Page 66 of Fire Must Burn

‘Cheers,’ he said.

She hesitated, then picked her glass up in salute and drank.

She was sitting on the front step when Tony returned. He got out of the Morris and walked up to her as she stood up, brushing the dust from her skirt.

‘What did she tell you?’ she asked him.

He looked at her, then over her through the doorway into the front hall.

‘Let it go, Sparks,’ he said. ‘There’s a party to set up.’

He walked past her and disappeared into the house.

London, 1947

‘And then came twenty-four hours of nightmarish fun, which are all blurred together in a sort of Hogarthian haze in my memory,’ said Iris, her hand pushing her tumbler forwards. ‘On Sunday, we drove back to Cambridge.’

‘Did you speak with Nancy about what happened?’

‘I tried,’ said Iris. ‘She wouldn’t talk to me about it. And that was it. Until they found her in the river.’

She started crying.

‘Sauce couldn’t swim,’ she said. ‘That’s why she was on a bicycle when we raced the Bumps. She should never have—’

She cradled her head on her arms. Gwen came around and kneeled next to her, putting her arm around her.

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she whispered. ‘None of it.’

Millie appeared in the doorway.

‘Do you need any help, ma’am?’ she asked.

‘Miss Sparks will be taking the guest room tonight,’ said Gwen. ‘Will you get her other arm?’

‘Right away,’ said Millie, coming to help Gwen get Iris to her feet.

‘I told you no one could make me talk if I didn’t want to,’ muttered Iris.

‘I know, dear,’ said Gwen as they guided her through the doorway. ‘But you wanted to.’

Carruthers stood in the courtyard behind Grenville House, watching the lights go out in the various windows. When it was sufficiently dark, he went through the back door and climbed the stairs until he reached the fifth storey.

The door to Danforth’s flat had been demolished by the fire brigade, but someone, he guessed the building’s caretaker, had nailed several boards across the doorway. Carruthers did have identification on him that would have allowed him official entry had anyone poked their heads out of the nearby flats, but he preferred to make this visit as unofficial as possible.

He pulled a jimmy from inside his coat, then pried the bottom boards away. He was ready to flash the real-looking police warrant card if the noise roused the neighbours, but luck was with him. He shoved the boards into the foyer, then crouched down and crawled through. He stood once he was entirely in, pulled out a torch and flicked it on, playing the beam about the room.

The new furniture surprised him, stacked in the sitting room in their packing sheets, waiting to be unwrapped and set into place. Guess they came in after the investigations were done, he thought. Had to leave them somewhere. Nothing fancy, justwhat a bachelor would need to entertain cheaply. He noted the brands with an eye towards getting a piece or two for his own place, but work was calling.

There were scorch marks on the floor by the door leading to the bedroom. Must be where Danforth ended up, rolling to extinguish the flames before he passed out from the pain.

Carruthers walked through to the bedroom.

And there was the wreckage. Charred everything towards the window, water damage from the hoses, the wind coming in through the smashed windows. The remains of a bed burned down to charcoal. Some bits of books nearby, chunks of their corners left, the bindings now blackened and unreadable.

How the hell did Danforth survive this? he wondered.

But in the far corner away from the window was a steamer trunk nearly his own height. Badly singed outside, but relatively intact.