Thursday was her free day. A farmers’ market had been running in Lafferton for less than a year but was already so successful and popular that getting there early was vital. By ten past nine, Cat already had a basket laden with fresh produce – eggs, meat, fruit, vegetables and flowers – and was heading for the marquee in the centre of the square, in which the bakers had their stalls. She would get a steak, kidney and mushroom pie. Kieron often had a Thursday meeting which finished early and sometimes they took the rare chance of going out. Tonight, they were staying in with a bottle of wine and a film. On her own, she would have watched a Scandicrime series but Kieron would not bring work home. ‘Would you watch A Day in the Life of a GP?’
‘No, but I watch 24 Hours in A & E.’
‘Not the same thing at all.’
She had finished her shopping but was still wandering between the stalls, before going to the bistro in the Lanes for coffee, when she heard what at first sounded like a low-flying plane roaring overhead, but then, as the noise level increased, was clearly a series of explosions. From the other side of the square came shouts. A scream. Another. And then a huge plume of dark smoke that billowed up and spread. A few seconds later, the wail of the first emergency sirens sounded, shockingly close.
Cat moved fast, down a gap between two stalls and out, the back way to the car park. Others were following her, coming from all sides, running, running, not looking back but now and then glancing up in fear at the spreading mushroom of smoke. Black specks were swirling about in the air now, and touching down on clothes, hair, the ground. Cat brushed one from her sleeve and it left an oily smear. More fell, clinging and making the same marks.
People were leaving the car park in a hurry, driving too fast down the ramps and hooting impatiently at the barriers while tickets were fed in, dropped in panic, retrieved, and everything slowed down. At the end of the street, there was already a jam. Nothing was moving and the sirens were sounding one after another along the parallel road. Cat turned the car radio to local news but there was only a blur of confused music and voice. It was a dead-signal area. She tried calling Kieron but got an answerphone on the direct line, and voicemail on his mobile.
The car in front jerked forward and she pushed on behind it, almost touching bumpers, anxious not to be the one stopped by any roadblock or cordon, but they were clear and she spun out and down a shortcut close to the cathedral, dived out again and headed away fast towards the bypass. By now, fire engines and ambulances were pouring in from the Bevham direction. Ahead, there was no sign of trouble. She tried Kieron again and again got the voicemails. There was nothing yet on the local radio but by the time she reached home a breaking news item was reporting ‘an explosion and fire’ at a warehouse complex close to the Lafferton canal.
She made coffee and took it into the garden. It was cloudy but warm enough to sit outside, with a notebook and pen. She needed to think about Luke’s proposal, to make two lists, for and against, and to work out as much of the finances as she could. Wookie joined her, tucking himself away under her deckchair. It was quiet for over an hour, before her phone buzzed a message.
Major incident. Don’t wait supper. Love you x
The centre of Lafferton had been cordoned off and the entire area leading to and along the canal was closed. Ten years ago there had been a number of warehouses, some still in use, as well as others in the process of being demolished and the sites bought for apartment blocks. There had been a couple of working factories near the canal which had been razed but not replaced by other buildings because the council had plans to turn the spaces, banks and towpaths into green park and leisure areas, but promised money had not been forthcoming and nothing had yet been done. The canal areas in particular were still a haunt for drug addicts, winos and prostitutes. The police had an occasional blitz and moved them all on, but they soon returned. The last of the buildings to be in any sort of use were a tyre storage depot and a small paint factory. A fire had started in the former and spread fast. The paint factory had gone up with several explosions, and the job now was to prevent the blaze from leaping the relatively short distance to the smart apartments which had been converted from the old ribbon factory.
Five fire engines had attended, but shortly after the alarm had been raised, there had been an explosion in the cinema and bingo hall complex, in the area of Bevham near to police HQ, which meant all fire engines and crews were needed there. It would take half an hour to get others to the scene from much further away.
Cat watched the television news. The fires were terrifying, black smoke shot with flame billowing up into the sky from the sides of the buildings, threatening streets of houses. More engines arrived. More police started evacuating the immediate areas, and then, as the fires got out of control, further afield. Churches and halls were opened, schools, youth clubs, a dance hall, requisitioned to provide shelter. It was thought that none of the buildings in either Lafferton or Bevham had been occupied but it was still impossible for any checks to be made.
Somewhere behind the scenes, Kieron and other police and emergency teams were coordinating not the response to the fires themselves so much as the wider picture, plans were being drawn up for access to the area the next day or for alternative arrangements to be made for people going to work and school, for traffic movements and for forensics to be on standby.
It was a long night. Kieron came wearily up the stairs just after five o’clock, and fell onto the bed and into sleep in a single movement. Cat pulled the duvet over him and then slept fitfully herself until seven.
Her phone beeped a message received, as she walked into the kitchen.
Good morning. Thank you for being my lunch guest. Great to see you again, looking only maybe five years older and blooming. Let me know when you’ve had a chance to go into the proposals and we can meet up again whenever you like. You’ll have plenty of questions, but I hope your thoughts are all positive. Luke x
She put all thought of it at the back of her mind. She had a full surgery morning and a late-afternoon clinic. If Kieron had not been caught up in the emergencies, she had planned to talk it over with him the previous evening, and now, he came running downstairs buttoning his shirt.
‘I have time for a cup of tea if the kettle’s boiling, otherwise it’s water. Call came in – there’s another bloody fire.’