Marshall had been ready to leave at midnight, but he’d forced himself to wait until two o’clock before slipping out of the house. The bag and tubing were tucked away inside his heavy winter parka, while a tightly rolled newspaper was jammed into one of the pockets. He’d hadn’t thought of using paper until earlier that day—which meant he’d had to go down to the news agent’s to buy the thickest one they had. He touched it now as he left the house, and smiled.
He’d thought of everything.
Except for the occasional passing car, the streets were empty, but Marshall kept to the lanes and back streets as he made his way into the older part of town and the alley behind the shop in Church Street.
Proudfoot’s car was in its usual place behind the shop. Marshall crouched down beside it and pulled off his gloves. His fingers were
cold, but he didn’t mind that; they’d be warm soon enough. He chuckled at the thought.
He pried the cover off the petrol tank and unscrewed the cap, then pushed one end of the plastic tubing into the tank. He sucked on the other end of the tube to start the liquid flowing, then stuffed it into the bag. The taste of raw petrol in his mouth was foul, but it was a small price to pay for what he was about to do. And the idea that Proudfoot was supplying the petrol from his own car was one that appealed to him.
When the bag was full, he clipped the end of the tube, removed it from the bag, and left it hanging out of the tank to be used again. He closed the bag and carried it down the narrow passageway to the doorway leading to the stairs of Proudfoot’s flat, and set it down carefully. Working swiftly in the dim light filtering into the passage from Church Street, he pulled pages from the newspaper and stuffed them into the crack between the door and sill until he was satisfied that nothing could escape. Then he picked up the bag, pushed the short length of tubing through the letterbox, and opened the spigot.
The bag took only moments to empty. Marshall closed the spigot and withdrew the tube. Let Proudfoot try coming down the stairs with that lot alight, he thought grimly. Of course, he could always jump from the window, but it was a fifteen-foot drop onto concrete, so good luck to him. Perhaps that would teach the bastard to leave other people’s wives alone.
But he wasn’t finished yet. If Kate thought she was coming back here to live, she had another think coming. With this place gone, she would have to come back to him.
Unless she decided to stay on in Oxford.
The thought gave him pause, and then he shrugged. He would find a way to get to Oxford and burn her out of there as well.
Whistling tunelessly beneath his breath, he returned to the car and began to fill the bag again.
Rick kept thinking about Kate. He was back in his own bed again, but he’d been tossing and turning for what seemed like hours. Sammy, who normally slept on the foot of the bed, finally stalked off to curl up in a chair.
He couldn’t get Kate out of his mind. He’d had girlfriends before, a couple of whom had shared his flat for a while, but it had been like playing house—pleasant, even fun for a while, but never anything more than a game.
But Kate was different. He couldn’t say why; she just was, and he missed her.
There were no bolts on the back door. Marshall had taken special note of that when he’d followed the woman into the kitchen at the back of the shop after she’d offered him a cup of tea. It was a sturdy door, heavy, solid, and the old-fashioned lock looked formidable. But the top half of the door was a multipaned window, and a sharp jab with his elbow was all it took to break one of the panes. It made surprisingly little noise, but Marshall paused for a moment, listening for any signs of movement from above the shop before reaching inside and turning the key.
Using a small torch to guide him, he moved swiftly through the kitchen into the shop itself. Clothing, racks of it. Couldn’t be better, he thought as he opened the spigot and began sloshing petrol around. Dresses, they’d catch quickly, so would the blouses. Trousers, jackets … He laid a trail to the door between the shop and the kitchen, lit a match, and tossed it and the bag inside before closing the door. Within seconds he was across the kitchen and out of the door.
He dashed down the passageway to the side door to finish the job, panting hard. The adrenaline was pumping. God! he was clever.
He wished he could stay to admire the results of his handiwork, but he’d have to get back to the house before the police decided to pay him another visit. Oh, they’d be there all right, same as last time, but they wouldn’t be able to prove anything, and without proof, they couldn’t touch him.
He lit a match, cupped it in his hands, then dropped it through the letterbox.
“What the hell … ?” Rick Proudfoot came out of a deep sleep to find the ginger cat pawing at his arms. “Sammy! For God’s sake, what’s the matter with you? What do you think you’re doing?” He tried to push the cat away, but Sammy ducked aside and clawed his wrist.
Angrily, Rick shoved the cat off the bed and sat up, vaguely aware that something was wrong. Then he heard it, a dull, roaring sound that seemed to be coming from below.
Fire! He slid off the bed, picked up the cat, and was halfway across the room when he felt the tremor beneath his feet—and a split second later, heard the explosion.
A slap on the backside from Audrey brought Tregalles awake. “Come on, love, time to get up,” she told him. “I let you sleep as long as possible, but Philip has already gone and I think Lilian has just finished her shower. I want this bed put up before she comes down.”
Tregalles groaned. What was today, anyway? Thursday? Three more nights of this before he and Audrey could go back to their own bed again. At least three more nights, because Philip had said something last night about staying on a couple of extra days to tie up a few loose ends in Shrewsbury. And all Audrey had said was, “Oh, that will be nice, Philip.”
He struggled to his feet, wincing as he straightened out the kinks in his back. He could hear Audrey in the kitchen, humming away to herself as she went about preparing breakfast, and he wondered how she could be so bloody cheerful after a night on the damnable pull-out bed. He pulled on his dressing gown and plodded up the stairs.
