by Alison Bruce
Goodhew took the next side street, and from there it was just a short walk to the former bus garage that housed the car-repair workshop of O’Brien and Sons. In fact there was only one son but apparently Vincent O’Brien had always been inclined to exaggerate. The old man was semi-retired now and mostly Bryn worked alone, grumbling that he was tempted to amend the sign to read ‘O’Brien’s Son’.
Their paths had crossed a few weeks earlier, and maybe if they hadn’t been at the same primary school they wouldn’t have bothered maintaining any contact. But that small patch of common ground had proved enough of a link for them to forge the early part of what might potentially grow into a firm friendship.
Or potentially amount to nothing.
Gary was still taking stock and as cautious of becoming close friends with the bad boy and joker of the class as Bryn himself was undoubtedly cautious about becoming mates with the class loner. Old reputations could prove stubborn ones to shake.
For now, though, Goodhew was more than happy to take the suggestion of an evening spent visiting a few local pubs entirely at face value. This was his fortnight off, after all.
So far, he’d found Bryn easy company, almost like they’d been friends all along rather than just acquaintances with a fifteen-year gap in their joint history.
There were no cars parked outside but the concertina doors were still open, and Bryn’s turquoise and white Zodiac was parked in the centre of the workshop beyond. Bryn had changed out of his overalls but still had a spanner in one hand, which he raised in greeting when he spotted Goodhew.
‘What do you think?’
The car had just been repaired and resprayed. ‘It’s good.’
Bryn stood at the back of the car and surveyed the repair from an acute angle. ‘It’s more than good.’
‘Have you been admiring that car all afternoon?’
‘Absolutely.’ Bryn shrugged happily. ‘And how did you get here?’
‘Walked, why?’
‘What is it with you and cars? You’re in the middle of a two-week holiday, so I thought the first thing you’d do is sort yourself out with a vehicle.’
‘I don’t really need one.’
Bryn possessed a habitually open expression, with big eyes under eyebrows that always seemed slightly raised. He raised them a little further. ‘You should still get one. People like to know about your car; it tells them something.’
‘I’m not getting a car just to tell people which pigeon-hole I belong in.’
‘Yeah, but the no-car pigeon-hole is for pensioners, misfits, eco warriors and the really skint. Oh, yeah, and the losers who’ve lost their licence and have no hope of getting it back, ever. If you had a car, it would be easier for people to weigh you up.’
‘And I suppose you’re going for quirky, retro, in a kind of James Dean way?’
Bryn grinned. ‘No, I’m going for He looks like fun and isn’t that car cute with its roomy interior and leather upholstery.’
‘And that works?’
‘Yeah, girls love it. We could take it out tonight.’
‘To go two hundred yards?’
‘Trust me, we’ll park it outside, then sit at a table right next to it.’
‘If you say so,’ said Goodhew and he smiled, mostly to himself. Bryn was a natural flirt and it was this and his laid-back charm which drew women, not his beloved car. In fact, Bryn possessed a natural lack of inhibition, a quality that Goodhew could recognize but never himself own.
Bryn lobbed the spanner so it landed in the top tray of his tool chest. ‘Let’s go.’
The Zodiac turned out of the yard, its engine burbling and the chrome glinting under the orange glow of the street lights, and somehow Goodhew couldn’t help feeling that they were driving towards far more than just another night at the pub.
FIVE
By 9 p.m. most of the through traffic had gone and Mill Road was now occupied meeting the demands of the local populace, newsagents and convenience stores seeing a steady stream of customers while the pubs and takeaways geared up for the Friday-evening rush. The air had cooled but the pavements still radiated a lazy warmth, and there was no urgency to the general busy-ness.
One figure moved a little faster than the rest. The boy was about seventeen years old, eighteen at most. He wore a hooded sweatshirt and baggy jeans, with hefty trainers that looked as though they really belonged to someone several inches broader and taller. He walked quickly with loping strides, concentrating his weight on the balls of his feet like he needed to fill out his gait as well as his clothes. His eyes stayed on the path, a few feet ahead of him, only glancing up every thirty seconds or so to take in a new snapshot confirming his route towards the cemetery.
He heard his name being called, and stopped briefly to join a group of five other teenagers hanging around outside an off-licence. He stopped for as long as it took to blag a cigarette and roll it and light it. ‘Cheers,’ he nodded, unsmiling, then added, ‘Later.’
He was slightly built and wiry, with an arrogance in the way he walked, like a boxer, though he wasn’t.
Just before he reached the Locomotive pub, he crossed over the road in a diagonal line, ignoring the traffic and slapping the roof of a small red Fiat which refused to slow for him to pass.
He turned immediately right, heading down a long straight avenue of sixty-feet-high trees, and through the gateway at the south-west corner of Mill Road Cemetery. The area was unlit, but enough grey daylight remained to show him the way.
The path split and he followed it to the left, along the rear perimeter fence of Anglia Ruskin University, until it curved again. He slowed, checking that he was still alone, then slipped through a gap in the shrubbery.
