by A J Waines
‘Good job there’s a smoke alarm,’ I tell her, ‘with all these combustible substances around the place. Must be a bit of a fire risk.’
There’s a fire extinguisher by the door, but no sprinklers, I notice. ‘I’ll check the alarm still works,’ I tell her, hopping onto a box.
She’s in no fit state to lift her head to watch me unclip the battery and slip it in my pocket.
We won’t be needing that.
I squat down beside her on the floor. ‘I don’t think you’ve been a good sister,’ I tell her. ‘I reckon you’ve got a lot to answer for, personally.’
Chapter 47
Sam
I tried Con’s phone again as I reached the main road, but it was switched off; rehearsals must have started. I was furious with him. Why hadn’t he taken me seriously? He’d probably have a better idea of where Miranda had gone. He could be helping to track her down. If anything happened to Miranda because of this, I’d never forgive him.
As soon as her neighbour mentioned the canvas bag, snatches of conversation started clicking together in my head. A while ago, Miranda had said a woman from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home had bought one of her paintings. Could that have been Rosie, all those weeks ago, lying through her teeth to get close to my sister? What else had Miranda said about that woman? I wished I’d paid more attention.
There was no point in aimlessly wandering the streets of Camden hoping to come across the two of them, so I stepped inside the first wine bar I came to and sat on a barstool at the window with a small brandy.
I made myself think back to that conversation. Miranda certainly hadn’t mentioned Rosie’s name, but the coincidence was too great. Miranda hadn’t been at my flat for ages, so how else could my blue scarf have ended up in her hall? It must be Rosie that Miranda’s neighbour had seen.
I swirled my glass and took a sip, letting the brandy burn my throat. Then I went back to what Miranda had said on the phone. I remembered now. She’d said she was excited about the possibility of getting an agent…and something else…about the woman from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home wanting to ‘see more’.
That was it. Suddenly, I had an inkling as to where they might be.
I abandoned the unfinished drink on the window ledge, pushed past a man reaching down to pick up a pound coin from the floor and dashed out into the street towards Camden Lock.
When I reached the gates of the Community Arts Project, it was all locked up. I shook the gates in frustration, but they didn’t budge. Everything was dark and still inside, there were no lights on anywhere.
I bolted around the corner to the Urban Shack Café and asked everyone in a stripy red apron if they’d seen Miranda.
‘The Project closes at five,’ said Shontal, ‘unless there’s a special event.’ She sprayed disinfectant onto the table beside me and leant forward to wipe it. ‘No one will be there at this time.’
‘Is there any way to get inside after dark?’ I asked, shouting against the loud off-beat thud of the Reggae music.
She shrugged, shaking her head. ‘We don’t have keys.’
Dezzie came over carrying a sausage roll for a customer. ‘You could try round the side, near the back of the café,’ he said, his mouth right by my ear. ‘Someone’s left an old chest of drawers in the alleyway. I spotted it the other day. Climbing on that’ll probably get you over the wall, but you won’t get any further. The building’s usually locked.’
With that I was on the run again, back to the Project. I followed the fence until it joined a brick wall at the side of the property; half way along there was a shadowy gap. I didn’t like the look of it, nor the smell of it one bit, once I got there. The street light only lit up the first few feet and beyond that there were only jagged, undefined shapes.
As I edged forward, I came across a discarded tumble dryer, some soggy cardboard boxes, an abandoned kid’s tricycle. Dezzie was right; piled on its side at the end was a sideboard without drawers. I clambered onto it and hoisted myself up so I was sitting on the wall. From there the only thing to do was jump.
It seemed an awfully long way down to the tarmac on the other side and there was nothing to break my fall. I was worried about hurting my sprained ankle, but with the image of Rosie with Miranda uppermost in my mind, I turned round, gritted my teeth and inelegantly half slid, half fell letting my right foot reach the ground first. I narrowly missed a pile of broken bricks and apart from a few scratches, I was fine.
