Trial by Fire

by Frances Fyfield

  Helen felt the rise of disappointment and loss as sharp as anger, but it was not anger, only sorrow for another opportunity missed, sad in a kind of inevitability. Back to bed with him, only for a second, only for a hug. 'What is it?' she asked in turn.

  Ì'm sorry, darling. One of those fires.'

  `Which fires? Oh, I know, you told me. Backs of shops and bus shelters. That one? Why do you have to go?'

  `Because I need to see one fresh. I asked Amanda to call if there was another. Will you be all right?'

  `Course I'll be all right.' Automatic professional response of a woman who would have said she felt fine in the middle of an amputation. Smiling while her leg was cut off, everything perfectly OK, since that was what the onlooker wanted to hear.

  'How many fires have there been?'

  `This is the fifth.' Putting on his clothes with efficient ease, not like her, each morning a dozen indecisions.

  `What time is it?' This wide awake, he was bound to know. Bailey was one of those who always knew the time.

  `Four a.m. Go back to sleep, darling. See you for breakfast, I hope.'

  She clung, arms around his neck, for a fierce moment, smiled to show she did not resent such departures. 'See you soon.'

  Daylight was always too late.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Manoeuvring his car out of its tidy space and down the hill into Branston High Street, Bailey regretted his own presence in it, regretted their sojourn in such a litter-free zone, and cursed the fire raiser who had caused him to leave his bed. Between a mishmash of thoughts that refused to assume any order of priority in his mind, he also considered dead Yvonne Blundell, Antony Sumner's committal proceedings, and Amanda Scott's efficiency.

  It was she, of course, who had telephoned, obeying instructions to the letter. Maybe Helen was jealous. He turned the wheel towards Woodford, smiled at the ridiculous notion of himself causing jealousy in the heart of anyone, wished it was so simple. The tension of his household was not related to anything so petty, more to professional disappointment. They were both trained to examine too much, and Helen West thought that he, Geoffrey Bailey, had passed the buck and was refusing to exercise either his mind or his energy to turn upside-down an unsatisfactory case, that he had concentrated on evidence rather than the more oblique prospect of truth.

  Ah, yes, he knew very well what she thought. That he was acting like a cipher in doing what he was told, trying to avoid those suicidal tendencies that emerged if he thought too much or became involved in other people's lives. Well, that was her theory, not one he had practised in this case or any other, and if she did not believe that, he was not going to tell her. She might know by now it was only his behaviour that was calm, while anything uncertain festered inside him like a wound. He had to confess an irritation with her for being as uncommunicative in her opinions as he was himself.

  There was also this second nature of his, which held that an idea, once revealed, was spoiled, like an unexposed film shown the ruinous light of scrutiny. He could not tell her what he was doing with such badly focused images. The doubts and ideas that vexed him needed to develop in peace, immune from description and guarded like secrets. And if the telephone had not rung so imperatively fifteen minutes before, that is what he would have said twice as clumsily as he thought it now.

  I love you, my Helen, but I could never talk as well as you, and you cannot be party to everything I think without uprooting those thoughts. I know no other way; you must trust me.

  I could probably live without you if you did not, but the thought fills me with desolation and I cannot change my own slow machinery any more than you could limit your mercurial compassion, your constant vigilance, your strange fund of anger, and all the other things about you I happen to adore.

  There they were as he turned down the service road, neat Amanda Scott in a summer jacket buttoned up against the chill of early dawn, standing with PC Bowles and two others, chatting in the cold, waiting. One badly parked car and a harassed key holder flapping his arms and looking upset, with Amanda placing a soothing hand on his sleeve to calm him, all caught in a stage set by the spotlights of the fire engine, which panted like a tired monster. As Bailey appeared, the tableau of faces broke, looked towards him expectantly.

  The five firemen began to retreat, ready to depart.

