was now nearly midnight.
Had he considered the evidence with more care, he would have recalled the sprinklers set in the ceiling of every bedroom, provided for the specific purpose of preventing accidents caused by a confluence of alcohol and flame. Had he not been so numbed by the rain, he would also have remembered Bryant’s order to check around the building every fifteen minutes for the first hour after the hostel’s front door was locked at eleven p.m.
The flame in Tate’s room was too large to be from a cigarette. It bounced and flickered, stretching to the walls. No alarm sounded. When Bimsley was finally signalled by the frantic receptionist, who had spotted the fire on his blurry, ancient CCTV monitor, the conflagration was in firm possession of the plasterboard walls with their so-called fireproof coating.
After the cold of the night, Bimsley at first failed to feel the roasting heat on the staircase; but as he progressed the tar-like smoke grew thicker, the fire stronger, until he knew he would be forced back. The former post-office had been cheaply converted into narrow units that failed to ignite fully but trapped scalding pockets of gas. A bizarrely clad troupe of men shoved past: pyjamas and greatcoats, one in a neon-yellow candlewick bedspread, another in a dressing-gown and balaclava. Someone was on all fours, looking for a bag that probably held all his possessions. If the situation had not been so desperate, Bimsley would have been ashamed to witness strangers in such painful private moments. Instead all was chaos, and he saw that there was no shame for any human being in fighting to stay alive.
The flames stuck to treated wood and inflammable wall coverings until they combusted. Bimsley smelt it at once: Tate’s room, and indeed the entire corridor, had been splashed with white spirit. A plastic gallon drum was buckling and melding to the sisal hall carpet. The electrics popped as the circuits burned out. Oily smoke rolled across the floor in a poisonous tide.
Seven men from the second floor were able to make their way to the fire escape; but there were eight rooms, eight occupants. Bimsley kicked the doors wide and shouted out, but the fumes filled his lungs and drove him back, eyes streaming, chest on fire.
The detective constable acquitted himself bravely, and was taken to University College Hospital suffering from smoke inhalation and minor burns. The clerk and the fire brigade counted heads. The hose-drenched rooms were empty now.
The blackened eighth occupant, the only man not to leave the building alive, was covered and removed before bystanders could gain an understanding of what had happened.
38
* * *
ELEMENTARY IDENTITIES
‘You’re probably wondering why there are no cable-network vans parked in Balaklava Street,’ said Raymond Land with sinister cheerfulness, ‘no breaking news items on London Tonight, no journalists doorstepping the few residents who are still in the land of the living. Two reasons: most of the investigative reporters in the capital are busy trying to find links between footballers and underage call girls, and have so far failed to connect what appears to be a series of random deaths in a north London backstreet; and DCS Stanley Marsden, whom you may recall has the unenviable task of being your HMCO liaison officer, believes that such tragedies are the result of underpolicing by the People’s Republic of Camden, and that by leaving them to accumulate to epidemic proportions, he will be provided with ammunition for having certain thorn-in-the-side councillors removed and posted to even less salubrious areas.’
‘Why can’t he talk normally?’ whispered Bryant, who was doodling in an exercise book like a bored schoolboy. ‘Your chastened cuckold’s going to be all right, by the way. He’ll be in hospital for a while, but his secret’s safe. The shame will leave a bigger scar than the flying bricks.’
Longbright shot him a silencing look. Land spent his days justifying the unit’s expenditure in long, boring documents, and lived for the chance to belittle anyone who treated paperwork with disdain. No one was more disdainful than Bryant, who had once provided a report written in ink that rendered itself invisible when placed in the higher temperature of Land’s office.
‘I can’t hear a word you’re saying, I’ve gone deaf,’ said Bryant loudly. ‘I’ve been injured in the course of duty.’
‘Yes, I heard you got blown up again,’ snapped Land. ‘I trust you’re not going to make a habit of it. Do you want to see Doctor Peltz?’
‘No I don’t, thank you. He gets cramp