Flare (29 page)

“Become romantically involved?”  I said it light-heartedly but I could feel my pulse racing.

She nodded.  “If you want to sound like a Mills & Boon novel, sure”.

“I usually try and avoid that”.

“Good choice, but let me finish before I run out of steam, ok?”

I nodded.  “Sure”.

“Now all of my training tells me that being
romantically involved
with someone you may need to put your life on the line for is a bad idea, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t… ah bollocks, well I just like you, ok?”

Her cheeks were burning, and I wondered where the competent soldier had vanished to as she stared rigidly through the windscreen.  The other thing that confused me was how at odds this sudden awkwardness was with the way she’d acted in the shop in Maidenhead when we’d been getting changed.  I sighed and shook my head, wondering if I’d ever be smart enough to understand a woman properly.

“Well thank you, for everything”, I said with what felt like my first genuine smile in days, “and for the record, there’s
no one
I would rather have had with me”.

She smiled back, then glanced up at the sky.  “Looks like rain”.

I followed her gaze to see dark clouds scudding in from the northwest, still in the distance but moving closer.  Neither of us voiced the worry we shared, that the clouds would be carrying irradiated water from the power plant, but Emily picked up speed and I leaned forwards as if it would help us travel faster.

We hit Woodford village at a steady sixty, only Emily’s excellent reflexes keeping us on all four wheels as she took corners that were made for half that speed, and as the neat, detached and semi-detached houses flashed past, I saw one or two people out in their gardens, presumably drawn by the noise of or approach.

“Next left”, I said, and Emily swung the wheel, almost colliding with a van that had been abandoned in the road.  I didn’t bother telling her to slow down, instead keeping my eyes on the advancing clouds through the treetops that lined the backs of the nearby gardens.

“Second right, then the last bungalow at the end of the Close, number seventeen”.

I could barely believe that we were so close, and despite my best efforts I found myself fidgeting like a schoolboy, knees bouncing up and down as I balanced on the balls of my feet.

Emily finally slowed as we turned into the Close, and I pointed to the bungalow at the end, separated from its neighbours by lovingly tended gardens on one side and a garage and driveway on the other.

The Landrover pulled to a halt, the engine falling silent.  I reached for the door handle but paused, turning to see Emily watching me.

“I’m scared”.  Of what I might find, or might not find, but I didn’t need to say that, the look in her eyes told me she understood.

“Whatever we find, we do it together”, she said, reaching for my hand and squeezing it.

I nodded and we got out.  I waited for her to come round the vehicle, and she surprised me by taking my hand again, holding it tight while the other hefted her pistol.

I was about to tell her that she didn’t need it, but then what did I know?

We approached slowly, footsteps loud on the paved path that led to the front door, blue paint faded but still good and the brass knocked in the shape of a lion with the ring in its mouth just as I remembered it.

I came to a stop, one foot on the brown doormat while the other seemed unwilling to leave the path.  Net curtains prevented us from seeing anything through the windows but even so the house felt empty, abandoned.

I took a deep breath and grabbed the brass ring, slamming it against the strike plate three times in quick succession.

The hollow knocking echoed in the silent street, my shoulder blades itching as if someone was watching us.

Ten seconds passed, then twenty, and still no answer, no sound of rushing feet from within.

Bending to the letter box I pushed the flap open and called through the hole.

“Melody, it’s dad.  Are you here?”

Nothing.  I could smell spoiled food and the stink of a latrine through the narrow slit, and dread touched my heart.  Someone had been living here, and fairly recently too, but if it was someone I knew then surely they would have answered by now.

Exchanging a glance with Emily, I lifted the mat and was rewarded by the sparkle of the spare key as sunlight hit it.  I picked it up with shaking hands and tried to put it in the lock, metal rattling against metal as my nerves got the better of me.

Emily took the key and slid it into the lock, turning it smoothly and pushing the door open.

The smell hit me like a smack to the nose.  Half gagging, I stepped back with a hand covering my mouth.  Whoever had been living here had clearly been using the toilet just inside the front door for days, and clouds of buzzing flies swarmed around the unflushable waste.

Squaring my shoulders, I stepped through the doorway and into the hall, the soft beige carpet newer than the one I remembered.  Photographs of Angie, her brother Doug and Melody lined the walls in small, neat frames, while the telephone table just outside the toilet held a picture of Angie’s parents, Frank and Rita, smiling and holding hands in front of the Blackpool tower.

The lounge was at the back, next to the kitchen, and I led Emily that way, glancing into the bedrooms as we passed but seeing no sign of life.

The lounge was large and airy, with two sofas and several chairs, all angled towards the large TV that sat on the wall above the old fireplace.  The room was a mess, books, magazines and empty tins of food scattered everywhere, while the net curtains that covered the patio doors looked as though someone had used them as toilet paper.

Heart in mouth, I crossed to the kitchen, flinging open the door and finding even worse devastation.  Not only was every surface littered with empty food tins and packets, many with mould growing in them, but every drawer and cupboard had been turned out, contents spilled onto the floor and then seemingly kicked here and there.

The large larder on the far side of the kitchen stood open, and even from here I could see that not a single bean remained.  All eight large shelves were empty, enough food to keep a family going for a month vanished.

I stood and stared, wondering what had happened, where my little girl was and if she had been here when the house was ransacked.  The thought was enough to shake me out of the haze of fear and uncertainty that had fallen over me, anger replacing it in a flash.

