The sky had darkened to sapphire with enough light left in the day to pick out the skeletal forms of oaks and beeches stripped of their leaves by the storm. Victoria Park had taken a battering in the last few days, but on the day of the anniversary, the clouds had parted and the wind was no more than a despairing last breath.
Leanne was loitering by the bandstand, some distance away from the crowds concentrated around the sound stage that had been erected hurriedly on the playing field that morning. Claudia had been extremely fortunate not to have her plans blown away by seventy-mile-an-hour gales, and some might say she led a charmed life these days, but perhaps she deserved it. Claudia certainly looked as if she had the world at her feet as the lights came up and she stepped onto a stage that wouldn’t look out of place on a field in Glastonbury.
Unlike any festival Leanne had ever been to, the crowd stilled; a solemn reminder that they weren’t there to be entertained. They were there to remember and, as Leanne scanned the horizon, she searched for the glow in the sky that had been a forewarning she had initially ignored a year ago. She pushed her face into the scarf wrapped around her neck and breathed in the scent of damp wool to force the memory away. She was cold to the bone, but not numb. She could feel the collective pain of the crowd. There wasn’t a single person in Sedgefield that hadn’t been touched by the deathly fingers of the fire.
‘I would like to start by saying that we shouldn’t be here,’ Claudia said, her voice remaining sharp and clear as it was amplified across the park. ‘But it might be more appropriate to acknowledge the people who should be here with us. Our friends and neighbours, our parents, our brothers and sisters. Our children.’ Overcome with emotion, she pressed her fingers to her mouth. An eerie silence pressed down on the crowd as they waited patiently.
Claudia’s voice was stronger when she said, ‘Our loved ones are gone and the memories we should be making with them are lost for ever. It’s pain that fills the void. And for the survivors, there are physical and mental scars too. Our lives have changed. We have changed. We’re here this evening to remember that awful night and to show the world that we will never forget.’
The first ripple of applause was almost lost to the soughing of the breeze, but after a tentative start, it became a wave that thundered through the crowd. Claudia wiped tears from her cheeks and, when she was ready, she raised a hand. At her will, the audience quietened.
As Claudia continued with the speech she had vowed not to give, Leanne turned away. She didn’t want to be at one with the town and its collective grief. Claudia was right, they shouldn’t be there.
Following the path that cut through the centre of the park, Leanne kept the main event at a safe distance as she checked her phone. Frankie and the Courier’s photographer, Henry, were milling around somewhere, collecting snaps and soundbites. They weren’t due to meet up until the end of the service, at which point they would regroup for a climax that wasn’t on Claudia’s itinerary.
Leanne’s boots squelched on wet, decaying leaves as she veered off the path. She had hoped the refreshments marquee would be empty, but she wasn’t the only one avoiding the throng. There were groups of families and friends huddled by the entrance with steaming cups of coffee and hot chocolate. Claudia’s team had decided against serving alcohol. No one would be drowning their sorrows tonight, or at least not until the service was over.
Leanne acknowledged one or two familiar faces, but she refused to be drawn into a conversation. There was only one thing people wanted to talk about, and she had to step over guy ropes to avoid them. She wasn’t quick enough, and felt a hand on her shoulder. Her body turned before she had the chance to prepare for who it might be. She could tell from the way Joe’s grip tightened that he expected her to bolt.
‘Leanne, please.’
‘I don’t want to hear it,’ she hissed.
‘But we need to talk.’
‘And you choose now? Today of all days?’
‘On this day especially,’ Joe said, raising his voice to match hers. ‘And I don’t care how many times you walk away, I’ll keep coming back.’
‘No, Joe, you’ll give up eventually. That’s what you’re good at!’
Joe’s body jerked at the force of her words. ‘You have every right to hate me, I hate myself, but I can’t let you cut me out like this. At least give me a chance to explain.’
She tried to tug her arm free, but he wouldn’t let go. ‘So you can feel better? Well I have news for you, Joe. I don’t want you to feel better. Now let go of me or I swear I’m going to punch you.’ Her hand curled into a fist.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his voice breaking. ‘I’m sorry for not being enough—’
Joe’s words were cut off by the blow Leanne landed on the side of his face. Her knuckles cracked painfully, but the punch had the desired effect, and Joe released his grip. Leanne flexed her hand as she hurried away from the marquee and plunged into the swell of the crowd.
Claudia had been replaced onstage by the Lord Mayor of Sedgefield. It had been the right decision to have Claudia speak first. The mayor’s words were drowned out by boos when he attempted to extol the bravery of the fire service. As a councillor, he had been party to the decision to close down the fire station.
