PRAISE FOR VICKY NEWHAM

‘An impressive debut … the multicultural community of Brick Lane is sensitively evoked and the heroine is ultra-hip’

Daily Mail

‘The first in a promising series … a female detective who has to negotiate cultural conflicts on a daily basis’

The Sunday Times

‘Slick, fresh and current’

Mel Sherratt

‘A remarkable portrayal of crime in modern, multicultural Britain’

Paul Finch

‘DI Maya Rahman is the heroine I’ve waited a lifetime for’

Alex Caan

‘A sensational debut; a current, timely police procedural featuring a DI like none you’ve ever seen’

Karen Dionne

‘A terrific start to an important new series’

Vaseem Khan

‘[DI Maya Rahman] is wonderfully complex and human, and the tension ratchets up nicely’

James Oswald

‘Clever, passionate and hugely thought provoking’

Lizlovesbook.com

VICKY NEWHAM grew up in West Sussex and taught Psychology in East London for many years, before moving to Whitstable in Kent. She studied for an MA in Creative Writing at Kingston University, where she graduated with distinction. She is currently working on the next instalment in the DI Rahman series.

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019

Copyright © Vicky Newham 2019

Vicky Newham asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © May 2019 ISBN: 9780008240738

For my father, who I miss every day.

Contents

Cover

PRAISE

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

FRIDAY

Rosa, 2 p.m.

Maya, 2.30 p.m.

Maya, 3.30 p.m.

Maya, 3.45 p.m.

Dan, 3.45 p.m.

Maya, 4 p.m.

Maya, 4.30 p.m.

Maya, 5.30 p.m.

Maya, 6 p.m.

Maya, 6.15 p.m.

6.30 p.m.

Maya, 7.30 p.m.

Maya, 7.45 p.m.

Brick Lane, 1984 – Maya

SATURDAY

Maya, 7 a.m.

Maya, 8.30 a.m.

Maya, 8.45 a.m.

Maya, 9.15 a.m.

Maya, 10 a.m.

10.30 a.m.

Dan, 11 a.m.

Maya, midday

Maya, 12.30 p.m.

Maya, 1 p.m.

Maya, 1.30 p.m.

Dan, 2.30 p.m.

Dan, 3 p.m.

Maya, 3.30 p.m.

Maya, 4.30 p.m.

Maya, 5.30 p.m.

Dan, 6 p.m.

Maya, 6.45 p.m.

Maya, 7.30 p.m.

Maya, 8.30 p.m.

Dan, 9.30 p.m.

Maya, 10 p.m.

Maya, 10.45 p.m.

11.30 p.m.

Maya, 11.30 p.m.

Maya, midnight

SUNDAY

Rosa, 7 a.m.

Brick Lane, 1984 – Maya

Maya, 8.30 a.m.

9 a.m.

Maya, 9.30 a.m.

Maya, 11 a.m.

Dan, 12.30 p.m.

Maya, 12.30 p.m.

Dan, 2.30 p.m.

Maya, 5 p.m.

Maya, 9 p.m.

Feldman’s Newsagent’s, Brick Lane, 1989 – Maya

MONDAY

8 a.m.

Maya, 8.30 a.m.

Maya, 9 a.m.

Dan, 10.30 a.m.

Maya, 10.30 a.m.

Dan, 11.15 a.m.

Maya, 11.15 a.m.

Maya, midday

Maya, 1 p.m.

Dan, 1.55 p.m.

2 p.m.

Maya, 3 p.m.

Maya, 4 p.m.

Maya, 6 p.m.

Maya, 7 p.m.

Maya, 8 p.m.

Maya, 8.45 p.m.

Maya, 10 p.m.

Maya, 10.30 p.m.

TUESDAY

Dan, 1 a.m.

Maya, 7.30 a.m.

Maya, 9 a.m.

Maya, 10.30 a.m.

Maya, 11.30 a.m.

Maya, 12.30 p.m.

Maya, 2.30 p.m.

Maya, 4 p.m.

Maya, 5 p.m.

WEDNESDAY

Maya, 8 a.m.

Maya, 9 a.m.

Maya, 10 a.m.

Acknowledgements

About the Publisher

FRIDAY

Rosa, 2 p.m.

Rosa Feldman stood at the door of her Brick Lane newsagent’s, staring out at the street she’d known since she was four. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. It was the shop opposite, run by the young Lithuanian couple. Since first thing this morning, the lights had been off and the shutters down. Initially, she was relieved that for once, the ugly neon sign, with its air of Margate or Blackpool, wasn’t flashing outside her bedroom window, but as the morning progressed, she felt increasingly uneasy.

It wasn’t like them at all.

She couldn’t recall ever seeing the shop closed in the daytime.

A tap on the glass snapped Rosa back into the afternoon. It was Mr Walker from the off-licence a few doors down. He shouted a cheery greeting and waved as he passed the window. Regular as clockwork, off to get chips for tea. Rosa raised her hand to return the gesture, but the pain in her wrists and knuckles bit again. Damned arthritis.

Mr Walker’s knock was usually her reminder to think about their meal. Today was Friday after all. But without Józef, the Sabbath meal wasn’t the same and she didn’t bother with the rituals any more. In the last year, she’d lost weight and clothes hung off her spare frame. What was the point of lighting candles when there was only one of you? She’d steam a plate of yesterday’s chicken and potatoes. That would do her. Fortunately, she didn’t have to go far to get home, just upstairs to the flat, even if it was still freezing at this time of year.

Over the dusty window display, two men were putting a new shop sign up where Rosenberg’s jewellers used to be. Work had been going on for weeks, and it looked like the place was nearly ready to open. Alchemia, it said. A swanky new Polish bar by the looks of it, slap bang next-door to Mr Hamid’s curry house. He wasn’t going to be happy. So much had changed in Brick Lane since she and her family had arrived, and life moved so fast on the other side of the window, it made Rosa dizzy. The pace was relentless and the change uncompromising. Inside the shop, though, she felt safe. Change there was slow and predictable. Above her head, by the door, the fan heater droned noisily and made little impact on the chilly air, but she didn’t mind. It had always done that. And she barely noticed the crumbling plaster of the ground floor walls, or the mildew which clung to ceiling corners like a nasty rash.

Her thoughts slid back to the shop over the road. The place was usually open all hours of the day and night, selling its fancy five-quid soups to whoever could afford them. She had no objection to people earning a living, but her parents would be turning in their graves. They’d survived the Ghetto on two hundred calories a day. When they left Warsaw, and arrived in London, it was the handouts from the Jewish soup kitchen in Brune Street that kept them alive. It was extraordinary to think that what had been humble subsistence for many families was now a fad-food. She’d been over for a spy at the menu, of course, when they were shut. Apart from some matzo ball soup, she couldn’t find much she fancied and didn’t know what most of it was, let alone how to pronounce it. Keen-war, or something, a youth with a bicycle and a dog had told Rosa.

She sighed. She missed her old neighbours. Those were Sabbath meals to look forward to. They were exactly how her mother described Warsaw before the war. Mrs Blum from the bagel shop would make the challah. Rich, eggy and sweet. It had been ages since Rosa had felt one of those in her hands, soft and warm, in its pretty braid shape. The Altmans would bring the wine. The Posners, candles. And the Rosenbergs, the jewellers, always came with freshly made kugel.

But now her parents were dead, and all her Jewish neighbours were either dead too or had moved away.

Except Rosa.

And there was that feeling again, a gnawing emptiness, a sense that life had moved on without her. It was so unsettling. Every fibre of her being was exhausted by the continual need to think about whether to follow her compatriots out of the East End and into the London suburbs.

The sound of voices jolted her back into the present.

Yelling.

Music.

Outside in the street, a thumping bass beat started up. Tremors vibrated through the shop, and a booming noise invaded the silence of her thoughts. Yobbos, probably, spitting everywhere and pumping out music from one of those dreadful sound-systems. They’d pass in a minute.

But they didn’t.

The music got louder and louder, and – oh, typical – the group had stopped outside Rosa’s shop. All guffaws, swearing, floppy hair and hoodies. More voices, bellowing and cheering, and one by one, people were joining them. What on earth was going on? On a Friday afternoon, from lunchtime onwards, she was used to the steady trickle of people down Brick Lane, getting ready for a night on the tiles and a curry, but it was unusual to see so many people together. She edged over to the corner of the shop window to get a better view. The music had changed, and one by one people pulled black bandanas into masks, over their mouths and noses, and were dancing, if jabbing a finger in the air and screaming counted as dancing these days. Teenagers, by the look of them. Some younger. She wasn’t very good at judging age, and they all wore such similar clothes, but she’d put money on some of them not being a day over ten.

Rosa pressed her nose against the pane of glass. Outside, the street hummed with joy. There was an innocence to their dancing, even if the masks were a bit scary. And they weren’t doing any harm, were they? She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She used to know all the kids round here; knew their families by name, but none of this lot were familiar. There were at least ten of them, dancing in the street, throwing themselves about like acrobats, bending, leaping, twirling each other around. For a moment, Rosa was reminded of the tea room dances she and Józef used to go to before Agnieszka and Tomasz were born. They’d save for weeks, get dolled up in their best clothes. Oh, how much fun they’d been.

There were more than twenty of them now, maybe thirty. Someone was lighting sparklers and passing them round for the kids. She adored sparklers. And before she knew it, her fingers pulled the door handle and she was outside, the bell dinging shut behind her. The sulphurous smell set light to her dulled senses and she felt the day’s irritation shake itself from her shoulders. She was a kid again, at crisp November bonfires and balmy mid-summer street parties, with people passing sparklers round.

Rosa cleared her throat.

Coughed.

Her lungs weren’t good these days, weakened by years of a poorly heated flat, the damp shop walls, and Józef’s cigarette smoke.

She joined the throng of passers-by who were huddled, mesmerised by the dancing. Was it a student gathering? She was puzzled. Who was in charge? She couldn’t see any organisers or anyone giving instructions, and had no idea where the music was coming from. People were merging with the group of their own accord and encouraging others to do the same. They all looked so carefree.

The music brought a smile to Rosa’s cold lips. Her heel began to tap and she was lost to nostalgia. It was such a relief to forget the pain and drudgery of the last year. To forget her arthritis and money worries. Was that Lulu and ‘Shout’? Her heart leaped. Many a time she and Józef had danced to that tune. Her mind was flooded with memories of all the occasions when they’d danced together, his warm hand in the small of her back, guiding her forwards, the other clasping hers, keeping her safe. She felt a lump in her throat. They were glorious memories, even if they were now tainted by the agony of loss. It had only been a year and she still missed him so much.

A waltz kicked in, floaty and dramatic. Initially, it had been youngsters dancing but now it was people of all ages, lured over by the infectious atmosphere of Brick Lane on a chilly April afternoon. Hearing the waltz start, a Sikh man checked his turban and, with a huge grin, he clasped the hands of a woman in a navy-blue trench coat. She was giggling like a schoolgirl, a small flat bag diagonally across her body, her head tilted back, carefree and stunned, as though she hadn’t had so much fun in ages. Rosa guessed the woman was about her age. Perhaps she was a widow too?

Rosa’s hips started to sway, and she was tempted to go over and join in. What was she thinking? She was being silly. She couldn’t. Who would mind the shop while she was cavorting in the street?

Another crowd of youths piled in, hee-hawing and smoking, in their thin cotton clothing and baseball shoes. Some with their bottoms hanging out of their trousers, others in drainpipe jeans. Didn’t they feel the cold? Several more children were in tow. Why weren’t they all at school? Before Rosa knew it, one of them had taken her hand and led her towards the group. Elvis’ crooning tones wafted down the street and once again Rosa’s spirits soared. The teenagers looked so funny, impersonating the rock ’n’ roll moves of ‘All Shook Up’. It was the most fun she’d had on a Friday afternoon since . . .

Józef would have enjoyed this. ‘Come on, Rosa,’ he would have said in his calm, decisive voice, and he’d have locked the shop, led her out into the street and begun whirling her around with that boyish grin of his.

A quick head count told her there were about fifty people dancing now and a good twenty more hanging around. The street whiffed of whacky-backy. Rosa had forgotten her nagging joints and aching legs; the grimy shelves with mounting dust; the delivery boxes she couldn’t carry. For a few sweet moments, she’d stopped feeling sick to death of the damn shop, of book-keeping and fretting over decisions. She didn’t care about any of it anymore. All she wanted was—

A loud splitting sound tore through the air, followed by a series of cracks and bangs. Rosa gasped as orange flames burst out of the top floor windows of the shop opposite, and billowed upwards. Swirling streams of black smoke inked the pale sky. Fire raged behind the first-floor windows, and the ground floor shop was filled with smoke and flames. She cried out in pain as acrid fumes hit her lungs, forcing her to clamp her hand over her mouth. Everyone was shouting and running for cover as burning timber peeled away from windows. Screams pierced the air as lengths of wood and red-hot embers rained down on the crowd below. Rosa’s legs were like jelly and she felt dizzy. She stumbled over something on the ground in front of her and lurched forwards. She made out a woman, clutching her arm.

‘Help,’ came the agonised cry at Rosa’s feet. ‘Please help me.’

