Juliet put down her phone and stood up. ‘Jordan’s here.’
‘What?’ I’d been reading an article by Matt Lam about housefires caused by cigarettes. If anyone could spot the signs of one, it was him. A headshot at the top of the article didn’t do him justice.
Juliet pulled on her blazer. Maybe she didn’t have clothes stored here; she’d stayed in jeans since we’d gotten to the station.
‘He and his mum have been taken through to interview room one,’ she said, straightening her collar. She tugged a copy of the threatening note from the evidence wall and slotted it into a file. ‘They came into the station to give a witness statement.’
I jumped up and brushed biscuit crumbs from my trousers. ‘A witness statement? Not to confess a crime?’
Juliet quirked her eyebrows. ‘Exactly.’
We walked through the crowded main floor and took the lift down to reception. The street outside the glass entrance was already switching to twilight. Juliet marched towards the wide corridor of interview rooms but paused outside the first door.
‘How do you want to play this?’
I took a deep breath. ‘I reckon we both jump in as needed. Jordan’s a funny one; he needs a bit of pushing and soothing. We can do both.’
Juliet gave me a small smile. ‘We work well together.’
I’d thought that many times, yet part of me wondered whether Juliet wouldn’t be happier working alone. She hadn’t literally said she wanted me around, but this was the next best thing.
Juliet pushed open the door to the interview room and walked around to the far side of the metal table. Jordan and his mum sat opposite. Jordan stared down at his hands, his clothes dirty and torn. The smell of smoke filled the room. His mum’s back was straight in the plastic chair and her bruised face set like a statue.
Juliet reached a hand over the table. ‘I need to apologise. We didn’t ask your name before.’
Jordan’s mum stared at Juliet’s hand, but slowly lifted her arm. ‘It’s Terrie.’
‘Thank you, Terrie.’ Juliet whipped her hand back to her side. ‘You’ve been offered a solicitor?’
‘We don’t need it,’ she said. Jordan’s head remained bowed.
Juliet pressed the button to record.
‘Interview commencing at 4:55 p.m. on 15th October regarding a fire on the Dunlow Estate in the New Forest,’ I said. ‘Interviewee is Jordan Haines, a seventeen-year-old minor accompanied by his mother, Terrie Haines. They have declined legal representation. Interview conducted by Detective Inspector Juliet Stern and myself, Detective Sergeant Gabriella Martin. Jordan, you are not under arrest and are free to leave at any time.’
I found a clean page in my notebook, resisting the grimace my full name always evoked. ‘Jordan, can you please tell us your movements since you left the station yesterday?’
He shuffled in his seat. Terrie rested a hand on his arm and he sat up. His face was as dirty as his clothes, his eyes puffy and rimmed with red.
‘I ran off from my dad’s car and I caught a bus over to the Dunlow Estate.’ His voice was brittle.
‘How did you get onto the estate?’ Juliet asked.
Jordan swallowed. ‘I climbed the wall. It’s crumbling, so it was easy to get over.’
‘What did you do once you were on the estate?’ I asked.
‘I followed the paths through the forest.’ Jordan rubbed his hands together, the skin a mixture of clay-like white and charcoal black. ‘I knew which direction to go to find the house. It started getting dark, but then I saw lights.’
I made a note. Melanie’s killer knew their way around the estate, knew how to find a gun and the dog and where to hide evidence. Jordan hadn’t admitted to all of this, but he was comfortable following the twisting paths through the forest at least.
‘Why did you go to the estate?’ Juliet asked.
‘I was going crazy. Nothing was happening about Mel, no one was being punished.’ Jordan’s partially shaved eyebrows pulled together. ‘I was angry.’
‘What were you planning to do?’ I asked.
Jordan looked up, eyes wide. ‘Not start a fire. I was just going to scare Leo. I wouldn’t have done anything serious.’
His definition of something serious and ours were most likely quite different. I flipped to a fresh page in my notepad. ‘Tell us what you did after you saw the lights at the manor.’
‘I followed them. I could see in but those poshos couldn’t see me. I watched them have dinner together. They didn’t talk much, but Leo was safe. His brother said something when their dad left the room and Leo laughed. I wanted to hurt him.’
‘What did you do?’ Juliet asked.
Jordan scowled at her. ‘Nothing. Leo went off upstairs. So did his brother. Only the dad was left downstairs, reading.’
‘You did nothing?’ I asked. ‘You made no attempt to make contact with any member of the Dunlow family?’
Jordan licked his cracked lips. ‘No.’
‘Please explain this.’ Juliet flipped open the file and spun the copy of the note to face Jordan.
His mouth moved uselessly, denials and lies building on his tongue.
‘We know it’s your handwriting.’ I headed off any blustering before it could begin. ‘When did you put the note through the door?’
Jordan’s eyes flicked to his motionless mum. ‘Way before the fire started.’
