by Adam Maxwell
Thirty seconds is all it would take to consume the bins, the fire taking easily on the paper and cardboard of the recycling. In the next minute, as the heat increased, paint, wallpaper, and some of the fittings would go up in flames. A dark plume of smoke rose up the middle of the stairwell. That would be hot, too. Hot enough to burn your lungs, if you weren’t wearing apparatus. And Violet wasn’t. Two, maybe three breaths was all she’d manage, and then their best hope would be to get her resuscitated outside. If the structural integrity of the ancient stairs held.
The heat might not prove to be their biggest problem. Carbon monoxide poisoning would likely get Violet first. But they’d been dealing with Elias for more than a couple of minutes. It had been at least ten minutes, maybe more. There was every chance the fire had reached the stage where there’d be a flashover — everything spontaneously bursting into flames. Violet had used accelerant. Even if the actual firefighters were dowsing it, those stairs were most likely…
Katie reached forward to push open the door and inspect their escape route, but a hand on her right shoulder stopped her. Instinctively, Katie grabbed the hand at the wrist, and twisted it as she turned.
“Fuck’s sake, Katie,” said Violet, trying to extricate herself from her friend’s grip. Katie let go. Violet massaged her wrist in pain, and was about to say something else, but the grenade-smoke filled her lungs and she spluttered.
“Don’t… open… that… door…” she managed between coughs. The blood still framed her teeth as she spoke and Katie could see a cut on the side of Violet’s forehead, all over her face bruises were blossoming. Her left cheek where Elias’ guard had slapped her had puffed out a little and there were several finger marks beginning to bruise too. Her right cheek where the guard had hit her was worse. An open-palm, calculated slap with a hand large enough to reach from her cheek to her rapidly-blackening eye. Violet’s bottom lip had taken damage too, it looked split and there was dried blood in the corner of her mouth.
Katie motioned downwards and dropped to a crouch. Violet followed suit, the air marginally clearer at this height. She pointed at the door, but Violet shook her head and pointed to the other end of the corridor. Katie stood up once more as Violet crawled along on her hands and knees. From down there, Violet could only see up to Katie’s waist. She tried to make some Jack and the Beanstalk crack, but got another lungful of grenade-smoke and just coughed instead.
They reached the pile of chairs at the end of the corridor and Katie crouched once more. Violet propped herself against the wall. Behind the chairs was a door.
“I don’t suppose I could get you to…” Violet coughed and waved at the chairs.
Katie nodded and hurled them down the corridor, each one vanishing into the greyish cloud long before the clatter of it hitting the floor was heard. This was taking too long. They should have left through the office next door, but Violet had insisted they go through the burning building… Katie rattled the handle of the door but it was locked.
Violet rummaged in her bag for lock picks, when another explosion crashed into the corridor. The two women stared into the fog as it changed colour. Orange shadows danced through the light grenade-smoke and then the dark, hot smoke that Katie had seen through the glass began to pour towards them.
“Is it… hot in here…” Violet spluttered, “or… just…”
Katie looked down at her friend, her heartbeat quickening. They didn’t have time for this. She turned to the door and kicked it with all her might. It buckled inwards, her strength shattering it. She cleared the remaining splinters with her fire axe to reveal… an old, unused cupboard.
“Ah…” spluttered Violet. “Shit.”
Katie cocked her head to one side, waiting for an explanation, to hear where their escape route was. And then she saw it; the walls, the ceiling, the whole corridor wasn’t simply alight, it was blazing towards them, the fire spitting its orange hatred down the corridor like a dragon’s belch.
She looked back down at Violet.
“That was supposed to be a staircase,” Violet managed before the hacking coughs took her, wracking her body until she lay, gasping for breath, flat on the floor.
Katie suddenly felt a great deal less calm. It wasn’t just Violet who would die in that corridor.
fourteen
Roach hit the pavement running.
