Page 5 of Glasshouses

“How does it work?” I was intrigued.

Another award-winning grin. “It’s like a mini tank. It can go over rubble and use and arm to lift itself down steps or over obstacles. There’s a range of features – thermal imaging, gas sensors, two-way audio in case there are survivors and the camera that can be repositioned. We’re using it here to check if anyone was trapped in the cellar; if there was, it’s pretty much impossible they’d have survived. The heat down there would’ve been huge and the lack of ventilation would’ve led to increased toxicity with the fumes. At the moment, we’d only deploy people if we had a sign that someone was still alive and we were confident that we’d thoroughly assessed structural integrity.”

I watched the robot climb down the cellar steps, navigating debris that had fallen from the ceiling. I could see exactly why we weren’t sending any people down there. Ste continued to talk me through what we were seeing, explaining about how the fire had travelled and how it looked like accelerant was used in the cellars as well as the ground and first floors.

“It looks like a lot of paper was stored down here. See that?” He pointed to the screen. “That was a lever arch file. That,” he pointed to something else on the screen, “is the remains of a computer. Probably an old nineteen nineties model.”

“How can you tell that?” To me, it looked like a heap of melted something.

“I’ve seen a lot of stills from explorations after fires. There are melting patterns that can be studied; you can work out approximately what the heat was, and this can give additional details that can support a conviction.” He sat back, something else capturing his attention. “Boss, have you seen that.” Ste turned to Paul, tapping his shoulder to get his attention. “Look.”

“Shit. We have a second body.”

I swallowed, the rush of adrenaline of a case becoming bigger feeding my dopamine, the thrill of the chase beginning. I wasn’t bloodthirsty; I didn’t wish for these things to happen so I had something to solve. I didn’t need to. Humans were very good at reverse engineering themselves.

“Can you move the camera?” Paul was glued to the screen now, a blockbuster with a private viewing, just not the sort you’d pay money for.

I didn’t say anything, just watched, Jenna Osei joining us and adding to the conversation between Paul and Ste, plans being made.

“It looks like the chair they were sat on collapsed,” Ste said. “Why were they sat on a chair in the cellar in the first place?”

I didn’t like any of the answers my brain came up with for that, but I was certain that this wasn’t kids messing about or something gone wrong.

“We have a house with two dead bodies, the building burned beyond repair, with a fire hot enough to get rid of any evidence, either from the killer or whatever these people were up to.” I stood up and stretched. I’d been off the day before and had gone for a run in the Peak District that had also included some climbing and I was aching. “How do we recover the body? And anything else that’s in there.”

“You won’t get anything off the computers. The fire was too hot amongst other things.” Ste was still glued to the robot’s movements.

Paul’s sigh was loud enough to pull attention towards him. “We need to get the remains out before the floor above gives way. It’s right underneath the point of origin. I wonder if the son of a bastard did that on purpose.”

“Maybe. That would be torture in itself. You said the remains look like they were on a chair. What if they were tied to chair and knew that a fire was starting? That would’ve been hell.” Again, I’d pick the water.

“Burned alive?” Ste looked sickened. “Horrendous way to go. You have to hope they were unconscious with the fumes and smoke. Okay, we have one more chamber to check. Hopefully there’s nothing else in there.”

We stayed watching the live stream as the robot continued to sweep through the cellars, climbing over debris and momentarily being covered in dust from a falling rafter.

DC Lachlan Dixon arrived bearing eight takeaway coffees in cardboard cups and a tan fresh from two weeks in Ibiza. Ste kept his eyes fixed on the screen while the rest of us attacked Lachy like a plague of locusts, ones which were dehydrated and had a significant caffeine addiction.

“Thank you.” It was too hot, too strong and tasted too bitter, but it was better than the stale opened bottle of water I’d found in my car when I was desperate half an hour ago.

“Welcome. What do we have here?”

Jenna filled him in because I was too busy trying to drink and not lose the inside of my mouth at the same time.

“How do we get the second body out? That robot is immense by the way.” Lachy inched closer to Ste. “How do you get to work with that sort of tech?”

“By not becoming a copper.” Ste grinned again. “Your department is still stuck in the Stone Age.”

“True. How do we get the remains out of there?” He looked over at me. “I’m not volunteering.”

“No one’s asking you to,” I said. “What I need you to do is co-ordinate the search over the fields. The dog’s just arrived.” In fact, there were two dogs. I recognised their handler first; Josh Moore had worked on a couple of my previous cases and was a lively colleague, full of energy and optimism. His two dogs were springer spaniels, both full of beans and on the crazy spectrum, unless they were working. “I want to find out the route our perp took to get into the property. I think the entrance is the gap in the hedge onto the field.”

Lachy gave me a mock salute and strode off. He was a good officer, thorough and hardworking, if his head could be back on the beach in his native Australia some days.

“How do we get the body out?” I looked at Paul, annoyed that I actually needed his knowledge.

He stood up, crossing his arms which only made him look bigger. “We have to make it structurally safe, stabilise the walls, remove any hazards, check oxygen levels first. It’s going to take hours, Mia.” He eyed me as if I was a cannon that needed decommissioning.

“Can the robot get some decent photos we could use to help identification?” I held up my hand to stop him from interrupting. “Even gender will help. This could be the house owner, Mike Mulligan, and if it is, we can stop looking for him.”