Saving Willowbrook

by Anna Jacobs

  Faint orange light was flickering in the barn, he could see it through the high dusty windows. Shouting at the top of his voice, ‘The barn’s on fire!’ he thrust his feet into his shoes and ran down the stairs in his pyjamas, dragging on his dressing gown as he went.

  Voices called out behind him and he yelled again, ‘The barn’s on fire! Come quickly!’

  He grabbed the fire extinguisher and barn key from near the kitchen door and rushed out into the darkness, feet crunching on the uneven surface of the yard. The big double barn doors wouldn’t open. He tugged frantically, but couldn’t get them to move. What had happened to them? How could a fire have possibly started in an empty barn?

  Ella shoved him aside and tried the doors, but though the key turned easily, no tugging and heaving would budge the doors.

  And all the time, light was flickering inside the barn, showing through the windows above their heads.

  Cameron tried again, but it was impossible to move the doors. Then he had an idea. ‘Can we get into the barn through the secret passage?’

  ‘Yes. This way.’ She tugged his arm and he followed her, only then realizing she too was carrying a fire extinguisher.

  ‘Keep Amy away from the barn, Stephanie!’ she yelled over her shoulder.

  It seemed to take a long time to get the secret passage open from the outside. Every second he was expecting the barn to explode into a major conflagration. He had to let Ella lead the way along the tunnel, but he worried all the way about how rashly she would act at the other end.

  As she disappeared into the darkness of the tunnel, he followed her blindly, trusting to her knowledge of these ancient ways to keep them safe.

  ‘Stop a minute!’ she called, but he bumped into her before he could do that. He stood close to her in the darkness, hearing her fumbling for something.

  Suddenly a light came on and she shone the torch that was kept in the tunnel on the panel, pressing and pushing the old wood and waiting for the door into the hidey hole to move slowly aside.

  The smell of smoke was stronger here, but not overpowering, which he didn’t understand. If the barn was alight, they should be having trouble breathing by now, surely?

  As the next door that led into the barn began to open slowly, he tensed, ready to drag Ella back down the passage if she appeared to be in any danger. On that thought, he grabbed her arm, just in case she behaved rashly. ‘Don’t move out until we’re sure it’s safe!’

  ‘I’m not stupid. Hold your extinguisher at the ready.’

  There was a fire in one corner of the barn near the doors, a fire which smelled acrid and made them both cough. But it wasn’t burning out of control, rather it seemed contained. How could that be?

  The fire gave enough light for them to assess the situation, which was like a scene from a nightmare, all flickering light against shifting darkness, with dark smoke gathering and heaving about above them.

  ‘The fire is only burning in that corner,’ he muttered. ‘Let me go first.’

  He didn’t wait for her agreement, but led the way across the barn. Suddenly something shimmered in front of him. Thinking it was another fire starting, he stopped, extinguisher at the ready. But it wasn’t a fire; it looked more like an electronic barrier.

  ‘It’s the lady,’ Ella breathed next to him. ‘She’s blocking the way. Can’t you see her arms spread out? Don’t move forward.’

  He couldn’t believe this was happening, could only see a shimmering mass, not a figure. But that was enough to stop him in his tracks.

  ‘She’s gesturing to move to the left.’

  ‘I don’t believe this,’ he muttered, but did as Ella said nonetheless.

  The patch of faint silvery light, totally different from the smouldering oranges and yellows of the fire, stayed where it was as they moved round it.

  He pulled himself together and concentrated on the matter at hand. ‘Aim your extinguisher to the right. I’ll do the left.’

  She was pointing her nozzle even as he finished speaking and the two of them soon had the blaze under control.

  He sniffed. ‘Can you smell that?’

  ‘Yes. A strong smell of paraffin. Oh, Cameron, surely this hasn’t been done on purpose!’

  He hated even putting it into words, it was such a horrifying thought. ‘I think it may be arson. Best not to touch anything. Let’s see if we can open the doors from inside.’

