Firewatching

by Russ Thomas

  * * *

  —

  Tyler slams his hand down hard on the horn and inches his way through the knot of press gathered at the gates. He presses his warrant card to the window, and the uniformed constables wave him through.

  When they pull up at the house, Rabbani gets out but Tyler hangs back. He looks again at the blackened bricks and the dying creeper and thinks about what Elliot said. Assuming the body was Cartwright’s, they have been working under the premise the fire was unconnected to the case since it happened so long after his disappearance. Just kids messing around in a derelict house. They know now the fire didn’t kill Cartwright, so on the face of it nothing’s changed. Why, then, does he feel so sure the fire is connected in some way? Because of The Fire Watcher? A portrait that once meant something to someone. But if so, why set fire to the house in the first place?

  His thoughts scatter as the door to the mobile incident room flies open and rebounds hard against the wall. A hulking black man in a tight gray T-shirt emerges, his mouth a thin line. He pushes past Rabbani, who shouts something after him. The man ignores her and stalks back down the driveway. As he passes the car he meets Tyler’s eye, and then a thick black arm is brushing past the wing mirror. The man is out of sight for a second and then reappears in the mirror itself, this time visible as a muscled back, which folds its way into the crowd at the gate.

  Inside the incident room Guy Daley is leaning backward against a desk, his arms folded and ankles crossed, a self-satisfied smirk on his face that melts away into a scowl as Tyler steps into view.

  “Who was that?”

  “Doggett said you weren’t coming out till this afternoon.”

  “I changed my mind. Who was that?” he asks again.

  “Some tosser from the fire brigade looking to waste our time.”

  Daley scrambles round the desk and rather unsubtly switches off his computer monitor, but not before Tyler catches sight of the telltale green background of a solitaire game.

  “And I imagine you listened carefully to what he wanted and promised you’d pass the details on to your superiors?”

  Daley blinks slowly and doesn’t reply.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “There’s been some fires in the area, a bus stop or summat.” Daley sits down and immediately starts spinning in the chair. They’re all beginning to channel the spirit of Jim Doggett. “He reckons it might be connected to this place.”

  Tyler stops the chair’s movement with an outstretched leg. “And you told him to piss off?”

  “We’re up to our necks in a murder investigation, Tyler. We’ve got better things to do than investigate a couple of bonfires.”

  “Like playing cards?”

  Daley plucks a small white oblong from his pocket and launches it across the desk at him. “Here. Knock yourself out, sunshine.”

  Tyler picks up the business card, glances at it, and slips it into his pocket. Then he crosses his own arms and holds Daley’s eye. Finally, Daley sighs, turns the monitor back on, and closes the card game.

  * * *

  —

  Rabbani watches Daley raise his middle finger at Tyler’s departing back. When he becomes aware of her watching, he scowls. “Can I help you with something, love?”

  “I just wondered if you’d spoken to the vicar yet, sir?” She means to offer help, but the way it comes out makes it sound like a criticism.

  Daley shakes his head. “Jesus Christ!” He stands up. “I’m going for a smoke. How about you try minding your own fucking business while I’m gone?” The door swings back into place behind him, and Rabbani is left alone in the incident room.

  She exhales loudly into the silence. She’d hoped it might be different once she was in plainclothes, that they might forget she’s still only a PC, not a detective. But if anything, it’s worse. It’s as though the confidence and ability she’s amassed over the last three years were all somehow locked within the black and white of her constable’s uniform.

  She spent hours last night trying to work out what to wear, trying on different outfits. In the end, she opted for the pantsuit she uses for interviews. But when she tried it on this morning she realized she looked too smart. She compromised by losing the jacket, only to discover that left her with no pockets. Where would she put her mobile, her notebook, her keys? The only thing she had that was vaguely suitable was a Cath Kidston bag but it’s too big, and far more conspicuous than she’s comfortable with. She remembers the look the Denham girl gave it. The same look the girls at school used when they looked down at her shoes. She can’t understand why Tyler gave Denham such an easy time of it.

