Where There's Smoke

CHAPTER 22

The weak sun of the previous afternoon was stronger next morning. It gave a hard, clear-edged quality to the dead verges and the bare black branches in the gardens. The streets had the clarity of old photographs, almost monochromatic in their brightness.

Kate watched them pass outside the taxi window. It dropped her outside the tube station, and the sun touched her briefly as she stepped out of the cab. Then she was in the shadow of the Underground, where the crispness of the day was lost in the stale, subterranean air.

She was later than usual. The early-morning commuters had already gone, and the station looked abandoned in the post-rush hour quiet. The dying rumble of a recently departed train was fading down the tunnel as Kate emerged onto the empty platform. She sat down on one of the plastic seats fixed to the wall.

Her eyes felt gritty with tiredness. She had hardly slept the night before. She had tried calling Collins but he wasn’t in, so she’d left a message for him to ring her.

After that she hadn’t been able to settle. She had gone downstairs to check the locks on the door, and then turned off the lounge light and peered through the window. The dark street outside was empty and full of shadows. She had waited for one of them to move until her eyes hurt. When she had gone to bed, she had lain awake and listened to every creak of the cooling house.

The electronic sign said a train was due in two minutes.

Kate yawned. From the entrance to the platform came the echoing scuff of a shoe. Still yawning, she put her hand to her mouth and glanced around, expecting someone to appear. No one did.

She was about to look away when she heard the scuff again. It was softer this time, but nearer. She waited, watching the opening in the wall.

The noise came a third time. Now it was from the other side. Kate turned. There was a second entrance on her right, this one only ten feet away. A faint squeak, like a rubber sole on concrete, came from it. But still no one appeared.

Kate looked quickly around. The platform was silent and deserted. She stood up, gripping her bag in front of her.

Slowly, she began to edge as quietly as she could away from the second entrance. She tried to visualise the layout on the other side, how far away the steps were. The scuff sounded again. She stopped.

She didn’t know which of the openings it had come from.

Kate didn’t move. There was no further sound. She waited, then began to creep along the platform once more. The first entrance was twenty feet away, then fifteen, then five. She halted at the corner, listening.

A faint, rustling whisper from the other side, like blown litter. Or breathing.

I’m imagining it. There’s nothing there.

The opening in the wall lay in front of her. Through it she could glimpse the bottom of the steps, disappearing upwards.

Just run. She tensed for the effort, and then there was a noise behind her, and she remembered the other entrance.

She spun around, the scream choking off as the windows of the train flashed past, elongated squares of light framing faces and bodies. Kate sank back against the wall as it slowed and stopped. She looked back down the platform. It was empty.

The train doors hissed open, and people were stepping off. Clutching her bag, Kate ran to the nearest carriage and jumped in. She watched, but no one else got on.

By the time she reached the agency, Kate had almost convinced herself that it had been nothing. A wind from the tunnel, a piece of paper, and her imagination. She actually smiled at the thought of leaping out to confront an empty crisp packet. Then she remembered Ellis standing in the doorway the day before, and her smile faded.

Even so, it was a good day. An importer of South American artefacts phoned out of the blue and commissioned her to handle the publicity for an exhibition of Mexican jewellery.

She had been recommended by a friend, the man told her with a faint American accent. He had been out of the country for the past month and would be out again the following week, so he didn’t have time to waste sifting through PR agencies.

Was she interested? She was.

The acquisition of a new client lifted her some way back towards the optimism she had begun to feel the previous day. It felt good to speak to someone without worrying about what they had seen or heard. She was eagerly reading the material the importer had faxed her when Caroline buzzed through and said that Detective Inspector Collins was downstairs.

Kate told her to send him up. She wondered why he was calling in person. They’ve caught him, flashed through her mind. She felt a spark of hope. But when Collins walked in she could see that they hadn’t.

The policeman looked tired. His face was seamed and grey.

The chair creaked as he lowered himself into it. The sergeant gave her a smile as he took the other chair, but his heart didn’t seem in it. A smell of cigarette smoke came into the room with them.

“Did you get my messages?” Kate asked.

Collins nodded. He was about to say something, but Kate couldn’t wait any longer to tell him her news.

“He was here,” she exclaimed. “Yesterday afternoon.”

Collins came alert. “Ellis? You’ve seen him?”

“No, but someone else did. I only found out last night, that’s why I called you.”

“What time was this?”

“I think it was about four o’clock. Ellis was standing in a doorway across the road.”

“Who saw him?”

“Paul Sutherland. He’s the one who was picked up for the breakin. He phoned last night and … What’s the matter?”

They were both staring at her. The sergeant had frozen in the act of writing his notes. Kate saw him glance at the Inspector.

“What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

The sergeant dropped his gaze back to his notebook. Collins spoke gently.

“Paul Sutherland was killed last night.”

Kate felt herself blown back to another time, being told by the same two men of another death.

“Someone set fire to his house,” the Inspector said. “They poured petrol through the letter-box and then lobbed petrol bombs through the upstairs and downstairs windows.”

“Someone,” she echoed. She could hear Paul’s voice, quite clearly. He saw me and gave me this look … He was still staring at me when I left.

Collins rubbed his eyes. His skin wrinkled up like old leather where his fingers pushed it. “We haven’t got a definite ID. But some neighbours heard the glass going and saw a man standing in the street outside the house. They called the fire brigade and then went out, and the man was still standing there. They say he was just watching. He only ran off when they shouted. They didn’t give a very good description but …”

Kate closed her eyes. She saw flames, smelt petrol.

