Night Fires

by D H Sidebottom

  What poured through me wasn’t so much relief, more an ecstatic outcry of joy. I couldn’t hold in the happy laughter as I slung my arms around his neck and hugged him so hard I could feel the thump of his heart against my own. He laughed with me, both of us so delighted we couldn’t stop the stupid giggles from taking over. For the first time in a long while, Carter looked happy, so bloody happy that I couldn’t stop the tears from outpouring along with the silly jubilation.

  The heat in his eyes was savage when he scooped me up and carried me - yes, once again - into the bedroom where he showed me just how happy he was – and just how damn perfect my life had become.

  Carter refused to allow me to go back to Kingfisher House until after Christmas. Cary moved in and I made sure I was friendly towards him, but for Carter’s sanity, I gave him a wide berth. I knew he trusted me one hundred percent, but life, and our relationship, was so perfect I didn’t want to rock the boat. And although Carter insisted he was fine with me so close to Cary I could still sense his anxiousness, the feeling that his brother would once again snatch the love of his life from under his nose. It broke my heart on more than one occasion to witness the look of fear in his eyes and I swore I would move out as soon as I could. My leg was becoming stronger, and with Carter’s help I had mastered driving again, although he would only allow me to go short distances. I was also looking forward to the privacy Carter and I could have again at my home. My pregnancy hormones had surged and I was forever horny, not that Carter complained, but it felt wrong with Cary being in the room below us, especially as Carter needed a new bed. The springs on his old one made the whole damn street aware every time we had sex.

  Cary seemed charming though, and he and Carter stayed up late into the night many times talking and once again getting to know each other. I wouldn’t risk their new relationship for anything, so the Monday after New Year I had packed up my few belongings and Carter was sulking beside my car.

  “You should be moving in permanently, not moving out,” he grumbled.

  Reaching on my toes to kiss the tip of his nose I rolled my eyes at him. “It will do you and Cary good, Carter. He needs you right now. The chemo is knocking him for six, and it can’t be nice having me around when he’s feeling so rough. I’m only a mile away.”

  I moved my kiss to his lips as I pressed my front door key into his palm. He looked down at it and gave me a smile. “Now I can slide into your bed and surprise you in the middle of the night.”

  I nodded eagerly. “Oooh, make sure you bring a stash of honey and celery with you if you do.”

  He rolled his eyes but grinned. “I swear your cravings are as random as the shit that you spew out on occasion.”

  I pretended to take offense but the pure look of adoration on his face had me filling up. Leaving him was harder than I thought it was going to be. Giving him a firm nod and squeezing back the tears I filed Mack into the car and then climbed in after him when he jumped through to the back seat.

  Gesturing for me to roll down the window, I did and he popped his head through to give me another kiss. “Be careful, the roads are still icy.”

  “I promise.”

  “I’ll take Cary in for his op this afternoon then I’ll come straight round to yours but it will be around supper time.”

  “Okay, but don’t rush. Stay with him while he needs you. And be careful, there’s a storm rolling in according to the weather.”

  He nodded, giving me another hard kiss. I could see the exact same sadness in his eyes that looked back at me through the mirror when I pulled off his drive. He stood watching me go until I rounded the corner of his street.

  Then I allowed myself a little cry.

  THE STORM WAS starting to roll in before I even got home. Deciding to leave my stuff in the car until it had passed, I battled the wind and rain and clambered up the steps with Mack.

  “Good grief, Mack!” I shivered, switching the heating to full as I pulled off my drenched coat and hung it above a radiator to dry.

  Although I had been anxious about leaving Carter I still couldn’t help but smile as my home enveloped me once again. My own things, the familiar smell and the old creaking joints welcomed me back devotedly, and by the time I’d made myself a hot cup of tea, I was feeling more secure and much better. The rain that battered each window was as fierce as the howling wind, but the soft glow from the lamps and the gas fire I’d installed embraced me and I sighed contentedly as I dropped onto the sofa.

  Mack had been scurrying around like a lunatic, his nose stuck to the floor since we’d walked through the door fifteen minutes ago. “What’s up, Buddy? Aren’t you pleased to be home?”