Panic engulfed Rosa, and she was transported back to the sensory onslaught of the Warsaw Ghetto, to primitive memories of endless screaming, to the cacophony of bombs and blasts and gunshots. From behind, someone shoved her out of the way and she stumbled forwards. All around her, people were coughing, retching and staggering, scarves and hands clasped over their mouths, desperate to escape the blaze. The air was cloying. Putrid. She was plunged into blind terror, realising she could die. This wasn’t Poland, and it wasn’t the end of the war, but she had to get away from the fire and ring 999 before someone died.

As the blaze ripped through the roof, smoke continued to spiral upwards into the sky. Rosa staggered blindly towards the blue door of her shop, to the step and doorway, arms groping ahead for something to grab. The fumes bit at her lungs and she was gasping for air so much she was retching. Finally, her hands grabbed the handle. She used all her weight to heave the door open and stumbled inside, pushing it shut behind her as quickly as she could.

She sucked in some air.

It was like breathing through needles.

She had to get to the phone in the back room. Stands and magazine racks flashed past her as she lurched towards the till, gasping for breath and snatching for a hold. She hauled her way round the counter, head spinning, and grabbed the phone receiver from the wall. Her eyes were streaming.

Keep blinking, she told herself.

Breathe.

She tried to calm herself; to rub away the tears that the fumes had produced; to steady her shaking hands and press the buttons. What should she say? Was it terrorists? Had there been an explosion?

Just say FIRE.

Rosa felt her head starting to spin. Lights flashed, dots appeared and she went floppy. Her mind slipped sideways and everything stopped.

Maya, 2.30 p.m.

I scraped my scruffy hair into a ponytail and took a deep breath. It was the first moment’s peace in the MIT room since seven this morning. I opened the email app on my phone and scrolled down to the one from Forensic Services with ‘Mr K A Rahman’ in the subject line. The message had dropped into my private inbox moments earlier. My finger was poised, ready to click, when Dougie’s advice popped into my mind. ‘If you’re going to do this, you need to be prepared for all possible outcomes,’ he’d said.

Was I?

I wasn’t sure.

I’d given up trying to find out what had happened to Dad. We’d all accepted he was dead, until a year ago when Mum started saying he’d visited her. And now it seemed like he might be alive after all.

‘Emergency services have been on the blower, eh.’ Dan’s Australian accent cut through my thoughts. Never one to enter a room slowly, he lobbed his keys on the desk, curved his athletic frame down on the seat next to me and whacked the space bar on his computer. The impact made my desk shake.

I grunted my disapproval and tucked my phone back in my pocket. ‘What about?’ After eighteen months of working with Dan, I still found some of his behaviour—

‘If you stop texting your boyfriend, I’ll tell you.’ He faced me, his hazel eyes red-rimmed and puffy. ‘Listen to this. First response has flagged up the smell of accelerant.’ He pressed ‘play’ on the recording on his phone.

‘Poleece?’ The woman’s voice was shrill. A heavy accent. ‘My husband is in the fire in Brick Lane. I think someone’s tried to kill him.’ Her words came out in snatches. There was a female voice in the background. It sounded like the person was prompting her. ‘I think someone’s murdered him.’

‘Shit.’ I searched Dan’s face for a reaction, but it was its standard pallid hue. ‘Do we know who made the call?’

‘Can’t trace it. Cell site data places the phone in East Ham but it’s an unregistered mobile. Goes straight to voicemail and there’s no personalised message.’

‘Is there a fire in Brick Lane?’

‘Yeah. Massive one. Uniform are there now with the fire brigade. Here.’ He passed me a transcript of the call. ‘No CID yet though.’

‘“My husband is in the fire” and “I think someone has tried to kill him”? We’d better get over there. I’ll tell Superintendent Campbell we’re going to check it out. What’s the shop?’

‘New place.’ Dan checked the incident log. ‘The Brick Lane Soup Company.’

‘You’re kidding?’ I stared at him. ‘That’s where the Jewish bagel shop used to be. Developers bought it a couple of years ago. There was a real hoo-ha.’ I could vividly picture the freshly cooked salt beef and bagels that had once sat in the window. I grabbed my jacket. ‘Come on. Let’s get over there.’

Minutes later, we were zig-zagging along the A13 from Limehouse, in the clank and clatter of the afternoon traffic. Lorries and red buses belched out choking fumes into the watery April sunlight.

In Brick Lane now, and on foot, the blue lights from the emergency services vehicles barely cut through the black smog which hung over the area. As we approached the street, heading north, discombobulated voices echoed through the haze. Two motorcycle responders tore past us, sirens blaring and blue lights flashing. Dan’s stride quickened, and I broke into a jog to keep up, past the takeaways of my childhood, the barber’s and money shops.

Up ahead, it was a scene of devastation. Smoke caught in my throat and I fished in my pocket for a tissue to cover my mouth and nose. I made out a terrace of three-storey buildings. Here, parts of the roof hung precariously over the shop I’d known since I was a child. Torrents of water were gushing down the street, and spray and fizz had sent puffs of steam into the atmosphere.

A few yards away, the liveried news crew vans were in a cluster, and their staff were frantically assembling satellite dishes, gangly tripods, panels of bright lights, video cameras and sound equipment. The BBC, Sky and ITV reporters were shouting into microphones over the noise of the water pump.

Carly, one of the Sky reporters, had just begun live broadcasting.

‘ . . . here in Brick Lane, it’s a scene of utter carnage. Earlier this afternoon, at around two thirty, emergency services were inundated with calls about a fire in the shop behind me.’ She stopped and pointed. ‘Many callers mentioned music and people dancing in the street before the blaze began. Locals are worried that this might be a tragic case of arson.’ Carly paused. ‘Unusually, it appears that the shop was closed today and . . . ’

We’d arrived at the red and white fire tape now. Outside the cordon, I counted four ambulances. Blue-light staff were escorting people with injuries and burns away from the fumes and into a mobile phone repair shop. Here, paramedics and ambulance staff were triaging care needs, dispensing first aid and carrying out emergency treatments. In the Indian restaurant next-door, uniformed officers were collecting contact details from passers-by and had begun basic interviews.

Dan and I hurried over to the uniformed police officer who was guarding the scene. ‘I’m DI Rahman. This is DS Maguire. Limehouse.’ While he added our names to the log, I told him about the woman’s call to 999. ‘She thinks her husband’s been murdered in the fire. Sounds extremely scared.’

He pointed at a thick-set man with a shaved head, who was standing inside the cordon next to a digger, giving orders to a team of fluorescent-jacketed men with brooms and shovels. ‘Simon Chapel is the fire crew manager. You’ll have to speak to him.’

Dan and I made our way over. An army of personnel had cleared people away and begun conducting operations. Uniformed police, fire-fighters, fire investigation officers and CSIs all weaved around each other. A high-volume pump was in front of the shop, and a water management unit and aerial platform were standing by. Firefighters were a mass of blue uniforms, and their yellow stripes and helmets stood out like beacons. Some were transporting ladders and breathing apparatus. Others were holding jets and unravelling reels. A few charred window frames were still in place. One small pane remained, jagged and angry. Black and white tendrils of smoke were still seeping out of openings, but it was hard to tell whether these were fumes or steam. Water streaked the walls of the building, staining the yellow brickwork.

I introduced Dan and myself to Simon, and told him about the woman’s phone call.

He groaned. ‘Someone knew what they were doing, I can tell you that, but I hope she’s wrong.’ The man’s tone was clipped and the veins on his face and scalp bulged with concern, knowing he held people’s lives in his hands, and that his decisions were critical. ‘As soon as the building’s safe, we’ll get someone in.’

‘Any signs of anyone in there?’ The woman on the recording had sounded terrified. Not a bit like a crank caller.

‘We can’t get close enough to see. The speed the flames tore through the floors, and the fumes in there . . . ’ He was shaking his head. ‘If anyone was inside, they won’t have survived those temperatures or the smoke. They had an extraction system on the ground floor. Add timber flooring to that, wooden joists, lathe and plaster, and it’s all increased the speed the fire spread. Not seen a blaze like this for several months.’

‘Any indication it was deliberate?’ A sinking feeling was stealing over me. The caller had refused to give the emergency services operator her name, so we couldn’t be certain she was connected to the premises.

‘Can’t say for definite yet but we’re pretty sure accelerant was involved. Whoever poured it couldn’t have lit it from inside. Or if they did, we’ll be finding their body too.’ His phone buzzed and he checked the screen. ‘Excuse me. I need to take this.’ He clamped the phone to his ear. ‘Chapel.’

Around us, debris had been shovelled into huge piles for the council to remove. Strips of drenched, charred wood smelled bitter. Glass shards glinted threateningly in the light. Curtains and blinds had blown out into the street. Human traces were littered around the pavement: clothes, drink cans, food wrappers, a baseball hat, a couple of rucksacks, all drenched and abandoned.

Simon rang off. ‘That was the building inspector,’ he said to Dan and me. ‘He’s on his way. We aren’t sure whether the fire is completely out in the centre of the building. It’s still too hot to get in there. Our thermal imaging cameras can only reach so far.’ He gave me an apologetic smile. ‘I’ll call you the moment we get news or can get in.’

‘Thank you.’ I turned to Dan. ‘Let’s find out what witnesses we’ve got before they all clear off.’

We left the cordoned area and headed up the street to the phone repair shop where casualties had been ushered for treatment. When we arrived, the interior of the shop was a mass of people who’d been injured, display cabinets and product racks. A Sikh man was stretched out on his back on the floor with an oxygen mask over his face. Teenagers were huddled against the wall, looking pale and scared. Others were sitting on the floor, cuts and burns on their faces and arms. A lady with a blue-rinse hairdo was sitting on a plastic chair, clutching her arm, her entire demeanour one of shell-shock. Her hair was dishevelled and flecked with ash and dust, and she was clinging to her bag as though she was scared for her life. Beside the door, a paramedic was trying to attend to a lanky boy who had a large gash on his forehead. The young lad seemed unsteady on his feet and was muttering in Arabic.

Amidst the bodies, I spotted Dougie. As crime scene manager, his job was to talk me through the evidence and forensics. As soon as he saw us, he hurried over to the shop entrance. His large frame filled the doorway. He had a smear of blood on his cheek and ash had lodged in his hair and eyebrows, making his eyes seem greyer than usual.

‘Practising your First Aid?’ I smiled at him.

‘It’s been mayhem.’ He turned away from the shop so we were out of earshot. ‘I had a feeling you’d turn up when you heard it was the old bagel shop.’ Affection creased the corners of his mouth before he switched into professional mode. ‘Uniform have begun eyewitness interviews, including some of the teenagers from the flash mob. The woman with the sling was on her way to visit her mum and someone pulled her into the crowd. She fell on her wrist. The young lad by the door is anxious to get moving – something about his parents being worried. His English isn’t great so it’s hard to figure out exactly what he saw, but the priority is to get stitches over that cut before he gets a nasty infection. He’s already feeling dizzy. Rima’s on her way to interpret.’

I was absorbing the details. ‘A flash mob and arson?’ I frowned the question.

The three of us began walking towards the burnt building.

‘It is a bit of a coincidence,’ Dougie replied.

My mind was spinning.

Dougie wiped his blackened face with the sleeve of his jacket. ‘The fire investigators think the blaze started on the ground floor. Probably at the foot of the stairs. It would then have spread quickly upwards, building in intensity, and then blown out the windows. The top floor has collapsed under the weight of the water.’

‘In that case, I’ll get the H-2-H teams started so we don’t waste time.’ I glanced ahead. A neon sign lay on the ground. Over the front of the shop, smoke-charred in places, I made out ‘SOUP’. I turned to face the shop opposite the fire and felt nostalgic momentarily.

FELDMAN’S NEWSAGENT.

‘Dad often brought us here. He and Mr Feldman were pals.’

Suddenly, I heard something. Faint and weak, but its distress gnawed through the air. ‘What’s that? I can hear someone.’ I wheeled round, trying to locate the source. ‘It’s coming from one of the shops.’ There it was. ‘It’s the newsagent’s. Someone’s calling for help.’

I dashed over to the shop; pushed the door open and entered the shop alone. ‘Hello? It’s the police.’

A different smell greeted me. Musty. Less of the acrid smoke, and the water-drenched tarmac and masonry; this was damp timber and plaster. It reminded me of our first flat. In the dim light, it was like stepping back in time. It was as if the whole place hadn’t been touched for thirty years, and suddenly I was a child again, in here with my brother and sister, choosing sweets.

‘Help, help,’ came the voice, followed by a series of rasping coughs.

‘Hello? Help’s arrived.’ I scoured the room for signs of movement or noise. Around me, white MDF shelves were thin on stock. Tea bags, tins of soup and jars of coffee lay in rows, collecting dust. A central aisle housed packets of envelopes and writing paper. ‘Can you tell me where you are?’

The paintwork was a nicotine-stained ochre, and had a sheen to it, as if the place hadn’t been painted for decades. By the till, a barely touched drink sat in a cup and saucer. Behind the counter, folding doors were drawn over a cabinet with a lock in the middle. The closer I got to the back room, the stronger the damp smell got. Years of living in unheated flats had tuned my nose.

‘Mrs Feldman? Is that you?’

‘Here,’ came a croaky voice from behind the counter. She was flat on the floor, cheek to the ground and lying on one arm.

‘It’s OK. Don’t try and move. Have you hurt yourself?’ She was an older version of the one I remembered but it was definitely her.

She cleared her throat. Once, twice. Then wheezing coughs erupted.

