Authors: Elizabeth Audrey Mills
Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Historical, #Romance
They smiled at each other. After a shy moment, Connor opened his arms, and they
hugged. I felt so happy that the tears began to flow again. Quickly, I wiped them away
with the sheet.
Connor told us how he had arrived home late, two nights ago, after an evening shift and
a drink at
The Emerald
with friends. As he entered the passageway, a man pushed past
him, running out onto the street.
"He was hunched forwards, holding his coat up to cover his face, so I couldn't identify
him. He would have been about my height, with dark hair, and ran with a limp," he
explained.
When he continued on into the yard, Connor saw flames shooting from the front door of
the flat, and more through the windows, as the fire spread from room to room. He realised
he had to alert the occupants of the adjoining flat or they would be engulfed in the
inferno. He ran up their stairs and hammered on their door until they emerged, blinking,
from their bed.
"After warning them, I ran back to the pub to call the fire brigade, then returned to the
yard, by which time the flats were completely ablaze. I stood with the couple from next
door, watching helplessly as our homes disappeared. The Fire Brigade arrived quickly, but
it was too late to save anything."
Homeless
, I never expected to be that again.
"Oh, I'm fine. I stayed here the first couple of nights, but a friend is going to let me stay
with him from now on." Something in the way he said it made me examine his face, and
he realised I had caught something. He smiled. "Ok, you were going to find out soon
enough. Leroy and I, we seem to be getting along rather well. We started to see each other
just before you left on your tour."
I was so pleased for him that I forgot for a moment about everything that had happened,
and I jumped into his arms and gave him a huge hug and a kiss, then stood back, grinning
like an idiot, shaking my head in amazement. What a day this had been.
"Oh," he said, suddenly, "I have to give you this." He pulled a piece of paper from his
pocket and passed it to me. It had the name 'Inspector Chennery' handwritten on it, and a
phone number.
"He wants you to ring him. He says it was definitely arson - there was a petrol can on
the landing at the top of the stairs."
Detective Inspector Chennery proved to be a tall man in his fifties, dressed in a smart,
but well-worn, dark grey suit, a new, pale blue tie, and polished black shoes. I decided
that there must be a Mrs Chennery. His face was large, with a jutting chin, a white
moustache - stained yellow with cigarette smoke - and thick, white eyebrows. It was
topped with a pale, shiny bald patch, wrapped in white hair, looking for all the world like
a coral island in the pacific.
"We know it was arson, Miss Bellini," he told me. "The fire was started by pouring
petrol through the letterbox, then igniting it with a petrol-soaked rag. We know this from
the can that was abandoned by the front door. But it is more than that. Whoever did it
knew they were cutting off the only exit, and that makes it attempted murder. Mr
O'Connor said he saw a man leaving the scene; do you have any idea who that could have
been?"
I nodded. "I know a man with a limp, and he has threatened my life."
"Threatened? In what way?"
"By letter, and a phone call." I remembered the menace in Burroughs' voice.
"Can I see the letter?"
"No, it was in the flat. I showed it to several people; I could quote it word for word, if
He shrugged. "I was hoping forensics could have a look at it, analyse it for fingerprints,
that kind of thing. I wish you had reported it at the time."
He stared accusingly at me for a moment, and I flushed. "Sorry," I answered.
"Never mind. Yes, would you write it out for me? It may not be admissible in a
courtroom, but I'd like it on the file. What is the man's name?"
"Gary Burroughs. I was in a relationship with him a few years ago." How much to say?
Should I tell him all the details? I decided to wait.
"Why would he want to kill you?"
"He was a drug dealer. When I ran away from him, I ...."
stole his money?
That would
be a great admission! "I destroyed all his drug stock; flushed it down the toilet. Probably a
thousand pounds worth."
His eyebrows shot up, and he studied my face intently.
"I can see how that might upset him. What was your relationship with him?"
My stomach churned. Would I never be allowed to push the memories into obscurity?
