After the Fire

Book 6: An Inspector Tom Reynolds Mystery

by Jo Spain

Genres: International Crime & Mystery; Police Procedurals

Synopsis

THE LATEST TOM REYNOLDS MYSTERY FROM THE INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE CONFESSION

'Perfectly paced, and skilfully told' Daily Mail
'Expertly crafted, deeply immersive and timely' Irish Independent

Nobody was supposed to get out alive.

On a Dublin city street, packed with afternoon shoppers, a young woman appears, naked, traumatised and bearing burn marks.

Tom Reynolds, now Chief Superintendent, is no longer head of the murder squad. But when it transpires the woman escaped from a house fire started deliberately and that there are more victims, Tom is sucked in. What begins as a straightforward case of arson, soon becomes something much more sinister.

The people in that house never wanted to be there in the first place. Now more of them are missing. Tom is faced with a ticking clock as he tries to locate the others and as he does, a terrifying spider's web of domestic and international crime unfolds.

And not everybody will survive the fallout.

PRAISE FOR JO SPAIN
'Clever and chilling' Sunday Times
'Pacey and compulsive' Sunday Mirror
'Brilliantly dark' Daily Mail
'Enthralling' JP Delaney

Release date: June 25, 2020

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 368

Sample

‘What about the Gresham? They do a lovely steak. I quite fancy a steak.’

Tom was already mentally pairing the glass of red wine he planned to order alongside a medium-rare sirloin; he could almost smell the tang of the alcohol in his nose, taste the succulent, meaty juices on his tongue.

Most importantly, it would be cool. The Gresham’s management had installed air con, bless their strategic souls.

Maria, his daughter, shook her head impatiently.

‘Dad, I’m up to ninety. I told you when you said you were coming in, it’s a sandwich in the canteen or nothing. You’re lucky you have me at all. I’m a junior doctor and a good thirty years off leisurely lunches.’

She frowned, the tiny lines that normally appeared on her pretty face when she laughed now showing themselves as stress.

Inwardly, Tom sighed. Outwardly, he smiled benignly.

‘I’m sure it will be the nicest sandwich I’ve ever had,’ he said.

Maria strode at speed down the hospital corridor, her soft pumps making no noise on the linoleum floor, her brown ponytail swinging from side to side. Her hair was longer than she’d had it in a long time. No time to get it cut, her father guessed.

The last time she’d moved this quickly ahead of him, looking like that, was when she was five and he and Louise had brought her on her first foreign holiday. Maria had marched through the airport, ponytail swinging, announcing that they were getting the plane, that everybody needed to make way and that she’d keep her fingers crossed their planes wouldn’t crash. Cute, and an indicator of the determined person she would become.

At least now, Tom was able to keep up, something he would definitely not relay to his wife Louise, because it would only provoke an I told you so. After years of threatening, she’d finally got him from the couch to 5K, and become unbearably satisfied with herself in the process.

Tom stood aside to let two hot, puffing, heavily pregnant women pass through the door which bore a handwritten sign clearly declaring it the entry point to the staff canteen.

‘They going the right way?’ he asked Maria.

‘Diabetes tests,’ she said. ‘They’ve been fasting and drinking Lucozade all morning while their bloods were taken. We make them have tea and toast under supervision so they don’t collapse on the way home.’

‘As long as it’s not our toast,’ Tom said.

Maria laughed and Tom was happy to see her relax.

‘Oh, I can treat you to more than toast,’ she said.

One limp, thin ham sandwich and a lukewarm Coke later, and Tom was mentally planning a solo trip to the restaurant in the Gresham Hotel.

‘Jesus, how do you stay standing?’ he asked his daughter. ‘The hours you work, they should have you on three-course meals for lunch and dinner.’

‘Caffeine and sugar,’ Maria said.

Tom watched as she offered up the evidence, emptying three sugar sachets into a thick black coffee. She had perpetual bags under her eyes these days, but he couldn’t deny she seemed content with her new, busy life, despite the stress. It might have been the doctoring route she’d taken – obstetrics. If Tom was forced to work at the coalface of medicine, he reckoned welcoming new babies into the world wasn’t the worst option.

‘So, Cáit is with you and Mam tonight,’ Maria said, stirring her unhealthy concoction. ‘Her dad will pick her up tomorrow and then I’m back on nights so I’ll have her on the weekdays. You and Mam should go somewhere. I’m sure that child of mine has you run ragged.’

