And then I smell something. Something that makes my heart seem to clench in my chest. It’s the smell of paraffin. And there’s a strange, alien noise as well. A noise I can’t place, but it fills me with a dread I can’t explain.
It’s only when Kate comes running down the stairs, her face full of horror, that I realise what I can hear. It’s the crackle of flames.
‘KATE?’ FATIMA SAYS. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Get out!’ Kate pushes past her to the front door, flings it open. And then, when we don’t move, she shouts it again. ‘Didn’t you hear me? Get out, now! There’s a lamp broken – there’s paraffin everywhere.’
Fuck. Freya.
I bolt for the stairs, but Kate grabs my wrist, yanking me back.
‘Didn’t you hear me? Get out, now, Isa! You can’t go up there, it’s dripping through the floorboards.’
‘Let me go!’ I snarl, twisting my wrist out of her grip. Somewhere, Shadow has begun barking, a high repetitive sound of fear and alarm. ‘Freya’s up there.’
Kate goes white, and she lets me go.
I’m halfway up the stairs, coughing already at the smoke. Burning drops of paraffin are falling through the gaps in the boards above, and I cover my head with my arms, though I can hardly feel the pain in comparison with the stinging in my eyes and throat. The smoke is already thick and acrid, and it hurts to breathe – but I can’t think about that – all I can think of is getting to Freya.
I’m almost at the landing, when a figure appears above me, blocking my route.
Luc. His hands are burnt and bleeding, and he is bare-chested where he has ripped off his shirt to smother the flames on his skin.
His face changes as he sees me, shock and horror twisting his features.
‘What are you doing here?’ he shouts hoarsely, coughing against the fumes.
There’s the sound of breaking glass from above, and I smell the raw, volatile stink of turps. My stomach turns over, thinking of the rows of bottles in the attic, the vat of linseed oil, the white spirit. All of them dripping through the boards into the bedrooms below.
‘Get out of my way,’ I pant. ‘I’ve got to get Freya.’
His face changes at that.
‘She’s in the house?’
‘She’s in your room. Get out of my way!’
There is a corridor of flame behind him now, between me and Freya, and I’m sobbing as I try to push past him, but he’s too strong. ‘Luc, please, what are you doing?’
And then, he pushes me. Not gently, but a proper shove that sends me stumbling down the staircase, my knees and elbows raw and scraped.
‘Go,’ he shouts. ‘Go outside. Stand beneath the window.’
And then he turns, puts his bloodied shirt over his head, and he runs back down the corridor towards Freya’s room.
I scramble up, about to go after him, when a floorboard from the attic above falls with a crash, blocking the corridor. I am looking around for something, anything, to wrap around my hands, or something I can use to push the burning wood out of the way, when I hear a noise. It is the sound of Freya crying.
‘Isa, the goddamn window!’ I hear, above the roaring sound of the flames, and then I realise. He can’t get Freya back through that inferno. He is going to drop her into the Reach.
I run, hoping I am right. Hoping I will be fast enough.
OUTSIDE THEA, FATIMA and Shadow have retreated to the bank, but I don’t follow them across the little bridge, instead I splash into the water, gasping at the coldness, feeling the heat coming from the Mill against my face and the freezing chill of the Reach against my thighs.
‘Luc!’ I scream, wading through the water until I am waist-deep, beneath his window. My clothes drag against the current. ‘Luc, I’m here!’
I see his face, lit by flames behind the glass. He’s struggling with the little window, warped by damp from the recent rain and stuck fast. My heart is in my mouth as he thumps his shoulder against the frame.
‘Break it!’ Kate shouts. She is struggling through the water towards me, but just as she says it, the window flies open with a bang, and Luc disappears back into the smoky darkness of the room.
For a minute I think he’s changed his mind, but then I hear a sobbing, bubbling cry, and I see his silhouette, and he’s holding something, and it’s Freya – Freya screaming and bucking against him, coughing and screaming and choking.
‘Now!’ I’m shouting. ‘Drop her now, Luc, hurry.’ His shoulders barely fit through the narrow frame, but he forces one arm and then his head out, and then somehow squeezes the other arm through the narrow space. And then he is leaning out as far as he can, holding Freya precariously at arm’s length as she flails.
‘Drop her!’ I scream.
And Luc lets go.
In the moment of falling, Freya is completely silent – mute with shock as she feels herself go.
There is the flutter of garments, and a brief flash of a round startled face – and then an almighty splash as she hits my arms and we both fall into the water.
I am scrabbling for her beneath the surface of the Reach, my fingers hooking on her face, her hair, her clutching arms … my feet slipping beneath me as the waters tug.
And then Kate is hauling me upright with Freya in my arms, and we are both choking and spluttering, and Freya’s thin scream of fury pierces the night, a choking shriek of outrage at the cold and the salt water stinging her eyes and her lungs – but her fury and pain is beautiful: she is alive, alive, alive – and that is all that matters.
I stagger to the bank, my feet sinking into the sucking mud, and Fatima snatches Freya from my arms while Thea hauls me up, my clothes dripping water and mud, and I am laughing or sobbing, I am not sure which.
‘Freya,’ I’m saying, ‘is she OK? Fatima, is she OK?’
Fatima is checking her as best she can, between Freya’s steam-engine shrieks.
‘She’s OK,’ I hear. ‘I think she’s OK. Thea, take my phone, call 999, quick.’
She hands me back my near-hysterical baby, and then turns to help Kate up the bank.
But she is not there. She is still standing in the water, beneath Luc’s window, and holding her arms up.
‘Jump!’
Luc looks at her, and at the water. For a minute I think he is about to do it, about to leap. But then he shakes his head, his expression is peaceful, resigned.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘For everything.’
And he takes a step back, a step away from the window, into the smoky depths of the room.
‘Luc!’ Kate bellows. She splashes along the shore, looking from window to window, desperately seeking the shape of Luc’s silhouette against the flames as he runs the gauntlet of the flaming corridor. But there is nothing there. He is not moving.
I picture him – curling on his bed, closing his eyes. Home at last …
‘Luc!’ Kate screams.
And then, before I realise what is happening, before any of us can stop her, she splashes through the water towards the door of the Mill, and hauls herself up.
‘Yes, the old Tide Mill,’ Thea is saying. ‘Please hurry. Fire and ambulance.’
‘Kate?’ Fatima cries. ‘Kate, what are you –’