‘You could do this professionally,’ Kieron said. Sam had stuffed the chicken breasts with cheese and herbs and wrapped them in bacon, fried mushrooms and tomatoes slowly together and served it all with jacket potatoes.
‘Ha, no thanks. Though this was … quite satisfying.
Kieron poured himself a glass of wine. Cat was at choir, Felix in bed early with a cold and an old and beloved Roald Dahl, for comfort.
‘So not cordon bleu then.’
Sam shook his head but said nothing.
‘Tell me to mind my own business.’
‘No, only first it’s Mum, then Si, now you. And the answer is I just don’t know.’
‘I’m not getting at you, Sam. To start with, you make up your own mind about your future, and equally important, I would have no right to do so anyway. But I’d like to think you could use me as a sounding board if you need one, and if I can help as well, that would be good. But if you’d rather not talk about it at all, fine, we’ll talk about something else.’
‘Such as?’
Kieron ate in silence for a few minutes, then drank, then looked at Sam.
‘I would be interested in your take on something actually. Because I’m baffled – the rest of us are much the same. And anyone’s view from the outside might be useful.’
Kieron nodded.
‘What help would I be?’
‘I’ve no idea. I just thought it would be worth throwing it in your direction. You’re not involved, you’re a civilian, you’ve not – well, so far as I know – thought about this before – fresh mind.’
‘OK. Throw.’
‘How much do you know about the fires in Lafferton?’
‘What, the arson attacks? If that’s what they are.’
‘They are. A completely accidental fire – you know, electrical fault, someone leaves a cigarette burning – is a pretty rare event. So this many in one area … they’re deliberate. There are other pointers too – the fire people are quite certain. All you need to know is that these are arson attacks. So – any suggestions?’
‘You mean how or why … ?’
‘I mean what type of person? Motivation? Background?’
‘What is this, some sort of test?’
Kieron laughed. ‘Absolutely not. If you want to be tested for the police force you go the usual route. No, we just need all the help we can get.’
‘Run me through the fires – just in brief.’
Sam leaned back. He had never been asked a question of this kind and he wasn’t sure where to begin. But he saw that it was not straightforward. And that it was interesting.
‘OK, to start with, it seems likely that most of these things are done by men. I don’t know why I think that, maybe I’ve just read newspaper reports. Am I right?’
‘Overwhelmingly, arson is a male crime, yes.’
‘So in a way that makes it clearer. Or maybe not. Mentally deranged?’
‘Ah, that begs a huge question, doesn’t it? Would any totally sane, rational person keep setting places alight? Well, obviously not. After that though – what’s sanity, what’s madness?’
‘OK, someone with a grudge. Maybe, if they’re setting fire to, say, betting shops, then they’ve lost a load of money, or they think they’ve been cheated. Or, they’re just pissed off and broke.’
‘Possible. A grudge … revenge. Yes. It’s a clear motive. But in the Lafferton fires, each one is different, in a different place, different type of building. There’s no pattern.’
‘Could still be a grudge, maybe against businesses. Capitalism?’
‘Yes. But none of these are existing businesses – thankfully – they’re derelict or unused commercial buildings, and in a couple of instances the fires have been in the open air. An empty car park, the towpath.’
Sam got himself a Coke, and poured Kieron another glass of red, thinking all the time. It was like the best sort of logic puzzle with an added psychological element. Except there seemed to be nothing logical about it that he could see.
‘He just likes fire. Starting it and watching it blaze. I mean, I can see that.’
‘So can I, up to a point. I can enjoy making a bonfire of fallen branches and dead leaves and old boxes, finding the right cold, clear day and then whoomph! But I’m not damaging anyone or anyone’s property and I wouldn’t want to do it very often.’
‘True. Still, the same holds, doesn’t it? You love doing it. You love seeing the results. And one of the results is getting the fire brigade out, watching all that.’
‘Yes. And it’s all down to you.’
‘Power then.’
‘Yes. Just that?’
‘There isn’t a pudding by the way. There are some apples and bananas.’
‘Thanks.’
‘I guess … the thrill of starting a blaze and watching it take hold is kind of a turn-on?’
‘Now there you are spot on – arson is very often considered by the psychs to be a sexual crime.’
‘Only by the psychs?’
‘Who am I to disagree with them?’
‘But?’
‘But I don’t believe that’s always the answer or at least not the whole answer.’
‘So … it’s a male. Age? Could be any, though maybe not over seventy?’
