Harriet jerked awake, gasping, her arm throbbing from the involuntary movement. Slowly, she eased herself up until she was half sitting against the wall. After a bit the falling sensation faded away, but she couldn’t stop the images replaying in her mind.
She had stood up, and smiled.
The lady had paused, a slight look of surprise on her face, then she’d carried on into the room and set the tray she carried on the low chest.
“It’s warm in here,” Harriet managed to say, even though her heart was thumping. “Could I – could we – could we have the window open a bit, for some air?”
The woman had turned and gazed at her with a very strange look, as if she’d forgotten Harriet could speak. Then she had stepped to the window and touched one of the fogged panes, her fingers lingering on the glass in what seemed almost a caress.
“It doesn’t open,” she said, her voice rusty. “It hasn’t opened for years. You’ll have to live with the heat.”
Harriet stared at her, then at the books, and at the narrow bed, and a dreadful knowledge filled her. “This was your room,” she whispered. “These were your books. You wrote in them. You wrote-”
“Only when I was bad,” said the woman. She smiled. “But then, I was bad quite often.”
“But why did you – How could you bring me here, when you knew…”
“I didn’t intend to, not at first.” The woman frowned as she spoke, as if it puzzled her. “But your father…” Her eyes fixed on Harriet, sharper now. “Your father was going to leave, and he never thought of taking me with him… I don’t think he’d have even bothered to tell me he was going if he hadn’t needed my help…”
“But-”
“I couldn’t have that, you see.”
Her dad didn’t know, then. He didn’t know where she was. Harriet felt a rush of relief that he hadn’t put her in this place, then a cold fear as she realized what that meant. Desperate to keep the woman talking, she said, “No. No, you couldn’t. It was selfish of him. My mum’s always saying he’s selfish.” She flushed with shame at her disloyalty, but she had to go on. “I’m sure he’s sorry. He should have known better.”
“Yes, he should.” The woman looked pleased at Harriet’s understanding.
“If he’s learned his lesson,” Harriet said carefully, trying to keep her voice level, “maybe you could let me go.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” the woman said, as if she’d given it long consideration. “Because then I’d be in trouble, and I don’t want to be in trouble.”
“I wouldn’t tell.”
“Yes, you would.” Her face hardened, and Harriet knew her deception wasn’t going to work. From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed the door, not quite pulled shut. She had to take her chance, but she needed a distraction.
“Are those your cards?” she asked, nodding towards the chest. “I saw them, the playing cards, in the drawer. I could play with you, if you like.”
There was a softening, a flicker of pleasure, perhaps of memory, in the woman’s eyes, and then she glanced towards the chest. In that instant, Harriet dived at the door, yanked it fully open, and plunged down the stairs.
The steps were steep and hard, the carpeted runner worn thin as tissue. Harriet skidded on the first step and tumbled, crashing down, and the woman came behind her like a fury. She’d fallen on Harriet, pinning Harriet’s slighter body beneath her, ignoring her cries of pain. Then she pulled her to her feet and marched her back up the stairs.
“You tricked me,” she hissed, her breath panting hot in Harriet’s ear. “You tricked me, and you’re going to be sorry.” She shoved Harriet into the room, slamming the door so hard the walls shook and the china basin on the chest made a chinking sound.
For a long time, Harriet lay where she fell, too afraid to move. The room brightened, then grew dimmer as the sun passed its zenith. At last, driven by the pain in her arm, she shuffled across the floor and climbed up on the bed. Shivering in spite of the heat, she pulled the blanket round her.
The hours passed, the room grew gray as the afternoon faded to evening, and nothing stirred in the house. Harriet’s head swam with hunger as well as pain. She’d had nothing to eat or drink since last night’s meager supper. The tray still sat on the chest where she had left it, hours before. Trying not to make a sound, Harriet got up and crossed the room.
Congealed oatmeal, dried fruit, a cup of warm, flat water. Harriet drank all the water, no longer caring if she had to use the pail, then made herself eat a few bites of the oatmeal and nibble a piece of fruit. But she had felt ill, too dizzy to stand for long, and she soon crawled back into bed.
Now, as she lay staring into the dark, her stomach cramped with emptiness.
She recalled again what she’d seen, in the brief minutes of her flight. A landing. An open door. A room as dusty and disused as the one that held her. The bottom of the stairs had yawned dark as a cavern – there had been no light, no sound, anywhere in the house.
Harriet thought of the meals she’d been given; the dried food, the stale water. Then she thought of the utter silence that surrounded her, and of the way she heard the sound of the boiler and the grumble of the plumbing when she lay in her own bed at night.
This house was dead, she realized, abandoned. There was no power, no water, and no one had lived here for a long time, until the woman had brought her here.
It made it worse, somehow, to think of the house so desolate, so empty, and she felt very cold and very afraid. Suddenly, she wanted her mother more than she had ever wanted anything in the world. She cried out in the darkness, but her mother didn’t come.
Kincaid groped for the alarm, trying to shut off the insistent ringing. His fingers found the Snooze button, but the sound didn’t stop. “Bloody hell,” he muttered. It was the phone, not the alarm.
Squinting at the digital readout of the clock as he fumbled for the handset, he saw that it was only a few minutes after six, and that a dusky light had just begun to show at the gap in the bedroom curtains. Gemma groaned and pulled the pillow over her head as he got the phone to his ear.
“Kincaid,” he croaked.
“Duncan, it’s Bill Farrell here. Sorry to ring so early, but I thought you’d want to know.”
He pulled himself up against the headboard, coming fully awake. “Know what?”
“There was another warehouse fire in Southwark yesterday evening, just before the day watch ended. I was off duty yesterday, so another team took the initial investigation. I didn’t hear about it until I got up this morning.”
“What hap-”
“I only know it was a bad fire, fully involved, and that a firefighter was killed.”
“Jesus.” Kincaid remembered Rose telling him she was working a day tour yesterday. “Do you know who it was?”
“Not yet. I’m meeting Martinelli at the scene. I thought you might want to come. It’s just off Waterloo Road – at Webber Street.”
“Give me half an hour.”
When Kincaid hung up, he found Gemma awake and watching him, her eyes wide with alarm.
“Another fire in Southwark,” he said, before she could ask. “I’ve got to go.”
He drove east, into a glorious rising sun, and tried to think of anything other than Rose Kearny. The city was just coming to life, its pulse quickening in anticipation of the coming day, and when he crossed the Thames at Waterloo, the water reflected the sky in a molten sheet of pink. Such beauty seemed incongruous with death, and it made the dread weigh more heavily on his heart.
As he turned off the Waterloo Road, following Farrell’s directions, he realized how close the fire had been to Ufford Street and Fanny Liu’s house. Then he saw the blackened hulk of the building, stark against a sky turning quickly to gold. The roof of the warehouse had fallen in, and the remaining walls stuck up like jagged, rotting teeth. The surrounding yard was filled with piles of burned debris and broken fencing, and the rank smell of the fire penetrated the car. The perimeter of the blue-and-white crime scene tape fluttered lightly in a rising breeze.