‘Who called you?’ Skinner asked.
‘The place has a monitored alarm system, fire as well as intruder. Usual routine; they phone the householder first, then if he doesn’t reply, the keyholder and us.’
‘Which means that the place was empty?’
‘Usually that would be the case. Unfortunately, not this time. Did you say that you have an interest in the people who live here?’
‘In the husband, yes. My colleague and I came here to arrest him.’
‘Did he and his wife live here alone, or were there other occupants?’
‘My understanding is they have no kids. That’s all I can say. I’ve never met him, but my understanding is that he was around six feet tall, dark-haired. Wife, smaller, dumpy; both in their mid-forties.’
‘I’m afraid that’s not going to help us identify what’s in there, either of them.’
‘Shit. They’re both dead?’
‘Very. You want to see?’
‘No, but I’ll have to.’
‘Hold on then, till I get you some boots from our appliance.’
‘Make that two sets, please, and ask my colleague to join us. He’s round the front.’
He waited by the pond, gazing at the house. On impulse, he took out his mobile, and pressed the last number he had called. ‘Pops,’ his daughter answered quickly. ‘Do you have him in custody?’
‘No,’ he replied, ‘that wasn’t possible. I’m at his house, though; there’s been a fire.’
‘My God! Bad?’
‘Don’t look for him to be in the office tomorrow.’
‘You mean he’s been injured?’
‘Injured to a crisp, from what the fire chief’s been saying. I’ll give you the full story later. I have to go now.’
He ended the call as Hartil approached, with Mario McGuire, and two pairs of thigh-length waders. The police officers struggled into them, leaving their shoes behind on the edge of the pond, then followed the ADO towards the wrecked house.
The paused at the entrance to the conservatory; it had been reduced to a bizarre, windowless skeleton, with its UPVC frame buckled by the heat, and in part collapsed. ‘Everything in here was lost,’ said Hartil. ‘All this garden furniture’s supposed to be fire retardant now, but no fucking way was this lot. It went up like kindling, once the fire burned or blasted its way through from the big dining kitchen inside. That’s where we think it started. The householders seem to have been trapped in there.’ He shone a torch on a double-width doorway. Only the frame was left, and behind it, on the floor, they saw two forms, blackened, buckled, but still recognisably human. Skinner looked at them, and shuddered. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but no sound emerged.
The firefighter allowed the chief time to compose himself. ‘Obviously,’ he continued, when he judged he was ready, ‘it’s too early to say for sure, but it looks as if they were caught between the advance of the fire and here. This must have been their only escape route, but it must have been locked. Poor bastards were trapped; their best hope was that the smoke got them before the flames reached them. Usually that’s what happens in a house fire, but not always.’
‘I don’t suppose you have any idea yet how it started?’ Skinner whispered.
‘No, it’s way too early even to take a guess. It’s down to our investigators to work that out.’
‘I’d like our people to be involved.’
‘Of course. Are you saying you suspect this might be arson, sir?’
‘In this investigation, Mr Hartil, I’m ruling absolutely nothing in and nothing out. What state’s the rest of the house in?’
‘Not as bad as it might have been. The fire travelled up the way as well, obviously, but we contained it before it compromised the structure of the building.’
‘That’s good. I want this place secured, and I’d like your people to mop up as best they can. Tomorrow morning, your forensic people and mine are going to be going through this with the finest toothed comb they’ve got.’
Forty
‘What’s gonnae happen, ma’am?’ Charlie Johnston asked, as they stood in the small Stockbridge terrace, looking across the street towards the double upper colony house that was the address of record for the manager of the massage parlour in Raeburn Place.
Mary Chambers checked her watch. ‘In about four minutes,’ she told the veteran, ‘Detective Superintendent McIlhenney’s going to come on radio and give us the go. When that happens we go straight up those steps and invite Mr Arturus Luksa to accompany us back to Torphichen Place.’
‘Dae we cuff him?’
‘That’ll depend on his attitude.’
‘The punters’ll no like this, ye ken,’ Johnston sighed mournfully. ‘All the massage places bein’ shut.’
‘Does that mean you approve of prostitution, Charlie?’
‘That hardly matters, ma’am, does it; whether a tired old plod’s for it or agin it. There’s been hoors in Edinburgh since the first ships came intae Leith. . maybe before that. . and there always will be. Better indoors than up against the rough-cast walls, that’s all Ah’ve got to say about it.’ She saw him frown, his face yellow in the sodium lights. ‘But when it involves druggin’ fifteen-year-olds and puttin’ them on the game, that’s another story.’
‘Where did you hear that?’ she demanded.
McIlhenney had decided that the uniforms involved in the arrest need not be told the full story behind the raids, in case it led to an excess of zeal. ‘The priority, Mary,’ he had said, ‘is to bring them all in quietly and in one piece.’
Johnston smiled, his head tilted slightly. ‘I pick things up, ma’am, that’s all. I suppose that’s why I had a call from the ACC this afternoon. See these houses,’ he carried on, in one of the least subtle changes of subject she had ever heard, ‘they call them colonies. D’ye ken why that is?’
The superintendent knew that a thirty-year veteran with a secure pension was not about to answer any question that he chose not to, so she gave up. ‘Can’t say I do, Charlie,’ she replied.
‘It’s because of the way they were designed, in a sort of beehive style. They were built by a cooperative, for working people, in the second half of the nineteenth century, and intae the twentieth. There’s over two thousand of them across the city. Folk go on about Edinburgh bein’ the Old Town and the New Town, but they forget about these. Bloody brilliant, they-’
The crackling of the radio stopped him in mid-sentence. ‘All units move,’ ordered a voice, metallic but unmistakably that of Neil McIlhenney. The two officers reacted immediately.
‘There’s a light on upstairs,’ Chambers pointed out.
‘Do ye think he’s got a girl up there?’ Johnston asked.
‘We’ll soon find out.’ She led the way briskly up the flight of stone stairs that led to the beehive house, the PC in her wake. He was panting as she rang the doorbell.
The door was opened by a woman, pretty, petite, dark-haired, expertly made up and clad in a red sheath dress. ‘You’re early,’ she began. ‘I wasn’t expecting. .’ Her voice tailed off as she saw the uniforms.
The superintendent noted a wedding ring. ‘Mrs Luksa?’
‘Yes. What can I do for you?’ Her voice was assertive, just short of aggressive. Both officers knew instinctively that she’d greeted police at her door before.
‘Is your husband in?’
‘Yes, but he’s busy. He’s upstairs putting our son to bed. We’re going out: I thought you were the babysitter.’
‘Ask him to come down, please.’
‘No! Look, it’s not convenient. Go way; come back in the morning.’ She made to shut the door in their faces, but Chambers slammed her meaty right shoulder into in, knocking it wide open and sending the smaller woman flying.
As she hit the floor, a man appeared, dressed in a white shirt, open-necked, dark trousers, and black patent shoes, bounding down the stairway at the back of the hall. ‘Arturus Luksa?’ the superintendent shouted.