Edendale District General was on the northern edge of town, occupying a greenfield site where new wards could be added as funding became available. Fry had never seen the old hospital on Fargate. It had closed years ago, its Victorian buildings so primitive and crumbling that nobody had bothered saving them from demolition. But its location must have been very handy. Even at this time of the morning, it would take her fifteen minutes to get across town to the new site, once she got away from Darwin Street.

‘Tell me again, who made the emergency call?’ she asked Murfin when he came off the radio to the control room.

‘One of the neighbours dialled 999 when he saw the smoke. Bloke by the name of Wade. A bit of a know-it-all, by the sound of him. FOAs took a statement earlier.’

‘You know, we should have made sure we had complete information before we came out.’

Murfin looked aggrieved. ‘You said you wanted to get the job out of the way as soon as possible. In and out, and turn it over to the coroner, that’s what you said.’

‘OK, Gavin, thanks.’ Fry didn’t like her words being quoted back to her, especially when she’d been wrong. ‘It’s a bit irritating, that’s all.’

‘Is that why you made me look in that last bedroom?’

She sighed. ‘It had to be done, Gavin. You aren’t here just to wreck the place and make stupid jokes. There was nothing in the bedroom, anyway.’

‘You didn’t know that at the time.’

‘Right. How come the hospital staff have more information than we do, eh? So the youngest child wasn’t even at home, but with the grandparents? It shouldn’t have needed a call to the ward sister to find that out.’

Murfin was silent as he watched her get into her car. ‘You know I’ve got kids of my own, don’t you?’ he said quietly, before she closed the door.

Fry bit her lip, caught out by a moment of tricky human emotion when she hadn’t expected it. ‘Sorry, Gavin.’

But he didn’t seem to have heard her as he walked away. And by the time she caught up with him later, he was back to his old self, so she didn’t mention it again.

Brian Mullen was in a side room off one of the newer wards, with a PC on duty outside the door. Mullen was in his early thirties, sandy-haired, with a faintly pink complexion, as if his skin had been freshly scrubbed. His hands were bandaged, but otherwise he looked quite fit and healthy.

He was also sedated and deeply asleep, as motionless as the dead. There was no point in asking questions of a comatose body.

‘Naturally, he was in a very distressed condition when he was admitted,’ said the ward sister. ‘Apart from his physical injuries.’