Too scared to go into his or Nicky’s bedrooms, because they were at the back of the house where there was no outside lighting to lift the terrifying darkness, he stood on the landing and gazed at his mum’s door. He wasn’t allowed in her bed since he’d pissed in it that time, but she always stayed over at Julie’s on a Friday night and didn’t come home till Saturday afternoon, by which time Nicky would have got him up and changed the sheets, so she wouldn’t even know he’d been there.
Pushing the door open, he ventured into the room and put the candle down on the bedside table before clambering fully clothed into the bed. Instantly soothed by the warmth of the quilt and the familiar scent of his mum’s hair on the pillow, he closed his eyes and quickly fell asleep.
And if there was one thing Connor was good at, it was sleeping. Nothing could rouse him once he was gone.
Not the creeping heat that always spread out beneath him when he inevitably pissed the bed – sometimes two or three times a night.
Not Nicky picking him up and laying him on the floor while she changed his sheets.
And, tonight, not even the crackling sound of the candle flame licking at the torn fringe of his mum’s bedside lamp.
2
After putting the rubbish out and making John’s tea, Pauline settled back into her chair. Bored by John’s choice of TV viewing and the total lack of conversation, she drifted into a light doze, only to be jerked awake a short time later by the sound of shouting and running footsteps outside.
‘What’s going on?’ she croaked, peering confusedly up at John as he made his way to the window.
‘Sounds like someone’s just smashed a window,’ he told her, pulling the curtain back and pressing his nose against the glass to see what was going on. ‘Looks like next door.’
‘Next door?’ Pauline squawked, jumping to her feet. ‘Sue’s or Irene’s?’
‘Looks like Sue’s. A load of the neighbours are out there gawping.’
Rushing to the front door, ignoring John when he called after her to stay out of it, she ran out to join the crowd that was already gathering on the pavement outside her gate. Gazing up to where all their eyes were trained, she gasped when she saw smoke pouring out through a hole in the centre of Sue’s bedroom window, and bright flames licking at the bottom of the curtains.
Coming out of the house to the right of Pauline’s just then, Irene Murgatroyd self-importantly informed everybody that they weren’t to worry; that her Eddie had called the engines, and they should be here any minute. Exhaling loudly then, as if exhausted by her exertions, she waddled over to Pauline, muttering, ‘What a business, eh?’
‘What’s happened?’ Pauline asked, holding her hair down as the wind whipped it this way and that.
‘Not right sure,’ Irene said, pulling a little silver hip flask out of her dressing gown pocket and taking a sip from it. ‘But it looks like some sort of firebomb.’
‘You’re joking!’ Pauline gasped. ‘How do you know?’
‘I heard the glass smashing when I was getting ready for bed,’ Irene told her. ‘And when I looked out, I saw someone running past, but I couldn’t make out who it was. Then I heard Linda shouting fire, so I come out for a gander, and when I seen the smoke coming from Sue’s window I got my Eddie to phone the brigade.’ Pausing for breath, she shook her head. ‘Good job no one’s in, that’s all I can say.’
‘Sue’s not, ’cos I saw her going out earlier,’ Pauline murmured worriedly. ‘But I could have sworn I heard Connor crying after that. You don’t think—’
‘No, they’re definitely all out,’ Irene said confidently, tightening the belt on her dressing gown. ‘Linda reckons it was dark in there when she come back from bingo at nine. And you know what that Nicky’s like for watching telly when her mam’s out, so there’s no way she’d be sitting in the dark.’
‘I hope not,’ Pauline murmured, glancing past her when she saw two fire engines turning onto the road with their lights flashing. ‘But I really thought I heard him, and I could have sworn I saw someone at the window.’
‘Well, I hope you’re wrong,’ Irene muttered, gazing up at the smoke that was still billowing out of the window. ‘’Cos my Eddie’s already told them no one’s in.’
‘Anyone seen the Jacksons?’ another neighbour called out just then, diverting everybody’s attention to the semi that was attached to Sue’s.
‘Oh, Christ,’ Irene said, giving Pauline a worried look. ‘They go to bed early, them two, so they probably don’t know what’s going on. And Lynne’s room is right next to Sue’s. She’ll die in her sleep if that smoke gets through the wall – they both will.’
