Page 57 of Glasshouses

The door to the outhouse where he kept his bike so no one would see it was slightly ajar; maybe the people who’d been here hadn’t shut it properly. He walked through into the second chamber, leaving his bike safely out of the way. It had been the gardener’s storage, once upon a time, and there had been loads of gardening equipment that he’d been able to use, and an old petrol mower that was now gone.

Odd. Maybe it hadn’t been the police after all. It could’ve been someone who’d come back for more stuff, like with that room being emptied. He kept talking to himself inside his head, noticing the differences, something he was good at, stabilising his bike against a wall.

It wasn’t until he got to the door that he realised he definitely wasn’t on his own and the door was now locked, leaving him with no way out.

And it was then he smelled the smoke.

Chapter Seventeen

I’d fallen asleep wishing for the big freestanding bath tub Taz had mentioned, feeling muscles that had laid dormant, too tired to dream and unsure whether I’d be able to move in the morning, never mind run a mainly uphill course.

It wasn’t morning when my phone cut through the night’s silence, ripping me out of a deep slumber. I fumbled around for it, finding it on top of the duvet near my feet.

“Mia Mac,” I said, my name filled with sleep.

“You need to get down to Roselea.” Wrigley’s voice was not one I wished to hear during the witching hour. “There’s another fire.”

I got out of bed, something making a noise as it fell off. “Where?”

“An outbuilding. Whoever did it locked a kid inside and then rang the fire brigade. Kid’s alive, but only just. Ambulance has got him at hospital already and he’s going straight to ICU for smoke inhalation and burns. Touch and go.” He said something else, covering the phone so I couldn’t tell what. “I’m heading to the hospital. You go to the scene. Call Verity – Lachy and Vinny aren’t available.”

He ended the call before I could, and I was dressed with brushed hair and brushed teeth and out of the door five minutes after, wondering how I was going to get by on just over three hours sleep.

Taz had left just after eleven, dinner take-out pizza and a free bottle of diet coke. By the end, we both looked like we’d gone grey, the dust coating our hair, the taste of it still in my throat, even though we’d worn masks.

The pen drive was still waiting for me, now hidden in a shoe box at the bottom of my wardrobe because I trusted no one apart from the family that had brought me up.

Driving at this time of the night felt like existing in a different world to the daytime. Cars were faster and fewer, streetlights and headlights seemed alien, and every area I drove through stiller than usual. Dawn had started to trickle into the night sky, glimmers of light hinting through clouds. In the city centre, people would be heading home after a night out, or finishing a shift, a slower type of business, but as I drew closer to the outskirts of Greater Manchester, the sense of desolation increased. Red brick became grey stone, the skyline filling with hills instead of skyscrapers, and the only people about were early dog walkers, or insomniacs running before the pavements grew busy.

By the time I drove down the track to Roselea, the sky was a pale yellow, a new day had begun, only this particular day would be filled with the brittle stench of smoke.

I pulled up next to a police car and headed straight over to where a uniformed officer was standing, guarding the taped off area, not that there was much chance of being overwhelmed with the press or passers-by angling for a look.

I flashed my ID and headed towards the side of the house, the gate open and a few CSIs walking down it. Wrigley had messaged me to ask for PS Hussein, who’d been on duty when the call came in.

He found me first, clearly looking out for the person who’d possibly take this case off our hands.

“DS McAllister?”

“That’s me. So what happened?” I doubted he had time for niceties and formal introductions.

“Call came in about ten pm, left anonymously and from a phone box near the church, that there was a house on fire. The fire service attended and found a boy, about thirteen, outside a smashed window into an outbuilding. Paramedics were already on their way to the scene and managed to stabilise him. They got the fire quickly under control and that’s where we are now.” He gestured around him. “The outbuilding had been barricaded from the outside so we’re treating it as attempted murder.”

“When did you find out about our interest in the property?”

“One of the CSI saw signs of forensics inside the building, and obviously, it’s just been reboarded up. Someone remembered that a team from central were here yesterday and I asked a few questions.” He pushed his hands inside his pockets.

“I was here yesterday,” I said, although it didn’t feel like yesterday since sleep had been scarce. “The evening before I came to have a look at the place because it’s connected to a current case, and figured someone had been around there recently, so I asked forensics to have a look.”

“Well there was definitely someone around there late last night, two someones. Shall I show you where the fire was?”

I followed him through, correct with my guess as to which outbuilding had been affected.

It was the one used to store old gardening equipment, a large brick structure with a thick wooden door and single pane window which had been smashed. A couple of nearby shrubs and a tree had also caught fire, the surrounding earth soaked with the water.

“The house didn’t set alight?” I asked PS Hussein.

“The fire service were here quickly and there was very little wind last night. My guess is that whoever did this didn’t expect the boy to survive because they wouldn’t get here quick enough. As it was, they were nearby because they’d just attended a false alarm five minutes away.” We kept a good distance from the wrecked building, CSI doing their thing alongside someone from the fire service who I didn’t recognise.