The Fire In the Snow

By Oliver Lewis Thompson

The old industrial heartland of Manchester is about to be set alight. But while the flames meet brick, a man is seen running from a building on fire. His death sparks a hurried investigation to find the killer and it falls to Detective Shari Ansari to deliver a result.

The clues will lead her deep into the murky underworld of this dangerous part of town, where crime is rife and homeless people sleep vulnerable to the elements, both inside and out.

This is the third in the fast-paced short-story series about Ansari, her egotistical yet brilliant sergeant Steve Ryder, and the rest of the team. This time she is leading the investigation, but can she beat her superior to the finish line or will Ryder once again have the final glory?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Dec 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9781326898953

Book preview

The Fire In the Snow

The Fire In the Snow

Oliver Lewis Thompson

ISBN: 978-1-326-89895-3

Copyright © 2016 Oliver Lewis Thompson

All Rights Reserved

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the author’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

It also shall not be printed or reproduced in whole or in part, without permission of the copyright holder.

This book also available from author’s own site:

http://www.oliverlewisthompson.com

Prologue

‘Have you ever killed something?’

Detective Shari Ansari laughed into her cup of coffee and had the boiling hot substance spilling down her chin. ‘What a question!’ she exclaimed.

Her sergeant, DS Steve Ryder smiled warmly. ‘I’m interested.’

‘You’ve got a dark side you,’ Ansari told him, and then watched his eyes staring patiently back at her. He was actually waiting for an answer.

‘A few spiders and flies, I suppose,’ she told him. Perhaps this was all part of the great Ryder experience she had come to accept. Her partner Ben had once told her that Ryder was an egomaniac and a narcissist. Maybe he was, and this was all part of a test he was putting her through. She wondered if other detectives in other divisions around Greater Manchester would have to put up with this kind of obtuse post-job-interview grilling. ‘Have you?’

‘That’s boring,’ Ryder said, sighing. ‘I was hoping you’d have butchered a sheep or throttled a guinea pig when you were a kid.’

Shari laughed again. At least her new supervisor was anything but boring. ‘You were hoping? Don’t they say that kids who kill animals end up being murderers and psychopaths?’

‘That’s what they say,’ Ryder said with a shrug, as if he didn’t think much of it.

They began walking in silence back towards their car. Ryder tossed his cardboard coffee cup into a nearby bin and lifted a cocky eyebrow when it hit the target perfectly. Shari was still clutching her coffee to warm her hands.

They were leaving a crime scene, or rather, they were going to sit in the car to warm up while the scene was prepared for them to enter. A large warehouse dating back to the early nineteenth century stood nearby, hollow from a fire that had raged overnight - its beautiful red bricks scorched black around the empty windows. Inside, through the skeletal remains of its facade, blackened timbers could be seen jutting outward in various directions. Some had remained in place throughout the fire, a testament to the quality of the architecture, but many had buckled under the collapse of floors above.

Shari stared at the building and watched the fire crew casually inspect its smouldering remains. The fire had long been put out, but it was only in the daylight that a proper inspection could take place. She and her sergeant, working an early shift, had come down after eight o’clock, when the late January sun had just about risen.

‘They say the fire started on the first floor,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Do you think some homeless people were trying to start a fire or something?’

‘We might never know,’ Ryder replied. ‘Let the fire inspector do his bit.’

‘Then we’ll have to wait for the building surveyor to come and tell us its safe,’ Shari said, with a little moan. ‘We could be here all day.’

‘That’s okay,’ Ryder chuckled. ‘Are you in a rush or something?’

Shari was in a rush actually. She felt uneasy in Steve Ryder’s company and wanted to return to the office, if only to escape the tension.

‘Ben’s off again then,’ she said, thinking she was changing the subject but really giving away her chain of thought.

Ryder smiled. ‘Seems so. I wonder what excuse he’ll have this time.’

‘I worry about him,’ Shari said, sadly. ‘Why does he drink so much?’

‘Weak minded people,’ Ryder snorted, ‘can’t cope with pressure without help.’

Shari wished she hadn’t bothered to ask him. She couldn’t possibly have expected a compassionate answer.

‘Shame about the building,’ she said, again trying to change the subject. ‘I suppose they’ll end up knocking it down and replacing it with some more flats. There’s a lot of history in this little neighbourhood. Some of these old mills are part of the World Heritage Site. But some horrible development company would love to pull them all down and put up some ugly boxes just to make a bit of money...’

‘What are you going on about?’ Ryder cut her off. He was staring out of the window, watching one of the firemen talking to a few others.

‘Ancoats,’ Shari explained, ‘it’s the birthplace of the Manchester cotton industry...’

‘Ssh,’ Ryder said, holding up his hand and nearly knocking the coffee out of hers. ‘It’s the fire inspector. Look, he’s pulling them all out of the building.’

Shari looked. It did appear that the main fireman, the one with a white hat instead of a yellow one, was coaxing the rest of the men away from the