Chapter 3
Mattie adjusted her sun hat as she set off along the track to the water’s edge with a spring in her step and a full belly.
Angie’s breakfast had been plentiful, easily enough to fuel the ten-mile hike along the coast path on her quest to find the childhood guest house.
She’d slept well too, which was fairly unusual these days, what with intermittent nightmares.
She’d forced herself to linger over another pot of tea instead of rushing off.
She was here to relax, and guest houses were so much more intimate and cosy.
Hotels reminded her too much of work, something she needed to be far away from for a while.
There were the instantly forgettable hotels, which had the same room layout regardless of their location, overpriced pretentious ones, and then, the luxurious hotels caught in the crossfire of a civil war and used as a base for a posse of journalists eager for both a good story and to still be alive at the end of the day to tell the tale.
Pure joy filled her at the sight of the rocky coastline stretching to the popular fishing town of Brixham with its harbour and fancy fish restaurants.
That was tomorrow’s destination. Today she needed the route to her left, towards the commercial and family-friendly resort of Paignton with its pier and seaside attractions.
Beyond the swathe of verdant ferns, the landscape curved into a natural sandy bay.
Dotted along the promenade was a handful of traditional beach huts, uniformly white but for the colourfully painted doors.
Only a few were in use, lending an air of solitude to the cove.
She followed the dry track across the bay and around the next headland and couldn’t stop her audible gasp at the aftermath of a landslide.
Nature had torn off a strip of rock and dumped the debris in a haphazard heap at the foot of the cliff.
Erosion was affecting this part of England as well as the eastern coastlines.
Climate change and rising sea levels would only make it worse, according to an environmental scientist she’d interviewed for a story earlier this year.
An unfamiliar but recognisable sound tugged at her memory: a whistle.
The steam train chugged its way along the railway, visible for a few minutes until the track turned inland.
Ah, if only Dad was here to see it. He’d be in his element.
She texted a photo to Simon: Eight carriages today! #wishyouwerehere.
Actually, she really did wish that. When was the last time she’d seen Simon and his family in person?
His birthday, surely. No, she’d had to fly to France to cover the asylum seekers story.
Easter, maybe? No, there’d been the oil-rig drama.
It must’ve been last Christmas and even then it was a snatched visit.
Family was so important yet she’d neglected the little of hers she had left.
Her niece and nephew were growing up and she’d been missing out.
But that was the profession she’d chosen.
She knew the score, and it meant sacrifice.
She frowned. Why did that sit poorly with her today?
The sun blazed, and Mattie was sweating profusely when she arrived on the outskirts of Paignton a few hours later.
The coastal path leading into the western part of the town was familiar, as was the view of the small harbour.
It was low tide and the sea had receded so far out that there was barely a channel of water left, leaving boats grounded on their bellies.
She turned her mobile phone forty-five degrees so that the Google Maps display faced the same direction as her.
None of the road names triggered any distant memory.
According to Angie, this part of town was where many of the B she needed to be higher up. Her calves groaned as she followed the steep path. Seagulls squawked. She loved the sound because in her child’s mind, it meant they were at the seaside. For long joyful moments, she was twelve years old again.
She sniffed. What was that smell? She sniffed again. Her nostrils flared in recognition.
Fire.
The smell of burning was too overwhelming to be from a garden bonfire.
Its source was something bigger, more substantial.
A building of some kind. Fear and dread ignited memories she’d struggled to keep at arm’s length during the past fifteen months.
The tips of her ears simmered as her senses recognised the smell and what it signified.
Instinctively, her fingers fumbled for the silver feather charm hanging from a delicate chain around her neck.
Run, run, run.
She froze.
Raise the alarm.
She shuddered.
Think.
There was no point in ringing 999 until she knew where and what exactly was on fire. She looked up at the sky. To her right, grey-black tunnels of smoke blemished the backdrop of clear blue sky. Heart thumping, she ran up the incline towards it.
At the crest of the slope, she found it.
A double-fronted house on a corner plot at the junction of two roads.
Flames licked voraciously along its roof and the top floor of what, three storeys?
It was big enough to look like it might be a conversion with several flats.
Some residents were likely to be home. She fumbled with her phone.
It slipped in her trembling grasp. Somehow she managed to open a Sudoku app and the camera.
Fuck. Yet another random, blurred picture of her feet.
Pull yourself together. Open phone screen. Press nine three times.
A man answered. “Emergency services. Which service do you require?”
She managed to blurt out the necessary information: fire, house, and its address, which she found on Google Maps.
A crowd gathered, made up of bemused neighbours in flip-flops and slippers emerging to see where the dense smoke and burning smell were coming from.
Mattie sensed their mutual horror and morbid fascination as the fire took hold of the roof.
Flames gorged like a hungry devil in front of her eyes, and she was unable to stop the Kenya memory reel playing internally.
You’ve got to help me help you, Jon! Before it’s too late.
