very welcome shriek of a siren.
Hands folded against her chest, Katie began to jump up and down. ‘They’re here!’ she yelled, silent tears slipping silently down her face.
Both women watched with relief as the engine drew up outside the house, disgorging several capable-looking uniformed figures. The noise of their arrival had attracted the attention of several neighbours in the tree-lined avenue, who came outdoors to investigate the activity in the normally sedate neighbourhood.
‘Have I ever told you about my fireman fantasy?’ Sadie caught the tail-end of Katie’s incredulous expression and looked sheepish. ‘Well, you have Nikos—you can hardly begrudge me a fireman.’
‘He’s not my Nikos,’ Katie retorted.
‘If you say so, but be a sport, Katie, I’m trying to distract myself and that one—’ she pointed ‘—is absolutely gorgeous…’
Katie was no longer listening; she was busy running towards the fireman who had inspired Sadie’s lustful fantasy.
She caught his arm and tried to speak; considering the urgency of the occasion, this seemed a bad time to lose her voice. The fire-fighter, who was probably used to dealing with people gibbering with fear, exuded a calm aura that helped Katie finally get her words out.
‘Th-there’s a man still in there,’ she told him beckoning towards the window on the top floor.
‘Has he been in there long?’
Katie swallowed and pulled distractedly at her long hair. The sooty smell that came from it made her nose wrinkle—no doubt the rest of her smelt just as terrible and as for how she looked… Aah, how shallow am I, thinking about my lipstick when all this is going on? ‘I don’t know…it seems like a long time.’ Her lips trembled and she scrubbed at her dirty face. ‘It’s my fault,’ she confessed. ‘I think I left my iron on…I knew I’d forgotten something, and now I’ve killed N…Nikos and Alexander.’
‘There’s more than one person?’ he queried sharply.
‘Alexander is a cat,’ Sadie explained for the second time. ‘Katie, he’ll be fine. He didn’t look like an easy man to kill to me.’ Sadie smiled at the fire-fighter. ‘I’m the owner, officer.’
‘Hello. Is there any means of access other than the stairs?’
‘There is a fire escape around the side of the house.’
Katie, not placated, shrugged off the comforting arm that slid around her shoulders. ‘I’m a selfish cow, I sent him back in there for a…’ Her lips began to tremble as she fearfully contemplated the consequences of her actions.
Before she could reveal to the fireman what Nikos had gone back in for there was an almighty deafening explosion as her bedroom window exploded. The fireman, his arms outstretched, shielded the two women as glass from above showered on the garden below.
‘It would be better, ladies, if you waited a little farther back until the ambulance arrives.’
Katie saw his mouth move, she heard the words, but she felt as though she were in a black hole; she felt numb.
Sadie nodded, getting a firmer grip on the box containing family photos and treasures that she had automatically snatched up before they’d left the house. She urged Katie backwards while the burly fire-fighter, shouting instructions to his crew, strode off purposefully.
Katie resisted and Sadie looked with concern as the slim figure who was standing gazing with horror-filled eyes at the wicked tongues of orange flames shooting out of the window pushed her away.
‘Come on, Katie, we should get out of their way,’ Sadie suggested gently. ‘Mrs James next door has put the kettle on.’
Katie, her arms wrapped tightly about herself, continued to rock back and forth. Under the layer of grime her skin was paper-white. ‘He’s dead, isn’t he? I mean, if he was in there he has to be, doesn’t he? Nobody could survive that.’
Sadie shrugged helplessly. ‘I really don’t know.’ The muffled keening sound that suddenly emerged from Katie’s bloodless lips before she choked it back made the hairs on the back of Sadie’s neck stand on end.
The next sequence of events occurred with such bewildering speed that Sadie didn’t have a chance to do anything but yell a warning to the fire-fighters as her friend, running as if all the fiends of hell were at her heels, suddenly began to pelt towards the door of the house.
Katie was never going to make it there, the two fire-fighters aiming to cut her off were closing fast, but before they had an opportunity to do so she tripped and fell. Though she landed on her knees it was the sharp pain that shot through her ankle as it turned awkwardly that made her cry out.
Just what I need—a sprained ankle, or, the way this day is going, it will probably be broken!
Impatiently brushing the tears of self-pity and impatience from her face, Katie squared her shoulders and, catching her soft lower lip between her teeth, concentrated her efforts on getting to her feet.
So far, so good, she thought as she tentatively took a cautious step; to her relief her ankle hurt but it took her weight. Wincing, she hobbled over to a convenient Japanese flowering cherry tree that was shedding its sweet-smelling blossoms onto the damp grass below and leaned against the trunk.
She gazed towards the house. The fire crew, seeing she was not seriously hurt and no longer capable of dashing headlong into a burning building, had turned their attention elsewhere.
Katie was pondering the compulsion that had been responsible for her stunt—as if I could do something the fire-fighters couldn’t—when she finally recognised what the fire crew had turned their attention to. A tall figure was emerging from the smoke.
‘Thank God!’
She watched through a teary haze of relief as a couple of paramedics headed purposefully towards Nikos. The incredible noise of a fire scene seemed to recede to a low background buzz and the hurrying figures appeared to slow; only her heart continued to beat fast, so fast she could feel the vibration of each inhalation in her throat. She lifted a hand to her spinning head; each breath she took was an effort.
If I faint now he’ll probably accuse me of faking it to steal his moment of triumph. Only she didn’t faint, the nervous tension found a more prosaic release.
‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ she gulped to nobody in particular, before she quietly did just that—not that anyone noticed; they were all crowding around Nikos.
Trust him to turn out to be a hero…it was a part he was born to play, she thought, a wry but relieved smile on her face as she leaned back against the tree trunk.
CHAPTER SIX
THE hero was clearly not comfortable with his moment of fame.
‘I am fine.’ The cough that followed this impatient pronouncement did not add weight to his claim. Ignoring a recommendation to breathe deeply, Nikos pushed aside the oxygen mask that someone was trying to slip over his head. ‘I don’t need that!’
‘You’ve inhaled a lot
