Stone Cold Red Hot

Chapter nineteen

“Call the fire brigade,” Carl yelled and Doyle spoke into his radio.

I turned to Mr Poole, he had a look of despair on his face.

“Oh, God,” I said.

“I’ll get some water,” he said.

More missiles followed, they were coming in waves. I pushed my way through to reach the police, I was jostled on the way and someone tried to trip me up. It was uncanny how they all seemed to know I wasn’t part of the mob.

“The engines won’t be able to get through,” I shouted to the police, “they keep blocking the road up.”

Doyle scowled at me but Carl Benson’s partner nodded and got back into their car. He reversed it up the Close.

Another bottle smashed against the front of the house, below the boarded up window and burst into flames. The paint on the door was bubbling and the small frosted glass panel near the top exploded with the heat. The glass landed with a tinkling sound. The stench of petrol filled the air.

The fire lit up the faces of the crowd. People were jostling each other, calling and cheering, getting drunk on the spectacle. My stomach twisted but I ignored the fear and concentrated on the practical. Water.

I pushed my way back and met Mr Poole in his hall-way. He had a large, black bucket of water. I left my bag there and took it from him, it weighed a ton. I staggered into the road with it, ignoring the man who pushed me deliberately. They wouldn’t let me through, faces turned twisted and sneering, they swore at me. I was hemmed in, my throat tightened with rising panic. PC Benson spotted me and forced his way through to meet me.

“I’ve got water,” I yelled.

He heard me and managed to forge a pathway through the mob to meet me by shouting, “Clear the way, let us through, mind your backs, move back.” People moved aside slowly and with great reluctance but they did actually let us past. The water slopped over the edge of the bucket and drenched my legs and feet. I reached PC Benson and he took it from me, pushed back towards the house and hurled it at the fire. The flames parted and some died, it looked as though the remaining ones were dwindling as the petrol was consumed.

He handed me back the bucket and I went for more. A woman turned to me her face bright with spite. “Nigger lover, slag, fuck off you nigger lover.”

Doyle spoke into a megaphone. “Clear the area, clear the area now.”

The crowd fell about shouting and swearing. One of the Brennan twins climbed up on a car further down the road, pulled down his jeans and bared his bum at the police. I saw Doyle use his radio again.

Mr Poole handed me a watering-can and I passed him the bucket. “Can’t find anything else.”

I struggled back with the watering can. The surface of the door was cracked and distorted and the frame charred but it had stopped burning. The flames were still licking up below the lounge window but I could get near enough to pour water over the plywood which was beginning to smoke. A stone smacked against the wall beside me and as I turned another hit above my head with a crack. A ripple of outrage made my cheeks burn.

I crouched and ran to the police car. Johnny sat there grim faced. I thought about the camera but reasoned that with two police as witnesses to all that was going on they wouldn’t need a video as well. The crowd began to clap, faster and faster and to shout something I couldn’t make out. Would this have happened if Mandy hadn’t been sick? If the council had acted more quickly?

There was a roar from someone and then a battery of bottles, lumps of wood, half-bricks and clods of earth came over. A whoosh and a thump which rocked my belly as a petrol-bomb exploded against the upstairs window, glass shattered and the pane collapsed in. Immediately after another hit the roof washing flames across the tiles. Other things were thrown at the window, one looked like a lump of burning cloth, it reached the curtains of the bedroom and they flared alight.

A beat. Nothing moved but the tongues of fire. I froze. Boom! The thump of the explosion blew away the remnants of the curtain and fragments and glass and lit the window in a flash of intense light. Strips of blackened curtain, dripping with flames, billowed down to the ground.

“Jesus,” shouted Carl. He ran up to the front door and began to lunge against it, using his shoulder. Three or four times and it didn’t budge.

He looked back at PC Doyle. “Come on,” he yelled.

Doyle looked spooked. His cocky assurance unsteadied by the savage turn of events. “The brigade’ll be here any minute,” he shouted. “Leave it, Bennie. They’ll sort it out, they’ve got the apparatus.”

“There’s three kids in there,” I told him, “you can’t just leave them.”

Doyle turned away, huddled over his radio and talked urgently into it. Carl Benson looked stricken. He hurled himself at the door again to no avail. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Johnny slipping out of the passenger door of the police car. I thought he was making a run for it. But he was risking a lot with the mob so close. I willed him to get away safely. Doyle couldn’t see him. Another brick hitting the house distracted me, more followed, they were aiming at Carl Benson now. He put his hands up to protect his face.

“Try the back,” I yelled and ran after him round the side of the house to the back garden. I slipped on the way, my shoes full of water. My fake glasses fell off and I cracked them with my hand as I landed. I felt someone grab my arm and turned, ready to wrestle free, but it was Johnny.

