by Jenny Kane
‘Well actually, that’s happening. After that it’s all over.’
‘Why? What’s the point of giving a child a sweet and then taking it away once the wrapper’s off?’ Tina slumped against a freshly whitewashed wall.
‘Malcolm made it sound as if he was doing the community a favour, but I suspect it’s more to avoid the bad press of cancelling after so many tickets have been sold.’
‘I suppose the new owners might have insisted it went ahead.’
Thea put the basket back on the table. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘If I was about to buy a place that was tabled to be a house the locals were hoping would bring Upwich as a whole extra income, I’d want to do anything to keep them on my side if I’d taken that hope away from them.’
‘Makes sense.’ Thea grimaced. ‘There’s something else. Malcolm asked me to give you a message. He wants you to come off secondment from Monday.’
‘What? But that’s in two days! The trustees agreed I should stay until the Open Day.’
‘I know.’
For a second, Thea thought Tina was going to cry, but then she tilted her chin up and said, ‘We’d better finish this room now then. You’ll have too much to do after I’m gone to fiddle with this.’
‘There’s no need. You’ve done loads and it’s getting rather dark. I ought to go and tell Shaun and Sam what’s happening.’
‘I’ve only got to arrange the last of the fleeces. I thought I’d pile a few in the corner of the room on that table.’ Tina pointed across the room to an empty table behind the door. ‘If you hold a candle up so I can see better, it won’t take a moment.’
Lifting a candle from the table, Thea stood in the open doorway, casting as much light as she could in Tina’s direction. ‘Do you know where Shaun is?’
‘Probably with Sam in the driveway or waiting in the office so he’s in range of a call.’
‘As soon as you’re done, we’ll go and find them.’
*
‘Have you heard from Thea?’
Shaun had grown tired of waiting in the office. There were only so many emails he could face answering in one go, and his mind wasn’t on the job. With his phone held optimistically out in front of him to catch any stray signal in the ether, he’d gone to find Sam.
‘Not yet. I was going to go to the mill to help Tina, but it’d be sod’s law that Thea would call the minute I left this spot.’
Shaun checked his watch. ‘It’s almost half six. She should have been back ages ago. Let’s fetch Tina. She might have Malcolm’s private number.’
‘You’re worried something’s happened to her?’
‘John might not have gone straight back to Bath.’
A dark cloud crossed Sam’s countenance. ‘Let’s go.’
*
The fleeces were so heavy that Tina could either pull them into position or talk, but not both. With Thea nodding encouragingly, she draped the final one over the table in a manner she hoped appeared as if they were waiting to be carted off and turned into wool.
Just as Tina stepped back to admire the display, the mill plunged into a deep charcoal gloom.
‘Hell. A power cut.’ Thea moved the candle she was holding as close as she dared to the display so she could see Tina. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Yeah. Let’s get out of here before we trip over something and—’
A sound in the dark made them jump.
‘What’s that? Is someone there!?’ Stepping back as she twisted towards the sound, Thea knocked her arm on the wall behind her, sending the candle flying, the motion blowing it out and plunging them into pitch black obscurity.
‘Is someone there?’ She shouted louder, but there was no reply.
Tina grabbed Thea’s hand and pulled her towards the door. ‘Come on!’
‘But I dropped the candle.’
‘I can’t see it, so it must have gone out. Come on!’
Following the glint of light coming through the part-opened main door, Thea stopped again.
‘I definitely heard something.’
They froze to the spot, their pulses racing as they listened. ‘I can’t hear anything, I…’ Thea sniffed. A new acrid scent was coming from behind them.
Wishing she hadn’t left her mobile with Sam, Tina tugged on Thea’s arm. Her voice barely above a terrified whisper, she said, ‘The fleeces were on paper tablecloths. The candle can’t have gone out after all.’
‘Oh God…’ Thea started to fumble for her phone, and then remembered she’d left it in the car. She was so used to it being little more than a timepiece here.
