And then the fire came again, Through the mask, he could smell the reek of petrol. He saw flames around the door, floorboards reduced to ashes, black smoke rolling across the ceiling, hanging like a curtain, sinking steadily downwards. Carbon monoxide. Two or three lungfuls would kill him.
He was in the passage again. A floor scorched where the carpet had singed through. Burning plastic and fibres. Blazing curtains falling on to furniture, glass shattering as picture cords snapped and frames crashed to the floor. When the flames reached the ceiling, they would cause flashover. It could reach five hundred degrees Fahrenheit in here. Boards over the windows were alight, reflecting the glow of the inferno inside. Fire mirrored itself, a vast furnace every way he turned.
And the smoke. He was peering through smoke. Pungent and choking, full of lethal particles. The heat was becoming too intense to bear. The exposed skin of his hands was roasting. Like a joint of meat in an oven.
And then came the moment. The moment he looked round to make sure she was still there. That she was still wearing her mask too.
But with an awful lurch in his heart, he saw that she was gone. He saw it again and again. He saw that she was gone.
7
With the Vietnamese connection still elusive, and the Edendale youth admitting that his iPod had been taken from him by his own brother, Diane Fry found herself winding down the day by wading through the volume crime reports. They were all finished and signed off by the time her shift came to an end. If she had to do this job, no one would be able to say that she didn’t do it well.
Becky Hurst approached her as she was checking her latest emails. It was always wise to clear your inbox at the end of the day. Otherwise, it would just be twice as full in the morning, so you’d never catch up. And you never knew when you might have missed something that required a response yesterday.
‘Yes, Becky?’
‘Diane, we’re meeting up in the pub after shift tonight. The Wheatsheaf. It’s just off the Market Square, near the Town Hall.’
‘I know where it is,’ said Fry.
‘So, obviously, if you want—’
‘Yes, if I need you, I’ll know where to find you.’
‘Oh, yeah. But I didn’t mean that. We were thinking you might … well, unless you’ve got something better to do, of course?’
‘I probably have.’
‘Right.’ Hurst nodded curtly and turned away.
Fry began to relax again. The knots of tension had instantly begun to build up in her shoulders. She never quite knew how to deal with social situations. She’d never had any interest in drinking with the more junior ranks. It tended to make them think she was their friend, which was wrong. If she was going to drink, she’d rather do it on her own. At least she could relax then, instead of being constantly on edge and struggling to dredge up the right small talk without too many awkward silences. Although she was only in her thirties, the younger generation of officers like Hurst and Irvine made her feel like a dinosaur. Outside the job, she had no idea what they were talking about half the time.
She kept an eye on Hurst as Murfin joined her and they spoke quietly for a moment. Despite the difference in their sizes, Becky always looked as though she was the leader when she was with Murfin. She was like a diminutive sheepdog nipping at the heels of a lumbering bullock, steering him in the right direction.
But tonight, Fry had her suspicions about Murfin. He’d been plotting something against her all day, she was sure. He wasn’t going to be content any longer with sniping from the sidelines. It was best to know where the stab in the back would come from.
A few minutes later, Fry climbed into her Audi, drove through the barrier and headed down West Street. She was remembering the first time she’d set eyes on Ben Cooper. She had only just arrived in Derbyshire following her transfer from the West Midlands and was already suffering a form of culture shock at the transition from working in the vibrant urban sprawl of Birmingham to the rural wastelands of the Peak District.
Cooper had been on leave during her first two weeks in Edendale. She’d heard plenty about him, though – everybody’s favourite DC, the fount of all local knowledge. And when he finally appeared, walking into a room full of people, arriving late for a briefing at the start of a murder inquiry, she’d known straight away that he was no threat. Untidy, awkward, lacking in confidence, with a tendency to say and do all the wrong things. He was well meaning, but weak. She clearly remembered thinking that about him at the time, an instant assessment. She would have hated him otherwise.
Fry changed down gears at the bottom of the hill and slowed for the junction with Eyre Street. Cooper had changed since then, of course. The man she’d last seen, before the incident at the Light House pub, wasn’t the same person at all. Promotion, responsibility, a fiancée, and a few more years under his belt – they’d all made a difference. He’d been almost unrecognisable as the awkward inconvenience she’d first met. Very different. And now he seemed more of a threat.