“Y’alright?”

“Yes,” I struggled to my feet.

The garden was unkempt, overgrown grass and brambles, silvered in the strong moonlight, caught at our feet as we hurried after Carl. The hoarse screams and cat-calls of the crowd were muffled too but their message of hatred was all too clear. Smoke plumed up from the roof and drifted our way but otherwise there was no sign of the fire. Carl kicked at the door, three or four times. He ran back and Johnny had a go too. My teeth were clenched together tight as I willed the lock to give. They took turns kicking and shouldering it and finally the wood split across and the frame splintered. Another kick from Carl and the door skewed off it’s hinges and fell dangling at the side of the entrance.

There was darkness within. We stepped directly into the kitchen. I could smell the sharp fumes of petrol and oily smoke. I braced myself for the sound of screams or cries but heard nothing beyond the roaring off the fire upstairs and popping and banging sounds. Where were they? Oh, god, where were they?

Carl rushed ahead. “Carl, wait,” I yelled but he paid no attention. I grabbed Johnny’s shoulder. “Wait,” I repeated. The sink was just by me and above there were thin cotton curtains at the window. I ripped these down and turned the tap full on, soaking them and myself into the bargain. I shoved one at Johnny and tied the other round my nose and mouth. I pulled off the wig first, the false hair was slippery and I wanted the cloth to stay on.

There was an explosion then, loud and shocking, and a short scream. I didn’t know where Carl had gone. Johnny set off down the hall that led to the stairs. There were two rooms off it. I could just see the doors in the gloom. I opened each and called inside. No movement, no answer. I couldn’t see but I knew I shouldn’t turn the lights on. Were they in there but hiding from us? Thinking we were the ones out to get them? I tried to listen, to sense if anyone was crouching silent below a table or behind the couch. Where are you? My mind screamed and my heart raced in my chest. I found the bottom of the stairs, now I could see flames coming and going on the landing but mainly smoke, rolling in clouds before me. It became dense quickly. I crawled up the stairs keeping as low as I could. My eyes stung and watered, I felt the smoke locking my throat up. I was drowning. Another explosion sent a ball of flames the length of the landing, briefly illuminating the area. I saw Johnny’s trainers disappear into a doorway. The noise was horrendous, and the toxic stench of burning plastic reached me. I tried to follow but I could no longer breathe. My lungs were sticking together, my balance going. I pushed off the wall and tumbled down the stairs. My heart was thundering. I crawled to the back door and gulped in air then returned, holding my breath and I pulled myself up the stairs. Where were they?

I took the first door again, just inside I stumbled over legs. Jeans. Johnny. So hard to see. No air to speak. Heard him choking, vomiting. Pulled at his legs. He shuffled my way. Another sound, a child’s cough. In his arms, the toddler. Out the door, we wriggled, slow, painful. Flames nibbled along the carpet, caught at the bottom of my leg, the nylon melting and sticking fast. Johnny yelped. Hurt too. Had to get out, get out fast. Felt for the first stair, yanked us closer, no air. Buzz of darkness at the back of my skull, swimming closer. Pushing Johnny, tumbling down, bump, bump, bump. The child cries. Can’t find the door. Where’s the door gone?

“Bennie?”

“Take them out.”

Voices, hands lifting me up.

Outside, gulping for air and there is none. Then a mask on my face and my panic subsides. An ambulance. The people calm and steady. Johnny on a stretcher. The child, on the paramedics knee, pulling at her oxygen mask, her face streaked black, her clothes thick with soot.

A fireman approaches us, huge in his gear.

“There are others inside?”

I nod. Remove the mask to speak, my voice is pathetic, and I can’t say more than a couple of words without coughing. “There’s a baby and a little boy, their mother, and a policeman.”

He thanks me and runs off.

The ambulance was parked beside the police cars, in the middle of the road. I sat just inside, the back doors were open. The crowd had melted away. Neighbours remained, worried faces, sharing cigarettes and quiet conversations, coats pulled tight. I could see Darren, his face upset and wobbly standing beside his mother.

The moon was glorious, high, bright as neon.

Someone touched my arm. Mr Poole.

“You OK?” His eyes glistened.

I nodded. Clamped my mouth tight to hold the tears.

One of the engines was running foam into the upstairs window. A second ambulance arrived. The crew began to get out stretchers and blankets.

“We’ll be off in a minute,” the paramedic said. “Take you for a check at the A&E, get those burns dressed.” The child on her lap whimpered. I reached across and stroked her back. Apart from the filth of the fire she appeared unhurt.

“Is he OK?” I croaked, meaning Johnny.

“Yes, he’ll be fine. There’s burns to his arm and his side, we keep him lying down so there’s less stress on the injuries.”

“The bastards,” I whispered.

