Smoke Alarm Read Online Free

William, lived with them. He had Alzheimer’s.’
    She waited for him to continue.
    â€˜Some time late last night fire broke out in the two front rooms downstairs, quickly spreading to the upstairs bedrooms.’
    â€˜Two front rooms?’
    â€˜You miss nothing.’
    â€˜It’s a big property?’
    Alex Randall nodded. ‘A lovely old house. As you can imagine the scene is awful this morning, in broad daylight.’ He folded his long frame into the wing armchair and kept his eye on Martha. ‘There’s something about fires,’ he mused. ‘In the night they’re dramatic, exciting, all flashing blue lights and activity.’
    â€˜Careful, Alex,’ she said, smiling. ‘You’re beginning to sound like an arsonist.’
    Alex grimaced and continued. ‘But in the daylight you see the home it once was so completely destroyed. Blackened timbers, soot-stained curtains, broken windows, wrecked furniture.’ He met her eyes. ‘All the damage in its ugly starkness.’
    She stayed silent. He had seen this. She had not.
    DI Randall leaned right back in the chair and half-closed his eyes. ‘Baldly, Martha,’ he must have realized she was watching him because he gave her the ghost of a smile, ‘the facts are this: the emergency services took the call at 11.38 p.m. from a Mrs Lissimore, a neighbour, who was returning home after a night at Theatre Severn. The play ended at eleven p.m. and she had driven home. As she turned into the road she saw smoke and flames coming out of a downstairs window. She dialled nine-nine-nine from her mobile phone. By the time the fire services arrived, four minutes later, the blaze had taken hold, engulfing the property. They were able to gain access but only to the rear without risk to life.’ Another ghost of a smile. ‘At least, the
firemen
didn’t gain access. They were too well trained and sensible. It was one of our PCs. Gethin Roberts, everybody’s hero.’
    Martha looked at him warmly. ‘I seem to have heard that name before, Alex.’
    â€˜He does seem to have a habit of stumbling right into things.’ Alex returned her smile before continuing. ‘As I said, a family lives – lived – there. Nigel Barton and his wife, Christie, their fifteen-year-old daughter, Adelaide, their son, Jude, aged fourteen and Nigel Barton’s father, William. Mr William Barton was in his late eighties and has Alzheimer’s.’ Alex hesitated, as though he was on the point of saying something. Martha waited but Randall didn’t enlarge. It could wait, she decided, knowing Alex’s habit of holding information back until he was certain it was true. He disliked conjecture.
    â€˜Nigel Barton was away from home, in York. He supplies shops with window advertising. He’s worth quite a lot of money. The house is – was – lovely.’
    She felt like prompting him again. She wanted him to tell her quickly. Get it over with. Who had died? Had anyone survived? Which of these unfortunate people had been burnt alive? But she held her tongue and waited. And got her answer.
    â€˜Mrs Barton, William Barton and Adelaide are all unaccounted for.’
    â€˜And the son, Jude?’
    â€˜Gethin Roberts,’ DI Randall couldn’t quite suppress a shadow of amusement, ‘quite against any advice, broke in through the back door and found him in the kitchen near the door. Jude Barton has ten per cent burns, mainly on his hands and arms.’ He met her eyes. ‘It’s always puzzled me,’ he said. ‘How do they calculate the percentage?’
    â€˜It’s the rule of nines,’ she supplied, almost absently.
    â€˜That doesn’t take me much further,’ Alex responded with a tinge of another smile.
    â€˜They divide the body into eleven areas, head, right arm, left arm and so on. Each one represents nine per cent. That’s how they calculate the