Fire Damage: A gripping thriller that will keep you hooked

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When she was all cried out, she pushed herself up from the floor and went over to the sink. Letting the cold tap gush until the water was freezing, she doused her face, let the water run down her neck and chest. As the water numbed her skin, her brain spun with thoughts, memories, memories on memories. Love. Guilt. Helplessness. Self-hatred.

She had never realized that so much love could exist for another person until she had seen her mother grieving for Jamie.

16 (#ulink_a54f7ee9-7718-56db-a684-3821573ca67f)

Downstairs Mummy and Daddy were arguing – he could hear their raised voices. Wendy had put him to bed, put him in his woolly sheep pyjamas and dressing gown, put socks on his feet. Keep you warm. Told him that Mummy and Daddy were tired tonight, stressed. Be a good boy. Go to sleep.

He had gone to sleep, like Wendy had asked him, but the shouting had woken him. He liked Wendy, felt safe when she was here. Now she was gone. He had seen her from his bedroom window, hurrying to her car, head down, glancing around her as she walked. He had heard her engine puttering out of the drive.

It was only him, Mummy and Daddy in the house. Him upstairs alone, and their raised voices coming up through the floor.

Daddy was shouting: I don’t want people interfering in our lives.

Sitting up in bed, he looked towards the window. Wendy hadn’t pulled the curtains all the way across – they didn’t join in the middle. A sliver of moonlight cut through the gap, glinting across his room like a knife. He wanted them closed, wanted the knife gone. But he didn’t want to go near the window, to pull them closed himself. He was scared of what might be outside the glass. He had seen the light in the garden, flashing close to the house, had asked Wendy about the light. Light? I didn’t see a light. You must have imagined it. Go to sleep now, like a good boy.

Sami swallowed. A lump was stuck in his throat and it wouldn’t go up or down. Inching silently to the end of his bed, dragging his torch with him, he slid on to the floor. He sat for a second, panting, his chest tight with fear. Was he alone? The darkness in his bedroom seemed to be moving.

On hands and knees, he crawled silently into the corner, squeezing himself behind the toy buckets, curling himself into a tiny ball. He could see nothing but the smooth coloured plastic of the buckets. Red. Blue. Yellow. Green. He couldn’t see the void of darkness beyond; the darkness couldn’t find him.

Mummy and Daddy were arguing. He pressed his hands over his ears, could still hear them.

Mummy was shouting. Daddy was angry.

He wanted to curl up in Mummy’s arms, like he used to before Mummy got sad.

Quietly, he tugged Baby Isabel out of the dolls’ toy bucket, shrunk back into the corner, clutching her tight to his chest.

‘The boy is bad,’ he whispered into Baby Isabel’s ear. ‘The girl … the girl is good. The boy is bad.’

He felt for his torch. It was next to him. Having it there made him feel safer. He wanted to switch it on, but he was too frightened to move again.

‘The bad girl has got out of bed.’ His lips moved silently against Baby Isabel’s ear. ‘Stay in bed. Don’t get out. Bad girl.’

He breathed in – a deep, sucking breath – trying to make his heart stop drumming in his chest. The noise of his heart was too loud. Someone would hear. The darkness would hear. Shadowman would hear. Pressing his hand to his chest, he tried to hold his heart to stop it from thumping. He couldn’t. Jamming his eyes shut, he started to cry.

Daddy was shouting. Mummy was sobbing.

He had to switch his torch on, had to keep himself safe.

‘Go away, Shadowman,’ he whispered. ‘Go away, Shadowman, goway, Shadowman, goway, goway, goway.’ Chanting under his breath, clutching Baby Isabel tight with one hand, he swung the beam of his torch back and forth across the room with the other. ‘Stay in bed. Gowayshadowman, goway, goway, goway.’

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Nineties bubble-gum music pumped from the doors as Jessie pushed them open. Britney Spears. Was she still knocking out tunes?

It was a typical Mc-bar in a side street in Aldershot, one that could be lifted and replanted in any small-town high street in England and look as if it belonged. Modern brushed gold fittings, pale wooden bar, mushroom-coloured walls, pairs of fat leather sofas for chilling arranged either side of low wooden coffee tables, booths heaving with twenty-somethings clutching alcopops and bottles of Becks, eyeing each other up.

Jessie pushed her way over to the bar and slid on to a stool, ordered herself a vodka and tonic. She had dressed with intent: wore a thigh-length red dress and nude stilettos, a slash of Ruby Tuesday lipstick and statement eyes. A jet-black curtain of hair hung almost to her waist. It was a tried-and-tested outfit, though one she rarely wore, dragged from the back of her wardrobe and dusted down when cleaning the house had failed to keep her demons at bay. She knew that she looked hot. Hot and available.

Crossing her legs, she spun the stool, tilted back against the bar and scanned the crowd. In less than a minute, she had locked eyes with a man standing near the door with a few of his mates. He looked a couple of years younger than her – twenty-six or -seven, perhaps. He wore a tight white long-sleeved T-shirt that hugged his abdominals and navy-blue jeans. He was tall, dark-haired, dark-eyed, good looking enough, with a nice smile. Nice enough. She didn’t intend to marry him.

Dropping her gaze, she twisted a lock of hair around her finger. Looking up, she found his gaze again. The corners of her mouth tilted in a tiny smile. She took another sip of her vodka and tonic, eyes locked with his, then twisted back to the bar.

Thirty seconds later, a voice in her ear. ‘Can I get you another?’

Turning, she laid a hand on his chest. ‘Why not.’

Jessie ran her hands up the man’s torso under his T-shirt, feeling the hard ridges of his abdominals, the muscles of his chest warm and solid under her fingers. He worked out three times a week, he had told her proudly. She could tell.

They had left the bar, walked down a side street to the car park at the back. The air was freezing, a light layer of frost coating the tarmac, silvery in the moonlight, the car park, unsurprisingly, deserted.

She could feel him, already hard, pressing against her thigh. Sliding her hand to the back of his neck, Jessie moulded her body to his and slid her tongue into his mouth. With her other hand, she found his belt buckle.

The rough brick sandpapered her back through her leather jacket as he shoved up inside her. She closed her eyes and her mind locked on to the feel of him, the rhythmic movement, the sensation. Nothing else mattered. Only the pure, uncomplicated, animal feeling. She bit her lip, felt heat building. For a second her mind filled with an image of Callan, looking at her across his desk, looking wrecked. Pushing the image away, she blanked her mind, focused only on the man, the feeling of him inside her. Closing her eyes, she clung to him as the orgasm came, tucking her face into the crook of his neck, drawing in his smell, feeling his warmth, the twin manic beats of their hearts.