  His ears shot up and a low growl emitted from him. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled and we both froze when a shadow passed across the window. My heart jumped against my chest when a loud knock banged on the front door.

  “Jesus H Christ!” I groused at Mack for making me feel oversensitive.

  He looked at me then went back to sniffing the floor as if a bone had been dragged over it numerous times.

  “Hello?” I shouted through the door. Someone answered but the wind drowned them out so, slipping on the chain, I opened it a fraction.

  Fear trampled me, along with the strength of the wind, when I saw Niall on the doorstep. The porch was doing its best to keep him dry but the rain was so aggressive that it poured off the corner and down over his face. I shouldn’t have found that as gleeful as I did.

  “What do you want, Niall?”

  Sensing my frustration, he sighed. “Please let me in, Alice. We need to talk.”

  “Talk?” I scoffed, glaring at him through the small gap in the door.

  “It’s important. I think…” A gust of wind belted him and he fell against the door. “Bloody hell, Alice. Please. It’s lethal out here. I promise I’m not here to hurt you, but I need to tell you something.”

  His eyes begged me when another freak gust of wind had him holding on to the porch support to steady himself. Knowing I’d probably regret it, I nodded and lifted the chain, opening the door for him to hurry inside. I struggled to put the door back in its rightful place and Niall had to help me when another blast had me teetering backwards, and the mail I’d picked up when I walked in blew across the room.

  “Christ!” he panted when he shook off his coat. “It’s manic out there. The sea is coming over the edge of your garden.”

  My eyes widened and I rushed to the veranda doors. Sure enough, I could see the tips of the waves splurging over the top of the cliff and rushing water across my garden.

  “Is it safe here?” Niall asked as he looked out of the window with me.

  “Yeah.” I waved off his concern, and for something to concentrate on, I filled the kettle and switched it on. “Drink?”

  Relief flooded his face and he nodded, giving me a soft smile. “Thank you.”

  It hurt to look at him, and it felt a bit surreal making the man who murdered my family a cup of coffee. Pushing those thoughts aside, I made his drink and carried it through to the front room. “We’ll have to sit in here. Mack ate the table legs, and no doubt he’ll have half munched the chair legs.”

  Niall looked stunned for a moment then spotted Mack on his sniffing vendetta and nodded in understanding. “He’s a cute one.” He rubbed his fingers together trying to get Mack’s attention but he was having none of it.

  I frowned at his behaviour but he appeared to find a scent he approved of and disappeared up the stairs.

  “How are you, Alice?” The soft sound of Niall’s voice made me shiver and I gulped at the moisture that filled my eyes.

  “I’m doing okay. My leg has mended…”

  “I’m not asking about your bones, I’m asking about you.”

  I snorted and looked away from him, biting my lip to stop myself from spitting at him. “You mean after you killed my family and left me with no one?”

  Placing his cup onto the coffee table, he leaned forwards. I stiffened
but didn’t give him the satisfaction of moving away from him. “I don’t know how to make you believe me, babe….”

  “I’m not your babe. I haven’t been for a very long time, Niall!”

  He nodded. “Alice, I didn’t do it. You have to believe me.” He rubbed his hands over his face and dropped back into the sofa. “When Grant came and told me about… you two, yes, I freaked out. I was angry, I was hurt. I loved you, Alice. You were my world!”

  “But it didn’t stop you from hurting me?”

  He dropped his face, his cheeks paling as he gave me a timid nod. “I know. And I’m so sorry about that. I’m not making excuses for how much I hurt you but the hospital have since told me that the medication they put me on made me aggressive.”

  “Well that explains a lot.” I sneered. “Aggressive enough to set fire to my parents’ house with your own son in it!”

  “Alice!” He shot upright, his head shaking side to side. “I didn’t do it. I couldn’t have killed Josh as much as I couldn’t have killed Billy and your mum and dad. Grant told me what was going on and I took off. I couldn’t face you with so much anger; I was scared of what I would do. So I just ran. I ran and then I climbed on the first bus I saw and just went. I didn’t even know where I was until I woke up the next morning on a dirty fucking bench in the centre of Blackpool with a hangover from hell.”

