I helped Bethany to her feet.
‘We need to leave,’ I told her. ‘We need to get out of here.’
Her eyes were frenzied, her cheeks flushed red, strands of hair pasted to her face. Her breaths were coming in shallow pants as she recoiled from the smoke that was drifting around us, covering her nose and mouth with her bound hands.
I linked my arm in Bethany’s and pulled her, the hammer in my fist, lighting our way with the phone torch and gripping her tightly when her legs went rubbery and her head seemed to loll.
We paused at the top of the stairs. I could feel the heat from below. The smoke was getting thicker, blacker.
‘Stay with me.’ I coughed. ‘Not far now.’
I almost lost her as we negotiated the stairs down towards the living room. She missed a step and pivoted forwards, but I pressed her against the wooden spindles and the handrail and pinned her there until I could steady myself and lead her on.
Clouds of smoke wafted past. The flames from the kitchen glowed and flared. The fire was advancing towards the living area. The entire house would be ablaze soon.
When we reached the vestibule and Bethany saw Donovan outside on the ground, she stiffened and wailed, ‘Oh my God!’
I coughed and spluttered and tugged her past him.
Her legs finally gave out when the cool air hit her and she fell onto the gravel in the middle of our yard.
‘Here.’ I pressed Donovan’s phone into her hands. ‘It’s 999. Talk to them.’
I crossed to Donovan. There was a fresh and livid contusion across his temple and cheek. Blood pooling around his body. He seemed to be fully out of it, but when I kneeled down beside him his eyelids flickered, his pupils roved and he muttered something incomprehensible.
I thrust my face closer. He reached up and pawed my shoulder.
‘Got . . . to . . . find him.’
‘You did. And the police will. They’re on their way.’
‘Had to push you. Needed . . . answers . . . My brother.’
‘You could have just talked to me. You could have—’
But his pupils lost focus and his eyelids fluttered shut again. He looked deathly pale.
‘Donovan?’
I shook him by his shoulders.
‘Donovan?’
I patted his cheek but this time he didn’t come round.
Inside the house the flames were twisting and roiling. They were beginning to consume the staircase, billowing against the ceiling.
I coughed into my elbow, then with what felt like the last of my strength I rolled Donovan onto his side until he was lying in the recovery position and pushed up to my feet.
I swayed and choked on a lungful of air, then doubled over and coughed and wheezed, hacking smoke, spitting onto the ground.
The smoke alarms were much quieter outside the house, even with the door open. None of our neighbours had emerged from their homes to investigate what was happening. No one seemed to be aware of the fire.
I swiped the back of my hand across my mouth before asking Bethany, ‘How long?’
‘He says under five minutes.’
She was kneeling on the gravel with the phone in her hands, the torchlight glaring and winking, a damp glassiness to her eyes.
I turned from her to look off along the street in both directions, coughing again, but I couldn’t see Sam.
I was just turning back in the other direction, my gaze sweeping across the front of John’s house, when I glimpsed something from the corner of my eye.
John’s front door was ajar.