Page 61 of Worse Than Murder (DCI Matilda Darke Thriller #13)

C laire looks at her Apple Watch. It’s three minutes past midnight.

She’s pleased she’s not alone in the house.

She hates Geraint working nights while she’s stuck at home on her own, but right now, she wishes she was in bed rather than sitting in a parked car outside Nature’s Diner keeping an eye on the place.

Sally, very kindly, has given her a flask of coffee and a selection of cakes.

Claire had hoped they’d see her through the night, but she scoffed the lot in under an hour and the coffee has almost gone, too.

It’s going to be a long night. Surely, she could have sat in the restaurant, rather than a cramped car?

She looks around at her surroundings, lit up brilliantly by the huge moon in the cloudless sky. It’s peaceful, relaxing, inspiring, marred only by the fact that Claire is now desperately in need of a pee.

She climbs out of the car and looks around her. Philip pointed out where the CCTV cameras are, so she trots off into the woods to find a private spot behind a tree. She can’t get there quickly enough.

Claire is a good five minutes, squatting in the woods.

She walks back, guided by the light of the moon and stops dead at the police car.

The driver’s door is wide open. She knows for a fact she closed it, because she quietly clicked it into place so as not to wake anyone in the restaurant, particularly the cute dogs.

She looks around but there’s nobody there.

It’s as quiet as the grave. She can hear her own heart beating in her chest. If someone approached the car, she would have heard them as they’d likely have broken a dried twig underfoot.

She leans down into the car, picks up the radio and is about to call in when she’d grabbed from behind.

A hand is placed over her mouth, and she’s dragged out of the car.

She tries to fight back, scrambling with the gloved hand, but it’s no use.

Her oxygen supply is being cut off. Her vision is blurring and she’s struggling to breathe.

Whoever has got hold of her is much stronger than she is.

As Claire passes out, all she can think about is the damage being done to her unborn baby.

* * *

It’s easy to break into the restaurant. The door leading into the kitchen is still damaged from the last attempt.

The intruder walks, calmly, noiselessly, through the utility room, into the kitchen, up the steps into the restaurant, through the dining area, then down the stairs to the basement.

The wall has half been taken down, revealing the true back of the building.

On the floor are broken bricks, instruments the crime scene investigators have left behind and a set of ladders.

She places the ladder against the broken wall and ascends.

Once at the top, she peers over and into the dark abyss below.

Shining a torch from her jacket pocket, the body is revealed to her for the first time in almost thirty years.

There is Jack Pemberton, looking up, as if pleading to be let out.

He’s mummified. His face is leathered and worn.

He looks like a hideous Halloween figure, something from an old horror film.

Their eyes lock. Real human eyes against hollowed dead ones.

From her backpack, she takes out a plastic petrol canister, unscrews the lid and pours it into the hole. From her pocket, she takes a box of matches, strikes one, and tosses it inside. She watches as the dry clothes catch fire. The flames lick high.

She jumps down from the ladder, runs into the restaurant and back the way she came in, out into the open night air.

* * *

I can’t sleep. Nothing unusual there. I’m trying to think of something; to slot a piece into place, but I don’t know which piece, or into which puzzle it’s supposed to fit.

It also doesn’t help that the curtains haven’t been closed properly and the sodding light from the moon is shining through the gap.

Adele is snoozing beside me, mouth agape, snoring gently. She was asleep within minutes of getting into bed. Lucky cow.

I get out of bed. I need darkness to be able to sleep. Maybe I should buy an eye mask. I peel back the curtains to look out at the clear night sky. I have never seen the moon so big before in my life. It’s huge. I could almost reach out and touch it.

I’m about to close the curtain when something catches my eye. I look down and see a figure in dark clothing running from the side of the restaurant towards the woods. Before they enter, they stop and look back, and I get a full glimpse of their face.

‘What the fu…?’ My words are cut off by the sound of the smoke alarm.

I look around, take in Adele’s sleeping form, and run out of the room. At the top of the stairs, I look down and see whispers of smoke gently float in from the restaurant below.

‘Fuck!’

This makes no sense. Why? Why would she do this?

I run back into the bedroom and shake Adele hard awake while I’m hunting around for my jeans which I quickly put on and slip my feet into trainers.

‘What?’ Adele asks, grumpy. ‘If you tell me I’m snoring, I’ll…’

‘The restaurant’s on fire,’ I say over her.

‘What?’ She’s more alert now.

‘There’s a fire. We need to get out. Quickly, get dressed. I’ll wake the others.’

I run along the corridor and bang on Sally and Philip’s door. I open the door to Carl’s bedroom and see he’s already awake, sitting up, rubbing his eyes. I don’t want to panic him, but the look on his face tells me he’s heard the alarms. He knows something is wrong.

‘Carl, sweetheart, get dressed as quickly as you can. We need to get out.’

‘What? Why? What’s…’ he pauses and listens. ‘Is there a fire?’

‘Yes. You need…’

‘Matilda?’

I turn and see Philip coming out of his bedroom, hastily putting on jogging bottoms.

‘Philip, the restaurant is on fire. We need to leave now.’

He goes over to the stairs and looks down. He coughs as the smoke catches the back of his throat. ‘Oh my God! Carl! Sally!’

‘I’ve got Carl. Go and get Sally.’

Adele comes running out of the bedroom, mobile phone slapped to her ear.

‘Fire,’ she says, urgently. ‘You’ve put my jeans on,’ she says to me.

