‘The firemen took no notice of me at first,’ he said. ‘They were too busy. But I could see some of them getting kitted out in masks and oxygen tanks – all that gear, you know.’

‘Breathing apparatus.’

‘That’s it. But they seemed to be doing everything so slowly. My house was burning, and my kids were in there, but these blokes were fiddling about with tubes and helmets. So I went in.’ Mullen stared at her defensively. ‘I knew my way about the house a lot better than anyone else. I knew exactly where Lindsay and the boys would be. So it made sense.’

‘Perhaps at the time it did,’ conceded Fry.

He bridled at her tone. ‘I couldn’t stand there and do nothing.’

‘So how far did you get?’

‘Only to the stairs.’

‘Tell me about it, please.’

Mullen subsided, wincing at the memory. ‘The stairs are straight off the hallway. I could find them easily, even in the dark. I ran in and got maybe half a dozen steps up. But then the smoke was so thick that I suddenly didn’t know which way I was going. It was in my eyes and in my throat, and I was trying to hold my breath, but I couldn’t. I started to feel dizzy. I went down on my knees. I wanted to carry on, I really did. But I only managed one more step.’

‘And then the firefighters caught up with you and pulled you back out of the house?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

Fry pointed at his hands. ‘What did you burn yourself on, Mr Mullen?’

He looked at the bandages and frowned. ‘I’m not sure. I think it must have been the banister rail. That would have been the only thing I touched, wouldn’t it?’

‘With both hands?’

He shrugged. ‘I suppose so.’

She let him think about that for a moment. ‘You didn’t go into any of the rooms downstairs? The sitting room, for example?’

‘No. Why would I? I knew my family would be upstairs, in the bedrooms.’

‘How could you be so sure of that, Mr Mullen?’

‘For heaven’s sake, it was almost twenty to two in the morning. Where else would they be, except in bed?’

‘Your wife might have been waiting up for you to come home.’

‘No, she never did that.’

‘You see, the sitting room is where the fire is believed to have started. It must have been obvious when you entered the house that the smoke was coming from there.’

‘So?’

‘Well, we agree that you weren’t thinking straight at the time, so perhaps your instinct might have been to go to the seat of the blaze and try to put it out. Or you might have feared that your wife was in the sitting room, and had started a fire in there accidentally.’