“Now
Marjorie, are you sure you won’t go to the hospital with this gentleman here.
We’ll make sure your house is looked after.”
“Young
man,” she said, flint now in her eyes, “I’m a trained nurse so I know there’s
nothing whatever the matter with me. Now, I’ve made up my mind to stay and I’ve
got some clearing up to do.”
She
shrugged off the blanket, folded it precisely and handed it to the paramedic
who raised his eyebrows at Slowey, clicked his pen and walked away. Even
without the blanket, she remained stooped, shoulders gently rounded under some
weight only she could feel.
“Let’s
start again. I’m Ken Slowey and I’m investigating this fire.” He offered his
hand, which she took and shook briskly before clasping her hands together
firmly at her waist, denying them the chance to flutter away.
“I
made the phone call. I assumed you wanted a statement from me. I can’t tell you
much but I know these things are important. I could hear them thumping around
through the walls you know, so I dialled 999 and here you all are.” She spoke
in breathless bursts, meeting his eyes fleetingly and sniffing away tears.
“And
I’ve been told not to go back into my house until it’s been declared safe,” she
continued as Slowey opened his mouth to think.
“Is
there a neighbour you’re on good terms with?”
Her
jaws worked beneath skin that was slack and lifeless in the harsh light. She
produced a crumpled handkerchief from the sleeve of a black and gold cardigan,
thrown on in a hasty ensemble with turquoise tracksuit bottoms and pink slippers.
“No,
I don’t think so,” she said.
She
remained adamant she didn’t need to be taken anywhere, nor should anyone be
summoned to look after her. She didn’t want food, tea, sleep or shelter. She
certainly didn’t want to hear the sincere murmur of sympathy that professionals
of Slowey’s ilk reserved for those they found wretched and pitiable. She
conceded that she could summon her daughter if need be, but wasn’t to be
dispensed with until she had said her part. At a time convenient to her, she
might accept a lift to the hospital to make sure the staff were caring for
Jeremy and Anthony by her standards rather than theirs. Didn’t he have a car
they could talk in? She’d like to see where her rising council tax payments
were going.
“Where
should I begin?” she mused, once Slowey had scooped the fallen sun visor, fast
food wrappers, dried chewing gum and crumpled statement paper from the
passenger seat of the Fiesta.
“Well,
I can guide you up to a point, but it’s better if the account comes from you
with a minimum of prompting. Certainly makes the lawyers happier.” Slowey did
his best not to patronise, imagining he was telling off one of his kids for a
lapse in table manners while convincing them they really were old enough to
know better.
“I’m
sorry, officer. Very rude of me to think aloud.” She raised her left hand to
her forehead, flicked away a strand of hair, and gripped the seatbelt where it
hung at her shoulder, still watching the two houses. “I mean, I meant it
rhetorically.”
“Yes.
Yes, I knew that.” Slowey beamed a deliberate smile at her and smoothed down an
empty page of his notebook.
“Well,
I know it was 1235, because I looked at the bedside clock. I don’t know how
accurate that old thing is. It’s got glowing red numbers and it’s a Philips,
don’t know the model number. Do you need to know that?”
Slowey
shook the image of an antique teas-maid from his head, forced his face blank,
his mouth into a straight line, taking in Marjorie’s demeanour: the flitting of
her eyes, the flaring of her nostrils, the twitching of her mouth, the
fluttering of pulse and windpipe in her neck, the way her left hand seemed to
unconsciously pull on the seatbelt strap, drawing a dull metallic click from
the inertia reel.
“I’d
been reading so I wasn’t properly asleep and it was, I mean, it is ever so hot.
Even with Anthony in the other room. And I don’t sleep properly anyway because
he needs me at odd hours, with his condition. And even Jeremy is restless in
this weather and he does get excited. I’m last to drop off and first up.”
She
laughed, a flash of joy which faded like a snowflake on a barbecue. Slowey
nodded and made his lips crinkle with appreciation, using the gesture to stifle
a yawn triggered by a glance at the clock.
