The Burning (4 page)

‘I think it went along the front, too,’ Ryan said. ‘The fire crew must have ripped it down.’

‘Looks like Ed Morgan might have put it up himself – got the tall posts from Forestry supplies. You said he worked for them.’

‘That’s right,’ Ryan said vaguely. He glanced at his watch. ‘Seen enough yet? There are a lot of impatient people out there.’

‘Do you think it’s anything to do with that graffiti? Could Ed have been trying to keep someone out?’

‘More likely trying to keep his daughters in,’ Ryan said. ‘We are talking about a family annihilator. Controlling types, aren’t they?’

‘Do you know if he had a lot of locks on the doors? Was the place hard to get out of?’

Ryan gave a tired smile. ‘You’re wondering could they have been trapped inside? Maybe Ed didn’t do it after all?’

‘Why is that funny?’

‘Aside from his goodbye note and the fact that his three-year-old son is still unaccounted for, nothing at all.’

Jenny felt herself blush. Ryan had made her feel foolish.

He continued: ‘Our forensics people are saying both girls had been shot through the chest with a twelve-bore shotgun. The back of Ed’s skull was blown off and the gun – the
metal part of it, at least – was found next to what was left of him. I can tell you now – he’s been licensed to own a shotgun and hunting rifle all his adult life. I doubt there
was a day went by that Ed Morgan didn’t kill something, but this time –’ Ryan glanced over at the undertakers loading the stretchers into their black van marked ‘Private
Ambulance’ – ‘this time he took it to the next level.’

Jenny felt a rush of icy wind against her face. The first hint of breeze in days. ‘Were there any witnesses?’

‘Plenty to the fire. A few others. You’ll get their statements tomorrow.’

‘Susie Ashton was taken from her garden, wasn’t she?’

Ryan met Jenny’s gaze. ‘I wouldn’t know. Before my time. Aren’t you getting cold? I am.’ He started back towards the front of the house. ‘I’ll see if
the photographer can’t email you those pictures before he goes.’

The dull afternoon light was fading to grey. The breeze, now picking up to a light wind, carried a whiff of coal smoke from a neighbour’s chimney. Somewhere up in the woods Jenny heard a
dog barking and men’s voices – officers combing the countryside for Robbie Morgan’s tiny body. There was something about the scene – a
feel
, nothing she could put
into words – that told her she should try to remember it. She reached out her phone, called up the video camera and swept it slowly across the garden and hillside behind, keeping it rolling
as she followed Ryan back to the road.

T
HE BULLDOZER
– if that was the right term for a machine with a giant metal claw – crushed the brick wall at the front of the plot under its
caterpillar tracks and came to a halt in front of the burned-out house. DI Ryan had accompanied the undertaker’s van to the mortuary to book the remains, but several of his colleagues had
stayed behind to enjoy the fun. Jenny stood a short way off on the common, feeling a strange obligation to witness the demolition as a mark of respect. The big diesel engine issued a low,
threatening rumble as the machine’s single arm rose in several jerky movements then unfolded to its full length. The three steel talons grasped the top of the wall and squeezed, taking a
huge, jagged bite out of the brickwork. Several of the watching officers gave a muted cheer.

Jenny’s attention began to drift as the machine worked its way down the wall and she found herself wondering about the people behind the drawn curtains in the other houses around the
common. Every village she knew had a soul, an atmosphere all of its own, that told you something about its inhabitants. The houses of Blackstone Ley were spaced out, each home, even the smallest,
its own fortress surrounded by its individual parcel of land. It was the kind of place city people might come to live thinking they would have privacy, only to realize there were ten pairs of eyes
watching each time you stepped out of the door. It was a place where the truth about one’s neighbours would be hard to untangle from the myth; where reputations, good or bad, would never be
shaken off.

‘I suppose it’s for the best.’

Jenny turned to see a woman dressed in a battered wax jacket. A springer spaniel was running in excited circles off to her left, its nose close to the ground as it chased a rabbit scent. As she
approached, Jenny saw that beneath her coat she was wearing a priest’s collar which sat somewhat incongruously with the rest of her appearance. She was probably the same age as Jenny, but she
exuded a natural vitality that made her elegant features look far younger.

‘Are you with the police?’ the woman inquired.

‘No. I’m the coroner. Jenny Cooper.’