  DS Adam Tyler. She can’t work him out. One minute he’s completely oblivious, failing to offer her a lift home even though he knows she doesn’t have a car—she’d had to walk all the way to Hope for the train last night, and then wait for over half an hour—the next he’s being supportive and encouraging, offering to pick her up, including her on the interview with Denham.

  He’s not aggressive like Daley, but she wonders if that wouldn’t almost be better. She can handle the Daleys of this world. It’s more like he just doesn’t think of her at all. Doesn’t even notice her. Like just then, when they got out of the car and he was too busy staring after that hulk of a fire officer to notice that she was waiting for instructions. How can she make an impression on a man who doesn’t even see her?

  She places her elbows on the desk and buries her face in her hands. Maybe she should just go for that dog-handler’s job after all. At least dogs only bite you; they don’t humiliate you first.

  She sits up and wipes her face with her hands. She’s being ridiculous. She has a head on her shoulders, she needs to use it. She can’t expect Tyler to spoon-feed her all the way. She needs to prove to them she belongs here.

  And she knows just how to do it. She hesitates, though. If she pulls this off, it will make Daley look bad. Then she shrugs to herself. It isn’t as though he can make her life any harder than it already is. She picks up her giant floral bag and slips out of the incident room.

  She sees Daley smoking and chatting with a couple of detective constables on the patio, but none of them pay her any attention. Perhaps being invisible to people isn’t always such a bad thing. She hurries through the crowd at the gate, keeping her head down and avoiding eye contact with anyone. Normally she’d get some hassle off Riley and Stuart about not being in uniform, but luckily they’re too busy dealing with the journalists. She sees a break in the crowd, and she’s through and away.

  It takes her only a couple of minutes to reach the church. The bricks of the building are blackened with ancient pollution from the city, the pointing crumbling. A cardboard thermometer by the front door proudly announces that the parish restoration fund has reached triple figures. The front door is locked, so she follows the footpath that leads round to the back. At the far end of the churchyard she sees an old fellow bent over tending the graves. The gardener, Wentworth, who Tyler and Doggett spoke to. He looks up at her for a moment and then buries his head back in his work.

  She turns toward the church and the small modern extension that leans up against the back wall. Some sort of community center, she guesses. The door is propped wide open, either to let in the pitiful breeze or to let out the interminable heat.

  The Reverend Thorogood looks far calmer in his own habitat than when he visited the Old Vicarage the other day. He is seated at a desk, busy with paperwork of some kind. Even though he’s sitting down, she can see how tall he is, wisps of gray at his temples but still relatively handsome for his age. He’d towered over her when he was trying to get information about the body, but she hadn’t let him intimidate her. Of course, she’d had Danny with her then. And her uniform.

  He doesn’t even look up until she speaks. “Excuse me,” she says, and winces at the way her voice cracks. Not a good start.

&n
bsp; The vicar looks up, frowning. “Yes? What is it, my dear?”

  “Constable Rabbani,” she says.

  He looks her up and down, presumably confused by her outfit. She delves into the flowery bag in search of her warrant card, eventually finds it, and fumbles as she pulls it out.

  “Oh,” he says. “Yes, I see. Well, what can I do for you?”

  She steps forward, still holding up her warrant card as though it’s a talisman. “You were at the Old Vicarage the other day. I wondered if I could get a statement from you.” Too weak. Too uncertain.

  The frown deepens. “But I’ve already spoken to someone. A detective. DS Daley, is it? I gave him my statement an hour ago.”

  Rabbani drops her arm and slips the warrant card back in her bag.

  “Don’t you people talk to each other?”

  “I’m sorry,” she says. Don’t apologize!

  The reverend looks back down at his papers and leaves her hovering there. Then he looks up again. “Was there something else?”