He’d been running since he left Elias’ office. The lifts that had been so accommodating earlier had shut off when some bright spark had finally realised the fire had spread to the office from the nightclub. He was fit, he was fast, but as he tore down flight after flight of stairs he’d been increasingly frustrated at the time he had to apprehend the escapees ebbing away.
He skidded to a halt as he reached the crowds. The police cordon was still in place, but the revellers were now twenty deep. Word must have travelled on social media and waves of inebriated idiots had flocked to watch the Palace burn. Roach squeezed through the mob, moving steadily towards the entrance to the burning club. It wasn’t just punters, he noticed. An opportunistic fast-food entrepreneur had set up a van and was selling greasy kebabs and burgers to anyone who wanted them. It was difficult to see where the fast-food queue ended and the crowd of rubber-necked gawkers began. Perhaps they were all in the queue.
“Detective.” One of the uniforms recognised him and lifted the tape, holding back some alpha-arsehole who thought he might chance his luck to get through at the same time.
“Radio everyone,” said Roach, his breathing returning to normal. “If anyone comes out of the club I want them held for questioning. Understand?”
The uniform acknowledged him and Roach nodded his thanks. He stared at the Palace. Windows he had never noticed before were spewing fire, the wind pushing the flames towards Elias’ beautiful glass office. Inside the club would be worse. If the fire had taken that side of the building the suspect would probably be lost. So not all bad then, he thought, allowing himself a smirk before a voice behind him invaded his ruminations.
“…puked all over me. I think she might still be in there, passed out in the lavs, but no-one will listen.”
Roach turned around to see a woman who looked like she’d had a significantly worse night than he had so far. She wore what looked like expensive shoes, the sort his ex-girlfriend had called ‘sitting down shoes’ but, at a second glance they were obvious fakes. She didn’t wear a coat and her red silk dress was blotched with an unknown fluid. Looking more closely at the splash pattern confirmed that the vomit was from a third party. This was backed up by the fact that she also had little chunks of it nestling in her otherwise perfectly styled beehive hairdo.
Roach showed her his warrant card. “Miss?” he said, commanding her attention. “Would you like to explain what happened?”
Beehive fluttered her false eyelashes at him. “Constable,” she smiled.
Roach was about to correct her but the urgency of the situation got the better of him. “Miss…” he encouraged.
“I work in the club as a restroom attendant and…”
“I’m sure you can see how busy we are, Miss,” Roach rushed her as his brain fought between getting the story out of a potential witness and catching his quarry in the act. “If you can tell me just the pertinent facts as quickly as you can. Where did it happen?”
“A woman was sick on me,” she said.
“And whilst I have every sympathy, I’m not yet seeing the relevance. It happened—”
“In the toilets,” she interrupted, pointing at the Palace.
“When?”
“A couple of seconds before the alarms started—”
Roach interrupted right back. “Where are the toilets exactly.”
The woman told him. “She went into a cubicle. I think she might still be there. I mean, what a bitch, right? But I don’t want her to die.”
Something wasn’t right. There was something off about all of this and he couldn’t quite see what it was. Roach stared at the woman for a moment, taking it
all in again, the matted hair, the dress, the shoes. The smell. There was no smell. He leaned forward and sniffed.
Beehive instinctively recoiled and tried to step away but the crowd behind her meant there was nowhere for her to go.
“That’s not vomit,” he said.
“What?”
Roach reached forward and, despite her cries of protest, he touched her hair, bringing some of the supposed-sick to his nose. He sniffed it, lightly at first, then with a great, heaving intake through his nose.
Beehive dry-heaved as he did.
“Definitely not vomit.”
“But it came out of her mouth! She was absolutely hammered.” Beehive’s face was a mask of disgust. “It’s all over me.”
“Could you give me a description of her?”
“What?” asked Beehive, apparently unable or at least unwilling to understand anything on the first asking.
“A description,” said Roach testily. “What did she look like?”
