The Burning (29 page)

‘Why don’t you come through,’ Jenny said, motioning Mrs Grant to follow her into her office.

As Jenny turned, she shot Alison a look warning her to behave. Alison rolled her eyes and stabbed her fingers noisily into her computer keyboard.

Jenny had had her office to herself for only a few minutes after Lever and the Grants had left, and was beginning to marshal her thoughts, when Alison burst in unannounced and
dropped a sheaf of papers on her desk.

‘Ed Morgan’s bank statements and every debit-card payment in the last three years. As far as I can see he didn’t buy any shotgun shells. In fact, he didn’t buy much of
anything outside of groceries and fuel. He couldn’t afford to – he hardly made three hundred a week.’

Jenny glanced through the list of everyday transactions and found herself losing heart. As soon as she thought she glimpsed daylight through the fog, it seemed to close in again. The most likely
explanation for the three deaths in the fire still remained an argument between Layla and Ed having set off a violent chain reaction, but the question mark over the ammunition opened the door to
frightening possibilities that Jenny could only guess at.

Alison seemed to read Jenny’s thoughts more clearly than she was experiencing them: ‘Feral,’ she said. ‘She’d probably think the same of any girl who doesn’t
have two plums in her mouth, but still, it does make you wonder if she really was damaged. You worked with abused kids, Mrs Cooper – you know how they behave.’

Jenny had to agree. Layla could have been a textbook case: sexually precocious, reckless, drifting into petty crime. In her former career in child protection, she had dealt with girls removed
from sexually abusive situations at a very young age, who, after ten years of stable family life with adoptive parents, would nevertheless exhibit much of the behaviour you would expect from those
who had continued to be abused. It had often seemed to Jenny that if harm was done early enough, it became woven into the fabric of the being.

‘Nicky Brooks, too, judging from what that lad told you,’ Alison said. ‘If you start to look at it that way, it all begins to make sense, doesn’t it?’

‘I’m not sure it does. Not really.’

‘Put yourself in Ed Morgan’s shoes. He would have felt like he owned those girls. Then when Layla started going her own way, sleeping with other boys . . .’

‘And what if it wasn’t him, if someone else fired the gun?’ It was the first time Jenny had truly allowed herself to consider the possibility.

‘You’ll drive yourself mad, Mrs Cooper. I should just stick to the evidence, if I were you, see where it takes you. You’re looking better, by the way.’

Alison’s sudden change of tack took Jenny by surprise. ‘Do I? I’m not sure I feel it.’

‘Negative, was it?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘The test.’

Caught off guard, Jenny struggled to find a ready response.

‘I thought that was it,’ Alison said, nodding wisely. ‘What’ll you do? Or have you already—?’

‘No!’ Jenny surprised herself with the abruptness of her denial. She felt her face flush with the heat of emotion. ‘Can we talk about this some other time?’ She turned to
her computer and tried to focus on a batch of newly arrived emails. ‘What’s happening with the Daniel Burden case?’

‘Seeing as we’re delayed for a few days, I thought we might slip in an inquest this Thursday. Did I tell you Mr Falco is representing the family?’

‘Falco?’ It took Jenny a moment to put the name together with the flamboyant solicitor who had paid her a visit the previous week. ‘When did he get in on the act?’ The
details of their conversation filtered back to her. ‘He came here fishing for information about Burden. He said he had a rich client who disappeared before Christmas who had been in contact
with him.’

‘I had an email this morning. The client was Jacob Rozek – a villain. Falco’s got it into his head he was murdered.’

Jenny pushed her fingers through her hair, overwhelmed at the thought of opening yet another can of worms. ‘One thing at a time. Rewind. I’d like you to check with the police about
Emma Grant’s car – see what the crime report says and if they had any leads. Then I’d like you to find out the names and addresses of all the registered shotgun owners in and
around Blackstone Ley.’

‘I can give you the answer to that already,’ Alison said. ‘There are a couple of farmers who’ve got licences, and then there’s Darren Brooks. I thought Harry Grant
might have a gun, but he let his licence lapse three years ago.’

‘Brooks owns a shotgun? When did you find this out?’

‘When you were over at Kelly Hart’s. You didn’t think I was going to sit here waiting for orders?’