A security light came on as I approached the back entrance, but there was no movement and, as Dezzie predicted, the door was bolted. I ran around the whole building trying every door, but the outcome was the same. I pressed my ear to the glass at the front, but there was nothing.
I’d got it wrong. They weren’t here.
In my rush to find Miranda, I hadn’t even thought about getting out again. I hurried back to the spot where I’d hit the ground, searching on the way for an industrial waste bin or something big to push against the wall.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw it.
From a tiny narrow window at ground level – something bright was bobbing from side to side. Not a light, but something flickering – a flame!
The place was on fire.
Chapter 48
Sam
I called the fire brigade straight away, then grabbed a brick from the pile by the wall and bolted back to the building. Standing as close as I dared, I hurled it at one of the smaller windows on the ground floor, not thinking, or caring, about shielding my face from the shards of glass that flew back at me.
From there, I followed the smoke down the stairs to the basement.
When I burst into the storeroom, the heat hit me like a scalding tornado. Curling and swirling billows of smoke were everywhere, making me double over in a coughing fit.
‘Miranda?!’ I croaked, barely able to see through the choking clouds.
A figure came at me, her hands on me, shoving me back towards the doorway.
‘Stop!’ she screamed. ‘You don’t understand, you’re spoiling everything. This is for us! This is so we can be together. Not her. Just you and me.’
Wild flames leapt across the ceiling, crackling and roaring.
‘No! Not like this, Rosie. Where is she? Help me…’
Rosie looked confused and ducked down, disappearing into the swelling smoke. I reached out to grab her and caught hold of her jumper, but she pulled away. I wrenched the scarf from my neck, took a deep breath and wrapped it around my mouth. Then I dropped to my hands and feet and crawled after her.
I was so blinded by the smoke that I couldn’t tell if my eyes were open or closed. I went headfirst into something – an easel or ladder – and changed course, flinging my hands out around me, feeling for Miranda. I found only empty frames and scorching tins of paint that burnt my gloves. I knew she was here. She had to be here.
By now the heat was phenomenal. It tried to scorch my eyebrows and stung through my clothes. I had to turn back, I had to get out, but I couldn’t leave Miranda. This was all my fault. I should have realised sooner. I had to find her.
Orange lights flashed under my eyelids and everything hurt. My clothes stuck to me, cooking me, like tin foil. I used my last ounce of air to call Miranda’s name, but it came out as a muffled wail through my thick scarf. It was no good – my lungs were bursting, I had to go back. I threw out my hand in one final attempt to find her and turned round.
Then I knelt on it. Miranda’s foot. I felt the sole of her shoe, traced it up to her leg.
‘No, no!’ Rosie was pulling me away.
‘I can’t leave her!’ I spluttered back at her. ‘Do this for ME, Rosie!’
I tore away from her clutch and found Miranda’s shoulder. I felt my sister’s hair, touched flesh, an arm, her fingers, but the flames had already reached her, licking around my hands. I grabbed her as best I could and pulled, dragged, tugged her towards the door, the thick plumes like knives, slicing and cutting my chest with every snatche
d breath.
As I humped Miranda’s body over the threshold, I ripped off my coat and flung it over her, patting and rolling her to smother the remaining flames that were trying to take hold.
Rosie was still inside. She seemed to be searching for something. It would have been so easy to reach out and slam the door, but I couldn’t wash my hands of her completely. Once I’d left Miranda somewhere safe, I’d have to go back for Rosie.
I hauled Miranda to the foot of the stairs and carefully peeled away her coat. The remains of her clothes were full of huge holes where red, moist bulges of skin had burst through. As I tugged the scarf from my mouth a violent surge of nausea made me want to look away.
‘I don’t care about the baby, and you being with Con,’ I shouted at her. ‘I just want you back. I can’t lose you…’
I rolled her gently onto her back and forced myself to look into her face. Her eyelashes were crisp, her lips cracked and split. She looked strangely peaceful. I knew in that moment that she was dead – I just knew it – she hadn’t moved an inch of her own accord since I’d found her. I had merely pulled her away and put out the flames; I hadn’t saved her.
