The Burning (39 page)

Jenny thought of her ex-husband, a man who was capable of losing his temper at a stray crumb on the kitchen counter. ‘I know.’

‘It came back to me – one of the theories in the canteen was that Philip Ashton was the culprit. All that tension came from his being a paedophile posing as a concerned school
teacher. His alibi was always that he’d been at work when his daughter went missing. But what if he had come home early? He’d have known how to get to the house without being
seen.’

‘How could Burden hope to prove any of that?’

‘What would a guilty, intelligent man like Ashton do to give himself an escape route? What if he’d got himself a passport in a false name, planning to do a bunk if the heat ever got
too much? Who would know? No one, not until this technology comes along and you can pick a face out from a virtual line-up of several billion.’

‘That’s a lot of theory and not much evidence.’

‘Well, think about this. What if Burden was building a circumstantial case? What if he got just enough evidence that he thought he could squeeze Ashton’s balls without involving the
police? See where I’m going?’ Alison held Jenny in an unblinking gaze. ‘Then he’s cornered. Burden knows the house has got to be worth four hundred thousand and
Clare’s not long for this world, so he holds all the cards – he’s going to be rich. What does Ashton do about it? He kills Burden and sets up Ed Morgan. Tries to solve it all at
once.’

‘And hacks into Morgan’s Facebook account while he’s at it?’

‘It’s not hard to extract a man’s password when you’ve got a shotgun in his face.’

Jenny shook her head. Now she was hopelessly confused by yet another plausible theory that had never occurred to her. ‘I don’t know . . .’

‘Two tragedies, ten years and fifty yards apart, and one dodgy suicide sitting halfway between them. You tell me which is the coincidence.’ Alison scooped up the papers scattered
across the desk. ‘Either you go to the police with all this or I do. Personally, I think it would be more convincing coming from you, seeing as your brain hasn’t got a chunk out of
it.’ She fetched one more item from a side pocket of her briefcase – a DVD in a blank cover. ‘I promised you I’d stitch together the footage of people filling fuel cans.
There’s about thirty of them. None of them looks like Ed, though, or Ashton for that matter. Probably had a stash in the shed.’ Alison got up from the table. ‘I’ll bet that
bugger hacked into my account as well. And he manages to look so respectable.’ She gave a contemptuous grunt and headed for the door. ‘I’ll leave you to it, Mrs Cooper. Sleep
tight, mind the bugs don’t bite.’

Jenny called after her. ‘Alison – you’ll promise me you won’t do anything rash?’

She turned at the door. ‘I keep telling you, Mrs Cooper – I’m as rational as you are.’ Then she smiled again. ‘So God help us both.’

J
ENNY COULDN
’
T SLEEP
. She went to fetch a pill but stopped herself as her fingers closed around the foil, reminding
herself that she was pregnant. ‘Seek doctor’s advice before taking’, the packet said.
Pregnant
. She slammed the drawer shut, rammed her feet into a pair of slipper socks
and trudged downstairs, with a distant memory that twenty-three years ago warm milk had helped.

It didn’t. Sitting at the kitchen table, trying and failing to ignore the pile of evidence Alison had left behind her, she felt herself more painfully alert with each passing second.
Something inside her had shifted that afternoon. She had felt it happen at Ryan’s flat and the process had only accelerated since Alison’s arrival. The overwhelming feeling of tragedy
that had enveloped her each time she thought of Blackstone Ley had been replaced by one of urgency. Her entire body felt restless and sprung, as if it were responding to some subconscious impulse
to act, to
do
something. Four lives had ended; five if she counted Burden; six if she accepted that Ed had killed Robbie – but nothing felt complete or concluded or anywhere near
explained.

She had to be rational. Logical. Methodical. That would mean taking Alison’s evidence to Ryan, but her instincts told her the police would be reluctant to act. They had dragged their heels
since the very first day, hoping that if they looked the other way long enough it would all go away and leave them untainted. If they continued to take that line, her only option would be to
threaten to drag senior officers into court, and then it would get ugly. Moreton would reappear to remind her that, even if he didn’t have grounds to remove her, he could make life
intolerable – move her to some far-flung corner of the country, perhaps, the usual method for dealing with stubbornly independent coroners – and there would be no future for Alison.

