Up in Flames Read Online Free PDF

forensics can yet tell us anything more.’
                  They walked in companionable silence to the end of the alleyway so as not to get under the SOCO’s feet more than necessary. They had reached the gate of number 5a, and Casey said. ‘Wait for me here when you’ve arranged for Shazia Singh. I doubt I’ll be long.’
                  While Catt got on to the station to arrange about the Asian WPC, Casey banged his hard hat back on his sternly-barbered dark head and adjusted his mask before he re-entered the crime scene.
                  The SOCO team were still hard at work, Dr Merriman still working on the adult corpse. After a quiet word with the forensic investigators, he got Casey’s help to turn the body over.
                  Although the victim’s back showed signs of burns, they were mostly only first or second degree. There were patches of skin that were barely touched by the fire. Dr Merriman bent over and examined them, pointing out the cherry-red colour of the skin to Casey. It was the colour skin—- and blood — took on after carbon monoxide poisoning and told them the adult, at least, had still been alive when the fire started.
                  Casey stood back. A muscle in his cheek tapped out a staccato rhythm as he studied the charred cot and its pathetic contents. ‘The baby, too, I suppose,’ he muttered, more to himself than Merriman.
                  ‘All in good time. You should know by now that I prefer to concentrate on one corpse at a time. The infant will receive my attention in due course. And as I do not go in for guesswork...’
                  Barely aware he had spoken, Casey glanced at him in surprise. But he should have known better than to utter such a question within Merriman’s hearing and he made no further comment.
                  The pathologist and the rest of the team were obviously going to be here some time yet, so Casey told the pathologist he was leaving the scene. ‘Going to break the news to the family.’
                  The pathologist didn’t bother to raise his head, but unbent enough to comment, ‘An unpleasant task. Fortunately for me, the dead have done with heavy emotions.’ He added an admonition, ‘Don’t forget to ask who the victim’s dentist was. We’ll need forensic orthodontics for this one.’
                  Casey, well-used to Merriman’s unnecessary instructions, said nothing and went out. Before picking up Catt, he had a word with the house-to-house team. But they had, as yet, discovered nothing more. The neighbours claimed to have heard no screams or cries.
                  Casey took this information with a pinch of salt. Given the circumstances of the two deaths it seemed unlikely the young woman and her baby hadn’t screamed. Unless the damage to the adult’s head had been caused by a blunt instrument, rather than the fire. But the post-mortem would provide the answer to that question. Anyway, as Chief Freeman had observed, it was a run-down neighbourhood. Screams, even in the middle of the day, were possibly too common an occurrence for anyone to pay them any heed.
                  Still, disappointed at the lack of hard information, he walked back to pick up Catt and break the news to the victims’ family.
     
    After they had extricated their car from the logjam of vehicles still clogging the narrow road, Casey and Catt drove to the High Street.
                  Parking was always a problem in the centre of town. King’s Langley was an ancient market town in the eastern half of England, equidistant from Norwich and Peterborough. Medieval in original, it was full of crooked streets and crooked houses with half-timbering and jutting upper storeys that looked prettily quaint but blocked out the light.
                  To the modern motorist the town was as exasperating