I spun on my heel and headed back down the hall to the bedrooms, first checking Frank and Rita’s.  The bed was unmade, clods of dirt smeared on the end of the duvet, and the usual clutter on Rita’s dresser had been swept onto the floor to create a pile of powder, paint and perfume that almost covered the smell from the toilet.

Almost knocking into Emily, I went to the room nearest the front door and flung it open.  This was the guest room, the room that Melody would use if she was staying here.

My heart almost broke as I stepped through the doorway.  Melody’s Minnie Mouse sleeping bag, a gift for her seventh birthday, lay unzipped in the middle of the double bed, the inside stained with mud or worse.  Her travel case, battered, bright pink and painfully familiar from her weekends with me, lay on one side on the floor next to the bed, the contents trampled and kicked about.

And there, on the small table next to the bed, sat Melody’s diary, the one thing in the world I knew that she would never go anywhere without, and seeing that, I knew that something terrible had happened to my little girl.

Sinking to the bed, I placed my face in my hands and I wept as my world fell apart.

Chapter
47

Tuesday 15
th
September.

Dear diary,
today has been weerd.  My dad called me last night and told me all the electricity would go off and then it did while we were talking.  I woke mum and she told me I was dreaming but then I made her look at the sky and she saw it was all different colours like a night rainbow and she got scared. She tried to call a taxi to go to nana and grandpops house but the phone wasnt working and then the house next door caught fire so she made me pack my case and we took my bike and we ran.  she tried to get a taxi on the street but no cars were going anywhere and there were lots of fires. A man ran past us screeming with his hair on fire and mummy got even more scared but I wasnt two scared because dad told me he would come and get me. Mum wanted to get a train or a bus but everyone was screeming and shouting and there were no buses so we walked and ran.  I tried to tell her about flares from the sun but she wasnt listening. It only takes half an hour to get to nana and grandpops in a taxi but its much longer walking.  Everywhere was on fire and I saw a dead woman hanging out of her window.  It made me sick. Some other people were walking too and one man tried to steal mums suitcase but she took her shoe off and hit him with the heel until blood came out of ears.  That made me sick too.  We walked all night and I wanted to leave my bike because I was tired pushing it but mum said if anyone tried to hurt us and she said it I should get on and ride to nanas.  When it was morning we got to woodford and then we got to nanas.  Grandpops was standing in the front garden waiting for us and they took us in and nana made me spaghetti hoops but she had to use the bbq in the back garden for the pan because her cooker didnt work.  Were here now and dad said he would come for me.  I told mum and she got angry.  I’m tired and I’m going to sleep.

Fat teardrops spattered the page of the diary, smudging the broad blue pen-strokes that I knew so well.  Every word was like a stabbing pain in the chest but I forced myself to continue the way one pokes at an open wound.

Thursday 17
th
September

Dear diary, the toilet doesnt work and I can smell it in my bedroom.  The shower in nana and grandpops room doesnt work either. Mum keeps trying to use the phone in the hall but grandpops got angry with her this morning and they shouted at each other a lot.  Nana tried to stop it like she always does when they fight but mum stormed out and left. Sometimes I think that I’m the grownup.  Its evening now and mum still hasnt come back.  I’m worried about her and I asked grandpops if I could go and look for her but he said she would come back. He looked scared when he said it though.  I think he wants to go and look for her.  I told him I could use my bike and cycle away from anyone nasty but he wouldnt let me go.  I cant see very well because its getting dark so I’ll let you know tomorrow.

I ran a hand over the page, touching the paper as if I could connect with Melody.  Emily sat next to me on the bed, reading over my shoulder as she gripped my arm with both hands.  Tears streaked her face and I saw my own pain mirrored there as we read on.

Friday 19
th
September.

Grandpops went looking for mum last night and he didnt come back either.  Nana keeps crying and I cant make her happy but I’m scared too so we both cry.  She keeps making food but I cant eat.  I want dad to come. If he comes I know he will find mum and grandpops and well be ok.  I had to poo in the garden today because the toilet is too full.  Nana says grandpops will fix it when he gets back but I dont think he’s coming back.  I’m scared.

Friday again some men have come to the house and nana thought it was mum and grandpops and she opened the door and they came in and made us sit on the sofa while they started eating all the food without cooking it and one of them took a poo behind the sofa and it smells and then he used the curtains instead of paper because we haven’t got any left. I felt sick and I tried to run away but they shut me in the bedroom and then I heard nana fighting with them but they went outside and then I couldnt hear her anymore.  I HATE THEM

My hands almost tore the diary in two as they clenched into fists.  My throat burned with the need to find these men, to tear them apart with fingers and teeth if I had to, to find out what they had done with my daughter.
  I thought I’d felt rage before but that paled into laughable comparison to this, this
inferno
that raged inside me.

I sprang up from the bed, almost sending Emily flying.

“Malc”, she said, but I shook my head, unable and unwilling to hear anything that wasn’t the screams of the men who had hurt my little girl.

Images that no parent should have to face sprang to mind, feeding the flames until I felt as if I was going to burst.

I needed air, needed space to breathe before I exploded, but as I reached for the front door I heard a sound that froze me to the spot, hand halfway to the handle.

Melody’s bike bell.

It was ringing frantically out in the street as if in warning.  My hand moved again, flinging the door open as I raced out, feet barely touching the ground as I hurtled towards the Landrover and the three figures next to it.

Two were scruffy, unkempt figures, men in their late twenties and filthy clothes, but it was the third person that drew all my attention.

Sitting on her bike, wearing a stained pink t-shirt and grubby jeans, her hair greasy and matted to her head, was Melody.  One of the men had a black-fingernailed hand held casually around her throat while the other man examined the Landrover.