I look down and see I’m wearing her indigo skinny jeans.

‘Hello, yes, there’s a fire at Nature’s Diner in High Chapel.

We’re trapped inside. There’s five of us and two dogs. ’

I turn back to Carl. There are tears welling up in his eyes. ‘We’re going to die, aren’t we?’

I bend down to his height and hold him by the shoulders. ‘No. I promised you I wouldn’t let that happen. I meant every word.’

‘We can’t survive fire. Nobody can.’

‘I’m going to get us out. You trust me, don’t you?’ He nods. ‘Good. Hold the dogs by their collars. Don’t let them go. Keep them calm.’

‘Carl!’ Sally screams as she races out of the bedroom struggling to put on her trousers.

‘It’s all right. He’s with me.’

Sally grabs him and holds him tightly to her chest. ‘What are we going to do? How are we going to get out?’

‘Is there any way we can drop down from up here?’ I ask Philip. He shakes his head.

‘The fire crew are on their way,’ Adele says.

‘There isn’t a local fire brigade,’ Sally says through her tears. ‘It could take twenty minutes. We’ll be dead by then.’

‘Mum,’ Carl whimpers, holding onto her tight.

‘We’re practically three floors up with the raised ground floor,’ Philip says. ‘We can’t jump down.’

‘Is there a ladder?’

‘Yes. In the garage.’

‘Okay. I’m going to go down, see if I can get out through the front of the restaurant. You all go to the other side of the building. I’ll put the ladder up and you all climb down.’

‘What about Woodys?’ Carl cries.

I look back. I’d forgotten about the dogs, momentarily.

‘I’m not leaving my dogs.’

‘No. I’m not asking you to.’

I look at Philip. I see the worry in his eyes. I’m guessing he can see the same in mine.

‘I’m coming with you,’ he says.

‘No!’ Sally cries.

Adele takes charge. ‘Sally, Carl, you two come with me. We’ll go into the bedroom, close the door and put wet towels down at the bottom. That will give Matilda and Philip plenty of time to get outside and get a ladder.’ She ushers them into the bedroom.

‘How are we going to get the Woodys out?’ Carl says, his voice lost to tears.

I don’t hear Adele’s reply.

Me and Philip are left on the landing that is rapidly filling with smoke. Philip pulls his sleeve over his hand and places it firmly around his mouth and nose.

He goes first, slowly edging down the stairs. I follow closely behind. As we descend, we can feel the heat becoming more intense. The noise of the flames cracking, destroying everything in their path is deafening. From below, glass breaks and small explosions break out.

‘That’ll be the alcohol exploding,’ I shout. I can barely hear my own voice above the sound of destruction.

The door from the restaurant is blown off, landing at the bottom of the stairs. A cloud of acrid smoke and orange flame engulfs the hallway. We fall back against the stairs. We’re only halfway down.

I feel something behind me. I hardly have chance to turn and look when I notice one of the dogs push past me in a panic and run down the stairs.

‘Woody!’ I call out.

The Labrador jumps over the burning door and heads for the kitchen.

‘We should follow him,’ I shout into Philip’s ear. ‘It’s now or never.’

We run down the rest of the stairs, jump over the flames, and into the smoke-filled kitchen. I slam the door closed behind me. Woody is by the exit door, barking loudly to be let out.

‘Where’s the key?’ I ask Philip.

‘Upstairs on my bedside table.’

I cough. ‘We need to break it down.’

‘It’s a security door. We should have turned right, gone through the utility.’

An explosion behind us rips off the door to the hallway. A brilliant burst of flames runs along the ceiling. Woody barks. We both scream in horror. I can almost smell my hair singeing.

‘We’re getting out of this fucking building, Phil.’

I grab a heavy food mixer from the stainless-steel island and hurl it at the window. It bounces right off and hits the floor.

‘Fuck!’ I scream.

Philip opens the cupboard beneath the sink.

He pulls out a small fire extinguisher, handy for a small kitchen fire, but useless against a massive blaze.

He jumps up onto the draining board and hammers the glass with the steel extinguisher.

The glass splinters but doesn’t break. He pauses to cough, slowly becoming overcome by the smoke.

He tries again, smacking the extinguisher hard.

Eventually, the glass breaks. He clears the rest of the window with the extinguisher, grabs a towel and places it over the rim before stepping to one side and telling me to jump out first.

I grab Woody, hurl him up onto the sink and shove him out of the window, following rapidly behind him. Then, Philip jumps down, extinguisher still in his hands, and we run towards the garage.

* * *

Upstairs, Sally is comforting Carl as he’s in tears, gripping hold of the one Woody he had left. He didn’t notice the other run down the stairs until it was too late. He begged and pleaded with his mother to let him go after him, but she refused.

Adele runs into the en suite, grabs as many towels as she can, soaks them in cold water from the shower and places them in front of the closed bedroom door. The room is cloudy with smoke, but they’re still able to breathe. Just.

Adele goes over to the window and throws it open.

She takes in great lungfuls of fresh, clean air and hopes Matilda and Philip have managed to get out.

While at the bedroom door, all she could hear were the sounds of exploding bottles and the fire eating away at everything it touched.

She looks down at the drop below and straight away dismisses jumping.

It’s too far. She strains, over the sounds of the fire below, to listen out for any sirens, but can’t hear any.

She turns back and looks at Carl and Sally, holding each other for support.

She squats down beside them, wraps her arms around both of them, feels the cold wet nose of Woody on her arm, and closes her eyes.