Jenny pictured the view from the Brookses’ house across the common. She had imagined Darren Brooks gazing out with jealous longing, slowly dying from the inside. Now she placed a gun in
his hands, her imagination began to tell a more dramatic and bloody story: two armed men facing off. Darren staking his claim to Kelly. Shots fired outside the house. Ed trying to talk him down.
Darren forcing his way in, shooting Ed first, then the witnesses.

‘Mrs Cooper? Are you there?’ Alison waved a hand in front of Jenny’s face.

Jenny snapped out of her daydream. ‘I need to make a house call. I think it might be best if we do this one together.’

According to the gauge on Jenny’s dashboard it was seven degrees below freezing. Stepping out into the premature night on Blackstone Common, it felt colder still. With
only the weak and flickering beam from a key-ring torch to light their way, Jenny and Alison staggered along the track to the Brookses’ house through the hard-frozen snow. Plunging deeper
into inky, unfamiliar darkness, Alison’s bursts of chatter soon dried up and they walked in silence, each nursing their own private fears.

Alison’s breathing grew heavy as they climbed the steep bank to the house. Several times she lost her footing and stumbled, but she refused Jenny’s attempts to help her.

They had reached the top of the rise when Jenny remembered the dog,
the bloody dog
. Scanning the snow-covered yard with the feeble torch, she spotted a spade planted in a pile of snow,
which had been used to scrape a path around the house. She took hold of it, and walked ahead of Alison to the back door. Wisely, the dog chose not to show itself. Nor was there any sound of barking
when Jenny rapped on the door.

She had knocked a second time before Sandra came to the door and peered out bleary-eyed from behind the security chain.

‘It’s me, Mrs Brooks. Jenny Cooper. The coroner. And this is my officer, Mrs Trent.’

‘What do you want?’ She smelt strongly of alcohol and slurred her words.

‘We’ve a couple of questions, that’s all.’ Jenny became aware that she was still holding the spade. ‘I don’t see your dog.’

‘Haven’t seen him since this morning.’ She blinked in the exaggerated way of the profoundly drunk and fumbled with the chain until it came free. She stepped back clumsily,
leaning on the wall for support as she pulled open the door.

‘Are you all right, Mrs Brooks?’ Alison said. ‘You’ve had a difficult day.’

Not bothering – or perhaps unable – to respond, Sandra managed to turn around and weave her way towards the kitchen. Jenny and Alison followed close behind, ready to catch her if she
fell.

Sandra flopped into one of the chairs by the woodstove and concentrated all her attention on pulling a cigarette from a packet. A clutch of scorch marks on her cardigan suggested it had become a
dangerous habit. An empty half-bottle of vodka lay on the floor alongside a cheap bottle of lemonade. Dirty dishes and unwashed mugs were stacked on the counter. The carpet was covered with dirty
footprints. The room bore all the traces of having had a small army of police officers pass through it earlier in the day. Typically, none of them had thought to clean up.

Alison insisted on remaining standing, letting Jenny have the remaining chair. They watched in silent suspense as Sandra struggled with a lighter and finally put a flame to her cigarette.

‘No one here with you?’ Jenny asked.

‘Don’t want no one,’ Sandra said, her head rocking unsteadily on her neck.

‘Have you seen your husband?’

‘Fuck him.’

Tempting as it was to talk to her about Nicky, Jenny knew it wasn’t the moment, not even to offer condolences.

‘The reason I’m here, Mrs Brooks, is that I understand your husband is licensed to own a shotgun.’

Sandra let out a laugh. ‘You think he did it? He’d never have the guts.’

Alison spoke for the first time: ‘Do you know where he keeps his ammunition, Mrs Brooks?’

‘Cupboard out there.’ She flipped a hand towards the door behind her chair.

Alison excused herself and went to have a look.

‘She’s wasting her time,’ Sandra said, smoke leaching out of her mouth as she spoke. ‘He was here. Drunk. Useless.’ She let out a bitter laugh. ‘Feeling sorry
for himself, as usual. Be easier for me if it had been him.’

Jenny wondered what could hold together two people who were so unhappy with each other.

‘Is that it?’ Sandra said.

‘For now. Unless there’s anything you want to tell me.’

‘Like what?’ She spat out the two words like an accusation.

‘That’s up to you.’

Sandra held her in an unsteady gaze as the sound of Alison rummaging through a cupboard travelled through the partially open door. Moments later she reappeared holding an old shoebox.

‘Think I found them.’ She opened the lid and brought out an open paper packet containing red cylindrical cartridges. ‘Double-aught buckshot. Four dozen of them, and several
empty wrappers for the same. What does your husband shoot, Mrs Brooks?’