Consumed by the crowd, Leanne slowed long enough to check behind her. Joe wasn’t there, but there was a face that caught her attention, if only because the woman dipped her head the moment Leanne locked eyes with her. Despite her throbbing fingers, Leanne made another fist.
Phillipa Montgomery had dressed down for the occasion, wearing jeans and a padded jacket with a fur collar that matched her hat. In her late forties, she had kept her figure and timeless looks, although Leanne imagined that without the money and the polishing, she would be quite ordinary. It was what Phillipa was hoping to pass for now. She held her collar against her cheek as if the storm still raged, but it was a pathetic attempt to conceal her identity. She appeared to be alone. Her husband Robert was six foot five and would give his wife away too easily. Leanne eyed Phillipa as an animal might its prey and took a step forward.
Aware that her cover had been blown, Phillipa backed away and turned. The crowd filled the space between them and Leanne moved sideways rather than attempting to push ahead. She moved fast, too fast for those in her way, but she rode the wave of dissent and circled Phillipa, pouncing where the crowd had thinned.
‘Leanne Pitman from the Cheshire Courier,’ she announced as she blocked Phillipa’s path.
‘I know who you are.’
‘Care to make a comment?’
‘Only that I want to be left alone.’
‘And yet here you are,’ Leanne said tersely. ‘I saw you outside the press conference too.’
‘You can’t blame me for wanting to see how people are coping. This is my town.’
Leanne mocked Phillipa with her laughter. ‘Are you sure it isn’t jealousy? Claudia Rothwell seems to have taken your crown.’
Phillipa pursed her lips, forming a tight seal. She had decided the interview was over, but Leanne wasn’t done with her yet. ‘Is that it, Mrs Montgomery?’ she asked, her voice not quite loud enough for others to hear, but her inflection was a warning. Her name would be shouted through the treetops if necessary.
With her face deep in shadow, the reflected light from the stage gave Phillipa’s features a ghoulish countenance. On closer inspection, her year in exile had not been kind to her. Her shoulders were hunched and she looked older than Leanne recalled from their last encounter a week before the Empress’s grand opening. Phillipa had been perfectly preened back then, with shoulders pulled back and her chest puffed out like a bird of paradise. Claudia’s comment onstage about them all changing was true, and Leanne was glad to see that Phillipa had withered out of the spotlight. If her frailty was meant to engender sympathy, it didn’t. The reporter, like the town, was spent in that regard.
‘What do you expect me to say?’ Phillipa asked, with a note of resignation that Leanne hadn’t anticipated.
Her face twisted into a snarl. ‘You might want to start with an apology.’
‘I have apologised, and I’ll keep saying it until my dying day. I am sorry, so very sorry.’
‘You should have been in that fire.’
‘Do you think I don’t wish that too?’ Phillipa’s chin wobbled. ‘I’d give my life for any one of those victims if I could.’
‘Any of them? Or is there one person in particular? Was there someone you were closer to than you should have been?’
Leanne’s last conversation with Claudia had been a gift. Phillipa and Declan. It was all beginning to make sense now. According to Frankie, Declan’s workmates had mentioned he had a habit of letting them down at the last minute whenever he had a better offer. Unfortunately, he had refused to breathe a word about the woman who could demand his attention at will and, without firm evidence, it was pointless running the story past Mal. He wouldn’t print salacious gossip, but that didn’t stop Leanne wielding the threat as a weapon.
Phillipa flinched at the accusation, but she wasn’t completely disarmed. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Do you know what Declan Gallagher was up to that night?’
‘Should I?’
‘He was your right-hand man,’ Leanne said with a smirk that was deliberately engineered to unsettle.
‘He was employed by the contractor, not me.’
‘But he took orders from you, pandered to your every whim,’ challenged Leanne. ‘He died for the sake of your vanity project, and took eleven innocent souls with him. How does that make you feel, to know every person here tonight has suffered because of you?’
When Phillipa’s body stiffened, it had the effect of straightening her posture. She wasn’t as broken as she would have Leanne believe. ‘I know what part I played, and if the investigation finds me wanting, I’ll accept the consequences.’ She tilted her head when she added, ‘But where I can defend myself, I will. I have no idea what Declan was doing in the theatre.’
‘He wasn’t with you?’
‘I was at a dinner party, as has been widely reported and can be corroborated by a dozen people.’
‘But you did spend time with Declan. The two of you made quite a pair,’ Leanne said, shifting to the left as Phillipa went to pass her.
‘This is nonsense.’
As Phillipa attempted to shove Leanne out of the way, Leanne gripped her arm. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘If you seriously think you can hurt me more than I’m hurting already, do your worst,’ Phillipa whispered in her ear.
