Karen knocked again on Baldock’s back door. She’d tried him on his mobile a few times but he wasn’t answering. She wondered if he was avoiding her, if he thought last night had been a mistake, for both of them. She didn’t think it was, not for her, anyway. As soon as she’d seen Baldock she knew she wanted him back.
She pressed her head against the glass panel in the door, but couldn’t hear anything. But she smelt something. Smoke. She could see it drifting down Baldock’s stairs. Not thick, but thick enough. Karen began to shout and kick the door, stubbing her toes inside her high heels. Baldock must be out, she thought, and he’s left the old man in bed.
Karen ran out into the street, straight into Tony.
‘Jesus, Karen, babe. What you doin’ here? You and the boss back together?’
‘Never mind that. Phone 999.’
‘Huh?‘
‘Phone 999, you stupid sod. The house is on fire.’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘Get an ambulance as well.’
Karen’s shouts had alerted other people. A man walking his dog crossed the road, a few others were coming out of front doors. Karen recognised the dog walker as one of the guys who used to come into the hairdressers to have his head shaved. A muscle-bound steroid-user the size of a small house. Perfect.
‘Come on!’ Karen shouted. ‘You’ll have to break the door down!’
Smoke was starting to pour from the front windows of the house. As the bodybuilder and Tony went around to the back door, Karen shouted up.
‘Mr Baldock! For God’s sake get up! ‘
She heard glass breaking. The bodybuilder had smashed through the door, Tony at his side. Karen pushed past them, and immediately the smoke hit her. It was hard to see and she began to cough. Tony held back.
‘Don’ go in there, love,’ he said, ‘it’s ’opeless.’
‘We gotta try!’ Karen screamed. ‘There’s no fire. I can’t see no fire!’
She pulled at the bodybuilder’s arm.
‘There’s an old man up there!’
‘Alright – I’ll do it for the old man. I wouldn’t for that bastard Baldock.’
The man disappeared inside. In the distance Karen heard a siren.
It was a long minute before the man reappeared. Karen heard him coughing before she saw anything. Then the bodybuilder appeared with the old man over his shoulder, crouching low to avoid the worst of the smoke. He collapsed onto the ground and the old man collapsed with him.
‘Is he breathin’?’ Tony shouted.
Karen looked closely at the old man. He had a bruise on his forehead and was quite still, but she could see his chest moving. As she leant close to him, thinking about the things she’d seen on telly, like the kiss of life, he grabbed her.
‘Son, is that you? Where the bleeding hell did you go?’
‘It’s me, Karen, Mr Baldock.’
The old man looked at her blankly and began to cough, a low sound that seemed to come from the very heart of him. Something exploded inside the house. There was fire now. Flames were shooting up everywhere. Tiles started to explode on the roof.
‘Get back!’ shouted Tony. ‘This is bloody dangerous.’
The fire brigade arrived, just as the end-terrace turned into an inferno. There was nothing much they could do, other than stop it spreading.
‘This will all have to be rebuilt from scratch,’ a fireman muttered as he passed by.
Karen clutched at the bodybuilder’s arm.
‘It was only the old man in there?’ she shouted.
‘I think so. I wasn’t hanging round to find out. You couldn’t see much anyway.’
‘What a waste,’ Tony said, ‘all that dope up in smoke.’
Tony stood as close to the house as the firemen would allow and imagined he could smell the dope in the air. He breathed in deeply, and sighed.
Paramedics were also on the scene now, fussing over the bodybuilder’s slight burns, and giving the old man oxygen. Tony held the bodybuilder’s terrified dog. He expected the pigs to be along any minute too, and hoped all evidence would be well gone. Looking at the blazing house, he didn’t doubt it.
‘Will he be alright?’ Karen shouted at a medic.
‘Don’t know yet, love. He’s breathed in a lot of smoke and at his age …’ the man’s voice tailed off as he looked up at Karen’s face. Then he added, ‘I know Mr Baldock, he was a friend of my father. He’s a tough old bird.’
Karen nodded and moved away to let them do their work. Tony went with her. She leant against Tony as the dog growled at her. Karen repeatedly phoned Baldock’s mobile but there was no answer.
‘Oh Christ, you don’t think Baldock was in there, do you, Tone?’
‘Don’ worry, love, I’m absolutely sure he wasn’t.’
‘How can you be?’
‘Because here he is.’
Tony pointed his free hand down the street. Baldock was running towards them.