Fire Damage: A gripping thriller that will keep you hooked

‘Mum?’ Jessie bit her lip to stop herself from crying. ‘It’ll be all right.’

‘No. It won’t be all right.’ Her mum rose, turned towards the door. ‘I’m going to get dressed.’

‘Mum. Please.’

To stop talking meant that time would start ticking again, the unstoppable slide towards the inevitable: a black car at the front door, the slow journey down the A3 to the crematorium, the impatient flow of traffic cutting around them, brake lights flashing as drivers caught sight of the little coffin smothered in flowers and slowed to stare, the black-garbed crowd waiting outside the crematorium, children and parents from school, children who had teased and taunted Jamie when he couldn’t run any more, couldn’t play football – Thought your sister was the Jessie, jessie.

Jamie’s body being interred in fire.

‘Mum.’

Her mother paused at the door; her dead eyes found Jessie’s. ‘When your dad left us, I thought that the unrequited love I had for him was the hardest I’d ever experience.’ Her voice cracked. ‘But I was wrong. When someone dies they can’t love us back. However hard we love them, they can never, ever love us back.’

14

Wendy Chubb rubbed a hand against the window. Steam from the washing-up bowl had clouded the glass, but even so she was sure that she had seen a flash of light in the garden. She stared hard through the smeared circle she had rubbed clear. Only darkness now.

The light from the house washed the patio next to it with a feeble glow, but beyond that the night was thick and black, the hills that rose up on either side of the house seeming to suck whatever moonlight there was from the garden.

What had made her look out the window anyway? A noise? Had it been a noise? Tilting her head, she listened. She heard the old house creaking, the walls murmuring to each other, the knock of air in the pipes, the gurgle of hot water filling the radiators. Wind bristled the trees in the garden. Her gaze swept left to right through the glass, straining to make out the line of leylandii shielding the house from the road, the knot of apple trees in the centre of the garden, the pots lined up at the edge of the patio, plants in them dead from cold and neglect.

Suddenly she leapt back, her hand flying to her mouth, smothering a gasp of surprise and fear. A bright flash. Right up close to the house, barely five metres from where she was standing. She breathed hard, trying to settle the hammering of her heart. What on earth was there to be afraid of? Now that she thought for a moment, fear felt ridiculous. She was inside a locked house, Major Scott in the sitting room across the hallway. And there was clearly a rational explanation for the light.

Sami? Was he outside with his torch? She hurried to the bottom of the stairs.

‘Sami.’ No answer. She leaned against the banister, shouted, ‘Sami.’

Silence.

‘Sami.’

Light hurried footsteps, the boards creaking above her head.

‘Yes.’ His voice sounding timid.

Poor kid.

‘Oh. I wondered if you’d …’ she broke off. ‘Don’t worry, darling. You carry on playing. I’ll be up in five minutes to put you to bed.’ Stupid woman. Of course he hadn’t gone outside. He couldn’t reach the lock and the Yale was far too stiff for him, even if he could. She stuck her head into the sitting room. Major Scott was in the leather chair, asleep he looked to be, breathing heavily, mouth open, a globule of saliva gathered on his bottom lip. Wendy glanced at her watch. Nooria’s train wasn’t due into Aldershot for another half-hour.

Back in the kitchen, she hung by the door, not wanting to approach the window, feeling ridiculous at the tight knot of fear in her stomach. Stepping firmly across the kitchen, she pressed her face to the glass.

No lights. Nobody out there. Just the soupy darkness, wind moving the trees, black outlines shifting and twitching, but purely due to the wind. And transposed over it all, the pale, frightened moon of her own face.

15

Back in her own cottage, Jessie took off her shoes, lined them up in the shoe rack by the door, removed her coat and hung it on the hook, straightening the sleeves. Taking a step back, she checked their alignment, straightened again, millimetre by millimetre, until they were exactly level.

She was hungry, in need of something more than biscuits to eat. Padding into the kitchen in her socks, she tugged open the fridge. Rows of clear plastic Klip-It boxes faced her on the shelves, each one labelled with its contents, the labels hand-printed in neat, black capitals. Cheese, salad, eggs, beans, apples, red peppers … The product of her weekly shop debagged and decanted, nothing entering the fridge in its original packaging. No foreign dirt, no mess, no uneven shapes to knock her sense of order off kilter. Everything organized and in its place.