Trying not to let herself be sidetracked by empty politics, she fetched her laptop from the study and brought it back to the warmth of the kitchen. She slotted in the DVD Alison had left and
started to watch a procession of grainy clips of surveillance footage from four BP stations. After fifteen minutes of viewing men filling petrol cans, the tiredness finally began to steal over her.
Twenty minutes in, she was struggling to keep her eyes open. The rest would have to wait till morning. She was about to press pause when yet another clip from the Gloucester Road forecourt in
Bristol started to play. An indistinct figure in a baseball cap and dark anorak appeared on foot from the left of the screen, just as a driver who had been filling a van headed inside to pay. The
man in the cap disappeared behind the van for no more than thirty seconds, then walked off the way he had come, making no attempt to pay. Jenny scrolled back five seconds and replayed it. There was
no moment when his face was visible, no way of gauging the thief’s age other than to observe that he still moved easily, with no sign of middle-aged stiffness; but the moment before he left
the frame, Jenny saw him bring up his left arm and wipe the back of his hand across his mouth. She spun round in her chair and grabbed the phone from the counter.

‘Jenny?’ Ryan groaned. ‘What time is it?’

‘Nearly 3 a.m. You promised you’d email me the footage you showed me. Where is it?’

‘Are you kidding me?’

‘I need it. Now.’

‘Look, hold on.’ He was slowly coming to life. ‘I’m not even sure I should have shown it to you.’

‘Well, you did, and it’s become part of my inquiry. You can consider this a formal request. I’ll put it in writing and copy your super right now if you like.’

‘No. My God.’ A mild note of panic entered his voice. ‘Is this how you normally do business?’

‘I’m serious, Gabriel.’

‘You know I think that’s the first time you’ve called me that. I call you Jenny, but you haven’t used my name once.’

‘Well, I’m asking you to be an angel, to climb down off your bed and send it to me now.’

‘Can I ask why?’

‘The man with the boy – I think I’ve seen him somewhere else.’

‘Huh.’ Ryan had meant to sound dismissive, but couldn’t hide his surprise. ‘Where?’

‘On film. Helping himself to a can of diesel. Why don’t I trade you? You send me yours, and I’ll send you mine.’

‘Do you know how unreliable this sort of footage is?’

‘Now you’re talking like a policeman who’s trying to build a case. I’m a coroner looking for the truth, remember? Two very different things, Gabriel.’

‘It’s Gabe. People call me Gabe.’

Jenny starting typing an email headed
Request for production of evidence
. ‘Are you out of bed yet? I can’t hear you moving.’

‘I’m putting on underwear.’

‘Well, hurry up.’

Jenny rang off, finished the three-sentence email, and sent it to Ryan from her official address. She waited impatiently for his reply, playing and replaying the footage of the diesel thief in
between checking her inbox. She was about to call him back when it started arriving, a zipped video file attached to an email readin. ‘
For your eyes only. Gabe
.’

Jenny opened Ryan’s file in a separate window and scrolled forward to the moment where the man wiped his mouth. She looked at the two pictures side by side. It was definitely the same man;
the same gesture. He was slim in the legs and, looking at him from several angles, she got the impression that he was physically fit. Alert. Cunning.

She returned Ryan’s favour and emailed her footage over to him. She knew what would happen next. He would see the similarity and try to stall her until he’d consulted his super in
the morning. But the same instinct that had brought her this far told her she couldn’t wait that long. She had to move.

Give her ten minutes to collect herself, it seemed only decent. As she left the motorway at Cribbs Causeway and headed into Bristol, Jenny switched on her phone, which she had
deliberately kept switched off since leaving home. It was shortly before 3.45 a.m. Kelly’s phone was on, but Jenny counted ten rings and still she hadn’t answered. It clicked to the
answer service. Jenny tried again, guessing Kelly might respond if she gained the impression it was an emergency. She was right. Several rings in, her startled voice came on the line.

‘Mrs Cooper? What’s happened?’

‘I need to show you something – some footage. I’m going to be at your flat in ten minutes.’

‘Now? Really?’ She sounded distressed.

‘I’m afraid it can’t wait. You’ll see why. I’m sorry about this.’

‘OK,’ Kelly answered sharply, ‘whatever you want.’ She rang off.

She sounded angry, and rightly so. Jenny suspected that her night wasn’t about to get any better.