  To their amazement, there was no difficulty whatsoever in opening them now. ‘Why the hell couldn’t I get them to budge before?’ he wondered aloud. ‘Mind you, it’s lucky they stuck. We’d probably have fanned the flames if we’d opened them, the fire was so close to this end of the barn. As it was, we had time to put it out before opening up.’

  They stood breathing deeply in the fresher air just outside the door, wiping their watering eyes and keeping an eye on the spot which had been burning in case flames flared up again.

  Stephanie’s voice cut through the darkness of the yard. ‘Is the fire out?’

  ‘Yes. But you’d better call the fire brigade anyway,’ Ella said. ‘And no one should go back inside the barn till they come. Cameron and I could both smell paraffin.’

  ‘Arson?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  A figure appeared out of the darkness on the other side of the yard, one of the guests. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘There’s been a fire in the barn,’ Cameron said. ‘Not a major one and it’s out now. We have fire extinguishers in place everywhere, as you may have noticed in your chalet, so we put it out quite quickly. However, we’ve called the fire brigade just to make sure there aren’t likely to be any more problems.’

  ‘Oh.’ He stood for a minute or two in the light streaming from the kitchen windows and door staring at the barn. ‘Smells awful, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. I hope it’s not too bad in the chalets.’

  He grinned, teeth showing lighter against the barely distinguishable features of his face. ‘My wife wouldn’t notice. She sleeps like the proverbial log.’ He yawned. ‘I’ll get back to bed now, then, if there’s nothing I can do to help.’

  They heard him talking to someone back along the path, presumably another guest coming to investigate.

  ‘Your fire precautions certainly paid off,’ Cameron said.

  ‘I care too much about the place to take risks. I don’t economize on things like safety.’

  Amy came to stand beside her mother. ‘It’s not going to start burning again, is it?’

  ‘No, but just in case, if I tell you to run back to the house, you’re to do so at once,’ Ella said.

  She sounded like her old self, Cameron thought, crisp and decisive.

  ‘I promise, Mummy. What’s arson?’

  ‘When somebody sets a fire deliberately.’

  ‘That’s terrible. Oh! My dressing up clothes will all be burned. And my wand.’

  ‘We can get you some more clothes, darling. And another wand. Was Teddy in the barn?’

  ‘No. He was safe in bed with me.’

  ‘Then things aren’t too bad.’ She hugged the child close, standing shivering as the sky slowly turned grey, knowing Amy needed reassurance, gaining reassurance herself from the child’s warm body. This was what mattered. The barn and farm counted for so little against the life of her daughter.

  After a while she sent Amy inside to Stephanie, but couldn’t bear to move too far away from the barn herself, felt she had to keep an eye on it. She watched Cameron pacing up and down the yard, frowning sometimes as he stopped to peer into the barn to check that the fire hadn’t started up again.

  Why would someone set light to the barn deliberately, Ella wondered? Why the barn and not the house? Who could have done it?

  Miles? No, she couldn’t imagine him risking prison.

  DevRaCom? Now that was something she could imagine much more easily. The company had a lot of money at stake. But even so, they had enough money to get an arson job done properly, not botched up. This
seemed more like the work of amateurs when even she could smell the paraffin.

  Who else was there who stood to gain by her barn being destroyed? She couldn’t think of anyone.

  It seemed a long time till the fire engine arrived. When it stopped, they explained to the man in charge that they suspected arson, after which none of the firefighters went inside.

  The chief firefighter checked everything then came to speak to her. ‘It’s obvious the fire is out, Ella. Good thing we set you up with the right extinguishers, eh?’

  ‘Yes. Thanks for coming out so quickly, Jim.’

  ‘We’ll stay here to make sure everything’s safe, but it’ll be light soon, so as long as there isn’t a flare up, we’ll wait before we go inside. We don’t want to destroy any evidence. You’re quite sure you smelled paraffin?’

  ‘Absolutely certain. We both did.’

  ‘Then I’ll call in our arson investigators. You know, you might as well go back into the house as stand out here and shiver.’

