by Roberta Kray
‘Oh, Christ! No, no, no!’ she yelped.
Quickly, Jess retreated into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. She leaned against it, breathing heavily. Her heart was pounding in her chest, her pulse racing. Try and stay calm, she told herself. Whatever you do, don’t lose the plot. With the living room alight, and the fire coming from the direction of the halls, there was no way she could get out that way. She would have to make her escape through the bedroom window. Luckily, she was on the ground floor.
A thin stream of smoke had started creeping under the door. She jumped away and raced across the room. It was only as she reached the window and pulled back the curtains that she recognised the fundamental flaw in her plan. With burglaries being what they were in London, her landlord had installed a sturdy set of iron bars. The grille could be opened with a key, but in the five years that she’d lived here, Jess had never used it. Where was the key? Where was the bloody key? She looked around, but couldn’t remember where she’d put it. Frantically, she pulled at the bars, but they were too solid to budge. She reached between them to try and open the window – at least she could shout for help – but even though it was unlocked, that refused to budge too. She pushed and shoved at the handle, but the window wouldn’t shift. What the hell was going on?
Jess glanced over her shoulder. There was more smoke coming into the bedroom. She had to call the fire service. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? But her phone was on the table in the living room. God, she should have tried to grab it. Maybe she still could. Backtracking to the door, she opened it an inch but was met with an almighty wave of heat. By now the fire had really taken hold and the whole room was ablaze. She swiftly closed the door again. Her stomach lurched with fear and there were tears in her eyes, tears of fright and confusion. What next? Think, think!
Her brain stalled for a moment but then kicked into gear again. The first thing she had to do was to stall the encroaching smoke. Flinging open the wardrobe, she pulled a load of clothes off their hangers and laid them at the foot of the door. How long would that give her? A few minutes, perhaps. There was only one sure way out of this nightmare – she had to get through that damn window!
Stumbling back across the room, she tried the handle again, but although it turned, the window still wouldn’t budge. She hammered on the glass with her fists. Would anybody hear her? The bedroom was set to the side of the flats, away from the street, and the next building was over twenty yards away, separated by a square of grass. There were no lights on in that house. Of course there weren’t. It was the middle of the night.
The alarm had stopped screeching, silenced by the fire. She could imagine it there on the ceiling, a melted, dripping blob of plastic. But surely someone in her block would have been roused by the noise, would have realised what was going on? Surely someone would have made that 999 call?
The grey smoke was leaking in again, sliding between the sweaters and the shirts and the coats. Real panic was sweeping over her now. Sheer black fright, tight as a shroud, was squeezing out her last drops of courage. She crouched down by the door, desperately trying to stem the flow. It was useless. She could feel the smoke sliding into her throat, her lungs, eating away at her oxygen. Leaping up, she fled back to the window.
She’d have to break the glass. That was her only chance. At least then she might be able to grab some air. But what could she smash it with? What could she use? With her breath coming in short, fast pants, she picked up the small high-backed chair by the bed and slammed it against the wall. She felt a jarring run the length of her arm, but the chair remained in one piece. She swung it again, harder this time, and finally it broke, two of the legs splintering off and landing on the floor.
She bent down and grabbed one of the legs. Shoving it between the bars, she tried desperately to smash the pane. But the glass was thick, double-glazed, and no matter how hard she tried, it still refused to give. Something came into her head about going for the corners. She made a few final thrusts, but it was no good. She had no power left in her arms. Her strength was ebbing away, her body too weak to carry on.