"If I had to choose a word, it would be
slave
. He controlled me - by filling me up with
drugs - then, when I had no self-control, he sold me for sex to his friends. He is an evil
man, Inspector."
Oliver, who had been sitting silently beside me for the whole interview, put his arm
round my shoulders. I leaned in and rested my head against him.
The Inspector rose to leave. "We will set about finding this Gary Burroughs. From what
you've told me, I'm definitely treating this as an attempt on your life. Miss Bellini, please
let us know if you receive any more threats, or any kind of contact from him." The last
line was delivered with another meaningful glare.
I nodded. "I will, thank you, inspector."
Oliver escorted the officer to the door, then returned to my side.
"You ok?" he asked.
I realised that I was trembling. I couldn't answer. I shook my head as the tears began to
fill my eyes. He took me in his arms and held me tightly until the storm passed.
With my pad destroyed, we needed somewhere to stay for a while; not a hotel,
somewhere I could think of as home. I also needed a break. I had been performing and
recording for nearly two years, and felt jaded, resentful even. I told Oberon to give me a
month off, and we went to stay with my dear friends Dolly and Steve at
The Lion In
Winter
. Walking through the door of my old room at the top of the pub was like stepping
into a cool shower on a scorching summer's day; I felt all the tension slip away ... I was
home.
I spent the first day relaxing, walking the streets of Norwich, showing Oliver the sights,
meeting some of my old friends. But the need to sing is never far from me, and that
evening, as soon as the music started, I was joining in from the floor - I wanted to get up
on the little stage and duet with Dolly again. And when I did, it was as though I had never
been away.
It was not like working, it was my way of letting my hair down. All the tiredness of the
past two years left me, and when Oliver and I slipped into bed at the end of the evening, I
was still buzzing.
The next night was a repeat of the first, and the next, and as word spread that I was
home, more people arrived. Each night, I sang with Dolly, or George, or on my own.
Tensions of the past year just slipped from my shoulders as my old friends greeted me and
joined in the songs we all used to sing together. I even spotted Luke Fisher in the crowd -
the Luke who's sister Daisy had opened my mind so unexpectedly. He didn't acknowledge
me, though, and he disappeared soon after I saw him.
The evening progressed. Sometimes I would take a break and sit with Oliver for a while,
before the crowd demanded my presence back on the stage. At some stage, all the free
drinks caught up with me, and I jumped down from the platform and went over to Oliver,
who was sitting where he could see both me and the room - the instinct to protect me
never leaving him. "Just going for a wee," I told him. "I'll only be a minute."
"I'll come with you, anyway." He looked tense. The confined space with so many people
and so much noise was making him jittery. His eyes were never still, flicking around the
room, checking anyone who passed close by me.
As we reached the door that led out of the bar into the corridor beyond, we found Luke
leaning against the wall. He pushed himself away from the wall as we approached, and I
was strangely reminded of the day I met Burroughs for the first time. He had also been
holding up a wall until I arrived.
"Hello, Belinda," he said, standing in the doorway, preventing us passing through. He
had a smile on his face, but there was no warmth in it; his eyes were cold and calculating.
"Hello Luke," I responded cautiously. "How are you?"
"Oh, fine ... fine," he mumbled.
"Good. Look, I can't stop, I have to get to the loo." He made no move.
Oliver stepped around me and stood over the young man. "Step aside, please," he said in
a voice that, though polite, allowed no argument. Luke moved out of the way, and I darted
through, gratefully. As I turned into the door to the ladies, I saw the outer door at the end
of the hallway begin to open, but thought nothing of it.
As with most pubs, the men's urinal at
The Lion In Winter
was in a hut outside, at the
back, where the smell could escape into the night air. But, for the ladies, Dolly and Steve
had created a nice loo indoors, with two booths and a washbasin. I burst in and headed for
the doors.
The nearest cubicle was occupied - someone smoking a joint, by the smell of it - so I
headed for the second, grateful to see it open. But as I was about to enter, the first door
opened behind me, and I heard the rustle of clothing as the occupant stepped out in a
cloud of sweet-smelling smoke.
