by Stella Duffy
Saz stumbled away from the circle, smoke-blind, the room pitch black, she could hear Grant making his way to the door with Max but she couldn’t see either of them. Max was moaning in pain from the burns on his legs and Grant was trying to untie his hands and feet so they could move faster. Saz followed the sounds, finding the door and letting herself out just as the flames swallowed up the surrounding wall and forced her out into the hallway. Grant was dragging Max down the stairs trying to get away from the flames that followed them in the trail of petrol Jasmine had set. By the time she reached them Max and Grant had again been caught in another wave of fire, pinned up against the long staircase window, trying to get away as it lapped around their feet. Maxwell North had stopped his hoarse howling and Grant had given up trying to untie the bonds on the feet, the bonds that had been burnt off along with much of the flesh on his calves and ankles.
Max was calm, the dryness in his throat had taken over again and he was no longer able to cry out, but now he didn’t want to, the pain in his feet and legs had been taken over by another sensation. He was there and not there. He was watching as Saz called to Grant from the other side of the flames and he found he was interested but didn’t care. He watched her shouting at Grant through the smoke. She stood on one side of the flames and called through the noise, the smoke and heat and fumes catching in her throat and making her retch as she did so.
“Jump to me, I’ll catch you.”
“I can’t, he’s too heavy.”
“Then throw him first, this is getting worse, I can hardly see you. Grant, you have to come this way, you can’t break that glass.”
“I can’t leave him.”
“Then throw him.”
Max felt himself thrown and closed his eyes as he fell into the flames, their heat surrounding him and he opened his mouth, not to scream this time but to drink in the fire. Max smiled, opened his eyes, bathed them in soothing flames and then closed his eyes again.
Saz fell under the heavy weight of the burnt man. The heavy weight of the dead man. Max’s legs caught in the flames again and Saz was caught under him as what was left of his jacket started to burn. The smell of searing flesh brought back incongruous thoughts of summer barbecues, picnics by the river with Cassie and their parents and Saz was floating close to them, close to her childhood pictures. Then Grant was beside her again, he pulled Max’s body to himself, freeing Saz who dragged herself to her knees, the pain of her own burns clearing her head. Grant crouched down beside her, trying to hold life into Max.
“It’s too late Grant. Leave him.”
But the more Saz pulled at Grant, the more he clung to Max. Finally the flames beat him off, a few seconds later when his own hands and arms were too burnt to hit out the flames on Max’s body any longer and the fire coming at them was level with his face, Grant turned and, with Saz supporting most of his weight, they stumbled and fell and crawled down the back staircase, out into the street and the strangers who had gathered for the viewing.
CHAPTER 40
The two charred bodies were removed for examining later when the ashes were cold. Very little was made of the chisel cut found in Jasmine’s cheekbone, the coroner was an old friend of Max and assumed it was his doing. Both dead, he decided there was really no need to mention it in his report.
Caron McKenna sold the London house and almost immediately moved to New York where she opened a gallery of her own, stunning the city within six months with a shocking and hugely successful exhibition based on the revitalizing nature of fire. A year later she met a new woman and once again shocked the establishment by coming out. Her father maintained he never got over the shame, but her mother made visits to New York every three months and liked nothing better than to stay with Caron and Glenda whenever she could.
Grant went back to the States for rest and reconstructive plastic surgery to his hands and face and within three years was running the European Process Centre in the Hague which was taking the Process into eight other European nations and would soon be working on an international basis. When he regained the use of his hands he sent Saz a shakily printed get well card. She didn’t bother to reply.
The burns Saz had incurred – mostly to her legs, stomach and hands – healed very slowly, the healing partly held up by the depression that accompanied them. A depression to do with Saz’s feeling of failure as much as the pain she had gone through. She did however, have her own private doctor in attendance and the weeks of enforced bed rest gave her the sleep she was desperate for and gave Molly the time she’d been longing to spend with Saz.
“Not that I’d wish this pain on anyone Saz, but I do love coming home and knowing you’ll be here.”
It also gave Saz enough time in Molly’s flat to learn to call it home.
She chose not to tell the police about Grant. She didn’t have a clear reason for this but she knew it was something to do with her own guilt at having let him be in a position to hurt Jasmine in the first place. Her own guilt at enlisting the help of someone she’d chosen to trust, not because she knew him and knew his value, but because of his persuasive manner, his words, his charm. She felt as culpable in the deaths of Maxwell North and Jasmine as she assumed Grant did. Or should.
Saz did tell the police all she knew about Maxwell North but, with no supporting evidence and a marked lack of interest from those whose job it should have been to care, Max’s record remained unblemished. Certain people firmly believed that no good would come from raking through the ashes of Max’s life. As one of the civil servants responsible for allocating funds to mental health research told both the coroner and the investigating officer at a damage limitation meeting,
“It’s a man’s work that counts once his life is over, and we know the girl was completely mad anyway. She must have been. Max was a good chap.”
