The Circle

31

And it was well alight, flames and sparks leaping high into the night sky.

It couldn't get any worse than this. Now there was a helpless man about to be incinerated.

She told Stella to call the fire service. Then she raced across the drive with the rest of them to see what they could do.

Not much. The door to the sauna stood open and the fire had ripped through the ventilated area where you were supposed to cool off. Chalybeate's only chance of survival was that the closed inner room of the sauna was insulated to hold in the heat. But it was all made of timber and would soon be ablaze.

'No way we can reach him,'Johnny said. 'Can't get through that lot to the inner room.'

'Then we'll force our way in through the walls.' Hen looked around for something to use. There wasn't much at the front of the house.

The sauna had a solid look. Chalybeate didn't go in for flimsy building. This wasn't a job for shoulders. Or boots.

She stared across the drive.

'Can someone start the car, please?'

'The Porsche?' Johnny said.

Hen didn't answer. There was only one car in view.

'Duncan?'

DC Shilling knew about cars. First he opened the door of the Porsche and checked that the key wasn't inside. Then he released the bonnet lid and started loosening the leads to make a contact. The ignition fired and the engine started. He slammed down the lid.

'Go on, then!' Hen said.

Shilling got in, revved the engine like a racing driver on the grid and drove the Porsche straight at the sauna. Some of the wood splintered and some of the car buckled and there was glass everywhere, but the meeting of metal and wood wasn't a total success. He reversed and tried again. This time there was a definite splitting of the tongue-and-groove facia of the building, not to mention a concertina effect in the Porsche. It must have been well designed because it still responded when Shilling went into reverse. At the third attempt most of the bonnet burst through the structure. With a rending and scraping, Shilling backed away. A hole the size and shape of the knee-space under a desk was left. And out of it crawled a naked man.

'Is he all right?' Hen said.

Stella and Johnny got to Chalybeate together and helped him upright. He was wide-eyed and shocked, but unhurt. They hustled him away from the burning building with little time to spare. A sheet of flame ripped through the space he'd come from.

Kate the housekeeper came running from the house with a white bathrobe. Speechless, Chalybeate drew it round his shoulders. Whether it was the near-death experience, or the destruction of his sauna, or his Porsche, it was all too much.

'Where's the boss going?' Stella said.

Hen was haring away into the darkness.