“You say you spoke to Paul Sutherland,” Collins said. “Can you remember what time?”

“I don’t know … not late. Eight o’clock, perhaps.”

“This was just after three. But I only found out an hour ago myself. Otherwise I’d have let you know sooner. There’s supposed to be communication but you wouldn’t know it, half the time.” He sounded apologetic.

Her stomach lurched as a thought struck her. “Oh, God, you want me to identify him, don’t you?”

Collins was startled. “Good God, no! No, that’s already been done. I just came to tell you, that’s all.” He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I don’t want to upset you needlessly but … well, it might not be a bad thing if there’s someone you can stay with. Just for a few days.” He seemed to find it difficult to look at her.

“You think he was planning to do something to me, don’t you?” she said. “Then he saw Paul and followed him home and set fire to his house instead.”

“Not necessarily. I just think you might be better off somewhere else, that’s all. But we’ll still keep a close watch on your flat and here, regardless.” He gave an unconvincing smile as he stood up. “Don’t worry. We won’t let him get to you.”

Caroline and Josefina were clearly surprised when she closed the agency soon after the two policemen had left, but Kate didn’t offer any explanation. She took a taxi home rather than face the Underground. The streets that had been sunny that morning were now grey with the coming dusk. They hit a traffic jam, and Kate watched the meter ticking away as they sat among the fumes and car horns, and wondered if she had enough cash for the fare. Part of her hoped she hadn’t.

Her conversation with Paul played in a loop in her head. Every nuance, every inflection sounded with a new and callous finality. She thought about the last thing he had said to her. Look after yourself. She hadn’t bothered to tell him to do the same. Be careful, she could have said. He’s dangerous. He burns people. Look after yourself. But she hadn’t.

It was growing dark when the taxi turned onto her road. She paid the driver, almost disappointed to find she had enough money to spare herself that humiliation. The cab pulled away, leaving her alone on the pavement.

Kate glanced up and down the street. It was empty. She went up her path and had almost reached the door when something about the scene belatedly registered. She went back to the gate again. There was still no one in sight, but further along on the pavement, indistinct in the fading light, was the object that had struck a jarring note.

She began to walk towards it. It had too many angles and edges to make sense, but as she drew nearer they began to resolve into distinct shapes. A square of cardboard on the kerb edge. Under it, a still, furry heap.

Kate reached it and stopped. Four paws and a thick brush of tail stuck out from beneath the cardboard. On it, in what looked like lipstick, someone had written, SORRY.

She bent down and lifted off the cardboard. Dougal lay on his side. He was unmarked, but his eyes were half open, and the tip of his tongue was sticking out between his teeth. His fur looked dusty. Pieces of grit were caught in it. His legs were crossed, as though he were running.

“Is it your cat?”

A little girl of about six or seven was standing nearby, watching with solemn interest. Kate nodded, looking down at Dougal.

“A woman in a car did it this afternoon,” the little girl said. “She ran over him and put him there. She was crying. Are you going to cry?”

Kate didn’t answer. Taking the piece of cardboard, she gently slid it under the cat’s body. He began to roll off, moving with it. She tentatively steadied him with one hand while she pushed it the rest of the way underneath. The cat felt cold and heavy. The cardboard sagged in the middle when she stood up. She had to support it with both arms.

“Are you going to bury it?” the girl asked. Kate didn’t look at her.

“Yes.”

She left the little girl on the pavement and carried Dougal back towards her flat. Her bag slipped off her shoulder and swung from her elbow, bumping against her legs, but she ignored it. She went through the gate and took a few more steps before coming to a standstill. The tiny garden confronted her with its covering of paving stones. Only the small hole where the rose bushes were choked in the centre had been left free. Kate looked at the slabbed ground as she stood holding her dead cat, and the first sob tore loose from her throat. She stumbled forward, chest heaving as she laid Dougal by the wall and blundered for the front door. Tears blinded her. She put the wrong key in the lock and struggled to pull it out before finding the right one. She clutched at the banister as she ran upstairs, not bothering to turn on any lights. In darkness, she groped for the phone and dialled by the glow from the answer machine.

It rang four times before it was interrupted. When she recognised Lucy’s recorded message Kate sagged with despair. Her stomach hurt with the force of her sobs, and she could barely wait until the recording finished.

“Lucy, it’s Kate, I’m sorry, please — “

The phone was picked up at the other end. “Yes?”

Lucy’s voice was inflectionless. Kate struggled for composure. “I … it’s me. Look, I … I know I shouldn’t just call you but … oh, God, look, please, can I come over?”

There was no answer.

“Please!”

Another hesitation. “Okay.”

Kate managed a choked thanks and rumbled the phone down. She stood for a moment, head bowed, and then dialled the number of a taxi firm from memory.

She waited in the dark until the cab honked outside. The street lights had come on, throwing the area in front of the garden wall into deep shadow. The cat’s body was invisible as Kate slammed the front door and ran down the path. It felt like someone else she had let down. She was about to get into the taxi when she remembered all her change had gone on the other cab. She dashed back inside and searched in drawers until she had scraped together enough money for the fare. The driver tutted, irritably, when she returned.

Kate huddled in the back seat and watched a normal world go by.

