The Silent Girls (28 page)

As he neared the square it was the smell that reached him first, smoke on the air, wafting along the quiet streets in nonchalant puffs that intensified as he drew closer. It was only when he looked up past the rooftops that he saw the glow, a concentrated pool of orange seeding the darkened sky with sparks. There were sirens in the distance, and within seconds he saw a fire tender whip past the end of the street. Something was happening in the vicinity of the square, and from the look of the sky it seemed that the Great Fire of London was happening all over again. He didn’t know why he started running, it wasn’t as if he wanted to save the contents of his paltry bedsit – since his conversation with Lena everything in it could burn for all he cared. An image of Edie loomed large in his mind as he ran and rounded the corner onto the square, and he hoped against hope that she was still with the police and away from the blaze.

People stood in huddles, kept back by firemen and corralled beyond the garden while someone yelled at them to keep their distance, all whispering to each other and watching the conflagration that appeared to be ravaging the row of houses that stood behind Number 17. Matt turned to the nearest person, an old man leaning on a cane and watching the flames leap as if it were bonfire night. ‘What happened?’ Matt asked.

‘No one knows, one of the houses went up, someone called the brigade and we were all evacuated out here.’

‘Is anyone hurt?’

‘I don’t think so, most of those houses were empty, only the few on the end were still lived in, all cheap flats and bedsits as far as I’m aware. I think everyone got out, but it’s ripping through them – I would say like wildfire, but it would be a pun too far I think.’

Matt cast his eyes around the watching crowd, looking out for Edie, he couldn’t see her, and found himself relieved. She must still be with the police. ‘Are any of the houses on the square itself affected?’ he asked.

‘Again I think not, though I imagine the heat will have scorched a few gates and brought the paint off the backs of them, might even have shattered a few windows. As far as I know everyone was brought out safely. It’ll be the looters they need to worry about, not the fire. It’s Matthew isn’t it? I’m Lionel.’

Matt took the dry, bony hand that he had been offered and was surprised at the strength of the old man’s grip. ‘Yes, but how did you know?’

The old man smiled, his eyes twinkling and reflecting some of the light from the fire. ‘Oh I know all the comings and goings on the square, I make it my business to. May I offer you a cup of tea? I only came out to be nosy, and I’m afraid there’s not much to see from here. No doubt we shall find out more when it’s all under control.’

Matt considered the offer for a moment. ‘Why not? Thank you.’

Lionel smiled again. ‘Might as well eh? This way, Matthew Bastin.’

***

Though Sophie couldn’t smell the fire, she could taste the smoke as it collected in an acrid sting at the back of her throat. Fear and panic weren’t making it easy to be rational, but Edie’s insistence that they go up seemed like a short path to suicide. She hoped that the intention was to leap out of a window and put up the with the prospect of broken limbs rather than risk burning to death trapped and huddled in a smoke-filled room. As they groped their way through the dark and unfamiliar building it appeared that Edie had no such intention, despite Sophie’s protests.

‘Just trust me, this way is our best option.’ Edie insisted, towing Sophie along in her wake. There was no danger of anyone hearing them now; the arsonists were long gone.

There was a landing after the staircase, dark, gloomy and rapidly filling with smoke. Sophie didn’t know whether to choke, cough or pass out and let the fire do its worst. Edie was dragging her along with a stoic determination and leading her up again, another staircase, more sinister empty rooms but less smoke, which was a blessing – but it could only last so long. They reached a final landing and to Sophie’s surprise Edie clambered onto the bannister and pushed at the loft hatch. ‘Whad you doib?’

‘We’re going up here, if I’m right the lofts will connect, we can crawl through to the next house and get out that way.’

‘You fuckid kibbing be? Whad do you bean, ib?’ As the garbled words emerged, Edie’s legs were already disappearing into the loft space. Smoke was starting to billow up the stairs and Sophie could already feel the heat from the fire starting to lap at her skin. There wasn’t time to argue, but she didn’t know if she had the strength to climb up as Edie had, her limbs were still screaming in protest at having been bound and confined for so long. ‘Ebie I cand!’

