The still waters of the canal reflected candyfloss clouds dissolving in the sunshine. Leanne had wrapped up for her walk, but found herself peeling off her gloves. Autumn was being kind and so was life, she supposed.
She was back in Mal’s good books, having delivered two of the most talked about articles in the Courier’s recent history, and the paper had been inundated with messages since Saturday. It was no surprise that the vast majority were from people offering their condolences to Claudia and promising to donate to her cause. The story had been picked up by other media outlets too. Claudia was going to be busy.
Leanne was more concerned with the response to her second article and, whilst there had been offers to help find Amelia’s hero, everyone Leanne had spoken to so far had only vague recollections. They didn’t want to dwell on the fact that they had seen a little girl on her own and had done nothing. They were parents and grandparents with charges of their own, or they had some other pressing need that had forced them to leave Amelia to her own fate. They went to great lengths to explain their decision to Leanne, who could neither blame them, nor give absolution. She had no idea what she would have done in the same situation.
Continuing on her walk, the canal was quieter than it had been at the weekend and the only boats she saw were covered with tarpaulins, ready for their winter hibernation. She had to squeeze past the occasional fisherman perched along the canal bank, but otherwise she was alone with her thoughts. She followed a path of well-trodden earth while she mentally retraced her steps all the way back to the building that was now a burnt-out shell.
Leanne had visited the Empress a week before it had opened. She had been invited to a prelaunch press day, and the stage had been in the process of being set for opening night; a variety show with some high-profile performers on the bill. The air had been filled with the thrill of anticipation, mixed with the astringent smell of fresh paint and drying plaster. Leanne had felt privileged to be amongst the first to tread the newly polished boards, to try out the plush velvet seats, and to gaze up at the stage, where spotlights picked up dancing motes of dust. The town was being lulled into a false sense of superiority, not knowing the price it would pay.
Taking a breath of crisp, autumn air, Leanne allowed her mind to fill the auditorium with townspeople, many of whom she would bump shoulders with during her weekly shop. Some she knew better. Some she would never see again. Onstage was a white rabbit.
Leanne placed herself amongst the grumblers who had cursed their misfortune at being evacuated for the sake of a false alarm, but the sense of foreboding was hers alone. Her heart clenched when the lights went out and the world collapsed around her. She was scrambling over chairs in her haste to escape, choking on the dust, fleeing the fire and the smoke that permeated all her senses. She zoned in on Row F, stage right. There was only rubble where Amelia had been.
Would Leanne have gone to investigate? Or would she have doubled her efforts to save her own skin. Would she have pushed against people’s backs, contributing to the crush that forced the last breath out of Lois’s lungs? Would the outcome have been any different if she had been there? Would there be one less death, or one more?
‘Watch yourself there, love, or you’ll end up in the canal,’ a man called to her. He was approaching with his dog, a huge German Shepherd that had its tongue lolling out. The dog licked the air, and tasting Leanne’s fear, released a whine of sympathy.
‘Sorry, I was miles away,’ Leanne said, refocusing her gaze on the path she had been veering off.
‘You don’t want to fall in,’ the man continued as they drew level. ‘It’s colder than it looks.’
‘Yeah, I should know better. Thanks.’
Leanne knew all about the perils of messing about on the water. When she had announced that she would be living on a boat, her mum had sent links to a long list of safety videos on YouTube, and Leanne had watched them all, if only because she knew her mum would test her later. She had made Lois watch them too. They had thought they were prepared for every eventuality, from escaping a capsized boat to cold water shock, but at no time had they considered the dangers of a trip to the theatre.
Leanne was swallowed into the yawning mouth of a tunnel, and the echo of her Doc Martens hitting the flagstones followed her along the narrow forty-foot walkway. Grateful to emerge into the sunlight, she blinked as she recognised the stark silhouettes of two Victorian warehouses in the distance. What would have been a ten-minute drive from the marina had taken over half an hour, but she thought it would appear less conspicuous arriving on foot. If asked, she could say she had been passing Karin Gallagher’s apartment by chance.
