The Silent Sleep of the Dying (Eisenmenger-Flemming Forensic Mysteries) (47 page)

She inched along the floor. Whenever she reached a door, she opened it, went in and hoped that her cursory search, curtailed by lack of time, would reveal Helena. She tried calling out each time, but the towel muffled her voice and the crescending, shaking noise around her all but snuffed it out.

Then, superimposed upon this cacophony, there was a much louder shaking rumble, thunderous in the claustrophobic space that the heat allowed her. A huge amount of plaster and dust fell around her and on her, and she felt the entire fabric of the house groan and roll slightly to her left.

It's
starting
to
collapse
.
Must
have
been
the
front
going
.
This
bit'll
be
next
.
Time's
running
out
…

She was searching by feel now, for her eyes were stinging so much, bathed in tears like a lost lover's weeping that her swollen eyelids were closing to protect them.

And then she found her.

Helena was buried under soot, plaster dust and ash, a burial mound illuminated on the far side by the consuming monstrous fire beyond her. Curled into a foetal position, head towards her, perhaps even her thumb in her mouth, so childlike and innocent was the posture. Clearly she had tried to get away from the fire.

Beverley didn't wait to see if she were conscious — she might not even have been alive — she just took hold of the cloth over her shoulders and began pulling. She had long ago lost the spare towel she had brought and didn't even think about it. She just knew that they had seconds, possibly fewer than she realized, and that she had to pull and pull and pull.

Her own towel slipped. It was now dry and clogged with soot and she had thought at the back of her mind that it must be all but useless, but at once the coughing in her chest leapt hugely and painfully, so deep and abrasive that she was sure that she was coughing blood. With one hand she thrust the material into her mouth, then carried on pulling.

She reached the door to the bedroom by which she had entered and, pulling Helena's body through, slammed the door behind her. Then she stepped over her, picked up the alarm clock on the bedside cabinet, ran to the window and smacked it at the glass. Again and again she smacked, until the window was gone, only the most obstinate shards left clinging to the ancient putty.

She thrust her head out, dropping the towel. It was densely smoky out there, but infinitely cleaner than inside. Her lungs thanked her grudgingly, still coughing, less angry.

Another rumble of thundering vibration.

She took one deep breath, then ducked inside. Again she grabbed Helena, pulling her around the bed, towards the door to the back staircase. She almost made it on one lungful, and when she did breathe, her chest fell back at once into grazing agony.

At the top of the stairs, she had a decision to make that was no decision. The nice way would have been to pick Helena up over her shoulder, transporting her in stately style as in all the best dramas about fire, but there was no room for such an easy solution, and anyway she was too weak, in too much pain, for such a neat solution.

Again she stepped over the inert form, so that she was between Helena and the top of the stairs. She went down a few steps, turned and began half-pulling, half-pushing Helena down, the body bumping on each hard wooden edge. "Sorry, Hel," she murmured.

Twice she stumbled, nearly falling to the bottom, Helena in tow like a rolling boulder, but both times she stopped herself. Once Helena's form threatened to overwhelm her with its momentum, as if in protest at such rough treatment.

She made it to earth noticing that the air was slightly clearer.

Come
on
,
nearly
there
.

*

The third crash was so loud, so near that she fell against the wall to her left. It felt as if she were in the middle of an eruption, as if the world were being ripped apart around her. It lasted for several seconds, not ending abruptly, but going on and on, dying and rising, a thing that refused to end. When she put out her hand towards the right-hand wall, it was hot; very hot.

It
must
be
just
the
other
side
.
The
fire
must
be
nearly
through
to
here
.

Her back had decided that enough was enough. As she bent yet again to her task, it sent pain down the back of her right leg, a spear inserted cleanly and ruthlessly into her bone. She began to move backwards, inevitably slowing with the pain and with the tiredness.

Hozo
long
?

She kept glancing at the wall, saw plaster cracking along its entire length.

Come
on
.
Come
on
.

She reached the splintered door frame, pushing the swinging door with her backside, having to pull Helena over a small but snagging step.

The temperature vaulted and on her back she felt burning. She turned around. Looking into the house was a row of windows in the centre of which were French doors. Behind them was a conflagration, vividly bright, flames shooting out from cracks and crevasses in and around the windows. As she watched, glass panes were cracking, then imploding as air was consumed inside.

Flicking
great
.

She guessed that the kitchen at the far end would by now also be lost to the fire. Her only chance was to get out by some glass doors halfway along the conservatory. Even to reach those she would have to get past grasping flames that were already climbing up the side of the house, inside the conservatory.

She bent down again, profaned against her back, and pulled.

She went as fast as she could — small, shuffling steps but fast ones — but still the flames caught her on several occasions, making her curse and cry out and weep all at once. On one of these, her clothes caught alight and she had frantically to pat it out, dropping Helena as if she were merely a heavy bag.

At the doors, Helena was again dropped. At last, she had luck. They were locked, but the key was there; she turned it, opened the door and again grabbed Helena.

Then she pulled and shuffled, pulled and shuffled, first over paving covered in fire debris, then over wet grass.

It was still raining, rain that was the most God-given, holy and precious thing that ever she had known. She could have added her own tears to all this, she was so relieved, but still she kept pulling.

