‘So far, there are no witnesses, other than Mr and Mrs Crawford who called it in.’ Ted pointed the end of his pen at her, smiled. ‘I saw you talking to them, but I have their details. Address, et cetera.’
At her hum of approval, he continued. ‘I kept our favourite reporter away from Mr and Mrs Crawford, shuffled him over there while we had the paramedics look at Mrs Crawford. I didn’t want Stafford taking advantage of anyone in a weak moment.’ He inclined his head to indicate Kim Stafford in a small group with two others. ‘Express and Star photographer and a freelancer. I’ve segregated them. Don’t need them sneaking under the cordon to get a closer look.’
‘Indeed, we don’t.’ The man stuck around like a bad smell. The last thing she needed was Kim Stafford shooting one of his inaccurate reports out.
Mason grumbled in her ear. ‘If you want me to go over and sort him…’
‘No. It’s okay, Ted has it all in hand.’ Aware Mason would love to give Kim a good, hard punch for the trouble he’d caused when Fliss had disappeared, Jenna preferred to defuse the situation and not allow the reporter to take any more time, energy and resources than he already did.
With a twitch of his lips – Jenna suspected because most of the PCs had a desire to take the local reporter into a corner and give him a good hiding – Ted nodded. ‘I have. I’ve marked off tyre marks and put down markers of a couple of things for SOCO to look at. Nothing of any relevance at this stage, apart from one hell of a lot of empty shells from a shotgun over there.’ He raised his arm to indicate an area on the far right of the property bordered by a wide stretch of fields. ‘Looks like a target practice area. Difficult to tell because I can’t get too close, but I’ll get SOCO to check it out once it gets lighter.’
It gelled with what they’d already heard about Gordon Lawrence. The slide of discomfort deepened.
Mason looked up. ‘It won’t be long now before the sun comes up.’
Jenna sent him a sharp look to check if he was bemoaning his lack of sleep, but there was no hint as he gazed up at the night sky and a wave of sadness crossed his features.
With a collective sigh, the group paused, the weight of the atmosphere pressing down.
Not wishing to dwell on the matter until they had cold, hard facts in front of them, Jenna turned to PC Walker. ‘Are you happy to continue as scene guard?’
Ted’s face scrunched up. ‘I should have been off at 2:00 a.m., Sarge. I’ve already worked over.’
Jenna shrugged. It was the way of things, she couldn’t expect him to work through after a long shift. As she turned to Donna, the other officer shook her head too. ‘We’re off back to the station, Sarge. Off at 6:00 a.m. Got a lot of writing up before we go.’
Jenna nodded her understanding. Nobody particularly liked scene guard duty. Most boring job invented, but PC Walker had a handle on it.
‘Can you give me another few minutes, Ted, while I get someone set up?’
‘Sure. No problem. It’ll take me that long to do handover notes.’ He flipped his notebook closed and headed back towards SOCO.
Jenna turned to Donna and Natalie. ‘I take it from the speed at which you’ve got back here, Sophie blew a negative.’
Natalie nodded while Donna patted her pocket, then flipped out her notebook. ‘Yeah, she did. Nice girls.’
‘Chatty.’ Natalie’s eyes glazed over and Jenna snorted.
‘Enthusiastic. Good to know they were okay.’ Jenna glanced over at the burning building and then back again. ‘I’m going to have to question them all. We need to build up a profile. So far, I’m not all that keen on what I’ve heard about Mr Lawrence.’
13
Sunday 19 April 0435 hours
Charlie Cartwright hovered on the far side of the inner cordon, but when he caught sight of Jenna, he made his way over, one large hand cupping his chest as though he was about to have a heart attack. A blast of heat whipped ahead of the wind, bringing with it fiery sparks and the scent of woodsmoke.
With a backdrop of burnished orange and the blackened shell of the house, Charlie moved closer. The hand holding his heart wriggled with a life of its own.
‘Hey, Charlie, what’s going on?’ Jenna nodded her head at the hand on his broad chest. ‘Are you okay?’ They had a second ambulance on standby, but there was nothing about Charlie that indicated he was unwell apart from the fist clutched to his heart.
As his hand unclenched and moved again, a sheepish grin spread across his face and he ducked his head to peer down the front of his partially open jacket. Two tiny tufts of fur popped out from behind the zip followed by two chocolate-drop button eyes bulging with terror.
Mason leaned in, horror streaking over his features. ‘Dear God, what the hell is it?’
Jenna smiled as she reached out a tentative hand to touch the fine chestnut hair on the miniscule dog’s face. Its cold, wet nose quivered as the dog buried it in her hand to snuffle at the scent of her. ‘Where did she come from? How come you’ve got her?’
Charlie grinned and shot Mason a quick wink. ‘Babe magnet.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the building. ‘One of the lads found her under the oil tank. He almost booted her.’ He raised his hand to scratch the top of her head. ‘Poor baby. She was about to become toast, instead she was a drowned rat where we soaked the area down to keep it from combusting.’
Mason’s lip curled. ‘She looks like a rat.’
Charlie covered her head with one large hand. ‘Don’t let her hear you say that. She’s a sensitive Sally. Poor bugger. I don’t know how she survived.’
The dog’s entire body trembled as her ears flickered back with uncertainty. Anxiety filled her bulbous eyes until they almost popped from her head and Jenna’s heart melted. She reached out and dipped both hands into the top of Charlie’s jacket to draw the little pooch out. Jenna snuggled her into her much thicker, warmer and more inviting coat while she felt rather than heard the dog’s anxious whimpers, her tremors vibrating through to Jenna’s heart.
‘How come you ended up with her?’
‘Because I’m the soft shit on the watch.’ He shrugged. ‘Other than that, I’m the one not actually hosing down the fire.’
Jenna stared up at the raging inferno as the dog snuggled in. ‘Do we have an update?’
Charlie shifted to stand shoulder to shoulder with Jenna, snaking his hand around to scratch the top of the dog’s head again and offer her some comfort, proving his words that he was a soft shit. ‘Our further two tenders arrived a while back. NILO are coming from Worcester. He’s on his way. Be here in another half hour.’
‘Good.’ It meant any information gleaned would be shared between all the forces involved; police, fire, ambulance. In the meantime, it was a case of Mason and her waiting for a building to cool down before SOCO could enter and tell them what the hell went on. ‘Is there anything we can do while we wait?’
Charlie shook his head and pointed to the flames still licking out of the top-storey windows. ‘Nothing anyone can do. We have the fire contained. We’ve managed to keep it to within the main house, the outbuilding on the left caught a few sparks, but we’ve controlled that, and we’ve got the hoses on the oil tank keeping the temperature down. With the ferocity of temperatures in there and the spread of it, we won’t have this out for a good few hours. Hard to predict exactly how long.’