Out of the Ashes: A DI Maya Rahman novel
Vicky Newham
Praise for Vicky Newham’Remarkable’Paul Finch;‘Impressive’Daily Mail;A terrible accident – or a fire set to kill?When a flash mob on Brick Lane is interrupted by a sudden explosion, DI Maya Rahman is called to the scene. A fire is raging through one of the city’s most infamous streets – and it’s soon clear that it was a deliberate act of violence.The discovery of two charred bodies in the burnt-out shell of the building transforms an arson attack into a murder case. And, with witnesses too caught up in the crowd to have seen a thing, Maya is facing an investigation without a single lead.The possible motives are endless: money, vandalism, revenge. And, when reports of a second and even more horrifying crime lands on Maya’s desk, she knows she doesn’t have long to find answers – before all of East London goes up in flames.
PRAISE FOR VICKY NEWHAM (#ulink_e2d439e4-b440-5026-aeb6-dadd9d615c1f)
‘An impressive debut … the multicultural community of Brick Lane is sensitively evoked and the heroine is ultra-hip’
Daily Mail
‘The first in a promising series … a female detective who has to negotiate cultural conflicts on a daily basis’
The Sunday Times
‘Slick, fresh and current’
Mel Sherratt
‘A remarkable portrayal of crime in modern, multicultural Britain’
Paul Finch
‘DI Maya Rahman is the heroine I’ve waited a lifetime for’
Alex Caan
‘A sensational debut; a current, timely police procedural featuring a DI like none you’ve ever seen’
Karen Dionne
‘A terrific start to an important new series’
Vaseem Khan
‘[DI Maya Rahman] is wonderfully complex and human, and the tension ratchets up nicely’
James Oswald
‘Clever, passionate and hugely thought provoking’
Lizlovesbook.com
VICKY NEWHAM grew up in West Sussex and taught Psychology in East London for many years, before moving to Whitstable in Kent. She studied for an MA in Creative Writing at Kingston University, where she graduated with distinction. She is currently working on the next instalment in the DI Rahman series.
Copyright (#ulink_e86f9203-5cdb-5345-b347-89fbda4c8593)
An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019
Copyright © Vicky Newham 2019
Vicky Newham asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © May 2019 ISBN: 9780008240738
For my father, who I miss every day.
Contents
Cover (#uc9bb1883-734f-53f1-bfee-8b4b7a84a9ae)
PRAISE (#ulink_baf3448c-622f-5fed-aff3-97c6eca24722)
About the Author (#ulink_45b61515-0fa4-5d2e-a61c-d94c90d1f590)
Title Page (#ued3941c8-552e-567c-ab67-56bcd5997540)
Copyright (#ulink_09750086-de57-5318-98de-b95f7e4a6100)
Dedication (#u8804e1f2-fb7b-512c-987e-95cd09c3c668)
FRIDAY (#ulink_03c7cacd-e2dd-5048-9383-1ff878a386b1)
Rosa, 2 p.m. (#ulink_8751f551-9a22-5c09-9356-04f5f814750e)
Maya, 2.30 p.m. (#ulink_64ec67c3-43db-5520-bdcc-812e418e4cd4)
Maya, 3.30 p.m. (#ulink_1f0eacc0-e0f3-585f-bfa4-7ec29487c89b)
Maya, 3.45 p.m. (#ulink_30b508e2-bed8-5026-a623-ea6de43b161c)
Dan, 3.45 p.m. (#ulink_4461a2c4-cb8e-52c8-835c-8c94079a6bc6)
Maya, 4 p.m. (#ulink_dd6a4149-280e-5468-9cc2-949921c683c1)
Maya, 4.30 p.m. (#ulink_f1e9d3d1-1150-597a-a626-24ba01fdfdeb)
Maya, 5.30 p.m.
Maya, 6 p.m.
Maya, 6.15 p.m.
6.30 p.m.
Maya, 7.30 p.m.
Maya, 7.45 p.m.
Brick Lane, 1984 – Maya
SATURDAY
Maya, 7 a.m.
Maya, 8.30 a.m.
Maya, 8.45 a.m.
Maya, 9.15 a.m.
Maya, 10 a.m.
10.30 a.m.
Dan, 11 a.m.
Maya, midday
Maya, 12.30 p.m.
Maya, 1 p.m.
Maya, 1.30 p.m.
Dan, 2.30 p.m.
Dan, 3 p.m.
Maya, 3.30 p.m.
Maya, 4.30 p.m.
Maya, 5.30 p.m.
Dan, 6 p.m.
Maya, 6.45 p.m.
Maya, 7.30 p.m.
Maya, 8.30 p.m.
Dan, 9.30 p.m.
Maya, 10 p.m.
Maya, 10.45 p.m.
11.30 p.m.
Maya, 11.30 p.m.
Maya, midnight
SUNDAY
Rosa, 7 a.m.
Brick Lane, 1984 – Maya
Maya, 8.30 a.m.
9 a.m.
Maya, 9.30 a.m.
Maya, 11 a.m.
Dan, 12.30 p.m.
Maya, 12.30 p.m.
Dan, 2.30 p.m.
Maya, 5 p.m.
Maya, 9 p.m.
Feldman’s Newsagent’s, Brick Lane, 1989 – Maya
MONDAY
8 a.m.
Maya, 8.30 a.m.
Maya, 9 a.m.
Dan, 10.30 a.m.
Maya, 10.30 a.m.
Dan, 11.15 a.m.
Maya, 11.15 a.m.
Maya, midday
Maya, 1 p.m.
Dan, 1.55 p.m.
2 p.m.
Maya, 3 p.m.
Maya, 4 p.m.
Maya, 6 p.m.
Maya, 7 p.m.
Maya, 8 p.m.
Maya, 8.45 p.m.
Maya, 10 p.m.
Maya, 10.30 p.m.
TUESDAY
Dan, 1 a.m.
Maya, 7.30 a.m.
