‘Perfect sense.’ Mark smiled, understanding. It was pointless, the little girl was dead, but making sure she was treated gently might possibly lay a ghost for Lisa.
Gesturing her on, Mark made his way around the side of the house to liaise with the officers out back, plucking his ringing mobile from his pocket as he went. It would be DCI Edwards calling, he assumed, wanting a progress report – i.e., checking up on him, after his psych report had labelled him borderline fit for work. Yes, he’d lost it with Cummings, and flooring a fellow officer hadn’t been the proudest moment of his life, but the bastard had deserved it. And, yes, he might have been ‘borderline’ at the time – his emotional state hadn’t been great after the funeral – but he was fit for work now.
But when he looked at the screen, it wasn’t Edwards. ‘Mel? What’s wrong?’ he asked, a knot of apprehension tightening inside him.
‘Nothing’s wrong,’ Mel assured him. ‘Does there have to be something wrong for a wife to call her husband?’
Mark glanced at his watch. ‘It’s six in the morning.’
‘Nooo, really?’ Mel said, in mock surprise. ‘Funnily enough, that’s exactly what I thought when I groped for your body and came up empty-handed.’
‘Sorry,’ Mark apologised distractedly, his attention drawn by activity further down the garden. ‘I didn’t want to wake you. I had a call-out. I left a note by the kettle.’
‘I haven’t been down yet. I was too busy lying in bed contemplating the thin blue line.’
‘Sorry?’ Mark said again, his attention now definitely elsewhere.
‘Thin – blue – line,’ Mel repeated slowly. ‘Work it out, Detective.’
‘What?’
‘Well, actually, I have blue lines and pink lines and… I’d say you’ve done a very thorough job, DI Cain.’
Not sure he was hearing her right, Mark stopped walking. Was she saying… Jesus. Conflicting emotions assailed him, and he dragged a hand through his hair. He wanted to whoop and cry at the same time, to sound jubilant, for Mel’s sake, but how could he? Here? Now? ‘Mel, I’m going to have to call you back,’ he said, his throat tight. ‘I—’
‘Mark?’ Mel cut incredulously across him. ‘Did you hear what I just said?’
‘Yes. Yes, I did. It’s… I can’t talk now, Mel,’ he said, kneading his forehead in frustration as two officers walked someone towards him. ‘I…’
‘Oh.’ Now she sounded deflated. Bitterly disappointed.
‘It’s a house fire,’ Mark explained quickly. ‘A family. There’ve been fatalities. I have to—’
‘Oh no.’ Mel obviously realised his circumstances immediately. ‘Go,’ she urged him, as the officers, plus charge, stopped in front of him. ‘Call me back when you can.’
‘I will,’ Mark promised gruffly, realising the absolute impossibility of remaining detached as he looked into the tearful, terrified eyes of another child. A child they’d been unaware of and had obviously missed in the pandemonium. Still dressed in her unicorn-print pyjamas, she was shaking from head to foot. Her cheeks, smeared in crap from the fire, were tear-stained, her cognac-coloured eyes wide and utterly petrified.
‘Shit,’ Mark uttered under his breath. ‘Where was she?’ he addressed one of the officers.
‘Hiding out in the bushes,’ he said, nodding at the trees behind him.
‘Looks like she didn’t want to be found,’ the second officer observed.
‘I’m not surprised.’ His heart constricting for the girl, Mark looked back at her, unsure what to say, what to do that could possibly help. There was no way she would have even begun to process the enormity of what had happened. Nor would she for a long time to come – if ever.
‘All right if we leave her with you, sir?’ the first officer asked. ‘There’s some debris needs shifting on the landing.’
Mark nodded. ‘Go,’ he said. ‘Get another ambulance here pronto and alert DS Moyes on your way, will you?’ he added, as the officers skirted around him. Apart from the fact that he hadn’t got a clue how to handle this, protocol dictated he should have a female police officer present.
