The Silent Suspect

any closer,’ she said firmly, but I waved my ID badge at her.
‘I told you before, I’m a BSL interpreter.’ I went to move past her, impatient to do something useful, but she blocked my path again. ‘That man is profoundly deaf,’ I told her for the second time, pointing to where Lukas was lying on a gurney, two paramedics checking him over. ‘Without me, it’s going to be a lot harder for them to treat him if they can’t communicate with him.’
The PC relented and stood back to let me past. Why were they trying to keep me away from Lukas? What was happening that they hadn’t told me?
When I approached Lukas, he sat up and coughed so hard I thought he was going to be sick. Once it had passed, he lay back down again, then saw me.
Paige, he signed, his face frantic. Where is Nadia? Did they find Nadia?
My heart sank. Was Nadia in the house? I asked him.
He nodded, tears in his eyes. Yes. I tried to call her but there was no answer. I couldn’t find her in the house, though. I looked, but I couldn’t get to her.
What about Mariusz? I signed quickly. Was Mariusz staying with you?
A shadow passed across Lukas’s face. No, but he’s not answering his phone either. Sometimes he comes round when I’m not expecting him.
I squeezed his hand, not knowing what to say.
Will you try to call him? he asked.
I agreed, taking Lukas’s phone from him and trying Mariusz’s number. It rang out, but as Mariusz was hearing and his dad was deaf, I knew the sixteen-year-old was unlikely to answer a voice call from his dad’s number. I sent him a text instead, from Lukas’s phone, asking him to check in with his dad. A few minutes later, a reply arrived.
Dad, I’m fine. What’s happened? Someone texted me something about a fire?
Lukas collapsed into sobs – even though he must have been relieved that his son was okay, he was still terrified. Sasha had been allocated as his social worker when he’d had problems in the past with alcohol and his mental health, but the sessions I’d been in showed that he’d moved on a lot. From what I’d seen, a lot of that was to do with Nadia; she was his world.
Another crash made me flinch and I turned around to look at the house. The upstairs windows had shattered this time. There were several firefighters nearby, but I didn’t want to interrupt them. If they’d found Nadia, we’d know straight away.
Are you positive she was inside? I asked Lukas, and he nodded vigorously, which set off another bout of coughing.
Pulling the neck of my jumper up over my nose and mouth, I moved closer to the house, waving to attract the attention of one of the firefighters. The man I’d spoken to earlier saw me and came over.
‘What is it?’
‘Lukas, the man you pulled out of there, has told me his wife’s inside.’
The firefighter nodded and, glancing over at Lukas, lowered his voice. ‘We’re aware of someone in the kitchen.’
I felt like a hole had opened up beneath me. Someone was trapped in that. Whether it was Nadia or someone else, the thought filled me with horror.
‘We’re currently trying to get to them. I’m not sure it’s going to be good news,’ he told me, then turned back to the house. The realisation of what he was saying made me catch my breath, and I blinked rapidly as a mixture of smoke and tears stung my eyes. Backing away, I went to stand by Lukas and squeezed his hand again as we saw two more firefighters bringing Nadia out of the building. They laid her lifeless body on a second gurney, and Lukas let out a howl as he tried to reach her. I did my best not to retch at the sight of her burned skin, what was left of her jeans and T-shirt clinging to her body in ragged clumps.
The paramedics rushed over to her and immediately began checking her over, blocking our view of where she lay. Lukas gripped my hand so tightly it hurt, but I didn’t pull away. BSL users are good at reading body language, but anyone would have known what it meant as the paramedics’ movements slowed and their shoulders sagged. Lukas let out a wail. Nadia was dead.

Chapter 2
I sat in the waiting room next to the two PCs who had been at the scene of the fire, my foot jiggling anxiously on the rubber-tiled floor. The plastic seat was incredibly uncomfortable, and I kept getting up to stretch out my back. Every few minutes I would have a coughing fit, but the paramedics had checked me over and said I was okay as I hadn’t inhaled much smoke.
I had called Sasha once I’d arrived at the hospital, and explained what was happening. She was still in Birmingham, but she said she’d leave straight away, then asked me to stay with Lukas and text her updates if there was any news. Even if she hadn’t asked, I had intended to stay – if Lukas needed someone to interpret for him, I didn’t want him or the doctors to have to wait.
A vision of Nadia’s burnt body rose up in my mind and I shuddered. There was a water cooler on the opposite side of the room so I crossed and poured myself a cup, gulping it down in two swallows, then refilled it and did the same again. How could this have happened? Was it something in the house, in the wiring? Why didn’t Nadia notice the fire and get out of the house before it got too bad? Maybe she’d been asleep. But then I remembered the firefighter had told me they found her in the kitchen – I could believe she’d been asleep in a bedroom or on the sofa in the living room, but not in the kitchen. So what happened?
My phone vibrated