by Ruby Loren
I was asked for a further explanation of that, but was saved by Auryn’s arrival.
The police looked from me to Auryn, suspiciously.
“I called him,” I told them, not wanting them to think any of this was somehow planned - which they clearly thought it might be.
“It was tough getting here. The roads are awful! What’s the damage? Is everyone okay?” Auryn asked, looking extremely distraught.
“Lawrence was inside…” I began and his expression immediately shattered. “It’s okay, I got him out,” I said, perhaps a little more pointedly than I would have done, had the police not been questioning my presence at the scene.
“Thank goodness you were still here catching those penguins,” he said.
I turned back to the police to see if they were taking any of this in, but they still looked less than happy.
“Mr Avery, with the help of the fire brigade, we will work to uncover the cause of the fire. This case has priority due to the still-open case concerning the murder of Ms Leary,” Detective Treesden said.
I was able to read his meaning loud and clear. He thought that the fire in the offices - the same offices where Jenna’s work belongings still resided - might not be accidental.
“Ms Amos, we would like to question you further with regard to what has taken place here tonight. Please accompany us to the police station.” Treesden gestured to the back of the police car.
I crossed my arms. “No, I don’t think so.”
“I’m sorry?” Treesden said, pretending he’d misheard.
“I’m not coming with you. You can arrest me if you like, but you will regret it. I just risked my life to save a person from dying in a fire, and you’re treating me like I’m suspect number one. It will take you five minutes to look at the CCTV cameras that focus on the zoo. They will show you where I was whenever the fire was started. I’m willing to bet I was still chasing penguins around.
I bit my lip. Curses! I’d known that CCTV footage of me sliding down the hill would come back to haunt me.
“I’m going home. You can question me tomorrow, if you still feel the need to,” I said, nodding to Auryn, before walking away towards my car. I hoped it would start. Otherwise, I was going to have to do a walk of shame back towards the rear of the zoo to begin my long trek home.
With hindsight, riding back to Gigglesfield in a police car may not have been such a bad idea, but my pride would never have allowed it. I was not going to have it insinuated that I was some sort of criminal! I’d expected a reprimand or two for risking my life by entering the stricken building, but not an accusation like that. I supposed I’d really even hoped for some thanks.
I raised my eyes to the heavens. The snow was falling in smaller clumps now. I’d be lucky to get any thanks at all, I reflected but knew I hadn’t saved Lawrence for the accolade. I’d done it because animal or human, I couldn’t stand to see someone in trouble and not do anything to try to help them.
At least Lucky was happy to see me.
My black cat was showing off rather more white than he usually did, with snow stuck to his paws. Every step he took, he’d pause to shake the snow off his foot. When I’d finished laughing at him, I gathered him up and put him on my shoulder, the way I’d done when he was a kitten. He sat quite happily up there. Whilst I fumbled with the door key, he swatted at the falling flakes.
“What a mess that was, Lucky!” I said, suddenly aware that my clothes were filthy and I reeked of the horrid smoke that had filled the office building. It was definitely time for some serious shower action to take place. I wasn’t convinced my soot-stained uniform would recover.
I shook my head as I inspected myself. Had the police really thought I would start the fire and then run back into the building? I supposed someone truly twisted might do it to divert attention from themselves, or even to gain false praise, but that surely wasn’t the first conclusion you jumped to.
I threw my clothes onto the kitchen floor and went to take a shower.
As always, Lucky followed me in and sat on the lid of the toilet whilst I showered.
When I was dressed for bed, I picked up my phone and discovered Auryn had messaged, asking if I was okay. I felt a little rush of warmth towards him for being the only person who’d thought to ask that so far.
I replied that I was fine and he just as quickly typed out a response.
The police and fire brigade are meeting with me before the funeral tomorrow morning. Would you be able to come down and help them to build up a picture of what happened? I promise I’ll kick them out if they’re rude to you again. Xx
I smiled and replied that it would be fine, just so long as he stuck by his promise.
To my surprise, my phone quickly buzzed again, but it wasn’t Auryn writing back.
It was Lowell.
I felt my heart take a giant leap out of my chest and straight into my mouth.
My fingers slid on the screen, as I opened the text.
I’m okay.
I looked at the message for a few seconds. A feeling of cold spread through me from my head, right down to my toes. That was it? ‘I’m okay?’
I felt like throwing my phone at the wall I was so angry. He hadn’t even had the decency to ask how I was, let alone send me something better thought out. I’d hoped to start a conversation, but instead, I’d finished it.
“At least now I know where I stand,” I muttered, deleting that text and every other text Lowell had ever sent me. If that was all he could be bothered to say, then that was it. He’d clearly never valued our relationship as much as I had, and I still had my doubts as to whether I’d ever been anything more than just someone he’d used as cover, while he’d worked cases he still refused to tell me about…
“Now I’ll never know,” I said aloud to Lucky. “But you know what? I’m not so sure that’s a bad thing.”