Maya, 9 a.m.
Maya, 10.30 a.m.
Maya, 11.30 a.m.
Maya, 12.30 p.m.
Maya, 2.30 p.m.
Maya, 4 p.m.
Maya, 5 p.m.
WEDNESDAY
Maya, 8 a.m.
Maya, 9 a.m.
Maya, 10 a.m.
Acknowledgements
About the Publisher
FRIDAY (#ulink_9e53a697-2ce2-575c-b81f-81edd0c90ccb)
Rosa, 2 p.m. (#ulink_99a830e7-39c4-5731-a34e-8963d77f9a77)
Rosa Feldman stood at the door of her Brick Lane newsagent’s, staring out at the street she’d known since she was four. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. It was the shop opposite, run by the young Lithuanian couple. Since first thing this morning, the lights had been off and the shutters down. Initially, she was relieved that for once, the ugly neon sign, with its air of Margate or Blackpool, wasn’t flashing outside her bedroom window, but as the morning progressed, she felt increasingly uneasy.
It wasn’t like them at all.
She couldn’t recall ever seeing the shop closed in the daytime.
A tap on the glass snapped Rosa back into the afternoon. It was Mr Walker from the off-licence a few doors down. He shouted a cheery greeting and waved as he passed the window. Regular as clockwork, off to get chips for tea. Rosa raised her hand to return the gesture, but the pain in her wrists and knuckles bit again. Damned arthritis.
Mr Walker’s knock was usually her reminder to think about their meal. Today was Friday after all. But without Józef, the Sabbath meal wasn’t the same and she didn’t bother with the rituals any more. In the last year, she’d lost weight and clothes hung off her spare frame. What was the point of lighting candles when there was only one of you? She’d steam a plate of yesterday’s chicken and potatoes. That would do her. Fortunately, she didn’t have to go far to get home, just upstairs to the flat, even if it was still freezing at this time of year.
Over the dusty window display, two men were putting a new shop sign up where Rosenberg’s jewellers used to be. Work had been going on for weeks, and it looked like the place was nearly ready to open. Alchemia, it said. A swanky new Polish bar by the looks of it, slap bang next-door to Mr Hamid’s curry house. He wasn’t going to be happy. So much had changed in Brick Lane since she and her family had arrived, and life moved so fast on the other side of the window, it made Rosa dizzy. The pace was relentless and the change uncompromising. Inside the shop, though, she felt safe. Change there was slow and predictable. Above her head, by the door, the fan heater droned noisily and made little impact on the chilly air, but she didn’t mind. It had always done that. And she barely noticed the crumbling plaster of the ground floor walls, or the mildew which clung to ceiling corners like a nasty rash.
Her thoughts slid back to the shop over the road. The place was usually open all hours of the day and night, selling its fancy five-quid soups to whoever could afford them. She had no objection to people earning a living, but her parents would be turning in their graves. They’d survived the Ghetto on two hundred calories a day. When they left Warsaw, and arrived in London, it was the handouts from the Jewish soup kitchen in Brune Street that kept them alive. It was extraordinary to think that what had been humble subsistence for many families was now a fad-food. She’d been over for a spy at the menu, of course, when they were shut. Apart from some matzo ball soup, she couldn’t find much she fancied and didn’t know what most of it was, let alone how to pronounce it. Keen-war, or something, a youth with a bicycle and a dog had told Rosa.
She sighed. She missed her old neighbours. Those were Sabbath meals to look forward to. They were exactly how her mother described Warsaw before the war. Mrs Blum from the bagel shop would make the challah. Rich, eggy and sweet. It had been ages since Rosa had felt one of those in her hands, soft and warm, in its pretty braid shape. The Altmans would bring the wine. The Posners, candles. And the Rosenbergs, the jewellers, always came with freshly made kugel.
But now her parents were dead, and all her Jewish neighbours were either dead too or had moved away.
Except Rosa.
And there was that feeling again, a gnawing emptiness, a sense that life had moved on without her. It was so unsettling. Every fibre of her being was exhausted by the continual need to think about whether to follow her compatriots out of the East End and into the London suburbs.
The sound of voices jolted her back into the present.
Yelling.
Music.
Outside in the street, a thumping bass beat started up. Tremors vibrated through the shop, and a booming noise invaded the silence of her thoughts. Yobbos, probably, spitting everywhere and pumping out music from one of those dreadful sound-systems. They’d pass in a minute.
But they didn’t.
The music got louder and louder, and – oh, typical – the group had stopped outside Rosa’s shop. All guffaws, swearing, floppy hair and hoodies. More voices, bellowing and cheering, and one by one, people were joining them. What on earth was going on? On a Friday afternoon, from lunchtime onwards, she was used to the steady trickle of people down Brick Lane, getting ready for a night on the tiles and a curry, but it was unusual to see so many people together. She edged over to the corner of the shop window to get a better view. The music had changed, and one by one people pulled black bandanas into masks, over their mouths and noses, and were dancing, if jabbing a finger in the air and screaming counted as dancing these days. Teenagers, by the look of them. Some younger. She wasn’t very good at judging age, and they all wore such similar clothes, but she’d put money on some of them not being a day over ten.
Rosa pressed her nose against the pane of glass. Outside, the street hummed with joy. There was an innocence to their dancing, even if the masks were a bit scary. And they weren’t doing any harm, were they? She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She used to know all the kids round here; knew their families by name, but none of this lot were familiar. There were at least ten of them, dancing in the street, throwing themselves about like acrobats, bending, leaping, twirling each other around. For a moment, Rosa was reminded of the tea room dances she and Józef used to go to before Agnieszka and Tomasz were born. They’d save for weeks, get dolled up in their best clothes. Oh, how much fun they’d been.