  The fire had begun beneath a pile of boxes stacked against the wall for removal next day, all goods unloaded, nothing of value lost, sir, only rubbish burning other rubbish. The boxes had been lined up in rows against the brickwork of the yard, now scarred black by smoke, some of the tougher fabric smoking still, incompletely destroyed by the bright flame, which must have shot twenty feet into the air at least, such a lovely spectacle for the pyromaniac; it would have illuminated his watching face. Bailey did not doubt that the same first spectator was a mile away by now and still gloating.

  'Anyone see anyone?'

  `No.'

  Did you look?'

  Òf course, sir; still looking.' Amanda Scott answered this time, but the fire must have been going ten minutes by the time the panda car spotted it, and the pyromaniac would have legged it long before then. Bailey felt weary and dispirited. They were looking to him for ideas and he had only one.

  There was nothing unexpected here at all, simply another outbreak in a local epidemic.

  He asked questions, examined the obvious seat of the fire with the same sensation of dull familiarity. This was similar to the other four fires. Two were in bus shelters, which seemed extraordinary. Who could be angry with a bus shelter? The other three had been set at the back of shops rather like this. All five were clearly someone's idea of harmless fun — big high flames and no real loss, started with what resembled strips of cotton sheeting soaked in paraffin, judging from the overpowering smell. The same cheap washing liquid container used to transport the paraffin, then abandoned in the flames and half melted.

  For the moment, Bailey discounted the bus shelter fires, for which he could not guess a motive, turned to the key holder who was still flapping his hands, but looking less worried than mildly expectant. 'Sorry to keep you waiting, sir.' Always polite to. a man worried about his stock, shot out of sleep without knowing if he faced carnage or a very small insurance claim, treat him gently.

  'Could you tell me, were you working in the shop yesterday? . . . Good.

  Was there any bother — you know the kind of thing: arguments with customers, anyone shoplifting, for instance? Common enough, isn't it?

  Yes, you might not be able to remember . . .' And there, from the mouths of babes, sucklings, and shopkeepers, names tumbled. One William Featherstone, arrested here the afternoon before, same boy, same face cautioned for stealing a month before in another shop on the list, scene of the first fire. What was it Helen had called him, not watching him regarding the boy so closely? 'Poor boy,' she had said. That was the difference between them.

  Where she said `Poor boy,' he saw a potential criminal. He was not without pity, but that was always his first observation nevertheless. Yet she, like him, should understand and know when to ration compassion. Can't be nice all the time, or even most of it.

  As he kicked gingerly at one cardboard box, issued clipped instructions to send in another photographer later in the morning, he could see how clearly his next move could make life in Branston even less comfortable for Helen. He viewed himself as she might see him, the man who went around arresting the nearest and dearest of her tenuous Branston acquaintance. He wondered if she still slept while he raked the ashes of a silly little fire, wondering if two coincidences were sufficient to justify the pulling in of one William Featherstone. Amanda Scott was standing like Patience on a monument, waiting for a name and orders, which he did not pronounce. At least Helen never gave him this irritating and exaggerated respect. 'Think I'll go home,' said Bailey. 'Nothing for us to do.'

  `William Featherstone?' queried Amanda, eyebrows an arc of surprise.

  `No, not yet. Nothing yet.'

>   Ì am getting out of here,' Evelyn announced, 'as soon as I can.' It was the waning of the summer, visible in the days following William's arrest for shoplifting, and the first signs of dampness were apparent in the summerhouse den. William was shocked, watched while she continued. 'And if you're very good, you can come with me.' He brightened visibly. 'Only for a day, well, three-quarters of a day. We'll go on the tube, like I said. Not your silly old buses. We'll go to Oxford Circus on the tube.'

  He opened his mouth to protest, shut it again. He knew the tube, didn't like it. She knew how it frightened him, but with Evelyn with him it might be a different story. 'Only if you're good,' she added meaningfully. William sat closer, encouraged by the mood, put his arm around her shoulders. She did not resist. After all, it was Sunday afternoon, reserved for special Evelyn treats, with no one calling from the house.