‘When?’ Juliet demanded.
‘I’d seen Leo leave the dining room. I followed him around the house, had already written the note days ago. He was in the hallway alone, so I posted it through the door. Then I ran off to the other side of the house.’
Juliet turned the note towards us. ‘“You think you’re untouchable”,’ she read. ‘“I’m going to make you hurt.”’
‘Can you see why this would make us suspicious about your involvement in the fire?’ I asked. Juliet had avoided the sections of the note that referred to Melanie, so I held back my renewed suspicions about Jordan’s involvement in her death. I didn’t want to derail him from giving us a full account of his movements last night.
‘I didn’t have anything to do with it, I swear.’ Jordan licked his ashy lips. ‘I just wanted to scare him.’
‘You posted a threatening note. What did you do after that?’ Juliet prompted.
Jordan’s jaw quivered. His fingers worked furiously at the laces of his hoodie, leaving smudges of black on the grey material. ‘I didn’t mean to start a fire. I didn’t mean to do anything.’
‘It’s alright, Jordan,’ I said. ‘Just tell us what happened next.’
He sniffed. ‘I’d been smoking the whole time, dropping the ends around the house. I hoped Leo would get in trouble for it, or it would freak him out because he’d know someone had been outside. I sat out by where the old man was reading most of the night. The window was the only light, and that place was freaky in the dark. I kept thinking I heard someone outside, gravel crunching and stuff, but everyone else was inside the house. I was going to wait until morning to find my way out of there. I must have dozed off, because the next thing I knew there was loads of shouting and smoke.’
‘Had one of your cigarettes started the fire?’ Juliet asked.
A tear leaked out of the corner of Jordan’s eye. ‘I don’t think so, but I don’t know. I fell asleep with one lit. I guess it could have caught on something, and the fire spread inside.’
I frowned. ‘Can I check? You didn’t throw a lit cigarette into the house?’
‘What?’ Jordan reared back in his seat. ‘No, I wouldn’t do that. I was angry, but I didn’t want to burn the house down. I couldn’t have, anyway. The windows were closed.’
‘All your cigarettes butts are outside the manor?’ Juliet asked.
‘Yeah.’ Jordan looked between us. ‘I swear I didn’t mean for this to happen.’
If Jordan was telling the truth, then he hadn’t started the fire. But that meant Dunlow had either made up the fire spreading from a cigarette butt or he was mistaken. He didn’t seem the type to get confused.
‘What did you do when you saw the fire?’ Juliet asked.
‘I panicked.’ Jordan rubbed at his face with a frayed sleeve. ‘I knew that if one of the poshos saw me, they’d assume I’d caused it, but I couldn’t move. I wanted to hurt Leo, but I didn’t want him to burn to death. I was freaking out until the window exploded. After that, I ran off to the edge of the woods. I checked they were all out before I went any further. Then I followed a path away from there. There was smoke everywhere, but I found that barn where they keep their dogs. I figured no one else was going to go there, so I hid until it got light.’
‘You didn’t mind the dogs?’ I asked, trying to keep the anticipation out of my voice.
‘I love dogs, would have one if Dad let me.’ Jordan shot a startled look at his mum, but she didn’t react. ‘They were all freaking out so I gave them a fuss. There was a big friendly one that I let out. He kept me warm.’
The most noticeable thing about Jordan’s appearance was the mud and ash staining his clothes, but I spotted a few brown hairs. The exact shade of Artie’s fur.
I’d have to wait until we were alone to ask Juliet if Jordan had incriminated himself far more during this interview than in any other. Desperate to prove he hadn’t started the fire, he was letting things slip.
His shock when we told him Melanie was dead might not have been because he didn’t know. It could have been because he was devastated we’d found her so soon.
‘You left the estate when it got light?’ Juliet asked. ‘Where did you go then?’
Jordan darted a look at his mum. She sat rigid, her face a blank mask.
‘I didn’t want to go home. Dad would be there, and I didn’t want to talk to him. He wouldn’t listen if I tried to explain what had happened.’
A flicker of emotion crossed his mum’s face, there and gone before I could name it.
‘So where did you go?’ Juliet asked.
Jordan jerked his shoulders up. ‘I hid out around the place.’
‘Why did you go home this afternoon?’ I asked.
‘I was hungry. I thought I’d be able to sneak in while Dad was out.’
Juliet pinched her mouth to one side. ‘What happened when you went home?’
‘Only Mum was there. She told me you’d come looking for me. She said I had to tell you what happened.’
He reached over and placed a grubby hand on top of his mum’s knotted fingers. She blinked at him, her eyes filling with tears.
This didn’t make sense. Why would Jordan have come in to the station if he’d started the fire? If he hadn’t, who did? And did his slip-ups today mean that discounting him as Melanie’s killer had been a big mistake?