  ‘All right.’ But before they opened the farm door, Ella grabbed hold of Cameron to stop him and asked in a low voice, ‘Would DevRaCom do something like this?’

  ‘I doubt it. They’re not perfect, and they don’t mind trampling on a few toes, but they don’t go in for criminal activity, as far as I know. What about your ex? He’s still in the neighbourhood, isn’t he? Could he have done it?’

  ‘I don’t think so. It doesn’t seem at all the sort of thing he’d do. Miles uses words and tricks to get what he wants, and I doubt he’d ever risk prison. I may be wrong. He may be desperate enough, but . . .’ Her voice trailed away and she shook her head. ‘No, I just can’t believe it of him.’

  At the door she turned to stare at the figures of the firefighters, dark outlines under a sky that was getting lighter by the minute. ‘I hope they catch whoever did it and lock him away for a good long time. First someone broke in and trashed my house, now this. Why me? Why Willowbrook?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I intend to find out.’

  ‘We shall find out.’

  He smiled. She was definitely getting better.

  Twenty

  Rose woke early but Oliver was already awake, lying smiling at her.

  ‘How soon can we get married?’ he asked.

  ‘As soon as your future is settled.’

  ‘O ye of little faith!’ He pulled her closer, scattering kisses on her hair and forehead indiscriminately. ‘I have an interview for a part-time lecturing job at Bristol University. If I get it, things will be perfect. The rest of the time, I’ll work in the practice with Dad.’

  ‘But that’s taking you right out of A and E work.’ She felt him go tense.

  ‘I don’t think I want to go back.’

  She knew then there was more to it than the brief outline he’d given her of the incident. ‘Tell me the full story, Oliver, every last detail of what happened to you.’

  She listened in growing horror as she heard how he’d been taken prisoner by a man high on a cocktail of drugs, and locked in a chiller cabinet too small for a man his height. Of how he’d been trapped there for many hours before the negotiator had managed to talk his captor down. He’d recovered from the hypothermia but the psychological damage had been much more serious.

  ‘I think I’ll go mad if I’m ever shut into such a cramped space again. Even small rooms like the consulting room at the surgery can be troublesome. I don’t like cities, either, have to steel myself to enter them. They tell me it’ll improve, but at the moment, Chawton and the Wiltshire countryside suit me down to the ground. I feel I can breathe here.’

  ‘Oh, Oliver.’

  ‘The nightmares don’t come when I’m with you,’ he finished. ‘I’m getting good sleep for the first time in months.’

  She lay quietly, body against body, one hand laced in his.

  ‘I’ve never told anyone the full details without breaking down before,’ he confessed.

  ‘I feel honoured. But Oliver, you worked so hard. That man’s destroyed your future.’

  ‘Only partly. I’ll still be lecturing in A and E organization and methodology. And I’ll still be in medicine. And actually, general practice is more interesting than I’d thought, so I’ll get myself properly qualified in that.’

  ‘Will that be enough?’

  ‘I don’t know. If it isn’t, we’ll work something else out. I’ve been forced to move on, so I’ll make a new life with you, here. In that sense, that man did me a favour because he sent me back to you.’

  ‘Worry about things you can change and accept those you can’t with good heart,’ she said softly.

  He chuckled. ‘My psychiatrist says the same thing – but in much fancier words and he charges me a fortune to say it.’

  As they drove back to Chawton after a leisurely buffet breakfast, they were both quiet again, but it was the silence of happiness, of two people in tune with one another.

  Oliver braked abruptly as the surgery came in sight. They couldn’t drive behind it to park, because there were crime scene tapes outside it and across the side entrance. A police car was parked there and an officer was on guard duty.

  ‘What the hell’s happened?’

  As they got out of the car and hurried towards the surgery, the officer came towards them. ‘Do you have business here, sir?’

  ‘I live here, above the surgery,’ Rose said. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘I’m afraid there’s been a break-in.’

  She felt the world spin around her and terror choke her throat. ‘My trunk!’