I closed my phone and did my best to forget about Lowell and about the fire at the zoo.
Everything would be better in the morning, I promised myself, before remembering that I was going to a funeral tomorrow.
Perhaps it wouldn’t be better in the morning.
The snow wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it might be when dawn broke the next day. There were a couple of inches on the ground that had transformed Gigglesfield into a chocolate-box village, but the roads were surprisingly clear, and I suspected the snow itself might melt away fast, too.
I arrived at the zoo before it was due to open and met Auryn by reception. I couldn’t help but notice the bags beneath his eyes.
“How long did you stay here last night?” I asked.
He frowned and rubbed his face. “I don’t know. It feels like I went home and came straight back, but there might have been some time when I closed my eyes in-between.”
“Did anything more happen?” I asked.
He shook his head. “It was hard to tell what was going on last night because of the snow and the lack of light. From what I could gather, there wasn’t actually much of a fire. It was just electronics and plastics smouldering that created all of the smoke. Apparently, we had a lucky escape. When my father chose to upgrade the office, he went for a top of the range, flame-resistant suite. It may have saved the building.”
We both thought about that for a second.
“Come on, the fire brigade have a couple of people working upstairs, trying to figure out the cause of the fire,” he said, and we walked up the stairs together.
The interior of the office came as a shock. Auryn had said that nothing much had burnt, but everything in sight was covered with soot, and in some cases, a tar-like substance. Then there was the water damage caused by the hoses and the dense powder which I’d sprayed blindly into the black smoke.
The two fire officers waved us over to them.
“We’ve found a smoked cigarette. That’s not a usual thing to find in an office these days, is it?” The fire officer with dark hair raised an eyebrow at us.
“Actually, Lawren
ce, the man who was caught up in the fire yesterday evening did have a habit of smoking where he wasn’t supposed to,” I confessed. I thought there was a potential picture emerging.
The two fire officers exchanged a look.
“Who let off the fire extinguisher?” The other man asked.
“I did. I don't know that it did any good.” Looking around, I’d created more mess than everything else put together.
“You did a lot of good. The fire was small, but it would have spread eventually. What you did kept it small until we were able to get here. You ran into the fire, didn’t you?” He carried on, his slightly ginger moustache bristling.
“I did. I know it wasn’t a good idea,” I said.
“Glad you know that. Still, well done for saving the old man. He’s in hospital, but you gave him a second chance.”
I looked at Auryn for confirmation and he nodded. I felt bad for not asking. I just hadn’t got my head screwed on properly this morning.
There was the sound of footsteps climbing the stairs and Detective Treesden walked in, followed by Officer Ernesto and Officer Kelly.
“Glad you’re here! We were just explaining that we’ve recovered a cigarette that could have potentially been the ignition source. We also congratulated this young lady on her bravery,” the ginger-haired firefighter said.
Detective Treesden looked like he’d been given a lime to suck on, but he managed to recover his facial expression a moment later.
“Quite,” he said, before indicating that we should go somewhere else for questioning.
“Oh no! What about Jenna’s stuff?” I said to Auryn, as we walked in the direction of the defunct restaurant. Even the vacated building was a more suitable place to meet, now that the smoke had done its damage.
“I guess we’ll find out later,” was all he said in response.
We walked in the foyer and stopped there. The rest of the building was still covered in plastic sheeting, put in stasis until it was deemed that there was more to gain than lose by renovating and reopening the place.
Detective Treesden must have been slightly cowed by the firefighters’ praise for me, because his questions weren’t nearly as charged as they had been last night. I’d wondered if I’d need a lawyer this morning, but it turned out to be okay.
A short while later, Auryn and I were free to go, and it was nearly time for the funeral.
“See you there?” I said and he agreed.
It was time to go home and prepare for the final farewell of one of our own.
The sun on the snow made it a beautiful day for such a solemn occasion. I was glad that Gigglesfield’s church was a large one, considering the small size of the town. We just about managed to squeeze all of the zoo’s staff and Jenna’s extended family and friends in.
Auryn said his words beautifully. That, unfortunately, was the only highlight of the service. Jenna’s parents, it turned out, were very devout. The vicar leading the service spouted how the meek and mild inherited the earth, and how someone as gentle and innocent as Jenna, an unmarried woman - how tragic, to never have known the love of a man - would have no trouble at all getting into the place beyond.
It was hard to avoid making eye contact with anyone when all of this was said about Jenna Leary. If she herself had been present, I was certain she’d be laughing at the vicar. Undeterred by the increased mutterings of the congregation, the vicar ploughed on, until I nearly believed that Jenna had been as sweet and pure as a child.
I shook my head.
Jenna had been her own woman. She’d done what she wanted without caring what others thought about it, and for that, I respected her. Perhaps that wasn’t the kind of eulogy her parents wanted for her, but it was the one I silently said in my head as I waited for the terrible service to be over.