There were more than twenty of them now, maybe thirty. Someone was lighting sparklers and passing them round for the kids. She adored sparklers. And before she knew it, her fingers pulled the door handle and she was outside, the bell dinging shut behind her. The sulphurous smell set light to her dulled senses and she felt the day’s irritation shake itself from her shoulders. She was a kid again, at crisp November bonfires and balmy mid-summer street parties, with people passing sparklers round.
Rosa cleared her throat.
Coughed.
Her lungs weren’t good these days, weakened by years of a poorly heated flat, the damp shop walls, and Józef’s cigarette smoke.
She joined the throng of passers-by who were huddled, mesmerised by the dancing. Was it a student gathering? She was puzzled. Who was in charge? She couldn’t see any organisers or anyone giving instructions, and had no idea where the music was coming from. People were merging with the group of their own accord and encouraging others to do the same. They all looked so carefree.
The music brought a smile to Rosa’s cold lips. Her heel began to tap and she was lost to nostalgia. It was such a relief to forget the pain and drudgery of the last year. To forget her arthritis and money worries. Was that Lulu and ‘Shout’? Her heart leaped. Many a time she and Józef had danced to that tune. Her mind was flooded with memories of all the occasions when they’d danced together, his warm hand in the small of her back, guiding her forwards, the other clasping hers, keeping her safe. She felt a lump in her throat. They were glorious memories, even if they were now tainted by the agony of loss. It had only been a year and she still missed him so much.
A waltz kicked in, floaty and dramatic. Initially, it had been youngsters dancing but now it was people of all ages, lured over by the infectious atmosphere of Brick Lane on a chilly April afternoon. Hearing the waltz start, a Sikh man checked his turban and, with a huge grin, he clasped the hands of a woman in a navy-blue trench coat. She was giggling like a schoolgirl, a small flat bag diagonally across her body, her head tilted back, carefree and stunned, as though she hadn’t had so much fun in ages. Rosa guessed the woman was about her age. Perhaps she was a widow too?
Rosa’s hips started to sway, and she was tempted to go over and join in. What was she thinking? She was being silly. She couldn’t. Who would mind the shop while she was cavorting in the street?
Another crowd of youths piled in, hee-hawing and smoking, in their thin cotton clothing and baseball shoes. Some with their bottoms hanging out of their trousers, others in drainpipe jeans. Didn’t they feel the cold? Several more children were in tow. Why weren’t they all at school? Before Rosa knew it, one of them had taken her hand and led her towards the group. Elvis’ crooning tones wafted down the street and once again Rosa’s spirits soared. The teenagers looked so funny, impersonating the rock ’n’ roll moves of ‘All Shook Up’. It was the most fun she’d had on a Friday afternoon since . . .
Józef would have enjoyed this. ‘Come on, Rosa,’ he would have said in his calm, decisive voice, and he’d have locked the shop, led her out into the street and begun whirling her around with that boyish grin of his.
A quick head count told her there were about fifty people dancing now and a good twenty more hanging around. The street whiffed of whacky-backy. Rosa had forgotten her nagging joints and aching legs; the grimy shelves with mounting dust; the delivery boxes she couldn’t carry. For a few sweet moments, she’d stopped feeling sick to death of the damn shop, of book-keeping and fretting over decisions. She didn’t care about any of it anymore. All she wanted was—
A loud splitting sound tore through the air, followed by a series of cracks and bangs. Rosa gasped as orange flames burst out of the top floor windows of the shop opposite, and billowed upwards. Swirling streams of black smoke inked the pale sky. Fire raged behind the first-floor windows, and the ground floor shop was filled with smoke and flames. She cried out in pain as acrid fumes hit her lungs, forcing her to clamp her hand over her mouth. Everyone was shouting and running for cover as burning timber peeled away from windows. Screams pierced the air as lengths of wood and red-hot embers rained down on the crowd below. Rosa’s legs were like jelly and she felt dizzy. She stumbled over something on the ground in front of her and lurched forwards. She made out a woman, clutching her arm.
‘Help,’ came the agonised cry at Rosa’s feet. ‘Please help me.’
Panic engulfed Rosa, and she was transported back to the sensory onslaught of the Warsaw Ghetto, to primitive memories of endless screaming, to the cacophony of bombs and blasts and gunshots. From behind, someone shoved her out of the way and she stumbled forwards. All around her, people were coughing, retching and staggering, scarves and hands clasped over their mouths, desperate to escape the blaze. The air was cloying. Putrid. She was plunged into blind terror, realising she could die. This wasn’t Poland, and it wasn’t the end of the war, but she had to get away from the fire and ring 999 before someone died.
As the blaze ripped through the roof, smoke continued to spiral upwards into the sky. Rosa staggered blindly towards the blue door of her shop, to the step and doorway, arms groping ahead for something to grab. The fumes bit at her lungs and she was gasping for air so much she was retching. Finally, her hands grabbed the handle. She used all her weight to heave the door open and stumbled inside, pushing it shut behind her as quickly as she could.
She sucked in some air.
It was like breathing through needles.
She had to get to the phone in the back room. Stands and magazine racks flashed past her as she lurched towards the till, gasping for breath and snatching for a hold. She hauled her way round the counter, head spinning, and grabbed the phone receiver from the wall. Her eyes were streaming.
Keep blinking, she told herself.
Breathe.
She tried to calm herself; to rub away the tears that the fumes had produced; to steady her shaking hands and press the buttons. What should she say? Was it terrorists? Had there been an explosion?
Just say FIRE.
Rosa felt her head starting to spin. Lights flashed, dots appeared and she went floppy. Her mind slipped sideways and everything stopped.
Maya, 2.30 p.m. (#ulink_b3cf0328-3a19-5689-b384-710452460bb3)
I scraped my scruffy hair into a ponytail and took a deep breath. It was the first moment’s peace in the MIT room since seven this morning. I opened the email app on my phone and scrolled down to the one from Forensic Services with ‘Mr K A Rahman’ in the subject line. The message had dropped into my private inbox moments earlier. My finger was poised, ready to click, when Dougie’s advice popped into my mind. ‘If you’re going to do this, you need to be prepared for all possible outcomes,’ he’d said.
