Gabriel looks over his mother’s shoulder to where the kitchen is a leaping square of orange and gold.
He takes the can out of her hands. It’s light, no liquid sloshing. But still, it’s evidence. If he throws it into the flames they will find it and then the old man will know how the fire started and there will only be two people for him to point his bony finger at.
He shifts Harry into his mother’s arms and then he’s off, cannister in hand, sprinting across the garden, the grass frosty and sharp-tipped under his bare feet. The lane is lined with houses, all on large plots, just like the old man’s, all with outhouses and stables and country-living kind of buildings.
Somewhere there he’ll find a place to tuck the can away, hide it in the clutter of a garden shed.
Only as he reaches the verge, ready to head for the house at the end of the lane, does a thought stop him, dead in his tracks.
The old man.
Gabriel has saved his mother and he’s saved Harry, but he didn’t once think of saving the old man.
In the distance he hears the wail of the sirens and across the road he sees Mr Fat and Mrs Thin coming out and Mr Fat’s looking down the road to where the lights are flashing.
Gabriel melts into the darkness, he steps as soft as a shadow, breathing lightly, trying his hardest not to cough.
He’s carrying the can in his scraped hands and he’ll hide it, in the clutter of someone’s garden shed.