“It’s a bit early for house calls, isn’t it?”

Oscar doesn’t answer.

“Since you are here, perhaps we could have a little chat?” Doggett gestures across to his car. “If you’d like to step into my office.”

When Tyler moves to go with them, Doggett blocks him with a hand across his chest. “Maybe I should handle this.”

He wants to argue but he’s suddenly aware Daley is still there, watching, taking it all in. They stand together and watch Doggett and Oscar pile into the battered old Saab. Daley frowns, his bald head wrinkling with the effort. “How come he’s not using the incident room?”

Tyler glances at the car and then back at Daley. It seems unlikely he noticed Oscar’s slip with his name. On the other hand, the man is a detective, even if he’s a shit one. “I don’t know, mate. Maybe he doesn’t want him in there with all those blown-up glossy photos of his mummified father’s corpse.”

Daley’s lip curls and he storms off back to the incident room, no doubt to finish an interrupted game of solitaire.

Tyler relaxes a little and turns back to watch the car. There are two dark silhouettes visible in the pre-dawn light of Doggett’s car, one with its head bowed while the other gesticulates wildly. It’s while Tyler’s watching them, trying to imagine what’s being said, that he smells the smoke. The early morning air is thick and still, and at first he thinks he might be imagining it. But gradually the scent grows stronger and he becomes certain.

Despite the early hour, the news about the second body is well and truly out, and he has to inch his way through the flashing white lights of press photographers, his hand placed firmly on the car’s horn. He drives through the village slowly, windows rolled down, letting the smell come to him on a new breeze. Woodsmoke. Then he sees it, an intermittent twinkle of blue and orange lights through the trees that guides him to his destination.

It’s a big wooden structure, a church hall or something. At least, it was. Black smoke billows high into the night sky, but there’s a relaxed nonchalance about the firefighters that tells him the hard fight is over. This is mopping-up work. A uniformed police officer he doesn’t recognize detaches himself from the operation and trots over to the car. Tyler raises his warrant card.

“Old scout hut, sir,” says the officer. “They’ve got it under control.”

“Arson?”

“Looks like it. Probably just kids, little bastards.”

“Can you keep me informed? You know where we are.” He’s about to pull off again when he thinks of something else. “Who’s the fire officer in charge of the investigation?”