A Cast of Vultures Read online

  ‘Sure, if you want.’

  He looked over his shoulder. Not casual at all, said his body language.

  I put my book down. ‘You thought I’d say no?’

  He gave that little head shuffle that means it was fifty-fifty. ‘I thought you might not want to. You don’t like pubs, you don’t like socialising, and you don’t like strangers.’

  ‘What better way to spend a Sunday, then, than socialising with strangers in a pub?’ My voice was light, but I was shocked that he thought I wouldn’t be willing to spend time with his friends. I thought about our life. He’d met some of my friends, although his work schedule meant that I saw them more often on my own. It was only recently that Jake had told his superiors that I – someone he’d met in an official CID capacity – was in his life. Before that, he couldn’t have introduced me to any of his work friends even if he’d wanted to, and afterwards we’d kept to the same pattern, probably mostly driven by inertia, but also, I now recognised, driven by my dislike, as Jake had so neatly put it, of pubs, socialising and strangers. That wasn’t good. I didn’t want my introversion to keep him from his friends.

  ‘Sunday, then,’ I said. ‘It’s a date.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  I WAS IN THE pub, socialising with strangers, when the fire alarm went off. We continued to talk, assuming it was a false alarm, but the volume increased, the endless woop-woop making conversation impossible. I said to the group around me, ‘I guess I shouldn’t have had that sneaky cigarette while I was standing under the smoke detector,’ and they laughed. I did too, because I don’t smoke. But the fire alarm didn’t give up – woop-woop, it went, getting louder and louder.

  It wasn’t my cigarette that had set it off, I decided. It was a stronger smell than that. I was trying to work out why someone would be burning toast in a pub when the dream broke. No pub, no sneaky cigarettes, not even any toast. The woop-woop was my alarm clock, and it was morning. I reached out and grappled on the bedside table. Still in a deep sleep haze, I had hit several buttons on the clock before I was awake enough to remember that not only did I not smoke, my radio just switched on in the morning – I didn’t have an alarm that went woop-woop. I opened my eyes. It was too dark to be morning. The woop-woop was coming from the street.

  I sat up and turned on the light. Half past two, and Jake’s side of the bed was empty, the sheets tossed back.

  The sitting room was lit up like a stage set when I walked in. It wasn’t half past two there, it was high noon. Still no Jake. I peered out the front window. What looked like every resident on the street was outside, standing around in dressing gowns or a mix ’n’ match of clothes dragged on in the dark. As I watched, a policeman headed up the road, his arms spread wide, gesturing the bystanders back as though they were a Jumbo coming in to land.

  I found some shoes and went out to join the dressing-gown contingent. As soon as I opened the front door, I could see, and smell, everything. The pub on the corner was on fire, and the woop-woop was more engines arriving.

  I’d laughed when Jake had suggested I might have gone to watch a car burn, but standing there, I realised why people did. In Canada, when I was a child, I’d once gone whale-watching on the St Lawrence. There’s one area in the river where a specific type of algae, or seaweed, or plankton, or whatever it is, is plentiful, and the whales migrate there for a seasonal all-you-can-eat buffet. Or those were the jokes we made onshore. Once we were in the boat, it was a different story. The organisers apologised: we would only see minke whales that day, the ‘only’ because minke whales are the smallest of the whales found there, and we wouldn’t get the full experience. Then a pod surfaced. Each of those small whales was the size of a city block, the height of an apartment building. It wasn’t that they were beautiful, although they were, or that viewing them was interesting, although it was. It was that there, suddenly, on a perfectly ordinary day, were creatures on a scale so far outside our experience that we barely knew how to respond.

  The fire was like that. If you’d asked me beforehand, I would have guessed that it would have been a visual experience. Instead, the heat pushed at us like a living thing, while the noise, the hissing and crackling, was even more aggressively alive. And it was an emotional experience, fiercer, and more beautiful, than I could have imagined. Like the whales, here, suddenly, on a perfectly ordinary day, in a perfectly ordinary street, was a sight so far outside my experience I barely knew how to respond. The term ‘force of nature’ is a cliché, and a particularly colourless one. Until I was faced by an animal the size of a row of houses, or a fire that was devouring a building alive, and then I understood it. This was why people stood and stared, or ran to watch. Not because they were ghouls, hoping for something nasty, but because what they were seeing was almost incomprehensible in scale.

