Helen let that one go—she knew McAndrew lived in a one-bed flat and was vocally bitter about it.
“These calls came in in a flurry. Call operator logs show that they came in at eleven fifty, two at eleven fifty-one, eleven fifty-three, eleven fifty-four—pretty much the whole street got in on the act.”
“I’m sure they did.”
“But one call came significantly earlier than that. At eleven thirty-eight—a full twelve minutes before the others.”
Now McAndrew had Helen’s attention.
“Interestingly this call didn’t come from a neighbor. It came from a pay phone. And here’s the thing. It came from a pay phone two streets away—there’s no way the caller could have seen the fire from there.”
“So they saw the fire and ran to the nearest pay phone?”
“Possibly, but how come they saw this fire a full twelve minutes before anyone else? And why didn’t they stick around to help? If Agnieszka stopped texting at eleven fifteen p.m., she probably didn’t go to sleep immediately, so the arsonist gained entry at, what, eleven twenty-five p.m.? Eleven thirty? The fire was initially contained in the basement. The sofa burned well, but it took a while for the fire to spread upward, as the basement stairwell did not connect with the main stairs.”
“So on that basis,” Helen said, picking up McAndrew’s thread, “the most likely explanation is that the arsonist set the fire at around eleven thirty p.m., left and walked the five-minute walk to the nearest pay phone and called it in.”
“It’s a theory,” McAndrew replied calmly.
“Okay, get me the audio from every fire over the last few days. I want to see if our arsonist has been in on the act from day one.”
McAndrew was halfway to the door when Helen called out:
“One other thing. You didn’t say if the caller was male or female.”
There was a small pause before McAndrew looked up at her and said:
“Female.”
106
Thomas knelt down so that he was at eye level with his son. Luke smiled awkwardly at him and in that moment Thomas saw that Charlie Brooks had been right. He had been guilty of neglecting his son, just when he needed his father most. He felt deep shame and sadness rise in him and, not trusting himself to speak, simply stroked his son’s cheek. Tears immediately appeared in his son’s eyes, mirrored now in his own, and he dropped his gaze to his son’s tie, which was characteristically askew. Gently he straightened it for him.
“I messed up today, son,” Thomas said eventually. “I should have been here with you, but I wasn’t. Instead I let my emotions get the better of me and, well... this is the result.”
He grimaced ruefully as he gestured to the scratches on his face.
Luke smiled in return, but it was unconvincing—riven with anxiety and fear. Once again Thomas felt deep guilt at having put his own needs—his own anger—before his son’s happiness. “We’ll needto be off in a little while, so I wanted to have a little chat with you first.”
Luke nodded cautiously, so Thomas proceeded:
“I... I haven’t been a very good dad the last few days. I won’t try to excuse my behavior. All I will say is that I’ve been struggling a bit. I never prepared for... this.”
Luke stared at him, but Thomas was pleased to see there was no judgment in his expression.
“So we’re going to have to find our way together, if that’s okay. Starting today. You’ll never have to face anything as hard as what you’re about to do. There will be a lot of people at the funeral. There will be others—journalists, well-wishers—on the periphery. They will all want to talk to you—they’ll all want to offer you support, to ask you questions, to check that you’re okay. The answer is of course not, but they’ll ask anyway. And in the middle of all that, we’re going to have to... to say good-bye to Mum and Ali. A boy your age should never have to face something like this and I’m so, so sorry that you have to now. But—and this is the important bit—you won’t have to face it alone, okay? I’m going to be by your side every step of the way. Everything we face from now on, we face together.”
Luke said nothing, simply folding his father into an embrace and nestling his wet face into his shoulder. Thomas held him as he cried and for the first time since that awful night felt some strength returning to him.
As he hugged his son tight, he said a silent prayer for his wife and daughter. For his lovely son. And for the sage counsel of Charlie Brooks.
107
The pair of them sat in total silence.
Helen had commandeered an interview suite and asked McAndrew to join her. The table was covered with tapes from the call operators from the fire, police and ambulance services. The simple tape player in the center of the table had been connected to speakers, and McAndrew had turned the volume up high as they listened to the recordings.
There had been several female callers during the course of the three nights who’d reported the fires. Some sounded scared, others sounded panicked, all sounded breathless.
