Oh, Captain Shaw!
Type of true love kept under!
Could thy Brigade
With cold cascade
Quench my great love, I wonder!
GILBERT AND SULLIVAN
Iolanthe, 1882
WHENEVER HARRIET CLOSED her eyes, the darkness seemed to press against her eyelids with a smothering weight, so she stared at the paler patch of dark she knew was the window. She had no idea how long it had been since nightfall; she’d lost all perception of the passage of time.
She shifted slightly on the narrow bed but kept her left arm tight against her chest. She thought her arm was broken, but not badly. Her mum had told her about fractures – with a compound fracture the bones might stick right through the skin, but a simple fracture was just what it sounded, a clean break.
Her forearm was swelling, and it hurt to move it, but the skin wasn’t broken and nothing felt jagged when she probed gently with her fingers. Still, she felt feverish and nauseated, and miserably thirsty.
At last, in spite of her discomfort, her eyelids fluttered, and she drifted towards the edge of sleep.
Oh, God, she was falling, falling, she couldn’t stop herself… the dark wooden banisters flashed by in a sickening whirl and she felt the impact as the hard steps came up to meet her… then hands gripped onto her ankles, the weight of a body crushed the breath from her lungs, and a searing pain tore through her arm.
Harriet jerked awake, gasping, her arm throbbing from the involuntary movement. Slowly, she eased herself up until she was half sitting against the wall. After a bit the falling sensation faded away, but she couldn’t stop the images replaying in her mind.
She had stood up, and smiled.
The lady had paused, a slight look of surprise on her face, then she’d carried on into the room and set the tray she carried on the low chest.
“It’s warm in here,” Harriet managed to say, even though her heart was thumping. “Could I – could we – could we have the window open a bit, for some air?”
The woman had turned and gazed at her with a very strange look, as if she’d forgotten Harriet could speak. Then she had stepped to the window and touched one of the fogged panes, her fingers lingering on the glass in what seemed almost a caress.
“It doesn’t open,” she said, her voice rusty. “It hasn’t opened for years. You’ll have to live with the heat.”
Harriet stared at her, then at the books, and at the narrow bed, and a dreadful knowledge filled her. “This was your room,” she whispered. “These were your books. You wrote in them. You wrote-”
“Only when I was bad,” said the woman. She smiled. “But then, I was bad quite often.”
“But why did you – How could you bring me here, when you knew…”
“I didn’t intend to, not at first.” The woman frowned as she spoke, as if it puzzled her. “But your father…” Her eyes fixed on Harriet, sharper now. “Your father was going to leave, and he never thought of taking me with him… I don’t think he’d have even bothered to tell me he was going if he hadn’t needed my help…”
“But-”
“I couldn’t have that, you see.”
Her dad didn’t know, then. He didn’t know where she was. Harriet felt a rush of relief that he hadn’t put her in this place, then a cold fear as she realized what that meant. Desperate to keep the woman talking, she said, “No. No, you couldn’t. It was selfish of him. My mum’s always saying he’s selfish.” She flushed with shame at her disloyalty, but she had to go on. “I’m sure he’s sorry. He should have known better.”
“Yes, he should.” The woman looked pleased at Harriet’s understanding.
“If he’s learned his lesson,” Harriet said carefully, trying to keep her voice level, “maybe you could let me go.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” the woman said, as if she’d given it long consideration. “Because then I’d be in trouble, and I don’t want to be in trouble.”
“I wouldn’t tell.”
“Yes, you would.” Her face hardened, and Harriet knew her deception wasn’t going to work. From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed the door, not quite pulled shut. She had to take her chance, but she needed a distraction.
“Are those your cards?” she asked, nodding towards the chest. “I saw them, the playing cards, in the drawer. I could play with you, if you like.”
There was a softening, a flicker of pleasure, perhaps of memory, in the woman’s eyes, and then she glanced towards the chest. In that instant, Harriet dived at the door, yanked it fully open, and plunged down the stairs.
