24 Hours: An intense, suspenseful psychological thriller

W
e see
what we want to see.

My husband taught me that. It was always Sid’s catchphrase: sometimes we see, and sometimes we simply choose not to look. Sometimes we just close our eyes.

This is a story of how I didn’t look.

Of how love did not win the day, or conquer all.

How can you see love anyway? Love isn’t clear or clean-cut. Sometimes, sure, it’s gentle – but it can also be strange, intangible, amorphous. And too often, love isn’t about love at all. The lines get blurred and it becomes simply about survival. It folds us in its warm embrace, then flings us to the floor.

Is it a blessing, or a curse? A moot point, I’d say. Up for debate. So, I can’t tell you the answer, but I can tell you this …

This is a story of an ugly, brutal love: the kind that blinds.

The kind you may not survive.

L
ight is breaking
on the horizon behind the hills as we pull into the hospital grounds, but the day already looks grey.

There cannot be any hope for this day.

My eyes are hot and gritty: they sting with exhaustion and smoke. I rub them, but it only makes them worse.

The woman next to me in the ambulance says something, but it doesn’t seem to make any sense. I can’t understand the words she speaks. I would answer, but I can hardly even swallow. My head throbs; my throat is like sandpaper; my mouth tastes of ash and guilt.

The woman is still wearing a dressing-gown; it is pink velour, although hardly pink any more. She is pale and bewildered; tear-stained, soot-marked. I imagine I look similar.

I don’t care what I look like.

I just want to know where Emily is.

No one has been able to tell me anything. There has been nothing but chaos; no one to ask, or explain – just confusion and panic. The police who eventually arrived at the scene were too busy, trying to corral everyone into the lane outside the grounds. We watched with mounting desperation as the flames grew, so high they were visible above the fences, thick black smoke billowing across the tree-tops, burning debris flying on the breeze. We watched until they forced us down the road into some kind of village hall where we waited for the ambulances to arrive.

The paramedics assure us that all will become clear soon; that, at the hospital, news of our friends and family will be available; that we should just ‘hang on. Keep hanging on, there’s a good girl.’

I am terrified. I have a nagging pain in my stomach that gnaws at me. I need to find Emily, and then I need to go. To get the hell out before I am found.

I am more terrified that I will
not
find Emily.

Last night reels through my head again and then stops; freezes; rewinds. Plays again. And again. Flames lick against a wall; smoke seeps under doors. The heat; the lack of air.

I hold my pounding head in my hands to stop the images that flicker remorselessly – but it’s impossible.

‘All right, love?’ the balding paramedic holds his hand out, gently pushes my face up so he can look at me.

‘Yes,’ I croak. It’s not the truth. ‘Thank you.’

‘Hand hurting?’ he indicates my bandaged hand.

‘A bit. My throat hurts and my shoulder’s really sore.’

Talking makes me cough. He studies my face. He has short stubby eyelashes I stare at, like toothbrush bristles.

‘Anything else? Feeling odd? Light-headed? Headache?’

I want to grab his hand and keep holding it. I might float away if I don’t. ‘I’m fine, really.’

I have never been less fine in my life.

‘Well,’ he releases my face. ‘Go slow, okay? You’re in the right place now. They’ll check you out for smoke inhalation.’

But I am in entirely the wrong place.

The fluorescent lights of the hospital A & E are blinding as they open the back of the ambulance to let us out. I screw my eyes up and clamber down, disoriented.

I am reminded of sheep in a truck, blindly following on, tumbling clumsily forwards. A solitary bird sings and then stops. It is not a day to celebrate.

T
here is
a news crew already at the doors of the hospital. I walk inside, following the herd. In my mouth, an acrid taste; the taste of smoke.

At the foot of a stairwell that everyone now starts to climb, I stop a nurse in blue uniform, hurrying down. She looks fraught.

‘I’m looking for Emily Southern,’ I say. ‘Can you help me?’

‘Who?’ she frowns.

‘My friend. The fire.’

‘I’m not sure,’ she shakes her blonde ponytail. ‘Sorry. You need to stay with your party. Someone will come and talk to you soon I expect.’ She hurries on.

I sit in the room with the others for a while until I can bear it no longer. My hand hurts and no one has come yet; one young, bemused-looking healthcare assistant keeps us company. Keeps us captive.

‘The police will be here in a moment,’ he keeps saying, looking increasingly harassed. The woman from the ambulance is crying now. A big man is hissing into his mobile. ‘Just come and get me,’ he is saying.

The healthcare assistant tries to ring someone; no one can help him apparently.

‘Please,’ I say to the weeping lady. ‘Don’t cry. It’ll be all right.’

But I have a feeling it won’t be. Someone brings us tea, but I don’t want it. Fear sits in my chest; I’m on the verge of hysteria myself. I imagine flames licking at the door. I stand and then sit again a few times, until eventually I know I have to get out of this room.

I have the clothes I stand up in, which include Emily’s hoodie and my pyjamas. I have my mobile phone, which has long since run out of battery. I have nothing else.

I open the door.

