With A Vengeance

Chapter 5

5

Culverhouse’s car swept past the cordon and up the long driveway as Wendy looked out at the house in front of them. Although it had been largely gutted by the inferno, which the fire officers were still trying to put out, she could see that it had clearly been a huge, very impressive building.

It was all clad in white — most of which had now turned to black — and Wendy reckoned the front face of the house must have a good dozen or so windows. What was left of them, at least.

There was a large burgundy red car on the driveway. A Bentley, she thought, although she didn’t usually pay much attention to cars. She could certainly admire the sleek curves and style of this model, though — if she had been made of money. There wouldn’t be much left of this car very shortly. Even from a distance, she could already see the paintwork starting to blister and bubble from the heat, and the windows closest to the house were blackened.

Whoever owned this house was not only a very wealthy individual, but had clearly done something to upset somebody. Wendy was no expert on fire damage, but she doubted whether anything would be left of the house once they’d put out the flames.

Although they’d already made good progress up the driveway, they were stopped at a cordon a good fifty yards away by the Watch Commander, who introduced himself as Matthew Leeman.

‘This is one of the most blatant arson attacks I’ve seen,’ he said, shaking Jack and Wendy’s hands. ‘We can’t get any closer at the moment, but you can smell the accelerant from here. We’ll know more once the blaze has died down, but it looks to me as though the core is at the front of the house, by the front door.’

Wendy had to admit that she couldn’t smell anything other than the smoke that occasionally drifted over, but deferred to Leeman’s greater knowledge and experience.

‘How long do you think it’ll take to put it out?’

Leeman shrugged. ‘Impossible to say. House fires don’t usually take too long, but this a big house. And whatever’s in there, it’s burning well. Whoever started this fire wanted to make damn sure it did as much damage as possible.’

‘Not kids then?’ Culverhouse asked.

‘I wouldn’t say so. It’s not my job to come up with a list of suspects, but it doesn’t look like kids messing about to me. Whoever did it would’ve had to come all the way up the driveway, risk being seen doing it, pour God knows how much accelerant through the letterbox and get away without anyone seeing them. Kids set fire to fly-tips and old sheds, not bloody great mansions.’

‘Has there been anyone hanging around?’

‘Not that we’ve noticed. Although you could easily hide away in the trees over there without being seen. Thermal imaging might help.’

Culverhouse snorted. ‘Yeah, I don’t think there’s much chance of me being given authorisation to put a chopper in the air though, do you?’

The police helicopter equipped with thermal imaging equipment would cost a couple of thousand pounds an hour just to put it in the air, and policing budgets were already extremely tight.

‘Plus you’ve got the fire throwing out all sorts of heat,’ Wendy offered. ‘We should at least ask, though. They can only say no.’

‘I’ll ring it through. Can’t see it doing much good, though,’ Culverhouse grunted.

While Culverhouse walked off to make the call, Wendy thought it would be a good opportunity to ask the Watch Commander some more questions. She’d never attended an arson attack before — not something like this, anyway. She’d been called out to small fires in garages when she was a uniformed PC, but this was something entirely different. Besides which, there was nothing either of them could do at this stage apart from watch the fire crews tackle the blaze.

‘How much of your job’s actually taken up fighting fires then?’ she asked.

‘Not much of it, thankfully. Although you always remember it when you do. Most of it’s about drills, training exercises, talks in schools, risk assessments, paperwork...’

Wendy chuckled. ‘Sounds familiar.’

‘Plus we’re now paramedics, apparently,’ Leeman jibed, referring to the fact that the current UK government had suggested that fire officers be given extra medical training so they could double as paramedics, allowing politicians to cut the NHS budget even further.

‘I know the feeling. Wouldn’t ever think of doing another job, though, eh?’

‘Oh I’m tempted sometimes, don’t you worry. But no. I don’t think anything else would give me the variety, unpredictability and levels of addictive stress the fire service gives me.’

‘Maybe you should try the police,’ Wendy said, only half-joking.

A couple of minutes later, Culverhouse returned.

‘The Chief Constable’s wife must’ve been feeling fruity last night. He’s just given authority to put Hotel Oscar Nine Nine in the air. Christ knows how long that’ll be, though.’

Remarkably, the county didn’t have its own police helicopter. Up until recently the force had its own chopper, but the introduction of the National Police Air Service in 2012 meant that many helicopter bases were closed. The county had agreed to close its own at a local RAF base on the understanding that its air support would then be provided under NPAS by the Metropolitan Police in London, only to later discover that the Met had rejected NPAS and continued to operate its own air support service. As a result, incidents given air support had dropped by up to 90% in some areas. Regardless, many officers still referred to the service by the previous force helicopter’s call-sign.

‘And in the meantime?’ Wendy asked, both of Culverhouse and Leeman.

‘In the meantime,’ Leeman replied, ‘we wait.’