‘Thank you,’ I gasped to the young man. He smiled and let me go. I turned back to the fire engine and completely forgot about him.
‘Anyone in there, d’you know, love?’ shouted the stocky fireman who jumped down first from the truck. Others, pouring out of the cab with comic swiftness, started scaling the machine, loosening catches, pulling out hoses.
‘No. There was only me.’ I started to shake again and pulled the coat more tightly around me.
‘’Ere, miss,’ said another fireman, and he draped a blanket round me. Hoses began to jet water on the flames.
A police car arrived. All around the Square lights had come on and people were emerging from their houses or leaning out of windows. Mr Broadbent from the bookshop tapped me on the shoulder and invited me up, somewhat bizarrely, to drink cocoa at his flat. I shook my head.
‘Fran,’ said a voice I knew. I whipped round. ‘Ben.’ I’d never felt so glad to see him. He’d pulled on jeans and a sweater over his pyjama top. I hugged him and his unshaven chin grazed my cheek. We stood, arms round each other and there was no time to think about anything but the present. I was grateful for that.
The vicar and his wife joined the throng, dressed but unkempt, and then the wine-bar owner, who looked as if he hadn’t been to bed yet. A police officer made us all move further back, out of the way of the firefighters, but the fire was quickly losing the battle against the hoses and it was over in no time at all.
Two firemen sloshed through the shop to check that the flames were completely out whilst several others busied themselves with plastic tape to fence off the building. A young policeman asked me a host of questions and filled in a form with slow, careful writing while a paramedic checked me over.
‘Please, can I go in? I need to see…’ I started, still worried about Raphael, but a fireman said, ‘Sorry, love, it’s too hot in there. And you never know, the whole place might come crashing down.’
We watched one of the men bend down to pick up some pieces of something in the doorway. He beckoned to another officer, who walked over to look at it with him, and they both started hunting around. After a while they came over and showed us what they’d found.
‘It’s a firework, miss. Jammed through your letterbox. A nasty Hallowe’en trick. We’ve had one or two like this tonight. Fireworks start earlier every year.’
‘Oh,’ was all I could say, remembering the assault on Mr Broadbent’s shop and all the sinister revellers passing through the Square. It seemed senseless, but I was exhausted now and I couldn’t work it out.
One by one the spectators were moving away. Some, like Mr Broadbent, came up to me, saying how sad they were and offering help. I thanked them all, grateful for the second time in a month, that I had so many good neighbours.
It was only when Sarah Quentin came and put her arm around me that I finally cracked. I cried on her shoulder like a hurt child and she soothed me as she might have done her daughters when they were small.
Ben started to offer me a bed for the night but she interrupted, firmly insisting that I must go to them and stay in their elder daughter’s bedroom. She’d find me some clothes, she said. Mothering was what I needed, so I told the police where I’d be and gave a fireman back their blanket. It was then I realised I was still wearing the stranger’s coat. I looked round for the young man with the gold hair, but he wasn’t there.
‘Come on now,’ said Sarah firmly, so I meekly obeyed, allowing myself to be led away across the garden, with Ben and the vicar several steps behind.
When we reached Ben’s house he said, in a woeful voice, ‘Well, goodbye, then. I’m so sorry, Fran. About your shop–and, well…everything. I mean, I know I haven’t…’ but I cut him off by hugging him again quickly. I couldn’t cope with some eloquent apology right now.
It was three in the morning and I felt wide awake; my nerves were jangling. As I sat in the Quentins’ kitchen nursing a cup of tea, Lucifer crouched on the table, staring at me resentfully. There was no point in going to bed, I thought, but Sarah Quentin must have put something in my tea, because when she ushered me upstairs into a pretty pink and white bedroom where she helped me into a bed warmed by a hot-water bottle, I fell immediately into a deep sleep.
And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him.
Luke
XXII
. 43
My dreams were awful, full of shouting and smoke and demonic laughter. When I awoke it was light, and my hands and face were red and burning. As I held them under the cold tap in the bathroom, I thought of Zac. Somehow I had to phone him, tell him what had happened. My next thought was of Raphael. We couldn’t leave him in the workshop. It probably wasn’t secure.
