Some by Fire Read Online Free

long as they left it as they found it and didn’t use metal implements inside the non-stick pans. And didn’t leave any dirty crockery around. And didn’t leave a tidemark inside the bowl. And didn’t stink the place out with foreign food. And didn’t… Oh, stuff it. I got in the car and went looking for a Chinese.
    I knew there wasn’t one in Leopold Avenue but I went there just the same, returning to the scene of the crime like a magpie to a roadkill rabbit. Tugging at the entrails. A police Avenger was parked outside the burnt-out house, the bobby deeply engrossed in the back pages of the Sunday Mirror . Dave Sparkington was sitting on the wall opposite, gazing up at the blackened brickwork and the charred ribs of the roof. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and his left hand was encased in bandage.
    ‘How is it?’ I asked as I climbed out of my elderly Anglia. It’s hard to imagine that most of us couldn’t afford cars in those days.
    He held his fist up for inspection. ‘OK, Sarge, thanks.’
    ‘That looks a better job than I made of it.’
    ‘The inspector made me get it fixed, but it’s just the same as you did it. My thumb’s still inside, somewhere.’
    I said: ‘Did you know there’s a judge in Leeds who’s lost both his thumbs?’
    ‘Justice Fingers?’
    ‘That’s him.’ I sat on the wall alongside him and stared at the house. The smell of wet soot hung heavy in the warm evening. It should have been pollen and new-mown grass, but we got chemical fumes, carbonised wood and sopping carpets. And a memory of something else.
    ‘She was called Jasmine,’ he said. ‘Jasmine Turnbull.’
    ‘Was she?’
    ‘Mmm. They had a bedroom upstairs. And the attic. I bet it was the first time she’d ever had her own room.’
    ‘Don’t personalise it, Dave,’ I heard myself saying, as if quoting from the textbook. ‘Something like this happens every week somewhere. It’s just that we were here this time. That’s not a reason to feel any worse about it.’
    ‘You could smell them,’ he said. ‘When we went inside…’
    After a silence I said: ‘They sent me the wrong way.’
    ‘Who did?’
    ‘Control. They told me to turn right at the lights. Not left.’
    ‘It wouldn’t have made any difference.’
    ‘It might have done.’
    ‘It’s an easy mistake to make.’
    ‘It wasn’t a mistake.’
    ‘So what will you do?’
    I thought about it for a few seconds, then said: ‘Nothing, I suppose. But I’ll remember. I bear grudges.’
    ‘That’ll learn ’em,’ he said.
    ‘Why don’t you like being called Sparky?’ I asked, changing the subject.
    He shrugged his big shoulders. ‘To be awkward, I suppose. I’ve a reputation to maintain.’
    ‘For being awkward? I’d noticed it.’
    He grinned and nodded.
    ‘Well,’ I went on, ‘I don’t like being called Sarge. It’s Charlie, OK? Charlie Priest.’
    ‘If you say so,’ he replied.
    ‘How long have you been in the job?’
    ‘Nearly five years. You?’
    ‘About the same.’
    ‘Is that all? So when did you get your stripes?’
    ‘A fortnight ago,’ I admitted.
    ‘Honest?’
    ‘You mean it doesn’t show?’
    ‘I thought you were an old hand.’
    ‘Bullshitting doesn’t become you. I prefer it when you’re being awkward. My dad’s a sergeant at Heckley; it runs in the family.’
    ‘Is that why you joined Leeds City? To get out from under him?’
    ‘I suppose so.’
    ‘What did you do before?’
    ‘I’d just left art college. I’ve a shiny new degree in art, if you know anyone who needs one. So far it’s earned me commissions for two police dance posters. What did you do?’
    ‘Three years in the army. Waste of time. Me and discipline don’t go.’
    ‘I can believe that.’ Something over the road caught my eye. ‘Come and look at this,’ I said. We walked across the street to the burnt-out house. The number, thirty-two, was written in chalk on one of the bricks beside the door. A patch of peeling paint showed