  She hesitates, and she knows it’s a mistake even before she begins talking. “Did you know Gerald Cartwright well?” It’s too late. He is unimpressed by her, has seen self-doubt in the way she’s clutching the hideous bag in front of her. He stands up and moves round the desk. She steps backward instinctively and curses herself for doing so.

  “Look, my dear, there’s obviously been some sort of cock-up at your end. I suggest you go and read my statement and then”—he looks her up and down again, his eyes lingering on her longer than she’s comfortable with; he makes Daley look amateurish in the perv stakes—“if one of your superiors needs something clarified I’ll be happy to speak to them again.” He ushers her backward with a fake smile, kicks away the doorstop, and shuts the door in her face.

  Rabbani stands on the stone paving staring at the wooden door in front of her. She feels as though her face is on fire. She’s never let anyone treat her like that. Not since she joined the force anyway. Not since she was given the uniform. How can everything she is, everything that she’s trained for, be undermined simply because she’s no longer in body armor and helmet? Why should it matter that she’s replaced her checkerboard tie and hi-vis jacket for a crappy suit with no pockets? It shouldn’t matter!

  But it does.

  * * *

  —

  “I’m back!”

  There’s no response. She finds Edna watching the telly; some wildlife program or other, her feet up on the Cavalier footstool. Lily doesn’t bother much with the TV, unless it’s the snooker. She drops the blemished newspaper onto the arm of the chair, but Edna doesn’t acknowledge it.

  Lily looks at Edna properly for the first time in days. The disease is taking its toll; her face shrinking in on itself like a deflating balloon. She’s never been a small woman—and she’s hardly that now—but she is certainly . . . diminished. All skin and hair, her eyebrows too large for her face, great hairy caterpillars that wriggle across the top of her glasses. Her breasts no longer fill the ample room inside her blouse. She has been reduced, consumed from the inside out, and Lily is sure this cancer is somehow all her fault. A punishment from God for her past sins . . . whatever they may be.

  She knows what Edna would say. Don’t be silly, Lillian.

  What’s done is done.

  Edna has gone on far longer than anyone predicted, but Lily knows that’s her fault as well. She would have stopped struggling long ago if not for Lily. She’s so lucky to have had her all these years. When she thinks back to how things were when . . . there’s a knock at the door.

  “Who the devil can that be?” says Mam. “At this hour?” She looks at Lily. “Well, answer it then.” Lily pulls herself up out of the chair, her insides complaining where she’s still sore. “And don’t let them in,” Mam shouts. “I’m hardly dressed for visitors.” There’s nothing wrong with the way she’s dressed, of course, a floral housecoat, perfectly respectable, even at this late hour.

  Lily doesn’t recognize the dark shape visible on the other side of the frosted panel but curiously feels no fear at opening the door at almost nine o’clock at night. Funny, really, since fear seems to be all she does feel these days. She wrenches the door open.

  She recognizes the woman straightaway, of course. And yet . . . it can’t be. It’s as though her mind won’t accept it. “Ed-na?”

  “Well? Are you going to let me in, or not? It’s got to be a good ten degrees cooler up here than in London.”

  “Oh, Edna,” she cries, and hugs her fiercely.

  “All right, all right, give me a chance to get through the door.” But for all of the sting in her words she hugs Lily back just as hard.

  The introductions are brief; Mam can’t wait to get away, perhaps embarrassed to have been caught less than proper. But even so, something passes between them. It’s as though in that brief introductory meeting, Edna still in her coat, cheeks flushed with cold, her mother clutching her housecoat up to her neck, they reach an understanding.

  “Well,” says Mam, as jolly as Lily has heard her in weeks, “I’ll leave you girls to catch up. Oh, Lillian, make sure you put some clean sheets on for Edna. I’ll not have her saying we’re slovenly in the North. And mind you keep to your side!” She stands and addresses Edna. “I hope you sleep soundly. She’s all elbows, this one.” And with that she’s away to bed, and they can really talk.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to meet your mother,” Edna says. “What do you think I’m doing here?”