Sarah was up and making breakfast when I came downstairs in a dressing-gown I found on the back of the bedroom door. I saw from the clock that it was nearly eight.
‘We had a call from Amber,’ she explained. ‘We didn’t want to wake you. Jeremy’s gone to the hostel.’
‘Why the hostel?’ I repeated, more than a little dazed.
‘She was hysterical,’ she said. ‘Someone at the hostel told her about the fire…she thinks it’s something to do with that girl Lisa. Jeremy’s gone to pour oil on troubled waters.’
‘Oh,’ I said. Surely oil was the last thing we needed where fire was concerned, I thought vaguely. ‘He thinks Lisa might have started the fire?’
‘I’m sure Amber’s jumping to conclusions. The police seemed to think it a nasty prank, didn’t they? Now, Fran, let’s go and investigate Fenella’s wardrobe. There should be something in there that’ll fit you.’
The Quentins’ elder daughter was a couple of sizes bigger than me, so I felt slightly ridiculous in her baggy trousers, T-shirt and sweater, but they would have to do for now. It was nine o’clock and I told Sarah I had to go over to the shop to find Zac.
It must have been one of the biggest shocks of his life. His van skewed to a halt outside and I rushed over at once as he jumped out. ‘How the hell did this happen?’ he demanded.
‘Oh Zac,’ was all I could muster, for I was crying again.
He drew me close. ‘I can’t believe it,’ he whispered.
I stumbled out the story, and together we went to look at the ruins of
Minster Glass
.
Other people were stopping to gawp at the burned-out shop. At first sight it was awful, truly awful; a blackened morass of charred wood, broken glass and twisted metal, still smoking slightly in the cool morning air. Someone had taken a brush to the glass on the pavement, piling it all up in the doorway. Zac squatted to pull out bits of Dad’s angel that were sticking up out of the heap, but shoved them back. They were clearly beyond repair. Amber would be devastated.
‘Zac,’ I said in a low voice, ‘can we go round the back? I want to see what the workshop’s like.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘You’re thinking the same thing I am, aren’t you?’ he said. I nodded.
I slotted a key into the back door of the workshop, then discovered I’d left it unlocked after that man had helped me the night before. I wondered again who he was. His coat must be in the rectory somewhere. I should give it back.
We walked into the workshop, where wisps of smoke still hung in the air, and saw that all the surfaces were coated in a fine black dust–but nothing had actually burned. I hardly dared approach Raphael but watched Zac walk over and trace a finger lightly over the glass. He smiled and looked up. ‘He’s fine! He’s really fine. Come and see.’
Like everything else, Raphael lay under a sooty shroud. All it would take to restore him was a soft brush and a good polish; I could see that right away. The relief was overwhelming. Once more, in his turbulent history, the angel had survived.
‘Thank goodness I put this away.’ Zac opened a cupboard and drew out
The Angel Book
.
‘Let’s take a look upstairs.’ I was feeling reckless now. ‘I don’t think the flames got there.’
I started towards the stairs, but he shouted, ‘No! Don’t be a fool. We’ve taken enough of a risk coming in here.’
‘Oh, come on,’ I said, anxious now. ‘I’m sure the fire hasn’t destroyed the main structure.’ Was my tuba OK? And I needed my clothes. The thoughts were tumbling in. What about all the books and papers and Laura’s diary? And the photo of my mother?
Zac marched over and grabbed my arm. ‘Fran, I know you’re my boss but I’m ordering you. You’re
not
to go up there.’
‘All right,’ I said fiercely, shaking off his arm. He looked a little hurt and I felt guilty. ‘Sorry,’ I said, looking around the workshop. ‘It’s just so awful, isn’t it? To think the shop’s lasted a century and a half and then this happens.’ And suddenly I couldn’t be brave any more. Just when I’d thought things couldn’t get any worse–first with Dad, and then Ben–I’d been dealt this blow. It was a mistake to cry. My eyes, already smarting from the smoke, were now streaming and painful.