‘Hi,’ he said, turning to the girl and trying to sound as reassuring as possible. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Cain.’ The girl peered at him through a straggle of mousey hair. ‘Mark for short,’ he added. ‘Do you have a name?’
‘G… Grace.’
‘Grace. That’s a nice name.’ Mark smiled again, wishing he could do more than just stand there. ‘Do you live here, Grace?’ he enquired gently.
The girl glanced past him, nodded, and then hastily dropped her gaze.
Nice going. Despairing of his ineptitude in such a situation, Mark sighed inwardly, and then, removing his jacket, crouched down to her level.
She flinched as he moved towards her, her expression one of alarm, he noted.
‘To keep you warm,’ he said. ‘You’re shaking fit to break something loose.’ Again, he smiled and prayed he wasn’t doing anything to add to her terror and confusion.
The palpable fear in her eyes diminished a little as he wrapped the jacket around her, making sure to hold her gaze as he did. ‘Can you tell me what happened, Grace?’ he asked softly, pulling it close at the neck.
Warily, she searched his eyes. Her own were wide and dark, Mark noticed, as she glanced at the house and then back to him.
‘I was asleep,’ she said, her gaze flicking guiltily away for a second. No surprise there. Skinny under her pyjamas, her demeanour that of a frightened five-year-old, she looked around twelve, thirteen maybe. Too young to have to deal with this, but old enough, he guessed, to have realised her family had possibly perished. ‘But something scared me,’ she said. ‘A crash.’
‘Like breaking glass?’ Carefully, Mark probed a little further.
She nodded, then, gulping in a breath, dragged a sleeve under her nose.
A breakin, Mark wondered, or a window popping? The latter, he suspected.
‘I smelled smoke,’ she said, swiping at her nose again. ‘I didn’t know what to do. I shouted and screamed but no one came. I tried to get to out, but I couldn’t, and I got scared and—’
‘Hey, hey, slow down,’ Mark urged her, as the words tumbled from her mouth in a garbled, hiccupping rush.
‘I didn’t know what to do,’ she repeated, choking back a sob. ‘I was going to wake Mummy and Daddy, but… but…’
‘Was there smoke on the landing, Grace?’
‘Yes,’ she sobbed. ‘And fire. I couldn’t get past it. I couldn’t get through it. I didn’t know what to do.’
So she ran. What else was there to do but fucking burn, Mark thought furiously.
‘I left them,’ she said, the sheer anguish in her voice cutting him to the core.
‘You had no choice,’ he told her firmly.
‘My sister. She was screaming. I couldn’t save her.’ It came out little more than a whisper.
Useless. Feeling powerless as the girl’s gaze hit the ground again, Mark ran a hand over his neck. Stuff protocol, he thought, getting to his feet, as she began to cry in earnest. It wasn’t a criminal offence to hold a child while she broke her bloody heart, was it? Briefly, he hesitated, and then reached out to wrap an arm around her as another sob escaped her throat.
The girl, obviously in need of physical contact, moved towards him in an instant, her arms around him, her face pressed hard into his torso. Fresh, heart-wrenching sobs now wracking her frail shoulders, and Mark tried to soothe her, stroking her hair, offering her banal words of comfort.
‘It wasn’t your fault, Grace,’ he said throatily, but she only cried harder.
She was glued to him like a limpet when Lisa appeared, running towards them, to Mark’s huge relief.
‘The ambulance has arrived,’ she said, casting Mark a warning glance as she slowed her run to a walk.
Reading the look, Mark shrugged helplessly. Lisa was right, of course. This definitely wouldn’t be listed as appropriate behaviour in the child protection and safeguard manual, but what else was he supposed to have done? ‘Grace,’ he said softly, ‘you need to go with Lisa now. Just to the hospital,’ he added quickly, as her startled gaze shot to his. ‘I’ll be in trouble with my superior officers if I don’t ensure you get adequate medical attention.’