  “It’s just . . . I mean, I hadn’t heard anything.”

  “I wrote. Several times.”

  “I’ve been away,” she says.

  “Yes,” says Edna. “I know.”

  The silence stretches away from them until finally Edna speaks again. “Your Auntie Vi said to say hello. I still see her sometimes, in the shelter under the theater. We were all sorry to hear about your father.”

  Lily smiles to acknowledge the kindness in the words, but she can see Edna knows mentioning the theater was a mistake.

  “Anyway, I’m here to stay. If you’ll have me.”

  “What? For good?” She can’t mean it!

  “As long as you can put up with me, anyway.”

  “What about London. What about your job?”

  Edna sneers. “London’s getting a bit hairy, if I’m honest. I could do with a break from it all.”

  “But what about the office. Mr. Grainger and the girls?”

  Edna snorts. “Yes, well. I’m finished with those sorts of people. It was getting a bit much listening to them gossip all day.”

  Gossip about Edna. Or about her?

  “I’ll find something anyway. I thought I might try my hand at teaching. And in the meantime I can help out with the housework. And your mother.”

  Oh, yes! Yes, please, yes!

  Something occurs to Lily about Mam’s easy acceptance of this unexpected guest. She knew. They’ve cooked this up between them. They think she can’t manage by herself. It occurs to her perhaps they’re right.

  “You’ll need to get a job,” Lily says.

  “Why, Lillian Bainbridge, you sound just like your mother!” Edna laughs and Lily laughs and then Edna takes her hand. “It’s going to be all right, Lillian. You’ve got me now.”

  Lily looks up at her friend. She is not a pretty woman, not really. Handsome, maybe. And those bright hazelnut eyes . . . fixed so intently on the screen.

  Lily carefully wipes a tear from her cheek. She looks round at the room, the same room in which she had that conversation with Edna all those years ago. It feels like yesterday. It feels like a lifetime ago. Suddenly she hates this place. She needs to get away from it. Even if only for a short while.

  Edna is looking at her, her caterpillars folded together into a thick line. “Are you going to go to the doct
or’s?”

  “What?”

  “It’s happening more and more, isn’t it? When are you going?”

  “Monday,” says Lily without thinking, and changes the subject. “I was thinking about that trip tomorrow.”

  And she has been thinking about it, even more so since her meeting with Joe Wentworth. She’s confident now he’s not behind the letters. His reaction was too strong. He had seemed surprised she would even want to talk to him. He obviously knows something, but the thought of going anywhere near that man again has her breaking out in a sweat. So it must be someone else. And not a stranger, either; it must be someone they know. Most of the people they know will be on that coach. Perhaps somebody will say something to give themselves away. If not, then they might return to find another letter. She will need to make an excuse to Edna so that she, Lily, is the first into the house. Then, if there is a letter, she can hide it quickly before Edna notices.

  And another thought occurs to her. If there is a letter, then it won’t have been delivered by anyone who was on the coach. At worst she will have narrowed her list of suspects.

  “The Whitby outing? The coach leaves at eight. I know it’s a long day, but I thought it might be nice to—”

  “I thought we agreed we were better off staying home.”

  No, thinks Lily, you agreed. There’s always someone making decisions for her. Edna, or her mother. When does she get to decide something for herself? “I thought it might be nice, that’s all. A bit of sea air will be good for both of us.”

  “I don’t think so, Lillian, do you? I don’t think that would be very sensible, given the circumstances.”

  “Oh, bugger sensible!” What circumstances?

  Lily hasn’t seen that look on Edna’s face very often. Nothing much takes her by surprise. The last time she saw it was probably when it was directed at Oscar after a particularly cheeky bit of naughtiness, and even then it would only have been mock horror; this face is genuinely shocked. But the look fades, replaced with the more usual steely determination.