I was about to dial 999 when Mrs Feldman began spluttering and gurgling again. She was gasping for breath – and failing. If she didn’t get help quickly, she was going to die. ‘Emergency in Feldman’s Newsagent’s,’ I shouted down the phone at Dan. ‘Get one of the paramedics and bring them in. Behind the counter. The shopkeeper is having trouble breathing.’ I took in her grey features, the rasping breath, and her bloodshot eyes. ‘Hurry. We’re losing her.’

Maya, 3.30 p.m.

Back on Brick Lane, the air was damp, and a bitter nip was creeping in. The paramedics stretchered Rosa Feldman into an ambulance, their faces worry-streaked. Her body was barely a bump beneath the blanket and an oxygen mask was clamped over her tiny face.

My phone rang. I took in the news and conveyed it to Dan. ‘The soup shop belongs to a young Lithuanian couple. Simas Gudelis and Indra Ulbiene. Uniform have spoken to Indra. She’s been out all day, visiting her sister in Upton Park. They closed the shop because Simas wasn’t feeling well. He was going to dose himself up and try and sleep it off.’

Dan’s expression mirrored mine and I wondered if he was thinking about the fire investigation officer’s warning when we arrived.

‘She is the person who rang emergency services earlier. Someone told her about the fire. As far as she knows, Simas was at home in bed today. She’ll be here any minute.’

‘Has she heard from him since the fire?’

‘No. She said his mobile goes straight to answerphone.’ An awful thought occurred to me. I’d seen the bodies of people who had been in fires, including my brother’s, still as vivid now as when I’d seen it in the Sylhet mosque eighteen months ago. Laid out on a shroud, Sabbir had looked like a bag of greasy bones. ‘If Indra’s husband is in there, I don’t want her arriving just as we are hoisting his body out.’ There was a practical concern too: fire victims often lost their skin and tissue, and this made DNA analysis and formal identification a slow and frustrating process.

‘Let’s hope that no-one else was in the building then.’

I gathered my thoughts. I needed to update Simon, the fire crew manager, and joined him and Dougie. ‘One of the shop owners has confirmed that her husband was in the building. He was in bed, ill. Are we any closer to getting someone inside?’ I sensed from their expressions that it wasn’t good news.

‘Not at the moment.’ Simon’s voice was unequivocal. ‘It’s still not safe to enter. We are waiting for a taller aerial platform to arrive from Bethnal Green station.’ He pointed at the building’s height. ‘That should enable us to lift an officer up the outside.’ He paused. ‘We’re pretty sure the fire is out but we’re waiting for a structural engineer. He’ll be able to conduct a more sophisticated assessment of the building’s strength. If he says it’s OK to lower someone in, we can do it, but until then we cannot risk it, I’m sorry.’

‘Alright.’

Dan joined us. ‘I’ve just spoken to Indra. She’s in a cab on her way here. Their bedroom is on the top floor, at the front. She’s asking about her husband.’

It was always difficult to know what to tell the families of victims on the phone. In training they told us to say as little as possible, that face to face was best, but there was also an argument for preparing people for bad news, so it wasn’t such a shock. ‘OK, thanks.’ It was hard to imagine a worse outcome for Indra than her husband having burnt to death in his bed, but something told me that her world had changed irrevocably this morning when she left the shop to meet her sister.

Maya, 3.45 p.m.

Dan and I were in the mobile phone shop, helping uniform to interview the people who needed medical treatment. Rima, an interpreter I’d met before, was perching on a stool next to the Syrian boy with the gash on his forehead. She had a bag at her feet and was filling out a form on an iPad. Her patient features conveyed her caring, professional manner as she spoke to him in Arabic.

‘Thanks for coming, Rima. It’s—’

‘Scared the life out of me, it did.’ The interruption came from a woman who was sitting nearby. ‘I hope no-one was in there.’

I introduced myself, and tried to reassure her. ‘While we’ve got the interpreter here,’ I said to her, ‘can I speak to this young lad? If you go with DS Maguire, he’ll ask you a few questions.’

‘If you like, dear,’ she said, looking mildly put out for a second before beaming at Dan’s youthful, squaddie appearance and running her hand over her hair.

I gestured Dan over and shifted my attention to the boy who had been sitting next to her. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Ali.’ He shrugged. ‘I need go.’

Dougie was right about him being nervous. Shock from the fire and the gash, probably. The cut had been stitched, and traces of congealed blood were smeared over his childlike features. ‘I’m Maya. Rima is going to translate, OK?’

His nod was fast. He was chewing at the skin round his finger nails. ‘My parent be worry. I need go.’

‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’

Rima translated.

‘Were you already here when the flash mob started?’

He shook his head. From his height and build I guessed he was about ten, but the expression in his eyes could have put him at three times that age. He pulled himself up straight as though wanting to shake off the fear he knew I’d seen.

‘You aren’t in any trouble.’ I kept my voice as gentle as I could and waited for him to relax. ‘Can you tell me what you saw?’

His face held its silence but his eyes didn’t. He stared at Rima as though he was hoping she’d understand something. ‘Was just bit fun.’ He didn’t wait for the translation. He fixed dark eyes on me, and it hit me how vulnerable he seemed. ‘Dance. Music. Is all.’ He pointed his nose away from me, dismissive and disinterested.

The burnt-out building was a mere shell, the damage self-evident. I wanted to say that it wasn’t fun for the people who’d been hurt and lost their livelihoods, but he was just a kid, and I needed to focus on getting what key information I could. ‘What was the flash mob about?’

Rima spoke gently.

Ali shifted forward so that his feet were on the ground, and pawed at the laminate flooring with his scruffy trainer. He gabbled in Arabic, and gestured pleadingly to Rima with his eyes.

‘He says he doesn’t know anything about the flash mob. He was there. It started up. That’s it.’ Rima’s frown suggested she wasn’t convinced.

‘Who brought the speakers?’

Rima translated.

‘He doesn’t know.’ He was avoiding my gaze, and his spindly leg was jigging up and down. His white trainers had broken laces, and were covered in scuff marks, and he wasn’t wearing any socks.

‘How old are you?’

He cleared his throat and straightened his back again. Spoke for longer than it would take to give his age.

‘He says he’s nearly eleven,’ said Rima.

‘D’you live round here?’

‘York Square.’ He looked up at me through a thick forelock of almost-black hair. ‘My parent wait me there.’

‘In Limehouse?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who asked you to come here for the flash mob?’ I posed the question slowly, as I suspected he’d understand, and I wanted to gauge his reactions.

He waved his arms in the air, angrily, muttering in Arabic.

‘He says it wasn’t a flash mob. It was just a few people, dancing and playing music. He was here with a friend.’

He clenched a fist. Gabbled to Rima again.

‘He says they weren’t doing anything. Just passing time. They were bored. He says they’re The Street Rats.’

Ali laughed, pretending to be cocky. ‘Yeah. We are Street Rat.’ He winced as the movement tugged at the stitches in his forehead.

‘Is that a gang name?’

He jutted his jaw, defiance blazing in his eyes.

‘Do you need Rima to call your parents?’

‘Is OK. They wait me already.’

I needed to revisit a question. ‘We believe the flash mob was deliberately organised. Where did you hear about it?’

‘He can’t remember,’ said Rima.

‘We suspect that the fire at the shop was also caused deliberately. If that’s true, it’s a very serious offence.’ I softened my tone. ‘Especially if anyone has died.’

Ali looked at me now, and for the first time I noticed how black his eyes were. His shoulders were hunched, and he was jabbing at the floor with the heel of his shoe. I realised I felt scared for him. ‘Where did you hear about the flash mob?’

He began a lengthy explanation.

Rima translated as he spoke. ‘There’s a website that posts about upcoming events . . . some are flash mobs . . . the website tells you the date . . . and the rough location . . . you register your email or cell phone number . . . it’s called London for All. LfA, for short.’

‘And is the website public?’ A sinking feeling stole over me.

‘Yes, but they have a private discussion board,’ said Rima.

The news filled me with dread. Discussion forums were the bane of the police. ‘Do you know who runs the forum?’

He shook his head and spoke further.

‘A guy called Frazer,’ Rima translated, ‘ . . . posts the messages . . . but it’s never him that comes to the events . . . and no one knows who he is . . . it’s a different person . . . who comes along . . . and no one uses their real names on the forum.’

‘And what’s your username?’ I asked.

‘He says it’s “cookiemonster”.’

Ali blushed, and for a few moments, vulnerability betrayed his desire to look older.

The police technicians would be able to track down the site host and administrators. With any luck, the cyber-crime unit might already have data on LfA. ‘Did the posts say what the purpose was of today’s flash mob?’

He’d said no but I wasn’t convinced.

‘He says they didn’t care,’ said Rima. ‘But from how he describes it, it sounds like it was something to do with anti-gentrification.’

‘Yes. Genti-thingy.’ He pointed at the street and lapsed back into Arabic.

‘Was any incentive offered to turn up?’

‘He doesn’t want to get anyone into trouble. They were told not to tell anyone.’

‘Tell anyone what?’ I looked from Rima to Ali.

Ali was silent.

‘Who told them not to say anything?’

‘Frazer.’ Rima emphasised the name and raised her eyebrows. I got the impression she was trying to check I’d taken note.

‘What was the payment?’ Please, God, may it not have been drugs.

‘Sometimes he gave them a bit of money or some food,’ said Rima. ‘And masks.’

‘What sort of masks?’

Ali and Rima talked in Arabic. ‘Black bandanas with the LfA logo on them,’ she said.

This was news. ‘And drugs?’

‘NO.’ Ali was on his feet now. His eyes were flashing with fear, and for a moment I wondered if he was about to make a dash, but his body swayed and rocked. He put his hand out and sunk back down onto his seat. ‘Not drug.’

‘OK.’ I changed tack. ‘Today – who brought the speakers?’

‘He says they were there when they arrived.’

‘They?’

‘He came with his brother and his brother’s girlfriend.’

‘What are their names?’

‘Riad.’

‘How old’s he?’

‘Nearly sixteen.’

‘And Sophie,’ Rima said. ‘She’s doing A-levels at New City College.’

‘Does Riad live with you in York Square?’

‘Yes.’

‘What number in York Square?’

‘Twenty-eight. Opposite the entrance to the park.’

‘Where are Riad and Sophie now?’

Fear filled Ali’s eyes and he covered his mouth with his hand.

‘He doesn’t know. They got separated . . . When the fire started . . . they ran for cover and . . . Riad’s not answering his phone. He says he’s scared.’

‘Which direction did they run in?’

‘That way and left.’ He pointed.

‘That way?’ I gestured. ‘That’s right.’

‘Ach.’ He punched his leg, as though he felt stupid. He turned to Rima and spoke to her.

‘Down there and right,’ she said. ‘He says his brother will turn up. He’s probably dropped his phone or they’ve gone to get some chips.’

‘Ali. Are you sure neither of them entered the building before it went on fire?’

‘They were both with him.’

‘We’ll need their descriptions . . . and a formal statement, Rima, if you can translate, please? Ali, if you hear from your brother or Sophie, please inform us straightaway.’ I summoned a uniformed officer and began briefing him.

Dan, 3.45 p.m.

Mrs Jones, the blue-rinse lady who’d hurt her wrist, was shivering and fidgety, so Dan settled her on a fold-out chair in the stock room at the back of the mobile phone shop and went to fetch her a cuppa. As he returned with it, she made a point of checking her watch and sighing loudly.

‘You got a hot date to get to?’ he asked, grinning mischievously.

Mrs Jones gave a giggle. ‘My old mum will be wondering where I’ve got to. She’ll have seen all this on the news and will be fretting. She doesn’t do mobile phones and neither do I.’

‘Thanks for waiting,’ Dan said. ‘Have a swig of this.’ He passed her the cup of sweet tea and squatted down next to her. ‘It’ll soon get you warmed up, eh.’

She was trembling, but her expression relaxed a few notches and she sipped the tea.

‘Can you take me through what you saw when you arrived?’

She nudged smeared glasses up the bridge of her nose with a shaky finger. ‘I was walking that way.’ She pointed in the direction of Whitechapel. ‘My mum lives on White Church Lane. Out of the blue, music started up behind me. Gave me a real fright, it did.’ She clamped her hand to her chest. ‘When I turned round, I saw people dancing in the street.’

Dan guessed Mrs Jones was around his mum’s age: late sixties. Too much energy to do nothing, she always told him. ‘Who was in charge?’

‘No-one as far as I could see. Everyone was encouraging everyone to join in. D’you know what I mean?’

Dan had seen flash mobs in Sydney and knew how quickly they snowballed. ‘Yes, I do. And the music?’

She pursed her lips while she tried to remember. ‘The tracks were quite short. Prepared, ready, like those cassette tape things we used to make. The songs changed every couple of minutes.’ She looked as though she was enjoying having someone listen to her. ‘Those masks though. They were a bit sinister.’

Maya, 4 p.m.

In the afternoon light, Dan’s ginger hair was glowing through his military buzz-cut. His usually pale skin was flushed with excitement as he strode the few metres along Brick Lane towards me. I could tell there’d been a development.

‘The kids at the flash mob were wearing—’

‘. . . masks. Yeah.’ I conveyed what Ali had told me.

‘London for All?’ He repeated the name back. ‘That certainly fits with anti-gentrification.’