‘Please, stay here, miss,’ the young man says. ‘Someone will be along in a minute to talk to you.’

‘I just need the loo,’ I lie.

‘Okay,’ he shrugs. ‘It’s just down the hall.’

Outside the room, I turn a corner: two policemen are talking to a white-coated woman further down the corridor. Their business is private; my instinct is to hide. I move backwards, holding my breath.

I wait a beat, then peer cautiously round the wall.

One of them holds a list.

‘Right. So that’s Peter Graves. Poor sod.’ He marks something down. ‘And Laurie Smith, you said?’ he says now.

‘Here,’ I am about to shout. I step forward—

‘Laurie Smith is dead?’ he says, looking up from his list at the woman. ‘You’re sure?’

I freeze.

‘I’m afraid so,’ the woman nods, her neat bob swinging. ‘DOA. Not pretty.’

The policeman writes again.

‘And her room-mate?’ The other squints at his list. ‘Emily South-something, I think. If this bloody list is right, anyway. That hotel was unbelievably slack.’

‘Only one female,’ the doctor swigs from her coffee, wipes her mouth. ‘And the two men we’ve already discussed. Plus the housekeeper is still up in the ICU. We’ll know one way or the other in the next few hours, I would think.’ She is perfunctory. Scarily so. ‘It’s quite quick, normally.’

From my vantage point, I see the ginger-haired policeman writing. ‘It could have been worse, I guess,’ he says. ‘A fire that size.’

‘Yes, thank God,’ the doctor agrees. ‘A few walking wounded, but really. Could have been a
lot
worse.’

My heart races so fast I think it might explode. I press myself against the wall before I fall.

Laurie Smith is dead.

But I am
not
dead. I am standing here, in this hospital corridor. So that means, that means …

It’s Emily. It must be Emily.

‘Have you contacted the families?’

‘Not our job, thank Christ,’ the policeman says. ‘We’ve been waiting for some kind of confirmation. It’s a total bloody mess at the moment to be honest. Guv doesn’t know his arse from his elbow.’

‘We shouldn’t even be involved,’ the other man sticks a little finger in his ear and wiggles it. ‘We’re traffic.’

‘Going to have to move fast now.’ There is a modicum of excitement in the man’s voice. ‘The press have got hold of it already.’

‘The help-line’s up and running, at least,’ the small one says, as if it is a huge consolation. He checks the finger he’s just withdrawn from his ear for goodies.

‘Don’t envy you the families.’ The doctor’s pager begins to beep. ‘Hardest part of the job, I find.’

‘I don’t know,’ the ginger policeman takes off his hat and rubs his forehead. ‘It’s the kiddies in car-smashes I can’t bear.’

The doctor checks the pager at her waist, begins to hurry away. ‘I’m needed upstairs. It might be four after all, I’m afraid.’

So painful; so routine. The policemen look rueful, pondering life and death.

Then they move off, taking their list with them.

I walk round the corner and into the ladies’ loo.

I lean on the washbasin. The tears do not come yet; my eyes are so dry and sore it seems impossible. Instead, I splash my face with water; sink to the ground, back against the wall.

My best friend is dead. Emily is dead; and yet they think it is me.

I took her jacket. It was the nearest, hanging on the back of the hotel door. She’d woken me, almost crying; she had such a bad headache, she said, apologising, one of her migraines, could I bear to fetch her Migraleve from the car? Disoriented, half-asleep, I’d stumbled around, lost in the unfamiliar half-lit corridors, fumbling around in the dark car, not finding the blessed painkillers anyway – and then as I made my way back, to ask reception if they could help, the fire alarms went off. Shrill and brain-piercing.

The alarms went off – and I couldn’t get back into the room.

The door wouldn’t open.

I think the door was wedged shut. I banged my weight against it, but it would not give.

Perhaps they are wrong? Perhaps they have got her mixed up with someone else.

But I know they are right. She was wearing my necklace; the locket with ‘
Laurie
’ engraved on the back; it went with the peacock blue dress she wore at dinner. We have swapped jewellery and clothes since we met during our A levels. Last night we laughed about how the locket drew eyes downwards. Not that she needed any help.

‘You are bad, Laurie Smith,’ she said, as I prodded her bosom gently after fastening the necklace.

‘Not bad. Jealous,’ I said. ‘Polly did for me.’

And I know the bedroom door did not open. I was trying to open the bloody thing from outside and it was stuck. I was there, smashing my shoulder against it, until the heat forced me to run, to find someone to help.

But no one could help; no one came. The smoke was indefensible.

I stand again; I wash my face of the soot. My eyes look enormous in my pale face. Fragments of the terrible night are still filtering back to me.

Emily. My beloved Emily.

And the worst thing is, I know it shouldn’t have been her.

It was me they were after.

Everything adds up: the fear and stress of the past few months have led to this.

Staring in the mirror, I have a moment of clarity. She is giving me a chance. In death, as in life, my best friend is trying to protect me.

I have to go. Before they realise they are wrong. Before they realise I am still alive, and whoever wants me dead knows too.

I walk out, down the stairs, towards the daylight.