NB. Apologies for any "artistic licence" taken with police procedure, not only do I not know a lot about it, I'm also British. You'll just have to live with it, it's AU anyway.

Becky woke him at about half ten with another cup of coffee. Agent Wray was sitting in the chair at her borrowed desk, making notes on a laptop. She looked over as he rolled to a sitting position.

"Sleep there often?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"Not often," he said, stretching kinks out of his shoulders and back from the cramped position he'd been sleeping in, "only if I'm out all night."

She closed the laptop.

"So," she said, "where do you want to start?"

It took him a moment to realise she was asking what part of the case he wanted to explain first. He rubbed his eyes and took a deep draught of the coffee. He sat back on the sofa.

"I'm getting the impression from the files and from...Becky is it...?"

Young nodded.

"...that it's been a tough couple of months in Destiny. So as background, what's happened?"

Young sighed.

"I guess the first problem was the gypsies." He said. "They turned up in a bunch of caravans and winnebagos and just moved onto the Armstrong property. That was, what three months ago." His eyes rolled to the ceiling as he tried to recall the sequence of events.

Wray typed a couple of notes as he turned it over in his mind.

"And who are the Armstrongs?"

"Old Destiny family." Young said, looking down at the floor and them up at Wray. "Alan owned the Icarus factory that's the main employer round here. Kept the business here and kept the business profitable enough without moving or going out of state or overseas. Without it Destiny would be a ghost town."

Wray nodded.

"And what does the factory make?"

"It's mainly military equipment." Young paused, "they do some classified projects I know, have their own security, but we've always had a good relationship with them. The factory's been a part of the town since Old Mr Armstrong built it. Entire families work there, the family have always had a commitment to training and employing locals as well as bringing in the best from out of town."

Wray gave him a long look.

"I can see the factory is important to the town, emotionally as well as practically."

Young started.

"I guess so. It's part of what Destiny is."

She nodded, making notes.

"So, how is the factory involved with the current problem?"

"It isn't, only indirectly. Armstrong started action to evict the gypsies from his land, they said they'd nowhere to go, but he didn't want them on the family property which is understandable. David Telford who's the head of security at Icarus advised him it might be better to have some security at the house what with him and his wife and daughter being so isolated out there, but Armstrong wouldn't have it." Young stood, rolling his shoulders before continuing. "Well, from what we can tell, there was some kind of confrontation between him and some of the gypsies and he got himself shot at. Scared the crap out of the wife, but she's always been a fragile sort."

The tap tap of Wray's keyboard was the only noise in the office.

"What happened about the case?"

"The gypsies left town, but state police caught up with them. Bullets matched a gun found on one of the gypsies, he's awaiting trial as we speak, as are most of the others for aiding and abetting a felon and a raft of other charges, handling stolen goods, card fraud, drug possession, you name it."

Wray looked up at him.

"And you don't think there's any chance this is retribution attacks?"

"Doubt it, seems no connection at all, if it had been the Armstrong house burned, then..." he stopped and shrugged. "Still, was a difficult thing to deal with, caused us a whole bunch of problems." He moved to lean against the table. "Anyway, if that wasn't enough trouble for the family there was an accident at the factory. Armstrong worked there, and his daughter as well, real family business, four generations. His grandfather started it. Anyway some piece of machinery overheated, potential explosion risk and the smoke and gases would have been toxic, a risk to the whole area. Armstrong went in and shut it down, but his heart gave out and he died before he could get out. He'd been sick for a long time, heart troubles though managed well I'm told, but that was obviously too much and he had a heart attack and died. They had to vent the room safely before they could bring the body out, but the scientists up there and the safety investigators said he'd have been dead of the fumes anyway."

Wray made a bunch more notes on the laptop. Young wondered how many she'd already taken. He couldn't get his head round notes on the computer. Needed a board, photos and pieces of string. His only concession to modernity was post it notes.

"And the results of the safety investigation?"

"One in a million fluke. Nothing that could have been predicted." Said Young. "I think his wife found that hard to take, no one to blame, but after a few wobbles Chloe his daughter has coped and she's the one who's really taken her dad's projects to heart, continuing the family business. Mrs Armstrong by all accounts has taken it hard."

He looked up and looked at the clock on the wall.

"Look, Agent Wray, it's twenty past eleven can we go out to the scene; I want to check in on my deputies. We can talk in the car."

Wray nodded, shut her laptop and stood.

"Where's Agent Brody?"

"I sent him to get some sleep, he did most of the driving." She said. "And call me Camile."

"Everett." He said. "Fine if I drive?"

She nodded again.

They walked out to his car and got in. He pulled out of the lot and out onto the road towards the Caine house. The road had been cleared in the town but as they hit the edge of town he was forced to slow down, black ice had made the roads treacherous, another small stress he didn't need.

"So," she said, as they "I'm guessing there have been other problems."

He didn't take his eyes off the road, but nodded, assuming she was looking at him.