  The news of his impending court appearance had alarmed his parents until Harold shrugged it away, but their vigilance had not increased in proportion to suspicion. William placed his hand on her left breast over the jumper; she let it remain. 'But you've got to be good,' she continued. 'You know, tomorrow at court. All these courts,' she added crossly. 'You tomorrow, me the next day.' He shot upright.

  `What do you mean, you the next day?'

  `You know, Mummy's case. No, don't talk about it.'

  His eyes had widened in terror. 'Dead Mummy? Bad Mummy?' `Yes, William, dead Mummy.

  Very bad Mummy. But after that

  — Thursday, I think — we're going out.'

  His span of concentration, acute in some regards, was now as short as his memory, from which he plucked only what he wanted to retain, while his hands, arrested momentarily by the threat of bad news, continued.

  Outside, the rain pattering on the wooden roof of the summerhouse was barely audible. Evelyn sighed softly, distancing her mind the way she normally did during Sunday afternoon treats, half her school days, and most dealings with Daddy. Daddy was not asleep and darling child was not doing homework. Daddy was being brave, sorting through all of Mummy's things, wanting no witnesses. She knew what Daddy would find in Mummy's desk: one hundred bills, all of them souvenirs of a bored life; thousands of photographs of Mummy when young, Mummy as teenage bride and infant wife, and among this detritus not a single photograph of darling child.

  If she had ever pointed a camera in Evelyn's direction, the results had never surfaced.

  Evelyn knew that with a spurt of rage: darling Mummy who had never loved her at all. Well, what was love anyway? Daddy's hugs, then William's more demanding hands, all to keep the bloody peace. Slowly she took off her jumper and closed her eyes. This was Sunday, after all.

  First church, now this. Life was full of chores.

  For this summer weekend, Helen and Bailey had fled to the sea, cruising the motorway into another county like children escaping the confines of work, armed with books, a picnic basket, shoes for walking, expecting rain and receiving sunshine like a blessing. They had called on friends, drunk a little too much, passed Saturday in a pub with Spartan appointments and splendid comfort, lost themselves in miles of pine-skirted beach. After two days of tranquil, sometimes uproarious contentment, Branston beckoned back a pair of lovers who had at least remembered who they were and why they were together.

  If there were subjects they failed to disinter from their own silences, it did not matter any more than shadows on the sun. Bailey had delighted in her and she in him. Helen went to work on Monday morning brown and refreshed, body tingling, mind alert. If there was something Machiavellian about her plan for the week, it had not yet begun to trouble her.

  In such a mood, Waltham Court, scene of this week's endeavours, was the best choice.

  Although smarting a little from the actions of Redwood in making off with her murder case, Helen had refrained from either comment or complaint and simply concentrated more on the work that remained. Waltham's daily list offered a panoply of challenges, a picture of local life littered with dozens of decisions per morning, enough to tax the brain and leave it reeling.

  Waltham court was a favourite of hers. Approaching the facade of a building resembling a factory decorated with bird dung among stained concrete and flanked by vandalized trees, the local palais de justice did not look favoured. Inside, the worn floors were pitted with cigarette burns beneath No Smoking signs. The corridors were too narrow, the court rooms themselves airless and claustrophobic, the whole interior like a stained handkerchief left too long in a pocket, beyond redemption.

  But the atmosphere within it was full of jokes, the staff as cheerful as crickets, as if to forestall the building's determination to depress, the magistrates armed with a degree of realism, and the administration chaotically efficient. Despite a daily diet of misery and despite its carbuncular appearance, Waltham ticked with positive vibrations like a good hospital. The foyers buzzed; there was consideration for life, smiles among the anxieties. Even William Featherstone, sitting alone, had failed to lose his vacuous expression.

  William was hers to prosecute this morning, product of the small world in which they lived, another unasked-for complication. She would have to confess her passing acquaintance to his solicitor. She hoped he would plead guilty, but she was recognizing a more than normal awakening of interest in his case as a teenage policeman, scarcely older than William himself, was showing her the exhibit bag, clear polythene, sealed once and for all with a label, containing William's choices from the worst of local shops.