Volunteering to go and knock on, Pauline hurried off down the pavement. But just as she reached Sue’s gate, one of the burly firemen who were unravelling the hose ordered her to stay back.
‘The woman on the other side hasn’t come out yet, and she’s got a disabled son,’ Pauline yelled up to him, hoping that he could hear her over the noise. ‘And I’m not sure,’ she went on, pointing at Sue’s house now, ‘but I think someone might be in there.’
‘Any idea how many?’
‘There’s three of them live there, but it’ll just be the two kids at home tonight, if they’re in. I saw their mum going out earlier, and their dad doesn’t live here no more.’
Asking how old the kids were, the officer turned his back on her and relayed the news to his crew at a shout.
Offended by his rudeness after she’d gone to the trouble of alerting him about the kids, but pleased to see that her words seemed to have injected an edge of urgency into proceedings, Pauline went back to Irene, just as one of the crew kicked Sue’s front door in, releasing thick clouds of black smoke into the air.
Clutching dramatically at her friend’s arm, Irene said, ‘Oh, God, I hope Sue’s not in there. That’d be all them kids need after losing their dad.’
‘She went out,’ Pauline reminded her. ‘And Terry’s not dead, so don’t talk like that.’
‘Might as well be for all them kids have seen of him since he took off,’ Irene retorted huffily. ‘And his new one not much older than his own daughter. Wants bloody shooting, he does.’
‘They’re coming out!’ someone on the other side of the road shouted, causing a mini-surge in the crowd around Pauline’s gate as everyone strained to see what was happening.
Paramedics from one of the ambulances that were standing by rushed up to meet the fireman who emerged from the house. Seeing the small body in his arms, Pauline clapped a hand over her mouth.
‘Oh, no, it’s Connor! I
told
you they were in!’
Grabbing at one of the firemen who was rushing past just then, Irene said, ‘Oi, where’s his sister? I hope someone’s going back in there to look for her?’
Just as he was telling her that if anyone else was in there they’d find them, Sue’s bedroom window shattered, sending shards of glass flying out in every direction.
Almost falling over when the fireman gave her a hefty shove back, Irene said, ‘Here, there’s no need for that. I’ll have you for assault.’
‘Do what you want,’ he retorted irritably. ‘But if you lot don’t stop interfering and let us get this contained, the whole block’s gonna catch.’
‘Is the boy all right?’ Pauline called after him as he marched away. Getting no reply, she tutted and turned back to Irene. ‘Think they’d be a bit more civil, wouldn’t you? I mean, it’s not like we’re not entitled to know what’s going on. It’s
us
who’ll be picking up the pieces after they’ve gone.’
‘Makes you think,’ Irene murmured, not even pretending to listen to Pauline as she watched the flames leaping out from the hole where the window used to be. ‘All that money we spend doing our houses up, and,
poof
! It can be gone just like that.’
John had just come out of the house. Wandering up to the gate in time to hear this, he said, ‘That’s what happens when the council skimps on repairs, Reen. They’re nowt but bloody cardboard, these houses.’
‘Oh, don’t say that,’ Irene moaned, taking another slug from her hip flask before crossing herself superstitiously. ‘It’s bad enough having to watch them fetch the boy out without a flicker of life in him, without thinking it’ll be me next. I won’t sleep a wink tonight, John, I really won’t.’ Another sip.
‘You will if you keep knocking that back,’ John said, pointedly eyeing the flask when he got a whiff of whisky. Resting his elbows on the gate then, he glanced contemptuously around at the faces in the crowd. ‘Incredible. You don’t see half these buggers for weeks on end, but first sniff of excitement and they’re out in their droves. Wonder they haven’t fetched their chairs and knitting out.’
‘Do you have to?’ Pauline hissed, digging him in the ribs with her elbow. ‘They’re all worried sick about Nicky, and—’
‘Eh up, cavalry’s arrived,’ he said, cutting her off when he spotted a police car turning into the road. ‘Wonder what they called that lot in for?’
‘’Cos it’s arson, isn’t it,’ Irene informed him. ‘Firebomb, like I told your Paul. But you’d never think anyone would do such a wicked thing when there’s kids in the house, would you?’
‘Don’t you believe it,’ John replied darkly. ‘There’s some proper evil buggers walking these streets, Irene. And you know what they say about crimes in the home, don’t you? There’s more chance of them being committed by them who live there than by a stranger, so think on.’