"There's been a rash of stuff happening." He said. "But it's hard to tell which of them are relevant or important if any."

They drove a little further. She didn't press him, waiting for him to continue in his own time.

"We've had several black outs." He continued. "The last month, about I think three."

He slowed to take a sharper bend.

"It's been a real problem with the weather." He said. "Two of them seemed to be normal occurrences, trees taking out power cables, not unexpected in bad weather. The other was, well, the power company were unclear as to why the pylon came down."

They passed a small group of houses and dipping down over a small bridge before the ground rose towards the turn off for the Caine house.

"It's nothing that you'd normally…" Young stopped.

"If there wasn't also so many other things happening." Wray finished.

He nodded, turning off onto the drive to the Caine house. The track to the house wasn't made up and they bumped over it, difficult to avoid the potholes under their covering of grey slush.

"So," said Wray, "This fire."

Young took a deep breath.

"Similar to the others." He said. "From what the fire department have said, they think it was an accelerant poured through the dog door at the back and at the front. They haven't said what, but the others have all been gasoline."

They pulled up at the crime scene. Matt was leaning against the patrol car, Vanessa was nowhere to be seen and Young assumed she had made good on her idea of taking a couple hours sleep in the car. The scene was exactly as he had left it. The other patrol car, the fire department van, the crime scene van from the State police, the figures in boiler suits examining the crime scene.

Wray was opening the door as he engaged the parking brake. He left her to go and talk to the crime scene guys and walked over to where Matt was waiting by the other cruiser.

"Matt."

"Sir."

Matt nodded and pushed himself up from the car. In the back of the cruiser Young could see Vanessa curled on the back seat, asleep, head pillowed on her arms. Matt glanced back at her and took a few steps away from the car.

"How's it going?" Young asked.

"Slow." Matt said. "They found the two kids though, in the bedroom. There wasn't much left." He pressed his lips together, face distressed. "They're working forwards, haven't got to the master bedroom yet. Haven't found Mrs Caine."

"Okay. Have they said anything about the cause?"

"It's definitely an accelerant through the front and back doors like the fire service on the scene thought. They've taken samples, but there's gasoline spilled in the front and back yards so it's pretty certain that that's the accelerant."

"Any further signs of how the arsonist got here?"

Not that anyone can see, even the crime techs weren't able to see anything, but the driveways been so churned up by the fire truck and our cruisers and all that it'd be hard to pick anything out. They're trying. The snow has been pretty much melted out by the fire and the water from the fire department so that's a bust too."

He shook his head. Young looked at the young man, he looked drained and there were deep dark circles under his eyes visible even through the faint coating of soot.

"You go home son." Everett clapped him on the shoulder. "I'll take over with Vanessa. Get a shower, catch a few hours sleep and I'll ring you later if we need you back. I reckon the crime techs will be finished by then though and I doubt there's anything we can do here anyway."

Matt looked back at the cruiser with Vanessa sleeping in the back.

"Take mine." Young said, taking out his keys. "I'll get Becky to drive out if Vanessa and I need to go back separately, and no doubt Agent Brody can come get Agent Wray."

He walked back to his cruiser and took out a few bits before handing the keys to Matt. He watched as the cruiser pulled out.

Wray, Camile he corrected himself, was still speaking to the fire investigator and he walked over.

"What did I miss?" he asked as the both turned to him.

"It's pretty much a carbon copy of the last fire." Lisa Park said, rubbing a soot smudged cheek, "Accelerant through the dog door at the back, and through a broken pane at the front. Considering there's traces of what smells like gasoline spilled in the front and back yards I'd be pretty certain that's what was used. We'll know when the test results come back from the lab. The crime scene guys are being pretty thorough, but we've had to stop so they can move the bodies of the two children out."

He'd only come to know Lisa Park these last few weeks, since the fire started and always thought Lisa seemed too delicate, too fragile, for the career she was in. But she'd got a solid career as a fire fighter behind her before she'd trained and specialised. Somehow though he couldn't imagine her suited and helmeted running into a burning building.

Still as she hefted a toolbox of equipment towards her truck, he realised again that there was more to her physically as well as mentally than he gave her credit for.

"I'll get my report over to you as fast as possible." She called back. "I'll need the preliminary results from the crime scene techs as well, but it shouldn't be more than a day or two."

She lifted the box into the truck and came back to wait, while the two crime techs carefully lifted the remains of the children out of the ruined house.

He gave Camile the guided tour of the area, pointing out landmarks and where the site was in relation to other buildings. After walking the site they spread a map in the bonnet of the car and he noted the location of all the fires and the locations of the power line damage.

"I know you haven't found a link to it," Camile said finally, staring at the pencil marks on the map. "But you have to admit, everything's happening in a pretty tight radius of the Icarus works."

He shrugged.

"I won't deny it, but if you can find a real connection, be my guest."

"Well," Camile said. "I think I need to speak to someone up at that plant."