Fire Pattern

PROLOGUE

“When you finally set yourself alight,” Maeve Starzynski said, “don’t come crying to me.”

“Very funny,” her father replied, vigorously brushing flecks of glowing tobacco from the front of his cardigan. He had been smoking his oldest briar, the one with the green insulating tape around the stem, when a sudden cough had sent ash spouting from the bowl.

“I’m not trying to be funny. Smoking is a disgusting habit. All the doctors say it’s bad for your health.”

“They’re talking about cigarettes—the pipe is different.” Art Starzynski smiled in his special infuriating way, lowering his eyelids to screen off any sign of opposition to his views. “The pipe is good for a man. People who smoke pipes live longer than people who don’t smoke at all.”

“Yeah—because they poison the rest of us off.”

Her father’s eyes were almost closed, Buddha-smug. “Coffee,” he said pleasantly. “Nice and hot, nice and fresh, and I don’t want instant.”

“Oh, I wish you would burn to death,” Maeve snapped, not hiding her exasperation as she strode out of the room and went through to the kitchen at the rear of the house. Her father was only sixty, but he assumed the attitudes and made the demands of somebody much older, seeming to revel in the infirmity which had overtaken him a month earlier.

Maeve was as quiet as possible when preparing the coffee and setting out two mugs—banging crockery around was too obvious a way of expressing resentment—and while the water was coming to the boil she stood at the window and breathed deeply, forcing herself to relax. The news from Doctor Pitman about her father’s X-ray tests had been unexpectedly good, suggesting that his abdominal pains resulted from nothing more than some vague colic. His medication was bound to conquer the problem in a day or two, then she would be able to get back to her job and resume a normal life.

Keep thinking about that side of it, she told herself. Be positive!

While she was waiting for the coffee to finish percolating she became aware of a sweetly heavy smell of burning drifting into the kitchen. She guessed that her father was, as occasionally happened, experimenting with an exotic new brand of tobacco. She poured the coffee, set the two mugs on a tray and carried it towards the front room. The sweetish odour grew overpowering as she moved along the hall and now she could actually see a light blue haze in the air—a first intimation that something out of the ordinary might be taking place.

“Dad?” Maeve opened the door to the sitting room and gasped with shock as she saw that it was filled with blue smoke. Dropping the tray, she ran into the room, fully expecting to see an armchair on fire. She had heard how quickly some modern furniture could burn and also knew how vital it was to get people clear of the fumes without delay.

There was no sign of a blaze, nor could she see her father anywhere.

It was difficult to make out anything through the billowings of the curious light blue smoke, but it seemed to Maeve that there was a blackened area of flooring near the television set. She went towards it, gagging on the sickening sweet stench in the air, and her hands fluttered nervously to her mouth as she saw that what she had taken to be a black patch was actually a large hole burned clear through the vinyl and underlying boards. Several floor joists were exposed, their upper surfaces charred into curvatures, but—strangely—there was no active flame. In the floor cavity, supported by the ceiling of the utilities room below, was a mound of fine grey ash.

“Dad?” Maeve looked about her uncertainly, fearfully, and her voice was barely audible. “Dad, what have you been…?”

At that instant her slippered foot touched a slightly yielding object on the floor. She glanced downwards—still an innocent, with thresholds of terror still to cross—and when she saw what was lying there she began to scream.

The object, easily recognizable by its signet ring, was her father’s left hand.