Then, with a shock, I felt their hand grab my hair, yanking me to a halt. I turned my
head, as far as I could, to see who it was, and found myself inches from the twisted face of
Gary Burroughs.
I gasped, and went to speak, but he punched me, the blow glancing off my side as I tried
to turn. He punched again, this time hitting me in the stomach, a vile torrent of obscenities
gushing from his mouth.
With the air knocked from my lungs, I began to double over, but he dragged me upright
again by my hair and punched me again. As his foul breath and spittle bombarded my
face, I heard a noise like a door slamming in the hallway. I tried to call for help, but had
no breath.
Then, over his shoulder, I saw the door open, and heard that noise again, loud and very
close. Simultaneously, the left side of Burroughs' head seemed to change shape, bursting
open in an explosion of flesh, bone and blood, which spattered against my cheek. His grip
on me loosened, and he folded up, slowly, falling like a leaf to the floor.
Then the walls around me began to swirl, my legs gave way and I collapsed on top of
him. As I felt consciousness slipping away from me, the last thing I saw was Oliver
running towards me, shouting into a walkie-talkie held up to his ear with one hand, and
pushing a smoking gun into a holster under his jacket with the other.
Oliver ran over to my body, tearing at the front of his shirt, ripping off a handful. He
knelt beside me and pressed the white cloth against my belly, where a huge red patch was
oozing.
Blood?
I thought. Then I saw the knife laying on the floor next to Burroughs' right
hand. The bastard had stabbed me!
It was then that I realised that I was not in my body, but floating in the air above it, near
the ceiling, looking down on the carnage laid out on the floor of the wash-room. Under
my inert form, down there, was the equally still shape of Burroughs, a pool of blood
spreading across the floor around his smashed head. Beside me, hovering like a gull on
the breeze was a face I loved.
The voice was just as I remembered it, his face unchanged. "
Burroughs wanted to get
even. You remember when you escaped from the cellar at the Bricklayer's Arms? You
took his cash, and flushed his drugs stash down the toilet? It was like a death sentence to
him. He had no money to pay his suppliers, and no goods to sell to earn any, so they
punished him. You don't want to get on the wrong side of people like that. They smashed
his knees with a hammer
."
I was shocked. "
Oh no! That's awful. I didn't realise anything like that would happen.
"
"
Of course not, you're a good person, you wouldn't have done it if you'd known. But
remember, he chose to mix with those criminals, and he was selling hard drugs to anyone
he could get his claws into. He ruined hundreds of lives, including kids. He screwed up
yours just as badly. The only difference is that you rose above it.
"
"
He did, didn't he? He deliberately got me hooked on drugs so he could control me,
make money out of me. If Oliver hadn't rescued me, helped me get clean, I would never
have got away.
"
Below us, I saw two ambulance-men arrive. After working quickly to stem the flow of
blood from my abdomen, they carefully transferred me, my body, to a stretcher and
carried it out.
The conscious part of me, the part that drifted in the air, seemed to be attached to my
body by an invisible cord, and felt myself being pulled along, passing effortlessly through
walls to stay with it. Joey floated beside me.
In the hallway, someone was sitting on the floor, one hand raised to cover a
bloodstained shoulder. When he looked up to glare at the passing figure of Oliver, I saw
that it was Graham, Maggie's boyfriend - the man I had seen from the bus, walking with
Burroughs. So he had helped Burroughs to find me and set up this ambush.
Two police officers arrived in the corridor. A few words passed between them and
Oliver, then one began to question Graham, while the other entered the toilets. I heard
him gasp as he saw the horrific scene inside.
Joey and I hovered near the ambulance as the stretcher was quickly loaded and the
driver ran to the front and started the engine, then we swooped down and sat together
beside my still body.
With sirens blaring in discordant two-tone, I was carried through the streets of Norwich
towards the hospital. I could feel that my life, the spirit of all I had been, was unravelling
from the cage that had held it. My chest barely moved as each tiny breath kept my heart
beating.