Smoke was filling the room now, making her cough and choke. Get down on the floor, her brain was telling her. Smoke rises. Your only chance is to get down low. She crumpled to her knees, fell sideways and curled into a ball. Please God, she prayed as she gasped for air. Please God …
24
By the time Harry got to the hospital, it was twenty past five. Dawn was just beginning to break, the dark sky thinning to silver. A few light drops of rain pattered against the windscreen. He parked the car in a space near the entrance and went inside. As he strode through the maze of almost empty corridors, there was an eerie silence, relieved only by the occasional snore, the odd murmur or the light trilling of a phone. He couldn’t help but remember the last time he’d been here, the time Ellen Shaw had been brought in after deliberately stepping out into the road. He had watched her from the window of the old office, watched her look carefully to the left, to the right and then …
He screwed up his face. Ellen had lived, and Jess would too. She was one of life’s survivors. But a fire, a bloody fire! He knew the kind of damage that could cause. He had seen it when he’d been a cop. Quickly he tried to push those images out of his head. She must be conscious or she wouldn’t have been able to give them his number to call. Unless they had found it in her wallet or her phone. The woman who had rung him had given only the barest of details.
He turned a corner and saw the sign that he’d been looking for: Highfield Ward. Hurrying forward, he pushed open the doors and peered through the semi-gloom. It only took a moment for him to spot her. Jess was perched on the side of a bed in the corner, dressed in a large white T-shirt and an untied flowery hospital gown. Her head was bowed, her eyes fixed on the floor as she gently swung her legs to and fro. He felt a wave of relief run through him.
She glanced up as he approached and gave a rueful smile. ‘Sorry, I didn’t know who else to call. I haven’t got any money on me, and Neil’s in Edinburgh and … Well, I suppose I could have tried Sam, she might still have been working, but—’
‘Hey, it’s no problem,’ he said, laying his hand lightly on her shoulder. He could see how shaken she was, even though she was trying hard not to show it. ‘I’m glad you did. Are you okay? What happened?’
She shook her head. ‘God knows. I woke up and the whole place was on fire. Apparently the guy across the hall raised the alarm.’
A nurse, a small blonde girl, came over and looked up at Harry. ‘She’s lucky to be alive. I was talking to one of the crew who brought her in, and they said that if it had been another five minutes—’
‘Well, it wasn’t,’ Jess interrupted swiftly. ‘And I’m fine. I didn’t even lose consciousness. The doctor says I’m okay, so I may as well get off.’
‘What the doctor said was that he’d like to keep you under observation for twenty-four hours.’
‘There’s no point,’ Jess replied wearily. ‘I haven’t got any dizziness or nausea. And if I do start to feel ill I can always come back. No offence, but all I want to do is get out of here.’
‘Well, you can’t leave like that,’ the nurse said, glancing down at Jess’s bare feet. ‘You can’t walk through the hospital without any shoes on.’
Harry, who could see that Jess was adamant about leaving, flashed a smile at the nurse. ‘Perhaps you have a pair we could borrow, just until she’s in the car, then I’ll bring them straight back.’
‘I’m not sure if—’
‘Five minutes,’ Harry said. ‘And I’ll take good care of her, I promise. Like she said, we can always come back if she starts to feel unwell.’
The nurse put her hands on her hips and thought about it for a moment. Then, with the kind of sigh that suggested that she wasn’t going to waste any further breath on trying to prevent the inevitable, she said, ‘Okay, if you’re absolutely sure. Wait here and I’ll see what I can find.’
‘Thanks,’ Jes
s said to Harry as soon as the nurse had gone.
‘Are you sure you shouldn’t hang on for a while?’
She gave him a look. ‘Oh please, not you as well. I’m fine. Anyway, the NHS is supposed to be short of beds. They should be glad to get rid of me.’
‘I don’t think it quite works like that. Still, if you’ve made up your mind …’
‘I have.’
Harry took off his jacket and passed it over to her. ‘Then you’d better put this on. It’s chilly outside.’
‘You’re a gent,’ she said, taking off the gown and shrugging on the jacket over the smoke-stained T-shirt.
After a couple of minutes the nurse returned with a pair of yellow plastic shower shoes. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘This was all I could find.’
‘No problem,’ Jess said, quickly standing up and slipping her feet into them. ‘Thanks. I appreciate it.’
‘You can drop them off at the main desk,’ the nurse said to Harry. ‘There’s no need to come all the way back.’
