Burn Patterns Read Online Free

of each child’s psychological make-up. They’d all need support, mostly, importantly, from their families. If the fire investigator upstairswas correct, this was not the work of a group of sick kids, which would mean less self-blame. On the other hand, the human mind did not cope well with the random. Until the cause could be discovered and fixed, fear was natural. The mind would try to find ways to connect selected dots. The human mind craved the comforts of cause and effect because it suggested the world was understandable, controllable and therefore safer next time.
    The police at the truck would need more support. If they’d accidently set something off, they would need serious rebuilding. Especially the person who told them to investigate the truck. ‘I thought …’ ‘You thought what?’ Blame. There are no accidents, only gross negligence. Someone would need to be blamed, not merely the perpetrator. An American word, perpetrator. Offender. Transgressor. Killer.
    The group of people around the booking area was seven deep. Iris wasn’t getting her purse any time soon. She considered the dried blood on the back of her hands. She thought of Lady Macbeth, the quote about spots, then considered her own mind striving for the distance of irony. The healthy brain could put layers of ideas and points of view between itself and hurtful things. She took a plastic cup of water from amongst many others on a table, taking a sip before splashing some on her hands, wiped them on her grimy skirt.
    Iris went out of the foyer past the arrivals, through parents asking an incident officer how to get to their children. Mildly injured people were still being led into the hospital. Ambulances were still arriving. Kids in wheelchairs, with blankets over their legs, answered roaming doctors and nurses. Two soldiers were in the drive, sending off the empty ambulances, the occasional police car, like an aircraft carrier jumping its jets. Another large press pack was being held way back amidst parked cars. A woman reporter, vaguely familiar, called, ‘Iris, what’s happening? Give us a comment.’ Some cameras swung towards her. Someone called, ‘Hey, Fire Lady!’
    Iris walked barefooted along the curb of the hospital emergency driveway to the street. Delivery trucks rumbled past. Business folk were purposeful. Shoppers meandered past another line of media vans with satellite uplinks aimed to thesky. She found a taxi. The driver looked Sudanese. Iris didn’t ask him about the traumas of civil war or driving taxis in her country. She explained her plan to pick up money, her spare car keys, a pair of shoes, before heading back to the practice to pick up her car. His eyes flicked to her in the rear-view mirror as he drove. Too much information, thought Iris.
    According to the radio, the explosion may have been a gas leak, yet police were questioning students about a possible student link to the fire trap. Early reports suggested that no schoolchildren were badly hurt. There were cuts, bruises, very few broken bones. Nine firefighters were dead and two members of the bomb response unit were missing, presumed perished in the explosion. The question was asked as to why people had gone back into the gymnasium after the first evacuation.
    Iris didn’t listen to the answer. They wouldn’t be able to say, yet. She asked that the radio station be changed to something bland without news. She watched lawns being mowed, children being picked up from school. Tradies were packing up. The traffic was building towards peak hour. The local IGA had a special on tomatoes and mangoes.
    Iris promised the driver she would not abscond, although he seemed more mollified by her prestigious street address than her assurances. She went round the back to get the spare key from under the pot by the pool. It was nearly four pm according to the oven clock. She wrote a note to Mathew who would have heard about the