The Sleeping and the Dead

‘She says the boy never lived at home again after that,’ Porteous said. ‘I’ve seen the fire investigator and the coroner’s reports. There was no real structural damage to the house. The fire started in the nursery and was contained there, but the girl was trapped in her cot and when the bedding and nightclothes caught, there was no hope for her.’ There had been a photograph in the fire investigator’s report of a small charred body pushed to one end of the cot as if she had been trying to escape the smoke and the heat, the arms raised in the pugilistic stance common in burn victims.

‘I suppose it was an accident.’ It was evening. Eddie Stout had come out to Porteous’s home. It had never happened before. Porteous had reciprocated the Stouts’ hospitality with a meal in a restaurant. He’d told them it was because he couldn’t cook, but that wasn’t true. He liked home and work kept apart.

He’d been home for an hour and had almost finished writing up the notes of his interview with Stella Randle, when his doorbell rang. He’d seen Stout’s car from his window and had gone down, planning to keep him outside, thinking they could talk in the garden, even walk to the pub at the end of the lane if it was going to take a while. But Eddie had been so diffident and apologetic that a response like that was impossible. It called for something more friendly.

‘Of course, you must come in. No, really, it’s a pleasure. I was just going to have a beer. I’m sure you’ll join me.’

And Porteous had found it helpful to describe again his conversation with Randle’s widow. They were still standing, each with a glass, looking at the view down the valley. Stout continued without waiting for an answer to the original question.

‘It couldn’t have been an insurance scam turned tragic? Nothing like that?’

‘No. The fire officer said it was consistent with a cigarette or match having been carelessly dropped, not an attempt at large-scale damage. It started in or near the nursery. If it had been deliberate they’d not have done that. I know the technology wasn’t so precise then, but the officer was experienced and he was confident of his decision. When the fire really took hold the parents were at the other end of the house and hardly conscious – Crispin was drunk and Stella doped up to the eyeballs. Luckily the nanny came home earlier than expected or they might all have been killed.’

‘Where did Randle take the boy?’

‘Stella was very vague about that.’ After her description of the fire and her daughter’s death she’d hardly seemed to hear his questions. ‘Perhaps to stay with relatives until Crispin could arrange a boarding place for him.’

‘We’ve finally found out where he was at school then?’

‘No. Crispin would never tell her where Theo was. Not precisely. It was as if she’d relinquished all her rights over the boy. A way of punishing her for the death of his daughter. Theo came home occasionally for holidays, she said, but she was never allowed to be alone with him. As he got older he seems to have found better things to do. It can’t have been much fun at Snowberry. Randle had resigned his seat in the Commons and was drinking. I presume Theo invited himself to friends’ homes for the vacations. By all accounts he was a charmer. I don’t suppose it was difficult. Or there may have been other relatives.’

‘Where do the Brices fit in?’

‘I don’t know. Stella didn’t recognize the name.’

‘Not much further forward then.’ Eddie didn’t sound too disappointed by the lack of progress.

‘Oh, I think so. We should be able to trace Theo’s school with the information we’ve got now. Two schools probably if he was only ten when he went away. There must be someone who remembers him… I’ve been thinking that the reason for his leaving boarding school could have been financial. Crispin could have run through the family money very quickly. Perhaps he just couldn’t afford the school fees.’

‘Is this background relevant to the murder do you think?’

Is it? Porteous thought, and realized that he’d hardly considered the real business of the murder investigation all afternoon. He’d been wrapped up in the domestic tragedy. They’d all suffered – Crispin, Stella, Theo and Emily. When the wedding pictures were taken they must have seemed an ideal family. Porteous could imagine them posing for a similar photo to go with the constituency Christmas card. But the happiness had been shattered even before the fire.

‘I can’t imagine Stella Randle tracking down Theo and sticking a dagger through his ribs if that’s what you mean. She wouldn’t know where to start. And why would she?’

‘Could she have blamed the boy for the little girl’s death?’

‘She might have been psychotic when she was very ill, and dreamed up something like that, but she didn’t strike me as delusional today.’

‘Perhaps it wasn’t a delusion.’

‘What do you mean?’

Eddie shrugged. ‘Perhaps he did kill his sister. An unsupervised boy playing with matches could have the same result as a cigarette fire.’

‘There was no mention of that at the time.’