‘Why?’
‘You have to be fit and agile. Good at getting away.’
‘Seventy isn’t ninety.’
‘Maybe not married or with a partner. All that going out by yourself at weird hours …’
‘Possibly. Not conclusively.’
‘Loner?’
‘So many criminals are – excluding gangs and drugs. But this sort of thing, yes, very likely.’
‘Local. He isn’t going to come a hundred miles. He could do it nearer home.’
‘Local because of …’
‘Local knowledge.’
‘Exactly.’
‘So, a Lafferton bloke. How does he start the fires? Not just matches.’
‘No. Petrol, either petrol-soaked rags or the usual way we all start a fire in the grate – newspaper, kindling, firelighters, only a whole lot more than we need and then he douses it with petrol. Adds old paint cans. Varnish. Anything. None of which are hard to get hold of.’
‘He’d smell of them.’
‘Good point.’
‘So all the more reason why he’s single or else he has somewhere to dump the clothing he wears for doing it.’
‘Where?’
‘Anywhere … empty house, old shed, even down by the river or the canal.’
‘How does he get from the fire to there and from there to home?’
‘Bike. Or he runs. Easier to slip in and out of back alleys and back gardens. Which means he doesn’t come too far.’
Kieron reached for a pad and pen. ‘So what have we got?’
‘Male. Single. Bit odd but maybe not totally bonkers. I mean, he’s cunning, he can plan. Local. Age, what, twenty to fifty? That’s a big field. Something else … have people at work or wherever noticed he’s interested in fires, maybe in these fires – you know, looking them up on the Internet news, in the paper, watching for them on TV? I mean, he wants a result, doesn’t he? He wants to be sort of famous, even if it’s only in his own head.’
Kieron finished his wine and got up to clear the table. ‘This has been great, Sam, it’s very helpful. It’s got a lot of dead wood out of the way and cleared my mind.’
‘Yeah, but it’s not you, is it? You’re the Chief. You’re not CID. You’re not leading the case.’
‘No. But I have to be on top of it, like everything else. This isn’t just one incident which would probably whizz past me, you’re right. This is ongoing and it could easily get worse – and we need to be ahead of him. Which isn’t easy.’
‘Do they suspect anyone yet?’
‘No. Which is the big problem. There’s no one even on the radar. So it may be just a case of vigilance on the part of the patrols rather than clever detective work.’
‘Is it often like that?’
‘Varies. Do you want a coffee?’
‘No thanks. You mean, often patrols catch criminals by chance?’
‘By chance, occasionally, but not usually. It’s generally based on something – a tip-off, CID work, everything’s different. That’s why police work is so interesting.’
‘Not sure I’d like just swanning round in a patrol car for hours.’
‘“Swan”, isn’t the term I’d apply, Sam. It has its moments as well.’
‘I think I’ll go out and see if anyone’s about.’
‘About?’
Sam gave him a look from the doorway. ‘That’s right.’
He was not late back. None of his friends were in town. He met someone he vaguely knew from school and a posse of his friends, but after an hour, he realised with a shock that he had nothing at all in common with them. They wanted to get pissed and behave in as juvenile way as they could manage. He had driven in, so half a lager was his limit, and the jeering because he switched to Coke was enough to send him home.
Kieron had gone to bed. Cat was emptying the dishwasher and finishing up the red wine Kieron had left. She did not ask where he had been.
‘Kieron said he’d sent you a link to a couple of things he thought might interest you. I went from choir straight to the hospital.’
‘How is he?’
‘Not very well. They’ve done everything – CAT scans, X-rays, bronchoscopy – thoracic medicine wasn’t his own speciality for nothing. The consultant was one of his old students.’
‘It’s who you know, as usual.’
‘Sometimes. Anyway, he has pneumonia and he should have been treated earlier – the congestion on his lungs is bad. They’ll get on top of it though – he’s pretty fit generally for his age.’
‘Bet he’s giving them a hard time.’
‘Oh he is. Gave me one as well, come to that.’
‘It’s not your fault.’
She laughed. ‘Switch the lights off and all that when you come up, Sambo.’
She gave him a quick hug and ruffled his hair to provoke him, as she went by.
One link was to a forensic psychology journal and an article about arson. The second was to a couple of university degree courses in criminology. He filed the first to read later and did not plan to do more than skim the second but ended by going upstairs and investigating several prospectuses on his iPad. He was still reading when he fell asleep with the light on after two o’clock.