canal.”

“I see,” said Banks. “But I’d still like to know what you can tell me about the squatters.”

“Not much, really. The girl was nice enough. Pale, thin young thing, didn’t look well at all, but she had a sweet smile and she always said hello. Quite pretty, too. When I saw her, of course. Which wasn’t often.”

That would be Tina, Banks thought, remembering the blistered body in the charred sleeping bag, the blackened arm into which she had injected her last fix. “And her boyfriend, Mark?”

“Is that his name? Always seemed a bit furtive to me. As if he’d been up to something, or was about to get up to something.”

In Banks’s experience, a lot of kids Mark’s age and younger had that look about them. “What about the fellow on the other boat?” he asked.

“Ah, the artist.”

Banks glanced at Annie, who raised her eyebrows. “How do you know he was an artist?”

“Shortly after he moved there, he installed a skylight and gave the exterior of his boat a lick of paint, and I thought maybe he’d actually rented or bought the boat and was intending to fix it up, so I paid him a courtesy visit.”

“What happened?”

“I didn’t get beyond the door. He clearly didn’t appreciate my coming to see him. Not very courteous at all.”

“But he told you he was an artist?”

“No, of course not. I said I didn’t get past the door, but I could see past it, couldn’t I?”

“So what did you see?”

“Well, artist’s equipment, of course. Easel, tubes of paint, palettes, pencils, charcoal sticks, old rags, stacks of canvas and paper, a lot of books. The place was a bloody mess, quite frankly, and it stank to high heaven.”

“What of?”

“I don’t know. Turpentine. Paint. Glue. Maybe he was a glue-sniffer? Have you thought of that?”

“I hadn’t until now, but thank you very much for the idea. How long had he been living there?”

“About six months. Since summer.”

“Ever see him before that?”

“Once or twice. He used to wander up and down the towpath with a sketchbook.”

A local, perhaps, Banks thought, which might make it easier to find out something about him. Banks’s ex-wife Sandra used to work at the Eastvale Community Centre art gallery, and he still had a contact there. The idea of meeting up with Maria Phillips again had about as much appeal as a dinner date with Cilla Black, but she would probably be able to help. There wasn’t much Maria didn’t know about the local art scene, including the gossip. There was also Leslie Whitaker, who owned Eastvale’s only antiquarian bookshop, and who was a minor art dealer.

“What else can you tell us about him?” he asked Hurst.