  So I stood and stared, like everyone else. I don’t know for how long, but when an arm went around my shoulders, I was so absorbed in that crazed, destructive beauty that I jumped and gave a yelp. Jake was amused. ‘Promise me you’ll tell everyone here that that’s not how you usually react when I touch you.’

  I shook my head sorrowfully. ‘Too late. They’ve seen it now. They’ll never believe all those lies I tell to cover this tragic reality.’

  He laughed and let go. ‘I came to tell you to get dressed. They want to move everyone further down the street. I’ll go for Mr Rudiger. And have you seen the Lewises? Are they out here?’ He looked around. He was dressed already, which didn’t surprise me. I knew from experience with late-night work calls that he could move from deep sleep to being out the door in less time than it took him to say ‘I’m on my way’.

  ‘I saw Kay and Anthony, but not Bim. I’ll tell them they need to wake him.’ Then I processed what he’d said. ‘Moving us? Why? Is the fire spreading?’

  His voice was professionally soothing. ‘No, no. But it’s a dead-end street, and the route out is past the pub: they want a controlled exit until the fire has been contained. It’s nothing more than that.’ Some uniformed police appeared behind him, and they were saying the same thing, in the same professionally soothing tone. There must have been a class in it at cop school: Soothing 101.

  It worked, though. I turned to go, professionally soothed and merely asking, ‘How long do you think we’ll be out? Should I get my bag and office clothes?’

  ‘Whatever’s quickest.’ He looked at his watch. ‘They want everyone out in the next ten minutes, so hop it.’

  I hopped it. I was dressed and heading back out as Jake came down the stairs with Mr Rudiger in front of him. He looked as if he were off to sit in a café and watch the world go by.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said. Mr Rudiger might not go out, but nothing ruffled his calm.

  I snorted a small laugh. ‘Good morning to you, too. Have you got’ – I wasn’t sure what it was he should have, because I didn’t know how long we’d be out of the house. So I handed Jake his wallet and phone, which I’d collected along with my things, and ended with a vague – ‘whatever you need? Where’s Bim?’ I looked around the hallway, as though he might be lurking under the doormat.

  ‘Outside already, and having a wonderful time.’ Jake had designated himself hall monitor for our building.

  As we walked down the front path we were met by a clipboard-carrying woman in a high-vis jacket. We confirmed that everyone was out of our house, and I added that the neighbours to the left were on holiday, and had no pets. She checked us and them off, and handed us over to another high-vis-er, to be escorted in groups past the pub. It was like being back in kindergarten, although with more dramatic lighting. I was surprised we weren’t made to hold hands with a responsible adult.

  We were permitted to stop a few hundred metres down the road. Jake had already disappeared again. Mr Rudiger took up a perch on a neighbour’s garden wall and nodded back towards the fire. ‘Over there, on the right.’

  I looked. Jake was standing with a woman who was pointing to the rear of the pub. Then part of the fire
crew moved between us, and I couldn’t see him anymore.

  ‘He’ll let us know what he’s found out when he’s back.’ I rethought that. ‘Or some of it.’ The flames that had been visible through the upstairs window of the pub were gone now. The noise, which had been almost overpowering, had altered. The whoosh of the flames, their hiss and splatter, had lessened, and instead the sound of water being pumped out predominated, a steady, even stream of sound that soothed, rather than the erratic crackle and roar of the fire that had exhilarated, but also threatened. Another sense took over. The smell, of smoke and soot, had worked its way into my dream, but after a few minutes outside I’d become accustomed to it, and had stopped noticing it. Now a heavy blanket of smell predominated, no longer the smell of burning, but the smell of wet wood, wet charcoal, wet plaster. As with the empty house, but stronger, just the smell of burnt wet.

