Karin Gallagher was trying not to giggle. Beth had drawn the short straw and was sitting next to an eccentric older lady with bright purple highlights who had decided they would be companions for the night. Beth’s new friend had been knitting when they arrived and, after the alarm sounded, she took for ever to pack up her things.
‘Do you want one last sweet before I put them away?’ the lady asked, offering one of the many bags she had brought with her. She was the only one in their row yet to stand up.
‘No, thanks,’ Beth said tersely. She wasn’t sharing Karin’s amusement. The woman was in the aisle seat, and they couldn’t move until she cleared a path.
As they waited, Beth put on her hat and coat before lifting her shoulder bag over her head and across her tensed body. Karin shoved her phone inside the bag’s front pocket.
‘We really should get moving,’ Beth tried.
Her new friend waved her hand. ‘We won’t make it to the front of the queue so we might as well take our time. If it was a proper emergency, I think we’d know about it by now.’
As it transpired, Karin and Beth found themselves somewhere close to the middle of the large crowd waiting to get out through the central exit, which was somewhat fortunate because when the lights went out and everyone surged forward, the bodies surrounding them kept them from toppling over.
‘Oh, my God! Please, no! What— What’s happening?’ someone shrieked close to Karin’s ear. It was the lady with purple highlights who had been shadowing Beth.
The screams all around them were unmerciful and Karin wanted to cover her ears, but she couldn’t move her arms. When a gust of warm, acrid air assaulted them, they started choking on the dust.
‘I can’t breathe!’ cried the woman squashed against Beth’s back. ‘I don’t want to die!’
‘Stop pushing!’ yelled Beth.
‘It’s not me!’ she shouted back.
The emergency lighting fought against the dust cloud to create a luminous grey fog, and when Karin looked at Beth, she hardly recognised her. They were covered in a thick layer of plaster and grit. ‘We’ll be OK,’ Karin promised.
Beth nodded. She was trying so hard not to let her fear show, but Karin could see how the skin above her collarbone was sucked in every time she tried to breathe. Karin was struggling for air too. ‘We’re packed in. Too tight.’
‘We need to move across to the side,’ Beth told her. ‘Imagine we’re swimmers. In a riptide. As we’re dragged forward. Get ready to move. Sideways.’
Karin turned her head to glance back across the auditorium. Through the swirls of dust, she spied smouldering timbers rising up where rows of seats had been. The damage appeared to be concentrated on one side of the auditorium.
‘We need to move that way,’ Karin said to Beth, pointing with her eyes to the opposite side.
With the next push, Karin and Beth steered themselves diagonally. Each time they moved, Karin was aware that they were being followed by the sound of sobbing. The old lady clung to Beth like a limpet.
And whilst Beth’s new friend dripped snot and tears onto the back of her jacket, Claudia Rothwell was edging closer to the fire doors at the side of the theatre.
‘Come on, hurry!’ she shouted to the traumatised theatregoers who had paused outside the fire doors to take their first gulps of fresh air. Most were adults, but there were children too. She wanted to help. She needed to be involved. If nothing else, it would ease her conscience later when she would be obliged to recount a convincing story of being there all along.
She was about to shout again when a little boy’s wails rose up into the mournful night. He was pointing to the burning theatre and calling out for Mrs Clarke. There were people trapped inside, and it looked like one of them was Sedgefield’s revered dance teacher.
Claudia had never been one of Hilary’s dance students, but she had wanted to be. Her dad could never afford the classes and, even if he had, he wouldn’t have wasted a rare Saturday morning off to take his daughter to dance school. She had envied her friends, but one by one they had dropped out when Claudia convinced them how uncool it was. Hilary must be in her seventies now. It was unthinkable that she wouldn’t make it out.
Blue flashes of light danced across the walls further along the alleyway. The emergency services had arrived. ‘Help’s on the way!’ Claudia yelled.
A woman grabbed hold of her sleeve to steady herself. ‘Thank God,’ she said. ‘People are dying in there. I could hear them calling out.’
Claudia stared at the handprint the woman left on her cream cashmere coat. It was the colour of rust. Blood.
Fear rose up through Claudia’s body, making her feel clammy, but she was angry too. She wished she had never become involved in the stupid renovation project, but she had become obsessed with impressing Phillipa. It was strange to think there had been a time when Claudia was envied by her peers, but marrying Justin had placed her in a different league. No matter how much he loved her, it didn’t soften the blow that she had gone from the very top to the very bottom, and when Phillipa had assigned her as mystery shopper for the only amateur performance, it had been a deliberate snub. Not attending had been an act of rebellion, but one Claudia had always intended to keep to herself.
Pressing her fingers against the stitch in her side, Claudia considered her options. She had only recently found out she was pregnant and shouldn’t take any chances, but could she walk away and say she had done enough? The answer scared her. No, she couldn’t.
Inside the theatre, while Amelia was lost down her rabbit hole and Rex Russell was yet to move away from the wall he cowered against, Karin and Beth fought to reach the opposite side of the auditorium. A small group had gathered and, every so often, someone would build up the courage to break cover and make a run towards the exit near the stage. Onlookers felt a surge of hope whenever someone disappeared beneath the green exit sign without being hit by the falling debris that suggested another collapse was imminent.
‘We have to go! Now!’ Beth urged.
Karin nodded and they set off at speed, or Karin would have if the old lady hadn’t manoeuvred herself directly between her and Beth. Karin put a hand the woman’s shoulder as encouragement. They would make it together.
As they raced into danger, Karin could feel every muscle tensing, and only the old lady dared to look around them. Terrified by what she saw, she stumbled and grabbed hold of Beth’s sleeve. Karin strained her ears for the telltale creak of disintegrating rafters, and that was when she heard someone calling out. It was a voice she recognised.