Page 53 of Glasshouses

“Some of the marks are the same as A4 paper, like a pile of paper or books.” I stated the obvious, looking at the worn, filthy carpet.

“Did you find anything in the cellar of the other house. Wrigley said something about paperwork having been burned.” Vinny leaned into the room.

“We’re seeing if we can recover anything viable still,” Amy said. “We found some papers in Amanda Goodhew’s house that might be of interest as well.”

“Where were they?” Her office space had been clear when we’d checked.

“At the bottom of her bedside cabinet. You can pick them up after here. Weekend reading.” Amy gave a grin. “Ste should be here in a few minutes though.”

“How come?” I hadn’t requested anyone from fire investigation.

“This was a textbook case for CSIs and fire around accelerants, so I think he wants to see it in person, and it might be helpful to see if he can find anything that links the two fires. I doubt it, but it was a good enough excuse for him.” She moved away to the door of another room, opening it up.

It, and the third room on the top floor, were much the same as the other spaces we’d been able to see. I didn’t pay them much attention, pretty sure that we’d find nothing of interest, especially as the bedroom I would’ve been interested in – Lily’s room – was out of bounds as the floor wasn’t safe, and I’d heard Ste’s voice from below.

We headed back downstairs, the building feeling more ramshackled than eerie, like it had the night before. With the land around it, I was surprised The Holding hadn’t utilised the space to grow produce or plants, or that it hadn’t been sold. Although if it had, it would more than likely have been bought by property developers, who would’ve rid it of trees and wildness, and built squat, square houses, which I suspected was against what The Holding stood for.

“Hey, Detective McAllister,” Ste sounded more pleased to see me than almost everyone I’d ever met. “Who’s your friend?”

I saw Vinny stiffen and hoped he wasn’t about to start a pissing competition. He was a bit like a hen when another hen was added to the flock, with hen being a better comparison that anything particularly fierce.

“DS Vinny Leigh,” I introduced, my voice sounding chirpier than usual. “This is Ste Turner; he was one of the fire investigation officers at the Micky Mulligan incident.” I sent Vinny a glare, hoping he wouldn’t decide now was the time to practice being a pillock.

“Good to meet you.” Ste’s grin was again cheerful. I imagined he even smiled when his football team lost. “I heard you were looking at this place and I offered my services – to be honest, I wanted to have a look. It was one of the key case studies when I was training.” This was said for Vinny’s benefit, rather than mine.

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” Vinny folded his arms and I cursed under my breath.

“Plenty, but I can spare an hour, and I know you’re considering a connection between the cases so I thought it would be worth coming over and seeing if there were any commonalities.” Ste had not let Vinny spoil his cheeriness.

Vinny remained silent, no friendliness, no camaraderie towards another member of the emergency services, just frost.

“That could be useful. Have you had chance to look round?” I decided to have words with my colleague after.

Ste paid no attention to DS Grumpy Arse, which elevated him in my estimation. “Briefly, which is probably all it needs, so I won’t be wasting the taxpayers’ time.” Goal for the fire investigator. “Let me show you.”

We followed him to the back door, the bricks charred and blackened. “This house doesn’t look like it was set the same way. There’s no clear low-level point of origin like Mulligan’s. This one’s more dispersed, like someone was using whatever was handy, whereas I’d say the Mulligan house was better planned. So we have multiple ignition points, which we knew from the original report. I’d also say at Mulligan’s we had a clear trail of accelerant throughout the house; this is random and even though time has had an effect on this place, you can still see where the flames have surged.”

He led us through to the front of the house, pointing out patterns and marks and giving an explanation that I only processed half of.

“I don’t think it was the same offender. There’s nothing similar at all between the two.” He leaned against one of the walls, arms folded, looking at Vinny, who’d remained silent throughout.

“There’s seventeen years between the two fires and offenders evolve. I’d have more questions about it being the same offender if the patterns had been the same after so much time.” I looked at the tides of soot and scorch, wondered what it would’ve been like to have been trapped inside, waking up to realise what was happening. The boys and their father had been asleep when they’d died, the house absent of smoke alarms. Only Amanda had woken up in time to save herself.

Ste stood away from the wall. “And all we have to work off is what we found out then, and we didn’t have the same tools or understanding as we have now, even two decades ago.”

“Seventeen years.” Vinny just couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

“Sorry, I added three years.” For the first time I saw a glimmer of annoyance from Ste.

“Thank you; I appreciate you coming over.” I wasn’t sure what extra we’d learned from him, but I was glad it was him who’d showed up instead of Paul, who I was hoping could soon afford to retire early.

“No problem. I’m just going to have a scan outside. If I notice anything worthwhile, I’ll drop you an email.” He headed out through the back, letting on to one of the CSIs who was photographing the contents of a sideboard.

“Why do you have to be such an arse?”

Vinny didn’t look like he cared. “He’s a weirdo.”

“No, he’s just not your kind of bloke, but that doesn’t mean he’s weird.” I was sure Vinny had recently been on a training course for equality and diversity. “He’s just not jaded like the rest of us yet.”