She shook her head in a vain attempt to dislodge the memories. The heat from the blaze in front of her merged with the sun. Her feet wouldn't or couldn't move. Had the heat glued her boots to the pavement? She heard screaming, so muffled it was impossible to tell if it was real or imagined.
Caught between memories and reality, Mattie stared as the front door of the blazing house flew open and three women staggered out.
Two held something across their faces, perhaps a towel, but it was impossible to tell from this distance.
The other woman had dragged her T-shirt up to cover her mouth and nose.
They staggered out and hovered on the doorstep.
Why had they stopped? Mattie wanted to beg them to get the hell away from the house and the risk of burning debris tumbling from the roof but her mouth was dry, her tongue inert.
Other voices yelled at them. She saw a man run from a neighbouring house, his arms circling wildly as he urged the three women forward.
His shouts got them moving, and they lurched forwards and out of harm’s way.
One of them wore nothing but her underwear.
Her expression was one of terror. Mattie grabbed the compact travel towel she’d packed in case she’d wanted to swim in the sea.
Finally, her feet deigned to move and she rushed over to the woman with it.
The woman stared back at her with a smoke blackened face and dazed eyes.
Mattie unfolded the towel and wrapped it around the speechless, shaking woman.
More shouts rang out, muffled by smoke and distance. “My baby! My baby!”
Mattie blinked, unable to see as smoke stung her eyes.
“Lexi!” The anguished cry in response came from the woman Mattie had just given the towel to.
“Where is she?” asked a man wearing a green T-shirt with a Window Washers logo on it.
“Top floor, at the back.” The woman grabbed hold of the man’s arm and half-leaned, half-hustled him along the pavement for a vantage point to see the back of the house.
Mattie followed, feeling as dazed as the woman looked. She shielded her eyes as she tried to focus between dense clouds of billowing smoke. There! A young woman was leaning out of the sash window, clutching a baby dressed only in a nappy.
Strangled lungs. Burning skin.
Relentless flames consumed the area by the fire escape stairs, rendering them useless. She listened. No fire engine sirens in the distance. The mother and child were running out of time.
On her knees. Yanking, tugging at the wooden beam. Hot hands. Singed flesh.
“Lexi!” The woman shoved past Mattie before she realised what was happening.
“No.” The neighbour grabbed her in a bear hug and refused to let her rush back into the burning building. The woman thrashed and squealed until she went limp in his arms and sobbed incoherently. The other women took her from him and held her, their backs to the blaze.
Got to get us out of here.
The Window Washers’ man ran across the road to a white van bearing the same name and snatched at a ladder strapped to its roof.
He and the neighbour carried it over to the house, knocking Mattie’s hip with the side of it as they passed.
The unexpected jolt knocked her out of her inner turmoil and into journalist mode.
There was nothing she could do to help the mother and child but these two men would try and she was on the scene to capture it.
She flicked on her mobile phone and watched the action play out through the small screen.
This, at least, was a process she could do without thinking.
The window cleaner took his bandana off his head and covered his mouth and nose with it instead.
Then he gripped the ladder with both hands and climbed up while the neighbour held it steady, feet still clad in his slippers.
The ladder fell just short of the windowsill.
The window cleaner climbed as far as he could go.
There was still a gap between him and the mother with her child. So near yet...
Indistinct voices. Coughing. The faint but piercing sound of sirens rang in the distance.
Mattie heard them all. She willed her hands not to shake as she filmed while the mother held out the baby by its wrists.
The child dangled, suspended in mid-air.
The window cleaner leaned into the ladder with his torso for balance and stretched up with both hands.
Mattie held her breath and sensed everyone watching helplessly do the same.
The mother let go of one of her baby’s wrists.
Doing so shortened the gap between them, and the window cleaner’s only option was to grab the baby by one of its ankles.
Then he pushed the child against the wall with his other hand.
The mother let go of her baby’s other wrist. The window cleaner pushed the baby’s back against the brick wall, all the time inching his other hand up its leg until he managed to grab its waist. He pulled the child against his chest and edged his way back down the ladder.
Mattie’s phone screen shook as she let out a breath of relief. It was still recording, every moment of the rescue captured. But the drama wasn’t over: the mother was still trapped inside.
Smoke, so much dense black smoke. Too overwhelming for the men to climb back up the ladder.
Losing vision. Body shutting down.
Sirens blared.
Mattie couldn’t drag her eyes away from the empty window.
Around her, she was aware of bustling activity: firefighters wearing breathing apparatus, thick red water hoses, extra long ladders, a hydraulic platform.
Instinctively, she followed the action with her camera.
Smashing glass. So much heat. So much smoke.
And then, finally, a woman was lifted through the now broken sash window on the first floor. Away from the fire, to safety.
Thank god. Mattie crumpled to the ground, covering her face in her hands. That shielded her from seeing the drama unfolding right in front of her, but nothing could protect her from her memories running wild. Would they ever stop haunting her?