Where There's Smoke

“I don’t care how long he’d known him, that wasn’t Alex! For God’s sake, don’t you think I’d have recognised him if it was? You’ve only got to look at the photograph to see it was nothing like him!”

The Inspector took the photograph out of his jacket pocket. “Actually, we showed this to Dr Turner’s colleague. I’m afraid he didn’t recognise the man in it.”

She felt the dark water seeping up around her. “He must have!”

Collins continued as though she hadn’t spoken. “After that we also showed it to Turner’s secretary.” His eyes were mournful as he looked across at Kate. “She identified him as one of Dr Turner’s patients.”

The ice broke. The waters closed over her. “His real name’s Timothy Ellis,” Collins went on. “He’s a schizophrenic. He’s been Turner’s patient for the past two years. Since the last time they let him loose, apparently.”

As if on cue, the policewoman pulled a large photograph from a file and passed it to Kate. Kate automatically reached out and took it. It was black and white and divided into two halves, one a full-face picture, the other a profile. The man in it was younger, with shorter hair, but still recognisably Alex. “He’s twenty-six, and has had a history of arson since he was a kid,” Collins was saying. “Which would explain the attempt to set fire to the office. We don’t have full access to his psychiatric file yet, but we know he’s had a police record as an incendiary since he was ten. He was recommended for psychiatric assessment when he was fourteen, after he set fire to his school. Can’t have done much good, though, because a year or so later he set fire to his home. Killed his parents and two older brothers.”

“No!”

The cry was wrung from her. “No, his parents are alive, they live in Cornwall! He told me!”

Collins looked almost regretful. “Timothy Ellis’s parents and brothers died in the house fire that he started. He’s been in various institutions ever since. He came out two years ago, and since then he’s been employed part-time in a printer’s through a community care programme. The latest psychological reports said he was adapting well.” He gave a wry grimace. “They obviously got it wrong.”

There wasn’t enough air in the room. “No!”

“I’m sorry, Miss Powell—”

“Do you think I don’t know him?”

“You know Timothy Ellis. You never met Alex Turner.”

“I don’t believe you!”

“We checked the telephone number you gave us. It’s listed in the phone book under Ellis’s name. You can look it up for yourself, if you like. He just told you it was ex-directory because he didn’t want to risk you phoning Directory Enquiries and being given the real Alex Turner’s number. And the reason he kept you away from where he lived was because his ‘studio flat’ is actually a grubby, one-room bedsit. You’d have known straight away that no professional man on a decent wage lived there. It’s only a ten-minute walk from the printer’s where Ellis worked, though, so I suppose it was convenient for him.”

Kate shook her head, denying it. But the policeman’s words had triggered a chain reaction of connection that she couldn’t stop. The memory of the black stain on his jeans came back to her, terrifyingly clear. Not paint. Ink. Printer’s ink. She didn’t want to hear any more, but Collins was relentless.

“Alex Turner is dead. Miss Powell. You saw his body at the mortuary this morning, and it seems increasingly likely that Timothy Ellis killed him. We know now it was Ellis who Dr Turner was staying behind late to see. He told his secretary about it, and although he didn’t say why, I think we can assume that it had something to do with the fax you sent. We’ve also spoken to Ellis’s boss at the printers. He’s told us that there was a phone call for Ellis yesterday afternoon, and that after it he seemed moody and upset. I think that call was from Dr Turner, telling Ellis he wanted to see him. Now one of them is dead and the other is missing, and we need to find out what happened between them, and why. And I believe you can help us with that.”

She was suffocating. “You think this is my fault?”

“No, I don’t think that at all. But Ellis seems to have gone to great pains to make you think he was Alex Turner, and what happened yesterday seems to have been sparked off by your fax. To understand why, we have to know more about your relationship with Timothy Ellis.”

Kate shivered. She folded her arms around herself. A signal must have passed between Collins and the policewoman, because now she stood up.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” she asked. Kate shook her head. “I can make one. It’s no trouble.”

“I don’t want a bloody cup of tea!” The policewoman’s face hardened. She sat down again.