  `Can't open the bag before we go in court, miss,' the policeman said. 'Funny though, innit?'

  `Yes,' Helen agreed thoughtfully. Very. Why on earth would William take these things? And later, at the very end of the session, with sulky, scratching, sadly unaccompanied William in the dock, unimpressed by the bulky presence of Harmoner, the worthy magistrates asked the same question.

  The chairman of the bench, a local shopkeeper himself, had arranged the objects before him. 'I know he's pleaded guilty, but can your client tell us, Mr Harmony, why he took these, er, particular things?'

  If he could, he wouldn't. William shrugged and, from the height of the dock, looked with regret at the display on the clerk's desk. There were four sets of earrings, mock diamond in green and white; three sets of very silvery bangles fit for a flamboyant slave girl; two sets of hair clips with silver and glittery buckles; two bright clip-on bows for shoes; and a necklace of shimmering paste. The collection sparkled in cheap harmony, reflecting the taste of someone addicted to Dynasty and young enough to mistake sparkle for sophistication. So: William Featherstone, a kind of human magpie drawn by anything brighter than his eyes, liked these pretty things.

  `Got a girlfriend, have you?' barked the magistrate, profoundly suspicious of any other tendency this frivolous selection might imply. Helen looked at the pathetic collection with sadness, the sunshine of her weekend draining away. He had stolen the illicit fodder of dreams, poor child. Oh, yes, he could be cured by more pocket money or punishment or blows, like hell he could. Poor William. Stop dreaming, boy, it's illegal to dream with your hands. Goods and dreams, they have to be bought.

  At the mention of the word 'girlfriend', William went into spasm, a stiffening of the body and such violent shaking of the head he looked about to lose it. He sat down — was pushed down, since he did not respond to orders — still indicating his negative while Harmoner preached mitigation.

  Helen was relieved to see that William seemed preoccupied beyond listening, since like many of Harmoner's speeches on mitigation, this one sounded like a paean of insults:

  'Poor child, not very bright, unfit for employment, unfit for anything. No parents here today, because he did not tell them the date, or if he did, they chose to forget. Lives in a dream world. Not much use to anyone, spends his days exploring on buses, he says. Should be given more pocket money, therefore less temptation to steal. Says he definitely won't do it again and is very sorry.'

  More pocket money, simplistic solutions for incurable co
nditions, a pat on the head for insurmountable problems accumulating over a small lifetime of not quite wilful neglect.

  Helen liked the eccentric Featherstones — she never criticized parental inadequacy, for lack of qualification — accepted the fact that William, like any thief, had to sit where he was, slumped as he was, beyond redemption by something as clumsy as the establishment, but for a moment she detested the ignorance that had put him there.

  William would have needed to be born beautiful to gain forgiveness at this point in his life, but his crumpled face was not beautiful. He was fined twenty pounds, repayable at two per week; handouts would certainly have to be increased. Law was law to be upheld; Helen believed in it, but in William's case, had the feeling it made no impact whatever. He was hereby made a thief before he knew what thieving really was.

  Court emptied for lunch; William was gone in a flash. Yesterday in a relaxed moment of communication, Bailey had told her about the fires and William's possible involvement; she regretted the knowledge, hoped that questions on the subject could be postponed even while she watched Amanda Scott follow William from the room. She thought, What a close creature, Bailey, looking at everything. I'm sure that boy doesn't start fires; he hasn't the sense, and he has no resentment at all. Unless there's a connection between a liking for glitter and a penchant for flames.

  Why not?

  What's happened to you these days, my love? You're turning savage with suspicion, or maybe I never appreciated what it was like to live with a copper, especially a good copper like you. No good being resentful: you've a closer acquaintance with human folly than I.

  You're a graduate; I'm a student. She had thought it through a hundred times, not blaming Bailey, only the perceptions that made them different and him a stranger all over again.

  `Ha! Miss West! Our delightful prosecutor for the day. Nice to see you. Nice of you to put your facts so fairly if I may say so. How you manage so many cases with such elegant economy . .