Forgive Me (38 page)

Shutting the bedroom door to hold the fire
at bay until she
could get out, she ran to the windows overlooking the
street. They were both locked. She fumbled for the little key on the sill but
couldn’t find it.

On advice from John, who had installed the
windows, she always closed and locked them when she went out for fear of a burglar. She
hadn’t opened them when she went to bed because moths and daddy long-legs came in,
attracted by the light. Frantically she rushed to switch on the light to help her find
the key.

She had just got back to the window sill
when the light went out; she guessed the fire had burned some wiring and shorted it out.
The key had to be on the sill, she always kept it there. But she ran her fingers all
along both sills, and it wasn’t there.

The smoke was belching in under the door
now. She grabbed the duvet and shoved it down to cover the gap. Coughing and
spluttering, she went back to the windows and crawled along beneath them feeling with
her hands for the key. But she still couldn’t find it. Terrified now, she began
hammering on the windows with her fists but soon realized that no one was going to hear
her. She tried to think of something she could use to break the window.

A chair was first, but when she cracked it
against the glass she merely broke off the two front legs. She tried a shoe, but that
made no impression at all.

She knew she was going to die. Someone had
once told her that smoke killed you before the flames did. And she was choking now – her
lungs were filling up with it – and there was nothing heavy enough in the room to break
the glass.

In a moment of clarity she remembered what
that smell was when she opened the bedroom door. It was petrol. It must have been that
bastard Myles who had set the fire – his revenge for her going to the police.

Coughing and wheezing, her lungs feeling as if
they were on fire, she fell on to the bed and covered her head with a pillow. She had
thought that sometime in the future she and Phil would get married; that they’d
have children and have a long and happy life together.

But now she wasn’t even going to get a
chance to say goodbye to him.

Phil was smiling to himself as he took the
Hammersmith turn-off from the M4. He hadn’t knocked off work at five o’clock
as usual. He knew, if he kept on working, he could finish the job by about one in the
morning. And then he could drive home to Eva. The two joiners had teased him about being
in love and growing soppy. But it was in their interests for him to finish the
plastering early, as it meant they wouldn’t be held up in the morning waiting for
him to get out of their way.

Eva had given him a key, and he
couldn’t wait to creep up the stairs and into bed with her. He just hoped she
didn’t scream, thinking it was an intruder.

As he was about to signal to turn left off
Holland Park Avenue, a fire engine with sirens screaming came up behind him, overtook
him and turned into Portland Road. Another one followed it, and Phil had pull right over
almost on to the pavement.

Even before he turned the corner, he knew
the fire was close. The sirens had stopped, but halfway along Portland Road he could
smell smoke and see the bright lights from the fire engines. He realized they must be in
Pottery Lane.

He parked his car in the first space he saw,
got out and ran the rest of the way. As he turned the corner by the pub he saw it was
No. 7, the small window beside the front door glowing red with flames. He felt himself
go cold with fright.

‘My girl’s in there!’ he
yelled at the first fireman he reached. The man had just got out of the fire-engine cab
and was unrolling the hose. ‘I’ve got a key, I must go in and get
her.’

The fireman caught hold of his shoulders.
‘You can’t go in, the whole ground floor is alight. Which room will she be
in?’

‘The front room.’ Phil pointed
up. ‘Get a ladder!’

He was aware that, behind the man he had
spoken to, the other firemen were moving quickly into their positions; one hose was
already out, and he heard the gushing sound as the water ran into the gutter. The glass
in the small window by the front door suddenly exploded, pieces falling out on to the
pavement. The men lifted the hose and aimed it through the window. Phil heard sizzling
as water hit the flames.

It was then he became aware of how many
other people were out in the street. There were dozens of them, huddling in small
groups, all wearing dressing gowns or coats over their nightclothes. The police arrived
then and started moving people back, away from the fire. One came over to Phil,
signalling with his arms for him to go back too.

‘My girl’s in there,’ Phil
yelled again over the noise of the engines and the water. ‘Please get her
out!’