The converted warehouses were gargantuan relics of a bygone age and had multiple entrances. Leanne followed the Perspex signs screwed to ancient brick until she came up against the entry system that corresponded with the apartment number she had noted from Declan’s file. Alongside the buzzer for each apartment was a name, but Karin’s wasn’t one of them.
Wondering if she had confused the warehouse for its twin next door, Leanne went to turn away, but the name on the label that should have been Karin’s struck a chord. Declan’s sister had a flatmate, and her name had been on the email printout Frankie had shown her. McCulloch. Leanne rang the intercom.
‘Hello?’
The voice was that of a woman around Leanne’s age and, although it was hard to discern the accent from the pithy greeting, Leanne didn’t think the speaker was from Northern Ireland. Karin had left home when she was eighteen and, according to the internet, had backpacked around the world before settling down in Sedgefield. She was thirty-two now, but it was unlikely that she had lost her accent completely. It had to be the flatmate, about whom Leanne had no information at all beyond her name.
‘Is that Beth McCulloch?’
‘Who are you?’
‘My name is Leanne. I was hoping for a chat,’ Leanne said, hedging her bets that she would get further by asking for an interview with Beth rather than Karin.
‘A chat about what?’
‘I’m from the Cheshire Courier and—’
‘No, thanks.’
With a distinct click, the connection was cut. Leanne pushed her luck and pressed the buzzer again, but there was no response. She stared at the intercom, her mouth twisting as she considered her options. She hadn’t expected it to be easy, but never mind. It was a nice day. She could wait.
There was a bench next to the canal with a view of the flight of locks that rose up towards Sedgefield town centre, but Leanne turned her back on the scene and perched on a low wall. With one eye on the entry to Karin and Beth’s apartment, she opened up the internet browser on her phone and began searching for images of the two flatmates to while away her time.
She already knew what Karin Gallagher looked like, there had been photos of her plastered across local and national press for weeks after the fire. The family tragedy had sparked a brief media frenzy as the nation waited with bated breath for Karin to come out of her coma and be told the heart-breaking news that her brother had died trying to save her. By the time it happened, however, the tide of public opinion had turned. Declan was no longer a hero. He was a suspect – if not officially, then in the court of social media. The article that Leanne was not allowed to publish had reflected the current mood of suspicion. Why had Declan been there? What did Karin know?
Karin’s spokesperson was more of a mystery, and it was Beth McCulloch’s name that Leanne typed into Google, along with her current location to limit the results. She found what she was looking for on the first page. Beth was on Facebook and, although her privacy settings limited visibility to a handful of profile picture updates, it was enough. One photo was of two young women proudly showing off a set of keys. Karin was sporting a bobble hat and multi-coloured scarf that pulled in long hair the same shade of brown as her brother’s. The other woman was blonde, wrapped up equally well, and around the same age. They were standing in front of a rust-coloured brick wall that looked identical to the converted warehouses. Was this the day they moved in? Leanne could imagine their excitement. She had a similar photo of her and Lois standing on the stern of their boat.
Leanne was staring at the image of Karin and Beth when her phone rang. She didn’t recognise the number, but she had spent the last couple of days responding to messages, and it was likely to be someone returning her call. Conversely, it might be someone she didn’t want to speak to, but with just over two weeks until the anniversary, time was running out in the search for Amelia’s rescuer, and Leanne was willing to take the risk that the caller wasn’t the man who had stood by and watched her best friend die.
‘Hello?’ she said, more cautiously than she would like. She strained her ears, alert to the background noises that might reveal the caller’s identity. She could hear the chirpy voice of an actor selling the virtues of whatever product was being advertised on TV.
‘Oh, yes. Hi. Is that Leanne Pitman?’ a woman asked. Her voice had a rasp that gave away her years.
‘Speaking,’ Leanne said. She was no wiser as to who it was, which was fine. At least it wasn’t Joe.
‘I didn’t know whether to phone you,’ the woman began. ‘I said to my daughter, they won’t want to hear from the likes of me, but she said, “Mum, everyone who was trapped in that theatre has a story to tell, and you need to tell yours.” It was an awful, awful thing, but, if nothing else, it shows there are more good people in the world than bad.’
Leanne opened her mouth to reply, but the woman hadn’t finished.