“The Leary family have booked Little Hartley Hotel for the funeral reception. Are you going?” Tiff said when we were finally released from the increasingly stuffy interior of the church.
I shook my head. “I think I’m going to call and see if Lawrence is doing all right. If he’s taking visitors, I might pop in. May as well take advantage of the morning off,” I said with a grim smile.
“I thought the service was a little out of touch, too,” Tiff agreed.
“I don’t think I can take hearing anymore of that stuff about her,” I admitted. “Jenna was fine the way she was. She didn’t need to grow up, or change, or be those things they think she ought to have been.” I sighed.
“I know,” Tiff agreed. “I’m going to go to the reception anyway. Auryn has asked me to find out if the Leary family do need help clearing her place, and if so, we’ll offer to do it for them.” She looked across at me. “I hope they say yes.”
“If they believe everything that was said in that service, it’s going to be quite a shock if they do it themselves,” I agreed.
I walked through the zoo, aimlessly. To my surprise, I ended up at the hay barn - the one without the cats. There was always a need for more straw to be pulled off the bales and packed, so I started doing that, before remembering I’d been about to call the hospital to check on Lawrence.
I looked down and realised I was still wearing the dress I’d worn to the funeral. Thinking about it, I wasn’t even sure why I’d immediately come back to the zoo. I sighed and sat down on a bale, stopping my impulsive actions.
After a while I felt better. Something about the funeral had given me a need to keep moving, because you never knew when it was all going to come to an end, right? But now I’d stopped and was sitting, looking across the snowy fields and watching the white clouds in the blue sky over freezing Sussex, things seemed better, simpler even. It was easier to find peace in the moments in-between activity.
To my surprise, there was someone walking across the fields towards the zoo. When they got a little closer, I realised it was Auryn.
“Hey!” I shouted, waving at him. He waved back and it wasn’t long until he joined me, sitting on a bale of straw in the barn.
“What happened to you?” I asked, smiling at the sight of his snow-crusted suit trousers. His socks looked soaking, and his toes must be frozen!
“I could ask the same of you,” he said, looking at my straw-strewn dress.
“Perhaps we were both doing the same thing,” I acknowledged, and he nodded.
“I thought I would go along to the reception to speak to her parents, but when I got there and said hello, I didn’t want to stay any longer. There were just so many people saying this and that, and I don’t know… I know it’s bad of me to duck out of the reception, but it just felt like the walls were closing in. It’s horrible when someone close to your own age dies,” he said.
I looked sideways at him. “I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think that will ever change, no matter how old you get to be.”
We sat in silence for a few moments.
“You’d think that working at a zoo, we’d be more used to the cycle of life and death than most people,” Auryn mused.
“It’s still a shock,” I acknowledged.
Seemingly in one mind, we turned. In the next moment, we were kissing each other without hesitation. All thoughts flew out of my head, as I felt his warm lips on mine, and we pressed tightly up against one another, finally giving in to the feelings we’d both wrestled with for so long.
I laughed when we fell backwards off the bale and landed in the pile of loose straw behind it. I laughed a lot more during the next wonderful half an hour.
We lay in the straw, looking up at the corrugated iron roof of the barn.
Slowly, like sobering up, I realised what we’d just done.
“Oh no,” I whispered, immediately horrified.
By my side Auryn shot me a distressed look.
“No, no! I don’t mean that it wasn’t great. It was great. I mean, wow! But we shouldn’t have done that. I can’t believe I did that. Tiff! She’s my best friend, and she has so many feelings for you,” I stuttered and then bit my ton
gue. I was just making things worse by throwing that into the mix!
“Auryn, I think we’re both feeling a little strange after the funeral, and we may have just acted rashly,” I said, starting over.
Auryn still looked less than thrilled, but I could hardly blame him.
“I’m not with Tiff, we’re just friends. You asked me to forget about what happened between Tiff and me, and I did. She’s a really nice person and we work really well together… as friends,” he added, firmly.
I looked at him, feeling my heart tear up into pieces. I’d already gone down this road far enough, so what was the harm in a little more naked truth? “She doesn’t feel the same way about you. Tiff really hoped you might want to have a relationship with her. I know it’s hard, but you need to tell her that you definitely just want to be friends, and be sure that you really mean it, because otherwise I know she’ll keep hoping.”
“She really feels that strongly about me?” Auryn said, looking surprised. “She always just seemed friendly.”
“Probably because the last time she made a move on you, you ran a mile!” I said with a small smile.
“Oh,” was all he managed to say. “Is this because of Lowell?” He sounded more like a sulky teenager than a young zoo owner.
I smiled in spite of everything. “Nope. I’m pretty sure Lowell and I are off the cards forever. I tried to contact him, and his response showed me how little he cares. Perhaps how little he has always cared.” I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. It’s over, anyway.”
Auryn nodded. I observed he looked noticeably more happy.
“That doesn’t mean anything has changed,” I warned him, but I wasn’t so sure I believed it.
We looked out across the snowy fields in silence for a few more moments.