Highgate Rise - Anne Perry [121]
Shaw faced Pitt with some surprise, a guardedness in his eyes, but no dislike.
“ ’Morning Pitt, what is it now? Have you discovered something?” He stood near the center of the room, hands in his pockets, and yet giving the appearance of being so balanced on his feet that he was ready for some intense action, only waiting to know what it might be. “Well, what is it, man? What have you learned?”
Pitt wished he had something to tell him, for Shaw’s own sake, and because he felt so inadequate that he still had almost no idea who had started the fires or why, or even beyond question whether it was Shaw who was the intended victim or Clemency. He had begun by being sure it was Shaw; now with Charlotte’s conviction that it was Clemency’s activities to expose slum profiteers which had provoked it, his own certainty was shaken. But there was no point in lying; it was shabby and they both deserved better.
“I’m afraid I don’t know anything further.” He saw Shaw’s face tighten and a keenness die from his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he added unhappily. “The forensic evidence tells me nothing except that the fire was started in four separate places in your house and three in Mr. Lindsay’s, with some kind of fuel oil, probably ordinary lamp oil, poured onto the curtains in the downstairs rooms where it would catch quickly, climb upwards taking the whole window embrasure, and then any wooden furniture.”
Shaw frowned. “How did they get in? We’d have heard breaking glass. And I certainly didn’t leave any downstairs windows open.”
“It isn’t very difficult to cut glass,” Pitt pointed out. “You can do it silently if you stick a piece of paper over it with a little glue. In the criminal fraternity they call it ‘star glazing.’ Of course they use it to reach in and undo the catch rather than to pour in oil and drop a taper.”
“You think it was an ordinary thief turned assassin?” Shaw’s brows rose in incredulity. “Why, for heaven’s sake? It doesn’t make any sense!” There was disappointment in his face, primarily in Pitt for having thought of nothing better than this.
Pitt was stung. Even though Shaw might be the murderer himself, and he hated to acknowledge that thought, he still respected the man and wanted his good opinion in return.
“I don’t think it was an ordinary thief at all,” he said quickly. “I am simply saying that there is a very ordinary method of cutting glass without making a noise. Unfortunately, in the mass of shattered glass, bricks, rubble and timbers around it was impossible to say whether that was done or not. Everything was trodden on by the firemen or broken by falling masonry. If there was any cut glass rather than broken it was long since destroyed. Not that it would have told us anything, except that he came prepared in skills as well as materials—which is fairly obvious anyway.”
“So?” Shaw stared at him across the expanse of the worn, homely carpet and the comfortable chairs. “If you know nothing more, what are you here for? You haven’t come simply to tell me that.”
Pitt kept his temper with an effort and tried to order his thoughts.
“Something precipitated the fire in Amos Lindsay’s house,” he began levelly, fixing his eyes on Shaw’s, at the same time sitting down in one of the big easy chairs, letting Shaw know that he intended the discussion to be a long and detailed one. “You were staying with him for the few days preceding; whatever happened you may have noticed, something which you could now recall, if you tried.”
The skepticism vanished out of Shaw’s face and was replaced by thought, which quickly deepened into concentration. He sat down in the opposite chair and crossed his legs, regarding Pitt through narrowed eyes.
“You think it was Lindsay they meant to kill?” A flicker of emotion crossed his face with peculiar pain,