“Anyway,
I don’t know which I noticed first or whether I noticed them all at the same
time. I don’t think the smell of smoke by itself would have disturbed me. They
both smoke like chimneys and they seem to have barbeques every other night in
the summer and it gets through the windows and sometimes through the cavities
in the walls.
“But
there was a glow outside, like the sun was overhead, and a sound like the sea
on a stony beach and smoke everywhere. We have good walls but I could hear them
too, next door I mean, steps thumping up and down the landing, shouting and
wailing.”
She
paused, eyes reddening, failing to find the handkerchief in either sleeve.
Slowey found a substitute on the back seat, tissues bearing the golden arches
but clean enough. She touched both sides to her nose, failed to find a surface
that didn’t smell of cooked meat, took the plunge and blew.
“The
yelling wasn’t as loud as sometimes. Didn’t hear a man. Anyway, what is it the
fire brigade say? Get out, call out, stay out or something. I’m afraid I did
things in the wrong order. I have a phone next to the bed you see, and I didn’t
think it would work outside. It’s cordless but it’s very temperamental.
“My
daughter bought it for me when we got burgled, oh, nearly five years ago now.
And something might happen to Anthony. But you can’t walk too far away without
it going all crackly. Not that you need to know all that.” She failed to find a
smile to match the puzzled one worn by Slowey, and drew a deep breath.
“So
I dialled 999 and they asked me which service so I said fire, of course, which
was rude of me but I was a bit worried by then. I told the lady and she heard
me coughing and wheezing because I’d walked into Jeremy’s bedroom and was
trying to talk to him and tell him to calm down and help his mummy like a good
boy but there were great thick ribbons of smoke coming through the brickwork
and he wouldn’t listen at first but I had to answer the lady’s questions and
she wanted the postcode of all things.
“So
I told her while Jeremy helped me get his dad down the stairs – when I say
helping, I mean leading, keeping out of the way, which is the same thing with
him. We were making such a racket so I don’t know what the lady thought, but
she said someone was coming and I should get everyone out and stay out.”
“There
doesn’t appear to be too much damage to your lungs, Mrs Jennings.”
A
frown flashed across her forehead and she allowed herself a smile that didn’t
touch her eyes. Then she squinted as if searching for a thread she’d dropped.
“So
there we were, the three of us, standing in the street half-dressed, Jeremy
still happy and sad at the same time like he is when he’s overexcited, me
fretting about Anthony with his breathing. We’d had to leave his oxygen inside,
you see. Oh, my God! Perhaps I should have told the firemen. It could have
exploded!”
She
held her mouth open, her cheeks dappling.
“Well,
the houses are still there so we shouldn’t worry about it now. I’ll mention it
to the firemen in a little while. You were saying?”
“Well,
next door was just covered in flames and then the man in the football shirt
came running from nowhere, saying he’d seen someone still inside and kept
pointing at the upstairs window and shouting but I couldn’t see because it was
just a curtain of fire. But he went so close and I couldn’t decide if he was
screaming because he’d seen someone or he was on fire himself. Then the fire
engines turned up and I suppose you know the rest.”
Slowey
finished writing his sentence and allowed a silence to fill the car,
momentarily thinking about breakfast, sleep and Dale Murphy, in that order.
“Thanks for that account, Mrs Jennings. Couldn’t have been better if we’d
rehearsed it.”
“They’re
dead, aren’t they?” Her shoulders sagged and tears ebbed along the creases in
her face and onto the knuckle pressed against her teeth. “I’ve lied,” she spat,
the fine spray merging with the dimples of the car’s cheap trim. “I’m weak and
stupid and now they’re dead because of me.”
Slowey
goggled, glanced at his notes and prodded his wilting brain into recalling what
he’d said to her. Then, as if he were stalking some twitchy prey, he lowered
his voice to a whisper and inched slowly towards her.
“Let’s
have the truth then, Marjorie. We can’t bring them back, but we can still help
them. I’m going to stay here and look after you but let’s have the truth.”