‘Cáit’s grand,’ Tom said. ‘We’re redecorating her room at ours, I hear. A vat of pink paint is sitting on our landing, in any case.’

Maria smiled, but she was already distracted. Another medic approached. Tom guessed she was a midwife, based on the white uniform smock. She apologised for interrupting.

‘I paged the consultant but he’s elbow-deep in a C-section,’ the midwife said. ‘I think my patient’s baby is just OP but if you can have a look, Dr Reynolds? She’s pushed for eight hours and if she doesn’t make some progress, we might need to get her to theatre.’

Tom sat back, realising it was the first time he’d heard Maria referred to as Dr Reynolds in a professional setting.

He grinned, that feeling of a job well done creeping up on him. Maria hadn’t always been the easiest teen but her parents had got her over the line. Well, Louise, mainly.

As Dr Reynolds and the midwife discussed their patient, Tom’s ears picked up the conversations around him. He couldn’t help it; the detective in him refused to play administrator.

He’d taken the top job at the National Bureau of Crime Investigation, chief superintendent, just over two years ago and it wasn’t the slightest exaggeration to say he missed his work on the ground.

His role these days consisted of fighting top brass for more resources, while trying to keep all the balls in the air as crime rates soared to his front and a continual cascade of friendly fire rained down from behind.

Paper, paper, goddamn paper. Meetings, press conferences, some more paper.

Tom wondered sometimes if being back on the beat wouldn’t be preferable.

Still, he was on his holidays right now. A well-deserved and much-needed break, though it seemed he and Louise were destined for a staycation.

To his left, the two pregnant women at risk of diabetes – previously unknown to each other by the sound of things – had made fast friends. Ten more minutes, and Tom reckoned they’d be declaring as godmothers for each other’s baby.

To his right, Tom picked up on a far more interesting conversation.

‘. . . butt naked, smoke inhalation and something about a baby. Apparently, she was just walking down the street.’

Tom angled his head slightly, to better observe the two porters he’d tuned into.

‘What did they bring her here for?’ Porter One asked.

‘Y’deaf? She was going on about a baby.’

‘Is she a junkie? Totally naked, you say? What’s the story with the baby?’

‘She’s not even pregnant. They have her upstairs in the emergency assessment ward. They’re waiting for police or psychiatrists or something. They’ll transfer her to a non-maternity hospital, I s’pose.’

‘Dad.’

Tom turned back to Maria, who was already standing.

‘Sorry, I have to go up and have a look at this patient. Are you okay to find the way out?’

Tom stood and let her give him a quick hug.

‘I wish I could have taken you somewhere nicer,’ he said.

‘Next time,’ she said, already out the door. ‘Cocktails!’

*

Tom could smell the perfume in his daughter’s wake as he took the stairs behind her, seconds later. Her usual Chanel scent mixed with the bitter, clean smell of hospital garb, antiseptic fluids and hand sanitiser.

Little had changed in the twenty-six years since Tom had been in the Rotunda maternity hospital as an expectant father; nor in the six years since Maria had Cáit.

The emergency assessment room was still just off the front reception area.

Tom spotted the guard standing at its door, a young woman stripped down to her short-sleeved blue shirt but still in the heavy navy uniform slacks and bulky paraphernalia. She was listening to a radio that, to the untrained ear, babbled an incoherent white noise.

‘Chief Super—’ he began to introduce himself.

‘I know who you are,’ she said, already a little dumbstruck. He could see the speedy calculations behind her eyes – this was a routine call-out, surely, even if the circumstances sounded unusual. Why was the most senior officer from the NBCI there? Her gaze flitted left and right, looking for the candid camera.

‘I’m here on personal business,’ Tom said. The words had barely left his mouth before he realised they only added to the officer’s confused state. What possible personal business could a fifty-five-year-old man have in a maternity hospital?

‘I, eh, heard a woman was brought in in some sort of distress?’ he asked.

The officer nodded, on safer ground now.

‘Yes, sir. She was wandering through the city centre, no clothes, with burn marks and signs of smoke inhalation. Apparently she’d said something about a baby but when we arrived, she wasn’t talking. So, we brought her down here. Nearest, you know. But the docs say there is no baby. I’m just waiting for her ambulance transfer to a general hospital.’

‘Have you checked with fire services? Is it possible her house has gone up and there’s a baby there?’

The officer opened and closed her mouth.

