The Silent Suspect Nell Pattison (best classic books of all time TXT) 📖

fire to the house in order to cover up any evidence against his mother.’

Singh smiled. ‘I’ll give you something, you’ve certainly thought it through.’

I waited for him to continue, but he just looked at me.

‘What?’

‘What about the other fires?’ he asked. ‘You’ve connected them, same as we have. How do they fit into your theory?’

I could tell he was just teasing me now, but I’d considered that. ‘Have you ever read The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie? The killer hides the one murder they really want to commit in a string of murders connected by letters of the alphabet.’

Singh frowned as he tried to unravel my comparison. ‘So you think Mariusz set fire to other houses to make it look like they were connected, so we were less focused on the fire at Lukas’s house?’

‘Exactly! So if you thought it was just a spate of arson attacks, you wouldn’t consider it might be someone wanting to conceal evidence about Nadia’s murder.’

He gave me an appreciative nod. ‘I like that idea, I do. But we think the fires are linked to something else.’

‘What?’ I sat forward, eager to learn more. ‘Is this the connected case you told me about the other day?’

‘Paige,’ he said, in an exasperated tone. ‘You know I can’t talk to you about things like that.’

‘Oh, come on, Rav.’ I was annoyed that he kept dropping hints without actually confirming anything. ‘Who exactly am I going to tell?’

‘Sasha,’ he answered immediately. ‘Anna. I don’t know.’

‘I’m certainly not giving Sasha any information about this,’ I replied bitterly. ‘Not after she’s lied to me.’

Singh looked like he was hesitating, and I put a hand on top of his, feeling the warmth of his mug through his fingers. ‘Please, just tell me the basics.’

‘Fine,’ he said, giving me a look that was half amused, half annoyed. ‘It’ll all be made public in the next day or so anyway. Arrests are imminent.’ He sat back in his chair. ‘The group of young men who have been seen hanging around outside a few houses are working for a drug dealer who has been trying to mark his territory quite clearly. He’s cuckooing.’

I frowned at him. It wasn’t a term I was familiar with. ‘What’s that?’

‘It’s when a criminal, usually a drug dealer, uses the home of a vulnerable person as their temporary base of operations. They find someone who’s an addict, or someone who’s socially isolated, and either they force their way in or they befriend them, get invited into their home. Once they’ve got access, they come and go as they please for a short time, using the house to store and deal drugs. They move around regularly, finding new victims to prey on, and they’ve often got a couple of houses on the go at once. Do you know what county lines is?’

I shook my head, so he continued. ‘It’s when drug dealers from cities branch out into smaller towns, like Scunthorpe. Cuckooing means they can keep moving around and they’re less likely to get caught. And they often use teenagers, hooking them in with gifts of designer trainers and new bikes, then asking them to deliver packages, and eventually sell drugs. It’s becoming a big problem across Lincolnshire. As I say, it’s usually drugs, but we’ve had some cases of sex traffickers operating in this way too.’

I was horrified at the idea. I thought I knew a lot about the world, but occasionally I learnt about something that made me realise my upbringing had been quite sheltered. ‘So all of these houses that have been set on fire have been used for this cuckooing?’

‘We believe so. Some of the victims refuse to give us statements, because they’ve been threatened or coerced into allowing these people into their house and they’re afraid of the repercussions, either legally or from the criminals. Others don’t even know if it happened – these are usually elderly people with some level of dementia, who probably shouldn’t still be living alone but are just coping well enough to prevent their relatives moving them into a home.’

I was quiet for a couple of minutes, trying to process all of this and thinking about Bill, the elderly man who I’d been told lived in the house I’d seen Mariusz and the gang outside.

‘Hang on, does this mean Lukas and Nadia had it happen to them, too? The neighbours, Jill Adams and Eric, both said there’d been people going in and out of the house, as well as kids on bikes hanging round outside, a day or two before Nadia died.’

Singh nodded. ‘We think so, but Lukas wouldn’t speak to us. If we can get him to testify to what happened, perhaps that will go well for him if any other charges are brought.’

I took the hint. ‘I’ll get Sasha to speak to him about it, see if she can get him to open up. Even if she’s been behaving unprofessionally, I still think she has his best interests at heart.’

‘You can tell her that he needs to cooperate with us, but don’t give her any details,’ Singh warned me. ‘As I say, we’re hoping to make arrests very soon. We’ve been working with the council on this, they’ve got someone specifically working on this sort of manipulation of council tenants, and nearly every one of the victims we’ve got on our list is living in a council property.’

A thought popped into my head. ‘But why are they setting fire to the properties after they’ve used them?’ I asked. ‘That doesn’t make sense. Surely that would just draw attention to them?’

‘We haven’t figured that part out yet. It could be a territory thing, if there are two rival gangs operating in the same area.’

‘And how is Nadia’s murder connected?’

Singh grimaced and shook his head. ‘We don’t know that, either. It might not be connected at all. Lukas is still our main suspect,’ he said, giving me a look that told me I shouldn’t get involved.

I was about to ask