Out of the Ashes: A DI Maya Rahman novel. Vicky Newham
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thin and ashen.
‘Our bedroom is on the left,’ she shouted. ‘Not that side.’ She bolted over to Chapel. ‘He’s got the wrong room. Simas isn’t in that room. Our bedroom is this one.’ She was pointing, jabbing the air urgently, her arms stick-like in the parka.
I followed her over to Chapel and relayed what the officer had seen when he looked through their bedroom window.
‘The floor collapsed? Where is he then?’ She glanced from me to Dan, and I could tell that the realisation was dawning that something wasn’t right. ‘Why would he be in the spare room?’
I was racking my brain for things to say. I wasn’t sure why Indra was bothered which room her husband was in. ‘Perhaps Simas went next door to sleep? Maybe he went in there to fetch something and got trapped by the fire?’ I could see Indra wasn’t convinced.
‘He never sleeps in there.’ She began gabbling in Lithuanian to her sister.
‘Hold it.’ Chapel put his hand up to signal that the medical officer was relaying some news to him via a headset.
‘He’s coming out. He says he can see—’ Chapel broke off abruptly. His face fell. ‘Inspector, can you . . . ?’ He took hold of my elbow and steered me away from Indra to the side of the building. ‘Bad news, I’m afraid.’ His voice was hushed. ‘Andy says there are two bodies in there.’
‘Two?’ I was absorbing the implications. ‘Can he see whether they are male or female?’
He was nodding. ‘One’s definitely male. The other one looks like it’s female.’ His eyes communicated possible interpretations of what they’d found.
Shit. Poor Indra. ‘Is he sure?’
‘We’re trying to check, but he’s pretty certain. The time on Andy’s breathing apparatus runs out in a few minutes so he’s got to come out, but we’re going to lower Bill in next. If we’re lucky, he can grab a few samples, but everything depends on the temperature.’
‘Do whatever you can, please. We have to find out who’s responsible for this. Rosa Feldman nearly died. Now we’ve now got two confirmed deaths and—’
‘What’s going on?’ Indra was striding towards us, yelling. ‘What’s he found? Is my husband in there?’
‘I’m sorry. I can’t confirm anything until we’ve made a formal ID.’
‘But someone is definitely dead?’ Her green eyes were pools of tears. ‘It’s Simas, isn’t it? I knew it as soon as I got the call.’ Her hand was clasped over her mouth as she stifled sobs. ‘Was it the gas?’ Suddenly, Indra winced with pain and clamped her hand to her belly. ‘We had cylinders . . . in the . . . ’ She grabbed hold of her sister’s arm, let out an agonised scream and fell to the ground like a dropped towel.
‘Help,’ Marta shouted. ‘Paramedics. Over here.’
Indra lay on the pavement, her slender frame writhing in agony, her face a deathly white.
Marta was kneeling at her sister’s side, leaning over, her hand on Indra’s forehead. ‘Hurry. She’s pregnant.’
Minutes later, Indra was in an ambulance. The vehicle rattled out of Brick Lane, siren shrieking into the evening air, blue lights slicing through the darkness.
‘I hope she’s OK.’ I was standing with Dan and Simon.
‘And the baby,’ Dan added as I marched over to Chapel. I had to fill him in on what Indra had said about gas cylinders in the shop.
His demeanour tightened. ‘Did she say where?’
‘No. Just “we had gas cylinders”. That was it.’
‘Shit. That means we could have an explosion. Oh Christ. The whole street could go up.’ He grabbed hold of his radio and sprang into action. ‘Right. Emergency procedures.’ Chapel pointed away from the soup shop. ‘Both of you,’ he said to Dan and me, ‘start moving people back. We need to extend the cordon a further five shops. Tell everyone who isn’t family to go home as soon as they’ve spoken to the police.’ He began shouting clipped instructions into his radio to the lift operator. ‘Gas alert. Get Andy down from the platform and over to us as quick as you can. Repeat. Get Andy down.’ He switched channels on his radio. ‘All crew. All crew. Gas alert. All crew away from the building. Repeat. Gas alert. All crew to me at the front of the barber’s shop. Prepare for emergency evacuation procedures. Over.’
Within seconds, fire officers reported in to their crew leader and Simon filled them in.
‘We don’t know the details or whether the cylinders have already gone up. We need to evacuate everyone three shops each side. Tell them to go to family, friends or a hotel until we give the all-clear.’ Simon fixed his gaze on each of his officers in turn and issued instructions.
The team burst into action and the fire officers each marched towards the premises they’d been allocated.
‘Gas emergency. Clear the area, please,’ Simon shouted at the emergency services staff who were still hanging around to the left of the soup shop. He checked progress with the lift and made sure the cordon had been widened adequately.
People streamed out of shops, onto the street, wide-eyed and terrified, and were herded to beyond the new cordon. The lift lowered Andy onto the pavement. The operator jumped out of his cab to meet him and steered him towards the cordon as quickly as he could. Here, we were waiting.
Andy began removing his breathing apparatus and climbed out of his protective clothing and head gear. ‘It’s definitely a man and a woman in there,’ he said. ‘They’re curled round each other on what looks like a bed.’
‘Did you manage to get any photographs?’
He nodded. ‘Let me grab a swig of water.’ He was laying his kit out as he removed it. Mask, oxygen cylinders, thermal suit, thermal imaging camera. Dust and debris flew everywhere. For a moment it made me think of the way people lay out bodies after disasters.
‘Poor Indra,’ I said to Dan. Thank goodness she had her sister with her. Losing her husband and business were awful enough.
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Things are going to get even worse for her when she finds out about the other body.’
‘You know what the media are like. As soon as they get hold of the story, they’ll splash her personal life all over the TV. It’ll be on the internet and in all the papers. It’s going to be awful for her. And when we broadcast a public appeal for information on the woman, it’s going to increase speculation further.’ While Andy removed his gear, I was turning over in my mind who the best person would be to tell us – in Indra’s absence – whether the man in the photographs was Simas Gudelis. A reliable ID would depend on how burned the body was. Hopefully, we could identify the victims from the images the medical officer had taken and wouldn’t have to rely on dental records or DNA analysis. A thought occurred to me. ‘Dan, can you see if there’s an image of Simas online? A mug shot that we can use as a temporary reference point?’
He swiped his phone into life. ‘Here we go. The soup shop has a website.’ Dan was clicking through the website pages. ‘Simas Gudelis and Indra Ulbiene. Lithuanian. Both from Vilnius originally. They’ve lived in Tower Hamlets for three years, and before that they lived in Cambridgeshire for two years.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Agricultural labourers on various farm camps.’
He showed me an image of the two of them, outside their shop. They stood at their blue front door. The man was shaking a bottle of champagne and the woman was cutting a piece of yellow tape. She was recognisable as the one we had just met, although her build and muscle tone were heftier then and her hair was darker. Simas was