‘Ah.’ She offered her hand. ‘Helen Medway.’ Her gloved fingers were warm to the touch. ‘I’m the vicar here. For three parishes, actually, but this is the one
where I happen to live.’ She pointed across the common to a black-and-white half-timbered cottage next door to the church. ‘Any news on Robbie?’

‘Not that I’ve heard. Did you know the family?’

‘Yes, though more as neighbours than parishioners.’ Helen glanced over at the machine, which had made short work of the house and was now most of the way through the last remaining
wall. ‘I’ve heard it was the father – he left a message.’

‘That’s what the police tell me.’

Helen nodded and fell silent for a moment. Jenny sensed she was puzzled by something.

‘I expect they’ve asked you for a statement, living so close by?’ Jenny said.

‘I told them what I could, which wasn’t much. Pardon me for asking, but isn’t it quite soon for a coroner to be involved? Isn’t this a police investigation?’

‘It is at the moment,’ Jenny answered guardedly.

‘Sorry. I always ask too many questions. Force of habit. I used to be a probation officer.’

‘Bristol?’

‘No, Gloucester. I was made redundant when they shut the prison. I’ve only been doing this a year so haven’t quite learned to be properly vicarly, or whatever the word
is.’

She gave an apologetic smile and Jenny found herself warming to her.

‘Between you and me, I get the impression the police don’t think there’s anything to investigate,’ Jenny said. ‘The culprit’s dead. All that’s left for
them to do is to find out what Morgan did with his son.’

‘He was a proper countryman. Knew every corner, ditch and hedge. I expect they’ll have a job.’

‘I think they know that.’

Helen Medway bit on her bottom lip and glanced away. Jenny could see that, despite initial appearances, she was suffering.

‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’ Jenny said. ‘There had been some racist graffiti daubed on the side wall of the house. It had been scrubbed off, but you could still see
the words.’

‘I know. It appeared in the summer. About August time.’

‘Before the fence went up?’

She nodded. ‘I expect Ed was worried. Well, you would be.’

‘Any idea who did it? Or why?’

‘Well – ’ Helen’s eyes flicked left and right, as if she were checking for unseen spies. ‘I don’t want to be disloyal to my flock, but most people around here
would tell you in private they believe the family did it themselves. Or at least—’ Helen stopped herself. ‘I really am saying too much now.’

‘No. It’s very helpful,’ Jenny said. ‘Were you going to say they did it to try to get their neighbours painted as racists – so they could be re-housed
elsewhere?’ Helen’s expression of surprise told her she was on the right track. ‘Did they have a problem here? Had they fallen out with anyone?’

‘I’m afraid they were that sort of family,’ Helen said. ‘The oldest girl, Layla, was a bit of a handful. From what people tell me, Kelly had been quite a divisive figure
in the past. All that’s just gossip, of course. I don’t really want to . . .’ She sighed, annoyed with herself. ‘I’d rather you got all this from those who were here
and not second-hand from me. It’s not really appropriate for me to pass on hearsay.’

‘I understand.’ Jenny offered a diplomatic smile.

Helen Medway gave a grateful nod. ‘Thank you.’ She started to turn, as if going on her way, then looked abruptly back. ‘The message Ed left – it didn’t say anything
about Susie Ashton, did it? You do know who I mean?’

Jenny weighed her options and decided to err on the side of safety. ‘I’m afraid it wouldn’t be right to discuss that now.’

‘It’s only that her mother, Clare, is very ill. She’s got cancer. Her oncologist has told her months, but her husband confided in me that it could be weeks or days. Another
indiscretion, I know, but I do know how much it would mean to her. It’s been ten years. That’s their cottage opposite – the Old Post Office.’ Helen buried her hands deep
into her coat pockets and strode off into the gathering dusk.

Jenny looked back at the house and saw that the machine had nearly finished its work. In a few short minutes the building had been reduced to a silent heap of rubble. The following morning
lorries would arrive to ship the detritus away. Within twenty-four hours all traces of the former family home would be gone.

CID were still hazy about their protocols respecting who they could allow to befriend a dead murderer on Facebook, so the best DI Ryan could do was to email Jenny a screenshot
of Ed Morgan’s final message. When she read it again from her phone, as she stepped under the tiled porch of the Old Post Office, it took on an even bleaker resonance.

The door was answered by a tall, wiry and heavily preoccupied man in his late thirties. Fresh bandages covered both his hands, leaving only the tips of fingers and thumbs exposed.

‘Good afternoon,’ he said gravely.