‘Not that I’m claiming to be a hero or anything,’ she said, ‘but we all did our bit. I’d gone there on my own and, oh, I saw things that would break your heart. It’s burnt into my memory and I don’t say that to be funny. It’s true.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Leanne cut in when the caller drew breath. ‘Could you start by telling me who you are?’
‘Sorry, yes, I’m Mrs Brody, Carole Brody. It was my daughter who got in touch, but I thought I should be the one to speak to you.’
Leanne bent forward, intending to retrieve her notepad from her rucksack, which was lying on the ground, but she straightened up immediately. Movement had caught her eye. Someone had left the building. The woman was wearing the same multi-coloured scarf Leanne had seen on Karin in the Facebook photo. She was heading away from Leanne, towards the car park.
‘Shit,’ Leanne muttered under her breath.
‘Pardon?’
‘Sorry, Mrs Brody, I need to go,’ Leanne said, standing up and grabbing her things. ‘I’ll ring back to make arrangements to come over and see you, if that’s OK?’
Leanne cut the call while the old lady was halfway through her answer. She broke into run.
Karin’s hair was tucked beneath a mustard-coloured beret and she wore her scarf loosely so she could plunge her face deep into its folds right up to her nose. With her shoulders hunched, she looked as if she were expecting to be ambushed at any moment and her pace was brisk.
Leanne picked up speed, which wasn’t easy when running across the original cobblestone path that served the warehouses. She stumbled, caught her balance without stopping and, as she closed in, she heard the clunk of a car lock disengaging. Lights flashed on a blue Peugeot that looked as ancient as Leanne’s Fiesta. Karin had circled the car to reach the driver’s side and, as she turned, she spotted Leanne rushing towards her.
Still moving, Leanne opened her mouth to call out her name, but the sound of the ‘K’ caught at the back of her throat. There were blonde tresses peeking from beneath the beret. It wasn’t Karin she had been chasing. It was Beth.
Leanne didn’t slow, and thumped against the opposite side of the Peugeot. She made her target jump, but Beth wasn’t frightened, she was angry and moved to open the car door.
‘Wait, please,’ gasped Leanne. ‘You don’t have to say anything, just hear me out.’
Beth glowered at Leanne over the roof of the car, but at least she waited.
‘Right,’ Leanne said, catching her breath. ‘The thing is, I know you must be fed up of the press by now, but I’m not looking to dish the dirt on Karin or her brother, if that’s what you’re worried about.’ She held Beth’s gaze with what she hoped was a genuine look of sincerity rather than an engineered one. ‘Like I mentioned before, I work for the Courier, which has been running stories to mark the anniversary of the fire.’
‘I wouldn’t know. We stopped reading the gutter press ages ago.’
Despite the hostility, Leanne took a breath and relaxed into it. Beth had offered information voluntarily. It was progress of sorts. ‘We want to celebrate the heroes and honour those who died. We want stories about ordinary people who did extraordinary things,’ she said, quoting the phrase Mal had used on her more than once.
From her rucksack, Leanne pulled out Saturday’s edition. She had planned to post it with a note if today’s attempt at contact had failed. She handed it across the roof to Beth.
Beth scanned the front page that featured both of Leanne’s articles. She looked as though she was still reading when she said, ‘What do you want from me?’
‘To hear your story, Beth. You were there too, weren’t you? How many people have asked what it was like for you?’
Beth’s eyes were cold against the sunlight. ‘I didn’t do anything remarkable.’
Leanne rested her elbows on the car roof. ‘You wouldn’t believe how many people I’ve spoken to who have said the exact same thing,’ she said softly.
In Leanne’s experience, if you talked to someone for long enough, they would eventually find a way to be the hero of their own story. She had seen it happen before, whether it was a pile-up on the M56, or a bake sale at the local church, and Beth would be no different. Not that Leanne was interested in hearing what part she had played during the Empress fire, she simply needed to keep Beth talking.
‘I know you got out, but your flatmate didn’t fare so well,’ Leanne continued. ‘And I have to say, some of the most heart-wrenching stories I’ve heard have been where friends and families had become separated. I take it you and Karin are close?’
