Jane Casey - The Burning (Maeve Kerrigan 01)

Jane Casey

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Published in 2010 by Ebury Press, an imprint of Ebury Publishing

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Copyright 2010 by Jane Casey

Jane Casey has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the authors imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental

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Jane Casey was born and brought up in Dublin. She studied English at Jesus College, Oxford, followed by an MPhil in Anglo-Irish Literature at Trinity College, Dublin.

Married to a criminal barrister, she lives in London. She worked in publishing as a childrens books editor for seven years. She is the bestselling author of The Missing.

For Philippa

The certainty of death is attended with uncertainties, in time, manner, places.

Sir Thomas Browne, Urn Burial

Bodies recovered from fires present similar problems of investigation to bodies recovered from water. In both instances the integration of information obtained from the examination of the scene, the examination of the body, and the history of the decedent, is particularly important.

Derrick J Pounder

She should have gone home with the others.

Kelly Staples stared at her reflection in the cracked and spotted mirror, trying to make sense of what she saw. Surely that wasnt her face squinting back. Mascara had smeared under her eyes, leaving shadowy smudges speckled with tiny flecks of black that wouldnt come off no matter how she rubbed at them. The remnants of her foundation were caked around her nose and across her forehead, where her skin looked dry. Her face was red and she had a spot on her chin that she was sure hadnt been there when she was getting ready to go out. Her mouth was slack and wet, and there was something on her top With a huge effort Kelly bent her head to inspect the damage. Wine, she thought hazily. She had tipped red wine down her front. She vaguely remembered laughing hysterically, holding the wet material away from her, offering someone a man shed never met before the chance to suck it, so as not to waste it, before Faye dragged her away from him, muttering crossly in her ear about behaving herself. But as Kelly had pointed out, or tried to, tonight was all about not behaving herself. Out with the girls for an evening of freedom, a pub crawl in Richmond. Dolled up, tanked up, ready for a laugh. It was getting near the end of term; theyd needed a break, all of them. Especially her, since shed broken up with PJ three weeks before. Or, to be precise, hed broken up with her. Two years theyd been together, and hed thrown it all away to chase after Vanessa Cobbet, the fat slapper. A tear slid down Kellys face, gliding through what was left of her make-up.

Theyd started with white wine at home, getting ready, and Kelly had had a few glasses. Giddy with nerves, shed needed it. And it had got the evening off to a good start.

The room behind her rocked and swayed. Kelly shut her eyes, leaning heavily on the sink as she waited to feel better. She had been sick already; she had thought it might help if she was sick. Behind her, a cubicle door banged. A bony middle-aged woman slipped past her with a sidelong look that said youre too young to be in that sort of state. Kelly thought, but wasnt confident enough to say, yeah, well youre too old to be in here in the first place.

The toilets were cramped, two cubicles and two sinks squeezed into a narrow corner of the pub, reeking of aggressive air freshener and the sour-sweet smell of vomited wine that was Kellys contribution. The fixtures dated the last redesign to the eighties if not before: pink porcelain fittings and pink-and-brown floral curtains that hung limply at the frosted window. The rest of the pub wasnt much better, though the dim lighting hid most of the damage at night. The Jolly Boatman had seen better days, as had most of the clientele, but it was busy nonetheless, crowded with drinkers. The pubs by the river were all busy; it was Thursday night, the unofficial start to the weekend, and everyone was out to have a good time, including Kelly. But it had all gone wrong, somewhere along the way. The others had left, she remembered woozily, telling her to get a taxi when she was ready to come home. Shed been dancing with someone, a lad she didnt know, and Faye had tried to persuade her to leave but shed refused. It had seemed to make sense then. It was her turn, her chance to have fun. Theyd taken her at her word and left her. Kelly couldnt understand why shed let them.

Im pissed, she said out loud, trying to make eye contact with the bleary figure in the mirror. I need to go home.

The contents of her handbag had spilt into the basin in front of her. It seemed to take an extraordinarily long time to collect everything up again; her hands were clumsy and there were so many things a pen, make-up, her keys, a bus ticket, some loose change three cigarettes that had fallen out of their packet and were splotched with damp from the sink. The lid had come off a tube of lip gloss and as Kelly fumbled to pick it up sticky red goo smeared across the pink porcelain. It looked, for a moment, like blood.

The noise and heat hit her with a physical shock when she pulled open the door and she faltered a little, trying to remember which way she needed to go. The door to the outside world was to the left, she vaguely recalled, and set herself to push through the crowd. She was walking tall, acting sober, shoulders pulled well back and head up. It fooled no one except Kelly herself.

The crowd was thicker around the door, with smokers coming and going from the terrace that overlooked the water.

Excuse me, Kelly mumbled, trying and failing to shoulder past a heavyset man who didnt seem to hear her or notice her cannoning into his back.