Liar Liar: DI Helen Grace 4 (A DI Helen Grace Thriller) (20 page)

‘My client has protested his innocence – repeatedly – and has said all he’s going to say on the matter. We are going round in circles, Inspector, so can I suggest –’

‘We’ll stop when I say so, not before,’ Helen replied sternly. She had had enough of Shapiro’s constant interruptions.

‘I’m not sure I like your tone,’ said Hannah Shapiro.

‘Then find alternative employment.’

Shapiro glared at Helen, but said nothing, so Helen resumed.

‘I’ve given you the chance to come clean, Richard. To help us to help you. But you’ve refused to cooperate. So we’re going to have to keep going, I’m afraid. It’s six fifteen p.m., so I make it that we have at least another two hours to go.’

Helen paused to let Ford take this in, before she said:

‘We’ve established that you had footage of the six recent fires. But your collection goes back a bit further than that, doesn’t it?’

A moment’s hesitation, then:

‘Yes.’

‘The labels on the tapes cover pretty much every year since you joined the Fire Service. That’s over fifteen years’ worth of footage. I take it this is all your own work?’

‘Yes,’ Ford answered quietly.

‘We had a little look at some of them. I recognized the fire at the WestQuay in 2010, the fire at Garton NCP in 2006, even the fire at the Tetherton Ballroom on Millennium night.’

‘I’ve already said they were for professional purposes. I wanted to learn how fire behaves –’

‘Well then, you must have been a very diligent student, because the tape boxes are covered in your prints and often cracked and the tapes themselves are well worn. You’ve watched them over and over again, haven’t you?’

‘We’ve already established that my client has no family to speak of and a limited circle of friends –’

‘Spare me the violins. I don’t think you watch them because you’re lonely, Richard, I think you watch them because you want to. Because you like fire. Because it turns you on.’

‘You’ve got it all wrong,’ Ford responded quickly.

‘We found a bin which was overflowing with tissues,’ Sanderson butted in. ‘We’ve had a few of them analysed and guess what. There’s semen on every one. And, hey, I’m no prude. I know what boys get up to. But here’s the thing. There’s no pornographic material in your little attic, no web history of porn surfing either, so exactly what is it that gets you so excited?’

Silence in the room now. For the first time, Helen thought she saw doubt in Hannah Shapiro’s eyes.

‘I was wrong earlier,’ Helen said. ‘You don’t like fire, do you? You love fire.’

Ford shook his head unconvincingly, so Helen stepped up her attack.

‘You like the way it dances, don’t you? What do you
think it’s saying to you when it does that? Is it calling to you? Asking you to come closer? Or is it
performing
for you? Dancing to its master’s tune? Is that what you like? The feeling of power it gives you? The knowledge that all this chaos, all this fear, all this beauty was created by you? I don’t blame you for that. I can see the attraction.’

Ford closed his eyes.

‘I think your curiosity about fire goes way beyond professional interest. I think it’s an obsession. And I think that’s why you started these fires. I don’t know yet if you meant to kill anyone – but I know that you wanted these fires to be big, for people to take notice of them and, through them, you. This was your moment, wasn’t it, the moment you finally became what you were meant to be? But it’s over now, Richard, so for your sake as well as for the sake of your victims, it’s time to tell us what you know.’

A long, pregnant pause. All eyes were now on Ford. He stared at the ground for what seemed like an eternity, then slowly he looked up. He half turned to Shapiro and shook his head slowly. His lawyer didn’t miss her opportunity.

‘We’ll take that as a “No comment.” My client
has
said everything he’s going to, so it’s shit or get off the pot time, Inspector. Either you charge my client now or you release him without delay. It’s really very simple.’

That cocky smile returned to her features once more.

‘So what’s it going to be, DI Grace?’

‘Come on, cheeky girl, it’s time for you to go to sleep.’

Jessica Brooks giggled, picked up one of the many fluffy toys that filled her cot and threw it at her mother. It was the third projectile that Jessica had had aimed at her in the last minute. She was trying to be stern, but privately loved this little game. Jessie seemed to enjoy it so much, displaying a vivacity, cheekiness and sense of humour which Charlie found irresistible. She fervently hoped that her daughter would never lose that aspect of her personality. She was a little girl who seemed to enjoy life and Charlie hoped she always would.

