LITMIR.BIZ

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been sitting with them. She prayed she’d repeated strongly enough that she wouldn’t want to set fire to her own home. The officers had been nice, not condescending. So hopefully they believed her.

      She found Harry outside talking to a couple of the fire crew while wiping his hands on an old rag. As soon as she drew near, he turned his attention to her, so she smiled meekly. ‘The police would like to speak to you, as you discovered the fire,’ she said, hoping her eyes weren’t swollen and her face too blotchy from crying.

      ‘Of course, I’ll go talk to them now.’ Harry nodded thoughtfully. ‘I need to go wash my hands, too.’ He showed his large, ink-stained hands to her – the black ink ingrained into the creases of his palms and fingers. CSI had taken his fingerprints too.

      ‘See you in a bit.’

      ***

      Maddy found herself watching everything going on around her again. What she desperately wanted was some clean clothes.

      A lady wearing red overalls and a hard hat stepped out of Maddy’s front door. Maddy recognised her as the same woman who’d taken her fingerprints earlier.

      ‘Excuse me … Uh, Rachel, isn’t it?’ Maddy asked.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Is it possible for me to go in and get some clothes? And I need to get my insurance details.’

      ‘Yes, of course,’ the woman replied, smiling. ‘Hang on a minute, though, and I’ll check it’s okay to bring you through.’ Rachel came back five minutes later and ushered Maddy through her front door. ‘It’s safe to come in, but please don’t touch anything downstairs.’

      Straight away, the stench of smoke, so much stronger than outside, hit her. The burnt, blackened smell turned her stomach, making her hesitate in the small hallway. Usually, her habit would be to kick off her shoes here. Little point today. She shrugged off her fear, needing to face the devastation, and followed the crime scene investigator into the house. Walking through the lounge, it seemed untouched, although there was some black soot in places around the ceiling. A small wave of relief flashed over her – Maddy couldn’t see the two canvases she’d wrapped up for a commission. The fact that her paintings weren’t in the lounge meant she had moved them into the garage. She still wanted to check on them to put her mind at rest. Currently, her brain was doing cartwheels with all the thoughts and worries buzzing around.

      ‘You’re lucky you’d shut the door to your lounge, otherwise there may have been a lot more damage in here,’ Rachel said, leading Maddy through her own house, her overalls making a swishing noise as she walked.

      Weird, I don’t remember closing it. Maddy always left the door between her dining room and her lounge open so Sookie could go out of the cat-flap in the back door. Should she mention this? If she did, would they think she’d set fire to her house? Maybe she’d discuss it with Harry first. The lounge had minimal smoke damage because the smoke had travelled up the stairs instead.

      They entered the small dining room, and Maddy felt transported into a film set where a crime scene investigation was taking place; people working, wearing overalls, photos being taken. Only it was real. She could smell it. The reek was even stronger here. The door between the dining room door and the kitchen was charred, hanging off its hinges, and the carpet was black and sodden near the kitchen entrance. Her dining room was blackened by the soot and the smoke, stinking worse than a working men’s club in the days when you could smoke inside a pub. The smell clung to her nose. The dining table was grey and dirty with the soot. On the wall closest to the kitchen, hung a frame, the family photos of her niece and nephew inside ruined. A tear trickled down Maddy’s cheek. The devastation fire could do overwhelmed her. But she had to look at this more logically and less materialistically. Importantly, no one was hurt; she and Sookie were alive. The kitchen could be replaced. Everything could be replaced. But not a life. Even in this day and age, so could the photos. She’d printed them off, taken from her own phone. And as the disaster had happened in the kitchen, her old family photo albums and other irreplaceable items stored in the loft hadn’t been lost either. This situation could have been a whole lot worse.

      ‘Can I … can I … take a look at the kitchen?’ Maddy asked Rachel, who nodded.

      Maddy approached the door leading to the kitchen, hands in her pockets so she wouldn’t be tempted to touch anything, wanting to make herself as small as possible, and surveyed the wreckage before her. The uPVC back door was distorted and was being boarded up on the outside by two burly firemen. The fire investigation officer – Gary she’d heard him called – and another member of the CSI in red overalls were in the small kitchen, taking photos and analysing the ash around the hob. Maddy stood silently observing the horrific scene. Not only was there fire damage to contend with, there was water damage too from the fire hoses. There was a black puddle of water on the kitchen floor.

      ‘As you can see, the fire came from the hob,’ Rachel said, still accompanying Maddy. This was where the fire had attacked her kitchen the worst. Maddy assessed the damage. The cupboards either side above the hob were burnt out, the only contents remaining were those that could take the heat, like tins, but even they were misshapen, the paper labels burned clean off. What had been white cupboard doors, were now blackened and scorched. Other units had bubbled due to the heat. Grey and white ash lay everywhere. Bits of plaster were missing from the ceiling. Maddy hoped the fire hadn’t reached the room above.

      Amongst the charred remains were what looked like her recipe books. She glanced at the top of the fridge where she kept them. All her books had been removed. Had they been used to feed the fire? Should she raise this, or again, would they assume she’d done it?

       No wonder it looked suspicious. Someone had set fire to her kitchen.

      ‘It looks like you left your hob on,’ Dixons said, appearing beside Maddy, Rachel making room for him.

      Maddy frowned at him. ‘That’s impossible. I was out all day. And I didn’t even use it in the morning.’

      ‘A lot of people forget. Anyway, with the white spirit on the rags and oil paints so close by—’

      ‘Oil paints?’ It was hard to tell, but there were some remains of metal tubes on the floor which could have contained oil paints.

      ‘Yes, they didn’t help matters. I suggest you store those in your garage in future.’

      ‘But I don’t use oil paints!’ Her favourites were acrylics, far quicker drying, or she dabbled in pastels or watercolours. She liked working with acrylics because they were water based, so there was no need for white spirit to clean the brushes. The white spirit she did own was in her garage, left over from the last time she’d done some decorating – when she’d first moved in.

      Dixons explained the damage, indicating where the worst of it was.

      ‘I didn’t do this by the way. I was at work all day. It’s not like I needed a brand new kitchen or anything stupid like that.’

      ‘Bit of a drastic way to get a new kitchen,’ another fireman piped up. ‘But you’ll be surprised what some will do.’

      ‘I swear, I didn’t leave the hob on,’ she insisted.

      ‘I know, Miss Hart, but it does look deliberate,’ Dixons said, his tone noncommittal.

      ‘I didn’t do it!’

      ‘Well someone did.’ Dixons’ wore a grim expression. Anger bubbled inside Maddy. She didn’t know which made her angrier: being tacitly accused of arson, or the idea that someone had entered her house with the intention of burning it down. ‘All I can say is, it’s a good job Harry noticed the fire when he did, otherwise your house would be looking a lot worse.’

      ‘Harry?’ Maddy’s breath caught.

      ‘Yeah, he made the call.’

       Gosh, she had a lot to thank Harry for.

      ‘We’re making the

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