The Fire Baby

Rosa was her mother. He’d photocopied the tickertape and sent it to Turin, where her parents had retired. He could only imagine the tears that had flowed. And he’d taken a copy to the family restaurant in north London, which was now run by Laura’s three brothers. They’d embraced him, cried, and promised to visit soon. When they came the brothers crowded in to Laura’s room with their families, while the children ran riot. When their time was over Dryden stood with them outside on the lawns, waiting while the kids climbed into the cars. There were tears then, too, and bitterness that this should have happened to Laura. Of all people. That was the phrase that Dryden always heard echoing around the family: of all people.

Dryden’s favourite was the simplest. It’s straightforwardness an echo of the life they had lost.

SGDHFYU MY HAIR SHDSIDK

He had then, and he did it now, because he was lost for words. He raised her head and ran the brush back through the auburn hair, feeling the warmth of her body through the nape of the neck. He kissed her once and left.

Humph was waiting in the Capri in the midst of an Athenian street wedding. Three tiny empty bottles of Ouzo were lined up on the dashboard. Humph wasn’t a drunk driver, which meant they were going to be parked for a long time.

Dryden got in the cab but left the door open. Humph gave him a miniature bottle of Greek brandy and went back to the wedding. Dryden read the tickertape and spotted the four attempts at LAURA. The tickertape had a digital timecheck along one side. All four had come just after seven o’clock that night.

Then he saw it. At 8.08: a burst of nonsense with those two words. His hair stood on end despite the fact that he told himself it must be a bizarre, random chance.

PDGUT WLGHJKOR T HISKFOT HJKKDHSGSI

THGYUS GHJYOU JNKOWFGH THEY

WHISPERKKJTNFMR

AEWGHCMI GKIAKA JEJUOIFK

But even as he tried to dismiss it he had to ask himself: did she mean the nurses? Visitors? And what, he wondered, did they whisper about?

He led her through the trees to the cast-iron door and even as the blood pumped in her ears she noticed that when he turned the key in the lock it clicked over with a barely audible, oily ease. She remembered later, on the park bench, thinking that he’d been there before. That he’d done it all before, with others. She knew that now, when it was too late.

That was the first time that night she’d felt like crying for help, and the last time she could have. She watched his body move ahead of her with a sinuous sexuality which had struck her dumb despite the fear. She’d never craved sex like that, never found its promise so intoxicating. And only now, looking back, did she understand that it was the drug which had made her blood run hot.

But before the drugs she’d seen him, she had to admit that, and called him over with her eyes. He’d breezed through the door of The Pine Tree that Monday night with an easy, athletic, grace. Mondays: the quietest night of the week, with a few locals and the quiz team. She was bored, and she must have radiated that, like a lighthouse seeking a ship.