Was I?
I wasn’t sure.
I’d given up trying to find out what had happened to Dad. We’d all accepted he was dead, until a year ago when Mum started saying he’d visited her. And now it seemed like he might be alive after all.
‘Emergency services have been on the blower, eh.’ Dan’s Australian accent cut through my thoughts. Never one to enter a room slowly, he lobbed his keys on the desk, curved his athletic frame down on the seat next to me and whacked the space bar on his computer. The impact made my desk shake.
I grunted my disapproval and tucked my phone back in my pocket. ‘What about?’ After eighteen months of working with Dan, I still found some of his behaviour—
‘If you stop texting your boyfriend, I’ll tell you.’ He faced me, his hazel eyes red-rimmed and puffy. ‘Listen to this. First response has flagged up the smell of accelerant.’ He pressed ‘play’ on the recording on his phone.
‘Poleece?’ The woman’s voice was shrill. A heavy accent. ‘My husband is in the fire in Brick Lane. I think someone’s tried to kill him.’ Her words came out in snatches. There was a female voice in the background. It sounded like the person was prompting her. ‘I think someone’s murdered him.’
‘Shit.’ I searched Dan’s face for a reaction, but it was its standard pallid hue. ‘Do we know who made the call?’
‘Can’t trace it. Cell site data places the phone in East Ham but it’s an unregistered mobile. Goes straight to voicemail and there’s no personalised message.’
‘Is there a fire in Brick Lane?’
‘Yeah. Massive one. Uniform are there now with the fire brigade. Here.’ He passed me a transcript of the call. ‘No CID yet though.’
‘“My husband is in the fire” and “I think someone has tried to kill him”? We’d better get over there. I’ll tell Superintendent Campbell we’re going to check it out. What’s the shop?’
‘New place.’ Dan checked the incident log. ‘The Brick Lane Soup Company.’
‘You’re kidding?’ I stared at him. ‘That’s where the Jewish bagel shop used to be. Developers bought it a couple of years ago. There was a real hoo-ha.’ I could vividly picture the freshly cooked salt beef and bagels that had once sat in the window. I grabbed my jacket. ‘Come on. Let’s get over there.’
Minutes later, we were zig-zagging along the A13 from Limehouse, in the clank and clatter of the afternoon traffic. Lorries and red buses belched out choking fumes into the watery April sunlight.
In Brick Lane now, and on foot, the blue lights from the emergency services vehicles barely cut through the black smog which hung over the area. As we approached the street, heading north, discombobulated voices echoed through the haze. Two motorcycle responders tore past us, sirens blaring and blue lights flashing. Dan’s stride quickened, and I broke into a jog to keep up, past the takeaways of my childhood, the barber’s and money shops.
Up ahead, it was a scene of devastation. Smoke caught in my throat and I fished in my pocket for a tissue to cover my mouth and nose. I made out a terrace of three-storey buildings. Here, parts of the roof hung precariously over the shop I’d known since I was a child. Torrents of water were gushing down the street, and spray and fizz had sent puffs of steam into the atmosphere.
A few yards away, the liveried news crew vans were in a cluster, and their staff were frantically assembling satellite dishes, gangly tripods, panels of bright lights, video cameras and sound equipment. The BBC, Sky and ITV reporters were shouting into microphones over the noise of the water pump.
Carly, one of the Sky reporters, had just begun live broadcasting.
‘ . . . here in Brick Lane, it’s a scene of utter carnage. Earlier this afternoon, at around two thirty, emergency services were inundated with calls about a fire in the shop behind me.’ She stopped and pointed. ‘Many callers mentioned music and people dancing in the street before the blaze began. Locals are worried that this might be a tragic case of arson.’ Carly paused. ‘Unusually, it appears that the shop was closed today and . . . ’
We’d arrived at the red and white fire tape now. Outside the cordon, I counted four ambulances. Blue-light staff were escorting people with injuries and burns away from the fumes and into a mobile phone repair shop. Here, paramedics and ambulance staff were triaging care needs, dispensing first aid and carrying out emergency treatments. In the Indian restaurant next-door, uniformed officers were collecting contact details from passers-by and had begun basic interviews.
Dan and I hurried over to the uniformed police officer who was guarding the scene. ‘I’m DI Rahman. This is DS Maguire. Limehouse.’ While he added our names to the log, I told him about the woman’s call to 999. ‘She thinks her husband’s been murdered in the fire. Sounds extremely scared.’
He pointed at a thick-set man with a shaved head, who was standing inside the cordon next to a digger, giving orders to a team of fluorescent-jacketed men with brooms and shovels. ‘Simon Chapel is the fire crew manager. You’ll have to speak to him.’
Dan and I made our way over. An army of personnel had cleared people away and begun conducting operations. Uniformed police, fire-fighters, fire investigation officers and CSIs all weaved around each other. A high-volume pump was in front of the shop, and a water management unit and aerial platform were standing by. Firefighters were a mass of blue uniforms, and their yellow stripes and helmets stood out like beacons. Some were transporting ladders and breathing apparatus. Others were holding jets and unravelling reels. A few charred window frames were still in place. One small pane remained, jagged and angry. Black and white tendrils of smoke were still seeping out of openings, but it was hard to tell whether these were fumes or steam. Water streaked the walls of the building, staining the yellow brickwork.
I introduced Dan and myself to Simon, and told him about the woman’s phone call.
He groaned. ‘Someone knew what they were doing, I can tell you that, but I hope she’s wrong.’ The man’s tone was clipped and the veins on his face and scalp bulged with concern, knowing he held people’s lives in his hands, and that his decisions were critical. ‘As soon as the building’s safe, we’ll get someone in.’
‘Any signs of anyone in there?’ The woman on the recording had sounded terrified. Not a bit like a crank caller.
