Firewatching

by Russ Thomas

  “We can get a cleaner for that,” he tells her.

  “No. I’d rather do it myself. Thank you, though, that’s very kind, Mr. . . . ?”

  He reintroduces himself and Doggett. “Perhaps we could sit outside?”

  She nods absently, and Tyler gestures to Atkins to fetch one of the patio chairs.

  “Would you like some tea?” she asks. “I think there may be some cake left as well, if you’d like it?”

  “Miss Bainbridge,” Doggett tells her. “We are treating your house as a crime scene for now. You won’t be able to stay here for a while.”

  She looks confused. “No, no, that can’t be right.”

  Atkins guides her into the chair and she sits. He returns to his post.

  Doggett is making little urging motions with his head, trying to convince Tyler to push her, but Tyler shakes his head. Kid gloves. The woman is clearly in a state of deep shock.

  “I’m sorry we have to do this now,” he says.

  Lily looks up at him for the first time, a frown on her wrinkled brow. “I don’t understand. What crime?”

  “We need to ask you about Gerald Cartwright,” he tells her.

  Suddenly she’s all smiles. “Oh yes, Gerald. He’s a lovely man. No trouble. A wonderful neighbor. We’re very lucky.” Her eyes flick toward the conservatory for a moment, and the smile fades.

  “You got along well, then?”

  “Of course.”

  “And Mrs. Cartwright? Cynthia?”

  “Oh.” Lily’s face hardens. “Yes, silly girl. I’m not sure she ever really wanted a child.” She glances at the conservatory again, and a faint color appears in her cheeks.

  “You didn’t like her, then?”

  “Cynthia? Oh yes, she was very nice.”

  “But silly?”

  “A bit flighty,” she says. “A will-o’-the-wisp.” She laughs lightly. “Yes, always off somewhere. Never happy with what she had. Edna said—” She stops abruptly.

  “Yes?”

  “Well, it isn’t right to speak ill of the dead, is it?” It isn’t clear if she means Edna or Cynthia.

  Tyler is painfully aware of Doggett fidgeting just out of his sight line.

  “Have you seen anything of her in the past ten years?”

  “Edna had a call,” she says all at once, her words tripping over themselves, “after she left.”

  “She did? Can you remember where she was ringing from?”

  “Canada.”

  “Canada?”

  “I’m not sure. Yes. Canada, I think. Or Ireland. You won’t tell Oscar I said that, will you? About Cynthia. I wouldn’t want him to think . . .” Again she trails off.

  Doggett sighs heavily.

  “Have you met Oscar?” Lily asks. “We’re very proud of him. Such a beautiful little boy, and so caring. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, not our Oscar.” She flinches slightly. Again her eyes flicking toward the conservatory. Tyler wonders if it’s Atkins’s presence in her home that has her spooked, but it doesn’t seem to be him that she’s focused on. If anything, she seems to be eyeing the garden furniture piled neatly to one side of the door. He recognizes the strange swing contraption he saw on their last visit.

  “Do you remember what happened when Gerald went missing, Lily?”

  “Yes,” she says. “Or rather, no. I mean, I wasn’t there, was I?”

  “Where?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You weren’t where?”

  “Wherever he was when he went missing?” She smiles, apparently pleased at her logic.

  “Lily, I don’t think you’re being entirely truthful with me. Is there something else? Something you want to tell us?”

  She looks at the swing again—yes, he’s sure now that it is the swing that has her attention. “The furniture,” she says.

  “What about it?”

  “It’s just . . . I don’t see how she could have managed it. The sun lounger. Not on her own. I think I would’ve struggled myself and . . .” Once again she trails off.

  Doggett lets out a huff of air, a pressure valve that is perhaps the only thing that saves Lily from being on the receiving end of a significant rant. He places his hands on the arms of her chair and leans in. When he speaks, thankfully, he’s lost some of his irritation. “Miss Bainbridge, you need to stop lying to us now.” Behind his back he clicks his fingers at Tyler, who extracts the evidence bag that is nestled in his back pocket and passes it forward. The DI snatches it from his hand and holds it in front of Lily’s face. She frowns at the charred paper visible through the clear plastic. Her lips move as she reads the words that are still visible. I know what y—

  “Oh,” she says. “I’m sorry, but I don’t follow.”