Everything seemed to have gone into
agonizing slow motion. He saw the fireman he’d spoken to talking to a colleague,
and pointing to the windows upstairs. His colleague spoke to someone else, and it seemed
to take for ever before he saw them positioning a ladder.

The first fireman came back to him.
‘Is there anything in the house or garage we need to know about. Gas cylinders?
Cans of petrol?’

‘Her car will be in the garage,’
Phil gasped. ‘Oh hell, there’s not only the petrol in the car, but
there’s probably paint stripper, white spirit and God knows what else
too.’

This news seemed to have a galvanizing effect
on the fire crew. The front door was instantly broken down and the hoses played right
into the inferno of the hallway.

A ladder was now firmly in place and a
fireman with breathing apparatus went up it. Phil was unable to stop himself miming
breaking the window, hopping from one foot to the other in agitation. He was vaguely
aware that a woman had come to his side – a neighbour, he supposed. She spoke but his
focus was on the window and he didn’t hear what she said.

She shook his arm to get his attention.
‘She’ll be alright, they’ll get her out,’ she said. ‘Look,
an ambulance is here now.’

At last Phil heard the sound of breaking
glass falling into the street. He held his breath as the fireman on the ladder put his
mask over his face and climbed in.

‘I don’t suppose he’d have
gone in if the fire was in that room,’ the woman said to Phil. ‘I called
them, you know. I normally curse that I don’t sleep well, but I’m glad I was
awake tonight. You see, I went out into the backyard, and that’s when I smelled
the smoke and saw it coming over the gardens. Next door are away – they aren’t
going to be too happy when they get back and find the smoke has damaged their house, are
they?’

Phil wanted her to shut up, even though he
knew he should be grateful to her. He wanted to keep his eyes on that window, not look
at the woman and make some response. His heart was pounding with fear that Eva was
already dead from the smoke. He didn’t know what he’d do without her.

At last he saw the fireman at the window
with Eva over his shoulder like a sack of coal. At that point there was a loud bang from
inside the house and a tongue of flame licked out of the front door and up the front of
the house. Two more
of the team advanced with another hose, and the
sound of spitting and hissing as the water attacked the flames filled the air.

Slowly the fireman came down the ladder with
Eva. Phil rushed towards them.

‘Steady on,’ the fireman said.
‘She’s alive, but she needs urgent medical treatment.’

The ambulance men came forward with a
stretcher and laid Eva down on it, then gave her oxygen as they wheeled her back to the
ambulance. She was wearing pink pyjamas with teddy bears on them; in the yellowy glow of
the street lighting she looked about twelve.

‘Will she be alright?’
Phil’s words were a plea more than a question. ‘I’m her boyfriend. Can
I come with you?’

‘It’s too soon to say,’
one of the men replied. ‘But sure, you can come with us.’

Phil felt a surge of emotion as he looked
down at Eva in the hospital bed. The smell of smoke still clung to her and she looked so
pale, small and vulnerable. Even though he knew she was out of danger now, the terror of
the past few hours when he thought he was going to lose her would never leave him.

She had been unconscious on admittance to
hospital, and so close to death from the smoke inhalation that they had to put a tube
down her throat to give her oxygen. All he had been able to think of as he paced the
hospital corridors was that he was to blame. He’d told her the electrical wiring
was in good condition, and he’d clearly been mistaken.

When the doctor finally came to tell him she
was rallying, Phil wanted to hug the man for saving her. The doctor pointed out that she
was very disorientated and nauseous, and she would be plagued by coughing bouts for some
time. But he smiled as he said that Eva was a fighter.

While Phil had been waiting for news, two
different policemen had called in to see how she was. Phil had admitted that he felt
responsible, because he should have recommended she get a qualified electrician to check
the wiring in the house. They said that fires started for many reasons and that, until
the fire service had made their investigation and discovered what had caused it, he
shouldn’t go blaming himself.

When he was finally allowed in to see her,
the relief of knowing she was going to be alright made him feel almost euphoric.