Three years ago, they’d had an extension put on the bathroom, taken out the tub, installed a bigger water heater, enlarged the airing cupboard, and put in a full-sized shower. It had been expensive, but it was a luxury they both enjoyed, and as Tregalles climbed the stairs, he looked forward to the relief hot water would bring to his aching shoulders.
Still only half awake, he went into the bathroom, turned to shut the door, and was confronted by a grinning Lilian in a filmy nightgown.
“Jesus Murphy, Lil!” he began, eyes suddenly open wide, but Lilian’s hand shot out to cover his mouth. “Shut up, you fool. She’ll hear you,” she whispered fiercely, and began to push him into the bathroom. Tregalles took a step backward, then stopped himself and began to push back.
“For God’s sake, Lil, what do you think you’re playing at?” he whispered hoarsely. “Look, this isn’t funny. Philip—”
“Philip has gone to work,” she interrupted, pushing back, “and Audrey will think you’re in the shower by yourself. Come on, Johnny. Be a sport. It’ll be fun.”
“For God’s sake, Lil!” he said, now deadly serious. “This may be a game to you, but this is one game I’m not playing.”
Lilian stared at him for a long moment, brows drawn together and a hurt look in her eyes. “You’ve always played the game before,” she pouted, “and I know you like me, so I thought that we could …”
“Like you, yes, Lil. I really do like you, but not …”
“Enough to screw me,” she finished for him. “And I really thought …” She jumped as Audrey’s voice came up the stairs.
“John? You there, John? It’s getting late and I haven’t heard any water running yet. You all right?”
Lilian turned quickly to seek refuge in the bedroom, but she stumbled and went sprawling across the landing. She screamed, and Audrey came charging up the stairs. “Oh my God, Lil, what have you done?” she panted as she reached the top.
“It’s my wrist,” Lilian said through gritted teeth. “I think the sodding thing is broken.”
Audrey looked up at Tregalles, who stood frozen in the doorway “Well, don’t just stand there, John,” she snapped. “Come and help me get Lilian up.”
Between them, they got Lilian on her feet. “It is swollen,” Audrey agreed, “but are you sure it’s broken, Lil?”
“Of course I’m bloody sure!” Lilian grated. “Do you think it normally looks like this?” She shot an angry glance at Tregalles over Audrey’s shoulder. “And if it wouldn’t be putting you out too much, Johnny, perhaps you could spare the time to drive me to the hospital. Or will that make you late for work?”
“Of course he’ll take you, won’t you, John?” said Audrey soothingly. “But we’d better get some clothes on you before you go. You can hardly leave the house in your nightgown, can you, love?” She frowned. “But how did you come to be out here dressed like … Well, in your nightgown, in the first place?”
Tregalles held his breath.
Lilian looked at him for a long moment before she said, “I thought I’d left something in the bathroom, and I was going to slip in and get it before Johnny came up. I didn’t know he was there already.”
“But what made you fall?” Audrey persisted.
By now the pain was making Lilian lose patience. “It was your shouting up the stairs at Johnny,” she said baldly. “It startled me and I fell.”
“Oh! Oh, dear, I am sorry, love. I didn’t mean to … Well, like I say, I’m ever so sorry, Lil, but let’s get you into the bedroom and get
some clothes on you. And you’d better get dressed as well, John. There’s no time for a shower now.”
“That’s right, Johnny,” Lilian said in a little-girl voice as she moved away. “No time for a shower now, is there?”
“I’ll get my clothes,” Tregalles said, and scuttled down the stairs.
Detour signs had been set up at both ends of Church Street because the section in front of the second-hand shop was blocked by a fire engine and police cars.
Rick Proudfoot, still holding Sammy, stood at the Church Street entrance to the passageway, talking to a fireman named Tate. They fell silent as two men carrying a stretcher containing a PVC body bag edged by them.
“Crazy bastard!” observed Tate, shaking his head. “Built himself a bomb, then stood in the way of it when it blew.”
Rick said, “I still don’t understand exactly what happened.”
Tate shrugged. “We won’t know till they’ve done the investigation, but one thing’s for sure. He was standing in front of that door when it blew, and it flung him across the passage and smashed him against the wall. Must have died instantly.”
“But why didn’t the stairs catch fire?”
“That inside door at the bottom of the stairs is what saved you,” Tate told him. “That stopped most of the blast from hitting the stairs and forced it outward; the walls are plaster, so they didn’t catch, and whatever flammable material was left—petrol I suspect, from the smell of it—was blown outside along with the door. But I can tell you this, mate: you were bloody lucky; it’s a damned good thing the shop had sprinklers in, or we could have lost half the street.”
“Thanks to your boss or whoever does fire inspections,” Rick told him. “It was only after he threatened to close the shop last year that Mrs. McKinnon had them put in. I remember her going on and on about the expense at the time, but I’ll bet she’s thankful now. I
know I am. Even then, I might not have been so lucky if it hadn’t been for Sammy. She woke me up.” He held up his wrist for Tate to see the scratches.
Sammy raised her head at the mention of her name, then snuggled into Rick’s shoulder once again and closed her eyes.