Buried (DC Jack Warr #1) - Lynda La Plante Page 0,1

She was used to waiting.

CHAPTER 1

Present day

Rose Cottage had lain empty for eight months. It was a neat, two-storey white stone building with thick, black wooden lintels above the central front door and each of the five small windows – three up, two down. On the more sheltered west side of the front wall, the ivy had completely taken over and was lifting the slates from the roof, but on the exposed east side, the stonework was bare and had been flattened by centuries of strong winter winds swirling down from the hills. From some angles the cottage looked as though it was leaning to the left.

As the cottage was rural, with stables and a hay barn, the land surrounding it had been fairly unkempt even before it was left empty, but a small area directly outside the front door had been landscaped into narrow, winding footpaths circling rose beds. The wild roses, left to their own devices, were still fighting against the changing seasons, but today they looked particularly beautiful. In fact, they were the only real reminder of how lovely the cottage had once been.

Inside, the furniture had been moved into the centre of the room, just in front of the hearth. A heavy wooden chest of drawers and two bookshelves surrounded a two-seater horsehair sofa, which had four occasional tables piled high on top of it. Some of the books from the bookshelves had been forced into the gaps of this makeshift bonfire, and the rest had been thrown into the hearth on top of a huge stack of paper.

Suddenly, the small downstairs windows to the left and right of the front door exploded under the immense pressure from the heat inside, sending glass and wood showering into the rose beds. Flames quickly took hold of the wooden lintels and, within seconds, smoke had blackened the white stone wall.

The small lounge was soon consumed by flames, which rose to the ceiling beams, and travelled to the wooden staircase and up the stairs. They eventually pushed their way out between the slates from the wooden ceiling beams beneath, and it wasn’t long before a spark leapt across to the hay barn, still full of bales of hay for horses long gone. The barn went up like a Roman candle and, from that point onwards, there was no stopping the fire.

*

A quarter of a mile away, in a small housing estate, the first of the 999 calls was made. Neighbours watched as dark brown smoke billowed into the clear blue sky. When the house had been occupied, the smoke from the chimney had always been the expected wispy light grey, but this was different. It looked heavy and rancid, and just kept coming.

Speculation was rife as to how the fire had started. Was it a tramp trying to keep warm? Was it kids taking their games too far?

Fourteen 999 calls were made in total, sending two fire engines racing towards Rose Cottage from Aylesbury Fire Station. By the time they arrived, the interior of the cottage had almost gone and the hay barn was a pile of rubble and ashes. However, the stables, which were furthest away from the cottage, were still fully ablaze.

When the fire brigade arrived, they split into two teams – one to tackle the fire inside, and a second to the stables to prevent the flames from jumping to the woodland beyond. It was easier to gain control of the stables because, once the wooden frames had gone, there was nothing left to fuel the fire. The interior of the cottage, however, kept re-igniting as the fire found new fuel on the upper floor and from the wooden roof beams. It didn’t take much to give the flames a new lease of life.

By nightfall, the grounds resembled a muddy swamp and the rose beds had been completely destroyed by hours of heavy fire boots. What was left of the furniture had been thrown into the front garden, to avoid further re-ignition inside the property, so the once beautiful rose garden looked like a fly-tipping site.

‘Stop!’ the sub-officer shouted as he emerged through the hole that used to be the front door. ‘Nobody goes back inside!’

He reached for his phone and dialled Sally Bown. It was late and the phone rang for quite some time before it was finally answered.

‘Sal, this one’s for you. We’ve got a body.’

*

Fire Investigation Officer Sally Bown arrived at the scene at eleven o’clock. From the neck down, she was kitted