Two short words were enough to remind Jenny of the voice which, for a few short months ten years ago, had played repeatedly on the TV and radio. It was a little deeper now, but it could not have
belonged to anyone other than ‘father of missing child, Susie Ashton’.

‘Sorry to disturb you, Mr Ashton. I’m Jenny Cooper – the local coroner.’ She presented him with a business card that had curled at the edges. ‘I’ll be dealing
with the family that died in the house fire.’ She swallowed, feeling self-conscious in Philip Ashton’s serious presence. ‘I just bumped into Reverend Medway. She suggested your
wife, or you and your wife, might like to be kept up to speed – given past events.’

Ashton handed her card back to her and was silent for a moment, looking over her shoulder to the lights across the common. Jenny waited, unsettled by his lack of reaction. She wondered what had
happened to his hands.

Then, sharply, he said, ‘Why don’t you come in, Mrs Cooper?’

He ushered her through a carpeted hallway and into a formal sitting room in which a Christmas tree decorated with coloured lights stood incongruously in one corner. It was a space in which
everything was in its place, and in which a visitor couldn’t help feeling self-conscious. Jenny had the impression of a house devoid of life; a house lacking the scuffs and disorder of
children.

Philip Ashton motioned her to a chair. ‘I’ll fetch my wife.’ And then, as an afterthought, he said, ‘I apologize if it’s too warm in here. She requires it to be at
this temperature – I’m afraid she’s very ill.’

‘Yes. I heard.’

Ashton gave a stiff nod and retreated. Jenny heard him climbing the stairs calling, ‘Clare – it’s the coroner to see us.’

She glanced around the unnaturally tidy room and noticed the absence of family photographs. Not even a wedding picture. With only a few exceptions, parents of dead children fell into two
distinct camps: those who erected morbid shrines on the mantelpiece and those who banished all traces. It was debatable which response was healthiest, but Jenny preferred dealing with a family
prepared to weep; those that had locked their grief down tight made her feel an uncomfortable urge to experience emotion on their behalf.

They took a while coming down, Clare snapping at her husband in a stage whisper that she could manage the stairs perfectly well by herself. He entered first, holding open the door for her. A
pale woman, whose face bore only a passing resemblance to the one Jenny remembered from TV, shuffled in behind him on matchstick legs. She was dressed and made up, but nothing could disguise her
hollowed-out features and wasted body. She still had her own walnut-coloured hair, but it was flattened at the back of her head where it had been pressed against her pillow. Nevertheless, she was
putting on a brave front. Ashton held his wife’s arm as she lowered herself onto the sofa.

She looked at Jenny with eyes made unusually round and childlike by the thinness of her face. ‘Thank you for coming, Mrs Cooper.’ Her voice was clear and steady, but less familiar
than her husband’s. It echoed only faintly in Jenny’s memory. ‘We appreciate it. We really do.’

Jenny decided to leave the niceties aside and get straight to business. She was aware that, for Clare Ashton, maintaining her composure would be taking all of her strength. ‘I’m
afraid I don’t have anything definitive for you, but I can tell you the police think Ed Morgan was responsible for the fire and the deaths of his stepdaughters and probably that of his son.
He left a message to that effect. Would you like to see it?’

Clare and Philip Ashton exchanged a glance. Philip nodded. Jenny handed him her phone with Morgan’s final words on the screen. He read it quickly and without emotion before handing it to
his wife.

‘I’m afraid it doesn’t say anything about your daughter,’ Jenny said. ‘But if the police’s reading of the situation is correct, it does tell us what he was
capable of.’

Clare looked up and passed the phone back to her husband, her expression as unreadable as his. ‘Thank you, Mrs Cooper.’ She hesitated. ‘Thank you for sharing this with
us.’

Jenny glanced at Philip Ashton. He was reading the message a second time, this time appearing to subject it to close critical analysis.

‘What is it?’ Clare said, a note of apprehension entering her voice.

‘He wouldn’t be the first man to kill his family, suspecting his wife was being unfaithful,’ he said. ‘In fact, from what I read in today’s papers, not to mention
what I’ve researched privately over the years, it’s not at all uncommon. Child abductors, though, are very rare, and invariably sexually motivated. In the present day, such a person is
likely to be heavily involved with the worst forms of child pornography. You would also expect to see a pattern of offending behaviour from adolescence onwards.’ He fixed Jenny with a
searching, sceptical look. ‘As far as I know, Ed Morgan had never been in trouble with the police. Is there any suggestion that he was sexually abusing his stepdaughters?’