‘We, um, we were waiting for a psych evaluation. My partner . . . um, because she was found naked and they said she wasn’t pregnant, now or recently . . .’

‘You thought she’d concocted the burns, too?’

Tom cocked his head, while the young officer tried to hide her blushes. A good sign. She, at least, didn’t think they’d made the right decision.

‘He, eh, my partner is more senior.’

Ah.

‘And where’s your partner now?’

‘He’s – um – in the car.’

Feet up, air con blasting and easy-listening playing, no doubt. Tom shook his head.

‘Good police work is following your gut as much as doing what you’re told,’ he said, smiling in a way he hoped came across as friendly and not utterly patronising. ‘Can I have a chat with your – what are we calling them these days – clients?’

The officer smirked.

‘Members of the public,’ she said. ‘Of course, but she’s not saying anything. Shall I contact the fire department and see if there are any reports of a local fire? She couldn’t have walked that far. Not in that state. There might not be a lot of people about the city but we’d still have had reports.’

‘Sounds like an excellent idea, Guard.’

Tom slipped past her and flashed his badge at the midwife who opened the door to the assessment unit.

The young woman, who couldn’t have been more than late teens, had been placed on a bed in a small cubicle at the end of the assessing ward. The nurses had done a good job of applying primary care to her burns. The midwife who’d shown Tom in explained that they weren’t severe.

‘It’s likely her clothing caught fire but she got it off in time to avoid a total tragedy,’ she told Tom. ‘Which would explain the nakedness. The shock, too. We can’t even get her name out of her.’

Tom looked at the young woman, now wearing a loose-fitting delivery gown, left low so it wouldn’t chafe the wounds. It wouldn’t have taken a medical expert to tell him she was in shock; she looked right at Tom when he approached the bed, but he knew she was barely registering his presence. She was slack-jawed, like she was still trying to absorb whatever she’d seen.

She didn’t need a psych evaluation. She needed trauma care.

‘My name is Tom,’ he said, gently. ‘I’m with the police. We’re waiting for an ambulance to transfer you to another hospital, but if there’s anything you need me to do for you, anybody you need to see or something you want to tell me, I’m here.’

The woman continued to stare at him.

‘There was a fire,’ Tom said. ‘Your clothes were burned? But the nurses say you’ll be okay.’

Silence, still.

Every one of Tom’s detective senses tingled.

This woman had witnessed something.

A baby.

‘Can you tell me your name?’ he asked.

A wet sheen covered the woman’s eyes, then tears, seamlessly, began to stream down the sides of her face and onto the white pillow beneath her head.

Tom resisted the very human desire to reach out and take her hand.

Her palms had sustained the worst damage.

But, in addition to that, he didn’t know what she’d been through.

It was important, if a crime had been committed against her, that this young woman was treated with the utmost sensitivity.

When she spoke, he detected an accent. Eastern European. Russian, maybe. Her voice was raspy from smoke, and deep in tone anyway, but she still sounded young.

‘I think they’re all dead,’ she whispered.

It was incredible, how top brass had managed to make a conference about tackling serious gun crime so utterly, mind-numbingly boring.

Laura Lennon was flicking through the A4 folder of slides, which included images from actual crime scenes: a young man, his T-shirt blown clean off at the front, exposing the bullet holes in his chest; another man, the side of his face missing; yet another, slumped against the wheel of his car, window smashed, blood dripping from the back of what had been his skull.

Laura knew how important it all was and how grave and yet, she couldn’t help stifle a yawn.

On the screen at the front of the room, the very same slides were on display, a senior officer reading the points aloud with as much bounce to his delivery as a priest intoning a funeral Mass.

Laura closed her eyes and allowed herself to gently doze, lulled by the heat of the hotel ballroom and the steady, monotonous clicking of the PowerPoint.

‘You’re a disgrace.’

Ray breathed the words into her ear and Laura smiled.

He handed her the tiny porcelain cup of coffee he’d brought back from the catering tray before taking his seat beside her.

‘I had to have sex with the waiter to get you a fresh cup,’ he whispered.

‘The hairy young one or the older bloke?’

‘The DILF,’ Ray said.

‘He should be so lucky,’ Laura said.

Ray smiled and brushed aside one of her red curls, his thumb brushing her cheek and making her blush.

Even now, two years on from their wedding, which they had celebrated a couple of months after her promotion, she sometimes had to pinch herself to check her life was real. Ray was, without exception, the best-looking, kindest, smartest man in the room and he was her husband. And, at just thirty-five, she was one of the most senior officers there.