He took her hand and stroked it. She opened
her eyes and looked at him.

He was shocked at how sore her eyes looked,
and he bent to kiss her forehead. ‘Don’t try to speak, your throat must be
very raw. I’m going to stay with you, just go back to sleep, you are safe
now.’

‘Do they know it was Myles?’ she
croaked out.

‘Myles?’ he repeated. Then he
remembered that it was the name of the man who had assaulted her. ‘What makes you
think he was responsible?’

‘I smelled petrol. Who else would pour
that through the letter box?’ she said, her voice so hoarse it didn’t even
sound like hers. ‘You must tell the police.’

It hadn’t even crossed Phil’s
mind that the fire had been started deliberately. The possibility that Eva could be
right, and that the intention had been to kill her, made his stomach lurch.

Somehow he managed to stay calm, to reassure
her that he would deal with it, that everything would be alright and all she needed to
do was go to sleep knowing she was in safe hands. But that calmness was just a front –
inside, his stomach was contracting with anger. If he could lay his hands on that
bastard, he’d tear him limb from limb and take real pleasure in it.

A policeman was waiting out in the corridor,
hoping for a few words with Eva. Phil went straight over to him and repeated what she
had just said.

The policeman was in his mid-thirties, a
pleasant-faced man with brown curly hair. ‘One of my colleagues did mention that
your girlfriend had been assaulted recently,’ he said in a very off-hand manner.
‘We will check out Miss Patterson’s allegation.’

‘The man is out on bail,’ Phil
tersely reminded him,
wondering why he wasn’t rushing out of the
door now to catch Myles. ‘He should be arrested immediately and charged with
attempted murder.’

‘We will of course question him –
should it transpire that the fire was arson,’ the policeman said. His tone had
more than a touch of ‘allow the police to decide what is to be done’. He
continued, ‘Does Miss Patterson have family we should contact? Will they be able
to take her in when she is released from hospital?’

Phil said that he would take care of her and
gave the man his address and phone number. He explained that Eva’s mother was
dead. And although she had a half-brother and half-sister, he didn’t think there
was any point in contacting them, as their father was not on friendly terms with
her.

The policeman nodded, but wrote Andrew
Patterson’s address down in his notebook anyway. ‘We should have the report
back from the fire officers shortly,’ he said. ‘You look as if you could do
with some sleep yourself. Go on home for now. And if we need to know anything else,
we’ll contact you.’

Phil didn’t go home. As tired as he
was, he felt unable to leave in case Eva needed him. He rang Serendipity in Notting
Hill, where Eva had been working, and told them what had happened to her, saying
he’d contact them again once she was better. He also phoned his own boss to warn
him that he might not be in to work on Monday. He wished he could phone Patrick, Gregor
and Olive too, as he felt the need to share what had happened with people who cared for
Eva. But she had their numbers, and he didn’t even know their addresses to look
them up in a directory.

They moved Eva later that morning from
intensive care into a medical ward. As the ward sister wouldn’t let him sit by her
bedside, he had to wait in the visitors’ room.

He must have dozed off, as he came to with a
start when his name was called.

It was the same curly-haired policeman
he’d spoken to earlier. ‘I just came to tell you that the fire was started
deliberately,’ he said, looking grave. ‘Forensics have ascertained that rags
soaked in petrol were pushed through the letter box. We are doing a house-to-house
inquiry in the proximity, in the hope that someone saw something.’

‘How likely is that in the middle of
the night?’ Phil asked. ‘It’s obvious it was that creep who attacked
her.’

‘He wasn’t at his home when we
called there. According to his neighbour, he went on holiday three days ago.’

Phil made a dismissive snort. ‘How
convenient!’

‘We will of course be checking on
that,’ the policeman said. ‘But we’ll also be checking around the
neighbourhood. I’m going in to speak to Miss Patterson now, to tell her of these
developments.’

Phil looked at his watch; it was one
forty-five. ‘It will be visiting time in another fifteen minutes!’