The Blood of Crows Read Online Free Page A

body was open, which would draw the flames across the room. Which makes it arson – skilful arson.’
    ‘And Biggart had soot in his airways,’ offered Anderson, showing that he had been paying attention at the initial briefing. ‘Which means he was alive when the fire took hold and he inhaled smoke. So that’s either culp hom or murder.’
    ‘Ms Morrison says the latter. And she can prove it in court. And there’s more.’
    Anderson sat up. ‘OK, you have my full attention.’
    ‘Consider, the initial source of the fire is in the inner corner of the room. Yet Biggart is way over the far side, under the window. It’s as if he’d walked away from his escape route. Which raises the question, was he put there?’
    ‘Tox report was almost clear.’ Anderson pointed over his shoulder with his thumb, vaguely gesturing to his paper-laden desk. ‘A small amount of alcohol, nothing to incapacitate him.’
    ‘So, he could have walked out but didn’t. Are we thinking he was incapacitated in some other way? You should ask O’Hare if there were signs of him being bound.’
    ‘There’s nothing obvious on the crime scene photographs,’ said Anderson, flicking over to the photographs of the charred half-cooked mess, ‘but his legs looked like burned sausages, nothing much to see.’
    Wyngate continued. ‘So, he’s lying here, face up, unable to move for whatever reason. The fire started over there in the corner nearest the corridor, billowed quickly up to the ceiling – heat and smoke would cover the ceiling in seconds – drawn by the open window away from the exit door. But the dangerous thing for him, and the interesting thing for us, is that the radiated heat from the ceiling would start to ignite anything below, most flammable first. So, drawn by the air from the window, soot in the smoke in the ceiling gets hotter and hotter and reignites, causing a flashover which would come right down on him.’
    Involuntarily, Anderson twitched.
    ‘And judging from the charring and blistering on his torso, his chest in particular, his highly flammable shell suit simply melted on to him, like grilled cheese on toast. Incredibly painful. This means it was deliberate and extremely malicious. It indicates somebody who knows a lot about fires.’
    ‘I almost feel sorry for him,’ said Anderson.
    ‘And they think Billy was breathing, maybe even conscious, as the fire rolled over above him. And he didn’t do a thing about it. His clothes melting on to his skin, his skin blistering, his hair singeing. Ms Morrison says he might even have seen the fireball, before his retinas burned out. The reason why the fire investigation team have run this through their system again and again is … well, most arsonists would just splash some petrol about, fling in a match and leave. But not this guy. This set-up – the precise position of the accelerant – suggests he was keeping his exit clear for the longest possible period of time. It’s not unusual for arsonists to hang around the scene and get some thrill from the drama of the firefighters and all that, but according to Ms Morrison this guy set this whole fire so that he could hang about in the room and watch Biggart being grilled to death.’
    11.03 A.M.
    Costello was bored out of her mind. She was sprawling on her sofa, still in her pyjamas, thinking about eating breakfast, thinking about having a shower, thinking about getting dressed, thinking about the commotion on the river in the early hours. And that was three things more than she had managed to think about yesterday. She had been on sick leave now for five months, two weeks and two days. The team had been in touch, of course. They had phoned now and again, but there was less to talk about – and more awkward silences. They’d invited her to DCI Quinn’s leaving do, but she had declined. They justwanted to drink, and she couldn’t. Nor could she drive, and she was still too wary of strangers and too wary of the dark to