Tired of their little dance, Leanne let her go and Phillipa was about to stride away, but stopped. Something was happening onstage that made her glance back. Leanne turned too. There was a young girl beneath the spotlight, a sheet of paper in her hand. Her nose twitched like a bunny rabbit. It was little Evie, the last performer to grace the stage of the Empress Theatre.
‘This is the poem I wrote for Mrs Clarke and everyone else who died in the fire,’ Evie said, reading from her script.
The microphone picked up the sound as she cleared her throat. She took a breath. The crowd did the same.
‘If I could go to heaven, I’d dance my way to you. I’d make each step a happy step, cos I’d be closer too. I’d smile my biggest smile and tell you what you’ve missed. I’d ask you if you were watching us and if you were im— impressed. And when it was time to go, I know I would not cry, because if I could go to heaven, I’d – I’d bring you down from the sky.’
Leanne felt a lump in her throat despite telling herself it was sentimental mush, and it was about to get harder. Claudia had reappeared. She took Evie’s hand and announced the start of the two minutes’ silence. It was 8.06 p.m.; the time the show had been brought to a stop by the sound of the alarm.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Leanne refused to follow Claudia’s instructions to remember those they had lost. She chose instead to think about the people who had caused this misery, and what she would like to do to them. She listened to the sobs echoing across Victoria Park and, when the first notes of ‘Ave Maria’ filled the air, she turned back to Phillipa. She wanted to witness her adversary’s conscience breaking her completely, but she had already scuttled away. Leanne took her notebook from her rucksack and scribbled the quote as best she could recall. ‘Phillipa Montgomery dared to show her face at the memorial service and said, “I know what part I played and I accept the consequences.”’
As Leanne made her way backstage to the performers’ tent, she caught a glimpse of Claudia prowling in the wings. She hadn’t strayed far from the spotlight all night and was clapping along to a local band who had written a song especially for the occasion. It was one of the last acts, chosen specifically to lift the mood and ensure that the people of Sedgefield left the park with hope in their hearts. Leanne wasn’t ready to be uplifted. She had a job to do.
‘Are we all set?’ Frankie asked when Leanne caught up with her in a quiet corner that would be perfect for their covert operation.
Leanne had her phone in her hand. ‘I’ve just shared my location with Amelia’s mum so she can track us down. They’re on their way over, and all we need now is for our main attraction to fall into the trap.’
‘It’s not a trap,’ Frankie reminded her. ‘As far as we’re concerned, it’ll be a happy coincidence that Claudia and Amelia are reunited.’
‘If you say so,’ Leanne replied. This hadn’t been her idea. Mal was getting jumpy, convinced another media outlet would beat them to this one-off opportunity.
Frankie caught Leanne staring off towards the stage and Claudia. ‘Don’t look so worried. If you ask me, Claudia’s loving being centre of attention, and she’ll get loads of mileage out of this. She’s nothing like I expected. I know you said she had a case of imposter syndrome, but I can’t see it from where I’m standing. She’s a hard one to figure out.’
‘What you see isn’t always what you get,’ Leanne said, repeating the phrase Claudia’s friend, Kim, had used to describe her. Claudia had many layers, and Leanne was still working out where the real Claudia started and the imposter began. ‘She told me it was never her intention to fill Phillipa’s shoes, but she’s having a good go at trying them on for size. Speaking of Phillipa …’ There was a mischievous glint in her eye.
‘She’s not about to close the show, is she?’ Frankie said, laughing.
‘No, but she was here.’
‘No way! Did you speak to her?’
‘Briefly, and I have a quote we can use. I’ll tell you all about it later. First, we need to get this over and done with.’
Leanne had lost sight of Claudia, but she could hear her announcing the finale; a school choir who would give a rendition of ‘Fields of Gold’. School kids dressed in black T-shirts had gathered in the wings, and Leanne recognised one of the volunteers organising them into line.
‘Here, hold my phone and watch out for Amelia,’ Leanne said, not wanting Amelia’s mum to track her location to a spot where Claudia would see them. ‘I won’t be long.’
Justin was watching his wife welcome the choir onto the stage when Leanne approached.
‘It’s gone really well, hasn’t it?’ she shouted into his ear.
Justin spun around and beamed a smile. ‘Isn’t it amazing? I can’t believe Claudia has pulled this off. She’s even managed to conquer the weather gods.’
‘You must be very proud of her.’
He nodded. ‘I am. And thank you for your support. A lot of tonight’s success can be credited to you and your articles.’
