Embers and Echoes Read online

  But he refused to hear it. He walked over to his dad who sat in the back of the ambulance. His father was his priority now. Lewis and Adrian had the fire under control, despite the stench of ash and petrol. The next thing they had to do was find out how the hell it happened.

  ‘Dad,’ he said, but Bob didn’t notice him. In shock? Or just…gone?

  ‘His burns aren’t severe but we’ve given him painkillers,’ Steph said. ‘We’ll transfer him to hospital for further assessment. I’d like you to come with us, Toby.’

  Narelle appeared by his side, in her dressing gown, and out of breath. ‘Are you two okay?’ She pulled him into a hug and he allowed himself to relax into her arms, the adrenaline finally draining and his body ready to collapse. Her voice cracked over her whisper. ‘I thought I’d lost you both.’

  He sniffed, fighting back the tears. Her embrace was fierce but it wasn’t like his mother’s had once been. And it didn’t do for him what Ben’s had.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he choked.

  ‘Toby, can we talk?’ Ben was there. ‘We need a statement.’

  He sighed. Anybody but Ben. Wasn’t he meant to be off duty? When he straightened out of his aunt’s arms, he saw he was right. Ben wore shorts and a tank top. Behind him stood Matty and Smithy in their uniforms.

  ‘Auntie, can you go with Dad, please?’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t need looking over?’ Steph asked.

  He put up his hands. ‘I’m fine. The shock’s passed. Nothing wrong with my lungs. I’ll be over later if I feel funny.’

  ‘Please do,’ she said. ‘Don’t be a hero.’

  A hero? If his throat wasn’t scorched raw, he’d laugh. He looked at his dad, glassy-eyed and unaware of what was going on. Or perhaps he was trapped in his memories. At least he was quiet and calm.

  Narelle climbed into the ambulance with Bob and the paramedics and they drove away. Toby was left with three police officers and a whole bunch of drama-loving onlookers. He tried to ignore Ben and the suspicion that must now be running through his mind. But it wasn’t that which occupied his thoughts. It was how good it felt to be held by him, how calm and reassuring and…and…safe. His body yearned to be surrounded by him again. It was intoxicating. It always had been.

  He crossed his arms to stop himself from shivering.

  Matty took the lead. Toby refused to meet Ben’s eyes—not that it mattered. Ben’s gaze was as hot and insistent as the fire inside the house. Toby recounted what had happened from the moment he woke up to getting out of the house. There wasn’t a lot to say, and the little he told them revealed how little he’d done. He hadn’t fought the fire. He hadn’t rescued anyone.

  What use was he?

  ‘You’re lucky to have gotten out of there alive,’ Matty said. ‘From what we’ve heard, your dad was already outside when you got here. Any idea how he burned his hands?’

  Though Matty had asked the question, Toby glanced at Ben. His face was neutral and he gave no outside indication that he thought Bob was behind this whole thing, but even he had to admit it wasn’t looking good. Could his dad really have done this? And if he did, could he have started the fire at the cemetery too?

  The fire in the kitchen from months earlier had been an accident, surely, and he’d been safe since then. He’d disconnected the gas, hidden the matches, and checked the electrics for any shorts or exposed wires. But he couldn’t, with hand on heart and looking straight into Ben’s green eyes, say he knew how this fire had started or who had started it. Not yet anyway. All he had was faith that his father would never do this. Never knowingly at least.

  And that was the problem.

  How much was Bob aware of these days?

  ‘I’ve got no idea,’ he said, and his head and body slumped.

  Chapter Five

  Ben and Matty shared a look. They needed to talk to Bob. Toby wasn’t giving them anything else and there were witnesses still to talk to.

  ‘We’re done here, then,’ Matty said. ‘I’m going back to the station to hand over to Leila. Smithy will stay to set up the scene. Toby, do you want a lift to the hospital?’

  ‘No.’

  Ben shrugged at his colleague. Matty raised his eyebrows but didn’t waste his words on a second try. He knew Ben would hang around as long as necessary. His shift was starting soon anyway, and Matty would be happy to hand this investigation over to him and Leila. They’d talk to Bob.