The nervousness didn’t start until the cab had dropped her outside Lucy and Jack’s. It seemed an age since she had been to the big house. She hesitated with her hand on the gate. I’m doing exactly what Lucy accused me of. Running to them now I’m in trouble. She didn’t care how much contempt and blame Lucy heaped on her, though. Just so long as there was no rejection. She couldn’t stand the thought of losing anyone else.

Kate went up the path. She wiped her eyes as she rang the bell, knowing that she must look a mess. She heard someone approaching, and then Lucy opened the door.

They looked at each other without speaking. In the background Kate could hear the chatter of the TV, see the cheerful spill of light from the lounge and kitchen. It silhouetted Lucy in the unlit hall. Kate couldn’t make out her expression.

Wordlessly, Lucy stood back so that she could enter.

Kate couldn’t look at her as she crossed the doorway. She retreated from her silence and made her way uncertainly towards the lounge. Lucy closed the door and followed her as Kate stepped around Jack’s heap of boxes in the hall. The house smelt of food and dirty nappies. She went into the brightly lit room.

The TV was blaring out some frantic children’s programme. Jack and Emily were engrossed in watching it, their backs to Kate as they sat side by side on the settee. They didn’t notice her go in. Angus was in his playpen next to them, which surprised her since he had outgrown it long since. He began to cry when he saw her, holding out his arms to be picked up, and Kate instinctively went towards him. The forced, bright greeting was already on her lips when she reached the settee and the words died.

Jack and Emily’s mouths were covered with brown parcel tape.

The image registered, but Kate’s mind refused to make sense of it. There was a sound from behind her. She turned.

Lucy stood in the doorway. Her head was tilted up by the blade of the long kitchen knife held to her throat. Ellis stood close behind her. The hand not holding the knife was gripping Lucy’s bare arm, fingers digging into the flesh above the elbow.

“I’m sorry Lucy’s voice was a whisper. Her face was puny and tear-streaked. Her eyes, as she looked at Kate, were terrified. “I’m sorry.” No one moved. The moment stretched out, suspended, then burst with a silent pop of pressure.

Kate stepped backwards. Ellis herded Lucy further into the room. He didn’t take his eyes from Kate. They were bright and feverish, purple smears discolouring the pale flesh underneath. His face was gaunt, and his hair stuck up in matted tufts. There was a straggly growth of beard on his cheeks. He looked like someone Kate had never known.

Lucy’s chest was heaving. “I’m sorry,” she whispered again, and now Kate took in her stained clothes and unwashed hair. She looked thinner. “He threatened the children Kate! He said if we didn’t do what he wanted, he’d — he’d — ” Her gaze flicked to Emily and Angus, agonised. “He’d got a knife. We didn’t have any choice. We tried, Jack — “

“Shut up!”

Lucy fell silent. Her mouth was trembling. Her chin was still held high away from the knife, giving her a model’s self-conscious posture. There was a muffled noise from Jack. Kate glanced at him and saw now that his hands and feet were also bound. There was a yellowing bruise on one temple, and the look he gave Ellis was full of violence. Kate saw him straining against the tape, but it was wrapped around him too many times.

Beside him, Emily was similarly fastened. Tears were rolling down the little girl’s face, and the sight of them filled Kate with outrage.

“They kn-know you,” he said. His mouth twisted. “They’re your friends!”

He stressed “your”. His hand tightened on Lucy’s arm, and she lifted her chin away from the pressure of the knife.

Kate forced herself to stare back at him. She pointed at Emily. “She’s a little girl, for God’s sake!”

She strode over to the settee. “Hold tight,” she said, trying to smile as she took hold of the tape covering the girl’s mouth.

“D-don’t!” Ellis said, as Kate pulled it off. The tape came free with a tearing sound, leaving the skin red underneath. Emily began to cry.

“Happy now?” Kate demanded, glaring at Ellis. He looked confused, almost defensive. She went over to the playpen where Angus was also crying.

“L-leave him!”

She took no notice. Augus’s feet were taped together so that he couldn’t climb out of the pen. She bent to pick him up.

“I said f-fucking leave him!”

Kate froze. Ellis’s eyes were wild, his knuckles white knobs of bone on the knife handle. Its point made a taut depression in Lucy’s skin. Lucy had closed her eyes.

Kate straightened, slowly. “All right. I’m sorry.”

“G-get away from them!”

She moved back into the centre of the lounge. “Look, I know you’re angry with me, but don’t take it out on them. They haven’t hurt you.”

“Shut up!”

“At least let the kids go.”

“I s-said shut up!”

“Look at them, they’re scared to death! They’re only children, for God’s sake! How can you do this to them?”

“Because my child’s dead.”

Kate flinched back from the shout. Ellis’s face was contorted. But he didn’t do anything else. She waited for her breathing to steady.

“I lied to you,” she said, as calmly as she could. “I didn’t have an abortion. I only said it because — “

“You’re lying n-now!”

“No — “

“Fucking liar!” “Listen to me! I haven’t had an abortion — “

“Liar! Lying bbitch!”

His face was twisted. Kate recoiled, silenced by the hate in it.

“He won’t believe you.” Lucy’s voice was quavering.

“Shut up,” Ellis said, flatly.