‘Come on,’ Zac said. We were both coughing by now. ‘Let’s get out of here. We can move Raphael to the garage later.’
We went next door to the café. When she brought our cappuccinos over, Anita sat down with us. ‘On the house today, my loves,’ she said. ‘It’s the least I can do. So tell me how it happened.’
‘I was having some weird dream,’ I said, and stopped. The dream flickered bright in my memory, then died again. ‘I woke up–it must have been the smell of smoke or something. Or if it was a firework–that’s what the police think–perhaps I heard it go off?’
‘Did you realise it was a fire straight away?’
‘Oh yes. The air smelled hot, smoky, and there were strange crackling and roaring noises.’
‘I bet you were terrified,’ Anita said, shuddering. ‘I’d have shrieked the place down if it had been me. Here, I’ll get us some more coffee.’
I told Zac about the golden-haired stranger giving me his coat and preventing my crazy plan to go into the workshop. I’d been too much in shock to think, but I might have died of smoke inhalation. ‘I think my brain had really gone,’ I said ruefully.
‘I’m not sure it’s come back, judging from just now in the shop,’ said Zac.
‘Charming,’ I said, kicking him lightly under the table. He kicked me back and our legs locked for a moment. I felt my scorched cheeks grow hotter still.
‘I could hardly believe it when I got in this morning,’ Anita remarked, bringing more cappuccinos and a couple of pastries, and sliding back into her seat. ‘It shocked the life out of me. You’ve really had it rough lately, what with your dad and everything.’
My dad. It was as though a blade had cut through me.
‘We can’t tell him, Zac,’ I whispered.
‘I know,’ he replied.
By one o’clock we were all back at the vicarage eating Sarah’s home-made leek and potato soup when Jeremy returned. He looked strained and exhausted.
‘The police have only just gone,’ he said. ‘They’ve taken two of the girls.’
‘Lisa?’ I asked.
‘And one called Cassie.’
‘I remember her.’ The pudgy girl with the miserable face and the voice of a child.
‘She’s a friend of Lisa’s. Cassie says she and Lisa were out with a couple of young men last night. One of the boys had some fireworks. They dared Cassie to do it and she did.’
‘But why our shop?’
‘I think Amber’s had it right all along, but not exactly right. Lisa’s been very clear about her dislike for Amber and outspoken about Jo’s little crisis. You’re a friend of Jo’s and Amber’s employer. Perfect motive. The thing is, put Lisa under questioning and she gives up Cassie without a thought. She’s a nasty piece of work. And now Cassie could end up in jail.’
‘That’s terrible.’ I meant it, but my pity for Cassie was limited. I’d almost lost Dad’s shop–
my
shop–and I could have been killed. I was furious. And not a little relieved that someone had been caught. ‘Why’ve they taken Lisa?’
‘They may charge her with being an accomplice. But there’s something else. Another girl at the hostel was so incensed by Lisa’s casual betrayal of Cassie that she revealed that Amber was right about the broken window.’
‘You mean it
was
Lisa who put the paperweight through it?’
‘Except it wasn’t a paperweight. It was a crystal ball that Amber’s mother once gave her, and which vanished soon after Amber moved into the hostel. When you called it a paperweight, she didn’t twig what it really was. She’d given up looking for it. So Lisa is also being questioned for criminal damage. It’s sad. More damaged lives and more bad publicity for St Martin’s.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said rather weakly. ‘I seem to have caused an awful lot of trouble to you.’
‘It can hardly be considered your fault,’ Sarah said kindly.
‘Amber must be very cut up,’ I said. ‘Have the police finished with her?’
‘I think so, yes. They only took Cassie and Lisa down to the station. Effie, the hostel manager, has gone with them. They’re meeting legal representation there.’
‘Shall we go and find her, Zac?’ I said. He nodded, quickly finishing his soup.
When we arrived, Amber was sitting with a member of staff in the living area. She seemed calm enough, but when we took her to see the shop she broke into racking sobs, picking up the bits of Dad’s angel and trying hopelessly to fit them together.