The power couple, she thought, then laughed a little at her ego.

Another victim flashed up on the slides as she snorted, and her neighbour to the right cast her a puzzled glance, reminding Laura that, no matter how content she might be feeling, she still had to sell that image of seniority.

She could practically read the thoughts of the officer sitting beside her.

The detective chief inspector of the murder squad was not only too young for her job, but also a borderline psychopath by the looks of it.

Laura composed her face into the grave expression she was supposed to wear, the one that these days gave her perpetual jaw ache.

Yes, she’d been promoted to a top position in her thirties but it wasn’t like Tom Reynolds was known for his maverick, ill-thought-out decisions. He’d left an excellent team in his wake; Laura was buffered on all sides with support, not least from Detective Sergeant Ray Lennon.

Her promotion over him had taken everyone, especially her and Ray, a little while to get used to, but they’d soon found an easy rhythm. Laura had been moulded in Tom’s image and she made sure her leadership was democratic; that she was an addition to the team, not a drag. She shared out roles, responsibilities and, most importantly, praise and rewards. Her presence at this conference today was box-ticking. They’d already agreed that Ray would be the representative for their squad on the new interdepartmental unit that had been set up to address the country’s escalating number of gun-related crimes.

Laura was relieved when the event wound up and only mildly irritated that she had to hang on so Ray could do some networking with his new, temporary colleagues.

Bridget Duffy, Laura’s flatmate of old and now a senior figure in the drugs squad, was there, having also been sucked into the shit-hot sub-unit. As soon as they spotted each other, even though they hadn’t seen each other in a while, they slipped into the familiar chat that came easy to them.

‘I bet this new bloke you’ve hinted at is loving all this new responsibility you have,’ Laura said, an eyebrow raised. ‘Like you weren’t busy enough.’

Bridget shrugged, but her eyes twinkled. Laura could see how happy her friend was and she was thrilled for her.

‘He’s a paramedic. I took your advice and started dating within the emergency services. Jesus, Laura, you were right. It’s been a revelation. Last Sunday, I phoned him, wondering where he was. He’d done a double shift.’

‘Bloody health service,’ Laura said.

‘Bloody health service,’ Bridget agreed. ‘Anyway, this unit will keep me busy while he’s out saving lives. Makes a change. You must be glad of it, too. How many of these gun deaths usually end up in your lap?’

‘Thankfully, not as many as you’d think,’ Laura said. ‘The locals don’t call us in when they know who did it, and you know yourself, most of these hitmen aren’t genius at hiding their tracks, even if we do struggle to prosecute down the line. But if the unit manages to contain the number of guns coming into the country, it should have a positive effect all round. Honestly, how did it get like this, Bridget? This is Ireland. Yet it’s like the Wild West in parts of this city.’

Bridget nodded, frowning.

‘That lad who was shot three days ago,’ she said. ‘He wasn’t involved with drugs. He wasn’t even in a gang. You know what happened to him? He’d chased some toe-rag who’d tried to steal his car. Turns out the little runt was a runner for a local heavy. The victim was meant to be shot in the knee as a warning. Let us steal your car, or else. They shot him three times in the chest. Twenty-one years of age.’

Laura shook her head, her blood boiling. That was quickly followed by a wave of guilt that her primary feeling for the last few hours had been boredom.

She shouldn’t be at the point where she was inured to gun deaths. Ireland was still relatively gun free – even rank and file guards didn’t carry arms.

But things had changed.

Laura’s phone buzzed at exactly the same time Ray returned.

She would have checked it immediately, but for the look on his face.

‘Seen a ghost?’ Bridget said, catching it too.

‘Something like that,’ Ray said. ‘Guess who I just met?’

Laura raised her arm and made a sweeping motion at the room, which contained over one hundred officers. Ray could have met any number of old colleagues.

‘Joe fucking Kennedy,’ Ray said.

‘No,’ Laura gasped.

‘Oh yeah, he’s here,’ Bridget said, nodding. ‘The champion of horizontal career moves.’

‘I didn’t spot him,’ Laura said. She instinctively scanned the room.

‘He’s here,’ Ray said. ‘He was sitting up front. I was right beside him out in the hall before I noticed him. Which meant I had to talk to him.’

Laura shuddered.

‘Worse,’ he said. ‘He’s coming in to talk to you.’

