Small metal puddles, gleaming against the charred wood.
The sight sent a chill through me. I’d attended enough fire scenes to know only too well what they meant.
This was no accident.
And then an even worse thought struck me, one I hadn’t even considered until now. Oh, Christ.
Gripped by a new sense of urgency, I hurried back to Brody and Fraser. But even as I did I heard a car approaching, and saw Maggie Cassidy’s battered Mini bumping up the road towards us.
Her timing couldn’t have been worse. She climbed out, diminutive as ever in her oversized red coat.
‘Morning, gents,’ she greeted us, cheerfully. ‘I hear somebody had a barbecue last night.’
Fraser was already striding towards her. ‘This is off limits. Back in your car. Now!’
The wind flattened her coat around her like a cocoon as she held out her Dictaphone, as though to ward him off. There was nervousness in her face, but she did her best to disguise it.
‘Aye? Why’s that?’
‘Because I say so.’
She shook her head with mock-regret. ‘Sorry, not good enough. I slept through all the excitement last night, and I’m not missing out on it now. Perhaps if you gave me a few words, oh, say about how there’s now a murder investigation going on, and how you think the fire started, then I’ll be very happy to leave you in peace.’
Fraser balled his fists, glaring at her with such animosity I was worried he’d do something stupid. Maggie gave me a smile.
‘How about you, Dr Hunter? Any chance of-’
‘We need to talk.’
I don’t know who looked most surprised, her or Fraser.
‘You’re not talking to her!’
I caught Brody’s eye. ‘Let him be,’ he told Fraser.
‘What? You’ve got to be joking. She’s a bloody-’
‘Just do it!’
All his years of command cracked into his voice. Fraser didn’t like it, but he gave in.
‘Aye, fine! Do what you bloody like,’ he snapped, walking back towards the Range Rover.
‘Don’t let him go anywhere,’ I warned Brody. ‘We need the car.’
Maggie was watching me suspiciously, as though this might be some new sort of trick.
‘I need your help,’ I told her, taking her arm and leading her back towards the Mini. ‘We’re going to leave now, and I don’t want you to come after us.’
She stared at me as if I were mad. ‘What is this, are you-’
‘Listen. Please,’ I added, knowing too much time had already been wasted. ‘You want a story, I promise you’ll get one. But right now, I need you to leave us alone.’
The incredulous smile slowly died from her lips. ‘This is bad, isn’t it?’
‘I hope not. But I think it might be, yes.’
The wind blew a strand of hair across her face as her eyes searched mine. She gave a nod as she brushed it away.
‘All right. But there’d better be a front-page story for me in this, all right?’
I hurried back to where Brody and Fraser waited by the Range Rover as she climbed back into her Mini.
‘What the hell did you say to her?’ Fraser demanded as she drove away.
‘It doesn’t matter. Have you spoken to Duncan this morning?’
‘Duncan? No, not yet,’ he said, defensively. ‘He hasn’t called in yet. But, you know, I was going to take him out some breakfast later…’
‘Try him now.’
‘Now? Why, what’s-’
‘Just do it.’
He gave me a dirty look but reached for his radio. ‘Can’t get through…’ he frowned.
‘All right, get in the car. We’re going out there.’
Brody had been watching with a worried expression, but said nothing until we were in the car and Fraser was pulling away. ‘What is it? What did you find?’
I was staring anxiously through the windscreen as we left the village, scanning the sky ahead of us. ‘I checked the wiring back at the community centre. A fire caused by an electrical fault wouldn’t have been hot enough to melt the copper core. But there’s an area round the back where the wires were melted.’
‘So what?’ Fraser asked, impatiently.
‘It means the fire was hotter there,’ Brody said, slowly. ‘Oh, Christ.’
Fraser banged the steering wheel. ‘Will somebody please tell me what the fuck’s going on?’
‘It was hotter there because that’s where an accelerant was used to start it,’ I told him. ‘The fire wasn’t caused by a short. Somebody set it deliberately.’
He was still trying to work it out. ‘What’s that got to do with Duncan?’
It was Brody who answered. ‘Because if someone wanted to get rid of the evidence, it might not only have been the clinic that was torched.’
I could see from Fraser’s face that he finally understood. But even if he hadn’t there was no need to explain further.
Smeared across the sky directly ahead was a black trail of smoke.
The meandering terrain prevented us from seeing the source of the smoke. It seemed like every hill and bend in the road conspired to keep the cottage and camper van from view. Fraser put his foot down, tearing along the narrow road much faster than was safe in the atrocious conditions. No one complained.
Then we rounded one final bend, and the old cottage was revealed in front of us. So, too, was the camper van.
What was left of it.
‘Oh, no,’ Fraser said.
Most of the smoke we’d seen was coming from the cottage. There hadn’t been much left to burn, but the thick roof beams and timbers that had fallen in the day before were still smouldering in the ruins. If there had been anything in there that SOC might have salvaged, it had been destroyed now.
But it was the sight of Brody’s camper van that transfixed us. It had been reduced to a burned-out shell, tyres melted to misshapen lumps of rubber. The living quarters had been almost completely consumed, walls eaten away by the fire, roof partially blown off when either the gas cylinder or petrol tank had exploded. Thin trails of smoke rose wraith-like from it, only to be whisked away by the wind.
There was no sign of Duncan.
Fraser didn’t slow as he went off the road and on to the track, the heavy car slewing on the muddy surface as he stamped on the brakes. He jumped out of the car and ran towards the camper van, leaving the door swinging in the wind behind him.
‘Duncan? Duncan!’ he bellowed, charging across the grass. Brody and I ran behind him, rain whipping into our faces. Fraser lurched to a halt in front of the camper van.
‘Oh, Jesus Christ! Where is he? Where the fuck is he?’
He stared round wildly, as though hoping the young PC would suddenly come strolling up. I became aware of Brody’s gaze. There was the same awareness in his face that I felt myself, and I knew that he’d seen what I had.
‘He’s here,’ I said quietly.
Fraser followed the direction of my gaze. A boot was sticking out from under a piece of heat-buckled roof, the leather burned away to reveal charred flesh and bone.
He took a step towards the camper van. ‘Ah, no, Christ…’
Before I could stop him he grabbed hold of the panel and started trying to heave it off.
‘Don’t,’ I began, but as I started forward a hand fell on my shoulder. I looked round at Brody. He shook his head.
‘Leave him.’
‘It was a crime scene; none of us should touch it. But I understood why Brody didn’t try to interfere.’
‘I don’t really see it making much difference now, do you?’ he said, bleakly.
Fraser wrenched the panel free, letting the wind carry it away. It pitched and bounced along the grass like a grounded kite until it came up against the cottage. Fraser continued to tear at the rest of the wreckage like a madman. Even from where I stood, the smell of burned meat was overpowering.
Then he stopped, staring at what he’d uncovered. He stumbled back, as uncoordinated as a broken puppet.