LITMIR.BIZ

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don’t know. Just move back, it’s not safe.’

      But Gracie charged forward, hearing the policeman let out a shout behind her.

      ‘Brynn?’ she yelled at the top of her voice. ‘Brynn, for God’s sake! Are you out here?’

      He had to be out here.

      The heat was blistering, scorching her skin where she stood, even though she was yards away from it. It was terrifying, the height and spread of the flames. The gouts of water from the hoses seemed to be having no effect at all. She looked at the firemen, and called over to the nearest one.

      ‘Is the manager out?’ She had to shout to make herself heard above the noise of the flames.

      The fireman glanced at her absently, then carried on with what he was doing.

      The policeman had followed her. He tapped her shoulder.

      ‘Miss! Come on now! Out of here!’

      ‘Fuck off!’ said Gracie, her eyes everywhere, frantic. She could see the front of the upper floor – Brynn’s flat – was well and truly alight. She looked around, her eyes crazy with fear for Brynn, spotted the fireman with the white helmet – the chief, wasn’t that right? She ran over to him, ignoring the policeman who was dogging her footsteps, and, just as she was going to grab the man, roar at him to get Brynn out, for the love of God, he was going to die in there . . . just at that moment she saw him.

      Brynn was sitting, slumped over, wrapped in one of those ridiculous silver space-type blankets, at the back of one of the fire engines. There was an oxygen mask clamped over his nose and mouth. His thin face was grimy with soot, and he looked rough, but he was there.

      ‘Brynn!’ Gracie hollered, and he looked up at her.

      The white-helmeted fire officer was standing close by. ‘We’ve got an ambulance coming,’ he told her as she dashed up. ‘Best get him to hospital. Check him over.’

      Gracie knelt down beside Brynn and put a hand on his knee. She stared up at him anxiously. ‘You all right?’ she asked.

      Brynn nodded. He looked exhausted, hunched there in grubby pyjamas. There was madness all around them, men bellowing orders, the flames roaring, people – for fuck’s sake! – taking pictures of the blaze on their mobiles. The policeman had abandoned Gracie and gone to harangue them instead.

      ‘What the hell happened?’ she asked Brynn.

      Brynn moved the mask away from his face.

      ‘I came down . . .’ He paused, and coughed hard. ‘. . . I heard something at the front of the building about an hour ago. Woke me up. I came down, and got the shock of my life. The outer door was well alight. It didn’t set off the sprinklers straight away, it wasn’t close enough to the lobby for that.’ He stopped speaking again, coughed, drew in a whooping breath. ‘I got the fire extinguisher out and sprayed it from inside, but it was too fierce, I had . . . had to leave it. Came out the back way.’ He stuck the mask back over his face, shaking his head.

      ‘Don’t worry,’ said Gracie, patting his knee. His pj’s smelled smoky. Running chillingly through her brain was the thought that if he had not heard that noise at the front door, he would now be upstairs in his flat, asleep and drifting into death as rolling black smoke stole the air from his lungs.

      The casino alarms were bellowing, and through the smoke-haze and the orange glow of the flames Gracie could see that the sprinklers were working now inside the building, drenching the lobby, the slots, the tables, everything. She stood up and looked at the wrecked building and felt a spasm of real pain. There was going to be a lot of damage. It was going to take a long time before they could resume business. Thank Christ for insurance.

      ‘What could have set it off?’ she wondered aloud. ‘Any idea?’

      ‘Not the bloody foggiest,’ said Brynn. ‘Electrical fault’s my best guess. Something blew. They’ll look into it.’ He coughed again, long and hard.

      There was an ambulance nudging its way towards them now down the packed street, siren wailing.

      Gracie stood up and tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Think that’s our lift,’ she said.

      ‘You don’t have to come too,’ said Brynn, getting to his feet and standing there swaying like someone caught out in a gale. ‘They’ll want to talk to you here.’

      ‘Of course I’ll come too,’ said Gracie. ‘I’ll leave my details with the chief fire officer, and he can pass it to anyone else who wants it. And . . . Brynn . . .?’

      He swayed and Gracie found herself putting an arm around his thin shoulders, half supporting his slight weight against her.

      ‘Feel a bit shaky,’ he said, half laughing. He looked very pale.

      The ambulance men were opening the back doors of the ambulance, sliding out a stretcher.

      ‘You’ve got every right to feel shaky – you’ve had one hell of a fright,’ said Gracie. ‘Brynn . . . look, I’m sorry I snapped at you last night on the phone.’

      ‘Ah, forget it.’ He waved a limp hand, dismissing it.

      ‘When I drove up I thought you’d got fried in your bed,’ said Gracie with a trembly laugh. She felt pretty damned shaken herself. She’d lost Dad, and for a horror-filled few minutes she seriously believed she had lost Brynn too.

      ‘Can’t keep a good man down,’ said Brynn. His eyes turned up in his head. His legs folded just as the ambulance guys reached them. If they hadn’t grabbed him right then, he would have collapsed on to the road, unconscious.

       Chapter 11

      20 December

      Gracie stood looking at the wrecked frontage of Doyles the next day. She felt drained to the point of exhaustion by all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. Going to the hospital with Brynn, making sure he was all right, phoning his sister because he had no wife – Brynn had never been married. The job was his life. Angie was anxious, asking, ‘Is he all right? How did it happen?’

      Good question, thought Gracie grimly.

      They released Brynn later in the day, not even keeping him in overnight. His swift exit from the building had saved his lungs from the worst of it. Angie pitched up at the hospital in double-quick time and said he was coming back to stay with her, and she wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

      To Gracie’s surprise, Brynn was so shaken by the whole thing that he didn’t even raise a murmur in protest. Sometimes, she guessed, all a person wanted was a safe haven, a friendly hug.

      She wasn’t about to get one of those, she knew that. She rang round all the staff, told them what had happened and that she or Brynn would be in touch when Doyles was operational again. By the time the fire officer had finished questioning her at the scene next day, asking her if she had any money worries, any enemies (she answered no to both), and she had contacted the insurance people and the building had been secured, she was worn out.

      She drove home, looking at all the twinkling Christmas lights, the shoppers in search of that perfect last-minute present. A giant inflated blow-up Santa bobbed past on the back of a flatbed truck. It was three thirty in the afternoon and already beginning to get dark. There’d been more talk of snow on the forecasts, but she thought it was too cold for that. She parked up underneath her building, and with relief took the lift up to her flat.

      There was more post on the mat. She picked it up and took it through to the kitchen, with that other thing niggling at her again – the divorce papers. Talk about ‘it never rained but it bloody well poured’! She leaned on the kitchen counter, weary to the bone, and thought about her short-lived marriage to Lorcan Connolly.

      There had been something wild, almost indecent, about the passion that had flared up between them. Gracie liked to be in control.

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