The steps were steep and hard, the carpeted runner worn thin as tissue. Harriet skidded on the first step and tumbled, crashing down, and the woman came behind her like a fury. She’d fallen on Harriet, pinning Harriet’s slighter body beneath her, ignoring her cries of pain. Then she pulled her to her feet and marched her back up the stairs.
“You tricked me,” she hissed, her breath panting hot in Harriet’s ear. “You tricked me, and you’re going to be sorry.” She shoved Harriet into the room, slamming the door so hard the walls shook and the china basin on the chest made a chinking sound.
For a long time, Harriet lay where she fell, too afraid to move. The room brightened, then grew dimmer as the sun passed its zenith. At last, driven by the pain in her arm, she shuffled across the floor and climbed up on the bed. Shivering in spite of the heat, she pulled the blanket round her.
The hours passed, the room grew gray as the afternoon faded to evening, and nothing stirred in the house. Harriet’s head swam with hunger as well as pain. She’d had nothing to eat or drink since last night’s meager supper. The tray still sat on the chest where she had left it, hours before. Trying not to make a sound, Harriet got up and crossed the room.
Congealed oatmeal, dried fruit, a cup of warm, flat water. Harriet drank all the water, no longer caring if she had to use the pail, then made herself eat a few bites of the oatmeal and nibble a piece of fruit. But she had felt ill, too dizzy to stand for long, and she soon crawled back into bed.
Now, as she lay staring into the dark, her stomach cramped with emptiness.
She recalled again what she’d seen, in the brief minutes of her flight. A landing. An open door. A room as dusty and disused as the one that held her. The bottom of the stairs had yawned dark as a cavern – there had been no light, no sound, anywhere in the house.
Harriet thought of the meals she’d been given; the dried food, the stale water. Then she thought of the utter silence that surrounded her, and of the way she heard the sound of the boiler and the grumble of the plumbing when she lay in her own bed at night.
This house was dead, she realized, abandoned. There was no power, no water, and no one had lived here for a long time, until the woman had brought her here.
It made it worse, somehow, to think of the house so desolate, so empty, and she felt very cold and very afraid. Suddenly, she wanted her mother more than she had ever wanted anything in the world. She cried out in the darkness, but her mother didn’t come.
Kincaid groped for the alarm, trying to shut off the insistent ringing. His fingers found the Snooze button, but the sound didn’t stop. “Bloody hell,” he muttered. It was the phone, not the alarm.
Squinting at the digital readout of the clock as he fumbled for the handset, he saw that it was only a few minutes after six, and that a dusky light had just begun to show at the gap in the bedroom curtains. Gemma groaned and pulled the pillow over her head as he got the phone to his ear.
“Kincaid,” he croaked.
“Duncan, it’s Bill Farrell here. Sorry to ring so early, but I thought you’d want to know.”
He pulled himself up against the headboard, coming fully awake. “Know what?”
“There was another warehouse fire in Southwark yesterday evening, just before the day watch ended. I was off duty yesterday, so another team took the initial investigation. I didn’t hear about it until I got up this morning.”
“What hap-”
“I only know it was a bad fire, fully involved, and that a firefighter was killed.”
“Jesus.” Kincaid remembered Rose telling him she was working a day tour yesterday. “Do you know who it was?”
“Not yet. I’m meeting Martinelli at the scene. I thought you might want to come. It’s just off Waterloo Road – at Webber Street.”
“Give me half an hour.”
When Kincaid hung up, he found Gemma awake and watching him, her eyes wide with alarm.
“Another fire in Southwark,” he said, before she could ask. “I’ve got to go.”
He drove east, into a glorious rising sun, and tried to think of anything other than Rose Kearny. The city was just coming to life, its pulse quickening in anticipation of the coming day, and when he crossed the Thames at Waterloo, the water reflected the sky in a molten sheet of pink. Such beauty seemed incongruous with death, and it made the dread weigh more heavily on his heart.
As he turned off the Waterloo Road, following Farrell’s directions, he realized how close the fire had been to Ufford Street and Fanny Liu’s house. Then he saw the blackened hulk of the building, stark against a sky turning quickly to gold. The roof of the warehouse had fallen in, and the remaining walls stuck up like jagged, rotting teeth. The surrounding yard was filled with piles of burned debris and broken fencing, and the rank smell of the fire penetrated the car. The perimeter of the blue-and-white crime scene tape fluttered lightly in a rising breeze.