‘In that case, I wonder if you could do me a small favour?’ she asked, swallowing back her reservations about the reunion. ‘I don’t want to disturb Claudia now, but she promised us a post-event interview. Ideally, we’d like to catch her straight after the service.’
‘Not a problem,’ he said. ‘There are other journalists who’ve asked for a quote, but I’ll make sure she speaks to you first.’
Leanne pointed to where she would be waiting. ‘See you later then.’
‘Hold on a minute,’ he said, catching hold of her arm. ‘You might want to see this.’
A woman in a paramedic’s uniform had appeared next to them. She was holding a stunning bouquet of flowers. ‘Shall I go on now?’ she asked.
Justin took her hand and squeezed it. ‘The stage is yours.’
Claudia had been about to leave the stage and looked momentarily confused by the approaching paramedic. The choir had been prepped and their voices provided gentle background music as the woman handed over the bouquet and kissed Claudia’s cheek. She held Claudia’s hand to prevent her from rushing offstage.
‘I’ve been asked to say a few words,’ the paramedic began. ‘I know this service is for each and every one of us, but it would be wrong to end the night without reflecting on how much we appreciate Claudia Rothwell’s extraordinary efforts in bringing us all together, and to acknowledge that Claudia has had to battle with her own heartbreak.’
‘I was on duty a year ago, and spent hours in this park attending to the walking wounded. I must have treated tens, if not hundreds of people and some were more seriously injured than others. It’s remarkable, therefore, that I remember Claudia at all, because she didn’t have a mark on her. Maybe that was what made her so memorable, but I’d say it was her selflessness that struck me. She told me not to waste any time on her. She was convinced that she had survived without a scratch, and I wish that had been the case. I’d personally like to offer my condolences.’
‘Honestly, you don’t have to …’ Claudia insisted.
She looked uncomfortable, and it was a feeling that Leanne shared. The picture painted by the paramedic was at odds with the image that had formed in Leanne’s mind during her countless conversations with survivors in her quest to identify Amelia’s rescuer.
As the paramedic continued, Leanne turned to Justin. ‘Did she really not have a mark on her? I thought she lost fingernails?’
Justin’s eyes were glassy. ‘A couple of false nails, a few stains on her coat, that was about it – if you discount how much she reeked of smoke,’ he said. ‘And it was the smoke that did the damage.’
‘Of course. I’m so sorry,’ Leanne said. She had great sympathy for Justin, but her feelings for his wife, however, were more difficult to define. A new layer to Claudia had been exposed. ‘I have to go. I’ll see you later.’
Leanne rushed back to Frankie and was relieved to find that Kathryn and Amelia Parker were yet to arrive.
‘Where’s my phone?’ she demanded.
‘Is everything OK?’
Leanne grabbed her phone and connected her earphones. ‘I don’t know.’ Her heart was hammering as she searched through her interview recordings until she found the one she was after. She didn’t have time to listen to the whole thing, and skipped the first couple of minutes of the telephone interview with Rex Russell before pressing play.
‘Did you see Amelia before the ceiling collapse?’ Leanne had asked him.
‘Well, erm, I’m not sure. Erm, no, probably not. I don’t remember.’
Leanne fast-forwarded again and with a little toing and froing, found the section she needed to hear.
‘When you saw this figure coming towards you, what can you remember about her? How about the colour of her skin, or her hair?’
‘She was a walking statue. Grey. Covered in dust.’
‘Was she short? Tall?’
‘She was tallish. I’m only five foot seven on a good day and she was at least my height, maybe an inch more. I’m sorry, I don’t know what else to add. I was looking at Amelia,’ Rex had replied. ‘I was thinking how she was roughly the same age as my granddaughter, how it could have been her.’
‘I know it’s hard, but try visualising the woman coming closer. What do you see?’
‘The girl,’ he had insisted. His words were pained as he forced the memory. ‘The woman was carrying her as if she were a dead weight and … I do remember her hands being blackened and covered in blood. Presumably, that’s all she had to dig Amelia out, and you could tell, they were covered in cuts.’ He had left a pause, drawing forth the memory. ‘And, God, yes, there were a couple of her fingernails hanging by a thread. I know it’s not much, but—’
Leanne cut the recording. She had heard enough. The person Rex had described – Amelia’s hero – was nothing like the one described by the paramedic. As much as she wanted to believe confusion might explain the contradictions, Leanne couldn’t quite convince herself. She’d been fighting her gut instinct that told her not to trust Claudia, and now she knew why. Her stomach lurched. As unthinkable as it was, Claudia and Amelia’s hero did not appear to be one and the same. Claudia was a fraud.