Kelly answered her door in a rumpled cotton nightdress, with shadows under her sad eyes, but she still managed to look beautiful, even at four o’clock in the morning.
Jenny followed her through to the sitting room, the flat feeling a little more lived-in than it had before. There was a faint smell of the previous evening’s cooking in the air. Jenny noticed
an empty wine bottle on the carpet next to the sofa.

‘I’ll be quick,’ Jenny said, pulling her laptop out of her shoulder bag. ‘I know you were shown some footage of a man with a child at service station earlier
today.’

‘It wasn’t Robbie,’ Kelly said. She was looking at Jenny suspiciously, bare arms folded across her chest. ‘I know my own child. Robbie had black hair like
mine.’

‘All right, but I want you to look at it again. I want you to look at the man.’

Jenny opened the file Ryan had sent her and played the footage full-screen. This time she kept half an eye on Kelly, studying her face as she watched.

Kelly shrugged without emotion. ‘That’s what they showed me.’

‘Now look at this.’

Jenny brought up the clip from the filling station and rolled the footage. This time Kelly’s pupils widened in surprise, her eyes tracking the faceless figure in the cap as he crossed the
forecourt. She scratched her neck and shifted a little, her tension showing in a subtle hollowing of her cheeks. The figure reappeared.

‘Watch what he does now,’ Jenny said. ‘Look.’

Kelly eyes stayed on him as he wiped his mouth.

‘That’s all,’ Jenny said. ‘What do you think?’

‘About what?’ Kelly said. She seemed a little dazed.

‘It’s the same man. He stole diesel from a BP filling station on the Gloucester Road on December the 26th. It was a BP station. It was one of only three within twenty miles of your
home. You remember the evidence about markers in fuel—’

‘Robbie’s dead,’ Kelly said flatly and still without feeling. ‘Ed killed him. He said so. He’s dead.’ She looked away and wiped a palm across her eyes as
tears pricked them. ‘It’s not him. It can’t be.’

‘Look at it again, Kelly. Forget can and can’t.’

Kelly shook her head.

‘
Please
,’ Jenny insisted. She switched back to the images from the service station. ‘Look at the child. I know it’s hazy. I know the hair’s the wrong
colour.’

Frightened and tearful, Kelly forced herself to turn back to the screen.

The child was visible for no more than five seconds in total, and only as a fleeting blur, but Jenny knew that if it had been her son, if there had been even the slightest possibility, she would
have known. She paused the image at the point at which the man returned the child to the car.

‘I can’t say. I can’t—’ Kelly said.

‘Can you say it
isn’t
him?’

Kelly’s gaze flicked from the screen to Jenny and back again. She didn’t say a word, but she didn’t have to. Jenny knew the answer.

‘This is more difficult that I can ever imagine, I know,’ Jenny said, ‘but try to come at this with an open mind. Have you any idea who this man might be?’

‘No.’ She began to shake her head. ‘You can’t even see him.’

‘I expect that’s deliberate. So let’s think this through. He’s in good shape, not too old, and if he has anything at all to do with what’s happened in your life
this last ten days, he’ll either know you, or he’ll have known Ed.’

Kelly looked at her blankly, from a place of confusion.

Jenny pushed further. ‘Have you ever seen anyone near your home who resembles him?’

‘I can’t . . .’ She faltered. Jenny could see her mind shifting gears. She had a lot of preconceptions to shed before she could answer such a question with any certainty.
‘I’m not sure. I don’t think so. He doesn’t look like anyone who lives around there.’

‘Let’s go through your neighbours. Helen Medway’s husband.’

‘No, he’s in his fifties. Sort of fat.’

‘I’d say Darren Brooks, except he’s still in the burns unit.’

‘That’s not Darren.’ She was adamant.

‘Philip Ashton.’

Kelly fell still and looked back at the screen. Jenny left her alone with her thoughts for a short while.

‘Have you ever seen him do that thing was his hand?’

‘Maybe.’ Her answer was uncertain, but her changing expressions seemed to indicate a history of warring emotions.

‘You worked for him and his wife. Tell me about him.’

Kelly brought a hand up to her face. ‘What has he said?’

‘His wife told me that Layla behaved inappropriately towards him when he was giving her the extra help with her schoolwork you arranged for her. He said he didn’t like to tell you
what had happened – he thought you had enough on your plate. But I think he described her as “sexually precocious” .’