  We sat watching, mesmerised, barely speaking. There must have been over a hundred people on the street – the fifty or so from our road, who had been forced to leave their houses, and then more from the houses and flats nearby, people who had come out to see what was happening, and had stayed, captured by the fire. As it got later, more kept arriving from nearby streets, having woken up and heard the news. Further down the road was a group of teenagers. I waved to Sam, who was on the edge of the group. He waved back, but furtively. I understood. Being on waving terms with a middle-aged woman wasn’t going to do his street-cred any good.

  It was more than an hour later, when the fire was no longer visible, and the fire crew were no longer moving at a frantic pace, when I looked at my watch: nearly five. I turned to Mr Rudiger. ‘What are you going to do? Do you want to use my phone to ring your daughter?’

  He thought for a moment. ‘Not yet. If they don’t let us go back inside in the next hour or two, I’ll call then.’

  I considered my options. I could go to the café and get coffee, and then go to work. If I went to Jake’s, I could have the coffee and also a shower. I sniffed at myself, not that that told me anything, since the fire smell was everywhere. Even with a shower, my clothes were going to reek, and I didn’t have any office clothes at his place. I could go to Helena’s, which was closer, and have the coffee and shower there too, but I’d be no better off in the clothes department. We were the same height, but there the physical resemblance ended. She looked like Tinkerbell’s smarter sister; I was closer to a baroque putto, but with more chest. And without the trumpet.

  Decision made. ‘I’m going down to the café. It must be open by now. Are you ready for coffee?’ I asked Mr Rudiger. A redundant question. He was always as ready for coffee as I was.

  Kay, on his other side, reached into her bag. ‘I’m in. And maybe some juice for Bim? Let me give you some money. I’d come to help, but …’ She had one finger firmly hooked into the collar of Bim’s T-shirt as he strained against it, his body yearning towards the fire engines like a mini Leaning Tower of Pisa, his eyes as bright as the flames had been. This was, by far, the best day of his entire life.

  I was pleased she wasn’t going to come with me, although I didn’t say so. Kay is one of the most elegant-looking people I know, and if there’s anything she can drop, or knock over, or bump into, in a five-kilometre radius, she’ll drop, or knock over or bump into it. Then she’ll knock into the person helping her up. And then drop whatever it is again. It’s better to keep her away from hot liquids whenever possible. So I waved away her cash and headed down the road. At the corner, a figure peeled off from the group there. Sam. Either he thought his friends wouldn’t notice, or food and drink overrode the need for cool. I gave him a ‘Hey’, and he shambled along behind me without speaking.

  Mo and another server had the café open, and were loading up trays with cups of tea and coffee. She gave me a smile as we came in, but didn’t pause in her pouring. When one tray was ready, she filled a bag with rolls, put it on top and handed it to Sam. ‘For the fire crew and the police. Not for you and your friends. If you send a couple of them down here, and if they do some carrying for the oldies, I’ll make up another tray for you.’

  Sam grinned. ‘Free food? They’ll help.’

  Mo handed me a matching tray and spoke to me as sternly as she had to Sam: ‘Are you going to be able to keep this to the people who are on the street because they have to be, not the ones who are sightseeing?’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’ I lied every time I spoke to Mo. I had no idea how I could accomplish what she was asking – check IDs? Demand to see utility bills, to prove where they lived before handing over an Americano? I’d aim for the older people and children. The ones in the middle could either take themselves down to the café or do without.

  As we headed back up the hill, Sam shouted out to a few of his friends, sending them down the way we’d come, and we continued on towards the crowd. But before we’d gone far, Sam’s tray clattered, the hot liquid slopping around.

  I balanced mine carefully and turned, to see him staring back at his friends.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  He shook his head without replying. He wasn’t looking at the boys, I realised, but at a man standing slightly apart from them. The man felt his eyes on him, and looked up. He looked at Sam, no expression on his face, before turning and walking away.

  ‘Who was that?’

  ‘No one,’ said Sam shortly, turning and starting to walk again.

  ‘Didn’t look like no one. Looked like someone,’ I prodded.