In a last-ditch effort, I tried mouth to mouth, but as I knelt down and touched her cheek, a hand grabbed my hair from behind, and I heard a crack. A sharp pain in my neck made me crumple and my legs went from under me. Then the darkness wiped everything away.
Chapter 49
Sam
Rosie’s sing-song voice came out of nowhere.
‘Dad must have been really angry that day…when he saw the suitcase,’ she said, the sound drifting towards me from far away.
‘Rosie...?’ I croaked. I was sitting on a tiled floor, leaning against something blissfully cold. The pedestal of a sink.
‘That must have been the point Dad made the decision to do what he did. With the air rifle. Something inside him must have snapped, just like that.’ She snapped her fingers.
‘Miranda…where is she?’ I murmured.
My head was still on fire, throbbing, fit to burst. I coughed and reached up to rub the back of my head where she’d hit me, but Rosie grabbed my hand, securing it in her own.
‘Let’s not talk about her,’ she said. ‘It’s just you and me, now.’ She spoke as if we were in the middle of a conversation, winding a clump of my hair around her finger with her other hand.
‘The fire. Have they put it out? Where’s the fire brigade?’
Rosie’s face was blackened with soot. She stared blankly ahead towards the men’s urinals, but in her mind she was obviously somewhere entirely different.
‘Had Dad always planned to hurt my mum, do you think?’ she said.
‘I d-don’t know,’ I said. The air was still churning with wafts of smoke. Everything was spinning and I felt like I was going to throw up any second. ‘Is the fire out, Rosie? What are we doing in here?’
‘It’s safe. Everything’s fine,’ she said, her tone offhand.
‘We should get out,’ I said, straining to lean forward.
She shoved me back against the wall and a wave of giddiness forced me to stay still.
‘Not yet. This is important.’ She stroked my fingers tenderly. ‘Why, after he’d shot her once, did my dad carry on shooting her another fourteen times?’
Never-ending bloody questions. Would they ever stop?
‘M-maybe he didn’t really know what he was doing,’ I replied vaguely.
‘Mmm…’ she said. ‘I think he must have known she was dead after the first few pellets, don’t you?’ She followed a ridge of grouting around a tile with her finger, her other hand still held firmly over mine. ‘Why didn’t he shoot me?’
‘Because he wasn’t angry with you,’ I said.
She stared straight ahead, taking a long while to process my response.
Rosie had always seemed fixated on her father, dismissing any attempts I made to remind her that from her own accounts it was clear that her mother truly loved her. As that young child, however, it was her father she’d been desperate to win over. His love seemed to matter more to her. Maybe, because he was harsh and cruel, she thought his love was worth more.
‘Do you ever have that feeling when something snaps inside, when your heart boils over and you don’t know what you’re going to do next?’
I hesitated. ‘Once or twice, when I’ve been…very upset.’
‘Yeah…me too.’ She patted the floor, like a toddler in a sandpit. She turned to face me. ‘Did you lie when you said you were fond of me?’
Dangerous territory. I kept hearing the name Erica inside my head, like a distant mantra.
‘I do like you, Rosie.’ I straightened slightly, trying to get my good foot into a position where I could lever myself upright. ‘I haven’t been lying to you.’
‘The weird thing is – it feels real,’ she said. ‘The way you take an interest in me, listen to me, seem to understand about my life.’
Being with Rosie was like holding a harmless sheet of paper in your hand and realising it’s cut your finger. I knew she was capable of turning from sweetness and light to downright aggressive within a single sentence. I was vulnerable after the crack on the back of my head. I needed to keep her stable, pull her back from any emotional extremes, any rash actions.
‘It is real…’ I assured her.
‘So why didn’t you get me out of the fire?’