  Toby didn’t acknowledge Matty as he left, instead choosing to watch as the firefighters extinguished the last of the flames and picked through the wreckage. His arctic silence, and the waves of hostility coming off him, helped freeze Ben’s tongue. He’d wait for as long as he had to. And right now he wasn’t sure he trusted himself to speak. The relief of Toby being alive fluttered at the top of his throat.

  By the time the guys had doused everything, dawn light smeared itself across the horizon and the appearance of the house changed. Electric lights had been set up to illuminate the area. It appeared every bit the crime scene it now was, but a softer hue entered the house and painted the husk as less stark, less horrific, yet with a daub of melancholy. The weatherboard walls transitioned from cream to black; holes appeared higher up and exposed the bones. Where it still stood, the tin roof had buckled. Somewhere inside the house, they’d find the rest of it covering the floor. The house had given up everything, exhausted everything, and now its life had ended.

  At least there were no bodies to retrieve.

  A chill trickled down Ben’s spine and he shivered.

  The last of the neighbours disappeared. Now it was just Smithy and the fire crew, and before long even the firefighters packed up and moved off, with consolation and pats on the back for Toby. Smithy walked away to cordon off the area. Toby remained grim and unmoving. Ben strained against the silence and shifted his weight from one leg to the other.

  ‘You don’t have to stay.’ Toby’s voice cracked.

  ‘I want to,’ he replied. ‘I want to make sure you’re alright.’

  ‘Keep the suspect under surveillance?’

  Another fight. When Toby had ended up in his arms, he’d believed for a fleeting moment that they might have a chance at a different relationship. He wished someone else had been called out to that fire the other day.

  ‘Is that an admission of guilt?’ He half-meant it as a joke but regretted it immediately.

  ‘No,’ Toby shot back, then he exhaled long and heavy. His energy seeped out and he sagged. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what I’m saying. My head’s all over the place.’

  Ben stuffed his hands inside his pockets. ‘Maybe we should get out of here. I’ll take you to see your dad.’

  ‘I don’t think I can see him right now. What if—’

  What if Bob had really done this? It would be easier if he had. Lawyers would argue reduced competency and he’d probably never see the inside of a jail cell. He’d be committed though, and perhaps that was the right thing for him now. But Toby didn’t need to hear that, and Ben wasn’t yet on duty.

  ‘No one got hurt, that’s the main thing.’

  Toby walked off, towards the house, as if he hadn’t heard him, and Ben was obliged to follow.

  ‘Toby, you can’t go in there.’

  ‘It’s my home.’

  ‘It’s also a crime scene.’

  ‘Are you worried I’m going to tamper with the evidence?’

  Ben hurried to stand in front of him.

  Toby stared at him, a haggard look that, with the smear of ash and soot on his face and his already dark and brooding eyes, struck Ben as panicked. But then the scowl returned. ‘I want to see what’s left and where it started. This will help with your investigation, whether it incriminates my father or not. Accompany me if you’re so concerned.’

  Belligerent as ever, Toby diverted around him towards his home’s soggy remains. Ben kept up. As much as he wanted to handcuff the bastard and drag him away, he could use Toby’s knowledge at piecing this together. A p
roper investigation would be carried out in a few hours but it couldn’t hurt to check things now. At least he hoped not.

  Only a few of the walls still stood, as did a small part of the roof. Toby seemed unfazed at the risk of anything falling on him, picking his way through as he went. They entered from the front of the house; half the doorframe remained. They navigated their way down the hallway, the floor warm and damp, and headed to the kitchen. The side of the house was now open to the outside. A few sticks of charcoal, what had once been cabinets or chair legs, and the twisted remains of a metal oven were all he recognised.

  ‘The fire felt strongest in here when I searched for Dad,’ Toby said, looking around. Ben wasn’t sure what he was looking for. It was just debris and kindling to him.

  ‘Dad’s room is down the hall. Mine’s up here. The gas was disconnected, but this doesn’t look like a gas fire. There would have been an explosion of some sort, a whoosh that even I would have woken up from.’

