Wanasri had seen house fires in training, both as simulations and in films illustrating lectures. She had those pictures in her mind now. You could always see what it had been like before the fire: the outlines of paintings or mirrors on the walls; the sofas reduced to metal frames after the cushions had been gobbled up by the flames. Worse still were the items that were irreplaceable: the fragments of photos, the books, the videotapes. The devastation was obscene. That was what would happen to this house in front of her if she failed.
Wanasri’s arms soon ached with the strain of holding the nozzle. Her turnout gear — as they called the heavy protective suits and boots — felt stiff and new, and stiflingly heavy. The heat was so intense it felt like it would crack her face. It made her think of a sausage skin bursting on a barbecue. But still she carried on. She blasted the flames with water and followed up every little orange tongue she could see. She would protect that house with every last breath in her body.
They carried on soaking the charred fence; the trees behind it had been reduced to black skeletons.
Finally Wanasri felt the hose sag in her hands. The hiss of the water stopped. For a moment the site fell silent. Every member of the three teams was on tenterhooks. Was the fire out?
Steam made a grey cloud around the house. Water dripped off the eaves. The sunlight picked out droplets on the pink and yellow tricycle in the front garden The grass and the paved drive were littered with burned twigs and rubbish that had fallen out of the sky. Any one of them could have set the house ablaze.
But none of it was burning any longer.
A moment ago Wanasri had felt exhausted. Now, as she coiled up her hose, she was on top of the world. They had done it. They had saved somebody’s home.
A white police 4x4 pulled up between the red engines. Two officers climbed out, pulling yellow safety vests on over their uniforms.
One of them called to Petra, who was closing the water valves on the truck. ‘Is it all out?’
Petra nodded. ‘It’s all yours.’
A gate opened in the charred fence. A fireman from one of the other crews stepped through and beckoned to the policemen. ‘Officer, I think you should come and see this. Looks like this fire was started deliberately.’
Chapter Five
Kelly pushed open the glass doors of the flying club. Ben followed her in. The air conditioning was a welcome relief from the heat outside. Ben found it was no longer a novelty to be sweltering hot in the middle of February.
When they phoned the police to report the fire they were told they’d be asked to give a statement, so Kelly had cut their flight short and brought them back.
The foyer of the club was like a hoteclass="underline" palm trees, an atrium and a few big canvases of aboriginal art. At the front desk was a young male receptionist in an open-necked shirt that showed off a tan. As soon as Kelly saw him, her behaviour changed. She checked her flying suit, which was once again knotted like a jumper around her hips, took off the orange baseball cap and shook her blonde hair free. Then she went up to the desk. Ben tagged along, feeling rather embarrassed.
Kelly leaned on the counter and gave the receptionist her most dazzling Texan smile. ‘Hi — I’m expecting a visitor. A police officer. My name’s Kelly Kurtis.’
The receptionist consulted a large diary beside the switchboard. ‘They haven’t arrived yet, Miss Kurtis,’ he said. ‘Actually, hang on a sec. A parcel came for you.’ He turned round and picked up a large box that was resting against the desk. It was the size of a tea chest.
‘Oh, that was quick,’ said Kelly. She smiled again. ‘I’m afraid I’ve been shopping.’
‘Is that right?’ said the receptionist. ‘Looks a bit big to be shoes.’
Kelly shook her head and gave him an enigmatic look. ‘It’s a power chute.’
‘What’s a power chute?’ asked Ben.
Kelly glared at him. It was a look that said, Children should be seen and not heard. Then she turned her attention back to the receptionist, hooked her phone out of her trouser pocket and showed him the picture on her start-up page. ‘That’s me and some friends power chuting in Wyoming.’
The receptionist looked at it, then nodded. ‘Oh, those. We’ve got a couple of members who do that off the runway. They must be mad.’
Ben could see Kelly took the remark as a compliment to her bravery. ‘You’ve got to know what you’re doing,’ she said. ‘You have to read the air currents, like a sailor reading the sea.’ She made to put the phone away.
‘Can I see?’ said Ben.
Kelly gave him the phone just to keep him quiet, then started to lift the box down. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to get this out to my Jeep,’ she said, and gave the receptionist an appealing smile.
Meanwhile Ben was fascinated by the picture. It showed Kelly dangling under a red and pink striped parachute with an engine strapped to her back. ‘Wow,’ he said. ‘What is that thing?’
The receptionist answered him. ‘You put this engine on your back, then you clip on a parachute and buzz about in the air like a motorized maybug. You’ve got to be crackers, I reckon.’
Ben looked at the box that Kelly was trying to lift onto the floor. ‘And that’s all in there? Can I see?’
Kelly ignored him, but the receptionist answered, ‘You can buy those things in town. There’s an outdoor shop that stocks them.’ He noticed that someone had arrived at the other end of the counter. ‘Excuse me.’
Ben looked at Kelly. ‘I’ll put the box in the car for you if you let me look at the chute later.’
Kelly gave him an irritated look and lifted the box easily off the counter.
Suit yourself, thought Ben. Sorry I’m not twenty-two years old.
‘Miss Kurtis,’ said the receptionist. ‘Your visitor is just parking now. You can use the manager’s office if you need some privacy. Would you like me to look after your parcel for you?’
The policeman took off his cap and put it on the desk. The cap was white, with an intricate badge and a black peak which was so highly polished it showed a reflection of the fan rotating in the ceiling. His radio, clipped to a shoulder strap, made quiet crackles as it picked up the transmissions of other officers out on patrol. He sat down at the desk in the manager’s office, keys and handcuffs jangling at his belt.
‘Sorry to interrupt your plans,’ he said. ‘I won’t take up too much of your time.’ He took a notebook and pen out of his breast pocket. ‘Can you tell me briefly what you saw when you reported the fire?’
Ben and Kelly pulled up chairs. Kelly shrugged as she sat down. ‘We didn’t see much really. It was burning quite well by the time we spotted it.’
‘You didn’t see any suspicious characters?’
‘Officer,’ said Kelly, ‘we were a thousand feet up.’ There was a poster on the wall of the airfield, showing the ground as photographed from a plane. A Cessna on the ground was just about visible as a small white arrow on a two-inch strip of black runway. She pointed to it. ‘It all looks like that. You can’t see what people are doing.’
The police officer looked at the poster and put his pen down. ‘I thought that’s what you might say. It’s just that we have strong reasons to believe the fire was arson. As you were the people who alerted the authorities, you’re officially regarded as witnesses and so we have to question you. There is one piece of evidence I’d like you to look at. Again, I don’t suppose you can tell me anything, but I’m asking just in case.’ He took a sheet of paper out of his notebook, unfolded it and handed it to Ben and Kelly.
It was a photocopy of a leaflet. The bottom part had been burned.
‘A stack of these leaflets was found at the scene of the fire. If we knew who produced them we might be closer to finding our arsonist.’