  “This was in your fireplace. We think it was protected from the fire somewhat by . . .” Doggett stops himself. It is more than obvious what protected it.

  “No,” she says. “No. I don’t think so.”

  “Yes,” Doggett argues with her, but gently by his standards, as though he’s coaxing an insect into a trap before throwing it out the window. “You need to talk to us. You need to tell us what’s going on here. We can’t help you otherwise. We can’t help Oscar.”

  “Oscar,” she breathes quietly.

  And as though summoned, he is there. “Auntie Edie! Aunt Lil!” His voice echoes down the path from the front of the house.

  Tyler moves to head him off. He hears the officer guarding the front door shout, “No, lad, you can’t just—” But he breaks off when he sees Tyler blocking the path ahead.

  “You? What are you—?”

  “It’s Edna, Oscar.”

  Oscar pushes past, his eyes going first to Lily, then Doggett, then to Danny Atkins watching curiously from the house. Oscar pushes his way into the conservatory and straight into Atkins’s arms. There’s a brief struggle, and then Oscar plainly notices the mark on the carpet because he breaks away from the tussle, his hands flying to his mouth. He staggers back out into the garden and retches, dropping into a crouch and clutching his stomach.

  “Get him a glass of water or something,” Doggett instructs, and Atkins heads off into the house. Tyler grabs another of the fold-up patio chairs, glancing at the swing—the sun lounger, as Lily had called it. When he gets back outside, Oscar is sitting on the garden wall where they’d found Lily earlier, elbows on his knees, hands over his mouth. He looks paler than ever, and the bags under his eyes are so dark they could be makeup. He wipes the fat tears from his cheeks with the palms of his hands and suddenly he seems to be aware of his surroundings for the first time. “What’s going on?” he asks. “Lily?”

  But Lily is staring off into space, her jaw slack. Oscar gets up and goes to her. “What have you been doing to her? Lily? Lily, can you hear me?” He rounds on them. “What the fuck is wrong with you people? Can’t you see she isn’t well?”

  “We need to ask—”

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” He says it again, but this time he’s speaking to Tyler alone. “Do you actually have any feelings at all? Do you? Jesus Christ, Adam!” He turns to Doggett. “I want you out of here. All of you!”

  “This is a potential crime scene,” Doggett tells him.

  “What crime? She was an old lady. For fuck’s sake, are you saying someone killed her?”

  “We don’t know what happened yet.”

  At once Oscar calms. Tyler sees the change in his eyes. “There are rules about police harassment,” he says. “From now on both Lily and I will be speaking through our solicitor. You can direct any further questions to Michael Denham’s office. Is that understood?”

  Doggett eyes him closely. “I think we’re all a lot clearer on things,” he says.

  “Oscar?” Lily is back.

  “It’s all right, Auntie Lil. Let’s get you somewhere a bit
more comfortable.” Oscar helps her to her feet and guides her down the path. “Then we’ll have a chat with Michael. I’m sure he can sort everything out.”

  By the time Atkins gets back, Lily and Oscar are gone. Doggett grabs the glass from his hand and downs it in one. His eyes lock on to Tyler’s, and he smacks his lips. He looks about ready to kill someone, but he clearly doesn’t want to say anything in front of Atkins. Instead, all he says is, “Where’s that bloody girl with my breadcake?”

  * * *

  —

  The wood of the vestry door is beginning to blister. The smoke is thicker now, as though the fact she’s noticed it has given it permission to be there. It stretches out to fill the room. Rabbani coughs her way back into the church and closes the door. The smoke begins to billow underneath almost immediately.