Her gaze ranged along the uniform black capitals, nothing taking her fancy, her heart sagging under the weight of the disorder spelled out by the codified containers. Reaching out, she picked one up and reversed it, grabbed the bottle of Sauvignon and poured herself a glass. Returning the bottle without bothering to line up the label, she slammed the fridge door.

She was halfway across the kitchen when she stopped. She could feel the electric suit hiss. Ignoring the rising tension, she forced herself to keep walking, into the lounge. Jamie’s photo caught her eye – that chocolate-ringed smile. Her limbs felt on fire, her throat so constricted that breathing was a struggle. She felt as if she would explode with the tension building inside her.

Fighting back tears, she retraced her steps to the fridge. Hauling the door open, shivering at the blast of cold air that enveloped her, she realigned the box, turned the wine bottle until the label faced exactly outwards, exactly – to the millimetre – and pushed the door closed. Sliding down the fridge, she folded herself into a ball on the kitchen floor and burst into tears.

OCD. Obsessive-compulsive disorder. She knew all about it. Had studied it at university, read case after case in her spare time. She knew everything there was to know and still she was helpless to fight the disorder in herself. A disorder that was now as much a part of who she was as her black hair or blue eyes, it had inhabited her for so long. She was a character in a sick and twisted play. Knew exactly how the performance would play out and wanted no part of it, but had no ability to resist. She was consumed by the need for order, for control, even as she had no control over her own mind.

When she was all cried out, she pushed herself up from the floor and went over to the sink. Letting the cold tap gush until the water was freezing, she doused her face, let the water run down her neck and chest. As the water numbed her skin, her brain spun with thoughts, memories, memories on memories. Love. Guilt. Helplessness. Self-hatred.

She had never realized that so much love could exist for another person until she had seen her mother grieving for Jamie.

16

Downstairs Mummy and Daddy were arguing – he could hear their raised voices. Wendy had put him to bed, put him in his woolly sheep pyjamas and dressing gown, put socks on his feet. Keep you warm. Told him that Mummy and Daddy were tired tonight, stressed. Be a good boy. Go to sleep.

He had gone to sleep, like Wendy had asked him, but the shouting had woken him. He liked Wendy, felt safe when she was here. Now she was gone. He had seen her from his bedroom window, hurrying to her car, head down, glancing around her as she walked. He had heard her engine puttering out of the drive.

It was only him, Mummy and Daddy in the house. Him upstairs alone, and their raised voices coming up through the floor.

Daddy was shouting: I don’t want people interfering in our lives.

Sitting up in bed, he looked towards the window. Wendy hadn’t pulled the curtains all the way across – they didn’t join in the middle. A sliver of moonlight cut through the gap, glinting across his room like a knife. He wanted them closed, wanted the knife gone. But he didn’t want to go near the window, to pull them closed himself. He was scared of what might be outside the glass. He had seen the light in the garden, flashing close to the house, had asked Wendy about the light. Light? I didn’t see a light. You must have imagined it. Go to sleep now, like a good boy.

Sami swallowed. A lump was stuck in his throat and it wouldn’t go up or down. Inching silently to the end of his bed, dragging his torch with him, he slid on to the floor. He sat for a second, panting, his chest tight with fear. Was he alone? The darkness in his bedroom seemed to be moving.

On hands and knees, he crawled silently into the corner, squeezing himself behind the toy buckets, curling himself into a tiny ball. He could see nothing but the smooth coloured plastic of the buckets. Red. Blue. Yellow. Green. He couldn’t see the void of darkness beyond; the darkness couldn’t find him.

Mummy and Daddy were arguing. He pressed his hands over his ears, could still hear them.

Mummy was shouting. Daddy was angry.

He wanted to curl up in Mummy’s arms, like he used to before Mummy got sad.

Quietly, he tugged Baby Isabel out of the dolls’ toy bucket, shrunk back into the corner, clutching her tight to his chest.