‘We can’t get close enough to see. The speed the flames tore through the floors, and the fumes in there . . . ’ He was shaking his head. ‘If anyone was inside, they won’t have survived those temperatures or the smoke. They had an extraction system on the ground floor. Add timber flooring to that, wooden joists, lathe and plaster, and it’s all increased the speed the fire spread. Not seen a blaze like this for several months.’
‘Any indication it was deliberate?’ A sinking feeling was stealing over me. The caller had refused to give the emergency services operator her name, so we couldn’t be certain she was connected to the premises.
‘Can’t say for definite yet but we’re pretty sure accelerant was involved. Whoever poured it couldn’t have lit it from inside. Or if they did, we’ll be finding their body too.’ His phone buzzed and he checked the screen. ‘Excuse me. I need to take this.’ He clamped the phone to his ear. ‘Chapel.’
Around us, debris had been shovelled into huge piles for the council to remove. Strips of drenched, charred wood smelled bitter. Glass shards glinted threateningly in the light. Curtains and blinds had blown out into the street. Human traces were littered around the pavement: clothes, drink cans, food wrappers, a baseball hat, a couple of rucksacks, all drenched and abandoned.
Simon rang off. ‘That was the building inspector,’ he said to Dan and me. ‘He’s on his way. We aren’t sure whether the fire is completely out in the centre of the building. It’s still too hot to get in there. Our thermal imaging cameras can only reach so far.’ He gave me an apologetic smile. ‘I’ll call you the moment we get news or can get in.’
‘Thank you.’ I turned to Dan. ‘Let’s find out what witnesses we’ve got before they all clear off.’
We left the cordoned area and headed up the street to the phone repair shop where casualties had been ushered for treatment. When we arrived, the interior of the shop was a mass of people who’d been injured, display cabinets and product racks. A Sikh man was stretched out on his back on the floor with an oxygen mask over his face. Teenagers were huddled against the wall, looking pale and scared. Others were sitting on the floor, cuts and burns on their faces and arms. A lady with a blue-rinse hairdo was sitting on a plastic chair, clutching her arm, her entire demeanour one of shell-shock. Her hair was dishevelled and flecked with ash and dust, and she was clinging to her bag as though she was scared for her life. Beside the door, a paramedic was trying to attend to a lanky boy who had a large gash on his forehead. The young lad seemed unsteady on his feet and was muttering in Arabic.
Amidst the bodies, I spotted Dougie. As crime scene manager, his job was to talk me through the evidence and forensics. As soon as he saw us, he hurried over to the shop entrance. His large frame filled the doorway. He had a smear of blood on his cheek and ash had lodged in his hair and eyebrows, making his eyes seem greyer than usual.
‘Practising your First Aid?’ I smiled at him.
‘It’s been mayhem.’ He turned away from the shop so we were out of earshot. ‘I had a feeling you’d turn up when you heard it was the old bagel shop.’ Affection creased the corners of his mouth before he switched into professional mode. ‘Uniform have begun eyewitness interviews, including some of the teenagers from the flash mob. The woman with the sling was on her way to visit her mum and someone pulled her into the crowd. She fell on her wrist. The young lad by the door is anxious to get moving – something about his parents being worried. His English isn’t great so it’s hard to figure out exactly what he saw, but the priority is to get stitches over that cut before he gets a nasty infection. He’s already feeling dizzy. Rima’s on her way to interpret.’
I was absorbing the details. ‘A flash mob and arson?’ I frowned the question.
The three of us began walking towards the burnt building.
‘It is a bit of a coincidence,’ Dougie replied.
My mind was spinning.
Dougie wiped his blackened face with the sleeve of his jacket. ‘The fire investigators think the blaze started on the ground floor. Probably at the foot of the stairs. It would then have spread quickly upwards, building in intensity, and then blown out the windows. The top floor has collapsed under the weight of the water.’
‘In that case, I’ll get the H-2-H teams started so we don’t waste time.’ I glanced ahead. A neon sign lay on the ground. Over the front of the shop, smoke-charred in places, I made out ‘SOUP’. I turned to face the shop opposite the fire and felt nostalgic momentarily.
FELDMAN’S NEWSAGENT.
‘Dad often brought us here. He and Mr Feldman were pals.’
Suddenly, I heard something. Faint and weak, but its distress gnawed through the air. ‘What’s that? I can hear someone.’ I wheeled round, trying to locate the source. ‘It’s coming from one of the shops.’ There it was. ‘It’s the newsagent’s. Someone’s calling for help.’
I dashed over to the shop; pushed the door open and entered the shop alone. ‘Hello? It’s the police.’
A different smell greeted me. Musty. Less of the acrid smoke, and the water-drenched tarmac and masonry; this was damp timber and plaster. It reminded me of our first flat. In the dim light, it was like stepping back in time. It was as if the whole place hadn’t been touched for thirty years, and suddenly I was a child again, in here with my brother and sister, choosing sweets.
‘Help, help,’ came the voice, followed by a series of rasping coughs.
‘Hello? Help’s arrived.’ I scoured the room for signs of movement or noise. Around me, white MDF shelves were thin on stock. Tea bags, tins of soup and jars of coffee lay in rows, collecting dust. A central aisle housed packets of envelopes and writing paper. ‘Can you tell me where you are?’
The paintwork was a nicotine-stained ochre, and had a sheen to it, as if the place hadn’t been painted for decades. By the till, a barely touched drink sat in a cup and saucer. Behind the counter, folding doors were drawn over a cabinet with a lock in the middle. The closer I got to the back room, the stronger the damp smell got. Years of living in unheated flats had tuned my nose.
‘Mrs Feldman? Is that you?’
‘Here,’ came a croaky voice from behind the counter. She was flat on the floor, cheek to the ground and lying on one arm.
‘It’s OK. Don’t try and move. Have you hurt yourself?’ She was an older version of the one I remembered but it was definitely her.
She cleared her throat. Once, twice. Then wheezing coughs erupted.