Tears rolled down Lucy’s cheeks as she stared across at Kate. “I said — I told him you hadn’t, but he wouldn’t believe — “

“Don’t talk about me as if I’m not here!” Ellis screamed, and Kate saw his arm tense. No! she thought as he pulled back the knife, but the blade was unbloodied as he shoved Lucy towards her.

Lucy stumbled forward and almost fell. Kate went to help her, but stopped when Ellis pointed with the kitchen knife, looking at Kate.

“Sit over there,” Ellis told her. “In the chair.”

Lucy did as he said. He turned to Kate.

“Get the t-tape.” He gestured to a roll of parcel tape on the coffee table.

“Listen to me — “

“Get the fucking t-tape!”

She went and picked it up.

“Wrap it round her ankles first, then her wrists.”

“Please, you can’t — “

“Do it.”

Kate looked at where Jack was sitting bound on the settee. His eyes stared at her over the brown strip, trying to communicate some message, but Kate didn’t know what. Beside him, Emily’s bottom lip was quivering. Only Angus was making a noise as he sobbed. Standing this close, Kate could smell the sour, unwashed odour of their bodies. On the floor around them were opened and empty tins of food, some furred with several days’ worth of mould. Wadded up pieces of parcel tape lay among them, too many to count. Kate tasted bile in the back of her throat as she grasped the significance of what she was seeing. How long has he been here.

“Ankles first,” Ellis said.

Kate knelt down in front of Lucy. It wasn’t her moving. She was watching this happen to someone else. She pulled the end of the tape free with numb fingers, but stopped as Jack gave a muffled grunt. She looked up at him. He was staring at her with a desperate intensity. He shook his head, violently.

“Now!”

shouted Ellis, and took a step towards where Angus was snivelling in the playpen. She saw him shift his grip on the knife. With a last glance at Jack, Kate wrapped the tape once around Lucy’s ankles. The red marks from earlier strips formed bands on her flesh.

“Do it again. T-tight.”

She hesitated, then did as he said. The roll of tape dangled, still attached.

Kate felt a weak hope. “I’ve nothing to cut it with.”

“B-bite it.”

The hope went out. She tore the tape with her teeth.

“Now her wrists.”

She could feel the tremor in Lucy’s hands as she bound them. There was no accusation in Lucy’s eyes when they looked at each other, only fear.

“Put a strip over her m-mouth.”

“What good — ?”

“Just do it!”

Lucy shut her eyes, compressing her lips as Kate stuck a piece of tape across them. Kate straightened and threw the tape down.

“Feel safe now, do you?”

Ellis stared at her, then pointed to a corner of the room.

“P-pick that up.”

Kate looked to where he was pointing, and felt as though she had been punched on the heart. Against the wall were materials for Jack’s desktop publishing, a sprawling pile of cardboard boxes and containers. On top was a stack of posters. Seeing them, Kate felt events nudge into a final focus. She wondered, almost absently, whether Ellis had gone there with the intention already in mind, remembering all the conversations he’d had with Jack about printing and publishing. Or if the idea for the posters had only come later, with Lucy and Jack bound and impotent under the threat of his knife, and all the equipment he needed lying idle in the cellar.

But it wasn’t the posters that Ellis was pointing to now. Standing near them was a red plastic petrol can.

She looked at Ellis, understanding now what Jack had been trying to tell her. “Oh, no.” She shook her head. “No, you can’t …”

“P-pick it up.”

“Please — ” She tripped over what to call him. “Please, just think what you’re doing.”

“Pick it up.”

“At least let them go! You’ve got me here now, you don’t need them!”

He advanced towards her. She backed away, but he stopped when he reached Jack. He put the knife against his neck.

“Pick it up.”

Kate slowly walked across the room towards where the petrol can waited. The sheaf of posters drew her eye. They were new ones. This time her smiling face had been planted on a journalistic photograph of a woman holding a dead child. It was black and white, obviously taken from some war zone, and flames had been clumsily superimposed to make it look as if mother and baby were on fire. KATE POWELL BURN IN HELL BITCH was printed across the bottom.

She looked away. The petrol can was at her feet. Next to it was a shallow cardboard box filled with the small yellow tins of lighter fluid that Jack used as a cleaning agent. Beside that was a cluster of aerosol cans of spray adhesive. The “flammable” sign was printed on all of them.

Kate reached down and took hold of the red container. It was heavy. A faint sloshing came from inside when she lifted it.

“T-take the lid off.”

Kate did as she was told. It felt greasy. It dangled from a plastic strip when it was unscrewed. The smell of the petrol was a sickly, sweet taste at the back of her nose and throat.

“P-pour it out.”

“Please, don’t do this.”

Ellis took hold of Jack’s hair, pulling his head back to expose his throat to the blade.

Slowly, Kate tilted the can. Petrol glugged out of the wide spout. It splashed over the boxes and containers of ink, ran down into the carpet. It ran across the image of her face that smiled up from the posters, pooling over the cold likeness of the flames.

“P-put some on the curtains.”

The heavy drapes were drawn across the french windows. Kate made throwing motions at them with the petrol can. The fabric stained dark where the fluid soaked into it.

“Now the carpet,” Ellis told her. His voice sounded thick and drugged. The stammer had almost gone. “Work your way over here.”

He stood back as she walked towards the settee and chairs, sloshing liquid from the can as she went. It was more than half empty now. The room reeked with petrol.

“Now pour it over them.”

Kate shook her head, mutely. Ellis put the blade back to Jack’s neck. His eyes were bright. Kate could see that his pupils were black and dilated.