‘Exactly. Let’s walk back to the cordon. Indra has just arrived. She’s asking if her husband is alive and I haven’t spoken to her yet.’ I told Dan about the man called Frazer. ‘I’ve forwarded the LfA link to the technicians and the cyber-crime unit. Told them it’s urgent. Screenshot some of the content in case it’s deleted.’

‘Woah. Get you, Ms Suddenly Tech Savvy.’

‘Suddenly? Cheeky bugger. I expect it comes from working with someone who’s on the internet all the time.’

We both laughed, relieved to have a bit of banter.

‘Let’s hope they shut that bastard site down.’ Dan’s words came out in an angry whisper. ‘A lot of these kids don’t know how to keep themselves safe online.’

‘The kid with the gash is only ten.’ I gestured to the two shops. ‘What the hell’s he doing, roaming the streets with these older boys?’

Dan’s manner was sombre. ‘I agree. It worries me about my two girls. Kids are growing up so quickly these days. They don’t understand how careful they need to be.’ He was shaking his head. ‘At least it sounds like that young Syrian lad’s got his parents and brother to look after him.’

Back at the scene, Simon Chapel gave me a thumbs-up. A second aerial platform was manoeuvring itself into position outside the shop.

A uniformed officer was standing with two women at the cordon. From behind, they had similar frames. Both tall and slim. One had a curtain of blonde hair down her back, and wore a khaki parka with a furry hood, jeans and trainers. The woman she was talking to had dark brown hair in a ponytail, knee-high leather boots. I guessed they were Indra and her sister. I went straight over to them. ‘DI Rahman. You must be—’

‘Is my husband dead?’ The blonde woman’s voice quaked with fear. She had mascara smears round her eyes.

‘I’m sorry. We don’t know what the situation is yet,’ I said. ‘I think it’s only fair to warn you that if he was in the fire, it’s unlikely he will have survived.’ It was an awful thing to have to tell her, and I paused for her to absorb the news. ‘We should know more once the platform lifts a fire officer into the room where your husband is.’ I turned to the dark-haired woman. ‘Are you Indra’s sister?’

‘Таip. Marta.’ Her tone was as expressionless as her face.

‘I want to see Simas. I want to go up there.’ Indra kept covering her face with her hands and lapsing into her mother tongue. She took two paces to the left, then two back again. ‘Please can I—’

‘I’m afraid that’s not possible. It may be several hours before they can bring any victims out. As soon as we know anything, we will let you know. Would you like to go and get warm somewhere and we can ring you? It may not be until tomorrow.’

‘No. I want to stay here.’ Anguish was contorting her features, pulling the skin tight around her eyes and mouth. ‘Everything. My life is in that—’

‘Inspector?’ Simon Chapel shouted. ‘We’re going up now.’

The lift was finally in place beside the shop.

‘Excuse me,’ I said to Indra and hurried over to join Chapel, where a fire officer, in protective clothing and breathing apparatus, was being lifted up the outside of the building on the aerial platform.

‘He’s got a mic so he can tell us what he sees.’ Chapel was repeating the man’s commentary aloud to Dan and I. ‘Floor almost completely collapsed in the room on the left . . . some of the ceiling is down . . . nothing much in there . . . going to use binoculars . . . a few remnants of furniture . . . no-one alive in there . . . no signs of a corpse.’ He stopped. ‘We need to shift the lift over to the room on the right.’

A few agonising minutes later, the vehicle had moved and the crane was in place. The fire officers repeated the commentary procedure.

‘Floor intact in this room . . . what looks like a bed . . . a bump . . . bedding around the bump . . . yep, the body’s in there. He can smell it.’ Simon turned away from us to speak into his radio to his ground personnel. ‘Right, get the lift down and get him checked over. Someone chase up the structural engineer. If he can’t get here, get another one. We need to get that body out and that means getting in.’

I turned to look for Indra, to tell her that we had found a body, but she and her sister were nowhere to be seen.

Maya, 4.30 p.m.

While we waited for the engineer to arrive, I walked a couple of buildings away to make some calls. Dan was trying to get hold of Indra, so I rang the Royal London Hospital to inquire about Rosa Feldman. The news wasn’t good. With her asthma, and years of living with Józef’s cigarette smoke, the fumes she’d inhaled in the street had ripped through the lining of her lungs, the ward sister told me, and Rosa was still having difficulty breathing.

‘She’s on steroids and has been hallucinating,’ the nurse said. ‘She’s convinced she’s in the Warsaw Ghetto at the end of the war.’

We would have to hope she pulled through.

‘One thing,’ the nurse said. ‘She keeps mentioning masks. Black masks. Does that mean anything to you?’

*

Half an hour later, with so much soot in the sky, the light was fading fast. Floodlights shone over the crime scene and made it look as though it was the film set for a horror or disaster movie. The fire service engineer, Terry Dixon, had arrived. He confirmed within minutes that the building was not structurally safe to enter from the ground. To get Simas’s body out, we would ideally need to go through the windows, using support structures, but that would mean a further delay while we waited for those to arrive. Another option was for an enclosed cage – with a fire officer inside it – to be lowered through the hole in the collapsed roof from above.

‘We did something similar at that warehouse fire in Shoreditch a few months back.’ Terry was showing Simon the images on his phone. ‘D’you remember?’

‘OK,’ Simon said, his voice heavy with resignation and apprehension. ‘Let’s do it.’

Fifteen minutes later, and after careful manoeuvring by the lift operator, the fire officer was finally able to see into the room at the top of the house where he’d seen a body. I held my breath as he was lowered from above, where the roof had been. They had to move the lift at a painfully slow pace so that the cage and crane arm did not disturb the building structure. There was nothing above him to fall, but the walls were difficult to assess. Other than the instructions of Simon Chapel, the site was quiet. Until—

‘Hey,’ a voice shouted. ‘Why is he looking at that side of the building?’

We all turned and saw Indra, rake thin and ashen.

‘Our bedroom is on the left,’ she shouted. ‘Not that side.’ She bolted over to Chapel. ‘He’s got the wrong room. Simas isn’t in that room. Our bedroom is this one.’ She was pointing, jabbing the air urgently, her arms stick-like in the parka.

I followed her over to Chapel and relayed what the officer had seen when he looked through their bedroom window.

‘The floor collapsed? Where is he then?’ She glanced from me to Dan, and I could tell that the realisation was dawning that something wasn’t right. ‘Why would he be in the spare room?’

I was racking my brain for things to say. I wasn’t sure why Indra was bothered which room her husband was in. ‘Perhaps Simas went next door to sleep? Maybe he went in there to fetch something and got trapped by the fire?’ I could see Indra wasn’t convinced.

‘He never sleeps in there.’ She began gabbling in Lithuanian to her sister.

‘Hold it.’ Chapel put his hand up to signal that the medical officer was relaying some news to him via a headset.

‘He’s coming out. He says he can see—’ Chapel broke off abruptly. His face fell. ‘Inspector, can you . . . ?’ He took hold of my elbow and steered me away from Indra to the side of the building. ‘Bad news, I’m afraid.’ His voice was hushed. ‘Andy says there are two bodies in there.’

‘Two?’ I was absorbing the implications. ‘Can he see whether they are male or female?’

He was nodding. ‘One’s definitely male. The other one looks like it’s female.’ His eyes communicated possible interpretations of what they’d found.

Shit. Poor Indra. ‘Is he sure?’

‘We’re trying to check, but he’s pretty certain. The time on Andy’s breathing apparatus runs out in a few minutes so he’s got to come out, but we’re going to lower Bill in next. If we’re lucky, he can grab a few samples, but everything depends on the temperature.’

‘Do whatever you can, please. We have to find out who’s responsible for this. Rosa Feldman nearly died. Now we’ve now got two confirmed deaths and—’

‘What’s going on?’ Indra was striding towards us, yelling. ‘What’s he found? Is my husband in there?’

‘I’m sorry. I can’t confirm anything until we’ve made a formal ID.’

‘But someone is definitely dead?’ Her green eyes were pools of tears. ‘It’s Simas, isn’t it? I knew it as soon as I got the call.’ Her hand was clasped over her mouth as she stifled sobs. ‘Was it the gas?’ Suddenly, Indra winced with pain and clamped her hand to her belly. ‘We had cylinders . . . in the . . . ’ She grabbed hold of her sister’s arm, let out an agonised scream and fell to the ground like a dropped towel.

‘Help,’ Marta shouted. ‘Paramedics. Over here.’

Indra lay on the pavement, her slender frame writhing in agony, her face a deathly white.

Marta was kneeling at her sister’s side, leaning over, her hand on Indra’s forehead. ‘Hurry. She’s pregnant.’

Maya, 5.30 p.m.

Minutes later, Indra was in an ambulance. The vehicle rattled out of Brick Lane, siren shrieking into the evening air, blue lights slicing through the darkness.

‘I hope she’s OK.’ I was standing with Dan and Simon.

‘And the baby,’ Dan added as I marched over to Chapel. I had to fill him in on what Indra had said about gas cylinders in the shop.

His demeanour tightened. ‘Did she say where?’

‘No. Just “we had gas cylinders”. That was it.’

‘Shit. That means we could have an explosion. Oh Christ. The whole street could go up.’ He grabbed hold of his radio and sprang into action. ‘Right. Emergency procedures.’ Chapel pointed away from the soup shop. ‘Both of you,’ he said to Dan and me, ‘start moving people back. We need to extend the cordon a further five shops. Tell everyone who isn’t family to go home as soon as they’ve spoken to the police.’ He began shouting clipped instructions into his radio to the lift operator. ‘Gas alert. Get Andy down from the platform and over to us as quick as you can. Repeat. Get Andy down.’ He switched channels on his radio. ‘All crew. All crew. Gas alert. All crew away from the building. Repeat. Gas alert. All crew to me at the front of the barber’s shop. Prepare for emergency evacuation procedures. Over.’

Within seconds, fire officers reported in to their crew leader and Simon filled them in.

‘We don’t know the details or whether the cylinders have already gone up. We need to evacuate everyone three shops each side. Tell them to go to family, friends or a hotel until we give the all-clear.’ Simon fixed his gaze on each of his officers in turn and issued instructions.

The team burst into action and the fire officers each marched towards the premises they’d been allocated.

‘Gas emergency. Clear the area, please,’ Simon shouted at the emergency services staff who were still hanging around to the left of the soup shop. He checked progress with the lift and made sure the cordon had been widened adequately.

People streamed out of shops, onto the street, wide-eyed and terrified, and were herded to beyond the new cordon. The lift lowered Andy onto the pavement. The operator jumped out of his cab to meet him and steered him towards the cordon as quickly as he could. Here, we were waiting.

Andy began removing his breathing apparatus and climbed out of his protective clothing and head gear. ‘It’s definitely a man and a woman in there,’ he said. ‘They’re curled round each other on what looks like a bed.’

‘Did you manage to get any photographs?’

He nodded. ‘Let me grab a swig of water.’ He was laying his kit out as he removed it. Mask, oxygen cylinders, thermal suit, thermal imaging camera. Dust and debris flew everywhere. For a moment it made me think of the way people lay out bodies after disasters.

‘Poor Indra,’ I said to Dan. Thank goodness she had her sister with her. Losing her husband and business were awful enough.

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Things are going to get even worse for her when she finds out about the other body.’

‘You know what the media are like. As soon as they get hold of the story, they’ll splash her personal life all over the TV. It’ll be on the internet and in all the papers. It’s going to be awful for her. And when we broadcast a public appeal for information on the woman, it’s going to increase speculation further.’ While Andy removed his gear, I was turning over in my mind who the best person would be to tell us – in Indra’s absence – whether the man in the photographs was Simas Gudelis. A reliable ID would depend on how burned the body was. Hopefully, we could identify the victims from the images the medical officer had taken and wouldn’t have to rely on dental records or DNA analysis. A thought occurred to me. ‘Dan, can you see if there’s an image of Simas online? A mug shot that we can use as a temporary reference point?’

He swiped his phone into life. ‘Here we go. The soup shop has a website.’ Dan was clicking through the website pages. ‘Simas Gudelis and Indra Ulbiene. Lithuanian. Both from Vilnius originally. They’ve lived in Tower Hamlets for three years, and before that they lived in Cambridgeshire for two years.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Agricultural labourers on various farm camps.’

He showed me an image of the two of them, outside their shop. They stood at their blue front door. The man was shaking a bottle of champagne and the woman was cutting a piece of yellow tape. She was recognisable as the one we had just met, although her build and muscle tone were heftier then and her hair was darker. Simas was taller than Indra. A brown line clung to his jawline and top lip, and he had thick eyebrows. At least we had something to go on.

Andy was rubbing his unmasked face as though wanting to shake off the things he’d seen. ‘Extremely unpleasant in there.’

‘I bet. Could we look through the photographs on your camera? We need to ID the bodies.’

‘Sure.’ He fetched it from the ground and passed it over.

With Dan looking on, I flicked through the camera’s memory card. The images showed two bodies, lying on a surface with their arms round each other. The pose – the man curled round the woman like a spoon – was a peaceful one but their melted, greasy appearance and the fire-charred room was a vision of agony.

‘Jeez.’ Unless they’d grabbed hold of each other out of terror, it suggested they’d been curled up in bed together when the fumes and flames got to them.