I was about to dial 999 when Mrs Feldman began spluttering and gurgling again. She was gasping for breath – and failing. If she didn’t get help quickly, she was going to die. ‘Emergency in Feldman’s Newsagent’s,’ I shouted down the phone at Dan. ‘Get one of the paramedics and bring them in. Behind the counter. The shopkeeper is having trouble breathing.’ I took in her grey features, the rasping breath, and her bloodshot eyes. ‘Hurry. We’re losing her.’
Maya, 3.30 p.m. (#ulink_dbb3e57f-6d6b-5d55-a378-f5ff26486a27)
Back on Brick Lane, the air was damp, and a bitter nip was creeping in. The paramedics stretchered Rosa Feldman into an ambulance, their faces worry-streaked. Her body was barely a bump beneath the blanket and an oxygen mask was clamped over her tiny face.
My phone rang. I took in the news and conveyed it to Dan. ‘The soup shop belongs to a young Lithuanian couple. Simas Gudelis and Indra Ulbiene. Uniform have spoken to Indra. She’s been out all day, visiting her sister in Upton Park. They closed the shop because Simas wasn’t feeling well. He was going to dose himself up and try and sleep it off.’
Dan’s expression mirrored mine and I wondered if he was thinking about the fire investigation officer’s warning when we arrived.
‘She is the person who rang emergency services earlier. Someone told her about the fire. As far as she knows, Simas was at home in bed today. She’ll be here any minute.’
‘Has she heard from him since the fire?’
‘No. She said his mobile goes straight to answerphone.’ An awful thought occurred to me. I’d seen the bodies of people who had been in fires, including my brother’s, still as vivid now as when I’d seen it in the Sylhet mosque eighteen months ago. Laid out on a shroud, Sabbir had looked like a bag of greasy bones. ‘If Indra’s husband is in there, I don’t want her arriving just as we are hoisting his body out.’ There was a practical concern too: fire victims often lost their skin and tissue, and this made DNA analysis and formal identification a slow and frustrating process.
‘Let’s hope that no-one else was in the building then.’
I gathered my thoughts. I needed to update Simon, the fire crew manager, and joined him and Dougie. ‘One of the shop owners has confirmed that her husband was in the building. He was in bed, ill. Are we any closer to getting someone inside?’ I sensed from their expressions that it wasn’t good news.
‘Not at the moment.’ Simon’s voice was unequivocal. ‘It’s still not safe to enter. We are waiting for a taller aerial platform to arrive from Bethnal Green station.’ He pointed at the building’s height. ‘That should enable us to lift an officer up the outside.’ He paused. ‘We’re pretty sure the fire is out but we’re waiting for a structural engineer. He’ll be able to conduct a more sophisticated assessment of the building’s strength. If he says it’s OK to lower someone in, we can do it, but until then we cannot risk it, I’m sorry.’
‘Alright.’
Dan joined us. ‘I’ve just spoken to Indra. She’s in a cab on her way here. Their bedroom is on the top floor, at the front. She’s asking about her husband.’
It was always difficult to know what to tell the families of victims on the phone. In training they told us to say as little as possible, that face to face was best, but there was also an argument for preparing people for bad news, so it wasn’t such a shock. ‘OK, thanks.’ It was hard to imagine a worse outcome for Indra than her husband having burnt to death in his bed, but something told me that her world had changed irrevocably this morning when she left the shop to meet her sister.
Maya, 3.45 p.m. (#ulink_c5328f0b-5840-5491-9eee-85f835037f66)
Dan and I were in the mobile phone shop, helping uniform to interview the people who needed medical treatment. Rima, an interpreter I’d met before, was perching on a stool next to the Syrian boy with the gash on his forehead. She had a bag at her feet and was filling out a form on an iPad. Her patient features conveyed her caring, professional manner as she spoke to him in Arabic.
‘Thanks for coming, Rima. It’s—’
‘Scared the life out of me, it did.’ The interruption came from a woman who was sitting nearby. ‘I hope no-one was in there.’
I introduced myself, and tried to reassure her. ‘While we’ve got the interpreter here,’ I said to her, ‘can I speak to this young lad? If you go with DS Maguire, he’ll ask you a few questions.’
‘If you like, dear,’ she said, looking mildly put out for a second before beaming at Dan’s youthful, squaddie appearance and running her hand over her hair.
I gestured Dan over and shifted my attention to the boy who had been sitting next to her. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Ali.’ He shrugged. ‘I need go.’
Dougie was right about him being nervous. Shock from the fire and the gash, probably. The cut had been stitched, and traces of congealed blood were smeared over his childlike features. ‘I’m Maya. Rima is going to translate, OK?’
His nod was fast. He was chewing at the skin round his finger nails. ‘My parent be worry. I need go.’
‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’
Rima translated.
‘Were you already here when the flash mob started?’
He shook his head. From his height and build I guessed he was about ten, but the expression in his eyes could have put him at three times that age. He pulled himself up straight as though wanting to shake off the fear he knew I’d seen.
‘You aren’t in any trouble.’ I kept my voice as gentle as I could and waited for him to relax. ‘Can you tell me what you saw?’
His face held its silence but his eyes didn’t. He stared at Rima as though he was hoping she’d understand something. ‘Was just bit fun.’ He didn’t wait for the translation. He fixed dark eyes on me, and it hit me how vulnerable he seemed. ‘Dance. Music. Is all.’ He pointed his nose away from me, dismissive and disinterested.
The burnt-out building was a mere shell, the damage self-evident. I wanted to say that it wasn’t fun for the people who’d been hurt and lost their livelihoods, but he was just a kid, and I needed to focus on getting what key information I could. ‘What was the flash mob about?’
Rima spoke gently.
Ali shifted forward so that his feet were on the ground, and pawed at the laminate flooring with his scruffy trainer. He gabbled in Arabic, and gestured pleadingly to Rima with his eyes.