Beth flicked through the pages of the Courier before she spoke again. ‘We’ve been living together for five years. We’re not just flatmates like everyone keeps saying, but that’s all you’re getting from me. I’m not giving an interview for free,’ she said. Her brow creased with pain. ‘I can’t.’
‘A payment isn’t out of the question,’ Leanne replied, managing not to baulk.
The Courier wasn’t some national paper with wads of cash to persuade ‘a close family member’ to confess all, and there was no way Leanne was going to convince Mal it was worth their investment. It wasn’t as if she were speaking to Beth to add another voice to the anniversary piece, she had enough of those. Beth was a means to an end, and that end was the quest for justice that Mal had given Leanne clear instructions not to pursue.
‘I don’t mean to sound mercenary,’ Beth said, reading Leanne’s hesitancy as disapproval, ‘but we’re still paying the price of the fire. Karin has only just managed to get to a place where she can hold down a job, and the handouts we had at the beginning didn’t go far. We came out with our lives, and I know we should be grateful, but gratitude doesn’t pay the rent and it doesn’t put petrol in the tank or get me to work.’
‘I’m not judging you,’ Leanne said. She was rooting in her rucksack again and took out her purse. She had £60 in cash. ‘This isn’t a payment, it’s me doing my bit to help a fellow member of our town fill up her car – I know I don’t sound it, but I am a local.’
Leanne placed the cash on the car roof and used her phone to weigh it down. The voice recorder was running.
Beth scowled at the phone. ‘You want my story?’
‘Why don’t you start by telling me why you went to the theatre that night?’
Beth shrugged. ‘Karin was given tickets and we thought it would be a fun night.’
‘Is it right she got them off her brother for her birthday?’
Beth’s eyes narrowed. Leanne wasn’t supposed to mention Declan. ‘They weren’t a present as such. He wanted us to be his spies to make sure things were running smoothly.’
‘Such as?’
‘The sound quality, the lighting, that sort of thing, I suppose. He didn’t really say.’
‘Was he worried there was a problem with the electrics?’
‘So anyway,’ Beth said, deliberately ignoring her, ‘we went to a bar and had a couple of cocktails first to make more of a night of it. We weren’t that keen on seeing a ballet, but we fancied a nose inside the theatre after hearing so much about it.’
Leanne wanted to know more about what Declan had said about the restoration. It sounded like he was expecting there to be potential faults, but she knew if she pushed again, it would bring the interview to a premature close. It killed her to hold her tongue, but she had to bide her time.
‘It was beautiful inside,’ Beth continued. ‘Not the kind of place you would expect to become the stuff of nightmares.’
‘Where were you sitting?’
‘In the stalls.’
‘And what did you do when the alarm went off?’
‘Grabbed my coat,’ said Beth. ‘I think Karin and I would have been the first ones out of there if the woman next to us hadn’t been in the way. She had all kinds of bags with her and didn’t want to move. She was convinced it was a false alarm, but so was half the theatre. And whoever made the announcement asking us to leave had sounded blasé about it.’
Leanne had listened to the manager’s testimony during the evidential hearings. Although a smoke sensor had been triggered, the fire had been largely contained within the roof space at that point, and staff were initially confused because they couldn’t find any sign a fire, just a faint whiff of smoke. Because the hearings were simply a fact-finding exercise for the public inquiry, Leanne and the rest of the town were still waiting to find out how that could happen. It had to be faulty installation.
‘We made our way to the back of the auditorium,’ Beth continued. ‘Heading for the foyer along with everyone else. I doubt we were the only ones planning to head straight to the bars, but there were definitely some who dragged their heels, hoping the alarm would be cancelled before we reached the street.’
‘And you were still with Karin at that point?’
‘Yeah, and then the whole world imploded. The lights went out and there was this huge surge of bodies. The emergency lighting came on, but we’d been hit by a massive dust cloud. Not that I needed to see to know what was happening. I could hear.’
Beth pursed her lips. Her experience up until that point had been easy to recount. What came next was the nightmare that haunted not only Beth. Leanne’s mouth had gone dry.
‘People all around were screaming and coughing and, ahead of me, I could hear others crying out for help. And then it got quieter. We were all struggling to breathe, with those ahead of us faring the worst. I hate to think what part I played trying to force my way out. I wasn’t thinking about anyone else, just me and Karin.’