Eight minutes later he reappeared, a little less cocky but still as alert, and began to give the area one more 360-degree scan. He had made it through less than ninety degrees before something caught his eye. He stood stock-still, adjusting his vision to the strange flickering, and confirming that his orientation was correct. Then he took off. He ran, keeping to the centre of the pale gravel path, and glancing regularly from the fire to the track and then back to the fire.
He already realized that a Gwydir Street house was burning, but now needed to know which one. There would be other people moving across the cemetery, shadowy figures, drawn to the hypnotic dancing light at the upstairs windows. He had to get there faster. He sprinted, finally leaving the path and stumbling over unlit and uneven clumps of grass.
As he reached the property’s low rear-garden wall, he gasped. ‘Oh, fuck.’
He scrambled over the wall and ran to the patio door. It was locked. He cupped his hands to the glass, and peered inside, but found the curtains drawn. Behind him someone shouted, ‘Get back!’ but he barely heard it over the sound of the house whispering and crackling in his ear.
He banged on the glass with his fist. ‘Open the door.’
He ran along the passage to the front of the house, and banged on the door there too. He then looked through the letterbox, found the hallway was empty. He turned his head to one side and tried to peer up the stairs. The top step was just in view, lit by a slow strobing of heavy light interrupted by thick smoke curling downwards.
He shouted through the gap, ‘Rachel? Rachel!’ then threw his whole body at the front door. It held too solidly.
There were other people out in the street by now, alerted by his shouting and then seeing the first signs of fire appearing in the upstairs windows at the front. He was oblivious to them as he dialled 999 on his mobile. ‘Fire!’ he shouted into the phone, then repeated the address when he spoke too quickly.
A hand tugged at his arm and he turned round to see a middle-aged man.
‘You need to get back, son.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Is someone in there?’
They both looked towards the front door.
‘I dunno, but I need to find out, don’t I? We gotta break in. We can smash that panel then unlock it.’
‘She could be trapped.’
‘I called the fire brigade, too. Just wait.’
‘No, I can’t.’ He was no more than six feet away from the door, but he already knew that trying to force the lock was a mistake. The weak point was the thin pane, so he jumped at it, kicking out with his oversized trainers. He thought at first that the double glazing had shattered but, although the exterior glass broke, the interior pane had only crazed. He fell back on to the pavement, still staring at the stubborn door, just as the upstairs windows blew out. As glass rained down on him, he bent his head, stunned and defeated. Knowing that he couldn’t yet grasp all the implications.
He staggered to his feet, aware for the first time of the drama that he and the middle-aged man had played out in front of a larger audience.
In the distance sirens wailed. They would be coming from the left, so he turned right and ran for it, bursting through the thin barrier of voyeurs and towards the safety of Mill Road.
SIX
Bryn knew that taking the Zodiac was an inconvenience, since he’d have to drive it back to the garage after his second pint. No way was he going to leave it parked outside overnight, or let it be out of his sight. But he also wanted to find out whether Gary had ever experienced the buzz of just hanging out in a car this cool, and whether it was possible to inject a little harmless irresponsibility into their evening.
After the first fifteen minutes, he realized such effort was wasted. Gary calmly pointed out that they were doing little more than a walking pace, and besides there was not anywhere to park.
Bryn cast him a sideways glance. ‘Cars really aren’t your thing, are they?’
‘Only in a practical way – on a par with a microwave or washing machine.’
‘Right.’
Bryn swung the car into a side street; never mind the availability of decent beer, he knew that the Six Bells offered the perfect combination of two pavement tables and some roadside parking. And today their luck was in: not only was there an empty parking bay but two empty seats almost next to it. Shame they’d have to share the table with two girls.
He pretended to ignore them as he reversed his car into the available space, but in truth he’d already noticed that they were both blonde, nicely tanned and about his and Gary’s age.
Within five minutes of sharing the same table they discovered that the girls were called Becky and Trina. Trina was tall and quiet, while Becky was attractively plump and wore black shorts and high heels. Bryn loved shorts and high heels.
Bryn chose to ignore the fact that neither Gary nor Trina had much to say to each other.
After one drink together, Bryn offered to buy another round. Gary stood up abruptly. ‘No, my turn. What would you like?’
Becky apologized. ‘Actually, we need to make a move.’
‘Already?’ Bryn sounded surprised.
Trina nodded. ‘Yep, Becky’s right.’
Bryn passed his empty glass to Gary. ‘Same again for me, thanks.’
Becky and Trina had left by the time Gary returned from the bar. ‘You’re looking pretty cheerful considering they’ve just abandoned you.’
Bryn shrugged. ‘She’s going to ring me.’
‘But she went?’
‘It was a prior arrangement.’
‘Or so she said.’
Bryn studied Gary for a moment, realizing that neither understood the other’s irritating logic. ‘Look, I can either think she was making an excuse just to get away, or assume she was telling the truth. Neither’s going to kill me, whether she rings or not, so I might as well enjoy waiting to find out.’
Gary looked sceptical. ‘Now, that’s what I call a positive way to look at it.’
‘Don’t take the piss. I just get out there, put the odds in my favour, and hope for the best. How was her mate?’
‘She’s a trainee accountant.’