‘He says he doesn’t know anything about the flash mob. He was there. It started up. That’s it.’ Rima’s frown suggested she wasn’t convinced.
‘Who brought the speakers?’
Rima translated.
‘He doesn’t know.’ He was avoiding my gaze, and his spindly leg was jigging up and down. His white trainers had broken laces, and were covered in scuff marks, and he wasn’t wearing any socks.
‘How old are you?’
He cleared his throat and straightened his back again. Spoke for longer than it would take to give his age.
‘He says he’s nearly eleven,’ said Rima.
‘D’you live round here?’
‘York Square.’ He looked up at me through a thick forelock of almost-black hair. ‘My parent wait me there.’
‘In Limehouse?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who asked you to come here for the flash mob?’ I posed the question slowly, as I suspected he’d understand, and I wanted to gauge his reactions.
He waved his arms in the air, angrily, muttering in Arabic.
‘He says it wasn’t a flash mob. It was just a few people, dancing and playing music. He was here with a friend.’
He clenched a fist. Gabbled to Rima again.
‘He says they weren’t doing anything. Just passing time. They were bored. He says they’re The Street Rats.’
Ali laughed, pretending to be cocky. ‘Yeah. We are Street Rat.’ He winced as the movement tugged at the stitches in his forehead.
‘Is that a gang name?’
He jutted his jaw, defiance blazing in his eyes.
‘Do you need Rima to call your parents?’
‘Is OK. They wait me already.’
I needed to revisit a question. ‘We believe the flash mob was deliberately organised. Where did you hear about it?’
‘He can’t remember,’ said Rima.
‘We suspect that the fire at the shop was also caused deliberately. If that’s true, it’s a very serious offence.’ I softened my tone. ‘Especially if anyone has died.’
Ali looked at me now, and for the first time I noticed how black his eyes were. His shoulders were hunched, and he was jabbing at the floor with the heel of his shoe. I realised I felt scared for him. ‘Where did you hear about the flash mob?’
He began a lengthy explanation.
Rima translated as he spoke. ‘There’s a website that posts about upcoming events . . . some are flash mobs . . . the website tells you the date . . . and the rough location . . . you register your email or cell phone number . . . it’s called London for All. LfA, for short.’
‘And is the website public?’ A sinking feeling stole over me.
‘Yes, but they have a private discussion board,’ said Rima.
The news filled me with dread. Discussion forums were the bane of the police. ‘Do you know who runs the forum?’
He shook his head and spoke further.
‘A guy called Frazer,’ Rima translated, ‘ . . . posts the messages . . . but it’s never him that comes to the events . . . and no one knows who he is . . . it’s a different person . . . who comes along . . . and no one uses their real names on the forum.’
‘And what’s your username?’ I asked.
‘He says it’s “cookiemonster”.’
Ali blushed, and for a few moments, vulnerability betrayed his desire to look older.
The police technicians would be able to track down the site host and administrators. With any luck, the cyber-crime unit might already have data on LfA. ‘Did the posts say what the purpose was of today’s flash mob?’
He’d said no but I wasn’t convinced.
‘He says they didn’t care,’ said Rima. ‘But from how he describes it, it sounds like it was something to do with anti-gentrification.’
‘Yes. Genti-thingy.’ He pointed at the street and lapsed back into Arabic.
‘Was any incentive offered to turn up?’
‘He doesn’t want to get anyone into trouble. They were told not to tell anyone.’
‘Tell anyone what?’ I looked from Rima to Ali.
Ali was silent.
‘Who told them not to say anything?’
‘Frazer.’ Rima emphasised the name and raised her eyebrows. I got the impression she was trying to check I’d taken note.
‘What was the payment?’ Please, God, may it not have been drugs.
‘Sometimes he gave them a bit of money or some food,’ said Rima. ‘And masks.’
‘What sort of masks?’
Ali and Rima talked in Arabic. ‘Black bandanas with the LfA logo on them,’ she said.
This was news. ‘And drugs?’
‘NO.’ Ali was on his feet now. His eyes were flashing with fear, and for a moment I wondered if he was about to make a dash, but his body swayed and rocked. He put his hand out and sunk back down onto his seat. ‘Not drug.’
‘OK.’ I changed tack. ‘Today – who brought the speakers?’
‘He says they were there when they arrived.’
‘They?’
‘He came with his brother and his brother’s girlfriend.’
‘What are their names?’
‘Riad.’
‘How old’s he?’
‘Nearly sixteen.’
‘And Sophie,’ Rima said. ‘She’s doing A-levels at New City College.’
‘Does Riad live with you in York Square?’
‘Yes.’
‘What number in York Square?’
‘Twenty-eight. Opposite the entrance to the park.’
‘Where are Riad and Sophie now?’
Fear filled Ali’s eyes and he covered his mouth with his hand.
‘He doesn’t know. They got separated . . . When the fire started . . . they ran for cover and . . . Riad’s not answering his phone. He says he’s scared.’
‘Which direction did they run in?’
‘That way and left.’ He pointed.
‘That way?’ I gestured. ‘That’s right.’
‘Ach.’ He punched his leg, as though he felt stupid. He turned to Rima and spoke to her.
‘Down there and right,’ she said. ‘He says his brother will turn up. He’s probably dropped his phone or they’ve gone to get some chips.’
‘Ali. Are you sure neither of them entered the building before it went on fire?’
‘They were both with him.’
‘We’ll need their descriptions . . . and a formal statement, Rima, if you can translate, please? Ali, if you hear from your brother or Sophie, please inform us straightaway.’ I summoned a uniformed officer and began briefing him.
Dan, 3.45 p.m. (#ulink_e721434a-f33f-59cc-929a-2807d86eca1b)
Mrs Jones, the blue-rinse lady who’d hurt her wrist, was shivering and fidgety, so Dan settled her on a fold-out chair in the stock room at the back of the mobile phone shop and went to fetch her a cuppa. As he returned with it, she made a point of checking her watch and sighing loudly.