“Do it.”

Emily began to cry in lost little sobs, a counterpoint to Angus’s huskier wails. The can felt slick in Kate’s hands.

“I can’t!”

Ellis’s breathing was heavy. He held out his hand. “Give it to me.”

Kate didn’t move.

“I said f-fucking give it to me!”

There was urgency in his voice now. “P-please!”

She backed away from him.

He blinked, rapidly. “Remember what you said?”

He was reaching into his pocket, moving away from Jack now. “They threw it in the incinerator, you t-told me. Remember?”

He pulled out a box of matches. “I’ll show you what suffering is,” he said, and as he opened the matches Kate flung the petrol can at his face.

It struck his upraised arms, a swirl of liquid hanging in the air behind it like a tail, and then Kate was running past him.

She felt a tug on her arm, but didn’t stop. She ran down the darkened hallway, careering into Jack’s boxes and pushing them over behind her. She slammed into the front door. It was locked. Kate wrenched at it until she heard a noise from the lounge doorway, and turned to see Ellis emerging.

She ran upstairs. The landing at the top was in darkness. There was a banister railing edging the open side where it overlooked the downstairs hall, and from it Kate could hear him blundering over the boxes. She pushed herself away, into the deeper darkness of the upstairs corridor. A pale square at the far end showed where the window was, and by its faint light Kate began to make out textures in the shadow that were the doors. They were all closed. Lungs burning, she ran past them, one by one. She reached the end of the corridor. Footsteps pounded up the stairs. Kate opened the nearest door and went in. The room was even darker. She stood with her back against the door and faced the blackness. It was unrelieved by even a glimmer of light, but a sweetness of talcum powder and crayons told her she was in Emily and Angus’s bedroom. A door was opened further along the corridor. Kate felt for a lock or bolt. There was nothing. She moved blindly into the room, hands outstretched in front of her. She tried to remember if there was anything she could use. Anywhere to hide. She jumped as she walked into a bed. Feeling her way along it, she came to the bookshelf. And the wall. She groped across its unyielding hardness. Her heart thudded when she barked her shins on the small table. She reached out to steady it and her hand hit a lamp, almost knocking it over. She grabbed at it, heart thudding. A second door was opened. She gently set the lamp upright and shrank back against the wall. She pressed herself into the cranny between the bookshelf and table, knowing the shelter was illusory. Her breath came in rasps. She tried to quiet it, listening for the sounds from the corridor. Another door opened, nearer. There was a dull ache in her arm. She reached up to touch it, and almost cried out at the sudden slash of pain. Biting her lip, she touched her arm again. This time she was more prepared when the petrol on her fingers stung the long cut above her elbow. She remembered the tug on her arm as she ran past Ellis, thought about the sharp length of the knife. She felt sick. The door of the next room along was opened. Kate squeezed her eyes shut. Bright flashes of light danced in front of her. The cloying stink of petrol was nauseating. She heard the scuff of a footstep from outside and folded her arms over her stomach. She could feel her heart beating, banging against her ribs, and thought of the smaller one keeping time with it, a tiny pulse of innocence. The door opened. It made a whispering sound of wood on carpet. Kate opened her eyes. She saw nothing, only blackness and fading sparkles of phosphene after images. “Kate.” The word was like a shout in the silence. Kate pressed back against the wall. A dull glow came from beside her. She turned towards it and found herself looking at the lamp on the table. The room came into being around her as it grew brighter, small beds and cuddly toys. Mickey Mouse capered on the lampshade. Ellis stood in the doorway with his hand on the dimmer switch. His eyes were red from the petrol. She could see the dark splashes of it on his clothes. He stepped into the room, bringing a stronger reek of it with him. Kate stepped to one side, hoping to dart around him to the door, but he moved to block her. The knife was still gripped in his hand. Kate saw the dark smear on its blade. She backed between the bookshelves and the table again. Ellis stopped in the middle of the room. “You shouldn’t have d-done it.” He sounded calmer. Kate wasn’t sure whether he meant run, or have an abortion. She couldn’t speak. “You’d n-no right,” he said. “It was my b-baby. You’d no right.” She shook her head, but he wasn’t looking. He was staring at her arm. “You’re bleeding.” He sounded surprised. Kate looked down. There was a gaping slice in the left sleeve of her coat. Her arm was soaked in blood. She had forgotten about it, but now it began to throb again. The pain goaded her.

“What are you looking so upset about?” she demanded. She wiped her hand on her bloody sleeve and held it up to show him. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”

A stricken expression crossed his face. “I–I didn’t mean to.”

“You didn’t mean to? What the fuck did you mean, then?”

Suddenly the weeks of fear boiled over. The sight of him infuriated her. “Is this my fault?”

She thrust out her injured arm. “Is it? Did I make you cut me?”

“N-no, I — “

“So who made you? Who made you do any of this? Who made you kill Alex Turner?”

He tore his eyes from her arm. “I t-told you! I ddidn’t want that!”

“He’s still dead, though, isn’t he? You didn’t want to, but you still did! And his wife was pregnant, did you know that?”

Kate could tell that he hadn’t. He looked stricken.

“N-no!”

“She was eight months pregnant! She might even have had the baby by now, and Alex Turner’s never going to see it because you killed him!”

“N-no!”

He shook his head, violently. “I–I didn’t …”

“You killed him, and now you want to kill an innocent family as well!”

