The Fire Baby

So Jimmy left the bag with the presents behind the Ritz, hanging from the door handle, and went to work. Smiling to work. The next evening the bag still hung there, like a head in a noose. So he switched to day shifts and watched each night from the van. He’d thought how much he loved his son, and how stupid he had been to entrust his life to the people smugglers. To the skinhead.

Two days gone. On the Friday night the square man full of muscles had parked up and examined everything like a policeman. He’d held open the top of the Tesco bag with a pen, using a miniature spotlight to look inside. With a bunch of keys he’d worked on the Ritz’ locks until the back door had jumped open. Inside, he’d made the unit rock as he searched, the spotlight occasionally shooting out through the gap around the serving hatch. Outside, he’d found something on the ground. Jimmysensed the excitement as the man squatted down on his haunches in the dust and then, straightened, had walked carefully eastwards towards the fen. Jimmy had feared for Emmy then. What did the man want? What had he found? And then the square man had returned to his car. Swiftly, as though a decision had been made. Not tonight, perhaps. But the next night he’d come again, and this time he’d brought a larger torch, and a rucksack, and he’d taken the bag, Emmy’s bag, and walked off across Black Bank Fen.

So Jimmy followed, taking the car jack from the boot to keep his courage hot. Across Black Bank Fen, behind the square man with the Tesco bag that held his son’s life. Across Black Bank Fen until they reached Mons Wood, and the pillbox in the moonlight.