‘Oh, thanks,’ Laura said. ‘You couldn’t have just denied you ever met me, no? Instead you . . . Hello, Joe, I didn’t know you were here.’

He’d arrived.

Laura took the outstretched hand of former chief superintendent Joe Kennedy, who’d materialised beside them with all the stealth of the creepy little shit that he was.

‘Hello there,’ he said. ‘I had to come over. I thought, well, what could make this hot, stuffy conference even more fun? Meeting your old boss, surely.’

Kennedy was as genial as ever, and as well turned out. Tight haircut, thin-rimmed glasses, erect, tidy bearing. You’d never guess at the character behind the friendly demeanour – it had been a slow, unpleasant revelation for them all.

Five years ago, Kennedy had briefly held the top job at the NBCI after Sean McGuinness, respected and admired by all, had taken early retirement to care for his ailing wife.

His short tenure, during which he’d constantly undermined Tom’s good reputation, had left a bad taste in the department. When he’d been removed for far more serious offences than being a pain in the proverbial, everybody had wished he’d just sail off into retirement himself. But he’d refused to go and so had been moved elegantly sideways by the top brass. And Sean McGuinness had returned to the top job for a short time until Tom Reynolds was ready to assume the responsibility.

‘I just wanted to congratulate you on the job,’ Kennedy said, shaking Laura’s hand. ‘I know it’s been a while, but I haven’t run into you since your promotion. I always knew you’d go far.’

Did you, hell, Laura thought.

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘It’s all due to Chief Superintendent Reynolds’ mentoring. What are you up to these days?’

Kennedy kept smiling.

‘I’m part of this unit. Been working in white-collar crime for a while but, well, this is where the resources are being thrown now.’

‘Resumption of play for the bankers, so,’ Laura said.

Kennedy chuckled.

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he said. ‘Good to see you all again. Ray, I guess I’ll be seeing a bit more of you, from now on.’

He strode off, greeting all those he passed like he’d no baggage to speak of.

‘Snake,’ Laura hissed.

‘A neck like a jockey’s bollocks,’ Bridget agreed.

Laura pulled out her phone to check it, frowning when she saw the message.

‘Don’t even say it,’ Ray said, watching her. ‘I’ll eat your arm if we don’t go somewhere that serves chicken curry, stat. I’m not filling up on biscuits and you promised you’d finish early today.’

‘You’ll have to get dinner on your own,’ Laura said, distracted. ‘A text from God.’

‘Isn’t he on his holliers?’

Laura made an incredulous face.

‘When Tom said he and Louise were staying in the country, how did you think this fortnight was going to go?’

Ray jutted out his lower lip.

‘Good point,’ he said. ‘What’s he after?’

‘Something odd,’ Laura said. She was already Googling breaking news.

Twitter had news of the fire up already, but the national stations hadn’t even caught the story.

House near city centre, was all the amateur reporting said.

But Tom’s text said more.

Gerry Reid had been a long time in this game.

Long enough to know that July was a quiet month for the fire brigade.

December was worse. Christmas trees, tea lights, candles, home-made wiring extensions, too much drink – too many avoidable tragedies. And you wouldn’t want to get him started on Hallowe’en.

Gerry’s father, brothers and cousins had all gone into building work and the Reid name was still well regarded in property circles, even after the decimation of the industry during the crash. Reid & Co hung in. There’d always be a job in construction for a Reid man.

Gerry had never wanted to work with bricks. His mother had a photograph of him, taken on Christmas morning 1973, a five-year-old Gerry dressed in the only item he’d put on his list for Santa Claus. A fireman costume. And even though he’d never grown up to be the tall, dark hero Gerry thought was part of the trade description, he’d got there. Turned out hair colour wasn’t important, nor height, for that matter. There were ways of carrying people and Gerry’s shoulders were broad.

His wife found him sexy in his uniform, even if nobody else did.

As he directed operations outside the still smouldering house, Gerry reflected on how his career meant that he, just like all the Reid men, knew the exact elements and components of a building. His family erected them. Gerry watched as they came down. Then he went around the blackened shell with the fire inspectors to determine what had caused the destruction.

Right now, though, with the fire spent and the situation under control, Gerry was more concerned with containing the crowd of onlookers that had gathered once the flames had become visible. Mainly kids, some worried parents, a handful of nosy passers-by. They were from further along the docks. The old city streets up that way had once been plagued by drugs and anti-social behaviour, but in the last few years, the area had settled into something more like the community it used to be. Not ne. . .