‘No. She said his mobile goes straight to answerphone.’ An awful thought occurred to me. I’d seen the bodies of people who had been in fires, including my brother’s, still as vivid now as when I’d seen it in the Sylhet mosque eighteen months ago. Laid out on a shroud, Sabbir had looked like a bag of greasy bones. ‘If Indra’s husband is in there, I don’t want her arriving just as we are hoisting his body out.’ There was a practical concern too: fire victims often lost their skin and tissue, and this made DNA analysis and formal identification a slow and frustrating process.

‘Let’s hope that no-one else was in the building then.’

I gathered my thoughts. I needed to update Simon, the fire crew manager, and joined him and Dougie. ‘One of the shop owners has confirmed that her husband was in the building. He was in bed, ill. Are we any closer to getting someone inside?’ I sensed from their expressions that it wasn’t good news.

‘Not at the moment.’ Simon’s voice was unequivocal. ‘It’s still not safe to enter. We are waiting for a taller aerial platform to arrive from Bethnal Green station.’ He pointed at the building’s height. ‘That should enable us to lift an officer up the outside.’ He paused. ‘We’re pretty sure the fire is out but we’re waiting for a structural engineer. He’ll be able to conduct a more sophisticated assessment of the building’s strength. If he says it’s OK to lower someone in, we can do it, but until then we cannot risk it, I’m sorry.’

‘Alright.’

Dan joined us. ‘I’ve just spoken to Indra. She’s in a cab on her way here. Their bedroom is on the top floor, at the front. She’s asking about her husband.’

It was always difficult to know what to tell the families of victims on the phone. In training they told us to say as little as possible, that face to face was best, but there was also an argument for preparing people for bad news, so it wasn’t such a shock. ‘OK, thanks.’ It was hard to imagine a worse outcome for Indra than her husband having burnt to death in his bed, but something told me that her world had changed irrevocably this morning when she left the shop to meet her sister.

Maya, 3.45 p.m.

Maya, 3.45 p.m.

Dan and I were in the mobile phone shop, helping uniform to interview the people who needed medical treatment. Rima, an interpreter I’d met before, was perching on a stool next to the Syrian boy with the gash on his forehead. She had a bag at her feet and was filling out a form on an iPad. Her patient features conveyed her caring, professional manner as she spoke to him in Arabic.

‘Thanks for coming, Rima. It’s—’