'Everything all right?' Eugene pushed the Chocorange behind his back teeth with his tongue.
'Everything's fine.'
'No emaciated children eating chocolate cake?'
'Nothing like that,' said Susan. 'Goodnight.'
'Goodnight, Susan.'
Back in Chepstow Villas Ella had opened a bottle of wine. She poured herself a glass and gave him one. She showed him the bill she had prepared to send to Joel.
'I've never done one before. As you know, I don't charge the other private patients.'
'No, perhaps you should. But it's excellent, darling.'
'His father will pay it but I think it would be more polite and – well, kinder, to send it to Joel, don't you?'
'Yes, of course. What does Father do?'
'He's a hedge fund manager, whatever that is. He's very rich and grand.'
It was the eve of her fortieth birthday. Ella wondered if Eugene would remember. But of course he would. He always remembered her birthdays and the anniversary of the day they had first met, as he would in the future remember the date of their engagement and then their wedding.
Passing Gemma's flats in the night time was something Lance avoided doing. It was great seeing her on her balcony in daylight hours but by night he couldn't help imagining her in there in bed with Fize and that made him jealous and angry. In the Portobello Road and Westbourne Park Road environs there were still plenty of people about, many of them drunk, most of them young, a lot of teenagers among them. It had been raining heavily in the early evening but the rain had stopped. The dark air was damp and still, the sky thickly overcast.
At the crossroads he went on down Ledbury Road, branching off into that quiet, rich and select neighbourhood where he had carried out his first burglary and planned to achieve his second. No one was about. Dogs had been walked hours before, cats slept in their baskets, cars on the residents' parking locked up, after being emptied of everything young men like himself might steal. Lights, dimmed by heavy, lushly lined curtains or slatted blinds of rare rainforest woods, showed in one or two bedroom windows and absent holidaymakers, prompted by a misplaced prudence, left their hall lights on in a vain effort to deceive people like him into believing them at home and on the watch.
The old woman's house and those next to it were in total darkness. He studied the houses opposite, including the empty one from which he had kept watch. It was still empty but not a light or a glimmer of light was to be seen from its neighbours. The owners were asleep, he thought, or away at their country homes. Without attempting to sneak into the old woman's house, he walked boldly up to the side gate, found it unlocked and let himself into the back garden. There seemed no reason now not to use his torch and he took it out of his backpack.
Not the same window he had squeezed through before. He had nearly cracked an already cracked rib doing that, thank you very much. Further along he found a larger sash window, which was more suitable and, putting on his gloves, he got to work straight away with his glass cutter. The job took longer, far longer, than when he had operated on builders' junk yard windows under Dwayne's tutelage. And all the time the little wheel made its slow progress round the frame his hunger increased. So near his goal – he almost had to remind himself that he was here for money and jewellery, not food – he felt sick and his stomach rumbled, making trickling and squelching sounds.
The torch, which he had balanced on the sill of the next window along, he jogged with his elbow and it fell to the ground. He picked it up and put it back on the sill but it seemed to him that its light had grown dimmer. As he reached the point on the frame where he had begun cutting and eased the glass out into his hands, the torch went out. It hadn't occurred to him to bring a replacement battery. But he was in the house. He was standing up inside a room he hadn't previously entered, a dining room with a long marble table and high-backed chairs made of black wood. It didn't interest him. He made for the kitchen, feeling his way in the dark. Once there, although rather late in the day for precautions, he pulled the black stocking over his head.
In spite of his age, it was unusual for Uncle Gib to wake up in the night. He had slept in such uncomfortable circumstances during the prison years that now to lie down in a real bed in solitude and peace and quiet was a treat he hadn't yet got over. The bliss of it sent him to sleep at once and his strong old bladder seldom disturbed him. So it was a surprise and a disconcerting one when he woke up at what he thought – he had no watch or clock in his bedroom – must be well after midnight. It was pitch dark and silent. Of course he had no bed lamp. He lay in the dark, feeling what had wakened him, the stirrings, squeezings and sharp recurrent pains of indigestion.
Uncle Gib never had indigestion. But then he never went out anywhere to eat unaccustomed food as he had done the day before. With growing distaste and increased pain, he reflected on what he had been obliged to eat: fish, chips, multigrain bread, baked beans, green leaves, more chips. Thinking of it made its consequences worse. He levered himself out of bed and switched on the light, a central light that hung from the ceiling in a parchment shade. The panacea for all ills was at hand. Uncle Gib reached for the packet and the matches and lit a cigarette.
Perhaps it was the contractions caused by that first inhalation that did it, but a sharp stabbing spasm caught at him in the depths of the gut. Something must be done and now, immediately. Barefoot, wearing pyjama bottoms and an ancient cardigan of Auntie Ivy's, he raced down the stairs, dropped his cigarette in the tin lid on the green chair and ran for the scullery. Getting the back door unlocked nearly finished him but he made it to the privy just in time.
Outside Uncle Gib's front door, Feisal Smith in a hooded jacket, Ian Pollitt, in defiance of the weather wearing a red T-shirt on which 'Porn Star' was printed in white, stood on the step, doing their best to raise the letter box flap without making a noise about it. They had made careful preparations for this undertaking. First a couple of litres of petrol had been siphoned off from the tank of the van Fize drove for his employers, into a bottle once containing sparkling water. Ian Pollitt had helped himself to two squibs from his teenage brother's stock for the forthcoming Guy Fawkes Day. The bottle was contained in a cloth bag, one of the environmentally friendly kind issued by shops to save customers from using plastic carriers, and with it a box of matches.
The porn star was calm and truculent as usual. Fize, on the other hand, was scared stiff or, rather, scared to the point of trembling. Through his head wandered thoughts of losing his job and losing Gemma, not to mention incurring the wrath of his mother and grandfather. But it was too late to back out now. He was more afraid of Ian's contempt than of any other possible retribution. His hand shook as he tried to raise the letter box flap. It caused a good deal of noise, a creak and a clatter, making Ian swear at him and shove him aside with his elbow. They listened but all was still and silent inside the house.
Fize managed to fish the bottle out of the bag and passed it to Ian, its cap starting to come unscrewed. The bottle, and now both men and the bag, reeked of petrol. Ian took off the cap and thrust the bottle as hard as he could through the letter box with a mighty shove. It had been Fize's intention to follow this up with a lighted squib, which would ricochet into the fountain of petrol, but there was no need to use it. They heard the bottle smash and something inside the house, seemingly already prepared, ignite it with a roar. Suddenly the whole house seemed to explode into light, every window brilliantly lit. A fierce flame streamed out towards them through the open letter box.