Road Closed by Leigh Russell

service had got to him sooner, it’s possible he might have survived, but he was trapped for too long before they found him.’
    ‘If the door from the next room into wherever – was it the hall? – had been open, could he have got out?’ Peterson wanted to know.
    ‘I’m not sure,’ the doctor replied. ‘The dining room might’ve reached flashover if it was ventilated by an open door.’
    ‘Wouldn’t an open door have lowered the temperature?’ the sergeant asked. The doctor shrugged. ‘And why the hell didn’t anyone hear the explosion?’ Peterson went on. He sounded angry.
    ‘They did,’ the DCI answered, ‘a neighbour called up almost immediately, which is probably why the victim escaped being burnt. But it was still too late. They didn’t get to him in time.’
    ‘What about the windows?’
    The doctor shrugged. ‘The smoke must have overcome him too quickly. The presence of cyanide in his blood was already nearing potentially lethal levels –’
    ‘Cyanide?’ Geraldine interrupted. ‘Are you saying he was poisoned?’
    ‘And the fire was started to cover it up,’ Peterson added.
    ‘No, no, that’s not what I meant,’ the doctor answered. ‘You’ll have to ask the fire investigation officers for the specific source but cyanide can derive from any number of burning substances, wool, cotton, paper, plastics and other polymers, for example, any number of which might’ve been present in the kitchen, and cyanide poisoning, even before it reached such a dangerous level, would have incapacitated him. It prevents the body from carrying oxygen. He managed to crawl as far as the adjoining room before he lost consciousness. The cyanide might’ve prevented him from even attempting to escape. At the very least it would’ve contributed to his difficulties, and prolonged his exposure to fatal concentrations of carbon monoxide which killed him.’He sighed. ‘In any event, he didn’t make it. The combination of cyanide and carbon monoxide did for him.’
    ‘So he died from smoke inhalation?’
    ‘Yes. That’s basically it.’ The doctor tapped the neat incision across Thomas Cliff’s chest as he listed the symptoms it concealed. ‘He died from respiratory failure although there’s significant pulmonary injury evident, which is hardly surprising. There’s swelling of the airways, and soot evident in the nostrils and throat. The respiratory tract is full of black mucus, also present in the trachea and lungs. Oxygen levels are low in the blood, and cyanide and carbon monoxide present, as I mentioned, in lethal levels. He died of asphyxiation from the smoke. There’s no question about that.’
    Geraldine gazed down at the corpse. Thomas Cliff looked so peaceful. It was strange to think of all the internal damage concealed beneath the neat bloodless scar. The sergeant and the DCI left straight away. Geraldine waited for the widow who was expected shortly. She watched as the body was wrapped in sheets, only the face showing white above a sheet tucked up to the chin.
    Sophie Cliff arrived ten minutes early, wearing a grey coat, her hair concealed beneath a navy scarf. She was very thin.
    She peered nervously at Geraldine through thick lensed spectacles, her magnified eyes bloodshot from weeping. ‘Are you the doctor?’ Geraldine held up her identity card and introduced herself. ‘A police inspector? Where is he? Can I see him?’
    ‘This way, Mrs Cliff.’ Geraldine gave the widow a sympathetic smile before leading the way, her heels tapping out a subdued rhythm on the floor. At her side, Sophie Cliff padded noiselessly.
    Thomas Cliff had been laid out in readiness. Geraldine glanced at Mrs Cliff and looked away. There was something shocking about the dead man’s composure beside his wife’sanguish. Geraldine wondered if Thomas Cliff had been as serene in life; certainly not in his final moments, the skin from his hands and shins clawed away by unbearable heat.
    The widow didn’t move. Tears