The Fire Investigator

Gareth had been at university studying Chemical Engineering when his sister disappeared. They were polar opposites; his single-minded ability to block out anything but his work had always been there, but only intensified afterwards. Donna was three years younger, and just turned eighteen when she went. Unlike him, she’d never been able to focus on anything at all. She had been out of their parents’ house for a while; since leaving school, she’d never worked or gone to college, and had moved from one boyfriend’s flat to another in quick succession. They were all older and, in the eyes of her parents, completely unsuitable, although they hadn’t met all of them.

Gareth was a fire investigator. He was respected throughout the department for his 100% success rate in determining the cause of fires, and in many cases his evidence had led to the successful prosecution of the perpetrator.

Now he had been called to a particularly devastating fire, which was mainly due to his colleagues not being alerted to the blaze. Most fires he looked at hadn’t incurred fatalities. But on this occasion, no one had bothered to call 999. This could be down to a number of factors; it had happened in one flat, halfway up a seedy and run-down tower block in a group of four. It was a Saturday night, and many of the neighbours had been out, or claimed to be. Anyone in the surrounding properties would have left the building, watching to see if it would spread to their flats, as only then would they get their phones out. The estate was known as a law unto itself and was ruled by deals and intimidation. No one wanted to be outed as a grass by whoever had started it. Anyone who saw the fire from a distance would just assume it was being dealt with.

After graduating, Gareth had done an MsC in Fire Investigation. He had been snapped up by the Fire Service and had always carried out his job with utmost care and efficiency. But since he started work there had been a feeling of sickness. What if he received an assignment about a fire in which his sister had died?

In most instances it was immediately apparent that this was not the case. The fire had been in a factory, or a family home, and everyone had got out alive.
But in cases like this one, in insalubrious areas and where there was a suspicion of arson, there was more scope for speculation. Fire investigators did not normally view unidentified bodies removed from sites. But in his case, he was allowed to see any females that vaguely resembled his sister’s description. So far, this had only happened once, and the woman in question had looked so unlike Donna that he had felt insulted.

In this case, he knew that two bodies, male and female, had been recovered
from the scene. He hadn’t yet seen them, and wouldn’t do so until he asked. His
first priority was to investigate, do his job. He would try not to get his hopes up.

It wasn’t so much that Donna disappeared as they lost contact with her. She’d been coming to the house more and more infrequently; she always used to turn up unannounced, usually with current boyfriend in tow, drunk on several occasions. After she let herself in at 2am one Sunday morning with a group of like-minded pals and started an impromptu party in the living room, her mum had taken her keys off her, told her she didn’t want to see her in the house again without prior notice, and chucked the whole lot of them out.

When she reported back to Gareth in his pristine student room later that day via the webcam, he inwardly opined that she should have let Donna stay but made everyone else leave, let her sober up, and have a proper talk, which to the best of his knowledge had never successfully happened. He did not voice this to his mother; who was he to tell her what to do?

He showed his ID card to the police constable who was guarding the scene against being ransacked. As he searched for evidence in the wrecked flat, he went over possible reasons for the fire. There was a chance that Donna was being held captive, used as some sort of sex slave. Maybe someone else had known of his sister’s whereabouts and it was a rescue attempt; smoke out the ensnarer then go in to rescue Donna. If so, it had obviously gone badly wrong.

When their Mum had chucked Donna out that Sunday morning, it was the last anyone had seen of her. Mum always called her once a week, not always getting her the first time, just to check she was alive, but the next time those calls went permanently unanswered. They didn’t know who any of her friends were; they had no names, no numbers, no one to contact.

A police search got underway but discovered nothing. They were advised that the most likely outcome was that Donna would get in touch herself, once she ran out of money or was overcome by remorse. Gareth couldn’t see the latter ever happening. She had never really seemed like part of the family; he and his parents had a closed-in quality, to the point of being insular, whereas she had been uncontrollable from an early age. It must have been a reaction to the morbid quiet that pervaded the house. And they didn’t know what to do with her, so her behaviour was largely ignored.