Edie’s face peered down at her through the hatch, a pale moon in the darkness, starting to reflect an orange glow from the climbing flames ‘Yes you can, you have to, I’ll pull you up.’

Fear spurred her on and she reached up, grasping Edie’s extended hand and forcing her shaking legs and numb feet onto the bannister – she would either fall and break her neck, or make it into the loft. The pain in her arms as Edie hauled on them almost made her not care which it was, a quick death from a broken neck seemed almost preferable to the sense that her bones were going to break and her sinews tear. Edie half dragged her torso into the loft, then hauled the rest of her in by her clothes. Sophie felt like a whale that had been harpooned and landed in a mess of stubborn blubber. Her body just didn’t want to move.

‘We have to be careful, feel for the joists and stay behind me, go as quick as you can.’

Sophie would have laughed if she hadn’t been so fearful at the prospect of their survival. If movement came at all, it was going to be slow, despite the adrenaline that was surging through her and spurring her on. She was equally stultified when Edie put the loft hatch back in place and plunged them into almost complete darkness. ‘Whab dyou dodat bor?’ she said, her voice laden with panic. ‘I cabd zee a blubby ding!’

‘It’ll slow down the spread of the fire, but not for long, now move!’

Sophie did as she was told, too afraid not to as the taste of scorched wood tingled on her tongue and the heat of the blaze below made the joists hot to the touch. The wood bit into her knees as she moved from beam to beam, too afraid to stand as Edie had and feel with her feet lest she should lose her footing and go through the lathe and plaster. Edie was talking, but Sophie wasn’t really taking it in.

‘These old houses connect via the lofts, or at least this type does, it’s where they built the chimney breasts as supporting walls, there should be a small gap either side that we can squeeze through…’

Sophie glanced behind her, noticing that small flames had begun to creep through the loft hatch, within minutes the whole place was going to be a bonfire. Having a gap to crawl through was all very well, and the relief of feeling cool air from it and knowing it was there was immense, but fire thrived on air and when the flames broke through the fire would tear through the roof spaces in an all-consuming rage.

Edie reached the gap, ‘Thank God!’ she cried. Sophie heard her scramble through and caught sight of her foot as the flames began to leap and lick behind her, illuminating the attic with a hellish light. ‘It’s boarded through here Soph, much easier, come on.’

With a surge of energy that seemed to come from nowhere, but was fuelled by sheer terror, Sophie propelled herself forward, ignoring the searing pain in her thin legs from the joists as they ground into her flesh. She could see the gap clearly in the orange glow and went for it like a rat out of a trap, scrambling through, ignoring the rough brick, though it tore at her clothes and scraped her skin and ignoring the jagged wood of the roof frame which clutched at her and left spiteful splinters. If whatever higher power which might exist granted them a tomorrow, Sophie’s was going to hurt like hell.

Aware that the flames behind her were going to hit critical mass at any moment, she searched for Edie and found her in the centre of the loft attacking the hatch with broken nails and torn fingers. Hatches were designed to be accessed from below, not above, and this one sat neatly in its recess resisting any effort to prise it up.

Light was in short supply, and that which was available came from the most menacing of sources. Sophie cast about for something, anything that might aid them – hoping that serendipity would have left a crowbar lying around. It hadn’t, Sophie was never that lucky, but it had, in the most incongruous way possible, left a fish slice protruding from a long abandoned box of junk. Had time not been so much of the essence the appearance of a fish slice in an otherwise relatively empty space might have had a funny side. In this instance Sophie had never been so grateful to come face to face with an item of kitchen equipment and seized upon it like a stray dog seizing a sausage roll, scooting across the attic and wedging it into the gap. It was a flimsy thing of the cheap and cheerful but wholly useless variety and bent at the slightest pressure, but it raised the hatch enough for Edie’s fingers to slip underneath and haul it out of the way. ‘You first.’ she said to Sophie, who slid to the edge. ‘I’ll lower you down so you don’t fall – turn round and go belly down, it’ll be easier.’ Edie said. Sophie once again did as she was told, slithering through the gap and allowing Edie to hang onto her arms and break her fall. Once safely on the landing below Sophie looked up, waiting to take her turn helping Edie down, but the fire had other plans.