  ‘I remember you being a pretty heavy sleeper.’ Happy memories of sleepovers intruded into his mind, even the times when he’d lie awake and watch Toby sleep. How many times had he done that and wished he’d reached over and touched his bare chest or woken him with a kiss? He pined for those days.

  ‘Times have changed,’ Toby said quickly.

  Right. Back to the present. Back to the investigation. ‘Smoke alarms?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what got me up.’ He crouched. ‘There are signs of accelerant here, here, and here.’ He pointed to big patches on the ground, darker than the rest. ‘He really went to town with the stuff.’ He ran his fingers through the stain and sniffed them.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Petrol. And it’s black as black here under the window.’

  ‘Maybe that’s where he started pouring it.’

  ‘Weird spot. And it’s haphazard.’ He massaged his right earlobe. ‘Even so I’d say it was poured in from outside the house.’

  ‘That’s where they found Bob, right?’

  ‘But it’s not logical—’

  ‘You think Bob would be logical about this? He looked pretty out of it when we saw him.’

  ‘That was shock. It doesn’t make sense that he’d set fire to the house, or even that he had the capacity to. It’s not him.’

  ‘Who knows what he’s going through?’

  He rose off his haunches and faced him. ‘You think he did it, don’t you?’

  For once, it sounded like he wasn’t trying to start a fight. If anything, he wanted reassurance, wanted someone to say that yes, his dad had set fire to the place and nearly killed them both.

  ‘It’s possible.’

  He sighed, an awful defeated sound like a bull with a broken leg too exhausted to rise. Toby trudged down the hall. He scanned the scene from the floor to the remaining walls and into the roof. Wherever there was anything left untouched—books still on shelves, photos in frames in their vibrant colours, even if a little smoke-damaged—Toby ignored them.

  They’d done a tour of the rooms and ended up back at the front of the house in Toby’s room. Half the room was still intact, if a little sodden. Smithy came to check on them, questioning Toby’s presence inside the crime scene. Ben explained they were doing a preliminary search and that he was helping the investigation.

  ‘Just don’t contaminate anything more than you already have,’ he said.

  When Toby turned away, Smithy eyeballed him, a hard look on his face, before storming off. He might have a point. Toby shouldn’t be in here. But as he was about to guide Toby out, his eye landed on a faded football sitting on the shelf. It couldn’t be the same one. He leaned closer and saw the message he’d written there nearly twenty years ago.

  Happy 12th b’day Toby. Ben.

  The words were in his young hand and the memory of writing them fluttered up, along with the tension he’d felt at wanting to write ‘love Ben’ instead. The other kids had thought Toby too small to play footy with them, but seeing how much he wanted to join in stirred a sense of injustice in him. Being the tallest and fastest kid on the team, he’d refused to play if they didn’t let Toby join. They’d relented and he and Toby were friends from then on.

  ‘Dad couldn’t cause this much damage.’ Toby startled him out of his memories. This room was full of them and he’d gotten distracted. He put the ball back on the shelf. Toby didn’t comment. ‘I would have heard him.’

  ‘Leave it for the statement, Toby.’

  The football brought out the protectiveness in him, but Toby didn’t take the advice.

  ‘There are no matches, no drums of petrol, no hose, nothing. If he’d done any of it, there’d be something left lying around. He didn’t have time to get rid of it all. Someone else did this.’

  ‘Then who?’

  Arson wasn’t something that people did for no reason, even if they were deranged. What reason would anyone have to burn down the Grimshaws’s house?

  ‘Someone with a thing against firefighters.’

  ‘You haven’t pissed anybody off lately?’

  Toby wasn’t called Grim for nothing.

  ‘I might not be the most cheerful bastard in town, but I don’t go around picking fights.’

  ‘No one in your crew? No ex-lover whose heart you’ve broken?’

  ‘There isn’t anyone worth worrying about.’ His lips sealed. He’d already said more to him in the space of a few minutes than he had in a year, but past relationships were no-go with Toby. There might not have been any, at least none of any importance. Toby was well known for being one of the most unattainable men in town, a fact that, to his shame, Ben found a relief.