As the stink of burning paper filled Thea’s nostrils, she gripped Tina’s arm tighter and pulled her forward, following the fleeing figure towards the doors.
They were closed.
‘The noise must have been them swinging shut.’ Thea felt nausea rising in her stomach as she spun around to look back the way they’d come.
An orange glow grew on the far side of the mill.
‘Oh God!’ Thea stumbled towards the spinning room Tina had set up.
‘No!’ Tina tried to pull her back. ‘You can’t save anything.’
‘I’m going to shut the internal door, trap the fire in there.’
Tina immediately helped tug the connecting doors shut. ‘Faster…’
Running back to the main door, Thea tugged at Tina. ‘You have the keys.’
‘Keys?’ Thea couldn’t see the colour drain from Tina’s face, but she felt her friend’s fear.
‘You do have the keys, don’t you?’
‘They’re… they’re in there. I left them on the table.’ Tina banged on the inside of the main doors in the hope of being heard. ‘Is there another way out? An unlocked door?’
Suddenly remembering through her panic that the lock was broken, so the keys probably wouldn’t get them out anyway, Thea thumped her own fists against the doors, shaking her head into the dark.
Thirty-Seven
June 1st
John stared back across the moor. The lay-by in which he’d been parked for the past few hours gave a perfect view of the village he’d left.
He’d needed to think. Mabel had told him to tell his boss the truth or invent a divorce, and learn to live with his lies. He wasn’t sure which was the worse option: explaining that his three-month marriage was already over, and looking an idiot and a failure, or explaining he’d lied, which made him look untrustworthy, as well as an idiot and a failure.
Mabel’s parting words echoed in his mind as his eyes scanned the village, from the pub at one end, to the mill at the other.
‘Thea is under the impression you’re an intelligent young man. You could prove it by setting up your own company. Prove yourself better than Sure Digital. But of course, I’m just a village idiot, so what do I know?’
‘My own company. My own boss. Maybe I could, perhaps I…’ He broke off as something caught his eye.
Is that smoke?
John squinted harder. Wisps of grey smoke were seeping out of the mill building.
For a split second he froze. What if someone’s in there?
A telephone box sat, neglected and alone in the lay-by. Muttering under his breath, praying that the phone would work as he didn’t have a mobile signal, he dived along the track.
Trying not to inhale the stench of stale urine, and avoiding the inevitable long abandoned lager tins, John banged in the numbers and responded to the receptionist’s calm request.
‘Fire Brigade, please.’
*
‘What the hell?!’ Sam was running towards the mill with Shaun fast on his heels.
Puffs of grey smoke were wafting beneath the main doors. A jumble of arrhythmic bangs and faint indiscernible shouts could be heard from within.
‘Tina!’ Sam pushed his face up to the door and yelled, but the structure was so thick, he couldn’t be sure he was heard.
‘Christ!’ Shaun was already calling the fire brigade when he spotted Thea’s
car pulled up on the side of the road just beyond the mill. ‘Thea’s in there too!’
‘Do you have keys?’ Sam had started to tremble, his voice betraying the fear he didn’t want to confess. As Shaun shook his head helplessly, Sam pulled at the doors, his shoulders heaving with the effort.
‘The doors were stiff before, but Tina got in, so we should be able to.’ Shaun joined in with the tugging. ‘Something must have shifted and jammed in the lock’s catch across when the door shut.’
Sam glared at the lock as he struggled to regulate his breathing. ‘How far away is the fire service round here?’
The men exchanged a glance that said it could be miles. Upwich was at least fifteen miles from anywhere of any size.
Hoping the girls could hear, Shaun yelled, ‘Help is coming! Hang on!’
Sam’s knees buckled as the voices he battled to keep at bay every day of his life arrived all at once. The screaming accelerated in his brain until they were so loud he had no choice but to clap his hands over his ears, his face a picture of agony.