Edie more or less got blown out of the hatch as the fire found the air gap and exploded into it – to Sophie it looked as though Edie had been forcibly expelled from a dragon’s mouth on a tongue of raw, pure flame. Edie’s head bounced off the bannister with a sickening crack as she fell and she hit the floor with all the grace of a sack of flour.

Sophie tried to rouse her, but it was impossible, her own weakened limbs felt useless and the most she managed was to drag Edie’s limp form to the top of the stairs. She screamed for help, but her voice was still shot both with thirst and the ever increasing dryness from the heat and smoke. In blind panic she stumbled down the stairs like a clown, feeling as though at any minute she would get tangled in her own limbs and go head first, destroying any chance of her own survival and ruling out any rescue for Edie. Everything seemed to have slowed to nothing, every movement feeling as though it was taking place at the same speed as thick black treacle dropping from a spoon – she felt as though she was trying to wade through an ocean of it as she moved through the house.

Reaching the back door was like running marathon wearing diving boots, but she made it and once there wrenched it open, throwing herself into the small garden and launching herself out of the gate. Straight into a fireman who was focused on the fire and never saw her coming. A terrified and gibbering Sophie knocked him off his feet and they both went down like bowling pins.

As he fought his way to his feet, trying to make sense of Sophie’s garbled, panicked pleas she saw him look up just as the windows on the upper floor of the house where she had left Edie exploded outwards, sending shards of glass knifing through the air in a lethal rain. Instinct made the fireman shy away and curve his body around the Sophie, protecting them both from the flying debris. When it was over, he let her go, and she slipped from his grasp in dead faint.

Chapter Twenty-One

DC Alice Hale slipped under the crime scene tape and picked her way through the debris of wet, blackened rubble – some of it still steaming – and approached the fire investigator, holding out her warrant card to tell him that she was there on official business. It had taken seven hours to finally get the fire under control and by the looks of it the flames had wiped out the best part of four houses and had seriously damaged another two, one of which lay opposite. ‘What happened there?’ she asked, curious as to how it had been the only one damaged.

‘When the windows blew out of this one some burning debris must have gone into the garden – from what we can tell it was chock full of rubbish which acted as fuel. It’s not as bad as it looks, most of the inside is still intact, but the kitchen has gone and it isn’t pleasant in there.’

Alice nodded. ‘Any casualties?’

The investigator looked pensive, they always did when faced with the question of who they hadn’t saved. ‘We pulled out three bodies. Two from that building,’ he pointed to one of the houses in the ravaged row, ‘and one from the kitchen of that one. Looks like the poor sod hid in a cupboard.’ He shook his head in an attitude of sorrow. ‘There were a couple of other minors, they were shipped off to St Mary’s’

‘So what are we looking at, accident or deliberate?’

‘I’m ninety-nine percent sure this is arson, that house was the first to go and by the looks of it an accelerant was used, I’m saying petrol as we found a partially burned can in the garden. You know the deal, I can’t give you any certainties until we make our report.’

Alice nodded ‘Has anyone come forward offering any information on who might have started it?’

The investigator snorted ‘This is Coronation Square love, it’s the Winfield breeding ground for pyromaniacs and idiots, what do you think?’

Alice shrugged ‘Have to ask.’

The investigator shrugged. ‘I suppose you do. Right, I’m going to need your guys to make sure the scene is kept clear, while my guys rake through this mess and we piece together what happened. If you can give me names of owners, and any plans showing alterations to the buildings, what they were used for et cetera, you know the deal.’

Alice nodded, she did indeed know the deal. Somewhere in amongst all the paperwork, deeds, planning permissions, listings, rental agreements and other paraphernalia would be a clue as to who might want a fire set and why. Equally, someone in the square would have something to say, or would have a bit of footage on their phone, or would have taken a photo of the blaze. It wasn’t uncommon for arsonists to want to witness their handiwork. The three victims bothered her, a brief conversation with the lead officer who had attended the fire had established that they had made every effort to evacuate the surrounding houses – so three bodies was a worry, but also a puzzle as none of them had been in the house where the fire had started. It looked like her next port of call would be the hospital, to talk to the casualties and see what they might know.