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how I’d like to go,’ he said.
    ‘It’s not like we get to choose, David. Besides, look at the guy. Seems pretty comfortable to me. Chances are the lucky bastard didn’t even wake up.’
    That was true: when the fire caught, the smoke probably killed the man before he even surfaced. So yes, it could have been worse. At one fire scene, early on in his career, he’d found the remains of an old lady curled up at the base of a walk-in wardrobe. He couldn’t imagine the fear and confusion and pain she must have gone through.
    Even so, part of him thought that when it came to it, he personally would want the chance to at least fight to stay alive. That he’d want to feel something for as long as possible, even if it was only pain. To cling on and not go gently – all the way to the bitter end.
    But then Groves thought about Jamie. And he figured that if he didn’t feel that way, he’d have given up on the world a long time ago.

Mark
    Charlie Matheson
    As I walked into the room, the woman claiming to be Charlotte Matheson was lying on her side, facing away from me. The bed took up most of the space, with just enough room for small anonymous cabinets on either side of the headboard, and a plastic chair near the door.
    She had the covers pulled up to her shoulders, so that all I could really see of her at first was a mass of brown curly hair – and that only barely. On the other side of the bed, the blinds had been drawn on the window, and the overhead light had been dimmed right down. In the gloom, and without being able to see her face, I couldn’t even be sure if she was awake.
    ‘Excuse me.’ I closed the door. ‘I’m with the police. I’m Detective Mark Nelson.’
    For a moment, the woman didn’t respond. Then she nodded slowly, rolled on to her back and hitched herself up into a sitting position. The covers bunched around her waist, revealing the hospital gown she was wearing. I presumed the doctors would have kept the clothes she’d been found in. It was possible we’d need to examine them. Unlikely, but possible.
    Her hair was hanging forward over her face, but she pulled it back, tucking it behind her shoulders, revealing her face in the process.
    The sight of the cuts there stopped whatever I was about to say next.
    Her face was almost entirely covered in them. There were whorls around her eyes, and lines and patterns of scarring across her forehead and nose. A complex web of cuts swirled down her cheeks, all the way to her jawline, before joining together in a single passage across the cleft of her chin. As far as I could tell, staring at her, the injuries were perfectly symmetrical.
    Amidst all that, her eyes seemed unusually bright in the dimness of the room, as though they were catching a light source unavailable to the fixtures and fittings. But they also looked bleary and confused. Scared. I supposed that was fairly understandable.
    I sat down on the chair, and her gaze stayed on me, the way a cat might watch a nearby stranger, ready to bolt for safety. Then I switched on the camera that was attached to my lapel. It had been departmental policy for years now that all field interviews were recorded, the footage beaming straight to a secure cloud and then logged into the relevant file, immediately accessible to any other officers working on the case. Not that there were any on this one, nor were there likely to be.
    ‘How are you feeling?’ I said.
    ‘Better than yesterday, thank you.’ Her voice was soft, but there was a surprising amount of resolve there. While still wary of me, she was also quiet and to the point. ‘It was a difficult transition, but I think I’m getting there slowly.’
    A difficult transition . If she was referring to her supposed return from the dead, it seemed a strangely formal way of describing it.
    ‘What are you looking at?’ she said.
    There didn’t seem to be any point in denying the obvious.
    ‘Your face. Your scars.’
    ‘Yes. I am marked.’
    Again she