‘The boy is bad,’ he whispered into Baby Isabel’s ear. ‘The girl … the girl is good. The boy is bad.’

He felt for his torch. It was next to him. Having it there made him feel safer. He wanted to switch it on, but he was too frightened to move again.

‘The bad girl has got out of bed.’ His lips moved silently against Baby Isabel’s ear. ‘Stay in bed. Don’t get out. Bad girl.’

He breathed in – a deep, sucking breath – trying to make his heart stop drumming in his chest. The noise of his heart was too loud. Someone would hear. The darkness would hear. Shadowman would hear. Pressing his hand to his chest, he tried to hold his heart to stop it from thumping. He couldn’t. Jamming his eyes shut, he started to cry.

Daddy was shouting. Mummy was sobbing.

He had to switch his torch on, had to keep himself safe.

‘Go away, Shadowman,’ he whispered. ‘Go away, Shadowman, goway, Shadowman, goway, goway, goway.’ Chanting under his breath, clutching Baby Isabel tight with one hand, he swung the beam of his torch back and forth across the room with the other. ‘Stay in bed. Gowayshadowman, goway, goway, goway.’

17

Nineties bubble-gum music pumped from the doors as Jessie pushed them open. Britney Spears. Was she still knocking out tunes?

It was a typical Mc-bar in a side street in Aldershot, one that could be lifted and replanted in any small-town high street in England and look as if it belonged. Modern brushed gold fittings, pale wooden bar, mushroom-coloured walls, pairs of fat leather sofas for chilling arranged either side of low wooden coffee tables, booths heaving with twenty-somethings clutching alcopops and bottles of Becks, eyeing each other up.

Jessie pushed her way over to the bar and slid on to a stool, ordered herself a vodka and tonic. She had dressed with intent: wore a thigh-length red dress and nude stilettos, a slash of Ruby Tuesday lipstick and statement eyes. A jet-black curtain of hair hung almost to her waist. It was a tried-and-tested outfit, though one she rarely wore, dragged from the back of her wardrobe and dusted down when cleaning the house had failed to keep her demons at bay. She knew that she looked hot. Hot and available.

Crossing her legs, she spun the stool, tilted back against the bar and scanned the crowd. In less than a minute, she had locked eyes with a man standing near the door with a few of his mates. He looked a couple of years younger than her – twenty-six or -seven, perhaps. He wore a tight white long-sleeved T-shirt that hugged his abdominals and navy-blue jeans. He was tall, dark-haired, dark-eyed, good looking enough, with a nice smile. Nice enough. She didn’t intend to marry him.

Dropping her gaze, she twisted a lock of hair around her finger. Looking up, she found his gaze again. The corners of her mouth tilted in a tiny smile. She took another sip of her vodka and tonic, eyes locked with his, then twisted back to the bar.

Thirty seconds later, a voice in her ear. ‘Can I get you another?’

Turning, she laid a hand on his chest. ‘Why not.’

Jessie ran her hands up the man’s torso under his T-shirt, feeling the hard ridges of his abdominals, the muscles of his chest warm and solid under her fingers. He worked out three times a week, he had told her proudly. She could tell.

They had left the bar, walked down a side street to the car park at the back. The air was freezing, a light layer of frost coating the tarmac, silvery in the moonlight, the car park, unsurprisingly, deserted.

She could feel him, already hard, pressing against her thigh. Sliding her hand to the back of his neck, Jessie moulded her body to his and slid her tongue into his mouth. With her other hand, she found his belt buckle.

The rough brick sandpapered her back through her leather jacket as he shoved up inside her. She closed her eyes and her mind locked on to the feel of him, the rhythmic movement, the sensation. Nothing else mattered. Only the pure, uncomplicated, animal feeling. She bit her lip, felt heat building. For a second her mind filled with an image of Callan, looking at her across his desk, looking wrecked. Pushing the image away, she blanked her mind, focused only on the man, the feeling of him inside her. Closing her eyes, she clung to him as the orgasm came, tucking her face into the crook of his neck, drawing in his smell, feeling his warmth, the twin manic beats of their hearts.

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