The pumpers poured out hundreds of thousands of gallons, and it seemed, for a long while, that the water only fed the flames. Then the roof had begun to cave, the inrush of oxygen sending up sparks and new tongues of fire, but it had been the beginning of the end. The glow had dimmed, the fierce heat fading, until she had felt the night air cool against her face. At last, the ladder crew had gone in, to search out the last stubborn, smoldering pockets, but victory had come at too great a price.
Rose reached out as the stretcher slid into the ambulance, but Station Officer Wilcox stilled her hand with his own, and the doors clanged shut.
As the ambulance pulled away, he said, “He didn’t suffer, Rose. And there was nothing you could have done.”
She looked at those gathered round her, their eyes red-rimmed, their faces stained with snot and soot, and she knew she couldn’t belittle their grief by giving way to hers. Nodding, she stepped back.
Steven Winston and Simon Forney came up to her. “We’re taking you home, Rose,” said Steven. “I’ll drive you, and Simon will bring your car.”
“But I can-”
“Just do as you’re told and don’t argue for once, Kearny,” interrupted Simon, and the familiar hectoring tone had eased the tightness in her chest.
She rode with Steven in silence, after they’d dropped their gear at the station and Simon had picked up her Mini. There was nothing to say, and when they reached the house in Forest Hills and Simon had handed over her car keys, they’d stood in awkward silence for a moment.
“Get some rest, Rose,” Steven had said, and she noticed that when he’d washed up at the station, he’d missed a streak of soot along his left cheek. “A day or two, then we’ll see you back on duty.”
“Right. A day or two,” she’d agreed, and gone in.
She found her mother sitting up in the reading chair in the conservatory, a book facedown in her lap.
“Rose?” she called, putting the book aside and standing up. In her dressing gown, with her face scrubbed free of makeup and the gray showing visibly in her blond hair, she suddenly looked all of her fifty-two years. “Rose, Officer MacCauley called me. I’m so sorry.” She reached out, but Rose stepped away from her.
“No, Mum, please. I can’t. I just can’t.” She couldn’t bear sympathy now – it would dissolve the fragile glue that was holding her together. Steven and Simon had known that.
After a moment, her mother nodded and sank back into the chair. “Can I get you something to eat? Or something hot to drink?”
“No, Mum. I just want to sleep.” Rose leaned down and quickly brushed her lips across her mother’s forehead. “But thanks. I – we’ll talk in the morning.”
Once upstairs, she showered, scrubbing her skin until it stung, then fell into her clean white bed. But the forgetfulness of sleep, so longed for, evaded her. She dozed eventually, in fits and starts, always waking with the same urgent feeling of having forgotten something crucial, of needing to be somewhere, needing to do something, if only she could remember what.
She woke fully when the first light of dawn began to pale the windows, her mind suddenly preternaturally clear and alert. Throwing on a sweatshirt and jeans, she left a scribbled note in the kitchen and snuck quietly out of the house. The early-morning air smelled clean and fresh, making her think suddenly of the year her father had helped her throw a paper route. There had been a secret pleasure in getting up together while the world still slept.
She chased away the thought before it could progress to longing – she had no time for that now – and climbed into the Mini. Laying a copy of the map she had made carefully on the passenger seat, she drove north to Southwark.
Traffic was still light, and nothing impeded her as she drove slowly past the scene of every fire she’d marked on the map. The Southwark Street warehouse was last on her list, and last on her route. There, she parked the car and got out. After a moment’s hesitation, she turned towards the river. She needed to walk, needed the physical movement in order to sort out all the ideas tumbling wildly through her mind.
She cut through Borough Market, which bustled with the early-morning wholesale trade, as it had for centuries. Then she crossed the cathedral yard and climbed the stairs to London Bridge.
When she reached the bridge’s center, she stopped, gazing first at St. Paul’s to the northwest, its dome glowing golden in the light of the rising sun. Then she turned back to the south, until she could see the square tower of Southwark Cathedral. She remembered reading somewhere that this was the only spot in England from which one could see two cathedrals, and she thought that on another day, she might find that a wondrous thing.
Then her gaze swept on, to all that lay beyond. She recalled what she had thought she’d known about the fires, and what she had seen that morning, and the pattern began subtly to shift. The shadowy form flitting from fire to fire took on clarity, and substance, and moved easily into the nightmare of last night’s blaze.
She saw him in her mind, she understood what made him act, and then – then she saw something so terrible that she sagged against the railing, her hand pressed to her mouth to stop the rising bile.
The squeal of car tires tore Kincaid’s attention from the remains of the padlock. A jaunty red Mini swerved, too fast, round the corner into Webber Street, then jerked to a halt behind his car. As the dog began to bark at the unexpected commotion, Rose Kearny got out and ran towards them.
She halted before Farrell, her breath coming hard, her eyes wide and dilated.
“Rose!” said Kincaid. “What is it? What are you doing here?”
She glanced at him, then turned her attention back to Bill Farrell. “I rang the station. They told me you were here. I’ve just realized – I was wrong – or at least only partly right – about why he sets the fires. He has picked sites that haven’t required added accelerant because he wants to prove he’s smarter than we are, but that’s only been an added convenience, icing on the cake.”
Martinelli, who had quieted the dog, looked baffled. “What are you-”
“I’ve looked at the map, and I’ve looked at the sites themselves, one after the other. I think he’s re-creating historic fires.”
“I don’t understand,” said Farrell.
“Well, maybe not the first one, the Waterloo lockup. That might have been a practice run, testing his skills. But the others have been either Victorian warehouses, or he’s recreated an aspect of a Victorian warehouse fire.” Impatiently, Rose shoved a stray hair behind her ear, and Kincaid saw that her hand was trembling. “Look at the contents. Groceries. Paint. Fabric.”
Understanding began to bloom in Farrell’s craggy face, but Kincaid was completely at a loss.
“Tooley Street?” said Farrell, and she nodded.
“Scovell’s warehouses and Cotton’s Wharf. Tea, rice, sugar. Paint. Rum. Hemp, cotton, and jute.” Rose turned to Kincaid. “The Tooley Street fire burned for two days, in 1861. It did over two million pounds’ worth of damage. It was the worst fire to strike London since the Great Fire, and it wouldn’t be equaled until the Blitz.”
Martinelli was nodding now too. “It’s wild, but yeah, I can see it. But why?”
“I don’t know why,” said Rose. “But I think he’s escalating – building up to something much bigger than anything we’ve seen. And-” She stopped, her hands clenching and unclenching at her sides.
“What?” said Farrell gently. “Tell us, Rose.”
She took a ragged breath. “I think – I think I saw him. Last night. The man who shouted that there was someone in the window on the third floor. It was a bogus call. There was never anyone in this building. But he wanted us to go in. He wanted to kill a firefighter. And I saw him. I saw his face.”