‘Now, don’t you do that again.’ She wagged her finger at her daughter in a pantomime gesture. Jessica’s hand was already stretching towards a cuddly panda and seconds later it flew at Charlie. Quickly Charlie caught and threw it back, causing more peals of giggles from Jessica.

Charlie could hear the landline ringing elsewhere in the house and she prayed it wasn’t for her. She loved her time with her daughter and the couple of hours spent in her company tonight had made her feel normal again. Or as normal as could be expected. Her voice was still hoarse, her throat hurt like hell, but the shock had worn off, her hands no longer shook and each minute spent in Jessica’s joyful company was a powerful tonic.

The phone had stopped ringing and she could hear Steve talking. She breathed a sigh of relief, then turned to her daughter once more.

‘Ok, you. How are we going to get you to sleep? It’s past your bedtime and you know you’ll be a grouch in the morning if you’re tired. So how about we put Brown Bear, Teddy, Snoopy and Fred
back
in your cot and think about closing our eyes.’

Jessica didn’t seem particularly keen on this plan, defiantly kicking away the descending mass of soft toys. Charlie realized Steve was now in the doorway and, smiling, gestured towards Jessie.

‘Do you want to have a go? I don’t seem to be having much joy.’

But the look on Steve’s face stopped her in her tracks. He looked sombre and very pale.

‘It’s for you,’ he said simply, holding up the cordless phone.

Charlie suddenly felt sick, though she didn’t know why. Steve never let things get to him, so it must be bad.

‘Charlie?’ he reiterated, offering the phone to her. Now she didn’t hesitate, plucking it from him and walking from the room.

‘Charlie Brooks,’ she said quickly into the receiver.

‘It’s Susan Roberts, Charlie.’

Susan was one of the Force’s most experienced Family Liaison Officers. Charlie knew her to be a cheery, redoubtable character but her tone only served to spike her anxiety still further.

‘What’s the matter, Susan? What’s happened?’

There was a long pause. To Charlie’s surprise, she
realized that Susan was trying not to cry. She had an inkling now of what was coming, but still it rocked her backwards when Susan finally said:

‘Alice Simms is dead.’

Helen and Sanderson stood in Helen’s office, neither saying a word. Outside, Helen could see news of Alice’s death rippling round the incident room. Several members of the team were fighting back tears, others just looked blank with shock. Everybody had been knocked for six by this terrible, sudden tragedy.

‘What did they say?’ Sanderson asked.

Helen had only just got off the phone from the hospital and was still trying to process what they’d told her.

‘She’d been stable since the fire but they never managed to get her to regain consciousness. It seems … that her injuries were just too profound and in the end … her heart gave up fighting.’

Tears pricked Sanderson’s eyes and Helen felt her desolation. They had all been so convinced that this brave little girl would pull through. Had this just been wishful thinking? The doctors had seemed hopeful, but in the end it was a terrible trauma for a little girl to endure. Despite her mother’s very best efforts to save her, it hadn’t been enough. Which meant that Richard Ford was now facing a triple-murder charge.

‘What do you want to do?’ Sanderson asked.

They had been discussing how to respond to Shapiro’s ultimatum when the call had come through. Helen knew she had to keep calm and avoid getting caught up in the
emotion of the moment. It was very tempting to charge Ford right now, to seek some immediate justice for Alice and her mum, but they had to be able to make the charges stick.

‘Well, he’s got motive and opportunity in abundance. Not to mention the expertise. We know he’s lied to us under caution already on a number of occasions, but he’s not going to confess, so –’

‘He might if we charge him. If he thinks he can wriggle out of it by pleading diminished responsibility –’

‘But if he doesn’t and ends up beating the rap, it’ll be our fault. We need to link him to the site of the fire itself –’

‘What about Deborah Parks’s findings? She said she found a boot print at the Roberts house which matched the sole of Ford’s fire boots –’

‘But that print was made post fire, we need evidence of him setting them. We need paraffin in the house, on his clothes, a print on the residual evidence, footage of him buying cigarettes …’

‘What if we ask Naomie Jackson to ID him? Put him in the frame for the Roberts fire at least.’

‘Wouldn’t stand up. She was clear that she didn’t see his face and it would be easy to disprove. It was dark, she’d had a drink and so on …’

‘So what then?’