‘If it’s any consolation,’ Andy said, ‘the two people in that room would have become unconscious extremely quickly and died within minutes. The accelerant was focussed on the hall and staircase. The fire will have ripped through the centre of the building.’

In the image, the man’s face was shiny and burned back to tissues and fat, but his cheeks and the area around his mouth was much darker, which could be from having a beard and moustache.

Dan lined his phone up with the camera so that one of the internet images was next to the shot. ‘Looks like him, doesn’t it?’

‘There are definitely similarities but it’s hard to be sure from these images.’ It was frustrating. Facial profiling might help but it wasn’t a reliable method on its own. ‘We need to find out from Indra if she has anything of Simas’ which might have his DNA on.’

‘And whether he had any identifying marks,’ said Dan. ‘The sister might be able to help too.’

I glanced at the images again. ‘We can’t be certain it’s Simas, but it seems probable. Let’s hope someone has reported the woman missing.’

‘I’ll get Alexej to check the MisPer Register.’ Dan began to dial on his mobile.

I faced Andy again. ‘Can we take a copy of a few of these photographs as an interim?’

‘Sure.’

It took Dan a couple of moments to copy a few of the images into secure cloud storage and we made our way off the crime scene.

Just as we reached the car, a tall, mousey-haired man strode towards us. ‘Hey. Police. Wait a moment.’ It was a clipped, East London accent. His black, military-style trench-coat flapped with each stride and his eyes were darting around the scene.

The voice was familiar.

Maya, 6 p.m.

‘Someone said my mother’s been taken to hospital.’ The man was peering through the window of the newsagent’s and looking over at the wreckage of the soup shop.

Of course. That’s why he was familiar. It was Tomasz Feldman. The man in front of me was tall, a couple of years older than I was – but last time I’d seen him, he’d been a teenager.

‘Is Mum OK? Where is she?’ He took in the scene of devastation. ‘Why’s the street being evacuated?’

‘Your mother has been taken to the Royal London Hospital.’ Perhaps he didn’t recognise me?

‘Christ. She’s asthmatic.’

‘She’s inhaled smoke and was in a bad way. I gather her condition is stable now. She was in the street when the fire broke out and must’ve struggled back into the newsagent’s. I found her on the floor behind the counter.’

‘Thank you so much. Sounds like you saved her life.’ He had the same kind manner as when we were kids. ‘I’ll get down to the hospital and see if she needs anything.’

‘I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Maya Rahman. My sister and I used to—?’

His face softened. ‘Oh, I remember you two. The pick-n-mix,’ he said with a note of amused affection. ‘I was sorry to read about your brother. Dreadful thing to happen.’

‘Thank you.’ I paused to recalibrate and tell him about the gas in the soup shop. ‘The reason we’ve evac—’

‘It’s very damp in your mother’s shop.’ Dan’s interruption broke my train of thought. ‘Couldn’t you help her to get the heating updated?’

I shot Dan an unimpressed look. ‘Er – this is my sergeant, DS Maguire.’

‘I’ve been trying, believe me,’ Tomasz replied. ‘Spent the last ten years trying to get Dad to sort it out. Even offered to organise and pay for the work myself but the old man wouldn’t hear of it. Said the place was fine.’ He raised his hand in a baffled gesture. ‘Everyone can see it’s been neglected for years. With Dad, unfortunately, I think it was pride.’ He focused his gaze on me. ‘But it’s created an impasse as Mum seems to feel some misguided sense of loyalty now that Dad’s dead, and she won’t agree to work being done either. I’ve offered to put her up in one of my properties while the work is done but she won’t hear of it. I’ve run out of ideas.’

‘What’s your line of business?’ I wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t followed his parents into running the newsagent’s. He’d always seemed ambitious.

‘I own some property and I have a bar.’

‘Around here?’

‘A bit further towards Shoreditch.’ He gestured behind him with his thumb.

Dan was already on his phone. He seemed to have taken a dislike to Rosa’s son.

‘Do you live up there too?’ I asked.

‘Yes. When my sister and I left home, she moved out to Newham and I stayed in Tower Hamlets. She had a family and when Dad got sick, it was easier for me to keep an eye on Mum when I was up the road.’

‘Are you in touch with your sister much?’ She’d been a few years younger than me I’d never got to know her.

‘Agnieszka? Oh, yes. We both do what we can to help Mum. Especially now Dad’s not around.’ He paused, as though he was deciding what to say. ‘It isn’t easy. I don’t think they make them like her anymore.’ He gave a small, frustrated laugh. ‘Perhaps it’s a generational thing: being born at the end of the war and emigrating . . . ? It must have been hard. She’s fiercely independent and not good at asking for help. The old man was extremely proud. He didn’t like help either.’ His smile creased the corners of his mouth, and the obvious affection made his thoughtful brown eyes shine.

His comments reminded me of my own mother, and I wondered how she would have coped, slogging away in a shop, organising orders and deliveries, and doing business accounts at the age of seventy-five, after losing her husband months earlier.

‘Agnieszka and I both told them to give up the shop years ago. Things have changed round here. All the people Mum and Dad knew have moved out of Brick Lane.’ He pointed, first at Alchemia, with its new glitzy shopfront, and then at his mother’s newsagent. ‘It’s sounds harsh but no-one needs Basildon Bond envelopes and jars of instant coffee when we are surrounded by espresso bars and supermarkets.’ He checked his watch. ‘I’d better shoot. I want to get to the hospital and make sure she’s OK.’

‘Before you dash off, we’ll need your contact details.’ I signalled for one of the uniformed officers. ‘When did you last see your mother?’

‘First thing this morning.’ The frown clouded his features briefly and I noticed that his hair was scattered with grey at the temples. ‘I helped her with a delivery. The boxes were far too heavy for her and the driver dumped them in the street.’

‘Did you see any activity over the road at the soup shop?’

‘I saw Indra leave around nine. The shop was shut up. That’s extremely unusual for them.’

Maya, 6.15 p.m.

As Dan and I walked away from the crime scene, my thoughts shifted from Rosa Feldman. It was clear that the fire was arson, so we now had a double murder and two people in hospital, both extremely ill. I’d need to report in to Superintendent Campbell and request she appoint me SIO. Questions were swirling in my mind, and I was determined that whoever was responsible would be brought to justice.

I dialled the hospital and asked to be put through to the ward. Rosa was much better but was refusing to go and stay with her daughter. ‘Rosa has been having more nightmares,’ I told Dan once I’d rung off. ‘She’s waking up screaming, convinced she’s back in Warsaw.’

‘Poor lady. If she was born at the end of the war, the German army razed the city to the ground. The Soviet troops finished it off a year later. I’m not surprised the fire has triggered traumatic memories.’

‘Once she’s awake she knows she’s not back in Poland, but she insists that the only place she feels safe is at the newsagent’s . . . ’

‘. . . which may be true but isn’t necessarily what’s best for her.’

‘How on earth can she return to the shop after inhaling all that smoke?’ I asked.

Dan was pensive. ‘I’m sure her kids will see her right. Tomasz has gone to the hospital, so he’ll find out about the dreams. It sounds like he’s got property to put her up in.’

As we walked away, a gaggle of reporters swarmed towards us, clutching microphones and filming equipment, and shouting questions. Cameras flashed in my face, blinding me temporarily. I blinked and recognised a slim figure in a full-length coat at the front of the group. Her usual long black tresses had been pulled up into a faux-casual top-knot, and she was wearing her trademark four-inch heels.

‘Inspector Rahman.’ Suzie James’ rasping voice was unmistakeable. ‘What can you tell us about the fire?’

I took a deep breath and gathered my thoughts. At this stage of the investigation, I couldn’t afford to antagonise the press or get into a skirmish with Suzie.

‘Has anyone been killed and was it arson?’ Another reporter shouted and shoved a microphone at me.

I stopped and prepared to address the group. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Maya Rahman. An investigation is underway following the fire at the Brick Lane Soup Company this afternoon. The fire is being treated as deliberate, and my team and I are working hard to piece together the sequence of events and to apprehend whoever may be responsible.’ I paused, wanting to emphasise our request for help from the community. ‘We are appealing for a number of critical pieces of information. Firstly, we want to hear from anyone who was at the flash mob or in the shop area this morning. If you saw anyone acting suspiciously, or have smartphone video footage, please contact us. Secondly, anyone who has been unable to contact a friend or loved one since the fire, please call us. At the moment, we have two fatalities, and we need help identifying one of these. We are keen to hear about anyone who is missing or from anyone who cannot contact a female friend, sister, mother or daughter. Any information, no matter how insignificant it may seem, please contact the incident room at Limehouse Police Station. Thank you.’ I checked my watch. ‘I’ll take a few quick questions.’

A cacophony of voices broke out.

‘Where is the shopkeeper, Mr Gudelis?’ a local journalist shouted.

‘We are trying to establish his whereabouts,’ I replied.

‘Is this a hate crime?’ shouted a reporter for The Messenger.

‘We have no evidence of that.’

‘You’re not ruling it out though?’

‘We are pursuing a number of lines of enquiry.’

‘We’ve seen Mrs Gudelis. Who is the other fire victim?’

‘We’re waiting for a formal ID.’

‘Are we likely to see a wave of arson attacks in East London? Copycat flash mobs and property torching? Bit like the way the London riots spread.’

The man’s question hit me like a smack in the face. Tony was a reporter who’d worked for the City Eye for as long as I could remember. He was famous for his sensationalist headlines.

‘We have no reason to believe that’s going to happen and would urge you not to scaremonger, Tony, please. We want to encourage people to come forward with information, not send the city into panic.’

‘That’s a yes, then.’

I gritted my teeth.

‘Does this case have personal involvement for you too, Inspector?’ Suzie’s question purred through a beautifully lipsticked mouth, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to catch her jeer.

I glanced over at Dan who rolled his eyes. We both knew Suzie James of old. ‘I’ve lived in this area for thirty-seven years, Suzie. It’s all personal to me. Thank you. No further questions.’

‘Well done.’ Dan spoke softly.

‘Thanks,’ I said wearily. ‘Right. Back to the nick for briefing and let’s get cracking.’ And added, ‘I dread to think what the headlines are going to be.’

6.30 p.m.

When the girl woke up, she lay where she was, allowing her eyes to adjust to the dark. She knew something was wrong when she saw the ceiling. Her stars had gone. She tried to sit up. The mattress was slippery and smelled funny and didn’t have a sheet. Her head was spinning, like when she was poorly sometimes. She lay down on her side, trying to figure out where she was. Two windows. In a corner of one, black plastic was peeling away from the frame, and slivers of light fell on the carpet and walls. No posters. No lamp. Her bedroom at home had a blind and a fluffy rug.

While she was sleeping, she’d thought she’d heard footsteps. They’d stopped at the end of the bed. And voices. She must’ve been dreaming.

She listened now.

Nothing.

‘Mummy?’ She spoke quietly in the dark, but no-one heard.

Thirsty. Her mouth was dry.

She sat up again, and slid her legs off the edge of the mattress and onto the floor. She’d sit here for a while, until her head stopped spinning. Beneath her toes, the thick carpet felt soft and squishy. She liked it. She liked being in a warm room with a lovely carpet, but she wanted Mummy. Mummy would bring her a drink and Mummy would know where the stars were and the slippy mattress with a drink . . . dizzy . . . and the stars in the shiny . . .

Maya, 7.30 p.m.

Back in the MIT room, the team were poised for our first briefing. The first twenty-four hours of the investigation were critical. We all knew that. Around the room, the boards were up and important information had been plastered over all available surfaces. Maps showed locations and routes. Shops had been plotted on a street plan. Facts and questions stood out in coloured board markers. We’d all examined the mug shots and got to grips with the key names.

‘Let’s get started, everyone,’ I said. ‘First, good news. The fire brigade has inspected the soup shop through the openings where the windows were, and only found one gas cylinder. It has already exploded, which probably contributed to the ferocity of the blaze, but it means we no longer have an explosion risk.’

A wave of relief swept through the team.

‘We have a tentative ID on the male victim. Simas Gudelis, age forty-two, originally from Lithuania. He was co-owner of the shop with his wife, who says he was ill in bed.’ I paused for breath. ‘We have no ID for the woman, who isn’t his wife.’

The next board had ‘VICTIMS’ as its heading. Here, we had multiple image sources for Simas: social media, the shop website and the ones from the fire officer. We only had the low-resolution photographs of the female.

‘We need to prioritise identifying the woman so we can notify her next of kin and consider who may have wished her harm. Have we had any calls?’ I’d only just briefed the media but I couldn’t help hoping we’d had news.

‘Nothing yet. And no matches on the MisPer register.’ I saw the concern on Dan’s face. ‘She could live alone or work away a lot? Sometimes it takes a while to realise someone’s missing.’

‘True. Another possibility is that she has dependents at home. This could help our chances of someone calling in or it could create additional risk factors.’ A terrible thought occurred to me. ‘If she’s got someone old or young at home, they might not be able to look after themselves. That bumps the need for her ID even higher up the order of priority.’ My brain was snatching at possible solutions. ‘What’s the situation with the facial profiler?’

‘She can’t make much progress because of the lack of detail on the photographs.’ Dan spoke quietly.