‘Amber, it’s all right, really,’ I said, feeling stronger as I comforted her. ‘Nobody was hurt and the damage could be a great deal worse.’ I hoped, as I said it, that this was indeed the case. To my untrained eye the fire had scorched the inside of the shop but hadn’t burned through the beams. Everything was a disgusting mess, that was all.
We returned to the vicarage. This time, I noticed the coat I’d been lent last night, hanging on the rack in the hall, stinking of smoke. I’d need to get it cleaned before giving it back to my rescuer, whoever he was.
‘I saw an angel last night,’ I said to Amber, thinking it would cheer her up, but she immediately looked so enthralled that I regretted making a thing of it. I explained about the young man who had helped me but then vanished.
‘Do you know anyone round here of that description?’ I asked Zac, but he shook his head. ‘He had an accent,’ I added. ‘Southern Irish, I think.’
‘He could still have been an angel,’ Amber said seriously.
‘He didn’t look angelic. Just…normal, really.’
‘You said his hair was gold. Did you hear any music or anything?’
‘Well, no, I don’t think so, Amber,’ I said, but something was teasing the edge of memory.
‘There
was
something, wasn’t there?’
‘Possibly.’
‘What then? A feather? Or bells? Bells is another thing people hear if they’ve had a visitation.’
‘Definitely no bells.’ But there had been singing. When was that?
‘You must keep an open mind, Fran,’ Amber said earnestly. ‘He helped you when you were in trouble, after all.’
‘If I hadn’t woken up,’ I said thoughtfully, ‘the whole thing might have ended differently.’ And now I remembered my dream–the woman singing and someone calling my name. Had it been him, the golden-haired man? No, I couldn’t make it out. He wasn’t the only untied end.
That evening, Jo came round to the vicarage. The Quentins tactfully left us alone together.
‘I met Jeremy this afternoon,’ she explained, ‘and he told me what had happened. Oh Fran, I’m so glad you’re all right.’ She hugged me, then added, ‘But I’m so sorry about the shop. Jeremy explained about Lisa and Cassie. I haven’t been to work since–you know–so I’d simply no idea that all that had been brewing.’
‘It’s awful, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘Of course, I don’t know how extensive the damage is yet. A structural engineer is going to look tomorrow.’
‘Are you all right here?’ she asked, looking round the Quentins’ kitchen. ‘It’s nice of Jeremy and Sarah to take you in, but why don’t you come and stay with me for a bit?’
‘Thanks,’ I said, ‘but I’m fine here for the moment. Can I think about it?’
‘Of course.’
‘How are you though?’ I’d hardly seen her since the scandal broke; she’d stayed at her parents’ house most of the time.
‘I’m recovering,’ she said. I thought she looked weary and a bit sad. ‘But I’ve told Jeremy I want to resign.’
‘Oh Jo, that’s a shame. You love your job.’
‘I just don’t see how I can go back there. And your fire only makes it worse.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, I suspect your shop was targeted because you were a friend of mine, and Jeremy agrees. I made him tell me.’
‘
And
because I employ Amber,’ I said. ‘Though I suppose you’ll take the blame for making me do that, too. But you’d be wrong. Lisa and Cassie are the culprits.’
‘Yes, but my affair with Johnny has had its effects, hasn’t it? It’s made lots of other people unhappy or unsettled–his wife and family, his Party, everyone at the hostel.’
‘Even so, it wasn’t you who put the firework through my door.’
‘No.’
‘Why are you going to resign?’
‘Because, intentionally or not, I’ve damaged the hostel and its reputation. It wouldn’t feel the same working there, knowing I’d done that.’
I sighed. Put like that, I could see her point.
‘Dominic’s been really sweet,’ Jo added. ‘You know, he came down to Kent a couple of times to see me.’
‘That’s good of him,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry that I didn’t. It’s just been crazy here.’
‘We talked on the phone though, didn’t we? I didn’t feel abandoned, honestly.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘So what are your plans now?’
‘To find another job. Oh, and to catch up with what I’ve missed at choir. Dominic’s going to help me.’