She reached the Land Rover, but any thought of getting in was gone. She was too far exhausted to do anything more than pull Helena to its far side, then collapse into the wet grass.

Her last thoughts before unconsciousness were two:
She'd
better
fucking
well
be
alive
, and,
She'd
better
fucking
well
have
got
Proteus
.

*

Marble and his daughter found them. The fire could be seen from every point of the island and he was only the first of many who came, not to spectate but to help. Within minutes of his arrival, there were fifty or more. They lifted Stein, near death, into the back of an old van, its floor unswept and covered with hay and sheep droppings. Eisenmenger, unconscious, was laid next to him. The body of Carlos and the body of Sergeant MacCallum, with its crown of blood, was lifted with reverence into the back of Marble's old Morris Minor, the questions that it invoked were not voiced by anyone.

It took them longer to find Beverley and Helena and, by this time, the house was completely collapsed, although the fire would take a lot more rain and two more days to die. They put them into the back of the Land Rover and the Harbour Master drove it back to Morrister and the tavern. Then they left in a long line of vehicles. Even had they known of the presence on Rouna of Carlos, Rosenthal and Bochdalek, there would have been nothing for them to do.

*

Eisenmenger, Beverley and Helena were flown at once back to the mainland by Air Ambulance. Stein died of exposure, acute subdural haemorrhage and a fractured hip; he was buried on Rouna. Sergeant MacCallum's body was flown back to the mainland by police helicopter.

The ruins of Stein's house were searched by police and fire authorities. A few charred bone fragments were all that was found of the two bodies; DN A testing proved ineffectual, for the small amount of genetic material that they had once contained was totally denatured by the intense heat. Only the positioning of the bone fragments gave a clue that there had been two bodies in the house.

They also found the heat-warped remains of two machine pistols, any identifying features removed either by human hand or by fire.

The opinion on the cause of the blaze was provisionally made as some form of incendiary device of unknown type.

*

Eisenmenger recovered first, not even needing intensive care, unlike Beverley and Helena. He visited them both daily, hating the clinical sparseness of the unit, its never-ending orchestra of bleeps and sighs, murmurs and concern. They had been put in beds opposite each other, as if their history of antagonism had been taken into consideration, but it didn't matter, for Helena's injuries meant that she took far longer to recover, and she was sedated and ventilated for the whole of Beverley's stay.

On the day of his discharge his visit to Beverley found her awake but so full of lassitude as to be near moribund. Her chest was still intensely sore, and she was liable to hacking, tormenting fits of coughing, but, despite some pallor, she looked remarkably unscathed. Opposite her, by contrast, Helena's face was brightly red, due partly to superficial burning and partly to carbon-monoxide poisoning. A ventilation tube poked impertinently from her mouth, tied by untidy, ragged bandage to her head, while blood dripped into her left arm, dextrose saline into her right, and a thicker plastic line fed into the side of her neck. Her hands were bandaged, both eyes were black, and the lurking form of a cast on her leg could be seen under the bed sheet.

Referring to his scab-flecked face, Beverley said, "Hi, handsome." Beverley's voice was a husky whisper, leaving Eisenmenger fighting off guilty feelings of arousal. He smiled and then glanced across at Helena, almost furtively.

Beverley caught the movement. "How is she?"

"Stable."

She frowned. "Is that good?"

He shrugged. "Better than unstable, but if she stays stable and never improves, well … "

He broke off, and she could see how distressed he was. Her gaze rested on Helena and she murmured, "She'd bloody well better improve. I wouldn't like to think I went through all that for nothing." Despite her flippancy he saw genuine concern. He said, "Thanks."

At once her demeanour changed. "It's my job."

"Thanks, anyway."

She refused to crack the attitude. "If I went through all that, only for her to die, I'm going to be very unhappy."

"She'll be all right."

She heard fear in the certainty, but said nothing.

*

Helena was on the ventilator for another four days, during which time Beverley made a rapid improvement, moving quickly from the ITU ward to the general medical ward, and thence home.

She returned to her flat a week and a day after the fire. She was still weak and there were areas of a healing burn on the left side of her abdomen and on her left hip. Luckily they were only second-degree burns and therefore not going to scar; unluckily they were bloody painful.

She spent the next two days almost continuously in bed, a situation that would have lasted for at least another twenty-four hours had she not had a visitor.

Lambert.

He looked as if he had swallowed a particularly psychotic wasp.

"May I come in?" He ignored the fact that she was dressed only in a gown. She stood aside and he came in. He even sat down, although she didn't actually ask him to do so.

"You lied to me."

She had expected something like this and found no need or compulsion to respond.

"You also kept me out of the loop with regard to this case."

She sighed. He was going to suspend her — what the hell? "Only because you would have either ignored what I said, or cut me out of any investigation. Deny it if you like, but you and I both know that you have behaved like a complete shit towards me."

"That is my privilege, your problem. It does not excuse your behaviour."

She said nothing more. He asked, "What happened?"

"You've seen my statement." It was a guess.

"Poppycock about manufactured viruses, international conspiracies, murderers. Libel about Pel-Ebstein. Yes, I've seen it."