Chapter Twelve #3
‘Before you knew you had your cover set? Pretty nervy.’
‘I learned that from you,’ said Gwen. ‘Any progress with your gravity experiments?’
‘My initial forays raised some ideas,’ said Iris. ‘I will be following up on them.’
‘How?’
‘I’m going to visit Parham later.’
‘Oh? What for?’
‘I have some questions about fire.’
Gwen emerged from the building at eleven to find Sally waiting by his Hornet, which was parked by the kerb. She gave him a quick kiss, then got in. He closed her door, then got behind the wheel and drove off.
‘I like that we’re a publicly acknowledged couple,’ he said. ‘It makes for more opportunities to kiss you.’
‘I appreciate your donating your day off to helping me,’ she said.
‘Spending a full Monday with you is a delightful prospect, no matter what the objective,’ he said. ‘What exactly is the objective? I know we’re heading towards Kimbolton, but why?’
‘I’m going to interview Bruce Cater’s parents.’
‘Cater? Good Lord, why?’
She looked over at him, thinking carefully about how to phrase what she was about to say.
‘Sally, I know that you’re bound by the Official Secrets Act from going into much detail about what you did in the war,’ she said. ‘Just as Iris is for what she did.’
‘Yes,’ he said, glancing at her cautiously. ‘Although I think we’ve both dropped our guards around you on more than one occasion.’
‘You have,’ she said. ‘So I signed it myself recently.’
‘You what?’ he exclaimed. ‘Why did you become a signatory?’
‘Because of Iris. It seems that I have learned more than I should.’
‘That woman,’ he said hotly. ‘She had no right—’
‘She had every right, Sally,’ said Gwen. ‘She had to bring me into the loop so we could save your skin a few months ago, or had you forgotten how close to arrest you were? She put herself at risk to save you, then I signed it to keep her from going to prison.’
‘Who made you sign?’
‘The Brigadier.’
‘Him,’ he said, groaning in exasperation. ‘Of course, it would be him. He’s been trying to get her back in his clutches ever since she called him out on one of his most disastrous ideas. He’s bound to want the two of you to do something grotesquely distasteful for him sooner or later.’
‘Actually—’
‘We’re doing it now, aren’t we?’
‘More or less.’
‘And you didn’t tell me.’
‘It wasn’t meant for anyone to know,’ she said. ‘Our part was supposed to be brief and minor. But then came a Molotov cocktail to throw everyone’s plans in disarray.’
‘So you’re interviewing the Caters because of what happened to Tony Danforth?’
‘Tony Danforth was the target of the Brigadier’s investigation, but he didn’t order the attack. Now Iris and I are trying to find out why Tony was firebombed.’
‘Why? To clear him?’
‘Maybe. At least to protect him from further attack.’
‘How do the Caters figure into this?’
‘Because of what happened to Nancy Spurlock.’
‘Which you wouldn’t have known about if I hadn’t brought it to your attention,’ said Sally with a grimace. ‘This is all my fault.’
‘No, I’m glad you told me,’ said Gwen.
‘You said when you called last night that you specifically needed me on this trip. Why?’
‘Because I am now a researcher for the BBC, and you are my associate producer. And you have BBC identification, which I don’t yet, as I’ve only just started my employment.’
‘They’ll raise hell at the office if they find out you’re doing this.’
‘No,’ said Gwen. ‘They won’t.’
Parham was already at the restaurant when Sparks arrived. He stood to greet her when she came to his table.
‘As this is official business, I am buying you lunch,’ he said jovially. ‘But don’t break the department budget.’
‘They don’t serve champagne here, so you’re safe,’ said Sparks. ‘Thanks for meeting me outside your office. I didn’t want to risk bumping into my ex.’
‘I didn’t want to risk your bumping into any of my detectives,’ said Parham. ‘Let’s order, then we’ll talk shop.’