Still, Gareth knew he had always cared about her deeply, and obviously a thousandfold in the current situation. He wasn’t sure if he could say the same for his parents. Maybe that was just the lack of visible emotion that they had in common, but he knew he was doing a lot more. He applied the same single-minded determination to finding her as he did in his job. It had been six years ago, but he still contacted the police every week to see if there were any new leads, and to remind them about it. He had even hired a private investigator for a while; his Spartan lifestyle allowed him to afford it, but nothing had come of it.

After an hour in the flat, he thought he had some answers. He had found the remains of what looked like an incendiary device, a metallic tube that could be analysed for chemical remains. It shouldn’t be that easy, though; a skilled fire-raiser would use materials that would be consumed in the inferno. Doing this was like someone wanted to be caught. Adding to this impression was the fact that the flat had clearly been broken into, pretty clumsily as well. If nothing else, this could be the easiest case he had ever solved.

It was in the bedroom, however, that he found the evidence that interested him the most. It was here the bodies had been recovered from. There was little damage to this room, apart from the black smoke stains that covered the walls and furniture. That meant the victims had died from smoke inhalation, suffocated in their sleep. Under the bed was a pendant which he knew was definitely Donna’s. It had a picture of her as a baby inside it. She hadn’t worn it often, but it had sat in her room at home, and she had taken it with her when she left.

Gareth didn’t allow even this to stir up any untoward emotion, however. Yes, it was definitely his sister’s. But it could have been planted here by the attacker to make it look as if his sister died here. In which case, their plan had failed, as people who died of carbon monoxide poisoning would still be easily recognisable.

He made his way back to the car with his items of evidence in clear polythene bags. He would put in a request to see the bodies, and usually this was possible by the next day.

* * * * *

Gareth waited patiently at the morgue while the necessary clearance checks were run. His mind was blank, apart from the progress of the case. The metal tube was at the lab being tested now. He could have done that job himself, and would have enjoyed it, but it wasn’t part of his duties and was very time-consuming.

He would not let himself be overcome by hope that this would be his sister. And if it was, would he be able to deal with that? He was unaccustomed to grief and didn’t know how it would affect him, not being used to strong feelings. It could interfere with his work. Eventually, he was shown through.

* * * * *

Two weeks later, Gareth was undergoing his third psychiatrist’s interview. He’d known straightaway that the body wasn’t his sister, despite the slight resemblance, but two people had still died – did their families even know yet? He was surprised by the force with which this realisation hit him. More than this, he suddenly knew that he would never find Donna, and was angry with himself that he hadn’t understood this before and let the grieving process start. It felt like a lack of respect towards Donna. None of this showed on his face, however. He simply told the mortician that he could not identify the body, then went back to the office and told the sergeant that he needed some extended leave, and to talk to someone.

At the same time, Donna sat on the floorboards in the flat she was temporarily squatting in with her boyfriend, Vince. They were eating baked beans heated up on a Calor gas stove; no toast as there was no toaster.

“Still feeling OK?” asked Vince.

“Fine, babe. How long before we have to leave this place?”

“Should be OK for another week.”

Vince thought he’d landed a pretty good deal. Sure, they were on the run, but give it six months and he’d scrape enough cash together one way or another that they could settle down somewhere. He could get a normal job, bricklaying or something. He was handling everything, no point in giving her any responsibility. She obviously had learning difficulties, and her family had been too stupid to see that. They just thought she was a pain in the arse.

It was probably their fault that it had come to this point. But he had to thank them. He’d used Donna to his advantage. She wanted some way of getting them off her back permanently. He’d come up with the plan to firebomb Andy’s flat, meaning he could dispose of someone he owed a lot of money to. It was a shame about the girlfriend, who was lovely. She did look a bit like Donna and he’d told her that they would be unrecognisable after the fire, so everyone would assume it was her. Of course, he couldn’t guarantee this, and there would always be some way to identify the body, but Donna only knew what Vince told her. Of course, the chances were they were still looking for her, but Vince could manage it.

She’d helped him out a lot without knowing it. He didn’t love her, of course;
probably no one ever had.