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Saturday evening

Policing weekend night pub closing time in Llanfair usually involved parking a police car prominently at the junction of the two main roads and ensuring that the uniformed special constables were as visible as possible. The difference tonight was that in the absence of the specials, Charlie and Eddy donned yellow vests with police insignia, and along with Patsy, leaned on the car, parked in its usual place.

At ten o’clock, the sun had gone, but the heat remained, thickening the air. The streets were busy with people strolling from pub to pub, or from the few restaurants back to their homes. Women wore lightweight dresses; men, shorts and T-shirts. A few men were bare-chested, and sweating under his clothes, Charlie understood why. But there was no trouble. Loud voices and raucous laughter, yes. Music spilling out from the pubs. The acrid smell of cigarette smoke and the occasional scent of weed drifting towards the three of them. But no trouble.

Eleven o’clock came and went. The restaurants had all begun to shut up shop, leaving a couple of pubs and takeaways still open. Numbers on the streets had reduced, though the level of noisy inebriation had risen. Charlie and Eddy kept a visible presence along the street, taking regular strolls, greeting passers-by in Welsh and English. Still, there was no trouble.

Until suddenly and without warning, there was.

Charlie and Eddy were strolling along the street opposite the university campus, next to their favourite bakery, now sadly closed for the day, when they heard the police car siren blare. Panic flared in Charlie’s stomach. Patsy was on her own. He ran, and Eddy ran, too, faster, with the same look of panic on his face. As Charlie skidded round the corner, a wave of putrid smoke rolled towards him, he smelled petrol and saw flames spewing out onto the street.

“Patsy!” he shouted, and thankfully, there she was, unharmed but far too close to the flames.

“Get away from there,” Eddy said, and caught Patsy’s arm to pull her away. She shook him off.

“I’m fine, firefighters are on their way,” she said.

“What happened?” Charlie asked, as something inside the burning building crashed, and a new gout of flame spilled through a broken window.

Instead of answering, Patsy waved towards the street. “We need to move these people,” she said. Everyone leaving the pubs and restaurants was crowding forwards, phones recording, despite the flames and broken glass. Charlie heard the siren of the fire engine.

“Dammit,” he muttered, and, with Eddy beside him, started trying to herd people away from danger, and out of the way of the firefighters.

“Gerroff,” said a man leaning round Charlie with his phone camera pointing towards the fire. The fire engine, blue lights flashing and siren wailing, came round the corner.

“For God’s sake,” Eddy said and hauled the protesting man physically out of the way.

The fire engine stopped, and was immediately surrounded by the very same people Charlie and Eddy had just moved. Charlie saw Patsy with a roll of police tape in one hand, trying to reason with a bunch of amateur filmmakers.

“Tape off the whole fucking street,” Charlie said. “Both ends. If they won’t shift, arrest the buggers.” Because this was madness. The firefighters were having to move people out of the way to get their job done. He felt the beginnings of a headache; whether from despair at the stupidity of humans, or inhaling toxic fumes, he didn’t know.

It took a few minutes, but the combination of evil-smelling smoke and the police, but the area was cleared for the firefighters to start pouring water onto the burning building. Charlie, Eddy and Patsy stood and watched.

“What happened?” Charlie asked, “and wasn’t that Llanfair Fast Food?” He gestured towards the fire.

“It was,” Patsy said, “but I can’t tell you what happened. Just an enormous crash and then the flames. I called the fire brigade and then you two came.”

“In that case, sorry guys, but you’d better go and start asking questions. Someone must have seen something.”

“They’re all drunk,” Eddy said gloomily.

Charlie thought that was probably true, but the questions had to be asked. The throbbing in his head increased.

The fire brigade poured water and foam on the burning building for over an hour, before the Chief Fire Officer told Charlie that the fire was under control. Judging from the absence of flames and smoke, this meant the fire was what Charlie would have called out.

“We’ll stay and keep an eye on things. Sometimes, they flare up again,” he said. “Then we can have a look around in the morning and see what’s what. How did it start?”

“No idea,” Charlie said, “but I dare say I’ll be spending the next few days finding out.” He rubbed his face, now coated with smoke particles as well as sweat. his hands felt gritty against his skin. Had this been ‘high spirits’ aka drunken idiocy, or something more sinister? Too early to tell. Lack of sleep was beginning to have an effect. Charlie felt weariness in his legs and the headache got worse. He told himself that he’d be fine, and went to join Patsy, Eddy and the crowds around the crime scene tape. It seemed as if half the town had gathered, some of them with bed hair and dressing gowns.

Neighbouring shop owners had been alerted by the town grapevine. The buildings on each side appeared undamaged by fire but would have probably taken in enough smoke and water to necessitate a lot of cleaning and probably a series of irritating and expensive conversations with their insurance companies. One was a small boutique, the other an estate agent. The owner of the estate agency, Huw Jones, made a beeline for Charlie, accompanied by a smartly dressed woman he introduced as Corrine Bailey, his Llanfair branch manager. The downside of small-towns, Charlie thought, everyone knows who you are, even in the middle of the night. Corrine Bailey he didn’t know, and he wondered at her outfit, which was more appropriate for work than a night out.

The burned building had been offered for sale by Jones and Company; their red and white sale board had joined the glass and other debris on the pavement. The empty shop had been a pizzeria and kebab shop, catering mainly to students. The business had moved to new and bigger premises a few weeks before, with special offers and a big fanfare. Charlie’s stomach rumbled with the remembrance of some excellent pizza. He could do with it now … he pushed the thought aside …

“What’s upstairs?” Charlie asked Jones. The building was three storeys high, and there were a lot of flats over shops in the town.

“Storerooms and offices,” Jones told him. “Could have been turned into flats, but who wants to live above a kebab shop? Basically, empty space.”

“Who owns it?” Charlie asked.

“I do,” Jones said. “Or rather, the business owns it. We leased it to the Hassans, and when the lease ended, they moved to the bigger shop round the corner. We own that, too.”

Small towns, Charlie thought, again. But was there any significance to the burned building having been associated with a Muslim family? A Muslim family who now operated from somewhere else? He shook his head in an attempt to clear it. The attempted siesta he’d had earlier was a distant memory, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. And he hadn’t spoken to Tom since he’d left for work the day before, but he wasn’t going to think about that. He would sleep in the break room at the police station in case anything else happened in the night. Tom would understand. Charlie sent him a text. He didn’t wait for the answer before heading back to the police station and his bed of nails He was being unfair to Tom, he knew that, but he didn’t want to risk saying something critical about Tom’s daughters and widening the rift with his husband. Better to keep away.