Liar Liar - страница 8

‘Not on this scale,’ Gardam replied cautiously. ‘This feels… organized.’

Helen nodded – she’d had the same unsettling feeling since she’d arrived at the antiques emporium. There’d been no reported incident directly preceding the fire, no witnesses to any unusual activity – the site had just gone up in flames.

‘Travell’s was the first fire?’

Helen nodded, then continued:

‘First 999 calls were at eleven fifteen p.m. This place was next – the calls coming in at around eleven twenty-five p.m. The house in Millbrook about fifteen minutes after that.’

‘If the fires were set by the same person, it’s an interesting escalation,’ Gardam continued. ‘The first two sites are big and impressive, the third site much smaller, more domestic, yet potentially much more deadly. Whoever set the fire must have assumed there would be people asleep in the house -’

‘Which might suggest they are the real targets,’ Helen interrupted. ‘If they were, then what better way to tie up the fire services than by creating two huge fires in other parts of town? We’ve seen that kind of calculated firestarting in the States. No reason why it couldn’t happen here…’

Even as she said it out loud, Helen’s mind began to turn. It made sense and would be a good way of disguising the true intent of the crime. There was so much more to learn about tonight, so much evidence to be sifted and questions to be asked, but already Helen’s instincts were telling her that this was no ordinary crime. In the sixteen months since the death of Ben Fraser, her life had been pleasantly mundane. But that was all over now.

Once more she was being sucked into someone else’s nightmare.

The doors swung open and the paramedics raced through, ferrying three hospital trolleys into the bowels of South Hants Hospital. The ambulances transporting the injured family from the Millbrook house fire had radioed ahead and the staff at A &E were standing by to receive them.

At the front of this fast-moving queue was Karen Simms, now in full cardiac arrest. Her brain and body had been starved of oxygen for a long period of time and her body was now reacting. The attending paramedics had used the paddles in the ambulance, but to no effect, so the team now hurried her towards the cardiac unit. Her life was hanging in the balance and every second was vital.

Next came her daughter, Alice. Like her mother she had suffered extensive second- and third-degree burns and was in terrible pain, but she was conscious at least, her young heart seemingly more able to withstand the pressures put on her body by extensive smoke inhalation. Reports from the scene suggested there were no toxic vapours in the house, so if she could survive the next few days, then the young girl had a decent chance. While her mother’s trolley veered off left, the young girl was taken straight to the lifts. The burns unit was on the third floor and they were awaiting her arrival.

Behind her came Luke, who had minimal burns but had broken two legs and had significant torso and facial injuries from his fall. He was being taken straight to scans and then to theatre. If he had serious internal bleeding or major head injuries, he stood little chance. But if it was just broken bones, he would be fine. Of the three, he was the one who had been least touched by the blaze.

Bringing up the rear, supported by staff, was Thomas Simms. He watched on as his wife, daughter and son’s paths now diverged, all heading in different directions through the hospital. He stood paralysed – like a man frozen in time – suddenly faced with an impossible choice. Who should he go with? Who needed him most? His mind swam, as he processed this dreadful dilemma, but his feet stayed still. There was no right choice.

In that moment, Thomas knew that his life had changed irrevocably and for ever. Nothing would ever be the same and much pain and sadness lay ahead. He didn’t know how they would get through it or what was the right thing to do. He was lost. And haunting him, like an insistent, nagging ache, was the fear that he would never see