Read Online The Burning by M. R. Hall - Free Book Online

afternoon,’ Andy said, drawing their meeting to a close. ‘Is that all for now?’
    Jenny nodded. ‘For now.’
    She followed DI Ryan out, noticing him cast a subtle glance over at Dr Hope and catch her eye as he passed the foot of her table. She looked away quickly as if he had caught her out. Jenny
believed that he had made her blush.
    ‘What’s your theory, Mrs Cooper?’ Ryan asked, as they stepped around the gurneys cluttering the corridor.
    ‘I don’t have one,’ Jenny answered honestly.
    ‘I’ve been doing some reading up on family annihilators,’ Ryan said. ‘Ed Morgan was textbook. Quiet guy in a low-status job who drew his self-esteem from the respect of
his family. I expect if you look far enough into his childhood you’ll find something that set the syndrome in motion – abuse, violence, some catastrophic blow to his
self-confidence.’
    ‘Has he got any extended family?’
    ‘I think there may be a cousin or two dotted about.’
    ‘Any suggestion of violence in his recent past?’
    ‘Not that I can find. But that’s consistent with annihilators, too. They tend to erupt all at once and out of the blue.’
    ‘He was questioned in connection with Susie Ashton’s disappearance.’
    ‘Like I told you, that was before my time.’
    ‘You haven’t gone back to the file?’
    ‘Make even more work for myself? I don’t think so.’
    Jenny went ahead of him into the vestibule and paused there. ‘You’re not curious to know if it really was Morgan who did it?’
    ‘I was hoping you might cast some light on that.’
    ‘Whether it’s me or you, your boss still faces the same embarrassment.’
    ‘All Sam Abbott wants is for his name to stay out of the papers. If he finds the right doctor, he might even get himself retired early on health grounds and manage to hold on to his
pension. Not exactly noble, but maybe in his shoes I’d do the same.’
    Jenny met Ryan’s gaze and couldn’t decide whether she trusted him or not. He was bright and more than polished enough to take on any number of high-flying careers, but here he was in
the South Gloucestershire CID and wearing a £1,000 outfit to visit the morgue. She wondered whether he had pride to match his vanity and couldn’t function unless he was confident that
he was the sharpest in the office.
    ‘Or maybe you wouldn’t, Mrs Cooper?’ Ryan said with the subtly knowing look that was becoming familiar to her. ‘I’ve heard you don’t always go by the usual
route.’
    ‘I go whatever way I have to,’ Jenny said. ‘Now where’s that file?’
    Jenny sat behind the wheel of the stationary Land Rover sifting through the bundle of documents DI Ryan had handed her with the growing suspicion that Superintendent Abbott had
something to hide. Besides statements from police officers and neighbours who witnessed the fire, the file contained a fire-investigation report, photographs of the destroyed house and a full
forensics report from a private laboratory that had tested debris from the heart of the building. It identified the accelerant as diesel, and not only that, diesel refined and sold by BP. An
accompanying map detailed the handful of BP filling stations within a twenty-mile radius. It all amounted to a comprehensive piece of police work that in any normal investigation would have taken a
week, or more likely a month, to complete. This had been assembled more or less overnight, in the dog days of December. She had never known detectives move as quickly.
    Leaving the file stowed under the driver’s seat, Jenny made her way into the main hospital building and attempted to track down Darren Brooks. She eventually located him in a side ward
next to the intensive-care unit on the third floor. His room was at the end of an empty corridor with no staff in sight. Jenny glanced through the observation pane and saw that he was alone. His
upper body was propped up on pillows and most of his torso and forehead were bound with pressure