‘You didn’t need my help!’ I snapped. ‘In any case I was going to come back and check, but you hit me…’
‘You only pretended to like me because I’m a patient and I’m paying you, that’s it, isn’t it? For a while I thought it was going to be real, but you’re just like everyone else.’ Her fingers were on my face, gently tracing the folds of my eyelids, before she trailed them down my cheek.
I cleared my throat, ducking away from her touch. ‘I genuinely feel a great deal for you – as a patient I want to support.’
With every word I uttered, I was reinforcing all Rosie’s worst fears. She’d put me on a pedestal and now I was coming crashing down. Was this what happened with Erica?
‘Don’t you like the way I’ve been helping you?’ she asked.
‘Helping me?’
‘Dusting and cleaning your flat. I wanted to make it nice for you.’
‘Excuse me! You copied my keys,’ I retorted. ‘You were breaking in.’
‘Only to help. Like a fairy godmother.’
‘Were you ringing my landline, too, Rosie? Were you calling and not speaking when I picked up the phone?’
‘Oh, that,’ she said dismissively. ‘I was just finding out if you were at home or not. I didn’t want to barge in…you know…it was just to check, that’s all.’ She brushed her nose with the cuff of her sleeve. ‘And I told you the truth about Miranda’s baby. That was a nice thing to do, wasn’t it?’
I shook my head. In her mind she had an innocent explanation for everything.
There was a rustle by my feet as she delved into a bulging canvas bag – the one Miranda’s neighbour had said Rosie was carrying. That must have been what she was searching for in the storeroom earlier. The handles were scorched and it was covered in ash.
‘By the way, I solved one of the mysteries,’ she said, her hand inside it.
I waited for her to explain.
‘The fortune that was “under the bridge”, remember? Well, I was right to keep asking questions, I was just looking under the wrong sort of bridge. It wasn’t a bridge on the landscape. It was much closer to home. Let me show you.’
She drew out a mass of splintered wood and twisted strings.
‘Your viola? Oh, Rosie, it’s completely ruined.’
‘I know. I got very cross when I found out.’ She blew her fringe into the air with a heavy breath. ‘But there’s a silver lining to the story. You know the little arch that holds the strings up? It’s called a “bridge”.’ She pointed it out. ‘I should have realised. That’s where the fortune had been hiding all along. Just here, look
…’ She showed me a tiny envelope taped to the back of a piece of broken wood.
‘Open it,’ she said.
I thought it was empty at first, but when I tipped it up a small scrap of paper fell out. An old black stamp.
‘Who’d have thought it?’ she went on, ‘Hidden inside my worthless viola!’
‘But how…how did…?’
‘It was after Mick Blain gate-crashed our rehearsal in 2001. When I dashed off to get Max to fix my viola, he must have put it there.’ She shook her head at the audacity of it. ‘I mentioned his name to Dawn and she found out all about him from her colleagues at the auction house. It turned out Mick had lived a very colourful life fencing stolen instruments before he’d moved on to coins and stamps. The whole “wanting to play my viola” thing was all an act. He must have known exactly what he was doing. He staged that stunt purely to get hold of it as a hiding place.’
She showed me the small f-shaped hole Mick must have squeezed the envelope through, when he knew the police were on to him. It looked like it would have been an intricate procedure, but perhaps not if you’d done it before.
She held up a scrap of wood. ‘The tiny envelope would have been invisible to everyone, even me, and we were so concerned about fixing the viola that no one spotted it. You remember Max said there was a label inside and I laughed at him? Well, it must have been this little envelope. I thought no more about it at the time, I was just glad my viola was back in one piece. Dawn told me a stamp in the same series sold last year for a million dollars.’
Rosie’s lost viola. It was worth all her trouble in the end, although not in the way she expected. It had a hidden surprise for her.
‘I knew I had to get my viola back. It was my friend, my voice, my place in the world even though I couldn’t play like I used to. I was gutted when I found it smashed to pieces, but I didn’t expect this bonus!’ She guided the mess of strings and wood tenderly back inside the bag. ‘This extra gift my viola had kept secret for me all this time.’