‘You got a hot date to get to?’ he asked, grinning mischievously.
Mrs Jones gave a giggle. ‘My old mum will be wondering where I’ve got to. She’ll have seen all this on the news and will be fretting. She doesn’t do mobile phones and neither do I.’
‘Thanks for waiting,’ Dan said. ‘Have a swig of this.’ He passed her the cup of sweet tea and squatted down next to her. ‘It’ll soon get you warmed up, eh.’
She was trembling, but her expression relaxed a few notches and she sipped the tea.
‘Can you take me through what you saw when you arrived?’
She nudged smeared glasses up the bridge of her nose with a shaky finger. ‘I was walking that way.’ She pointed in the direction of Whitechapel. ‘My mum lives on White Church Lane. Out of the blue, music started up behind me. Gave me a real fright, it did.’ She clamped her hand to her chest. ‘When I turned round, I saw people dancing in the street.’
Dan guessed Mrs Jones was around his mum’s age: late sixties. Too much energy to do nothing, she always told him. ‘Who was in charge?’
‘No-one as far as I could see. Everyone was encouraging everyone to join in. D’you know what I mean?’
Dan had seen flash mobs in Sydney and knew how quickly they snowballed. ‘Yes, I do. And the music?’
She pursed her lips while she tried to remember. ‘The tracks were quite short. Prepared, ready, like those cassette tape things we used to make. The songs changed every couple of minutes.’ She looked as though she was enjoying having someone listen to her. ‘Those masks though. They were a bit sinister.’
Maya, 4 p.m. (#ulink_4a6d260d-d26a-518f-926f-ee2ca8218857)
In the afternoon light, Dan’s ginger hair was glowing through his military buzz-cut. His usually pale skin was flushed with excitement as he strode the few metres along Brick Lane towards me. I could tell there’d been a development.
‘The kids at the flash mob were wearing—’
‘. . . masks. Yeah.’ I conveyed what Ali had told me.
‘London for All?’ He repeated the name back. ‘That certainly fits with anti-gentrification.’
‘Exactly. Let’s walk back to the cordon. Indra has just arrived. She’s asking if her husband is alive and I haven’t spoken to her yet.’ I told Dan about the man called Frazer. ‘I’ve forwarded the LfA link to the technicians and the cyber-crime unit. Told them it’s urgent. Screenshot some of the content in case it’s deleted.’
‘Woah. Get you, Ms Suddenly Tech Savvy.’
‘Suddenly? Cheeky bugger. I expect it comes from working with someone who’s on the internet all the time.’
We both laughed, relieved to have a bit of banter.
‘Let’s hope they shut that bastard site down.’ Dan’s words came out in an angry whisper. ‘A lot of these kids don’t know how to keep themselves safe online.’
‘The kid with the gash is only ten.’ I gestured to the two shops. ‘What the hell’s he doing, roaming the streets with these older boys?’
Dan’s manner was sombre. ‘I agree. It worries me about my two girls. Kids are growing up so quickly these days. They don’t understand how careful they need to be.’ He was shaking his head. ‘At least it sounds like that young Syrian lad’s got his parents and brother to look after him.’
Back at the scene, Simon Chapel gave me a thumbs-up. A second aerial platform was manoeuvring itself into position outside the shop.
A uniformed officer was standing with two women at the cordon. From behind, they had similar frames. Both tall and slim. One had a curtain of blonde hair down her back, and wore a khaki parka with a furry hood, jeans and trainers. The woman she was talking to had dark brown hair in a ponytail, knee-high leather boots. I guessed they were Indra and her sister. I went straight over to them. ‘DI Rahman. You must be—’
‘Is my husband dead?’ The blonde woman’s voice quaked with fear. She had mascara smears round her eyes.
‘I’m sorry. We don’t know what the situation is yet,’ I said. ‘I think it’s only fair to warn you that if he was in the fire, it’s unlikely he will have survived.’ It was an awful thing to have to tell her, and I paused for her to absorb the news. ‘We should know more once the platform lifts a fire officer into the room where your husband is.’ I turned to the dark-haired woman. ‘Are you Indra’s sister?’
‘Таip. Marta.’ Her tone was as expressionless as her face.
‘I want to see Simas. I want to go up there.’ Indra kept covering her face with her hands and lapsing into her mother tongue. She took two paces to the left, then two back again. ‘Please can I—’
‘I’m afraid that’s not possible. It may be several hours before they can bring any victims out. As soon as we know anything, we will let you know. Would you like to go and get warm somewhere and we can ring you? It may not be until tomorrow.’
‘No. I want to stay here.’ Anguish was contorting her features, pulling the skin tight around her eyes and mouth. ‘Everything. My life is in that—’
‘Inspector?’ Simon Chapel shouted. ‘We’re going up now.’
The lift was finally in place beside the shop.
‘Excuse me,’ I said to Indra and hurried over to join Chapel, where a fire officer, in protective clothing and breathing apparatus, was being lifted up the outside of the building on the aerial platform.
‘He’s got a mic so he can tell us what he sees.’ Chapel was repeating the man’s commentary aloud to Dan and I. ‘Floor almost completely collapsed in the room on the left . . . some of the ceiling is down . . . nothing much in there . . . going to use binoculars . . . a few remnants of furniture . . . no-one alive in there . . . no signs of a corpse.’ He stopped. ‘We need to shift the lift over to the room on the right.’
A few agonising minutes later, the vehicle had moved and the crane was in place. The fire officers repeated the commentary procedure.
‘Floor intact in this room . . . what looks like a bed . . . a bump . . . bedding around the bump . . . yep, the body’s in there. He can smell it.’ Simon turned away from us to speak into his radio to his ground personnel. ‘Right, get the lift down and get him checked over. Someone chase up the structural engineer. If he can’t get here, get another one. We need to get that body out and that means getting in.’
I turned to look for Indra, to tell her that we had found a body, but she and her sister were nowhere to be seen.
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