‘Thanks for your help. I’ll do that.’
When they got to the car, Harry opened the passenger door for Jess and then switched on the engine and the heat before nipping back through the main doors of the hospital. On his return he opened the boot and rummaged around in his sports bag until he came up with a pair of white socks.
‘Here,’ he said, as he got in behind the wheel and handed the socks to her. ‘And don’t worry, they’re clean.’
‘Now you’re spoiling me,’ Jess said.
‘Yeah, that’s true, but I’m a sucker for a damsel in distress.’ He drove out of the car park and headed for the main road. ‘I’ll take you back to my place and you can get your head down for a few hours.’
‘I haven’t got time to sleep,’ she said. ‘There’s too much to do. I need to get to the bank, and call the insurance company. I have to pick up my car and buy some new clothes and sort out a computer and …’ As the full impact of what she had lost began to sink in, Jess leaned back and groaned. ‘Jesus, everything’s gone. I haven’t even got a phone.’
‘All of which we can sort out,’ Harry said. ‘After you’ve had a shower and a sleep. It’s still early. There’s nothing you can do yet.’
Jess thought about this for a moment and then turned to look at him. ‘Are you trying to tell me I smell, Mr Lind?’
He admired her attempt at levity, even if the lightness didn’t quite reach her eyes. ‘Eau de Smoke,’ he said. ‘Personally, I find it very appealing, but I’m not sure if it would be to everyone’s taste.’
‘You certainly know how to make a girl feel better when she’s just lost all her worldly possessions.’
‘I pride myself on it.’ Harry gave her a wry smile. ‘Look, all that really matters is that you’re alive. All that other business … well, they’re just things, and most of them can be replaced. I can help you with that. It’s just practical stuff. From what that nurse was saying, you’re lucky to still be with us.’
‘I think she may have been exaggerating.’
‘Do you?’
Jess gave a light shrug. ‘Always look on the bright side, right?’
‘I wasn’t being dismissive,’ he said. ‘I know it must be a complete nightmare. But it could have been a damn sight worse. All I’m trying to say in my cack-handed way is that you can deal with this.’
‘Let’s hope so,’ she said softly.
She was quiet for a while, and Harry left her to her thoughts. The traffic was light, and it wasn’t long before they were approaching Kellston. When they reached the high street, he glanced at her and asked, ‘So, have you any idea how it happened?’
‘Not a clue. Like I said, I woke up and the flat was on fire.’ She paused, and when she spoke again her voice wavered a little. ‘I … I tried to get the window open but it wouldn’t budge. There’s a grille across it and that was locked and I couldn’t remember where I’d put the key. Then I tried to break the glass with a chair leg but it wouldn’t break and by then the smoke was pouring into the bedroom.’ She ran her fingers through her hair and groaned. ‘I still don’t understand why the window wouldn’t open. That wasn’t locked. I thought I could at least yell for help, try and raise the alarm, but …’
‘Try not to think about it too much.’
Jess shuddered, huddling into the corner of her seat. She was silent again for a while, then she said, very softly, ‘Do you think it could have been deliberate?’
Until this moment the thought hadn’t even crossed Harry’s mind. ‘What makes you say that? It could have been anything, faulty electrics, something that was left on. You can’t even be sure that it started in your flat.’
Her eyebrows shifted up a disbelieving fraction. ‘I suppose.’
He suddenly knew what she was thinking: that Lynda Choi was dead, that David Choi and Sam Kendall had both been threatened – and that she had been next on the list. ‘There’ll be an investigation. Let’s wait until we see the results before we go jumping to any conclusions.’
It was raining hard by the time Harry got back to Station Road. He pulled in by the newsagent’s, turned off the engine and gazed out through the windscreen. Dawn had properly broken by now, but the sky remained dark and gloomy, laden with thick plum-coloured clouds. Although it was still early, there were more people around than when he’d left. Most of them were walking quickly with their shoulders hunched and their umbrellas raised above their heads.