‘OK. Our other priority needs to be getting the bodies out of the building. That’ll be done the moment the building is deemed safe to enter. Then we can get better quality images, do a more specific media appeal, process DNA samples and search dental records.’ I approached the board and took in the woman’s wax-like features. It was impossible not to be reminded of my brother’s appearance after the fire that killed him, although our victim had more flesh intact than Sabbir’s charred bones. I swallowed down the dull thud of pain which the memory stirred, and took the cap off one of the marker pens to jot on the board.

Victim 2 (UnSub)

-Lives alone?

-Homeless?

-No family vs. dependents?

-Asylum seeker?

-MisPer?

‘Dan, I think you’ve got information on motives?’

Dan zapped on the overhead projector and stepped in front of the team. The light on the board exaggerated his Irish colouring. ‘Let’s consider why might someone might want to set fire to the soup shop. The key arson motives are crime concealment, financial gain and boredom.’ His iPad projected each motive as a bullet point on the board.

An angry mutter bobbed round the room at the mention of ‘boredom’.

‘We also need to consider extremism, jealousy and revenge. The intention is always criminal damage or endangering life, sometimes both.’ He faced us now. ‘With those in mind, what should our working hypotheses be?’

‘An insurance job by Indra?’ Alexej offered, looking up from his monitor. ‘I’m checking whether Simas and Indra had the building insured, and whether Simas had a life insurance policy.’

‘Yes,’ said Dan. ‘What else?’

‘Who might not have liked the soup shop being in Brick Lane?’ Alexej pointed at the street plans and photos. ‘We know ethnic groups stick together. There’s also an element of immigrant kinship and turf-orientation, but when it comes down to business, people’s loyalties are to themselves.’

The atmosphere tightened.

‘Thanks, buddy,’ Dan said. ‘I agree. Other ideas?’

‘Maybe someone has their eye on the building?’ Shen had been listening to Alexej carefully. ‘A developer, perhaps?’ She had a small, delicate frame and her voice was quiet at first. ‘I often walk up Brick Lane to visit my brother. The shops change hands quickly and businesses move from one premises to another.’ She checked her notes. ‘The shop was gutted before the Brick Lane Soup Company opened. Perhaps the arsonist was targeting the freeholder rather than Simas Gudelis?’

‘Who is their freeholder? They’ll have the building insured.’ I tapped at the image of the shop on the board, as though encouraging it to speak to me.

‘Man called Solomon Stein. He owns a few freeholds in Brick Lane.’ Shen pointed to her notepad. ‘Seems legit but I’m doing a few more checks.’

‘It’s possible the arsonist was targeting the woman.’ Dan was typing the additional points into his list. ‘It’s difficult to assess until we know who she was.’ He was rubbing his chin thoughtfully. ‘I want to know what bad blood exists between Indra and Simas, and between them and other people.’

‘If Indra knew Simas was having an affair, she might want revenge?’ Shen suggested. ‘Or perhaps we are looking for the partner of the woman in the fire?’

‘Yes, Indra has to be a suspect.’ I tucked my hair behind my ears, feeling the weight and scope of the task ahead. ‘If the woman’s partner is responsible, surely they’d have reported her missing so as not to arouse suspicion?’

Dan was in front of the board again. ‘I agree with both those possibilities. My gut feeling is that we can rule out extremism, but I think we need to consider that it may have been a racist attack.’

I gestured to the board. ‘OK, until we know what or who the targets of the arson were, we will need to consider all of these hypotheses. What else do we need to know?’

‘Was the flash mob a distraction so that the arsonists could start the fire?’ A familiar voice echoed through the room. ‘In other words, are we looking at organised crime?’

‘Jackie?’ I said, incredulous. ‘What are you doing here?’

Maya, 7.45 p.m.

‘Surely the grapevine hasn’t stopped working?’ Jackie chuckled as she cruised in confidently and surveyed the incident room.

The team were transfixed.

‘Hello, everyone. I’m DCI Jackie Lawson. I’ll be covering your DCI post until a permanent appointment is made. If you’re nice to me, you might get stuck with me. I’m looking for a cushy number.’ She peered at me and grinned, and I couldn’t help noticing that a curiosity-induced pink filter had slid over Dan’s usual white face. ‘I’m not here to be SIO, Maya. Don’t worry.’

‘The last I heard you’d moved from the Met to the North-West,’ I said.

‘Correct. I’ve been leading a new team there as part of the Serious Organised Crime Strategy. Masses of it in the North-West, lots in the South-East. The hotspot is in London. I’m going to be based here at Limehouse, but my brief is to monitor all ongoing Met investigations for elements of organised crime.’

The room was silent. All eyes were on the woman who was the epitome of smart-casual in her black jeans and white cotton shirt. It was clear she hadn’t gone soft. Jackie Lawson was known for her mischievous sense of humour and was one of the sharpest and toughest cops in the service. ‘It’s great to see you. I had no idea you were coming here.’ I’d only checked my email ten minutes earlier and there’d been no mention of Jackie joining the team. ‘We’ll catch up after briefing, yes?’ I faced the room again. ‘Dan, add DCI Lawson’s question to the board, please, and let’s continue. Who’s next?’

‘The analysts are working on a number of significant eyewitness statements,’ Shen said. ‘Their initial report is due any moment.’

‘And we’ve made a start on the CCTV,’ Alexej said. ‘The fire took hold so quickly, and produced so much smoke, it’s difficult to see much but if there’s anything useful, we’ll find it. I’m still calling security operators for footage from the hours prior to the flash mob and the fire.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘That should help us with identifying timescales and routes, and hopefully suspects. Someone may have seen the arsonist entering the shop.’ I paused. ‘We need to check dog walkers, postmen, joggers, road sweepers, people going to work, people coming home from night shifts and nights out. A lot of those people may not live locally so we’ll need to ring-fence mobiles and send ping-outs on social media.’ I tried not to look too obviously at Jackie who’d need to agree budgets. ‘What’s the latest with LfA?’

Alexej waved a print-out. ‘I’ve got the technicians’ report. The website lists the objective of the flash mob as taking back control of the streets. It says: “Young people can’t afford to rent a place in E1, and shopkeepers are losing their businesses because greedy landlords are hiking rents. Let’s take back control of the streets from the capitalists and opportunist entrepreneurs.”’

‘Perhaps the fire was about gentrification too?’ Dan eyed us all.

‘If I can chip in here . . . ?’ Jackie said, and I could tell from her tone that things were about to get a lot more complicated. ‘I’m not saying gentrification isn’t a genuine issue, but it’s possible that it was a front for both the flash mob and the arson.’ She spoke quietly but her voice conveyed authority. She joined Dan and I at the front of the room. ‘It’s the Trojan horse model of sneaking something under the radar. If you want to create a distraction, you pick a theme which is guaranteed to stir people up. That way, you maximise the chances of getting a big crowd.’

‘From what I see as a newcomer, it’s definitely the cost of living that bothers Londoners most,’ said Dan.

‘And the more faces and bodies you can gather,’ Jackie continued, ‘especially when they dress the same, the more difficult it is to see what’s going on.’

‘The masks?’ It was obvious now.

‘Precisely,’ she said, gauging the reaction to her words. ‘Masks aren’t just about group identity. They render people faceless. Group dynamics quickly shift from the inter-personal to a mob.’

‘Do we know whether LfA simply publicises these flash mobs or whether they’re the organisers?’ Shen asked.

‘We don’t know.’ I felt frustration bite. ‘Some of the kids mentioned a man called Frazer. Hopefully the technicians can find out what his role is.’ I took stock. ‘Moving on to evidence. Alexej, can you summarise?’

‘The exhibits are all catalogued. Loads of personal items.’ He clicked his screen into life and read off it. ‘Bags. Clothing. Phones. Keys. The speakers.’ He turned to face me. ‘Dougie’s sent through a list of the top priority ones. Any chance of the lab fast-tracking these?’

Jackie must’ve caught his sideways glance. ‘I can see that the scope of this investigation is vast,’ she said, adopting a cautious tone of voice, ‘but I’ve literally just got off the DLR. Maya, I’ll need you to bring me up to speed on budgets, PDQ.’

‘Sure. Let me run through the main lines of enquiry and who’s doing what later.’

Jackie nodded her agreement.

‘Until evidence tells us otherwise, I’m going to suggest that Indra is our prime suspect. Anyone disagree?’

The room was quiet.

‘Right. Shen, can you assess the H-2-H reports? Check alibis and if anyone was seen entering the shop. We need background information on Simas and Indra. Bank and phone records. And insurance details for the shop.’

Shen leaped into an empty seat.

‘Alexej, the CCTV. There wasn’t any smoke when the arsonist entered the shop. It’s a small window of time but let’s find it. And keep checking for anything that’ll help ID our UnSub.’

‘Sure.’ He wheeled round on his chair.

‘Dan, can you chase the fire investigation engineer on when we can get the bodies out?’

‘Gotcha.’

‘I’ll ask Indra for a list of people who had beef with them or their business.’ We had more questions than answers, but at least we had a plan of action. ‘Let’s get some sleep and I’ll see you all bright and early tomorrow.’ I turned to Jackie. ‘Shall we nip up to the Morgan Arms? We can grab a bite to eat and I’ll bring you up to speed.’

‘You read my mind.’ Her tone shifted and she smiled warmly. ‘Tell me to mind my own business,’ she lowered her voice, ‘but I’m pleased Dougie is still around. I hope you two are still . . . ?’

I chuckled. It was so ‘Jackie’ to make a comment like this, moments after joining the team. ‘We are.’

She began gathering up her bag and jacket, then stood still for a moment. ‘I was sorry to hear about your brother last year.’

‘Thank you. At the time, his suicide was a terrible shock for all of us. Particularly Mum.’ I felt my eyes filling up and my throat tighten. This wasn’t like me. Was it Jackie’s kindness?

‘Maya, I know how much you cared about him and—’

‘. . . It’s Mum I worry about. She’s never recovered from Dad leaving. It’s like a huge black cloud rolled in front of her and she can’t seem to emerge from behind it.’ Mentioning Dad reminded me that I still hadn’t opened the forensic results. ‘When Sabbir moved back to Bangladesh, she took it personally, as though it was another betrayal and he was leaving her rather than a life that wasn’t the right shape for him.’

Jackie was nodding gently, and I appreciated her not churning out comments about ‘sympathising’ and ‘time healing’.

‘. . . She was never going to understand Sabbir committing suicide. Do you know the really sad thing though?’ I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and looked at Jackie. ‘It shouldn’t have been a shock to any of us. All the warning signs had been there for years. We just didn’t see them.’ I paused. ‘The truth is, I can’t stand on Brick Lane without remembering him and wondering whether I could have done things differently.’

Brick Lane, 1984 – Maya

Jasmina holds the packet of Love Hearts to her nose and sniffs. ‘You have a go.’ Her giggle rings out in the enclosed space of the shop. She stuffs the packet at my face. ‘It’s like breathing in luuuurve.’ She makes her voice go all dreamy and breathy as she says the last word, and pulls a silly face.

‘Urgh. They’re too sickly.’ I push her hand away, grabbing several Cough Candies instead.

‘Come on, you two.’ Sabbir’s frustrated plea falls on deaf ears as usual. He’s at the door, flicking through a magazine which he’s already paid for. ‘Dad’s waiting.’

‘I wouldn’t worry,’ Mrs Feldman whispers to Jasmina and I conspiratorially, and it sends me into giggles because she’s deliberately made her voice loud enough for Sabbir to catch. ‘If I know them, your father will be having a good chinwag with my husband.’

Sabbir’s demeanour relaxes and he returns his attention to his magazine.

Jaz peers at the contents of my paper bag. ‘I don’t like Cough Candy. They cut the roof of my mouth. You always get Parma Violets. How can you say that Love Hearts are too sweet and like them?’ She chuckles.

Coming to Mrs Feldman’s shop is such a treat. Dad came home in a good mood and announced that he was taking us out.

‘The wholesaler delivered some new sweets this morning,’ Mrs Feldman says. ‘My son put the order through and only told me when they arrived. Shall I get him to bring them out for you?’

Jasmina and I beam at her.

‘Thanks, Mrs F,’ says Jaz.

‘Knowing him, he’s probably putting through a few more orders while his father’s not looking.’ She chuckles, as though she’s secretly proud of Tomasz’s interest in the shop. She disappears out the back and begins calling. ‘Tomasz? Tomasz, love, could you bring the new sweets through for the Rahman girls?’

A few moments later, she arrives back with a mousey-haired boy in tow. He’s about Sabbir’s age but taller. I’ve seen him in the shop before. He’s carrying two boxes with an air of cool about him.

‘Here you go, girls,’ Tomasz says. ‘Lemon Sherbets and Black Jacks.’ He places the two boxes on the glass counter and his smile warms the room. ‘Bet you haven’t had them before.’ He gives a friendly chuckle. Rips open a black and white packet and offers us a wrapped cube.

‘My Agnieszka loves the Black Jacks. Soft and chewy, she says, but they make your tongue go black.’ Mrs Feldman looks a little worried.

‘Chill, Mum. They’re only sweets. No-one’s going to die.’

‘Cheeky wretch.’

Sabbir’s face softens and he joins us at the counter. ‘Alright, mate,’ he says to Tomasz.

‘Thanks, Thomas,’ Jasmina says, and it makes me giggle, because she’s said his name wrong. I catch the way she avoids eye contact with him, and blushes when he speaks.

‘Thank you,’ I say and don’t even try to say his name. ‘What else shall I have?’ I wonder aloud. ‘I need to add up what it comes to. We could get some Aniseed Balls and share them?’

