Tony Hill u Carol Jordan 08 - Cross and Burn

hoodies, jump out of the car and toss lighted petrol bombs inside as they fled.
    Flames filled the car, and before the traffic cops could even release their small fire extinguisher from its clips, it exploded with a low boom. It was such a regular occurrence that nobody so much as ventured out on to their balconies to watch.
    ‘There goes our trace evidence,’ Fielding said. ‘Wee fuds.’
    ‘But not at Tony Hill’s hand,’ Paula pointed out.
    ‘We don’t know that.’ Fielding scowled. ‘We don’t know what he told Carol Jordan to set in motion.’
    Paula fought to hide her scorn. ‘Carol would never destroy evidence,’ she said. ‘That would be a betrayal of everything she believes in.’
    ‘Isn’t that what working with Bronwen Scott is? You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.’ Fielding turned on her heel and walked over to the sheepish traffic cops. ‘Find out who those wee thugs were,’ she said. ‘I want to know how they knew to steal that car.’

    Carol still wasn’t accustomed to wearing a visitor’s pass in a police station. It felt wrong to sign in when she arrived at Skenfrith Street, to have to wait till someone came to escort her past the front counter, to be confined to the places where she was led. At least she’d had the good sense to phone Bronwen Scott’s office and have them pave the way for her solo prisoner visit. It had, she suspected, saved her a degree of humiliation.
    While she was waiting in the tiny airless room they’d been in the previous night, Carol powered up her laptop and opened the details of the women in the death notices. She took out the photocopies of the news stories and set them down beside the laptop. Then she softly drummed the pads of her fingers on the blank metal flanking the mousepad. Realising what she was doing she stopped abruptly, cross with herself. There was no need, no reason, no point in nervousness. Whatever their history, there was no future for her and Tony. She was doing this simply to save Paula from being caught up in a career-wrecking miscarriage of justice. This wasn’t about Tony. Businesslike efficiency, that was what she needed now. Not twitching like a teenager.
    The door opened and Tony walked in. As with all prisoners held in police cells, his appearance had started the downward slide away from respectability. His hair was unruly and unkempt. He had a day’s growth of stubble, an oddly pathetic patchwork of dark and silver. He wasn’t young any more, she thought with a stab of sadness. Because that meant she wasn’t either. His clothes were crumpled and creased and he’d begun to look more criminal than the average citizen.
    His face lit up when he saw Carol on her own. ‘It’s good to see you,’ he said. ‘I’ve never had a problem with my own company, but time passes slowly when you’ve nothing to read.’
    ‘And no computer games to play.’ There was no lightness in her tone, no room to interpret her remark as friendly. ‘I looked through the newspaper archive. Obviously, it’s not definitive…’
    ‘But almost every family still puts a death notice in the paper. Undertakers steer them in that direction, and it’s a shortcut to let friends and workmates know the funeral details.’
    ‘And the Sentinel Times publishes photos in its online edition.’
    He grinned. ‘Of course. I wondered how you were going to weed out the blondes. I’d forgotten about that. Imagine what a miserable job that would have been until recently – calling up the recently bereaved and going, “Was your wife blonde? And was it natural?”’
    She couldn’t help a wry smile. She’d taken part in some crass inquiries over the years, because sometimes that was the only way to secure the information they needed. She wasn’t sorry about this particular forward march of technology. ‘So, there are two death notices and one news item that seem to me to fit the bill.’ She turned the laptop to face him and slid the photocopies across.
    He read everything through once, then repeated the process more slowly. He rubbed his chin, the rasp of his hand across the stubble clearly audible. Then he pushed the photocopies back towards Carol. ‘No death notice that corresponds to this?’
    She shook her head. ‘Not that I could find. Her parents live in York, though. So maybe it was in the local paper there.’
    Tony looked grim. ‘If it was, it will have been put there by her parents. Not by the husband.’
    ‘What makes you