“You look after yourself,” she ordered.
I promised I would.
“I’ll call you at seven your time, after rehearsal,” she said, and hung up.
I looked again at my empty wrist. It seemed a long time until seven my time.
Using the rest of my cash, I bought myself a new watch in one of the Newmarket High Street jewelers. That was better, I thought, as I checked to see if it was running properly. My existence was regaining some semblance of normalcy.
I returned to my bank and drew out another sheaf of banknotes and used some of them to buy a box of chocolates and a bouquet of spring flowers for my neighbor.
I parked the Mondeo on the road outside my cottage, the same road I had rolled across the previous night. I took a brief look at the sorry remains of my abode. It was not a pretty sight, with its blackened walls standing pitifully alone and roofless, pointing upwards at the gray sky above. I turned away gloomily and went and knocked on my neighbor’s door. She answered, not in her pink ensemble of last night but in a green tweed skirt with a long-sleeved cream sweater and sensible brown shoes. Her hair was as neat as before, but this time without the hairnet.
“Oh hello, dear,” she said, smiling. She looked at the bouquet. “Oh, are those for me? They’re lovely. Come on in.”
I gave her the flowers, and she headed back towards the kitchen. I closed her front door and followed, sitting again at the now-familiar kitchen table.
“Would you like some tea, dear?” she said as she placed the flowers in a vase by the sink.
“I’d love some,” I said.
She set the kettle to boil and fussed around with her flowers until she was happy with the arrangement.
“There,” she said at length. “So beautiful. Thank you.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I’m not sure what I would have done without you last night.”
“Nonsense, dear,” she said. “I was just glad to be able to help.”
We sat and drank tea, just as we had done some twelve hours ago.
“Do you know yet what caused it?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “The fire brigade say they will send their investigation team to have a look. It’s pretty well burned everything. You can just about tell the difference between what was the fridge and what was the washing machine, but even those are badly melted by the heat. The oven is recognizable, but the rest has seemingly gone completely.”
“I’m so sorry, dear,” said my kindly neighbor.
“Well, at least it didn’t get me,” I said with a smile.
“No, dear,” she said, patting my arm. “I’m glad about that.”
So was I.
“Do you know what you will do?” she asked.
“I’m staying with a work colleague for the next couple of days,” I said. “Then I’ll try to find somewhere more permanent.”
“I really meant with the house, dear,” she said. “Are you going to rebuild?”
“Oh, I expect so,” I said. “I’ll have to wait and see what the insurance company says.”
I stayed with her for over an hour, and by that time, dear, she had showed me photos of all her many children and her very many grandchildren. Most of them lived in Australia, and she was obviously quite lonely and thankful for having someone to talk to. We opened the chocolates, and I had a second cup of tea.
I finally extricated myself from her life story and went back next door for a closer look at the remnants of my castle. I was not alone. A man in a dark blue jersey and royal blue trousers was picking his way through the ash.
“Hello,” I said. “Can I help you?”
“I’m fire brigade,” he said. “From the investigation team.”
“Oh right,” I said. “I own this heap of garbage.”
“Sorry,” he said.
“Ah well.” I smiled. “At least my ashes aren’t here for you to find.”
“Are anyone’s?” he asked seriously.
“No,” I said. “There was no one else in the house. Well, not unless they broke in after I had gone to bed and then died in the fire.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” he said, not amused.
He went on poking the ash with a stick. At one point, he stopped and bent down, placing some of the ash into a plastic bag that he produced from his pocket.
“What have you found?” I asked him.
“Nothing special,” he said. “It’s just for an accelerant test.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Test to see if an accelerant had been present,” he said. “An accelerant like petrol, paint thinners or paraffin, that sort of thing.”
“I thought it was electrical,” I said.
“Probably was,” he said. “Most fires are electrical, but we need to do the test anyway. I don’t expect it to show much. This place is so badly burned out that it will be damn near impossible to determine how it started.”
He went back to his poking of the ash. After a while, he lifted something up on his stick, as if landing a salmon.
“Aha,” he said. “What have we got here?”
It looked like a black molten lump to me. I didn’t recognize it as anything I had once owned.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Your smoke detector,” he said.
I couldn’t remember having heard its alarm go off.
“You should have had a battery in it,” he said. “It’s not much use without a battery. You might have got the brigade here sooner and saved something if your detector had had a battery.”
“But it did have a battery,” I said.
“No, sir,” he said with conviction. “It did not. See how the heat has caused it to seal up completely?” He showed the lump to me. I would have to take his word for it. “If there had been a battery, then it would still be there, or at least the remains of it would. I still can see the clip, but there are no battery terminals attached to it. It definitely did not have a battery in it.” He paused, as if for effect. “It’s not the first time I’ve seen this. Loads of people forget to replace a detector battery, or, like you, they take out the old one and then forget to put a new one back in.”
But I hadn’t forgotten. There had to have been a battery in the detector. I had replaced it, as I always did, when the clocks went forward for summertime in March. It had gone off just last week when I had again burned some toast. It definitely had a battery. I was sure of it, just as sure as my investigator friend was that it had been batteryless.
I went cold and clammy. Someone had obviously removed my smoke detector battery before setting my house alight with me in it. With or without an accelerant, an established fire at the bottom of the stairs would have given me little chance of escaping. I had simply been lucky to wake up when I had.
I suddenly was certain that the fire had been the second time someone had tried to kill me.
15
I was frightened. Very frightened. Twice I had cheated an assassin. I didn’t like to think “third time lucky” or “if at first you don’t succeed-try, try again.”
“Who could it be?” I asked myself yet again. “Who on earth could want me dead, and why?”
It was six o’clock in the evening, and I sat in the rented Mondeo in the empty parking lot of the Newmarket racetrack. I didn’t know why I chose there, particularly. I just wanted to be somewhere away from anyone else, and with enough space to see someone coming. The lot was deserted, save for my Mondeo in the center of it. I looked all around. There was no one about.
Who could I trust? Could I, in fact, trust anyone?
Caroline, I thought. I would trust her with my life. I suddenly realized that indeed it was my life I would lose if I made a mistake and trusted the wrong person.
The safest course was to trust no one. Not even my kindly neighbor, dear.
But I couldn’t stay sitting here in this parking lot forever.
Could I trust Carl? Was I safe to sleep in his house? Was he safe if I was sleeping in his house? I had witnessed only too clearly what a fire could do and how close I had come to joining my smoke detector as its victim. I really didn’t want to take that risk again.