“Shut up!”

He took a step towards her, but she was reckless now. “Why? You’re going to burn me anyway! You’ve already cut me! What else are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” he shouted. “Leave me alone!”

“Leave you alone?” Kate stared at him. “For God’s sake, just listen to yourself! Think what you’re doing.”

His features were contorted with pain. Seeing him, the anger drained out of her.

“Put the knife down.” She almost called him Alex, and in her haste to cover the slip she spoke without thinking. “You need help.”

His head jerked up. “What f-fucking help? People asking stupid qu-questions, telling me what my fucking p-problem is? They don’t want to help. They just want me to behave. So long as I don’t b-bother anybody else, they don’t care! But nobody cares whether I’m bothered! Nobody c-cares about me!”

I cared. The thought went unspoken. “Lucy and Jack did,” she said instead.

“No, they d-didn’t! I thought they did, but they didn’t! That’s why I c-came here, but they’re like all the rest!”

“What about Angus and Emily?”

“I don’t want to t-talk about it!”

“So you’re just going to kill them, too? Burn them, like you did your own family?”

Shock bleached his face. “Who t-told you that?”

“Never mind who told me, it’s true, isn’t it?”

“N-no!”

“Yes, it is! You set fire to the house while your mother and father and your brothers were asleep, and then you stood and watched them burn!”

“I d-didn’t! It wasn’t like that, it was an accident!”

“An accident that you set fire to the house?”

“Yes! No! I d-don’t — ” His voice was anguished. “I didn’t mean to hurt them. I just wanted them to take nnotice of me. They were always fighting, and leaving me with M-Michael and Andrew and — and they’d d-do things to me, and then I’d try to tell my m-mum and dad and they wouldn’t believe me! Even though I kept telling them, they wouldn’t. And then my g-gran tried to help, she tried to t-tell them, and they started shouting, and — and then Gran was on the floor, all blue her f-face was blue. And they said she was — she was dead, and nobody — nobody c-cared except me. So I lit the fire, and I thought, N-now they’ll listen, now they’ll know, they’ll be sorry …”

His eyes were focused on something Kate couldn’t see. “And it started b-burning, and I could see right into the flames, like it was another world, all clean and pure. I watched them, and … and nothing worried me any more. They got bigger and bigger, until there wasn’t anything else, and they were … they were beautiful.”

“But it isn’t beautiful afterwards, is it?” Kate said.

His face clouded, losing its transcendent quality. “No.” For a moment he looked like a young boy, lost and scared.

“You didn’t mean to hurt them,” Kate said.

“N-no.”

“Do you want to hurt Angus and Emily?”

He shook his head.

“Let them go, then! Please!”

“I c-can’t.”

“Why?”

“It’s too late.” It was a whisper.

“It isn’t!” Kate shouted. “It isn’t too late! Think about it! Think about how you’ll feel afterwards!”

He looked at her. “There won’t be any after.”

She had seen the same expression on his face when the man had thrown himself onto the bonfire. Perhaps it didn’t seem horrible to him. She hadn’t understood it then.

“This is what you want, isn’t it?” She couldn’t keep from saying it. “This is what you’ve always wanted.”

His gaze was still on faraway flames. She noticed his grip shift on the kitchen knife.

“It’s g-got to be done.”

She could feel him slipping into the fatalism of earlier. She tried to cut through it.

“Got to be done? Like Paul Sutherland? Did killing him ‘have to be done’ as well?”

His eyes snapped back to her. “He was a d-drunk. He deserved it. Drunks are b-burning themselves up already.”

“So you thought you’d save him the job?” she mocked. “Come on, what’s your excuse? You’ve always got one! Let’s hear it? Was it because he hit you?”

“No.” He had a sullen expression.

“Why, then? You didn’t even know him?”

“I knew what he’d d-done!”

His sudden heat surprised her. It took Kate a moment to realise what he meant.

“Oh, my God. You killed him because of what he did to me?”

Ellis wouldn’t look at her.

“What about what you’ve, done?” she demanded.

“That’s d-different!”

“How? How is it?”

“Because you k-killed our b-baby!”

“I haven’t killed our baby,” she screamed back at him. “I haven’t killed anything. I’m still pregnant for God’s sake! I’ve been sick every fucking morning and … oh, Christ!”

She broke off, putting her head in her hands. When she looked up, Ellis was still watching her. But now he had a strange, almost frightened expression.

“I lied about the abortion,” Kate said, quietly. “I wanted to hurt you. I’d been told you were dead, and gone to identify you and seen it was somebody else, and found out you weren’t Alex Turner, and … And I wanted to hurt you back.”

She felt tears closing in. “Jesus Christ, what did you expect? I loved you!”

He was looking at her like a man woken from one bad dream, only to find himself in another.

“You’re still p-pregnant?”

Kate closed her eyes, nodded wearily. There was an almost inaudible moan. She opened her eyes. Ellis was hugging himself, gently rocking backwards and forwards. Tears were trickling down his face.

“Oh, G-God.” He closed his eyes in anguish. “Oh, God. Everything’s gone wrong.”

Kate moved fractionally away from the wall. “Just let us go. You can do that now, can’t you? There’s no need to hurt anybody.”

He didn’t say anything. Just rocked himself, crying quietly.

“You don’t want to hurt the baby, do you?” Kate urged. “Not after all this?”