“You know, when the fire brigade arrived they stoned them. Want shooting, whole bloody lot of them,” she said.

More police had arrived and a few of them clustered round the patrol cars. I could see PC Doyle, hands on hip looking this way and that as though he was lost and Carl Benson’s partner talking to a colleague and gesturing angrily.

Johnny turned and raised himself up on one elbow. I saw his jaw tighten but he disguised the pain pretty well. What made him so brave? There he was, under arrest by a bigoted cop, surrounded by a mob of racists and rather than sneak off and drive away he’d dived into a burning house. “They got them?” he asked.

The paramedic climbed out the van, the child in her arms. “There’s someone coming out now.”

I strained to see. A cluster of firemen emerged from the side of the house carrying a stretcher chair bearing Mrs Ahmed with an oxygen mask over her face. She was wrapped in a blanket, she had nothing on her feet, the scarf on her head was blackened. They brought her to the ambulance beside ours. She was completely dazed. I could see now that she clutched her baby to her chest.

“We need to look at the baby, see if he’s alright,” one of the ambulance crew knelt crouched down to try and get to the infant. I stared. There was no movement. The baby’s dead, I thought. She knew it and she didn’t want to admit it yet. A ball of emotion clogged my throat. Then the baby stirred, its head shifted to the side and it gave a harsh cough. The paramedic sat back on his heels and released the breath he’d been holding.

“We’ll just give him some oxygen too, that’s it, lift his head.” Mrs Ahmed didn’t respond. She sat passively while they set up the baby’s mask. The toddler spotted her mother and wriggled in the paramedics arms. She talked gently to the child who only cried louder.

The toddler cried again, holding her hands out for her mother. The woman took her over. The little girl stood to the side of the chair, put her head in her mother’s lap. Mrs Ahmed moved one hand from the baby to rest on her daughter’s head but she continued to gaze into the distance.

“The baby’s doing remarkably well,” said one of the paramedics to his colleague, “but I don’t like the look of the mother.”

“We can take all these in now,” said the woman, including the Ibrahims along with Johnny and I.

“What about the little boy?” I asked. “And Carl, the policeman.”

“We don’t know,” she said.

“Please, can you find out?”

She walked over to one of the firemen and they talked for a couple of moments. I exchanged glances with Mr Poole who waited beside me. I saw the stretchers being taken round to the house.

She came back, her face solemn. “I’m sorry,” she said, “the lads did all they could.”

In the silence that followed I heard the roar of denial deafening in my ears, felt the swell of despair surge up from my guts, my scalp grow taut, my head swim. I moved the mask aside, covered my eyes with my good hand and let the tears leak out. That little boy. No. Oh god, no. And Carl, who’d given his life trying to save him. A good lad, Mr Poole had called him. A good lad. Not the sort you came across often enough in the police force. Johnny lay back on the stretcher and closed his eyes tight. Mr Poole placed his hand on my shoulder and squeezed.

“I’m sorry,” I spoke to Mrs Ahmed a little later, “your boy.” She was oblivious, in deep shock. She must have known already. She sat still as stone, one hand stroking the little girl’s hair, the other still enfolding her baby.

I turned to Mr Poole, “And Carl…”

He shook his head, his soft jowls trembling with the motion, he rubbed at his face with his hands.

“We couldn’t see anything, it was so confusing, the smoke and the noise. I didn’t know where any of them were. If I’d known which room…”

“You did everything you could,” said Mr Poole. “Just like Carl. He didn’t have to go in there, none of you did. People will remember him for that.”

“A hero?” My voice wobbled dangerously. “I’d rather he was alive.”

“Of course, so would I. ‘Happy the land that has no heroes’,” he quoted. “But if Carl had made it maybe they wouldn’t have,” he gestured towards the woman and her children. “He did his job, more than his job. When I talk to his mother that’s what I’ll tell her, that he was the best, his humanity took him in there, into that fire. He cared. It’s right to be proud of that.”

I was glad that Mr Poole knew Carl’s mother and would be able to describe to her all the events of that night, tell the story over and over, answer her questions. And Mrs Ahmed, who would talk with her? With a jolt I remembered her husband.

“Mr Ibrahim! They must get him, tell him. He’s at work.”

Someone called a policeman over and I told him about Mr Ibrahim, my words punctuated by coughing. “It’s in Chorlton somewhere.”

“Heaven’s Bridge,” supplied Mr Poole, “High Lane.”

“Thanks, we’ll get someone round there.”

Gradually we were seated in the ambulance, Mr Poole retrieved my bag for me and several different people made notes of our names and addresses.

Then they closed up the doors and as we drove away I could see the house through the small window, door charred, the blackened window frames gaping in the dark. The fresh graffiti on the wall still visible: ‘Nigger bastards go home’.