The days when aggression in a firefighter was prized above all else were gone. Freelancing – charging into a fire, or any situation, without thought for partner or team – was as frowned upon now as going into a fire without a mask.
“I don’t want any unnecessary entanglements with the FIT on my watch. It complicates things. And you don’t want the rest of the team feeling you’ve gone behind their backs. You’re a good firefighter, and you handled yourself well last night. Don’t do anything to screw up your record.” Wilcox sat down at his desk and picked up a stack of reports, effectively dismissing her.
“Sir.” Knowing she’d got off lightly, Rose breathed a sigh of relief and headed for the door. Then, her hand on the knob, she turned back, her curiosity overcoming her better judgment. “Guv, about those other warehouse fires. Wouldn’t the brigade database-”
“Let the FIT do their job, Rose,” growled Wilcox, looking up at her with irritation. “You’ve done yours. Leave it alone.”
The phone rang twice before the voice mail clicked in, just as it had the last dozen times Yarwood had called. “You’ve reached Tia and Chloe,” the soft, drawling voice informed him. “We’re busy at the moment, but leave a message and we’ll get back to you.”
It was not Chloe’s voice, but Tia’s. The girl’s Sloane Ranger upbringing was apparent in her stretched vowels, and Yarwood had recently noticed that Chloe had begun to imitate her flatmate, a fact that made him furious. He slammed down the phone in frustration.
He’d been trying to reach his daughter, either at her flat or on her mobile, since he’d left the fire scene that morning, with no success. The only possibility he hadn’t tried was Chloe’s mother, Shirley. He might be worried, but he wasn’t yet desperate enough to call his ex-wife.
Yarwood went back to pacing the sitting room of his flat, stopping to stare out the window at the fading light in Hopton Street. He felt edgy and confined. It was ironic, really, as until Shirley’s last decorating binge had swathed the room in pale blue and green fabrics and filled it with ornate gilded furniture, he’d always found the small space comforting.
That was just before she’d run off with the interior designer, damn the bitch. The pair was now living in happily wedded bliss, according to Chloe, catering to the tastes of the blue-rinse set in Brighton. Good riddance to them both as far as he was concerned.
It was a shame about the flat, though. The building was one of the oldest in Southwark, and deserved something more in keeping with its character. He’d bought the flat years ago, when the Globe Theatre had been merely Sam Wanamaker’s dream, and living in the hulking shadow of Bankside Power Station had not been seen as an advantage. Now the Globe had become a reality, the power station had metamorphosed into the Tate Modern, and Bankside had become a major destination for the tourists and the trendy.
Of course, the value of the flat had increased exponentially, and Shirley had nagged him incessantly to sell it. They could buy a place in the country, she’d said, or one of those new flats on the river.
But he hadn’t wanted to let the old place go. It was part of Bankside, part of who he was, part of what he believed in. And trying to make him into a country gentleman was about as ridiculous as putting a pig in a tutu.
After what had happened last night, however, selling up might be his only option. How else could he get his hands on the cash he needed, and get it quickly enough?
A current of fear snaked between his shoulder blades and he clenched his fists, as if he could physically subdue it. He’d always considered himself tough, a self-made man who could tackle anything that came his way, but the thought of the charred remains of his warehouse, and of the body he’d seen loaded into the mortuary van, made him feel sick.
Had the fire been a warning, the body a reminder of what could happen to his daughter if he didn’t ante up?
He strode to the sideboard and poured himself a tumbler of whisky from the bottle he kept mostly for guests. He’d never been much of a drinker, on the theory that it took a clear head to get on in the world, but tonight he needed something to numb the worry clutching at his gut like a claw.
Did Chloe have any idea what she’d got herself into? Or did she think she could wheedle her way out of this, as she had everything else in her life?
The girl had always preferred her mother’s company – not that he’d given her much choice, with his schedule – but when her mother had taken off with that ponce of a designer, Chloe had chosen to stay in London with him. She’d been eighteen then, and she’d thought exile to a seaside town like Brighton a fate worse than death.
But nothing Yarwood had done in his life had prepared him for dealing single-handedly with a spoiled and angry teenager, and he’d failed miserably. He’d insisted she get a job or stay enrolled in some sort of college or university course, but she didn’t seem able to stay with anything long enough to make a success of it. After two years of her failures, his patience at an end, he’d told Chloe he’d no intention of continuing to support a layabout, and he’d kicked her out.
He hadn’t counted on Tia Foster taking her in as a charity case. Tia, whose wealthy parents had endowed her with more money than sense, had moved Chloe into the spare bedroom in her flat, and Chloe managed to survive by scrounging off Tia and begging the occasional handout from her mother.
Christ, how could he not have seen how vulnerable his daughter was? Or how vulnerable she had made him?
Now he could do nothing but pay for the consequences of his own stupidity, and try to keep Chloe safe. He picked up the phone and jabbed a blunt finger at the keypad once more.
He knew the value of a uniform. Clothes made the man. Or so his mum had always told him – the old cow – and then she’d reinforced the maxim with a few well-placed smacks. It had been years since he’d had to put up with that, but he still ironed his shirts as if his mother were watching over his shoulder.
Collar first, then shoulder, then sleeves. He slipped a fresh section of pale blue cloth over the end of the board and shot it with spray starch. His routine never varied. Every evening before reporting for work, he unfolded the old ironing board in the middle of his sitting room and labored over his uniform shirt until it could stand on its own; then he touched up his navy-blue trousers and jacket.
Radio Two droned in the background, not quite loudly enough to cover the murmur of traffic that drifted up from Blackfriars Road through his partially open window. His mum had been big on fresh air in all weather, convinced that sealing up a dwelling would result in a buildup of deadly gases. Bollocks, of course, he knew that, but still the habit stayed with him, and he liked the way the smell of curry from the takeaway beneath his flat mingled with the exhaust fumes and the clean soapiness of the starch.
It was odd the way the mind could divide itself, one part occupied with the identifying of familiar scents, the motion of his arm holding the iron, the babble of sound from the radio – while the other part seethed and bubbled with excitement from last night’s burn.
It had been – what was the word he’d read somewhere? – serendipitous, that was it. The walk home after his half shift, the sliver of darkness beckoning him from the open door, the interior prepared for him as if by some grand design.
Could it be that his own carefully prepared plan fit into something larger, dovetailed within it like a nut inside its shell? The thought was so heady it made him shiver. “Careful, careful,” he whispered, his voice a thread of sound in the empty room.