The three men laughed and closed their folders. Funding for the initial stages of the nationwide implementation of the Process was approved.
Five months later Saz finally took her long-awaited holiday with Molly, not to the sun, but to Molly’s parents in Scotland.
As Molly explained,
“Saz, believe me, the last thing you need when you’re trying to grow new skin is winter sunburn. We’ll go and stay with my parents. It’s cheap, the food’s wonderful and you certainly won’t be tempted to rush out and strip off for a swim when it’s snowing outside.”
Saz turned over in bed and looked at Molly.
“Is that a polite way of saying you don’t like the look of my scars?”
Molly pulled the sheets back gently. She kissed the puckered, dark red skin on Saz’s naked stomach, then the thick long grafts on her lower legs, finally taking both of Saz’s burnt hands in her own.
“Saz, I loved you before these scars and I still do now. You’re my girl, the same girl. Lightly toasted or fried to a crisp. It’s all right. OK?”
Saz nodded and closed her eyes, but as she fell asleep under Molly’s watchful gaze she saw Jasmine’s hand flailing around in the petrol and the flames, she felt the weight of Maxwell North’s dead and burning body as it fell against her and she knew she wasn’t really the same girl. Not yet. She hoped Molly would wait around until she was.
Also by Stella Duffy
Calendar Girl
“There’s a lot of lesbian lore and sex in it, but it is also a fast, witty and clever crime story, with cracking dialogue and exuberant characters” The Times
“Steamy erotic moments, some smart one-liners and a few digs at lesbian stereotypes… Stella Duffy is definitely a name to watch” Forum
“Lends a new dimension to trips to the supermarket” Literary Review
“A highly atmospheric, rhythmic narrative … a stylish book which also warns of the destructive power of lies and half-truths” Gay Times
“Unusual, cleverly constructed recital of deception in relationships… The downbeat denouement packs an unexpected, morbid wallop” San Francisco Examiner
“Each chapter is satisfyin
g in itself, but leaves you on a cinema noir knife-edge. Don’t start it at bedtime or you’ll wind up with bags under your eyes” Phase
Stand-up comic Maggie has fallen for “the girl with the Kelly McGillis body”, a mysterious woman who can’t commit herself. Meanwhile South London private eye Saz Martin is hot on the trail of a woman known as “September”, who commutes between London and New York in a whirlwind of drug smuggling, gambling, and high-class prostitution. A murder brings Saz and Maggie and their respective mysteries together.
Beneath The Blonde
“Saz Martin is… an ebullient heroine of courage and wry wit… Duffy’s third novel removes her from the category of ‘promising’ and confirms without doubt that she’s very near the top of the new generation of modern crime writers” Marcel Berlins, The Times
“Stella Duffy’s writing gets better with each book” Val McDermid, Manchester Evening News
“Always a pleasure to find a new Stella Duffy novel… a good read and highly recommended” Diva
Siobhan Forrester, lead singer of Beneath The Blonde, has everything a girl could want – stunning body, great voice, brilliant career, loving boyfriend. Now she has a stalker too. She can cope with the midnight flower deliveries and nasty phone calls, but things really turn sour when intimidation turns to murder.
Saz Martin, hired to seek out the stalker and protect Siobhan, embarks on a whirlwind investigation, travelling with the band from London to New Zealand, via the rest of the world. As jobs go, this one shouldn’t be too hard, except Siobhan isn’t telling the whole truth and Saz isn’t sure she wants to keep the relationship strictly business.
Fresh Flesh
“Duffy’s quickfire wit is still strongly in evidence but the final emotional charge is deep and insidiously moving. A promising writer has matured into a future classic” Guardian
“Brilliant plot, superb dialogue and excellent characters” Booksellers’ Choice
Patrick Freeman, celebrity chef, with the legendary bad temper and the obligatory wild child wife… Chris Marquand, adopted son of wealthy parents, a successful doctor, father-to-be… Georgina Leyton, high-powered lawyer and a beautiful bitch who’s as cool as they come… Luke Godwin, owner of the hottest South London bar and a talent for scaring the life out of people with his mad rages. Four virtual strangers, unwittingly bound together by a dark secret from the past. And, after all these years, it’s about to blow up in their faces.
Everything was going just fine for Saz Martin and her partner Molly. It is summer in London. They’re having a baby and all looks right with the world. Saz has even stopped taking on any weird and wild cases. No more danger, just easy, steady work and tucked up in bed before midnight… Yeah, right.
Fresh Flesh, Stella Duffy’s latest Saz Martin thriller, is a high-paced ride across a contemporary London of glitzy offices, fancy restaurants, designer bars and damaged lives. It is also a frightening journey through the emotional ruins of the past, a tale of the sins of the fathers, and the mothers, and of the greatest theft of all.
