Stuart Pawson - Some By Fire

"You mean… the arsonist."

I sighed and felt myself deflate. "Nah," I admitted. "It's just crazy guesswork."

"It might not be," Dave said, interested. "Just suppose someone did come and write the number on the wall. What would they do with the chalk?"

"Get rid of it."

"Right. Would you say chalk carried fingerprints?"

"I doubt it. No, definitely not."

"So you might as well just chuck it away?"

"As soon as you'd done with it."

"Right, but if you lived here you'd take it inside and put it back wherever you found it." Dave stood facing the door, pretended to write the number, turned around and mimed tossing a piece of chalk into the little garden.

The soil in every other yard was as hard as concrete, but this had recently absorbed a few thousand gallons of water and firemen's boots had trampled all the weeds into it. We didn't see any chalk.

"Let's look at the other side," Dave suggested.

And there it was a half-inch piece of calcium carbonate, just the size teachers hate, nestling under the wall where the stomping boots couldn't reach it. I braved the mud and picked up the evidence between my finger and thumb. "Exhibit A," I said, triumphantly.

Dave repeated his mime. "Maybe it's at that side because he was left-handed," he concluded.

"Possibly."

"And not very tall. I had to stoop to do the number."

"You're as tall as me."

"I know, but it's written two bricks below the painted number. I reckon he suffers from duck's disease."

"Or he's a she," I suggested.

Dave nodded enthusiastically. "Or he's a she."

We gave the piece of chalk to the PC in the car and told him to invite CID round. We left it at that, not going into our leaps of conjecture about the culprit. They're supposed to be the ones with the imagination, not we poor wooden tops "Fancy a pint and a Chinese?" I asked Dave, smiling with satisfaction as I dusted the mud and chalk from my fingers.

"I'd prefer a curry," he replied.

"Awkward to the last," I said. "Curry it is. Let's go."

In the car I asked him if he came from Leeds. He just said he didn't.

"So, is it a secret?" I asked.

"Heckley," he responded, and I could sense the amusemenj in his voice.

I glanced across at him. "Really?"

"Really."

"I don't remember you."

"I remember you. I wasn't sure at first. You played in goal for the grammar school."

"That's right." I grinned at the memory. Recognition at last.

Dave said: "I played for the secondary modern. We beat you in the schools' cup final."

I was nearly laughing now. "Only by a penalty," I replied.

"You let it in."

"It was a good one. Unstoppable."

"I thought it went between your legs."

"No it didn't!" I insisted, indignantly. "It was a cracker, straight into the bottom left-hand corner. I didn't have a chance."

"Thanks."

I pulled into the kerb and looked across at him. "Was that you?"

"One of my finer moments."

"You big sod!"

We both ordered vindaloos. In those days it wasn't curry unless it stripped the chromium plating off the cutlery. I took a big gratifying draught of lager and said: "So, how are you finding the job?" I wanted a moan, so I thought I'd invite him to have first go.

He bit off a piece of chapati, holding it in his good hand, before replying. "It's OK. I've never really wanted to do anything else.

Just be 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 learned 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 said he'd learned 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 hostel and 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 learned 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 said.

"How much?" she asked, glancing at the contents.

"Normal rates. Two for the job, plus a bonus of a hundred each for the bodies. How's your boyfriend?"

"A cool thousand pounds. Thank you very much. How's Duncan? I'm worried about him."

"Did he take the money?"

"Oh, he took the money, no hesitation."

"He'll be all right then. Don't forget you'll need a hundred from him for the abortion," he told her, grinning.

"Well, let's make sure they've got something to look for, Dr.

Kingston," she whispered. She put her arms round his neck and kissed him, then lowered her hands and started to undo his belt. Nick Kingston grasped her hair, pulling her head back, and explored her mouth with his tongue. If he imagined she were the nineteen-year-old maths student he'd shagged last night, he might just about manage it.