Peter Robinson - Playing With Fire

“It would have been perhaps one-fifteen by the time I’d locked up and done my ablutions.”

Ablutions . Banks hadn’t heard that word in years. “Okay,” he went on. “At one-fifteen, when you looked out of your bedroom window, what did you see?”

“Why, flames, of course.”

“And you knew where they were coming from?”

“Immediately. Those wooden boats are death traps. The wood above the water line’s as dry as tinder.”

“So you knew exactly what was happening?”

“Yes, of course.”

“What did you do?”

“I got on my bike and rode down the towpath.”

“How long did it take?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t timing myself.”

“Roughly? Five minutes? Ten minutes?”

“Well, I’m not that fast a cyclist. It’s not as if I was going in for the Tour de France or something.”

“Say ten minutes, then?”

“If you like.”

“What did you do next?”

“I rang the fire brigade, of course.”

“From where?”

He tapped his pocket. “My mobile. I always carry it with me. Just in case… well, the Waterways people like to know what’s going on.”

“Do you work for British Waterways?”

“Not technically. I mean, I’m not officially employed by them. I just try to be of use. If those narrow boats hadn’t been in such sorry shape, and if they hadn’t been moored in such an out-of-the-way place, I’m sure BW would have done something about them by now.”

“What time did you make the call?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Would it surprise you to know that your call was logged at one thirty-one A.M.?”

“If you say so.”

“I do. That’s fifteen minutes after you first saw the flames and cycled to the boats.”

Hurst blinked. “Yes.”

“And what did you do after you rang them?”

“I waited for them to come.”

“You didn’t try to do anything in the meantime?”

“Like what?”

“See if there was anyone still on the boats.”

“Do you think I’m insane? Even the firefighters couldn’t risk boarding either of the boats until they’d sprayed water on them, and they were wearing protective clothing.”

“And it was too late by then.”

“What do you mean?”

“Everybody was dead.”

“Yes… well, I tried to tell them how dangerous it was, living there. I suspect one of them must have had a dodgy heater of some sort, too, as well as the turpentine. I know it’s been a mild winter, but still… It is January.”

“Mr. Hurst,” Annie asked, “what were you thinking when you saw the fire’s glow above the tree line and got on your bike?”

Hurst looked at her, a puzzled expression on his face. “That I had to find out what was happening, of course.”

“But you said you already knew at once what was happening.”

“I had to be certain, though, didn’t I? I couldn’t just go off half-cocked.”

“What else did you think might have been causing the orange glow?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking logically. I just knew that I had to get down there.”

“Yet you didn’t do anything when you did get down there.”

“It was too late already. I told you. There was nothing I could do.” Hurst sat forward, chin jutting aggressively. He looked at Banks. “Look, I don’t know what she’s getting at here, but I-”

“It’s simple, really,” said Banks. “DI Cabbot is puzzled why you decided to cycle a mile – slowly – down to the canal branch, when you already knew the boats were on fire and that the wood they were made of was so dry they’d go up in no time. I’m puzzled, too. And I’m also wondering why you didn’t just do what any normal person would have done and call the bloody fire brigade straight away. From here.”

“Now there’s no need to get stroppy. I wasn’t thinking clearly. Like I said, you don’t when… when something like that… The shock. Maybe you’re right. Looking back, maybe I should have phoned first. But…” He shook his head slowly.

“I was waiting for you to say you hurried down there to see if there was anything you could do,” Banks said. “To see if you could help in any way.”

Hurst just stared at him, lower jaw hanging, and adjusted his glasses.

“But you didn’t say that,” Banks went on. “You didn’t even lie.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know, Andrew. You tell me. All I can think of is that you wanted those narrow boats and the people who lived on them gone, that you didn’t call the fire brigade the minute you knew they were on fire, and that as soon as you got home you put your clothes in the washing machine. Perhaps nobody can fault you for not jumping on board a burning boat, but the fifteen minutes it took you to cycle down the towpath and make the call could have made all the difference in the world. And I’m wondering if you were aware of that at the time, too.” Banks looked at Annie, and they stood up, Banks grabbing the bag of clothes. “Don’t get up,” he said to Hurst. “We’ll see ourselves out. And don’t wander too far from home. We’ll be wanting to talk to you again soon.”

Banks wasn’t the only one who saw his weekend fast slipping away. As Annie pulled up outside the Victorian terraced house on Blackmore Street, in south Eastvale, blew her raw nose and squinted at the numbers, she realized that the fire on the barges, or narrow boats, as Andrew Hurst had insisted they were called, was probably going to keep her well occupied for the next few days. She had been hoping that Phil Keane, the man she had been seeing for the past few months – when work and business allowed, which wasn’t all that often – would be coming up from London for the weekend. Phil had inherited a cottage in Fortford from his grandparents, though he had grown up down south, and he liked to spend time there no matter what the season. If Phil didn’t make it, Annie had planned to spend her free time getting over her cold.

Annie got out of the car and looked around. Most of the houses in the area were occupied by students at the College of Further Education. The area had been tarted up a lot since Annie had started working in Eastvale. What had once been a stretch of marshy wasteground between the last straggling rows of houses and the squat college buildings was now a park named after an obscure African revolutionary, complete with flower beds that rivaled Harrogate’s in spring. A number of cafés and a couple of fancy restaurants had sprung up there over the past few years, too. Students weren’t as poor as they used to be, Annie guessed, especially the foreign students. Many of the old houses had been renovated, and the flats and bed-sits were quite comfortable. Like the rest of Eastvale, the college had grown, and its board knew they had to work to attract new students.

This morning, though, in the clinging January fog, the area took on a creepy, surreal air, the tall houses looking like a Gothic effect in a horror film, rising out of the mist with their steeply pointed slate roofs and elaborate gables. Through the bare trees across the park Annie could see the lonely illuminated red sign of the Blue Moon Café and Bakery offering cheap breakfasts. For a moment, she considered going in and ordering fried eggs, mushrooms and beans on toast – skipping the sausage and bacon because she was a vegetarian – but she decided against it. She’d grab something more healthy later, back in the town center. Besides, she thought, looking up at the looming house, she had an alibi to check.

She walked up the steps and peered at the names on the intercom box. Mandy Patterson. That was the person she wanted. She pressed the bell. It seemed to take forever, but eventually a sleepy voice answered. “Yes? Who is it?”