  Dropping to his knees before me he grabbed hold of my hands. Tears streamed down his face and the look of utter devastation on his face made my heart weep. I didn’t want to feel sorry for him. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to get vengeance for my family. I wanted to end the heartache that had taken hold ever since that awful night. Yet as I sat, looking down at a man I had once loved with my very being, it gradually occurred to me that he might be telling the truth.

  “Please, Alice,” he sobbed. “I can’t bear you hating me. I know you’ve moved on and I understand that, I do. But I couldn’t have hurt Josh. He was my boy. My baby boy!”

  His despair broke him and his hands clawed at me, his fingers digging into my flesh as he sat and wept into my lap.

  “I miss him so much. I miss his smile, his soft hair. The smell of him. His funny chuckle and the way he would say ‘Mammy’. I miss him just as much as you, Alice. My world fell apart that night as well. Whoever killed them took my life too. And no matter what I do, I can’t ever get through this pain. I loved you, Alice, and in a way I always will. Please. Please.”

  I slid down beside him and took him in my arms as his wails shattered something inside me. No one could ever comprehend the loss of a child until they experienced it too, and Niall had. He had lost his son as I had. The death of his child had broken something inside him that could never be repaired; the very same thing that still ate away inside me every day.

  “Shh,” I whispered into his hair as he clung to me harder. His tears soaked me like the rain that poured down the windows, and I could do nothing but rock him gently as the wind screamed for both of us.

  A while later I’d refreshed our drinks and both of us sat quietly listening to the storm batter my old but steadfast house.

  “I think you should consider counselling, Niall. It might help.”

  He looked over the rim of his mug and nodded. “I was under the prison shrink and found it helped so I’ve found someone in Bristol.”

  “Bristol? Is that where you’re living?”

  We both jumped when a particularly nasty gust of wind knocked the house, shaking it in its very foundations. I was starting to worry. I knew she was a tough old bird but the force of the gale was worsening by the hour, and the sound of the waves crashing over the top of the cliff was becoming deafening – and frightening.

  “Yeah.” Niall nodded. “I went home but I couldn’t stay there. Too many memories, you know?”

  “Mmm,” I agreed. “I couldn’t face going back either. For over a year I couldn’t face it but I finally made myself go back after I found Josh’s teddy at his graveside.”

  Niall paled and winced. “I’m sorry. I should have come to you but I wanted to visit him so much. It was the first thing I did when I got out; went to our son. And then when I made myself go back to the house, I found his teddy and…” He shrugged, not needing to finish his story.

  “Why did they send you down if there was no evidence, Niall?”

  Pursing his lips, he sighed heavily. “I had motive. I had no alibi. The domestic abuse record didn’t bode well for me either. But then my solicitor finally got hold of the CCTV from Blackpool town council. Eight months it took for them to forward it on. And then it took months for them to actually verify it. Twelve months I went out of my mind in that place.”

  Guilt surged through me and I swallowed back the bile as it seeped up from the pit of my stomach. “I suppose I didn’t help your case. I was sure it was you.”

  Shaking his head firmly, he took my hand and squeezed. “I can’t blame you for that, Alice. Shit, if it was the other way around I’d have thought exactly the same. I admit I had a temper, and it ruined us long before Grant stole you.”

  “Grant didn’t steal me, Niall. I walked quite willingly into his bed.”

  Hurt covered his face and he winced but apologies were no good now; only the truth could grant us absolution. We were both guilty, and we both had to face the aftermath of our messed up marriage.

  “He told me you loved him, Alice.”

  Shock rendered me mute for a moment. “What?”

  “The day he told me, Josh’s birthday. He told me about your affair, and he told me that you were leaving me for him. That you were both in love and… and…”

  “And?” My mouth was so dry the words came out with a slur.

  “And that you were expecting his baby.”

  Words wouldn’t come and all I could do was shake my head.