He recognized Bill Farrell’s van parked in the road, and saw Farrell himself, gazing up at the remains of the warehouse. With him was Jake Martinelli, and Scully.
The men turned to greet him as he climbed from the car, and the dog wagged her tail in recognition. Kincaid bent to stroke her, burying his hands in the thick ruff of fur on her neck. Still clasping the dog, he looked up at Farrell. “Did you-”
“I stopped by the station. It was a young firefighter named Bryan Simms. He was Rose Kearny’s partner.”
Kincaid felt a flood of relief, then shame. Why should this death be any less tragic because he had not known the victim? Why did it matter so much to him, that Rose was safe?
Seeking a moment’s distraction to get his emotions under control, he rubbed the dog’s head and said to her, “Have you got a job today, girl?” Scully licked his ear, obligingly. Then he stood, turning to Farrell. “How did it happen?”
“They’d had to abandon an interior attack when a person was reported on the third floor. Simms and Kearny went up on the aerial ladder. There was no flame showing, so they went in through the window.” Farrell looked away, gazing at the building. “The smoke was heavy; they were blind. It was an unsecured lift shaft. He fell to the bottom. It was three hours before the crews could get the fire damped down enough to get to him.” He rubbed at his jaw. “Wouldn’t have mattered, though, if that’s a blessing. Some falling debris partially protected the body. There was enough left that they could tell he’d broken his neck.”
“Oh, Christ.” Kincaid swallowed. “And Rose?”
Farrell shrugged. “They’ve given her leave, of course. It wasn’t her fault, though I doubt she’d believe it. The floor within four or five feet of the window was solid, so they had no warning of the drop. Simms stepped in front of her.”
“What about the person on the third floor? Did they get him out?”
“They didn’t find anyone – at least not yet. We’ll see what my lads turn up when it’s full light.”
“Was she right?” Kincaid asked, thinking of the papers Rose had given him, and that he had carried around so carelessly for a day. Had he been in some way responsible for this? “Was there a pattern?”
“There was a propane tank in the building,” said Martinelli. “We won’t know if an additional accelerant was used until we get the lab results. But like the other fires, there seems to be only one obvious point of origin. And the overhaul crew turned up a few bits of cardboard that could have been used as the initial fuel.”
“And we found this, this morning.” Farrell pointed at the ground a few yards from the twisted doors. Kincaid moved closer and peered down. It was a heavy-duty padlock, rusty from exposure, but a bright gleam of metal showed where the linkage had been sheared clean through.
“The entry crew-”
“They didn’t cut it. This was done before the fire.”
Kincaid looked up and met Farrell’s eyes.
“We may not find any more hard evidence,” said Farrell, “but I’d stake my career that this was arson. He’s clever, but he’s not clever enough. And I’m going to nail the bastard to the wall.”
Rose had held on to a flicker of hope until they carried Bryan’s body out of the ruins of the fire.
She’d made a sound then, and Seamus MacCauley had tried to hold her, to turn her away, but she’d pushed herself free of his encircling arm. The others had stepped back in silence, had let her walk beside Bryan to the waiting ambulance. She owed him that, and so much more.
Their relief had arrived, an hour into the fire, but the entire watch had stayed on, watching and waiting. You didn’t leave a mate, not like that. The paramedics had stood by as well, even though any hope that they would be needed faded as the fire blazed unabated, and the minutes lengthened into hours.
The pumpers poured out hundreds of thousands of gallons, and it seemed, for a long while, that the water only fed the flames. Then the roof had begun to cave, the inrush of oxygen sending up sparks and new tongues of fire, but it had been the beginning of the end. The glow had dimmed, the fierce heat fading, until she had felt the night air cool against her face. At last, the ladder crew had gone in, to search out the last stubborn, smoldering pockets, but victory had come at too great a price.