“Oh,” she curled her lip. “I dunno. Little taller than me. Black bobbed hair. Sort of athletic build but not skinny-skinny, if you know what I mean.”
Roach nodded. So this was who had escaped from the office. A woman. How the hell she’d flattened three seasoned hardcases was another story entirely but one he was very much looking forward to getting out of her. He beckoned to the uniformed officer he’d just spoken to. “We’ll need a statement from her. I think she may prove relevant.”
Uniform shrugged and lifted the tape, allowing Beehive access to their side whilst Roach moved off to find the nearest firefighter.
“What’s your name?” Roach asked, a warm smile on his face.
The firefighter was tall and looked like he packed out every inch of his uniform. His black hair was severely cut and matched the bags under his eyes. “Steve,” he said.
Roach’s face instantly dropped back into seriousness. “You need to take me inside, Steve.”
Steve the firefighter remained distinctly underwhelmed.
“Nah, mate.” His voice was deep and hoarse. “Too dangerous for you in there.”
Roach nodded, walked past him and quickly broke into a jog as he headed for the doors.
“Oi, come back, you wanker!” Steve shouted after him. Instead of stopping, Roach ran faster. The firefighter cursed under his breath and grabbed his helmet before giving chase.
Roach was by the cloakroom when the firefighter caught up with him.
Smoke hung in the air, but like the vomit, it smelled… wrong.
“Does this look like a proper fire to you?” Roach asked.
Steve squinted at him. “Are you fucking high?”
Roach paused, not sure if he was dealing with an idiot. “The smoke. It smells wrong.”
The penny dropped. “Right, yeah. Reckon it’s a smoke grenade. Someone trying to keep us out while the fire takes.”
“So it’s arson?”
Steve nodded. “Most likely.”
“Do you know where the ladies are?” Roach asked.
“Erm,” the firefighter replied in confusion. “What ladies?”
“No… I mean… Never mind.” Roach spotted the sign for the ladies toilets through the smoke and bounded off towards it, with the firefighter in close pursuit. “There’s someone in here. The toilet attendant thinks she might be trapped.” It wasn’t a complete lie but the truth was a scent barely sniffable against the stench of obfuscation.
The foyer to the club was soaked from the firefighters’ hoses. Roach ground his teeth at the thought of all that lost forensics, but was soon distracted by the sight of the fire, which was well and truly established off in the direction of the dance floor. It was no wonder Elias’ building had caught — the fire seemed to be worst on the adjoining side of the building.
Roach pushed at the door to the toilets and it gave easily. There was no smoke in there, so he stepped inside. Even in the midst of the building collapsing with the fire, and without proper lighting, it never ceased to amaze him how much nicer women’s toilets were than the men’s.
Steve propped the door open with his shoulder. “Seriously, mate,” he said, “you’ve got two minutes. One hundred and twenty seconds and then I’m taking you out of here. Over my shoulder if I have to.”
Roach felt the urge to challenge him. Pushed down the words ‘you can try’. He made eye contact with the firefighter in the big mirror that ran along the wall behind the sinks and nodded.
Beehive’s description of what had happened held up in here, too. The trajectory and spatter of the vomit — or whatever it was — was as she described it.
“Hello?” he shouted. “Anyone in here?” He didn’t expect an answer but better not burst into cubicles without fair warning. “This is the police and fire service. We’re here to rescue you.”
Silence.
The detective went to the cubicle nearest the exit and pushed open its door. Empty.
He stepped left and pushed the next one open. Empty.
And another. And another. And another. All empty.
He could feel the firefighter’s impatience but ignored it as he nudged the last cubicle door open and found…
Nothing.
He let the door swing shut and turned away, but something in the back of his brain told him to wait. He opened it again and stepped inside the stall. There, behind the toilet, down by the bleach and the brush were a pair of shoes. He picked them up, his eyes quickly scanning the small cubicle until… a skirt and a top shoved behind the cistern. He grabbed them and put the garments into his coat pocket, holding on to the shoes by the heels like the campest gunfighter in the north.