Sanderson’s tone was a little too strident for Helen’s liking, but she let it go. They were all wound tight today.

‘I’m going to let him go.’

Sanderson looked so shocked, so disbelieving, that Helen followed up quickly. She didn’t have the time or the headspace for a row with her deputy.

‘We can hold him here, but he’s not going to say anything. I want to get him away from Shapiro. While she’s in play, he’ll keep his head down and do what he’s told. But once he’s out there, isolated and scared, then we’ll see the real Richard Ford. He’ll need to be tailed 24/7 of course and we’ll have to keep an eye out for have-a-go heroes wanting a piece of him. If Meredith or Deborah turns up anything, we’ll pull him straight back in, but until then I think his isolation and paranoia could be our best friends. If there is a site where he’s keeping the paraffin and his tools of the trade, then he may well be tempted to try and destroy it now. If he does, we’ll be waiting for him.’

Sanderson nodded, begrudgingly seeing the wisdom of Helen’s words. Helen knew, were she younger, that she would have been tempted to push Ford through another round of questioning, to try and bulldoze a confession out of him. In some situations this might have worked, but this was different. The Hants Fire and Rescue Service had paid for one of the best legal brains on the South Coast to chaperone their man, so they had to play this smart. Releasing him might destabilize him. He couldn’t return to work while he was still under investigation, so he’d have plenty of time to think. And Helen wanted to see what he would do next.

So, calling McAndrew into her office, she set the plan in motion. She prayed it was the right move. The team were baying for blood now, they wanted justice, and Helen knew they would never forgive her if the killer slipped through their fingers now.

Emilia Garanita jogged up and down, trying to keep warm. The temperature was dropping fast and, despite the many layers she’d put on, she was frozen to the bone. She had always felt the cold – a legacy perhaps of her Portuguese heritage – and had never acclimatized to the raw winter winds that swept up the Solent into Southampton.

This was the part of the job she enjoyed least. Hanging out in doorways, on street corners, outside police stations and courtrooms, waiting and hoping for the story to come to her. Sometimes you got lucky, most of the time you did not. The knowledge that her siblings – all seven of them – were currently at home tucking into a takeaway in front of
Gogglebox
only made matters worse. She would give anything to be there with them now, enjoying the warmth and banter of a family evening in, rather than here, freezing her arse off in the vain hope of a break.

She would give it another hour or so. Her friendly PC had told her to expect developments but so far there had been no signs of movement. She had been posted in a doorway opposite the discreet back entrance of Southampton Central for nearly three hours now. For the first two of those she’d managed to amuse herself tweeting and surfing for info on Richard Ford. But his Facebook
page had been shut down – his lawyer’s work no doubt – and the rest of his digital footprint was very limited indeed. This was a guy who seemed to exist in his own world and was thus a journalist’s worst nightmare. No easy copy, no creepy photos to use, no easy inferences to make and no way to damn him with his own words. Garanita hoped he was guilty just for the trouble he was causing her.

A sound made her look up and suddenly her heart beat a little faster. There was his lawyer, Hannah Shapiro. Normally she would stride out the front, bold as brass. If she was coming out the back, it could only mean …

There he was. He was hard to miss, the severe buzz cut failing to hide the fierce orange tone to his hair. If Ed Sheeran joined the army this is what he’d look like, Emilia chuckled to herself as she raised her camera. To her frustration, Shapiro’s blonde bob popped into view, blocking her shot. Nothing for it, Emilia thought, but the direct approach.

Striding towards him, she called out:

‘Richard? Richard Ford?’

He turned quickly, confused and alarmed by her sudden intrusion. Immediately Emilia fired off three shots. To her surprise, Ford now started marching directly towards her. She backed off, but was too slow – now he was grabbing at her, trying to tear the camera from her. She lashed out with the heel of her boot and prepared to defend herself, but suddenly Ford lurched backwards, dragged away by his irate lawyer.

‘You use any of those and we’ll sue,’ she shouted as she marched her client away to safety.

Like hell you will, Emilia thought to herself, smiling. She had every right to be here and she was very glad she had been.

She had been hoping to hang Richard Ford out to dry and now she had exactly the pictures she needed to do just that.