It wasn’t just John who turned to look now as, across the road, a pretty young woman with a sleek blonde bob and wearing a slate-grey suit stepped out of the passenger side of the squad car.
Oblivious to the interest she was attracting, Detective Constable Jay Osborne headed over to the chief of the fire crew to get an update.
‘Six-year-old boy found at the bottom of the stairs,’ he told her. ‘Paramedics reckon he probably fell, judging by the bruise on his back. According to that lot,’ he went on, nodding towards the crowd outside Pauline’s now, ‘the fifteen-year-old sister’s supposed to be in there with him, but my guys haven’t seen any sign of anyone else yet.’
‘Mum and dad?’ Jay asked.
‘Out, and non-resident,’ he said, adding darkly, ‘And the door was locked with a mortice, so if the girl’s
not
in there someone needs to explain why a little lad like that was locked in on his own.’
Telling him that she would put out an alert in case the girl had escaped before the crew arrived and was wandering around in a state of shock, Jay asked if they’d found any evidence that the fire had been started deliberately, as had been suggested.
‘Neighbours reported hearing a smash and seeing someone running away,’ the crew chief said. ‘And the fire definitely started in that front upper room. But we haven’t managed to get in there yet, because the stairs were well alight by the time we got here. Place is falling down around us; we’ll be lucky to salvage anything. Only good thing is, there’s no gas supply in the area or we really would have trouble.’
Thanking him, Jay asked him to let her know as soon as he had any info about the cause of the fire and to give her a shout if he found the girl before she did. Heading over to the ambulance then, she had a quick word with the paramedics before going over to talk to the crowd.
Electing herself as spokesperson, because she was Sue’s closest physical neighbour – apart from Lynne Jackson and her son, who didn’t count because they’d already been bundled to safety into one of the neighbours’ houses across the road – Pauline told her about how she’d seen Sue going out earlier, and how she’d
known
that something was wrong and wished that she’d followed her instincts and checked.
Sure that it would probably turn out to be nothing specific, because it was amazing how many people experienced a ‘feeling’ about something
after
the fact, Jay asked what had concerned her in particular.
‘Connor crying,’ Pauline said, giving a little shrug as she added, ‘Not that
that
’s all that unusual, as such, because he cries quite a lot anyhow. But it was just a bit odd tonight.’
‘How so?’ Jay asked.
‘Well, I was sure I heard him, but soon as I looked over it stopped,’ Pauline said, feeling a bit like she was reciting from a book because she’d said these same words to so many of her neighbours already. ‘Then I saw there were no lights on, so I thought I’d imagined it,’ she went on, sighing heavily as she gazed back at the house. ‘But obviously I hadn’t, eh?’
‘So, it was dark in there. You didn’t actually see anybody?’
‘It was really dark,’ Linda Myers interjected before Pauline had a chance to reply. ‘I live directly opposite, and there were no lights on up nor down when I got home at nine.’
‘That’s why I thought they were all out.’ Pauline jumped back in, glad that Linda had spoken out, because at least now she wouldn’t be the only one in the firing line when Sue heard they had been discussing her with the police. ‘And that’s too early for Nicky to have gone to bed, because she watches telly for hours when Sue’s out – Irene will tell you that, won’t you, Reen?’
Pushing herself forward, Irene said, ‘Oh, aye. Stops up for hours.’
Jotting all this down in her notepad, Jay asked what time Pauline had seen the mother leaving the house, and if she had any idea where she might have been headed.
‘Quart’ to nine,’ Pauline said without hesitation. ‘But I don’t know where she was going. Sorry.’
‘Probably the same place she goes every week,’ Irene commented scathingly. ‘Down town to pick up men.’
Wanting to gauge if Sue Day had gone out socially tonight, in which case she could be gone for hours, or simply popped out on an errand, Jay asked if anyone had seen what she’d been wearing.
‘I did,’ Pauline admitted reluctantly, aware that she probably sounded like a right nosy old so-and-so for knowing so many details. ‘She had a fairly short blue dress on, and black high heels, and a kind of glittery black jacket.’
Writing this down, Jay’s blue eyes were glinting like ice in the eerie glow of the emergency lights when she looked back up.