Jasmina isn’t listening. She’s pretending to count her sweets but I can see her, watching Tomasz Feldman out of the corner of her eye.

‘What about Gob Stoppers? Shall we get some of them?’ I elbow her. ‘Or some rhubarbrhubarbrhubarbrhu . . . ?’

She hasn’t realised I’ve stopped talking.

‘You’re dribbling,’ I whisper.

‘Am not.’ She elbows me, recovers her poise and smooths her hair.

‘I’m off now, Mum.’ Tomasz glides towards the door of the shop. ‘I said I’d pick Agnieszka up from Brownies.’ He sees us watching him. ‘Definitely the Aniseed Balls,’ he says and gives us a huge wink, and I honestly think I’m about to burst.

SATURDAY

Maya, 7 a.m.

First thing the next morning, I grabbed a shower and steeled myself to check the media coverage of the arson. I hoped it would be reported responsibly but experience told me it was too good a click-bait opportunity to pass up.

From the lounge, I heard the soft burble of the television news. Dougie had stayed over, so I made a fresh cafetière of coffee and took it in with a couple of mugs. ‘On a scale of one to ten, with ten as perfectly hideous, where are we?’ I slid the tray onto the coffee table and sank onto the sofa next to him.

‘Eleven.’ He picked up the cafetière and began pouring.

‘Shit.’

‘I’ve screenshot them for you.’ He passed me his iPad.

The City Eye headline said: LOCALS FEAR COPY-CAT ARSON ATTACKS.

‘Tony couldn’t resist, could he?’ I swiped at the images on the screen. The broadsheets were benign. The Messenger had taken ethnicity as their angle: IMMIGRANTS’ SHOP BURNT TO THE GROUND IN RACIST ATTACK.

‘Scumbags.’ I took a swig of coffee. ‘What about the news channels?’

‘BBC News seems to be sticking to the facts.’

‘That’s a relief.’ I continued to scroll through Dougie’s screenshots. ‘WHO IS THE MYSTERY WOMAN IN THE FIRE? Blimey. I hadn’t expected that from Sky. Who’s told the press there was a woman in the fire? Media Liaison haven’t released the information yet and I didn’t mention it.’

‘Someone must’ve been blabbing.’ Dougie didn’t sound surprised and continued checking his emails.

‘Anything from Suzie?’ She’d be hard pressed to come up with anything worse than the City Eye or The Messenger, but milking national concerns wasn’t Suzie’s style. Her penchant was to go for people, personally, and her favourite target was me.

‘Nothing on their website yet.’

*

Dan was joining me at the hospital. Hopefully, as well as asking Indra some questions, we could persuade Rosa to stay on the ward or go home with her daughter and spend a few days in East Ham.

When I walked in through the entrance doors, I was greeted in the lobby by a solemn-faced Shen.

‘Bad news, Ma’am, I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘Indra Ulbiene was ten weeks pregnant and she’s had a miscarriage.’

Shit. The poor woman. ‘So, her husband is dead and it looks like he might have been having an affair. And now she’s lost her baby?’ I kicked at the linoleum. Occasionally, the news we had to convey was good but most of the time it wasn’t. ‘Where’s the silver lining in this situation?’

‘I know, Ma’am.’

‘Is she conscious?’ Questions were circling in my mind. ‘Does she know she’s lost the baby?’

‘Yes, the medical staff have told her. We’ve not said anything to her about her husband yet. I think she knows he’s dead but we were waiting for you. She’s extremely distressed. They’ve got her sedated. She was asleep when I left the ward a few minutes ago.’

‘Thanks, Shen. I’ll speak to Rosa Feldman first then. Give Indra a bit of space. It’s the least we can do to help her.’

*

When I arrived on the ward, colour had returned to Rosa’s cheeks and her facial expression was resolute. She was sipping a mug of tea, and a half-eaten breakfast tray was on the side table.

‘You look better than when I last saw you,’ I said. ‘Thought we were going to lose you. How are you?’

‘Fit as a fiddle and ready to go home.’

I recognised the determination in her voice.

‘Those stock boxes won’t unpack themselves and all the while the shop’s closed, I’m losing customers.’

I wanted to steer Rosa away from the shop so I asked her about the flash mob.

‘When everyone began dancing, it took me back to the tea dances Józef and I used to go to after the war.’ Her eyes glistened as tears formed.

It felt uncaring to cut off her reminiscences, and whisk her onto interview questions, so I listened for a few moments while she talked, mentally noting anything that might be relevant to the investigation.

‘There are hardly any Jewish families left in Brick Lane now. The Blums, from the bagel shop, were the last to move out. Golders Green, Józef said.’

Aware that Rosa could tire quickly, I directed her attention to the arson. ‘Thinking back to the last few days, have you noticed anything suspicious or unusual? People you didn’t recognise?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Anyone acting suspiciously or anything out of the ordinary?’

‘No. But to be honest, I’m so busy in the shop, the days shoot by and I don’t notice much. Just boxes of stock and dust.’

‘What about arguments? Anyone been rowing recently? Neighbours had fallouts?’

She paused to think back. ‘Sorry. I’m not much help, am I?’

‘Did you recognise anyone in the street or at the flash mob?’ Having lived in the area for so long, if anyone would recognise locals, it was Rosa.

‘No.’

‘The ward sister said you’ve mentioned black masks. Can you tell me about these?’

‘They all had them. Black bandana things. Tied round their neck, and when they joined the dancing, they pulled them up over their nose to just beneath their eyes.’ She shuddered. ‘They looked really sinister.’

‘How well do you know Simas and Indra?’

‘Only to say hello to. I try to be neighbourly.’ Rosa was pensive, nodding gently, as though she was sifting through her experiences and opinions. ‘Actually, now you mention it, they had rows. I’d often hear one of them shouting and slamming the front door.’ She seemed distressed by the memory. ‘But it’s not my business and you can’t get involved in other people’s lives.’ A wistful look spread over her features. ‘I can’t believe the husband was in the . . . ’ Her voice croaked and broke off.

‘Sorry to upset you. Can we call anyone for you? Get someone to help with the shop?’ Uniform had told us that Tomasz and Agnieszka had come to the hospital.

She shook her head, her fingers under her nose as if she was holding back a floodgate.

‘Tomasz arrived at the shop earlier. He was very worried about you. Would you consider staying with him until you’re back on your feet again?’

‘He’s very kind. Always has been. I’m very lucky with both my children. But Bethnal Green’s too far away.’ She sighed. ‘And I don’t want to put anyone out. My children have their own lives.’

‘If your son wants to help, why not let him?’ I voiced the question gently, realising that it was a sensitive subject.

Rosa shook her head. Determined. ‘He’s extremely busy . . . ’

I paused, trying to decide whether to press her. I got the impression that not wanting to put people out wasn’t the real reason.

‘I’ll be right as rain in a day or two.’ She smiled bravely.

‘What about your daughter? Would you consider staying with her?’

‘Oh, no. It’s all arranged. She’s popping back later to take me home to the shop.’

‘Is that wise? You’ve had a nasty scare.’

She shook her head. ‘Agnieszka and Olaf have a tiny terraced house and three children. They don’t have room for an old lady. I’ve made my mind up. I’m going home to the shop.’

There was pride in her features, and a reluctance to ask for help. I recognised it from Mum. A dogged refusal to accept limitations and change, and the need for help. But it was hard to know when pride became stubbornness. ‘Are you sure the shop is the best place though? It’s so damp and cold.’

She sighed. ‘I know but it’s my home. All my memories are there and it’s where I feel safe.’

Her face took on a wistful look and I felt desperately sad for her. ‘Would you mind if we contacted your daughter?’

She frowned, then shrugged in resignation. ‘If you want to.’ She was trembling now. ‘For years I had nightmares. My mother was pregnant with me when the Nazis resumed deportations from Warsaw to Treblinka. The Jews in the Ghetto mounted an armed resistance. There were twenty-seven days of bombs, blasts and gunfire while they fought the Germans. My brother was eight. He made the mistake of smiling at an SS officer, who ordered one of the Judenrat officials to shoot him. When the man refused, the SS officer shot him and my brother straight through the head.’

‘Oh, Rosa . . . ’ I gasped.

‘My mother nearly miscarried, but I made it and was born in 1944, the year of the Warsaw Uprising. It was when Christian Poles rose up against the Germans. My parents escaped from the Ghetto, and we lived outside the city with a Polish family that Dad knew from his old shop. They say you remember things from in the womb. Sounds, words, voices. For me, it’s blasts and gunfire.’ The expression in her eyes was haunted. ‘And my mother’s sobbing.’ She looked away for a few moments. ‘I used to have the dreams regularly, even when the war was over and when we arrived here. Once we settled into life in Brick Lane, they receded. I haven’t had them for years, apart from the occasional one. The fire at the soup shop yesterday . . . ’ she was shaking her head, ‘ . . . brought it all back.’ She coughed, and I heard her chest wheeze. ‘There was a woman on the ground in front of me. The cracks and bangs were so loud, I tripped over her.’

Much as she seemed to want to explain, I could see it was distressing her, talking about Poland, and I wanted to move the conversation onto happier times. ‘When did you come to live in Brick Lane?’

‘Nineteen forty-eight. I was four.’ She released a sigh. ‘My family moved back to central Warsaw after the war, but life under communism wasn’t easy, and my parents found it impossible to settle amongst such horrible memories.’ Her expression changed again as the recollections came alive. ‘At that time, Józef and his family were already living in Brick Lane. His parents owned the newsagent’s. He worked for his father when he was at school, doing a paper round, and then helping with deliveries and putting stock out. The two of them worked alongside each other for twenty-five years. He took the shop over when his father died, and then he and I ran it together. I’d known him since I was four.’ Her mouth flickered a tiny smile and it was one of the saddest things I’d ever seen.

The arrival of a staff member prevented Rosa from saying anything further. ‘Time for your meds, Mrs Feldman,’ the nurse said cheerily, and she poured out fresh water.

I waved to indicate I was off. ‘I’ll leave you in peace.’ My phone had been vibrating in my pocket, so I took the opportunity to check my messages.

It was a text from Shen.

Indra had woken up and was extremely agitated. She wanted to speak to me.

Maya, 8.30 a.m.

Dan and I were in the lift at the Royal London Hospital, on our way to interview Indra on the ward.

‘Rosa is adamant she’s going back to the shop,’ I told him, and pressed the lift button. ‘I’ve asked Shen to speak to the consultant. She’s a determined lady. I’ve got visions of her discharging herself, flagging a black cab down in her hospital gown and then falling down the stairs at the shop.’

‘Good idea.’

‘Given what Indra’s gone through, I’d have preferred to leave it a day or two before broaching the subject of money and murder motives, but we have to consider her a suspect.’

‘I hope for her sake the shop was well insured. Not just the building but their income and business.’

‘I was thinking the same thing.’ The lift dinged and I followed Dan out.

‘I want to know why she told the police she thought Simas had been murdered. Don’t you?’

‘I guess it’ll depend whether she knew about her husband’s infidelities. If that’s his body in their shop, and he was messing around with another woman . . . ’ The thought was upsetting. ‘I’m hoping there will be an innocent explanation for the woman being there. Perhaps the two of them huddled together to escape the fumes?’ One thing was sure, the interview was going to require careful handling.

When we arrived at Indra’s ward, rows of narrow beds greeted us. Nylon curtains hung on rails round each unit. It was hardly private. Marta was sitting beside her sister’s bed on the visitors’ chair, holding Indra’s frail hand. It was bruised, and Marta held it carefully so as not to aggravate the place where the cannula entered the vein.

Indra’s blonde hair lay around her head like a nest, and her eyes looked huge in her gaunt features.

‘I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs Ulbiene. We all are.’

‘Ačiū.’

I pulled up a chair and gathered my thoughts. ‘Would you like your sister to stay with you?’

‘Таip.’ I knew this meant yes. Beside the bed, the drip stand held a bag of clear fluid.

‘I’ll keep it as brief as I can. They aren’t tactful questions, I’m afraid.’

She didn’t react.

‘Is your shop insured?’

‘Таip.’

‘Building and contents cover?’

‘Taip, žinoma.’

‘Are you OK to speak English or do you need an interpreter?’

‘I speak English.’

I smiled an acknowledgement. ‘Do you remember the name of the insurers?’

‘My husband deals with that side of the business. The paperwork is in the flat and . . . ’ Her arm flailed in the air because the rest was obvious. Hopefully, she’d have details of their insurers in an email account.

‘Did your husband have a life insurance policy?’

‘Žinoma, ne.’

‘Does your husband have any family in the UK?’

‘A brother in Bethnal Green.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Artem Gudelis.’

Dan opened his phone browser.

‘Were they close?’

‘Of course.’

Dan shifted his gaze from his mobile to Indra in the bed. ‘Does Artem run the club COCO?’

‘Таip.’

‘Get hold of him,’ I whispered to Dan. ‘Tell him we need to speak to him in person, ASAP.’

Dan slid away from Indra’s bedside and marched towards the ward exit with his mobile already clamped to his ear.

‘Mrs Ulbiene, did you speak to your husband yesterday?’

‘Таip.’

‘Are these questions necessary?’ Marta stroked her sister’s forehead soothingly. ‘You can see she —’

‘They are,’ I said to Marta. ‘What did your conversation entail?’