‘Bambi.’ She smiled. ‘Poor little Bambi.’

‘That’s venison he’s got out there in the freezer, is it?’

‘Can’t stand the stuff. Tough as boot leather.’

‘No size 4,’ Alison said to Jenny. ‘This shot is the other end of the scale. Shoot a bird with this, there’d be nothing left of it.’

‘I told you – he was here. In that chair. Snoring like a pig.’ Sandra aimed the cigarette for her lips, but dropped it down her front, leaving a trail of ash.
‘Shit.’ It rolled off her lap and landed on the floor out of her reach.

Alison passed Jenny the shoebox and picked it up. ‘Maybe it’s time you went to bed, Mrs Brooks. You don’t want to have an accident.’

Sandra swiped the cigarette from Alison’s hand.

‘Come on,’ Alison said,

She leaned in to help her out of her chair, but Sandra shrunk away from her. ‘Leave me alone. I’m staying here.’

Jenny threw Alison a glance urging her to back off. Drunk or not, she could understand Sandra not wanting to sleep alone in a room that adjoined the one in which her daughter had taken her own
life only hours before. ‘Why don’t we find you a blanket, at least?’

As Jenny stood, Sandra shot out a hand and gripped her tightly around the wrist. ‘It wasn’t my fault. None of this was my fault. I was the one trying to keep a home going here. Not
that either of them cared.’ Tears spilled down her lined and sunken cheeks. ‘She didn’t tell you the truth. She didn’t tell you—’

‘Didn’t tell me what, Sandra?’ Jenny said gently.

‘She was there all evening – at Ed’s. She’d got hold of some booze and was upstairs drinking it with Layla in her room. Ed found them. He wanted to drive her home but she
yelled at him. They had a stand-up row – all three of them. Then Nicky ran out of the house.’ Sandra’s tears turned into uncontrolled sobs. ‘She told me she was too
frightened to walk back here by herself in the dark and she’d left her phone inside. She went and hid in the bus shelter and must have passed out. She came round and saw the place in flames .
. . She said she was standing there looking at it, wondering what the hell to do, and then he fired at her—’

‘Nicky told you that Ed Morgan shot at her?’

Sandra’s fingers dug harder into Jenny’s flesh. ‘Twice. He fired at her twice. He tried to kill her. She ran off into the woods.’

‘Why didn’t she tell me this?’

‘She didn’t tell me till yesterday, not all of it. She thought it was her fault. She thought it had all blown up because of her. She thought the whole bloody thing was her
fault.’ Sandra screwed up her eyes and spoke through clenched teeth. ‘I tried telling her there was no excuse for what he did. I tried – ’ She shook her head and let it loll
onto her chest as she sobbed.

Jenny sent Alison in search of bedclothes and stayed with her. Sandra clung on to her hand like a child as she wept. Jenny didn’t try to speak; there was nothing she could find to say.

Within minutes of unburdening herself, Sandra fell deeply asleep. Alison loaded the stove with logs and trimmed it so it would last the night, while Jenny covered Sandra with a blanket and found
a bucket, which she placed next to her chair. Having made her as safe and comfortable as they could, Jenny ventured up the stairs and found Nicky’s bedroom. It was just as it had been in the
photographs: the tidiest room in the house. There was something incongruous about the make-up and bottles of nail polish arranged neatly on the dressing table, the folded underwear and carefully
rolled tights in her chest of drawers. It was the opposite of what she would have expected from an emotional, self-destructive teenager. But Jenny reminded herself that those flirting with death
often behaved this way; it was a form of compensation.

Jenny stood for a moment close to the spot where Nicky had died, hoping for an insight into what exactly had happened here this morning, but all she felt was an unnatural stillness and a cold
draught from the ill-fitting sash window. Feeling like an intruder, she checked the single drawer of the dressing table. Inside was yet more make-up, hair elastics and hair brushes, and in amongst
them she spotted a small reel of black ribbon. Jenny fetched it out and saw that it was identical to the ribbon that had been tied around the flowers left in the woods above the razed house. It
must have been Nicky who had left them, along with the tag saying ‘Sorry’. Jenny placed the reel back in the drawer and pushed it shut. She swept her eyes once more around the room and
still wasn’t convinced that regret alone was enough for Nicky to have taken her own life.