  By mid-morning, it was clear that the fire in the barn had been deliberately lit. Expert investigators came in and moved carefully through the building, sifting the ash, sniffing. They too could smell paraffin.

  ‘We don’t need the sniffer dogs this time,’ the officer in charge told Ella. ‘It’s rather an amateur crime.’

  ‘Are there any clues as to who may have done it?’

  He pointed to the ground. ‘There are footprints in the dust. Good thing you didn’t tread on them. They’re fragile things, easily wiped out. But we’ve got photographs of them now. Good thing you couldn’t open the outside doors, too, or you’d have fanned the blaze.’

  Ella looked at Cameron. ‘That’s where the Lady stopped us walking.’

  He was shaking his head, muttering, ‘I don’t believe this. I don’t.’

  ‘I do.’ She looked round the barn. ‘How much damage is there, do you think?’

  It was the arson officer who answered. ‘Surprisingly little. You’ve been lucky, caught it in time.’ He pointed up. ‘There’s smoke blackening round that area, of course, but not much actual damage, as far as I can see. The blaze was contained in this area, probably for lack of fuel. Fires are chancy things. Seem to have a will of their own sometimes.’

  ‘That’s the more modern part of the barn, the part which matters least. It’s being heritage listed at the moment, because those parts—’ she pointed to them ‘—are medieval.’

  He whistled. ‘You don’t say! Got any idea of who might have done it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We’ll bring the police in, then.’

  ‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’

  ‘Perhaps later? I’ve got things to do.’

  He got into his vehicle and they saw him make a phone call then sit writing busily on some papers on a clipboard.

  As Cameron and Ella walked back to the house, she said quietly, ‘Is it possible the Lady was watching over us, preserving those footprints?’

  ‘Until I came here, I’d have laughed at the mere idea. I didn’t even believe in ghosts. Now . . . I don’t know what I believe. Only, I did see something in the barn last night, we both did. And I can’t explain what it was. It didn’t look like a woman to me, just a shimmer of light.’

  Ella gave a rueful smile. ‘I didn’t think it worth mentioning our ghost to the arson investigator. He’d have thought I was crazy.’ She reached out to open the house doo
r, then stopped, giving Cameron a brilliant smile, looking fully alive again. He felt himself relaxing. Whatever had made her ill seemed to be passing.

  ‘I think you’re meant to be here, to stay, to be part of our family, Cameron.’

  ‘I hope so.’ He kissed her quickly on the cheek and followed her inside. If that meant living with ghosts, then that’s what he’d do.

  But who had set the barn on fire? He didn’t want to live with the fear of a recurrence.

  If it wasn’t DevRaCom or Miles, the only person he could think of from his limited acquaintance with Ella was Brett Harding. Why would that fellow suddenly come back here? From what he’d heard, Brett was off to rehab on Monday. And anyway, with court cases pending against him, he’d surely not risk committing another offence? No one could be that stupid.

  Miles drove up the track to the farm, braking at the sight of the fire investigator’s marked vehicle. So those guys he’d had drinks with last night hadn’t just been boasting. Someone really had tried to play a nasty trick on Ella.

  A quick glance round showed the house intact, and the activity focused on the barn. Pity. He’d have been in a much better position if the house had burned down.

  He got out of the car and walked towards the kitchen, knocking on the door. No one seemed to have noticed his arrival, so he knocked again and entered.

  His mother turned round from where she was clearing up. ‘Miles! I’d forgotten you were coming.’

  ‘You always were a loving mother. What’s been going on here?’

  ‘We had a fire in the barn – deliberately lit, they think.’

  ‘Did it do much damage?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What a pity!’

  She glared at him.

  He spread his arms wide. ‘I’m not going to lie and say I care about this dump.’

  ‘No. You only lie when it suits you. Well, thanks to the fire, we’re a bit behind, so I’m not ready yet to go out with you and neither is Amy.’

  ‘I can wait. How about a coffee? The freebie stuff in my hotel tasted like dishwater.’

  ‘I’ll put the percolator on.’

  Footsteps on the stairs made him turn to see Cameron come into the room.