‘Did you make it out through the front?’ asked Leanne, ignoring the lump in her throat.
‘At first we didn’t have a choice. We kept pushing and being pushed, but we weren’t getting anywhere. The theatre was falling in around us. I knew we had to break free, and it was pure luck that we did.’
When Beth stopped to take a breath, Leanne was left to wonder how fate had decided who would have luck on their side and who wouldn’t.
‘I’d heard a member of staff directing us to the side exits near the stage, so that’s where we headed, although that was terrifying in itself. I could see where the ceiling had caved in.’ Beth tilted her head upwards to the clear blue sky as if she could still see it. ‘It was surreal. The dust was settling and the smoke was mostly in the eaves. I could see this orange glow above us. I often wonder how long that fire had been raging above our heads.’
‘Was Karin with you when you reached the side exit?’
‘She was when we made a run for it across the auditorium. I felt her grab my coat sleeve. I just kept yelling at her to hold on, that we were going to make it. When we reached the inner corridor, it was cramped, but nowhere near as bad as the other exit, and at least there was no one coming down the stairwell by then. We were jostled about a bit, but I was sure Karin was with me. I should have looked back, but I was concentrating on that final door. I could feel the air getting colder.’
‘And?’
‘We got outside and I turned to tell Karin we’d made it, except it wasn’t her. It was the bloody woman with all the bags. Straight away, I was ready to fight my way back inside, but the stupid cow was in hysterics. She wouldn’t let go of my arm, and there were too many people still coming out through the doors. I knew the best chance I could give Karin was not to clog up the exit. I had her phone in my shoulder bag so I couldn’t call. All I could do was wait.’ Beth curled her hands into fists. Fully formed tears had collected in the corners of her eyes. ‘I would never have left without her. I thought she was behind me.’
‘And what does Karin say happened?’
‘She doesn’t remember.’
‘But even someone with amnesia can have random memories come back to them,’ Leanne said, based on her suspicions rather than any form of medical knowledge.
‘She wakes up in a cold sweat most nights, but she has no idea what, if anything, she’s remembered.’
‘Do you think she saw her brother?’
‘I told you, she doesn’t remember, so how would I know?’ replied Beth, losing patience. She glanced at the phone sitting between them, or it could have been the money she was counting.
‘And what about you?’ Leanne persisted. ‘Did you see Declan? With the crush at the front of the theatre, he could only have gained access through the side entrance, but you said you couldn’t get back in. How do you think he managed it?’
The tear running down Beth’s face revealed a broken woman. ‘It was possible to get back inside,’ she said, contradicting what she had said only a moment earlier. She lifted the newspaper Leanne had given her. ‘She managed it.’
There were only two faces on the front page of the Courier, and Leanne doubted Beth was referring to Amelia. ‘Claudia Rothwell?’
‘Some things stick in your mind, and she was one of them. She was encouraging everyone to get out, reassuring us that the fire crews were on their way, and then she pushed her way back inside,’ Beth said with incredulity. ‘I stayed where I was, and I still can’t believe I left Karin in there.’
‘Or Karin left you,’ Leanne offered. ‘She was found close to her brother’s body. What if she made a deliberate choice not to leave? What if she’d been looking for Declan?’
‘Why would she?’ Beth said, wiping her eyes and smearing her make-up. ‘Declan wasn’t supposed to be in there.’
‘And yet we all know he was. The question is, what was he doing?’
‘No, the question is, what the hell am I doing?’ Beth said, straightening up. She shoved the newspaper back at Leanne. ‘You’re not interested in my story, are you? I’d say this interview is over.’
As Leanne tucked the copy of the Courier out of sight, she tried a few more questions, gentle enquiries into how Beth had felt seeing Karin again, how they had managed her recovery, but Beth had closed down. Leanne picked up her phone in one hand and lifted the three twenty-pound notes in her other.
Beth backed away as Leanne extended the money towards her. She pulled open her car door. ‘Keep your money,’ she said. ‘How the hell do you sleep at night, preying on other people’s misery?’
If Beth had given her a chance to reply, Leanne would tell her that she didn’t sleep well at all. She wasn’t sure she ever would again.