Annie couldn’t just stand there and watch the place burn. She knew that the worst thing you could do with a fire was open the door and supply more oxygen, but opening the door was the only chance she possibly had of getting Banks out alive. If he was still alive.
Annie pulled the wool blanket from the boot of the car. Luckily, the rain had left a few puddles in Banks’s potholed drive, so she rolled it around quickly to soak it, then she wrapped it around herself, paying special attention to covering her hair and face.
Winsome had her car door open by now, mobile still in her hand. “What are you doing, Guv?” she yelled. “You can’t go in there. You know you can’t.”
“Did you ring?”
“Yes. They’re coming. But you-”
Annie went up to the door.
Locked.
“Guv!”
Rearing back, she kicked at the area around the lock. It took her three tries, and it hurt her foot like hell, but she succeeded in the end. The door flew open and the fire surged, as she had expected. She heard Winsome shouting behind her against the roar of the flames, but she couldn’t stop now. She took a deep breath and rushed inside. She had only seconds, if that.
The smoke was thick and the petrol fumes seeped through the blanket she had wrapped around her mouth and nose. As soon as she was inside, Annie could feel the intense heat licking at her, the tongues of flame on her legs and ankles. She hadn’t believed fire could make so much noise. She called out Banks’s name, but she knew he wouldn’t be able to answer. He would be drugged, just like the others. It was a small living room and Annie was fortunate to know her way around. She had been there often enough to know about the low coffee table between the sofa and armchairs, for example, so she wasn’t going to trip over that.
The flames roared and smoke billowed. A painting fell off the wall and the glass smashed. Annie’s eyes were stinging. She needed to breathe again. Her lungs felt as if they were exploding.
Then she saw him, just a leg, through the smoke down on the floor near the table. She rushed over to him. No time for subtleties, now, Annie, she told herself, as she threw the table over, grabbed Banks’s legs with both hands and tugged. The limp body slid across the carpet. Annie’s arms strained at her shoulder sockets.
Banks banged his head on the leg of the table as Annie pulled him around its edge. She couldn’t see clearly, but she sensed that the open door was right behind her. All she had to do was keep on pulling him, moving backward. She thought she was going to keel over from the heat and smoke, but she kept dragging him, and soon she felt the chill of the outside piercing the blanket over her back. Almost there. A part of the ceiling fell down close to her, and flames singed her eyebrows. Annie couldn’t go on. She felt her strength waning, her legs beginning to buckle under her. So close. Her vision shimmered. Her knees bent and she started toppling forward.
Then she felt herself bodily lifted and practically thrown across the lane. As she landed unceremoniously in the mud, she was able to rub her eyes and see Winsome finish the job, drag Banks’s body out of the doorway to safety. Annie breathed the fresh air deeply and let herself fall back, hair and arms spread out in the mud, still wrapped in her damp blanket.
Winsome was outside the cottage now, and a few more feet would free Banks from the flames. His head bounced down the steps. Annie didn’t know if he was dead or alive. She didn’t even want to look at him for fear he would be grotesquely disfigured by the fire, or just lying with his eyes wide open.
Finally, Winsome set Banks down a few feet from the cottage and hurried over to Annie.
“You all right, Guv?”
“I’m fine,” said Annie.
“That was a bloody stupid thing to do, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“Alan…?”
“I don’t know, Guv. It took all I had to get the two of you out of there.”
Annie flung off her blanket and took a deep breath. And another. The cold fresh air made her feel dizzy. The two of them went over and squatted beside Banks. His clothes were smoldering, so Annie put the damp blanket on him. His face was blackened by the smoke, and she really couldn’t tell if he was badly burned or not. She didn’t think so, hoped to God not.
Holding her own breath, Annie leaned forward and listened for his. She thought he was still breathing. She wished she had some oxygen, wished that the firefighters and the ambulances would hurry up. She didn’t even know whether it would help to give him the kiss of life, or if it would only make things worse. Live, you bastard, live, she whispered, Winsome beside her, hand on her shoulder, and in the distance she heard the welcome sound of a fire engine.
It was the middle of the night when Annie finally got home from the hospital, exhausted beyond belief, leaving Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe to keep a bedside vigil. There was more paperwork to do, of course, always more paperwork, but that could wait until morning.
Banks wasn’t out of danger yet. He still wasn’t conscious, for a start. Annie told the doctor that he had most likely been drugged with Rohypnol, or something similar, probably mixed with alcohol. The flames had done some damage, mostly to his right leg and side, which had been closest in proximity to one of the seats of the fire, and to one side of his face. They were second-degree burns, with blistering, which would be extremely painful and cause some scarring. Banks’s shallow breathing had prevented the high level of smoke inhalation that might have done more serious damage more quickly, and the bumps on his head from the table and steps were superficial.
Annie moved around like a zombie. She knew she should go to bed but she was certain she wouldn’t be able to sleep. She needed a drink; she knew that much at least. She didn’t often drink spirits, but tonight called for something stronger than wine, so she poured herself a stiff cognac and coughed when she first tasted the fiery liquor.
When she caught a glance of herself in the mirror, she was surprised at the muddy hair, sooty face and the frightened eyes that looked back at her. The doctor who had examined Annie and Winsome had been reluctant to let her go, but there was no real damage and no real reason to keep her. She had insisted she was fine. And she was, physically. Her muscles ached, and her foot was bruised and swollen from kicking the door in, but other than that she had been spared the ravages of fire and smoke. She had probably been in the burning cottage for no more than thirty seconds, she reckoned. Of course, the station officer had given her a bollocking for going in at all, but she sensed that he did so because it was expected of him, because it was his job, and that he secretly approved. He must have known, as Annie did, that there was nothing else she could have done to save Banks’s life.
Phil. Phil Keane had done all this. He had enlisted his old polytechnic pals McMahon and Gardiner to help him with the art scam, and they had got together and turned on him. For that, he had killed them. It had to have happened that way. It was the only thing that made sense now. Philip Keane, not Leslie Whitaker, was Giles Moore. Philip Keane, not Leslie Whitaker, had assumed William Masefield’s identity, and perhaps even killed him, too.
Annie would never understand in a million years how she could have felt so close to someone capable of doing what he did, of thinking she was in love with him, of sharing his bed. The thought made her skin crawl.
She realized that Phil, or whatever his name really was, was one of those rare creatures indeed: part charming con man, part cold-blooded killer. Con men didn’t usually kill, not unless they were cornered and could see no other way out. And that was what must have happened. The threat of exposure. Of ruin. Of prison.