  ‘If it’s not random, then maybe it’s got something to do with that case I worked on with Erika, the meth-lab explosion. They could be trying to get back at me for the help I gave her. Maybe they think I know something about Peter.’

  Erika Hanson’s brother was still missing. He was involved in the drug trade somehow but there’d been no new leads on his disappearance. But it wasn’t Toby who’d figured out it wasn’t Peter’s body in that fire, it was Erika. Ben doubted the gang behind the explosion—two of whom had been captured by police—had much of a beef with a town firefighter.

  ‘Even if they thought you knew something, why go for the cemetery too?’

  Toby scraped his fingers through his hair. ‘What does it matter? All I know is Dad didn’t set fire to the house. And when the investigation is done, you’ll be as sure as I am that someone else tried to kill us.’ He walked away.

  Goosebumps rose along his skin. It was easier to think this was an accident than that someone wanted Toby dead. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I need to see Dad, but first I’m going to grab a shower at the station. I stink.’

  ‘Use my place and you can borrow some clothes.’ The words were out before he could stop them. It was being in this damn house. ‘It’s closer than the station and I can drive you to the hospital after.’

  Toby rubbed the back of his neck, his arm raising up and his bicep bulging. The moisture in Ben’s mouth evaporated. What was he doing inviting Toby to his house?

  ‘It’s not a good idea.’

  ‘I’m going there anyway. We may as well go together.’

  ‘Hoping to extract something else out of me? Wrap up a case so it’s done and dusted, and you don’t have to look for who really set fire to my house?’

  If there was one thing that churned his blood, it was having his integrity questioned, and Toby knew how to do it every time.

  ‘Keep pushing me, Toby, and you’ll see how much of a cop I really am,’ he snarled, more annoyed at himself for slipping so easily into lusting after Toby when he was meant to be on the case. ‘I’ve given you the benefit of the doubt already. If I’d pushed harder, your Dad would have been brought in for questioning sooner.’

  ‘You haven’t got any evidence that it was him.’

  ‘No, but we’ve got witnesses and he was at the scene.’ Ben held up his r
ight thumb then counted on the rest of his fingers. ‘He had opportunity and maybe—just maybe—the anniversary of his wife’s death was enough of a motive. We all know how often the switch in a firefighter’s head gets thrown so cut the bullshit because right now,’ he stabbed the air with his index finger, ‘I am really close to arresting Bob on suspicion of arson.’

  His chest heaved with leaden breath, his fists clenched and his body readied to launch at a physical attack. He would fight, he would fight anyone who dared to doubt his abilities as a cop, especially after what he’d been through to atone for Jared.

  Jared had kept him in the dark, and blinded him with false love. All that dealing, the lies and betrayal. Even when he’d done the right thing and brought about his arrest that hadn’t been enough. His colleagues suspected him of being culpable too—guilt by association or wilful ignorance. Their contempt followed him from the locker rooms, down the halls and out onto the street. No matter how clear the evidence, he’d not been a good enough cop to see that his boyfriend was a drug-dealing scumbag. That’s why there’d been no one else since. No one could suggest that Ben Fields was blinded by love.

  And yet here he was, letting Toby roll him over.

  I’m a fool.

  ‘He didn’t do it,’ Toby said between gritted teeth.

  ‘Then we’ll find that out, but either way, I’m going to question him and regardless of whether you come with me or get there yourself, I’m leaving now. It would be in your best interest to not be here or else you might be suspected of tampering with evidence.’

  ‘You really do have a suspicious mind.’

  Whatever. His insult left no mark. ‘I’m a cop, Toby, I’m saying how I see it. And right now, do yourself a favour and follow my advice.’

  Toby glared at him and the silence stretched, filling with unspoken recriminations. Would he have to strong-arm him out of the house?

  ‘Fine, let’s go,’ Toby said, exiting the house, leaving Ben to seethe.

  A few deep breaths later and they got in Ben’s car. He drove in silence; and for once Ben preferred it. They lived on the same street, a few blocks apart, but the short distance was enough for the anger to bubble and fill his head with toxic fumes. What-ifs and what-could-have-beens dissolved in a sulphuric cloud. What remained was distilled into the pure thought that had always been there but he’d suppressed.