A Lovely Way to Burn

Twenty-Four

Stevie had passed other fires on her journey, distant orange glows that had reminded her of Guy Fawkes Nights of her early childhood, the smell of rotting leaves, burning wood and petrol, the thrill of sanctioned danger. She had been scared of fireworks, had held her mother’s hand fast and refused to go near the front of the crowd for fear of flying embers.

The bonfire blocking her way was as high as any her local council had organised. There were figures moving around the blaze but the fire’s glow was too bright to make out their detail. They might have been trying to guard the road, or raze it to the ground. One of them peeled away from the group and walked towards her car. The firelight illuminated the smears of blood and fingerprints on the passenger window. Stevie remembered the way the strange girl and her companion had tried to push it open. She felt in her bag for the knife she had taken from home and laid it in the shadows of the passenger seat.

The figure made a circling gesture with his hand, indicating that she should turn her car around and drive away. Stevie stayed where she was. The satnav image Iqbal had printed showed that Melvin Summers’ street was a dead end. This was her only way in.

The figure stood still for a moment. She could see that it was a man now, though his features were hidden by a scarf tied around his nose and mouth, like a bandit in an old cowboy film. The man was short, his body square and stocky. His stance was less confident than the fox’s. The creature had seemed to challenge her; the stranger looked hesitant, despite the stick in his hand. Stevie switched off the headlamps so that the man could see her face. She scrolled the window down a smidgen and turned off the engine.

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she whispered.

It was as if the man heard her. He took a few tentative steps forward, stopped about a foot away from the passenger window and shouted, ‘This road is under lockdown. Turn your vehicle around and go away.’

The formal words sounded stilted, as if they belonged to an unfamiliar script the stranger was following. Now that he was closer Stevie could see that what she had taken for a stick was actually a metal bar. She wondered where you would find such a thing.

‘I’m here to visit someone.’ She leant across the passenger seat, resting a hand on the hilt of the knife, and raised her voice. ‘Melvin Summers. He lives in this street.’

‘I’m sorry,’ the man said, shaking his head, ‘but there’s no coming and going from here, love.’

His voice was muffled by the scarf tied around his face. It was hard to guess his age without seeing his features, but the leather jacket he was wearing was ten years out of fashion, the body beneath it broad and running to fat.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Everyone beyond this line is healthy. We want to keep it that way.’

The man was still keeping his distance, and Stevie wondered if the improvised mask was intended to block infection rather than hide his features.

‘What happens if someone inside your line gets sick?’

‘We’ll cross that bridge if we get there.’ The stranger paused, as if considering his answer, and added, ‘There’s a quarantine centre in the primary school.’ He pointed to somewhere beyond her car, out into the darkness.

A second man stepped beyond the glow of the fire. He was taller than the first, thin and rangy, and carrying a baseball bat.

‘Are you a journalist?’

The newcomer had a football scarf wrapped around his mouth and nose. It made him look like a terrorist glimpsed on a CCTV camera, an already dead man, located after the fact.

‘I just want to visit Mr Summers. He lives here. He’s a dentist. His wife died recently, his wife and his little girl.’

‘I remember him.’ The baseball bat hung loosely in the second man’s hand. ‘He’s not a dentist no more, jacked it in after his missus topped herself.’

‘Does he still live in the street?’

‘No, love.’ The squat man rested the end of his metal bar against the ground and leant his weight against it. ‘He lives in the boozer, said he was spending his savings on drinking himself to death. The sweats would be a blessed relief if you ask me.’

Now that they were talking the men seemed more relaxed, as if they had decided she posed no threat. Stevie gave them the smile that had won her countless sales.

‘You seem pretty organised. Is there any way to find out if he’s in your quarantine zone?’

‘It don’t make no difference if he is or if he ain’t.’ The man with the baseball bat sounded defensive and she guessed they hadn’t carried out a census of their small kingdom. ‘No one gets in. That’s the rule.’

‘I’ve had the sweats. I’m immune.’ She smiled again. ‘Won’t you let me through? It’s important.’

The man with the baseball bat took a step forward and for an instant she thought he might be about to name a price she wouldn’t want to pay. But the man with the metal bar straightened his shoulders and put a hand on his companion’s arm.

‘Sorry, love. Official advice is to stay at home, have contact with as few people as possible, and that’s what we’re making sure happens. We’re just doing our best to protect our properties and our families. You should go home too. It won’t do you no good to go wandering around at night, even if you have had the sweats. There are some funny people about.’

Stevie thought he might have cast a look at the man standing next to him, but if he did, it was so fleeting she couldn’t be sure.

‘Where does Mr Summers drink?’

‘The Nell Gwynne, back the way you came and then first on the right.’ The tall man swung his baseball bat to and fro, a slow-moving pendulum. ‘He’s more than likely there.’

‘Leave it alone, love,’ the smaller man said. ‘It’s after midnight and Nellie’s isn’t a place for a woman on her own, not tonight.’

Stevie put the car into gear. She saw the man armed with the baseball bat take a bottle of spirits from the pocket of his jacket, as if talk of pubs had made him thirsty. His companion took a step forward, shouting to make himself heard over the noise of the car engine.

‘Even if you find Summers, he’ll be too far gone to know you’re there.’

Stevie turned the car around and drove in the direction of the pub.