Free Some by Fire by Stuart Pawson

constituency, Heckley.’ If it was a love nest we’d better have it out in the open, then I could go home and mow the lawn.
    He nodded, eager to explain. ‘I think it would be better for me to begin there,’ he replied. I turned my chair slightly towards him because the sun was slanting into my left eye. A dappled shadow from the hat’s brim fell across the top half of his face and he gazed comfortably at me through watery blue eyes. I decided to buy a hat just like it.
    ‘The house originally belonged to a lady I knew as Aunt Flossie,’ he told me. ‘She fostered me when I came to Leeds as a young teenager. Adopted me, almost. We drifted apart as I began to find my feet, because she clung to the old ways – she was orthodox Jewish – while I threw myself into being everything English. She couldn’t understand that, Mr Priest, butI loved it there. England was like a dream come true for me.’
    ‘Where did you come from?’ I asked.
    ‘Germany. A town called Augsburg, in Bavaria.’
    A mosquito landed on the rim of my glass and another was irritating my neck. Al fresco has its problems. I wafted them away and took a sip. ‘Go on,’ I invited.
    ‘In 1975 she died and left me the house, as simple as that. I was the nearest thing to any family she had. We’d kept in touch, it wasn’t a great surprise to me. I put the house up for sale but nobody was buying houses at the time, and a little later a woman came into my Saturday-morning surgery saying that she had to escape from her boyfriend. He beat her up regularly and she feared for the safety of her little girl.’
    ‘Jasmine Turnbull,’ I said.
    He paused, mouth still open, then said: ‘That’s right, Mr Priest. Jasmine Turnbull.’ He had a drink of his beer and I waited for him to continue. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘it seems unbelievably naive of me, but at the time it was a perfectly natural arrangement. I owned a spare house, fully furnished, and Mrs Turnbull, Jasmine’s mother, needed somewhere to go, desperately. We agreed that she could live there for a couple of weeks, see if it was suitable, and start paying me a small rent when she was eligible for benefits. I was horrifiedwhen my agent told me how it would look if the papers got hold of it. Mind you,’ he said, with the first hint of a smile since he arrived, ‘she was a beautiful girl. I think I might have been rather flattered by the accusations. To cut the story short, I had a word with Social Services and they moved another couple of battered wives in. That got me out of the frying pan, but…’ He stopped, realising that his choice of phrase wasn’t appropriate, and started again. ‘Because the place was now regarded as multiple occupancy, we were in breach of the fire regulations. We were arguing about who was responsible – frankly, who paid – when…when…’ He reached for his glass and turned it in his fingers. ‘…when thirty-two Leopold Avenue burnt down,’ he said, very quietly, ‘and eight lives were lost.’
    A waitress hovered nearby and when he finished speaking she asked if we’d like to see a menu. I shook my head and she went away. ‘And you had to resign as an MP,’ I said.
    He nodded.
    ‘And now you have some new evidence?’
    He gave a little start, as if just waking, and said: ‘New evidence? Oh, I’m not sure.’
    ‘So what is it you want to tell me?’
    He took a handkerchief from a pocket and wiped his brow and neck with it. The forecasters had predicted the hottest day of the year and it was lookingas if they were right. Three elderly women with pink arms protruding from flowery dresses stood debating where to sit and eventually arranged themselves around the next table. They looked like sisters.
    ‘What do you know about John Joseph Fox?’ Crosby asked.
    Now it was my turn to be surprised. JJ Fox was one of the top six entrepreneurs in the country, fighting it out with the others to be the next Murdoch or Rowland, but with half the population