‘It was short. We’d just arrived at the hospital and the security man told me I’d need to switch my phone off when we reached the ward.’

‘Was your husband home all day?’

‘As far as I know.’ Indra shielded her face with her hand.

‘What were you doing?’

‘I had . . . ultragarsu at the hospital in the morning for the baby. After that, Marta and I went for lunch to celebrate, then to a salon for facials and masažas.’

‘What time did you leave home to meet your sister?’

‘Nine-ish?’ She glanced at Marta for confirmation.

‘Were you with Marta the whole time until you came to Brick Lane?’ This would mean they were each other’s alibis.

‘Таip.’ She let out a heavy sigh. ‘Am I a suspect? Is that what these questions are about?’

‘I’m sorry. We do need to know whether you were involved with the arson, yes.’ I winced as I said it. It was horrible to think Indra could have been responsible, and even worse to have to raise it so soon after she’d lost her baby.

‘Kristus.’ Indra raised her arm in irritation and let it fall back on the bed. ‘Why would I kill my husband? And set fire to my own business? We’ve worked our arses off trying to get it off the ground. We wanted to expand.’

‘Which day do you normally close the shop?’

‘We never close in the daytime. Neither of us has had a day off in two years. We work seven days a week. We were trying to build up the business so we could open another shop. Maybe set up franšizės around London.’

‘Has your husband ever suggested closing the shop before today?’

‘Ne.’

‘When you spoke to him, did he mention having any visitors at all?’

‘Ne.’

‘He didn’t say that anyone had called round to see him or that he’d arranged for someone to come round? Your GP? Or a friend?’

‘He was sick. I told you. He called me. Said he was in bed with a fever. That was it.’

‘Was he in your bedroom? The left-hand room at the front of the house?’ I gestured with my left hand to make sure there was no misunderstanding.

‘Of course.’ She frowned. ‘Where else would he be?’

‘I have to ask this, I’m afraid. Can you think of anyone who might wish your husband harm?’

Anguish spread over Indra’s face, and she looked at her sister and then me. ‘No. I cannot.’ No Lithuanian this time.

‘You told the 999 operator that you thought someone had tried to kill your husband. Why did you think that?’

She blushed.

‘Mrs Ulbiene?’

Dan had joined us again. He gave me a subtle thumbs-up.

‘If I remembered saying it, I’d say.’ Indra’s tone of voice told me she knew exactly what she’d done and why, but something was stopping her from saying.

‘Are you saying you don’t remember calling 999 or you don’t remember saying it?’

Marta sucked a breath in through her teeth.

‘Calls to 999 are recorded and this one was traced to your mobile.’

‘She said she doesn’t remember.’ Marta’s expression was mutinous.

Dan played the recording on his phone.

‘Poleece? My husband is in the fire in Brick Lane. I think someone’s tried to kill him.’ In the background, a female voice was talking. ‘I think someone’s murdered him.’

‘I take it that’s you, Mrs Ulbiene?’

‘Taip.’

‘Is that you in the background?’ I watched Marta.

She groaned. ‘Yes.’

‘Why did you think someone had tried to kill your husband, Mrs Ulbiene?’

‘Things are difficult.’ Indra seemed annoyed with herself, as though she’d given away something she hadn’t intended, or was hiding something.

‘In what way are they difficult?’

‘Detektyva, we are immigrants.’ She raised her fist in frustration, and dropped it back on the bed. ‘We work long hours. We’re in a lot of debt because we had to borrow money to set up the business and haven’t paid the loans off yet. Because we are foreigners, we didn’t get the best interest rates. Banks see a Lithuanian passport and immediately see you as high risk.’

I picked up the bitterness in her reply and my heart went out to Indra again. It had been the same for my parents when we arrived in the UK. It’d taken a good ten years for Dad to establish himself, earn enough money for us to live off and gain respect. ‘I understand that. My family were immigrants too, but I don’t see how that relates to you thinking your husband was murdered. Can you fill me in?’

Indra rolled her eyes.

She was a smart woman. Given she’d asked to speak to us, she must’ve known we’d ask her about the call to emergency services. There was something she wasn’t telling us. I was sure of it. ‘Did you think he’d been murdered because you heard that the fire was arson or because you suspected that someone might want to kill him?’

Marta muttered to her sister in Lithuanian.

Indra gabbled a reply and they had a heated exchange. Marta’s speech became faster and louder, and her hands gesticulated in agitation.

‘I don’t remember what I thought,’ Indra said finally. ‘I was in shock when I heard about the fire. I was scared for my husband, and the business is our livelihood.’

I suspected she was going to say something like this. ‘Of course. It must’ve been upsetting news to receive.’ I waited a few moments for her to regain her composure. ‘Who told you about the fire?’

‘Pardon?’

I repeated the question.

‘Tomasz Feldman.’

That was a surprise. ‘Why did Tomasz Feldman tell you about the fire? Do you know him?’

Maya, 8.45 a.m.

I was keen to hear Indra’s response to my question about Tomasz Feldman.

‘I don’t understand—’ Indra said, her voice weary.

‘Is Mr Feldman connected to your shop in some way?’ I was wondering why he had Indra’s phone number.

She muttered to Marta again, then spoke to me. ‘No. We are neighbours. He knows everyone round here.’

Dan raised his eyebrows at me.

‘OK. Last few questions – did your husband have any arguments recently?’

‘Ne.’

‘Anyone unhappy about you two opening the soup shop?’ She’d dodged my question about how things had been difficult for them recently.

Marta spoke to her sister in a low voice. Then to me, she said, ‘She can’t think of anyone. If she does, we’ll call you.’

‘I’ve almost finished. Mrs Ulbiene? It’s very important. Who might want to harm your husband or your business?’

Indra glanced at her sister for a cue. Marta was shaking her head from side to side.

‘I’ve answered. I don’t know.’

I didn’t believe her but there was something else I needed to ask before she clammed up. ‘OK. This is the last question. I’m so sorry. There’s no easy way to tell you this. We found a woman with your husband. They were curled round each other on what looks like was a bed. Do you know who the woman might have been?’

‘No idea,’ came her quick response.

Shock was written all over Marta’s face.

‘I don’t want to answer any more questions. I’m tired. Could you leave me now, please?’ Indra flashed me an angry expression. ‘Nurse. Nurse.’

‘Of course.’ I bundled my notepad into my bag. ‘An officer will come later today to take a formal statement from you. You will be asked to provide details of all the people your husband had fall-outs with, and anyone you think might want to harm him or you, or your business.’ I placed my contact card on the bedside table. ‘I’m sorry, but you will also be asked about the woman in the fire. If you remember why you rang 999, please call me. I hope you feel stronger soon.’ I turned to Marta and said gently, ‘Could I have a word, please?’ I gestured for her to follow me towards the ward exit and the lobby area where the lifts were.

Marta placed her hand reassuringly on her sister’s arm for a moment. ‘Nebus ilgas.’ She tailed me across the ward, dragging her boots on the linoleum and tutting loudly, in case we hadn’t got the message that she was pissed off with us.

Once we were out of earshot, I turned and faced her. ‘I understand that you’re concerned about your sister, but two people are dead, and you were hindering a murder investigation back there. Given you brought things to a halt, perhaps you can help us with the information we need? Do you know who might have had it in for your sister and brother-in-law?’

‘No.’

‘How about just Simas?’

She snorted contemptuously and her eyes narrowed a fraction. ‘That’s a completely different question. Lots of people. Simas was a piece of shit but love is blind – and my sister has always loved him.’

‘“Piece of shit” in what sense?’

She did an unzipping gesture at the level of the flies on her jeans, and I felt my heart sink.

‘Do you know who the woman in the fire is?’

She opened her hands wide. ‘Could be anyone. If he burnt in that place, it’s what that bastard deserved.’

‘Has he been unfaithful to your sister before?’

Disgust forced air out of Marta’s mouth. ‘Many times. She should have left him but it’s not easy when you’re from a country like ours. This shop, and the baby, were supposed to be their “new start”.’ She made a quotation mark gesture with her fingers as though she never believed it was going to happen, and they were empty words.

‘We have some photographs of the bodies in the fire. Could you look at them for me, please? I’m afraid they aren’t pleasant, or particularly good quality, but until we can see Artem, or persuade Indra to look at them, you’re the best person to identify them.’ On my phone, I brought up a cropped image of the man lying cupped round another person, and showed it to her. ‘Is this your brother-in-law?’

‘Jėzus Kristus.’ She turned away, doubling over, her hand over her mouth in revulsion. ‘Tai virsta.’ She staggered away from me. ‘Yes, that’s him. That bastard. I’m glad he’s dead. Except my sister will continue to suffer because of him.’ She lurched and stumbled around the lobby area and beat her fist on the lift door several times, muttering agitatedly in Lithuanian.

‘Marta, are you certain that’s Simas in the image?’

She spun round. ‘Yes. I recognise the stud in his ear and the watch. Indra gave them to him for Christmas. Spent far more on him than he was worth.’ She took her phone from her jeans pocket and swiped it into life. ‘Here. Look. This was at Christmas.’ She scrolled through the images and showed me a photo of Indra and Simas around a table, plates loaded with food. Crackers and wrapping littered the tablecloth. They both wore paper hats, and he had his arm round his wife’s shoulders. The watch was clearly visible. She scrolled to another image, one that showed Simas’ face and ear. ‘See. It’s white gold with a diamond.’

‘Are those images date stamped?’

‘Yes. Look.’ Beneath the images, location, time and date were shown.

‘Could I get copies of them, please?’

‘If you’ll let my sister have a bit of time to come to terms with losing everything before you show her these.’ There was an edge to her voice, as though she was used to having to negotiate.

I felt the pressure in her words and let it float for a moment. ‘Marta, I can’t commit to a timeframe, but I give you my word that we won’t put Indra through any unnecessary distress. It’s in your sister’s interests that the murders are solved. She can’t claim on her insurance until the investigation is over.’

‘People always promise us things.’ She said it in a sarcastic, sing-song-y way and disengaged her glance. ‘ . . . and they’re always lies.’

I’d seen the wariness in Marta’s eyes when we were on the ward, but this wasn’t just that. Beneath the sarcasm was a quiet rage. And beneath that, something else lay, like a rumble of distant thunder. ‘Is there a reason why your brother-in-law might have been sleeping in the spare room rather than his own bedroom?’

She used the back of her hand to blot the tears from her eyes. ‘The spare room is his way of pretending it didn’t matter. He could shag whoever he liked as long as he didn’t do it in their bed.’

I was absorbing what she was telling me. ‘Was Indra OK with that?’

‘Of course not.’ She flashed an angry glance. ‘He promised he wouldn’t do it anymore, and then did it again and again.’ She muttered now. ‘Some men should have their dicks cut off at birth.’

‘Marta, do you recognise the woman in the photo? Or have any idea who it might be?’

She glanced at the image again and quickly shook her head. ‘I don’t recognise her but he could’ve just met her. Indra knows how I feel about Simas, and when they decided to make a fresh start in Brick Lane, she said she wasn’t going to discuss him with me anymore.’

‘OK. I appreciate that you may not feel sympathetic towards the woman in the fire, but someone is likely to be searching for her. Indra may know who she is. If either of you do, we can inform the woman’s next of kin. Also, her identity may provide vital clues on who might want to set the shop on fire, and why.’

‘I get that.’

‘Good. And to be clear – when my officer comes, we will need to interview your sister alone.’

She opened her mouth to protest and clamped it shut.

‘We will need you to give a statement too.’ She’d no doubt want to stay at the hospital. ‘I’ll ask the officer to take yours after Indra’s. The sooner we can find the person responsible for the fire, the sooner your sister can make an insurance claim and move on.’ I gave her my contact card. ‘Can you email me those photographs of Indra and Simas?’

‘OK.’ This time she met my eyes, and I sensed she was trying to decide whether she could trust me. ‘I will talk to my sister.’

‘I’m really sorry about what’s happened. I know how hard these questions are to answer. I can’t promise that it’s going to be easy for anyone, but I give you my word that I will not rest until we find out who did this.’

She acknowledged the comment with a curt nod and closed her eyes, as though she couldn’t believe what had happened.

‘A few final things – back on the ward, why was Indra looking to you to tell her what to say?’

Marta fiddled with her cigarettes and lighter.

‘It was the same when she called 999. You were in the background.’

‘My sister is much nicer than me, but she isn’t as strong as me. Living with Simas ground her down. She works all day, every day, and she’s been doing language classes. You can see how thin she is. Everyone thinks immigrants are lazy and can’t be bothered to learn English, and Indra was determined to prove them wrong.’ She paused. ‘I’m her big sister so now it’s my turn to look after her.’

I took in Marta’s explanation. What was bothering me was whether Indra had any inkling what her husband was going to get up to when she’d left for her sister’s yesterday. Did she believe they’d made a fresh start and that Simas had changed his ways? What a horrible mess.

‘Why did Indra phone 999 and say she thought someone had murdered her husband?’

‘I don’t know. I told her not to. It’s what we were arguing about. If you get someone to translate, what you will hear in the background is me asking her what the hell she’s doing.’

I recalled something that Indra had mentioned. ‘Why didn’t Simas accompany Indra to the hospital for her scan?’

‘Because he’s an asshole.’

‘Did he know that his wife was pregnant?’

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.