Rose reached out as the stretcher slid into the ambulance, but Station Officer Wilcox stilled her hand with his own, and the doors clanged shut.
As the ambulance pulled away, he said, “He didn’t suffer, Rose. And there was nothing you could have done.”
She looked at those gathered round her, their eyes red-rimmed, their faces stained with snot and soot, and she knew she couldn’t belittle their grief by giving way to hers. Nodding, she stepped back.
Steven Winston and Simon Forney came up to her. “We’re taking you home, Rose,” said Steven. “I’ll drive you, and Simon will bring your car.”
“But I can-”
“Just do as you’re told and don’t argue for once, Kearny,” interrupted Simon, and the familiar hectoring tone had eased the tightness in her chest.
She rode with Steven in silence, after they’d dropped their gear at the station and Simon had picked up her Mini. There was nothing to say, and when they reached the house in Forest Hills and Simon had handed over her car keys, they’d stood in awkward silence for a moment.
“Get some rest, Rose,” Steven had said, and she noticed that when he’d washed up at the station, he’d missed a streak of soot along his left cheek. “A day or two, then we’ll see you back on duty.”
“Right. A day or two,” she’d agreed, and gone in.
She found her mother sitting up in the reading chair in the conservatory, a book facedown in her lap.
“Rose?” she called, putting the book aside and standing up. In her dressing gown, with her face scrubbed free of makeup and the gray showing visibly in her blond hair, she suddenly looked all of her fifty-two years. “Rose, Officer MacCauley called me. I’m so sorry.” She reached out, but Rose stepped away from her.
“No, Mum, please. I can’t. I just can’t.” She couldn’t bear sympathy now – it would dissolve the fragile glue that was holding her together. Steven and Simon had known that.
After a moment, her mother nodded and sank back into the chair. “Can I get you something to eat? Or something hot to drink?”
“No, Mum. I just want to sleep.” Rose leaned down and quickly brushed her lips across her mother’s forehead. “But thanks. I – we’ll talk in the morning.”
Once upstairs, she showered, scrubbing her skin until it stung, then fell into her clean white bed. But the forgetfulness of sleep, so longed for, evaded her. She dozed eventually, in fits and starts, always waking with the same urgent feeling of having forgotten something crucial, of needing to be somewhere, needing to do something, if only she could remember what.
She woke fully when the first light of dawn began to pale the windows, her mind suddenly preternaturally clear and alert. Throwing on a sweatshirt and jeans, she left a scribbled note in the kitchen and snuck quietly out of the house. The early-morning air smelled clean and fresh, making her think suddenly of the year her father had helped her throw a paper route. There had been a secret pleasure in getting up together while the world still slept.
She chased away the thought before it could progress to longing – she had no time for that now – and climbed into the Mini. Laying a copy of the map she had made carefully on the passenger seat, she drove north to Southwark.
Traffic was still light, and nothing impeded her as she drove slowly past the scene of every fire she’d marked on the map. The Southwark Street warehouse was last on her list, and last on her route. There, she parked the car and got out. After a moment’s hesitation, she turned towards the river. She needed to walk, needed the physical movement in order to sort out all the ideas tumbling wildly through her mind.
She cut through Borough Market, which bustled with the early-morning wholesale trade, as it had for centuries. Then she crossed the cathedral yard and climbed the stairs to London Bridge.
When she reached the bridge’s center, she stopped, gazing first at St. Paul’s to the northwest, its dome glowing golden in the light of the rising sun. Then she turned back to the south, until she could see the square tower of Southwark Cathedral. She remembered reading somewhere that this was the only spot in England from which one could see two cathedrals, and she thought that on another day, she might find that a wondrous thing.
Then her gaze swept on, to all that lay beyond. She recalled what she had thought she’d known about the fires, and what she had seen that morning, and the pattern began subtly to shift. The shadowy form flitting from fire to fire took on clarity, and substance, and moved easily into the nightmare of last night’s blaze.
She saw him in her mind, she understood what made him act, and then – then she saw something so terrible that she sagged against the railing, her hand pressed to her mouth to stop the rising bile.