Ellis shook his head.

“Let us go, then. Give me the knife and let us go.”

He didn’t seem to have heard. He was still shaking his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve made such a m-mess of things. I’m sorry.”

He was crying as he came towards her, and Kate was never sure if he was apologising for what he had done, or for what he was about to do. She saw the knife in his hand and instinctively swept the lamp off the table at him.

There was a bang as the bulb exploded. She cringed back, dazzled by the flash, waiting for the cut of the knife. But none came. And then the darkness was broken by a new, unsteady illumination.

The igniting petrol on Ellis’s clothes filled the room with a sick light. As Kate’s eyes adjusted she saw him beating at the flames on his arm and chest. The next moment they had spread like a floodtide to his shoulders and head.

There was a clatter as he dropped the knife. He cried out, taking wild swipes at himself as his hair caught fire. The light in the room was brighter now, more yellow, and the stink of burning hair and petrol made Kate gag. She stood, too stunned to act, and then ran forward and began to slap at the fire leaping from Ellis’s head. Her hands came away covered in blue gloves of flame as the petrol on them caught.

Panicking, she beat them out against her coat, feeling the first sting of it, and then grabbed a quilt from the nearest bed.

She tried to throw it over Ellis but he reeled away, lurching first into the wall and then from the room. Hindered by the bulk of the quilt, Kate chased after him. The flames threw a crazy light on the walls as he staggered blindly down the corridor, flailing at himself, and she knew what was going to happen an instant before it did. She shouted as he hit the railing at the end of the corridor, too far away to grab him, and in a swift, choreographed motion he toppled over.

There was a thud as he hit the floor below. Everything was suddenly dark again. Kate rushed down the stairs, not pausing to search for a light switch, and ran to the figure lying in the hall. Ellis had landed on the boxes by the cellar door, splitting them open and scattering paper over the carpet.

Some of the flames had been snuffed by the impact, but he was still burning. Fire was already beginning to lick at the surrounding paper and boxes, less dramatic in the light from the open lounge doorway. Kate flung the quilt over him and beat at the motionless body, but a sudden pain in her leg made her cry out and jerk back. One corner of the quilt had been trailing in a cluster of burning papers, and had caught fire. She snatched it away, trying to stifle the flames, before she saw it was starting to burn in other places as well.

Kate flung it against the floor, stamping and kicking at it, cursing Lucy for buying a cheap, non-retardant quilt.

Something stung her cheek. She brushed off a glowing piece of ash. Looking up, she saw the hall was full of them.

The stink of petrol from the lounge returned like a forgotten threat, and she turned in time to see burning scraps of paper drift like black leaves through the open doorway.

The light from it suddenly changed. Angus screamed.

“Oh, Jesus, no,” Kate breathed.

She dropped the smouldering quilt and ran past Ellis to the lounge. The heat struck her before she reached it. The room was full of fire. Flames clamoured from everything the petrol had touched. The carpet was awash with them. The curtains were blazing rags, while the stack of posters was a torch that sent waves of smoke and ash across the Victorian mouldings. Kate recoiled, but the children’s screams were a stronger spur. She could see beyond the flames that the area around the leather settee and chair was still clear, and without waiting she pulled her coat around her head and darted through the doorway.

Hot hands patted her back and nipped her legs, and then she was through. She kept to the side of the room away from the windows, where the fire had yet to reach, and ran to the settee. Jack was ducking forward, thrashing his head around, and she could see how the back of his hair was singed and smouldering. A yard or two behind him the remains of the petrol can was a roaring yellow beacon that flared to the ceiling. He had managed to pull Emily so she lay across his lap, shielded from the worst of it, and Kate slapped at his hair, feeling the bite of the sparks on her already burned hands. Across from her Lucy’s eyes were frantic as she sat bound and gagged in the leather armchair, protected so far by its high, winged back.

Jack pulled his head away, lifting his chin for Kate to remove the tape from his mouth.

“Get the kids out!” he gasped, when she yanked it off.

“What about you?”

“No time! For Christ’s sake, do it!”

Kate wavered, knowing she would never get back in for Lucy and Jack. It was already like trying to breathe in the open door of a furnace. The room was filling with smoke as the flames spread, crowding the enclosure formed by the chairs and settee. Kate looked across at Lucy. Her blue eyes were wide and tearful over the tape as she nodded.

Kate snatched Angus from the playpen and grabbed up Emily from Jack’s lap. Emily began screaming, “Mummy! Mummy!” as she carried them away. Kate saw Jack gnawing at the tape around his wrists, and suddenly she went back. Still holding the children, she awkwardly knelt in front of him.

“What the fuck are you doing? Get out!” Jack shouted, but she had already bent to take the tape binding his ankles between her teeth. She tugged and worried at it, then it ripped and with a jerk he pulled his legs free.

“Right, now go!” he shouted.

She stood up, hoisting Angus and Emily into better positions, her wounded arm throbbing under their weight.

Jack was on his hands and knees, biting at the tape binding Lucy’s feet, pulling at it with his still fastened hands as Kate struggled with the two children to the wall furthest from the flames. She flinched at a pop from overhead as the light-bulb burst, but its light was hardly needed now. Squinting against the heat, she pressed their faces into her coat as she edged passed the blazing petrol can, and then stopped.

Through the smoke, she saw that the doorframe and the carpet in front of it was engulfed.