  She moves back down the aisle. On her right-hand side she can see the fire on the roof of the annex, the flames flickering and dancing behind the colored glass of the stained-glass windows even as the images begin to blacken with smoke. Never mind how much the bloody things are worth; if she could find a way up there, and a way to get through all the lead on the windows, she would. She wonders how long the wooden doors will hold. But then, she’ll probably suffocate long before the flames reach her anyway. She finds some more cassocks folded in a pile next to the font and uses them to plug the gap under the door.

  How does a church burn? It’s bloody stupid. Isn’t it mostly stone? In answer, there’s a loud crack from overhead and she looks up to see a mist of wispy gray smoke suspended between the wooden rafters.

  She runs back to the front door. “Help!” Her voice sounds so pathetic she almost laughs. This can’t be happening. Her arms ache as she pummels on the door. Her throat aches from shouting.

  “God!” She screams it.

  And saying His name out loud makes her think properly about Him, perhaps for the first time. She sits down on the rearmost pew. She needs to calm down, but all she can think about is the fact she’s about to be burned alive in a church. She can hear her mother telling everyone, “This is God’s punishment!” And it’s not even her god. She starts to laugh hysterically, but this soon breaks into another choking cough. The hall is filling with smoke fast now. Through it she sees the first flicker of red light from the area next to the altar. What is it called? Why can’t she remember? She’s going to die in a place she doesn’t have the proper terminology for. Her eyes sting, but she can’t work out if she’s crying or if it’s the smoke.

  “No!” She hauls herself back to her feet. There must be something. She won’t just curl up and die.

  She’s considered her own death before, of course. Who hasn’t? For a while, in Year 5, she thought she might want to be a foreign correspondent, a war journalist or something. Report from Afghanistan and Iraq or wherever Britain invaded next. It seemed worthy and would at least get her away from home, which was more than half the point. But it was just a dream. She never got the grades, and she doubts university would have suited her anyway. Still, she used to fantasize about what it would be like when the bombs were falling and the bullets flying. She wouldn’t hide somewhere waiting for the inevitable. She’d run through the dust and shrapnel, fight tooth and claw to get back, pass on the message about what was happening to innocent women and children who had the gall to get in the way of the blokes and their guns.

  She has to get out of here. She has to tell them what she heard. She has to tell them about Wentworth and Thorogood. They did this to her. She won’t let them get away with it. She’ll make a promise to God if that’s what it takes. Maybe it isn’t her god, or maybe it is, or maybe they’re all the same—the Muslim god, and the Christian god, and Buddha, and aliens, and God knows what else. Whatever it takes. She’ll give in to her mother and go to Mecca next year, complete the hajj. Just whoever He is, please, God! Not like this!

  There must be a way. There must be something.

  She tries to pry off the metal covering on the latch, but it’s solid and weighty and she might as well try scratching at a wall with her fingernails. She thinks of Gerald Cartwright buried alive and shivers.

  Through the fog she makes out a shape—a candlestick on the table next to the font. She pulls up the collar of her top so that it covers her mouth a little and forces her way closer to the flames. The heat is terrifying. Like that time she picked up the pan on the stove and for a second it didn’t register and then she was dropping it, spilling boiling water across the kitchen floor where it splashed against Ghulam’s leg and turned his soft brown skin a livid pink. She thought she would die that day, when their mother found out. Poor Ghulam, the favorite, scarred for life by his clumsy, useless sister. Maybe that’s what this is. Her punishment. Maybe she’s already burning but can’t feel it yet, just like the pan.

  She can barely breathe but she forces herself to go on, one foot in front of the other. Wraps her hand around the candlestick. It feels hot, but it can’t be; it’s just her imagination. She runs back to the door, and the effort sends her into another fit of coughing. She brings the candlestick down hard on the lock. Clang. The vibrations travel up her aching arms. Again. Clang. Again. Fifty blows. More. She stops and examines her progress. There’s a dent in the lock mechanism, but she can’t be sure it wasn’t there already. The candlestick, on the other hand, is bent completely out of shape.

  “Bastard!” She pulls back her arm and launches the candlestick at the window. There’s a small tinkle of glass; the candlestick bounces off the leaded lights and drops to the floor with a dull thud.

