Read After the Fire for Free Online

It was impossible to imagine him losing his temper, even with Derwent. ‘But I will say this. There are two stairwells in these towers, one on the outside of the building largely enclosed in concrete and one inside, running up the centre of the tower by the lift shafts. It seems the fire started on the tenth floor. It blocked off access to the external stairwell. The lifts were both out of order. The residents only had one way out, and that was the internal stairwell which was basically acting as a chimney. It was full of smoke and hot air. Anyone who escaped this fire from the tenth or the eleventh floor got very lucky indeed.’
    ‘So if it
was
deliberate,’ I said, ‘it was meant to kill.’
    ‘If it was.’ Harper tilted his head back to look up. ‘I’m going to have a look at how they’re getting on up there. The sooner I can get in and get started, the better.’
    ‘You can come with me,’ Una Burt said to us. ‘The one good thing about this investigation is that we have access to one of the bodies already, since Mr Armstrong was kind enough to meet his end outside the tower block.’
    ‘How?’ I asked, hurrying to follow her as she barrelled through the crowds surrounding the cordon near the tower.
    ‘Fell, jumped, pushed. Take your pick.’ She ducked under the tape and carried on around the side of the building, through a gate, to an area that was obviously where the residents’ rubbish ended up. Huge red and blue wheelie bins filled a yard where the ground was disturbingly slick under foot. Half of the bins were so full the plastic lids wouldn’t close properly. The place smelled strongly of rotting food and dirty nappies.
    In one corner, a familiar figure was standing on a step ladder, taking a photograph of the top of a bin with exquisite care. Arc lights shone on the scene, and a few other people, anonymous in hooded white suits, stood around waiting for the photographer to finish. Kev Cox lowered the camera and began to climb down, stocky in his white overalls but sure-footed.
    ‘Hi, Maeve.’ He waved at me. ‘This is a bit of fun, isn’t it?’
    ‘If you say so.’ I was staring at the shattered figure draped over the bin, the body twisted and broken by the fall. The bin lid had splintered from the impact. He was soaked in blood, his head tipped back and misshapen where the back of it had split open. His eye sockets were distorted, his nose and jaw askew. It was hard to work back to how he might have looked in life. In death, he resembled something that had stepped out of a medieval painting of hell.
    ‘Is that Armstrong?’ Derwent asked.
    One of the white-suited figures stepped forward, pushed the hood back and revealed itself to be the pathologist, Dr Early. She had met Derwent before, and looked appropriately wary. ‘We don’t have a formal ID yet. To be honest, the level of damage means it’s hard to say for certain just on visuals. We’ll check the dental records, or fingerprints if they’re on file. We should be able to get a sample of his DNA quite easily from his home so we can double-check it.’
    ‘So why do you think it’s him?’
    She blushed but held her own. ‘Because there was an anonymous tip-off that he was in the flats. Someone phoned 999 and mentioned him specifically. He was on the tenth floor, they said, but they didn’t give a flat number. The firefighters didn’t find him until one of them looked out of a window.’
    Derwent pointed at the ladder. ‘Can I take a look?’
    ‘Be my guest. But don’t touch him.’
    That earned the pathologist a glare. Derwent climbed up so he was looking down on the body. It was clad in grey suit trousers and a shirt that had once been white. There was a shoe on the left foot, but the right had a torn sock on it. There was something particularly pathetic about the pale foot sticking out over the edge of the bin. It looked undignified and vulnerable. Derwent leaned in, peering intently.
    ‘What do you think?’ Una Burt