‘So much for spring.’ Harry glanced down at Jess’s feet. ‘Will you be okay without any shoes? I’ve got some trainers in the boot. They’ll be kind of big for you, but at least they’ll keep you dry.’
She unclipped her seat belt and shook her head. ‘It’s okay. I’ll be fine.’
He could hear the tiredness in her voice and knew that she just wanted to get inside, to be somewhere safe and secure where she could order her thoughts and work out what to do next. He wished that he could think of something reassuring to say, something that might help, but nothing came to mind.
They got out of the car and ran for it, splashing through the puddles that had gathered on the uneven pavement. Harry slipped the key into the lock, opened the door and stood aside to let Jess in. As they climbed the stairs he said, ‘The place is a bit of a mess, I’m afraid. I’m in the middle of decorating.’
‘I wouldn’t worry,’ she replied drily. ‘It can’t look any worse than mine.’
A couple of minutes later they were inside the flat. The furniture was still covered with dust sheets and the distinctive smell of paint lingered in the air. He dragged the sheet off the leather sofa and flung it into a corner. ‘Grab a seat,’ he said. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’ As he went through to the kitchen, he pondered on why the typically British response to any crisis was to make a cup of tea. Was it a subconscious desire to maintain an air of normality, or simply the need to be doing something?
While the water was boiling he nipped into the bedroom and took his dark blue towelling dressing gown off the peg.
‘This isn’t a bad space,’ Jess said as he came back into the living room. She’d forgone the offer of the sofa and was sitting by the window with her elbows on the table and her chin cupped in her hands. ‘It’ll look good when it’s finished.’
Harry glanced around, wondering how he’d ever find the time. ‘When being the operative word.’ He gave her the dressing gown. ‘Here, put this on. It’ll keep you warm.’
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘And for the loan of this,’ she added, taking off his jacket and handing it back to him.
‘You’d better take off those socks too. They must be soaked.’
Jess peeled off the wet socks, holding them up with the tips of her fingers. ‘I’ll give them a wash later.’
‘That’s okay. I’ll sling them in the machine.’ He took the socks through to the kitchen, dropped them in the wash basket and then made the tea. He carried the two mugs back into the living room and sat down opposite her. ‘Are you hungry? I could make
some breakfast, eggs, toast?’
‘No thanks. I’m not hungry.’
‘Well, help yourself when you get up. There’s plenty of food in the fridge.’
‘Okay,’ she said. She took a quick sip of tea, her grey eyes gazing solemnly at him over the rim of the mug. ‘And don’t worry, I won’t be in your hair for long. I’m sure the last thing you need is an unexpected house guest. I’ll get something else sorted by the end of the day. I’m sure I can find a sofa to kip on, or I can always book into a hotel until Neil gets back.’
‘Don’t be crazy,’ he said. ‘You’re more than welcome to stay as long as you need. I’ve got a spare room going begging. Why waste money on hotels?’ He was about to add that she would need every penny she had at the moment, but wisely held his tongue. That fact, he was sure, was something she didn’t need reminding of. Instead he said, ‘That’s if you can stand the colour scheme. It’s not what you’d call restful.’
Jess hesitated, her hands clamped tightly around the mug. ‘I don’t want to impose.’
‘You won’t be,’ he insisted. ‘I’m hardly here anyway. I spend most of my time either downstairs in the office or out on the road. And I’m on surveillance all this week, the late shift over at the Locke place, so you’ll even have the place to yourself in the evenings.’
‘How’s that going?’ she asked. ‘Have you observed any frolicking yet?’
Harry smiled. ‘No frolicking to date, but it’s early days. I’m going to Selene’s tomorrow. Why don’t you come with me?’ He thought it might be a distraction for her, a temporary escape from all her troubles.
‘Maybe. I’ll see how things go.’
‘Well, the offer’s open if you fancy a night out. I might even throw in some chips. That’s the casino rather than the potato kind.’
Jess put her mug to one side, most of the tea still remaining. ‘And is that offer of a shower still open too?’