“Right,” he said, walking out past the firefighter. “Just need to check the dance floor and…”
“Oh no,” Steve protested once more. “The fire’s properly taken in there. There’s no way…”
Roach sprinted towards the flames, damned if he would let them get away, but the heat hit him like a belly flop from an angry bear and he staggered to a halt. Squinting at the orange glare, he spluttered with the smoke and could feel the burn from the air in the back of his throat. At first glance, it looked like the fire was concentrated at the bar and was being reflected in the mirrored ceiling tiles. Until he realised that the ceiling wasn’t mirrored. It was just burning.
The detective felt a hand on his shoulder. As he turned around to placate his pursuer, a pair of doors at the end of the bar exploded.
A plume of flames attacked the dance floor, and the back draft smashed into Roach and the firefighter, hurling them backwards and into unconsciousness.
fifteen
“Katie,” spluttered Violet, her voice hoarse. She clung to the floor as if it were a sheer rock face. “We need to make an exit. Now.”
Katie shifted uncomfortably. If she didn’t share the breathing apparatus Violet was going to die. If she did then there was every chance they both would.
“In there.” Violet pointed to the cupboard.
Katie cocked her head to one side.
Violet kicked the head of the axe that hung by Katie’s side. “MAKE an exit. Now.”
Violet convulsed, her whole body wracked with a fit of coughing. Katie didn’t hesitate. She launched herself at the cupboard, hefting the axe at its back wall. She expected to hit brick but instead the axe ploughed through the plasterboard. She twisted the head of the great, heavy beast and pulled it back towards her.
A black hole the size of a head was left behind.
Katie swung again and again and again until a constellation of holes dotted the back of the cupboard. Then she took a few steps back and ran, throwing the whole of her six foot ten inch frame at it. The old plasterboard gave way completely and she tumbled into the void beyond.
A moment later and the darkness shrank away as Katie turned on her flashlight. She was on a landing. There were stairs. They were old and rotten and they could barely take her weight but they were stairs and, as far as she could see, they were not on fire. Not yet. No
plumes of smoke, just dusty darkness and cobwebs. Cobwebs she could deal with.
She moved fast, striding back to Violet and scooping her up and over her shoulder. Anyone else might have been weighed down by carrying another human on their back but for Katie it barely seemed to register. The landing floorboards creaked in complaint at their combined weight but they would hold for long enough. There was a beauty in her agility. A terrifying efficiency with not even a centimetre of wasted movement as she descended floor by floor, the stairs spiralling down and down into the darkness. As fast as she moved, there was never a moment when Violet’s hanging head or other extremities were in any danger of swinging to hit against a wall or dusty finial.
Footsteps clattering with a muffled echo, Katie made short work of the descent, gently lowering Violet down to sit on the bottom few steps. She gave her friend’s shoulder a little squeeze. Her breathing was laboured, but she was conscious. There was a door at the bottom of the stairs, panelled and with peeling white paint. Katie tried the handle and, to her great surprise, it turned.
It came as no surprise whatsoever that behind the door was a crudely constructed brick wall. She tested it with her foot. It was too strong to just kick out but…
Using the flat of the head of the fire axe, Katie attacked the left side of the brickwork. Strike after strike sent brick dust into the air until one brick came loose. Katie reached over and plucked it out, tossing it to one side then hooked the axe into the gap and yanked.
She had to hop backwards to stop the avalanche of bricks from crushing her. The wall was down and it revealed…
Another wall.
Katie clenched her fists around the fire axe. She’d had just about enough of this shit.
sixteen
A single lighting rig still danced on in the face of the defeat of all its brothers and sisters at the hands of the fire. The Tulip Street Gin Palace was being treated to the best, most immersive, three dimensional light and sound show known to man. Known to every man since the first man got a bit too handy with two sticks and accidentally set fire to his cave.