Shaun grabbed his friend’s arms and shook him hard. ‘Not now, mate. Tina and Thea first, panic attack later. We can save them.’
‘Tina?’ His voice was a whisper at first, and then something in Sam clicked into place. Whether it was the years of training, Shaun’s terrified expression, or the thought of the trapped women – a trapped Tina – that broke through the nightmare, it didn’t matter. Sam stood up so straight he looked as if he was on parade. ‘There must be other doors.’
‘There’s several, but the mill was designed to keep things in. Thea told me the original owners were paranoid about theft from within as well as from outsiders.’
‘Show me.’
Running around the side, passing another large set of double doors, they reached a smaller single door at the back of the building that would have been used by the outworkers to deliver spun wool ready for weaving.
‘This one.’ Sam was already putting his shoulder to the thick wood as Shaun joined him, crashing their combined weight against the wood.
*
‘What’s that?’ Thea spluttered the words, but she wasn’t sure if they’d actually made it out of her mouth. Her lungs felt heavy as their banging on the door subsided into effort filled taps.
Coughing, scrubbing at her stinging eyes, Thea strained to listen above the threatening crackle of the fire in the next room. There it was again, a faint thumping, but not from the door they were crouched by.
Grabbing a slumped Tina’s shoulder, Thea looked towards the spinning room door. It was barely visible for the smoke that billowed beneath it although, mercifully, no flames licked under the gap. Yet.
Trying to say they should move, Thea’s words turned into a coughing fit, and she was forced to communicate by pushing and pulling Tina through the mill.
*
Shaun scrambled around to find something he could use to help lever the door open and break the lock, but Sam was ahead of him.
Penknife to hand, Sam jammed it into the space between the frame and the lock. Then, leaving the tool in place, he took three strides from the door, before running full pelt at the wood.
There was a sound of splintering as Sam collided with the building, but it didn’t open. ‘Shit!’
Abandoning his hunt for some sort of jemmy, Shaun joined Sam as he rallied to run at the door again.
The third time, just as their shoulder blades were showing signs of giving way, the door did. With a groan of defeat, it fell open. Headlong, Sam careered inside with Shaun landing spread-eagled at his feet.
Their eyes met two pairs of booted feet. The two women were curled up together on the floor. Neither of them was moving.
*
The whole village had arrived with the sound of the fire engines’ sirens. Thea could see Mabel and a blur of other worried faces she recognised, but hadn’t the energy to acknowledge them.
The firefighters had made short work of the blaze which, thanks to the dampening and smothering qualities of the fleeces, was more smoke than flame.
‘Thank you.’ Thea gave another rasping cough as a soot-smeared firewoman placed a second blanket around her shoulders. Her solicitous presence was probably the only thing keeping Mabel and Sybil at bay, and Thea was glad of the delay before the inevitable questioning began.
‘You were lucky your blokes were here.’
Thea could see a blanket-covered Tina sitting next to Sam on the grass. Close, but not touching. She didn’t bother to say they weren’t a couple, as they so obviously were. Or ought to be.
‘You were also lucky that someone called the fire brigade earlier than Mr Cowlson did, or we’d have been another ten minutes. Would have made a lot of difference to the state of the ceiling in there.’
‘Someone else?’
‘Anonymous call from the phone box on Millside Lane.’
The firewoman was joined by a policeman, who was holding a small pad ready to write everything down. ‘Can you remember what happened, Miss Thomas?’
‘The power went. I jumped and dropped a candle.’ Thea felt herself start to shake. ‘It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t held the candle…’
‘You were holding a candle while the power was still on?’
‘It was getting dark in the corner, and the bulb in the lamp had gone and…’ Thea’s throat felt like it was closing in and she slowly formed each new word. ‘We wanted to finish the job and…’
‘Take your time Miss Thomas, no rush.’
