Jenna’s lips twitched as Donna grimaced. ‘Great.’
‘Yeah, I know. I don’t think the driver, Sophie, has been drinking and the other two are hardly on the hardcore stuff. Bloody four per cent vodka cocktail, smells far worse than it is, I think, because of the bloody chemical flavourings. Anyway, could you breathalyse the driver and send them on their way if she’s negative. Take their details and just zap them over for me to pick up later?’
‘Sure, no problem.’ Donna fished in her pocket for her notepad and pen. ‘Do I need to put the fear of God into them, or is it softly-softly?’
This time Jenna grinned. ‘Definitely the soft approach. I think they’re nice girls.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I just wish they’d stop twittering like overexcited brainless birds.’
Donna let out a soft snort. ‘That’s teenage girls for you.’
‘I don’t for one moment think they’re brainless.’ Jenna let out a soft shudder.
‘I know. Their mouths just don’t stop.’
Jenna cast a quick glance back at them. ‘Yeah.’ She drew Donna a step further away. ‘Turns out they’re friends with the girl that lives at Kimble Hall.’ She jerked her head in the general direction of the lit-up sky.
‘The house fire?’ Donna sucked air in through her teeth. ‘We’ve just come from there. It doesn’t look good.’
Mason edged in closer, effectively cutting off the girls behind with his broad shoulders.
Even so, Jenna lowered her voice so the girls in the car couldn’t catch what she said. ‘Tell them nothing.’
Donna’s thick black hair fell forward in a curtain and the blue lights bounced off it as she shook her head, throwing a soft blue satin halo around her head.
‘Do me a favour, Donna?’
Donna lifted her head, her liquid eyes gleamed in the myriad of illumination. ‘Yeah.’
‘Presuming young Sophie blows a negative, which I suspect she will, hang around to make sure they get off home. They’re all a little overexcited.’ At Donna’s nod, Jenna leaned in. ‘And make sure our little drama queen, Chanel, doesn’t get a hare-brained idea to shoot off and check on the fire situation. We don’t need any rubberneckers at the scene.’
‘Right, Sarge.’
Jenna patted Donna’s shoulder, knowing from her own experience with the woman how gentle and empathetic she would be. There was no one better at assessing a situation than PC McGuire.
Jenna turned away, strode back to the Fiat Panda and leaned in through the front window. She gave them a moment for the excited twitter to fall into a breathless silence. ‘Good to meet you, ladies, I’m leaving you in the competent care of PCs McGuire and Kempson.’ Jenna ran her gaze over Sophie. ‘Drive carefully and keep safe. Goodnight.’
The girls chorused their goodbyes with varying degrees of enthusiasm as Jenna made her way back to the unmarked vehicle and slid into the driver’s seat.
Mason gave an exaggerated shudder as she pulled the car back onto the road. ‘Gah, teenage girls. To be avoided at all costs.’
‘Yeah, I’d like to think we could avoid them, but I’ve a horrible feeling we’re going to be meeting up with them in the not too distant future.’
Her feeling of disquiet grew as she brought Mason up to date on the way to the scene.
8
Sunday 19 April 0155 hours
Jenna stepped from the car and slammed the door at the same time as Mason climbed from the passenger side to join her.
The cool spring night breeze whipped away in a blaze of fury as the wind changed direction and heat blasted through in a whorl of energy to suck the air from her lungs and knock her back a step.
‘Well, fuck!’
She scrubbed fingers through her thick, choppy hair and snorted at Mason’s predictable response. She took a moment to adjust her senses to the full impact of the fire.
It had been some years since she’d been to a bonfire, but the scent of the burning house evoked memories of freezing temperatures and fireworks.
Jenna tipped her head back and gazed up at a sky ablaze with colour and deep, dark clouds of smoke. She’d never seen a bonfire of such epic proportions nor experienced such power as the inferno syphoned the oxygen from the atmosphere.
‘This is bad. Very bad.’
Jenna scanned the area, pleased to note PC Walker had it in hand. Vehicles she needed to check had been logged were dumped outside of the double cordon the fire service had set up. Outer and inner with tighter restrictions the closer to the incident.
With a silent nod to Mason, they made their way through the outer line and held still in front of the inner cordon as the heat seared through. Shoulder to shoulder, they stood in the pool of amber light to watch as the inferno spat golden sparks into the sky, accompanied by a cacophony of cracks, pops and small explosions, while Mason spoke into Airwaves, the Force radio system, to obtain an update on the vital information they’d need.
Flames shot from windows devoid of glass where it had already exploded outward. Fire licked up the outside of the old stone building and danced like a live being to hold Jenna enthralled.
A giant of a man kitted out in the ugly beige fire service PPE strode with purpose from the far side of the inner cordon into her eyeline to break the hypnotic pull the burning building had on her.
He swiped the mask from his face, removed his headgear and scrubbed the fine sheen of sweat from his chin with the back of his hand.
‘Hey.’
Jenna held her badge up high so he could squint at it in the liquid light of the flames. ‘DS Jenna Morgan, this is DC Mason Ellis.’
‘Charlie Cartwright, I’m the watch manager.’
Jenna’s gaze darted down to the oblong sign on his chest to confirm his position. She reached out a hand to have it enveloped in his powerful grip.
He jerked his chin in the direction of a circle of firemen at the far side of the inner cordon. ‘Phil Hutchinson, the incident commander, is over there.’ Masks on with the burnished orange flicker of flames reflected to obscure their eyes, in deep discussion, they paid no attention to Jenna and Mason’s arrival. It was of no consequence, the watch manager was as capable of updating her at this stage as the incident commander.
Mason stepped forward and the two men exchanged handshakes. ‘Hey, Charlie. The information we have from Control is the Lawrence family are on the council register as living here. Mr and Mrs, together with four children under the age of eighteen. No specifics yet, but we’ll get that information shortly.’
‘So, possibly six people?’ Grim, Charlie’s lips tightened. ‘What are the chances they’re not home?’
Jenna dipped hands into her pockets. ‘Doubtful. We just met some friends of Poppy Lawrence. They said she had a family party she had to go to. Maybe they went out for the evening, but even so, wouldn’t you think they’d be back by now with kids?’ She shrugged. What the hell did she know about kids? ‘Has anyone checked the garage?’ She glanced around. ‘The drive for cars?’
‘Yeah.’ Charlie indicated a huge barn to the left of the main house. Nestled amongst several outbuildings, it was being doused in water from the tenders. ‘Several cars inside I’m told, eight or nine. Looks like he may have been a collector. Can’t tell straight off if any of them are the “family” car.’