  He scowled at me. Then, reluctantly, ‘A friend of Dennis,’ he said.

  I raised my eyebrows and waited.

  ‘One of those people I told you about. The ones that Dennis stayed friends with, even though …’

  ‘Who is he?’

  Sam stopped dead and looked at me sternly. ‘Don’t you go near him. Just don’t.’ If he hadn’t been carrying a tray, he would have crossed his arms, and possibly called me ‘young lady’.

  ‘I’m just asking about him.’

  He didn’t change his tone. ‘His name’s Kevin. I don’t know what his last name is, so that’s good. Because you don’t need to know.’

  He strode away, jaw fixed, and I followed. I reached Mr Rudiger without dropping anything, and rested the tray on the wall beside him.

  ‘I’ll help,’ said a confident bass voice.

  I turned. Azim. I looked around quickly. Seeing him, it now occurred to me that there’d been no sign of Viv. Given the last interaction she’d had with Azim, I was grateful, or we’d have the battle of the coffee cups, but it was unlike her to miss out on a big event. And it was just as unlikely to see Azim. He ran the newsagent, but that didn’t mean he lived nearby. He was standing in front of me, however, so it appeared that he did.

  I just nodded to him, and said, ‘Oldies first?’ as I began to pass out the cups. When the tray was empty, he picked it up and asked, ‘The station café?’ and was off for refills before I’d replied. Then he did the trip twice more, stopping and chatting to everyone, effortlessly separating the forcibly-out-of-their-houses-and-therefore-eligible-for-coffee sheep from the having-a-wonderful-time-sightseeing goats as he handed out cups.

  We continued to pass out and collect, and the crowd continued to grow as the news spread. Azim was now surrounded by a little pack of Neighbourhood Watch people – Sarah, I saw, was in her element, as was the social worker from the audience. Dan was there with his children, and even the suit from the church hall stood on the edge of the group, drawn, no doubt, by the crowd on his way to work.

  Jake wandered by at some point, with a ‘Don’t quote me, but you’ll probably be able to go home in the next hour or so’, so I decided it was worth waiting it out. I emailed Miranda to say I’d be in late, and then sat on the wall with Mr Rudiger. He was enjoying himself, I think, exchanging banalities with anyone who approached, in between looking on as if the events of the night had been laid on for his entertainment.

  Just before eight we were officially told we’d shortly be allowed back home.
Kay had vanished briefly, and I had a sleeping Bim on my lap. Azim and his helpers came and thunked down the last of the trays on the wall beside me, which had become, by unspoken agreement, the collection point for empty cups.

  ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘I’m Azim, from the newsagent’s at the station.’ He reached around me to shake hands with Mr Rudiger. The past few hours had produced a formula for meeting neighbours with acute bed-hair for the first time. The name-rank-serial-number introduction was: which street you lived in, how you had heard about the fire, a brief segue into opinions about the pub itself, and what you thought was likely to happen to it.

  Sarah overshared: she lived with her sister in a flat not far from our street; they’d been woken by the fire engines and were both there in the thick of it, although her sister didn’t attend the Neighbourhood Association meetings with any regularity. (Head shaking all round.) Dan we knew about. Mr Rudiger and Kay were both succinct, sticking to names and addresses. The suit didn’t give his name, just said his father lived nearby and he’d come over to make sure he was safe, staying afterwards, as he put it, ‘to gawp’.

  What a good son. Which reminded me. I fished out my phone and texted Helena. Just in case you hear, fire in my street during the night. We’re fine, damage to pub only. What a good daughter.

  By the time I looked up, one of the high-vis-ers was walking along the street, calling out that we could go back home.

  Kay moved to lift Bim off my lap, but the suit was faster. ‘Let me. He’s heavy.’ And he was walking with him towards our street before any of us had time to protest. His ‘This way?’ made up our minds, and we trailed along behind him, with Azim bringing up the rear.

  Jake met us just as we reached the pub, leaving behind a little cluster of police and fire investigators. Azim peeled off there too, his motivation in joining the residents becoming clear as he dawdled, waiting to get the scoop from the authorities.