The squeal of car tires tore Kincaid’s attention from the remains of the padlock. A jaunty red Mini swerved, too fast, round the corner into Webber Street, then jerked to a halt behind his car. As the dog began to bark at the unexpected commotion, Rose Kearny got out and ran towards them.
She halted before Farrell, her breath coming hard, her eyes wide and dilated.
“Rose!” said Kincaid. “What is it? What are you doing here?”
She glanced at him, then turned her attention back to Bill Farrell. “I rang the station. They told me you were here. I’ve just realized – I was wrong – or at least only partly right – about why he sets the fires. He has picked sites that haven’t required added accelerant because he wants to prove he’s smarter than we are, but that’s only been an added convenience, icing on the cake.”
Martinelli, who had quieted the dog, looked baffled. “What are you-”
“I’ve looked at the map, and I’ve looked at the sites themselves, one after the other. I think he’s re-creating historic fires.”
“I don’t understand,” said Farrell.
“Well, maybe not the first one, the Waterloo lockup. That might have been a practice run, testing his skills. But the others have been either Victorian warehouses, or he’s recreated an aspect of a Victorian warehouse fire.” Impatiently, Rose shoved a stray hair behind her ear, and Kincaid saw that her hand was trembling. “Look at the contents. Groceries. Paint. Fabric.”
Understanding began to bloom in Farrell’s craggy face, but Kincaid was completely at a loss.
“Tooley Street?” said Farrell, and she nodded.
“Scovell’s warehouses and Cotton’s Wharf. Tea, rice, sugar. Paint. Rum. Hemp, cotton, and jute.” Rose turned to Kincaid. “The Tooley Street fire burned for two days, in 1861. It did over two million pounds’ worth of damage. It was the worst fire to strike London since the Great Fire, and it wouldn’t be equaled until the Blitz.”
Martinelli was nodding now too. “It’s wild, but yeah, I can see it. But why?”
“I don’t know why,” said Rose. “But I think he’s escalating – building up to something much bigger than anything we’ve seen. And-” She stopped, her hands clenching and unclenching at her sides.
“What?” said Farrell gently. “Tell us, Rose.”
She took a ragged breath. “I think – I think I saw him. Last night. The man who shouted that there was someone in the window on the third floor. It was a bogus call. There was never anyone in this building. But he wanted us to go in. He wanted to kill a firefighter. And I saw him. I saw his face.”
“Can you describe him?” asked Farrell, his voice tight now.
“Tall. Youngish. Dark hair, pale skin.” Rose closed her eyes, frowning with the effort of recollection. “And his sleeve… it was dark blue, a uniform sleeve.”
“Bloody fucking hell,” said Martinelli, and at the anger in his tone Scully growled and raised her hackles. “Are you saying it was a fireman? A fucking fireman?”
Rose shook her head. “No – I don’t know. It wasn’t a brigade uniform. I’d have seen that instantly. This was something else, almost like a mock-up of a real uniform. But wait – Say he has a grudge, this guy, against firefighters. Or maybe not just firefighters, but the whole brigade. Look at the dates of the fires, from the first one. When was the last hiring take-up?”
“Jesus.” Farrell rubbed at his beard furiously, as if it had caught a cinder. “You think this guy might have been a rejected applicant? And you think you’d recognize him, if you saw him again?”
Rose nodded once.
“Right,” muttered Farrell, half to himself. Then he grasped Rose by the shoulder. “We’ll go to the station, pull the entire brigade files if we have to. Jake, can you oversee the forensics team when they get here?” He turned to Kincaid. “And, Duncan, I still don’t see where the Southwark Street body fits into this, but if Rose is right, Bryan Simms’s death is a homicide. Can you-”
But Kincaid’s phone was ringing, and he excused himself, turning away as he unclipped it from his belt.
When he answered, Konnie Mueller said, “Bingo.”
“Sorry, Konnie – what was that?”
“I said ‘Bingo,’ mate.” Konnie sounded tired but jubilant. “One out of three is not bad. You’ve got a match on all points. Your Jane Doe is – or was – Laura Novak.”