Tempted as she was to abuse Scotland Yard’s hospitality (and deep down, she felt they owed her a few meals), she held herself to a portion of shepherd’s pie and a pint of ale.
‘How goes the Danforth investigation?’ she asked.
‘There’s not much I can tell you,’ he said. ‘Not because I am withholding information, but because I really haven’t made any progress. Any luck on that Cambridge connection?’
‘We’re still looking into it,’ said Sparks. ‘We’ve eliminated more possibilities than we’ve discovered, unfortunately. I had what I thought was a thought yesterday, but it may only be a fever dream. But those go well with fire, don’t they?’
‘You know that by now I take your ideas seriously, Miss Sparks,’ said Parham.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Not everyone does. Now, I’m not prying into anything subject to any confidentiality requirements. My questions are about the actual mechanics of the petrol bomb. Would those fall within the parameters of our unofficial relationship?’
‘Ask and I’ll make the determination upon hearing them.’
‘It seems to me there are two categories of how a petrol bomb can be used,’ she said. ‘Either it was already inside Mr Danforth’s flat when he arrived, or it came in through the window after he opened it. Would you agree?’
‘I would,’ he said.
‘If it was the first, then it would have been a booby trap and needed either a trigger of some kind to ignite it or a clockwork mechanism set to go off at a certain time,’ she said.
‘Given that Danforth’s arrival could not have been predicted, we can rule out the clockwork.
Did the fire brigade find anything that looked like a tripwire connected to some form of igniter? ’
‘There wasn’t much to find by the time the fire burned down,’ said Parham.
‘They found fragments of a bottle, but nothing that looked like the remains of an igniter. We also considered the possibility of a fuse dangling from the window and lit from below, but there were no scorch marks on the outer wall or ashes on the pavement underneath.’
‘How far from the window were the bottle fragments?’
‘Scattered about, which one would expect from an explosion, but the pattern suggests that it happened five or six feet from the window.’
‘That means it came in from the outside,’ she said, nodding. ‘He would have noticed it otherwise.’
‘We’re on the same page so far,’ said Parham.
‘The window was too high to reach from the street,’ she said. ‘Am I correct in concluding that you believe the bomb was thrown from the building across the way?’
‘That seems to be the best theory,’ he said.
‘I don’t like it,’ she said. ‘Have you ever thrown a full bottle of wine?’
‘I have not,’ he said. ‘Have you?’
‘It would be unlikely for undrunk wine to escape my grasp no matter how plastered I was,’ she said.
‘The roof of the building opposite Danforth’s flat was set back from the base, which means that a heavy, ungainly, flaming object would have had to be thrown accurately some thirty feet through an open window.
That would take an excellent arm. When you catch the fellow, send him to the Marylebone Cricket Club. They need a decent bowler right now.’
‘We’ll see if the fellow’s arm is still good after he serves twenty years,’ said Parham.
‘Nevertheless, I don’t think that’s how anyone would firebomb a flat,’ said Sparks.
‘Nevertheless, the flat was firebombed,’ said Parham. ‘And that seems the most likely method.’
‘Did you find any indications that someone had been on the opposite rooftop?’
‘No. The only fingerprints on the door leading to the roof belonged to the caretaker, and he was listening to the radio with his family when it happened. So whoever was on the opposite rooftop wore gloves.’
‘There’s another possibility,’ said Sparks. ‘A rather insane idea, which is why I came up with it, yet I’m liking it better. But I need to know more before I bring it to you.’
‘How soon will you know?’ asked Parham.
‘That I cannot tell you until I’m done investigating,’ said Sparks.
‘Why not tell me the idea and let me investigate it?’
‘Because it involves areas that you shouldn’t be stepping into officially,’ said Sparks. ‘Not to mention things I’m not allowed to mention.’
‘I see,’ said Parham. ‘Someday, Miss Sparks, I am going to learn everything about you just to satisfy my curiosity.’
‘When you do, please explain me to me,’ said Sparks. ‘My therapist is taking too long.’