Stuart Pawson - Some By Fire

It was a short visit. They didn't even have a cup of tea. No further words were exchanged between Mr. and Mrs. Youngman until their car juddered to a standstill, drained of petrol, just south of Doncaster.

A week later Mr. Youngman transferred the mortgage on the house in Essex to his daughter and posted her the documents. That was the last correspondence he had with her. Mrs. Youngman finished off the bottle of sherry left over from Christmas, and took to walking to the corner shop to purchase another bottle, even when it was raining. The following August she died after an overdose of barbiturates and alcohol.

Melissa never slept with her Swazi prince again, although his performance was the one by which she measured all others. She left Essex at the end of the year, to read modern languages at the Sorbonne.

From Paris she went to Edinburgh, Manchester, UCLA, Durham and Leeds.

She never stayed longer than a year, never sat an examination. She played the impoverished student, but her fees were always paid in full, in advance.

When Melissa came into his life Duncan Roberts had been slouching in the students' union, hoping to con a pint out of a friend, or maybe earn one for collecting empty glasses.

"Things can't be that bad," she'd said.

"How would you know?" he'd growled.

"Because I have magical powers. I can read your aura."

He'd seen her around, wondered if he'd ever be able to afford a woman like her. Over the years the rest of the world had done some catching up, but the zips and pins holding her clothes together were gold-plated and the leather was finest calfskin. Her bone structure was as good as ever and the just-out-of-bed hairstyle cost more than a student could earn in a week waiting table.

"As long as you don't expect me to cross your palm with silver," he'd replied.

"Why?" she'd asked, sitting beside him on the carpeted steps that were a feature of the bar. "Do I detect a cash-flow crisis?"

Her face was close to his and he could smell her perfume. "Not so much a crisis," he'd told her. "More like a fucking disaster."

She held her hand out in front of him, palm up. On it was a collection of coins. "Well, I've got two pounds and a few coppers," she'd said.

"So we can either have a couple of pints each here, or buy a bottle of wine and take it somewhere more comfortable. What do you say?"

He looked at the coins, then into the face with its painted eyes, only inches away. That perfume was like nothing he'd ever experienced before and her arm was burning against his. "Right," he'd croaked.

"Er, right. So, er, let's go find a bottle of wine, eh?"

By the time I'd finished all the paperwork, that final night shift had lasted until three o'clock in the afternoon. I was supposed to be looking at a flat, but I hadn't the energy. I drove back to my digs and went to bed. The thin curtains couldn't compete against the afternoon sun, the landlady's beloved grandson was kicking his ball against the back wall and the man next door had chosen that particular Sunday afternoon to install built-in wardrobes twelve inches behind my headboard. And then there were all the other things chugging and churning away inside my mind. I didn't sleep.

I was up at seven and the landlady kindly allowed me to have a bath, even though I hadn't given prior notice and it wasn't really my day for one. She didn't do meals on the Sabbath, but guests were allowed to cook their own food in the kitchen, as 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 where it had originally been.

"That's been done recently," I said, examining the numbers.

"To help the postman," Dave suggested. "Maybe they received a lot of mail. It was a hostel… court papers, that sort of thing. Important stuff."

I walked to next door. The number thirty was neatly painted on the wall. "Postmen can usually count in twos," I said. "Maybe someone chalked the number nice and clearly so someone else knew they'd found the right house."