Hyatt led her along a dedicated pathway to the building. He explained that it had last been occupied by a foam and furniture wholesaler who used part of the ground floor. Remnants of foam and pieces of furniture were left when the business moved out. These had fed the fire, making the blaze fierce enough to consume the floors above. The whole thing had collapsed in. She fancied she could smell the plastic chemical smell of the foam in the stink of burning that filled the space.
The bodies had, in effect, been excavated from the layer of ash and cinders. A few feet apart, opposite each other, they were crouched, curled, half reclining. Macabre in their positioning. Skulls bent forward, the skin stretched like scorched parchment tight over the skeleton. Here and there a glint of bone. Adults, Gill thought from the length of the leg bones, but beyond that it was impossible to tell anything.
‘Sitting in chairs, we think. See the springs.’ Hyatt pointed out the spiral of metal beside one of the bodies. As the seats burned, they’d collapsed back and the victims with them.
Shot? she wondered.
‘I’d like the CSIs to take the bodies and all the debris around them,’ she glanced at him, ‘like we did at the chapel.’
He nodded.
‘You’re sure it’s arson?’ she said.
‘Looks like it. The seat of the fire is here.’ He pointed between the two figures where the floor itself had been eaten away. ‘Looks like an accelerant was used and the foam on the chairs would also act to speed up the fire.’
‘Petrol?’ Gill asked.
‘I don’t think so. I want to do some more investigation here but this looks like a smaller initial ignition area, whereas with the Old Chapel we had petrol splashed around and when that goes up it’s the vapour that ignites. This is more localized. And we’ve got melted glass.’
She looked as he indicated a shiny blob in the ash. ‘Could be innocuous, a drinking glass. But it could be a bottle.’
‘Molotov cocktail,’ she said.
‘That sort of thing. We’ll get an analysis done, we can do a headspace gas chromatograph, might be able to find out what it is.’
Gill knew the rudiments of the test, a way to identify and quantify volatile compounds. ‘If it’s not petrol then what is it?’
‘Could be paint thinner, acetone or a kerosene-based accelerant,’ he said.
‘Kerosene?’ Gill asked.
‘You’re looking at paraffin for heaters or lamps or lighter fuel, the sort of thing people use to light a barbecue.’
Neil Perry had made a comment about a barbecue when Rachel asked him to account for the petrol on his clothes. ‘We only found petrol on the Perrys’ clothing. No kerosene.’