Simon Beckett - Where There's Smoke

“All right.”

She wasn’t sure who had spoken, but she looked up. On the other side of the glass was a steel table. A body lay on it, covered by a sheet.

That’s Alex, Kate thought. That’s him, that’s Alex. She closed her throat on a moan.

The sheet covering the body was perfectly still, unruffled by breath. A woman in a white coat, whom Kate hadn’t noticed till now, took hold of it at the top and pulled it back.

Kate looked. His dark hair was singed and matted, clotted with blood. She could see where his skull under it had been crushed. One eye was swollen shut, the flesh around it discoloured, but the other was partly open, a thin sickle staring up at the ceiling, seeing nothing.

Kate felt a pulse throb in her temple. She took a breath, forced herself to speak.

“No,” she said. “That’s not him.”

The police took her to her flat. They asked for a photograph of Alex. The only one she had was from their picnic at Cambridge, when the Japanese man had taken one of them both together. Alex had mounted it in a clip-frame and given it to her a few days later, a little nervous but obviously pleased about making a gift of it. Kate looked at the colour print before handing it over to the Inspector. She and Alex stood side by side, smiling self-consciously at the camera. Behind them was the river, a corner of the punt just visible under an overhanging willow. They looked tanned and happy.

She watched Collins put the photograph into his overcoat pocket. “I will get it back, won’t I?”

“Just as soon as we’ve finished with it.”

The policemen left. They had offered to take her back to the office, but she had declined. She needed time alone. The relief she’d felt at discovering it wasn’t Alex’s body had been replaced by reaction, and now she felt drained.

She called Clive to tell him that she wouldn’t be in. He had made no comment when she had left with the police, but she had seen the concern in his face. It was in his voice now, when he asked, “I know it isn’t any of my business, but is everything okay?”

She began to formulate a polite response, then abandoned the attempt. “No, not really.”

“Is it anything I can help with?”

“Thanks, but no, I don’t think it is.”

He didn’t speak for a second or two. “Let me know if you want to talk about it.”

She said she would and rang off. She stood in the hall for a while. There seemed no particular reason to go into either the lounge or the kitchen. Finally, with the vague idea of making something to eat, she went into the kitchen.

Without bothering to see what flavour it was, she took out a tin of soup from one of the wall cupboards. It was only when she looked for a saucepan that she remembered they were still on the cooker from the night before.

Kate stared down at the cold vegetables, and then grabbed the pans and tipped them down the sink. The potatoes had dissolved into the water. It formed a scummy tidemark on the stainless steel. She scooped out the congealed lumps that were too big to drain down the plug hole and dumped them into the bin, then turned on the tap and rinsed the sink sides.

Leaving the water running, she pulled open the oven door and pulled out the foil-wrapped salmon, dropping that into the bin too.

The water had begun to run hot. Kate squirted washing-up liquid onto the saucepans and scoured them until her arms ached. When they were dripping on the draining rack, she looked around for something else. She took the heavy metal frames from around the gas rings and plunged them into the soapy water. Then she started on the cooker itself.

Her confusion was like dark water under thin ice. Only by moving could she hope to keep from plunging through, so she scrubbed and wiped and polished, moving from the kitchen to the bathroom, then down the hall to the lounge. She was vacuuming the lounge carpet when the doorbell rang.

The sound was thin and reedy over the howl of the cleaner. Kate froze, then switched it off. The doorbell rang again as it whined into silence. She flew into the hall and down the stairs, but the hope sagged out of her when she saw two figures through the stained-glass panel.

The Inspector’s bulk filled the top step when she opened the front door. This time he had a uniformed policewoman with him. “Sorry to bother you again. Miss Powell. Can we come in?”

Kate led them upstairs into the lounge. They picked their way around the vacuum cleaner and sat down. All three sat on the edge of their seats. Collins told Kate the policewoman’s name, but it made no impression. She wouldn’t think about why he might have brought a woman officer with him this time.

The Inspector sat with his meaty hands dangling between his legs. His stomach pushed out towards his knees.

“There’ve been some further developments,” he said.

Kate couldn’t wait any longer. “Have you found him?”

There was a minute hesitation. “No. No, not yet. But after you failed to identify the body, we took one of Dr Turner’s colleagues to the mortuary. We thought there was a chance he might recognise the dead man as a patient.”

He rubbed his hands slowly together. They made a dry, rasping noise. “He positively identified him as Alex Turner.”

Kate looked at him, blankly. “He can’t have.”

Collins locked his hands together, as though to keep from rubbing them any more. “He’s known Dr Turner for ten years. He wasn’t in any doubt.”

“I don’t care how long he’d known him, that wasn’t Alex! For God’s sake, don’t you think I’d have recognised him if it was? You’ve only got to look at the photograph to see it was nothing like him!”

The Inspector took the photograph out of his jacket pocket. “Actually, we showed this to Dr Turner’s colleague. I’m afraid he didn’t recognise the man in it.”

She felt the dark water seeping up around her. “He must have!”

Collins continued as though she hadn’t spoken. “After that we also showed it to Turner’s secretary.” His eyes were mournful as he looked across at Kate. “She identified him as one of Dr Turner’s patients.”

The ice broke. The waters closed over her. “His real name’s Timothy Ellis,” Collins went on. “He’s a schizophrenic. He’s been Turner’s patient for the past two years. Since the last time they let him loose, apparently.”

As if on cue, the policewoman pulled a large photograph from a file and passed it to Kate. Kate automatically reached out and took it. It was black and white and divided into two halves, one a full-face picture, the other a profile. The man in it was younger, with shorter hair, but still recognisably Alex. “He’s twenty-six, and has had a history of arson since he was a kid,” Collins was saying. “Which would explain the attempt to set fire to the office. We don’t have full access to his psychiatric file yet, but we know he’s had a police record as an incendiary since he was ten. He was recommended for psychiatric assessment when he was fourteen, after he set fire to his school. Can’t have done much good, though, because a year or so later he set fire to his home. Killed his parents and two older brothers.”

“No!”

The cry was wrung from her. “No, his parents are alive, they live in Cornwall! He told me!”

Collins looked almost regretful. “Timothy Ellis’s parents and brothers died in the house fire that he started. He’s been in various institutions ever since. He came out two years ago, and since then he’s been employed part-time in a printer’s through a community care programme. The latest psychological reports said he was adapting well.” He gave a wry grimace. “They obviously got it wrong.”

There wasn’t enough air in the room. “No!”