Licking her lips, Thea sipped some water. ‘We wanted to finish the display, so I held a candle so Tina could see better, then the main lights went out, I jumped in surprise and the candle fell. We thought the flame was out. Then the door blew shut and we couldn’t get out and…’
The policeman held up a hand as Thea’s words sped towards panic. ‘It’s okay, we can do this later. Miss Martin has told me the same thing and the initial report from the firefighters endorses what you say. I’m sorry I’ve had to ask at a time like this, but we always have to in case of arson.’
As the police constable departed, Thea asked the firewoman, ‘And the mill?’
‘You’ll need to get a structural surveyor in. The damage is contained to the left side, but apart from smoke, soot and water damage, the majority of the building is untouched.’
‘And?’
‘The room where the fire started is in a very bad way. The ceiling especially. As I said, ten more minutes and it might have come down and then…’
‘Then we’d have been in real trouble.’
The firewoman smiled. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to go to hospital?’ She pointed to where the paramedics were in discussion with Shaun further down the road. ‘I know you’ve been checked over, but there’s a possibility of delayed shock.’
‘I just want a bath.’ Wiping her filthy hair from her eyes, Thea stared at the mill. ‘No one would ever think we’d spent weeks making it look as good as new.’
The firewoman followed Thea’s line of sight as she took in the smoked-marble effect walls and the stench of burnt paper and wool. She spoke softly, but with a finality that told of experiences she didn’t wish to share. ‘I’ve seen a lot of fires. They make a hell of a mess, but I’d rather see a thousand smoke-damaged buildings than a single corpse.’
Thea hadn’t known she was crying at first. It wasn’t until the tears dripped from her cheeks to her chin, stinging her tired red eyes, the action making her cry harder, that a queue of ‘what ifs’ arrived in her head.
What if Sam and Shaun hadn’t got inside?
What if the ceiling had fallen on them?
What if Tina had been killed?
What if…?
It was too painful to think about.
As her sobs wracked her body, Shaun came to Thea’s side, wrapping her in his arms as he took the place of the firewoman. Stroking her hair, he muttered reassurances that she only half heard, before turning to the firewoman and asking if he could t
ake her home.
*
It was only after the bubble bath was being liberally squeezed beneath the running water into the vast Victorian bath that Thea realised she didn’t know where Tina was.
‘Don’t worry. She’s with Sam.’
‘But Sam won’t come inside. Tina needs to be warm.’
‘They’re in the kitchen.’ Shaun tested the temperature of the water and then gently lifted Thea’s arms and peeled her filthy jumper over her head.
Allowing herself to be undressed without thinking about what was happening, Thea considered the latest thing that didn’t make sense. ‘Sam’s in the kitchen?’
‘Yes.’ Shaun tugged Thea’s jeans down while trying to convince his body to ignore the sight of her naked body. ‘Mabel and the gang are in the pub, and the police have gone. They’ve sealed off the mill and called Malcolm to tell him what happened.’
‘Malcolm?’ The sale. She’d forgotten about the sale. ‘The mill was part of the sale. The manor might not sell now.’
‘Which is why it’s important that he knows it was an accident, not arson.’
Thea felt her legs sag as the implication of what Shaun said sank in. ‘He wouldn’t think I’d done it on purpose to stop the sale… would he?’
‘Not by the time that police have explained the situation, he won’t.’
Shaun lifted a naked Thea gently into the bath water. ‘Try not to worry. The mill is more or less in one piece, Tina is fine and you’re fine. Nothing else matters.’
Thirty-Eight
June 1st
Tina held onto Sam’s hand. She wasn’t sure if he was reassuring her, or she him. It didn’t matter.
‘But if I hadn’t lit the candles…’
‘You could have tripped over something and banged your head and bled out on the hard floor.’
‘Unlikely. And not as destructive as a fire.’
‘It was an accident. It wasn’t your fault.’
Cradling the mug of honey and hot water Sam had made her, Tina timidly asked, ‘When did you tell Shaun you’d been in the forces?’