What Will Burn by James Oswald (ebook reader web .txt) 📕

Blane sat up a little straighter, his head brushing the roof lining. ‘Sorry. Thought you knew where you were going.’ He pointed to an opening between two houses that might have been a road. ‘It’s up there.’

Janie muttered under her breath, but followed the directions, and soon enough they were sliding into a parking space in front of an anonymous semi-detached house. Much like the others in the close, it was harled in grey-brown pebble-dash render, with dark brown frames to the windows and a matching front door. If the estate’s planners had intended the houses to have front gardens, that wish had long since given way to two-car family lifestyle. Number Twelve was fronted by an uneven patch of tarmac with dead weed poking through plentiful cracks. An elderly Volvo estate had been backed in tight to the wall that marked the boundary between the two halves of the semi-detached house. Judging by the patina of dirt, the faded paintwork and the flat tyre, it hadn’t moved anywhere recently. Janie pointed at the number plate. ‘Run that when we get back to the station, aye?’

Lofty nodded, pulled out his notebook and was in the process of writing when the front door opened wide. A woman not much older than Harrison herself stood in the doorway, a small child apparently welded to her hip.

‘What youse want? If you’re here to sell Jesus, I’m no’ buying.’

‘Detective Sergeant Harrison.’ Janie held up her warrant card with one hand and pointed at Lofty with the thumb of her other. ‘My colleague, Detective Constable Blane. Would you be Miranda Whitaker?’

The woman took a step forward so that she could see the card. Janie gave her all the time she needed to read it. They were bearing bad news of a sort, nothing to be gained from antagonising her.

‘Aye,’ she said, after a moment.

‘Could we possibly come in?’

The inside of the house lived up to the low expectations of the exterior, although Lofty had been right about the generous size of the rooms. Miranda led them through a hallway that would have been wide had it not been for the baby buggy and other detritus cluttering up the space. Open-tread stairs in a dark stained bare wood climbed up to the first floor, and someone had made a makeshift gate at the bottom to stop the toddler exploring. It reminded Janie of her gran’s house. All very chic and fashionable in the seventies perhaps, but not exactly practical for modern living.

‘Will this take long? Only I’ve tae get Senga down soon or she’ll be a right pain later on.’ Miranda hefted the child to her other side. Janie wasn’t much of the mothering type, but even she thought the little girl looked a bit dopey. Wide eyes stared at nothing in particular, and she sucked continuously on a rubber teat. Maybe she’d just had a feed.

‘How old is she?’ It seemed the thing to ask, even if Janie didn’t think it would pertain much to their investigation.

‘Eighteen months, good as. Been out twice as long as she was in.’ Miranda smiled at her own joke, then turned serious again. ‘Come on through and sit down. Youse wanting a coffee?’

Tempting though it was, Janie declined. They went through into a slightly less cluttered living room that looked like it hadn’t been redecorated in fifty years. Lofty sat first, no doubt aware that his size could be intimidating. Janie waited for Miranda to settle with her child into a large armchair, then perched on the arm of the sofa so her head was at the same height as her colleague.

‘Your child’s father, Stephen. You’re separated now, yes?’

Miranda joggled young Senga on her knee, the child no more animated than a doll. ‘Steve? What’s that bastard done now?’

‘There was a fire at his tenement last night. I’m sorry, but he didn’t survive.’

The silence that fell on the room lasted a long time. Somewhere a clock ticked, and the soft shush shush shush of Miranda’s foot on the carpet was the only other sound. She didn’t look shocked, or even sad. Something else entirely spread its slow way across her face.

‘He’s dead?’ she asked eventually. Then without waiting for an answer added: ‘Well thank fuck for that.’

As responses went, it wasn’t quite the one Janie was expecting. She’d done more than enough death knocks in her time, and the responses were usually much the same. Shock, surprise, denial, anger. She’d never encountered relief before, at least not worn so openly.

‘Did he suffer?’ Miranda asked, then shook her head. ‘Doesn’t matter, really. He’s dead and that’s the end of it. Thank fuck.’

‘How long has it been since you separated?’ Janie asked.

‘Not long enough. Four months? Maybe five? Still waiting on the divorce to come through, but at least he’s out of the house.’ Miranda paused a moment, then her face lit up. ‘Guess I won’t be needing the divorce after all. Won’t be a trial either.’

‘Trial?’ Janie glanced across at Blane, who was doing his best to be unobtrusive. He shook his head and shrugged, no more clued up than she was. That was unlike him.

The brightness disappeared, replaced by anger. ‘You don’t know?’

‘I . . . No. I’m sorry. It only happened this morning.’

‘Unbelievable.’ Miranda shook her head slowly for a moment, then stared straight at Harrison. ‘I caught him abusing our wee girl. Playing with her like she was . . . and she was barely three months . . .’ Her face screwed up in utter disgust. ‘Oh, he tried to deny it, but then I found stuff on his computer. That’s when I called you lot. You should’ve locked him up and thrown away the key, but that fucker of a lawyer pops up and the next thing he’s got bail. At least they stopped him coming round here, but . . .’

She stopped speaking, partly because she appeared to have run out of words, partly because the child had finally picked up on her mother’s