‘Not what I meant, at all. She was attractive, smart, and plenty going on. You went off to the bar and d’you know how she described you?’
‘No.’
‘Wholly unavailable. Probably because you give out this I’m-not-interested thing. You could make the effort at least.’
Gary shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
Bryn didn’t push it any further. He saw that Gary had stopped listening, in any case. He was staring ahead towards the junction with Mill Road, and he’d obviously noticed something.
‘Let’s go,’ Gary said suddenly.
‘Where?’
‘Different pub if you like.’
‘I haven’t finished my pint.’
But Goodhew had already left the table and was heading towards the junction with Mill Road.
‘And I need to take my car back to the garage.’
‘Catch me up after you’ve done it,’ Gary called over his shoulder.
Whatever was drawing Gary away now also held more interest for Bryn than finishing his last half pint. He shouted, ‘Hang on.’
They turned right on to the main road, where Gary seemed to begin following a small pack of six or seven students. He was only walking still, but his stride remained swift and assured until he drew closer to them, then it faltered.
‘What’s wrong?’ Bryn asked.
‘I thought she was with them.’
‘Who?’
‘This girl . . . Claire. We used to go out together. I’m sure I just saw her.’
‘And?’
‘Nothing. It would have been good to catch up, I guess. But then again, maybe it would have been a bit weird.’
Bryn looked at him for a long moment, pulled Gary towards the kerb and then across the roadway. ‘We’ll go down Gwydir Street.’
‘I didn’t know she was back, that’s all.’
‘Keep walking. Next pub does great food.’
‘You need to go back for your car?’
‘I’ll do it later.’
Bryn never believed that he was much of a thinker, but he’d been doing a lot more of that since he’d met Gary again. Right now Gary seemed to have withdrawn into his own thoughts, walking no faster than Bryn but two strides ahead. The guy definitely kept his cards close to his chest, and Bryn wondered if Gary ever played Texas Hold ’Em. There was something about him that made Bryn’s own life now more complicated, yet he still had no idea what really made Gary tick. It wasn’t Bryn’s own staple diet of cars, pubs and casual sex, that was for sure.
In the distance two sirens started up, out of time with each other and creating a wave of sound that lapped repeatedly towards them. After a few seconds a third joined in, and with it the tone of their evening perceptibly altered. Bryn noticed this primarily because he saw a change in Gary, like a sudden awareness: first a tilting of his head to pick out the sounds coming from the city centre, then looking back towards the main thoroughfare as his eyes surveyed the entire street, then turning back to observe a mother pushing an empty buggy . . . then the pedestrian who ran towards them, and finally, at the furthest visible point, the group of people silhouetted in the open doorways of the houses at the bend in Gwydir Street.
Gary and Bryn never made it to the next pub. Without warning, Gary broke into a run. Bryn said nothing. He could tell that his friend’s senses were now concentrated elsewhere, and it was all he could do to jog in Gary’s wake and watch him accelerate, turning the short distance between them into a gulf.
Gary vanished around the bend in the road, and was soon out of view. Bryn picked up speed, and behind him the sirens grew louder.
SEVEN
Goodhew smelt the fire before he saw it. It wasn’t unpleasant at first, merely a hint of bonfire night or the modest incinerators which burn waste at allotments. Then the house itself came into view and he realized there was nothing modest about this fire: it was devouring the building from the inside out. As the air began to taste bitter, he knew the smoke was infected with layers of partially combusted chemicals like varnish and paint, producing toxins that wou
ld make the flames gutter in sinister shades of blue and green.
Most of the people in the street stood immobile and silent behind an imaginary cordon, curiosity taking them only so far down the intrusive path of not minding their own business.
One man stood closer than the rest, a fifty-year-old with a ruddy complexion and an all-over look of solidity. He had his feet squarely planted and his hands on his hips, clearly assuming that he’d taken ownership of the situation. Goodhew addressed him first, having to raise his voice over the sound of cracking timbers. ‘I’m an off-duty police officer. Is anyone inside?’
‘We don’t know.’
‘Whose house is it?’
‘A man and a woman – foreign-sounding surname.’
‘And there’s been no sign of them?’
‘Nothing.’
Goodhew pointed at the passage. ‘Is that the quickest way to the rear?’
‘Only way there, apart from going through someone else’s house.’
‘Have the neighbours been evacuated?’
‘Yes.’
As Goodhew sprinted through the passage, the heat searing through the brickwork could be felt against one side of his face. In his heart he knew that there was little to be done: the fire at the back of the property would be as intense as it was at the front. There would be no chance of entering, nor any chance of anyone coming out, but he still needed to check for himself. For a few strides his feet seemed to find nothing but a constant shingle of broken glass, but he kept running until he was clear of it and well into the centre of the garden, then turned to face the house. Bloody Hell. The windows were gone and the roof was alight: all that was visible of the inside were brief outlines of rafters and walls, glowing brightly before melting into the cavern of fire.
He walked to the very rear of the garden and could, over the wall, see that there were also people dotted around the cemetery, watching as keenly as those at the front of the house. A single figure moved, and she had just reached the wall when he first spotted her. She half climbed, half fell over it. He stepped forward to help her, but she waved him way,