Some by Fire Read Online Free Page B

a copper, ever since I was a kid. A detective, preferably, in the suit and the white socks…’ He fingered his imaginary lapels. ‘But after this morning…now, I’m not so sure.’
    ‘I don’t think there’ll be many days like today,’ I said.
    ‘One’s enough. Let’s just say I learnt something this morning, about myself. What about you?’
    ‘Me?’ I thought he’d never ask.
    ‘Mmm.’
    I tipped some more pilau rice on to my plate. ‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘Do you want this last bit?’
    ‘Please.’
    I passed it across to him. ‘To be honest, I’m having second thoughts. I only came into the job to make my dad happy. Family firm and all that. I wasn’t under pressure or anything, but I knew that was what he wanted, not an art student for a son. And I didn’t want to be a teacher, nuh-uh. In a way, it was the easy option. My ambition was to make inspector, prove I could do it, but I don’t know if I’ll stick it that long.’
    ‘You make it sound easy.’
    I shrugged and wiped my mouth. ‘That’s just the plan. Maybe I’ll fail. So why didn’t you join East Pennine?’
    ‘I tried. They wouldn’t have me.’
    ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ As an afterthought I added: ‘Perhaps they were full.’
    ‘Perhaps.’ He caught the waiter’s attention and ordered two more drinks.
    ‘Just an orange for me,’ I said, almost apologetically. I felt a prat, and deservedly so. I’d taken for granted what Dave had struggled for, but I never gave another thought to the lesson he saidhe’d learnt that morning, not for another twenty-odd years.
    The waiter placed the drinks in front of us and asked if we’d enjoyed the meal. We nodded profusely and mumbled our thanks. When he’d gone I said: ‘Have they given you a sick note?’
    ‘Yeah. Just for a week,’ he replied.
    ‘It’s my long break.’ Four blessed days off and the weather was set fair. ‘Have you ever done any walking?’
    ‘Walking? You mean up mountains?’
    ‘We call them fells.’
    ‘Not since a couple of school trips. Ilkley Moor, Simon’s Seat, would it be?’
    ‘I was thinking more like Helvellyn, in the Lake District.’
    ‘I’ve never been to the Lakes. Would I be able to do it?’
    ‘’Course you would. And I’ll tell you something else: you don’t half enjoy a curry and a pint on the way home.’ I didn’t mention the aphrodisiac properties of a day’s pleasant exertion in the fresh air. He could discover that for himself, in different company.
    And that’s how the West Yorkshire Police Walking Club was born, all those years ago.
     
    Melissa wasn’t in London when the litre of petrol ignited, sending a fireball up the staircase of the hosteland instantly consuming all the oxygen in the sealed-against-draughts building. The fire had faded briefly, starved of fuel, until the windows imploded and dense morning air rushed in to meet vaporised hydrocarbon in a conflagration of unimaginable ferocity. The news reports said that the eight occupants were overcome by fumes. They were being kind; fire is not a gentle executioner.
    Melissa was in bed at the time, in the finest hotel Biggleswade had to offer, in the arms of Nick Kingston. They learnt of the fire on Radio Four’s The World This Weekend, sandwiched between a story about Lord Lucan being wanted for the murder of his child’s nanny and one that they didn’t hear because they were dancing on the mattress. They lunched in the dining room and took a bottle of champagne back to their room. Melissa wanted to make love, but Nick was discovering, to his dismay, that sometimes it took a day or two for the well to fill up again. And he preferred them younger.
    Three weeks later they met again, at the same hotel. Duncan had received his two hundred pounds, as promised, and Melissa had told him that she was booked into the clinic for the abortion. After dinner, in the safety of their room, Nick handed her a thick envelope.
    ‘I’m to tell you well done,’ he