He
slid his notebook into the foot-well as if he were surrendering a gun. She
nodded, shoulders hunched, and opened her mouth to speak but found only thick
sobs. Slowey draped a hand over her shoulder, but the jagged bones neither
flinched nor yielded. Then something flexed inside her and her spine was
straight again, her chin high and she was blowing hard into the tissues.
“I’m
alright, it’s alright.” She opened her eyes wide to show him that the
storm-clouds had blown over. “I didn’t particularly like them, that’s all. I
know that sounds silly. But I heard some footsteps on their gravel, five
minutes or so before I knew there was a fire. I heard a sort of sloshing noise
and something like tearing and feet running away. I could have looked, could
have done something, anything, but I didn’t. I just thought, they’ll be having
a fight or a party or being a nuisance and I won’t be disturbed, not this time.
And now look. I could have phoned someone.”
A
bark from the world outside punctured their bubble. Slowey glared at the
gawping men and the dog that seemed to be stalking his car. Marjorie, voice
dwindling, was holding her breath and twisting to follow the dog’s orbit.
Gretel
bounded from the van and into the cul-de-sac, eyes glossy with joy and head
held high, the better to drink in the sights, sounds and, most vitally, smells.
Her new, bespoke shoes, the latest in canine kevlar, scuffed the pavement, but
this didn’t stop her tail from flickering fast enough to make her wobble from
side to side. As she drew close to number thirteen and the history of the blaze
changed from mere odour to explosion of sensation, she cast longing glances at
her handler and tugged at the lead to make him understand her joy.
Harkness
looked on from his perch on the footstep of a fire engine. He’d discarded the
protective gear and tried and failed to restore order to his suit, which had
become a coordinated set of sweat-sodden rags. Swigging from a bottle of warm
water, he raised a hand to acknowledge a nod from the dog handler. He’d
briefed McKay and needed this opportunity to watch, think and remain conscious.
The
dog, introduced to Harkness as a Spaniador, was a sleek, black missile of
curious energy. As gregarious as one parent and as frantic as the other, the
breed had proved ideal for the sport of sniffing out all manner of lethal
substances, from cocaine hidden under windowsills to unleaded petrol
unwittingly carried away on the hands and clothing of arsonists.
Off
the lead now, and at a gesture from the handler, the dog swept the driveway,
tail swinging like a metronome and head down, nose hoovering up and filtering a
panoply of chemicals. The snuffling intensified at the doorstep and in the
hallway, and she retraced her steps and repeated the exercise before standing
erect in the door frame and issuing a resounding bark that must have been
borrowed from a bigger dog.
A
tickle behind the ears was gratefully received, but the hoped for snack or toy
was not forthcoming. The dog was coaxed back onto the driveway and invited to
track the odour backwards. For long minutes, she found hope in every displaced
pebble, every drowned weed, then an invisible cord dragged her onto the
pavement. She circled and weaved, then turned right and moved slowly towards
the end of the cul-de-sac.
Harkness
stood and joined the two firemen, all of them breathing softly as if any sound
might disturb this delicate instrument. The dog paused at the gate of number
twelve, glanced down the driveway, took one short, hard breath and barked once,
twice. Harkness felt the blood pounding in his temples and dared to imagine
that the case could be this simple and this grotesque. He trotted after the
firemen, for a second failing to understand one’s smirk and the other’s slowly shaking
head as something let loose a banshee howl full of spite and menace.
The
dog barked again but, at a command from its handler, sat and ignored the
provocation. The cat on the driveway of number twelve continued to arch and
fizz as if glued to a live rail. Then, perhaps recognising something in
Harkness’s eyes, it tucked in its tail and ran to the back of the house, a
marvel of grace and stealth but for the frantic jingling of the bell on its
flea-collar.
The
dog was urged away from the gate and encouraged to once more scour the ground
for any whiff of accelerants, that magic trigger that would win her approval,
food and play. Harkness fell into step with McKay, willing the quaking in his
chest to subside.