  Rabbani falls to her knees and presses her forehead to the cold flagstones. Above her, the roof timbers break, raining fiery droplets down upon the pews. One of the wooden benches begins to smolder and catch. The air thickens, the heat on her face doubles.

  No! Not like this. Up again. Fight!

  In front of her, she sees the golden cross chained to its pedestal. Behind that, on the wall with the altar, Christ hangs burning on His crucifix. Something black and molten drips across His face, making Him weep dark tears. Is He mocking her?

  She grabs the cross with both hands, pulls it up. It’s so incredibly heavy and it won’t reach anywhere near the door. But there is some length to the chain. She untangles it as best she can and rams it hard against the smashed window. More of the glass breaks, but when she tries to pull the cross back out it sticks fast, jutting into the cool air. The fresh air is glorious but makes her cough even more. The sun glints off the golden surface of the cross, and she sinks to the floor for what she knows will be the last time. She has nothing left.

  “Shit,” she says softly, or she tries to. The smoke seems to be all around her. In her. She can’t even cough anymore; there’s nothing left to inhale or exhale. Let it be over now. She can’t fight any longer.

  Constable Amina Rabbani falls sideways.

  * * *

  —

  They are on their way back to the incident room. Doggett has changed his mind about them reliving an Agatha Christie novel. “It’s the bleedin’ Stepford Wives,” he says. “That’s what it is. Or something out of a Shirley Jackson story.”

  Tyler has no idea what he’s talking about but makes a mental note to google it later.

  “You know this Denham character lives here an’ all? Got a mansion the other side of the village. No doubt paid for by Gerald Cartwright’s millions. They all bloody live here! And they’re all in it up to their bloody eyeballs. I tell you, if we don’t unearth a flamin’ coven sacrificing vestal virgins before we’re finished here, I’ll—what the . . . ?”

  Doggett is the first to see the smoke, but Tyler is the first to start running and soon outpaces the older man. When he reaches the church the flames are already racing across the roof, clouds of black smoke rolling like filthy waves into the sky.

  He sees a man looking in at the window. “Police! Come away from there.”

  The m
an looks up, startled, and Tyler sees that kid would be a more accurate description; he’s no more than seventeen or eighteen. “There’s someone in there!” he says, pointing at the golden cross sticking out of the window through the leaded lights, smoke curling around it and evaporating into the sky.

  The key is still in the lock. Tyler turns it and pushes on the massive wooden door, and a curtain of gray smoke reaches out to engulf him. He covers his mouth with his T-shirt as best he can and plunges into the church, eyes stinging. He can hear the crackle of flames, feel their heat on his face and hands. He inches his way, half blind, toward the window, virtually tripping over her before he even realizes she’s there. Rabbani. Her slight figure is facedown on the flagstones, her hair loose across her face. It makes him think of Edna Burnside and Cynthia Cartwright. It makes him think of the girl in the flat. Victims. But not Rabbani. She can’t be a victim; he won’t let her be. He snatches her up, surprised at how light she is before he realizes the kid is with him, helping to support her weight. They stumble back toward the door, or at least where he thinks the door should be. He’s got himself turned around; he has no idea which way is out, which way is closer to the flames. He’s starting to panic, then, all at once, they are out, the fresh air burning his throat.

  Tyler coughs. The kid coughs. Even Doggett is coughing, either from the smoke that still surrounds them or perhaps just from the exertion of the journey here.

  Rabbani doesn’t cough.

  Doggett leans down and puts his ear to her face, tries to find a pulse. He looks up at Tyler. “I dunno,” he says, then, “Wait . . . yeah, she’s breathing. I think.”

  Time passes. The next thing Tyler notices is the sound of the sirens approaching. Doggett has vanished; the kid is lying on his back on the grass, wheezing. Then they are surrounded: firefighters, paramedics, reporters temporarily relocated from round the corner, other curious gawpers. He’s here somewhere. Watching them, watching his handiwork.