  Niall gave me a soft smile. “I know now that he was lying, otherwise you’d be all cosied up with him by now, with a baby in tow. But shit, it hurt me so much. I believed him and I was so damn angry. I was terrified I would really hurt you; that’s why I took off. I tried to keep it together, to distance myself from you.” He wiped at another tear and dropped his gaze to the carpet. “I had no idea what had happened until I pulled up outside our house in a fucking rental car and the police stormed me. I didn’t understand. They dragged me out of the car and shoved me to the ground. And then…” He gulped, trying desperately to hold himself together. “And then when they read me my rights, they said his name, Alice. They said, ‘I’m arresting you for the murder of Joshua Redman.’ They told me my son was dead by arresting me for his murder.”

  “Oh, Niall.”

  His red-rimmed eyes looked up at me. His face was so pale that I was sure he was going to pass out on me, but slowly he shook his head. “What the hell happened to us, Alice?”

  I had no idea what had happened to us apart from life. Life was cruel, and death was crueller. “I don’t know, Niall.”

  He gave me a genuine smile then, the light back in his eyes for a moment. “I’m glad you’re happy. I honestly am.”

  I couldn’t do anything other than return his smile.

  “Do you love him?”

  “Yes.” I nodded. “Very much.”

  He nodded slowly, returning his scrutiny to the carpet. “I’m glad. You deserve someone who absolutely adores you. I saw how he was in the hospital after your accident, and it was so easy to see how much he loves you.”

  Pain speared me in the chest and I covered my mouth with my hand when the reality that everything between us had finally come to the end bore down on me with an almighty sorrow I hadn’t expected to feel. “I’m so sorry, Niall. I’m so very sorry.”

  “Hey, hey.” He pulled me in to his arms. “Don’t you dare be sorry. It was on me, babe. I broke us the first time I lay my hand on you. Don’t you dare take guilt for that.”

  He lifted my head back and wiped at my tears with his thumbs as he gave me a tender kiss on the tip of my nose. “You take that new
man of yours and you love him until it hurts, Alice. Love him until you can’t breathe. I know how goddamn perfect your love is, and when you love, you love with a passion that is staggering. You give him that and I promise you that he will protect your heart with everything that he is. I took your love for granted, and it cost me everything.”

  Without another word, he pressed a hard kiss to my forehead, grabbed his coat and went out into the storm.

  I sat for an age on the floor, listening to the shrieking wind grow even more strenuous, replaying Niall’s words and trying to figure out where we went wrong. Nothing gave me an answer. Life is like one of those maze puzzles. When you take a path it either awards you with your goal or punishes you with a dead end. Yet, life’s dead-ends weren’t the end of the road, they were the beginning of the road into hell. You just had to learn to take the heat and keep going until you found another way out of the trap you found yourself in.

  Yet now I found myself with a new puzzle. If Niall hadn’t started that fire, who the hell had?

  AN ABRUPT FLASH of lightning brought me out of my daydream and I pushed myself off the floor. My leg was aching and I hobbled into the kitchen to take some painkillers. Swilling them down with a glass of water, my eyes landed on Mack’s empty bed. It must have been well past an hour since he’d taken himself up the stairs and I was surprised he hadn’t ventured back down by now.

  “Mack?” I shouted as I started to tackle the stairs. My leg was doing okay but it wasn’t one hundred percent back to normal and I still struggled with stairs, both up and down. “If you’ve raided my knicker drawer again I swear I’m gonna hang you up with my goddamn stockings…”

  My cursing filtered off as I walked into my bedroom and froze in horror. Blood oozed from Mack’s slit throat, the cream carpet a sponge as his wide dead eyes stared at me from where he lay at the bottom of my bed.

  “NO!” I screamed as I flung myself at him and pulled him to my body. “NO!”

  I heard him before I saw him, and before I could turn, a thud at the side of my head sent me to the ground, pain tearing through my skull and making me gag. Instinctively I brought my arms around my stomach to defend my baby when I saw his huge black boot hurtling towards me. I cried out when the connection splintered the old fracture and agony took my breath.