“Jack!” she shouted.

She heard him swear, and then there was a sudden clatter.

She turned and saw him dragging the rug from the floor, his wrists free and bleeding now, tipping the coffee table from it. He lurched towards her, wincing and clumsy with the pain of returning circulation, while behind him Lucy hobbled and almost fell. Kate started forward to help, but hot smoke suddenly took the air from her lungs. Coughing and fighting for breath, she turned her face and buried her mouth and nose in her coat as Jack pushed past and began to lash with the heavy rug at the flames around the door.

Lucy made it to her and half collapsed on Kate’s shoulder, chest heaving as she struggled to draw in air and cough with her mouth still covered by tape. She tried to peel it off, but her wrists were also bound, and another choking spasm doubled her up. Kate supported her as best she could, unable to do anything more with the children clinging to her. The skin of her face felt tight as they staggered after Jack. She could smell her hair beginning to burn. It was becoming difficult to see through the heat and smoke. She ducked as a sudden bang from the far side of the room threw a punch of white-hot flame at them. It was followed straight away by two more as the aerosol cans exploded. Cowering against the wall, Kate could hear a metallic pinging even above the roar of the fire and remembered the tins of lighter fluid. So did Jack, because she saw him dart a glance towards that corner before turning to where she and Lucy were huddled.

“Come on!” he shouted, and swept the thick rug over them like a man sheltering under a jacket. “Move!”

They stumbled towards the door. The carpet in front of it was still on fire, but Jack had beaten it down enough to pass, and the tented rug shielded them from the burning doorframe. Kate felt the hot lash of flames on her legs, and then they were out in the relative cool of the hall.

Ellis still lay face down. His clothes had largely burned away, and most of the papers and boxes around him had now caught. Kate faltered, but Jack draped the rug between them and Ellis’s pyre, blocking it from view as he herded them past.

Further along the quilt was blazing where Kate had left it, lying across the width of the hall. Jack stepped forward and flung the rug over it. It landed with a heavy whumhf, snuffing the quilt’s flames like a candle. They went over it to the front door. The smoke was suffocating as Jack struggled with the lock. Then it clacked free, and he pulled open the door and ushered them out into the night’s sweet, cold air.

They staggered down the path in a cluster, supporting each other, not halting until they reached the gate. Kate looked back. Smoke was billowing out through the open door, and without thinking what she was doing she set down the children and ran back to the house.

She heard Jack shout, then she was in the hallway and the thick heat and smoke closed around her again. Holding her breath, she ran to where Ellis lay, barely able to see as she kicked aside the flaming papers and took hold of his feet.

His raw ankles looked bony and pathetic above the scorched training shoes as she dragged him backwards. After a few steps she stopped, pulled her coat over her mouth and nose and took several quick breaths. She was reaching down for his feet again when the tins of lighter fluid exploded.

There was a noiseless flash, and a hot pressure knocked her sideways. The hall was instantly an oven. She felt the skin of her face flayed and knew her hair was on fire.

She drew breath to scream but choked it off as the overheated air scorched her throat and lungs. Blind and burning now, she floundered, and then something banged into her.

She was enveloped in darkness as the rug smothered the flames. She felt Jack pull her towards the front door, but broke away, emerging from the rug to seize one of Ellis’s ankles again.

She saw Jack mouth curses at her, but her head was full of ringing from the explosion, and she couldn’t hear. She shook her head anyway and carried on pulling, and a moment later he threw the rug over them both and took hold of Ellis’s other ankle.

Together they dragged him towards the front door, stumbling backwards over the smoking quilt as fast as they could. She nearly fell down the step, and then Ellis bumped down over it onto the path. Kate felt a dim nudge of memory, but it was gone before she was really aware of it.

They pulled him to the gate before they stopped and shucked off the smouldering rug. The cold air was like a balm on Kate’s skin. She sucked it down into her lungs, wincing with the pain of it. Through streaming eyes, she could see that Lucy was sobbing as she tried to hug Jack with her still-bound hands.

Kate turned back to Ellis. He lay half on his side, almost in the recovery position. Kate had avoided looking at his face, but she did so now. His hair had gone, and the skin was cracked like overdone meat. She nearly gagged on the smell. She felt sure he was dead. She didn’t know herself why she had gone back for him. Then his eyes flickered. Most of his eyelids had been burned away, and Kate knew he must be blind. But his eyes moved, as though he were searching for something. His hands weren’t too badly burned, and Kate gently took hold of one.

Her throat felt as though there was broken glass in it when she tried to speak. She tried again.

“I’m here.”

The grating voice wasn’t hers. It echoed, hollow and distant, through the ringing in her ears. His eyes fixed on the sound of it. She could feel quivers running through him. His mouth opened slightly, and with a sure intuition

Kate knew what he wanted. “I’ve still got the baby,” she croaked in a whisper.

He continued to stare towards her, his sightless eyes looking slightly to one side. But he didn’t move again.

After a while she knew he was dead. She set his hand down and stood up. The house was blazing fiercely now. Smoke gouted through the doorway and windows. She became aware that the pain from her burns was growing. She went over to where Lucy and Jack were standing with the children.

Lucy’s hands and mouth were free from the tape now. She was still crying. She and Kate looked at each other, then stumbled into a hug. Kate felt her own tears begin to rack her, and the two of them clung to each other and sobbed as the house burned, and sirens began to sound in the distance.