Doors Without Numbers (36 page)

“So he is not your natural father?”

Kathleen shook her head. “No, but I called him Dad, he was the nearest thing to a Father figure after all.”

Hammond nodded carefully. “The scar. Mark and Salima had an identical one.”

Kathleen wiped her eyes dry with the back of her hand and lifted her chin with renewed dignity. “Yes, all the children did. It was our way of knowing who we belonged to. Our brand if you like.”

Hammond stared at Kathleen in disbelief. “You mean...your mother did that to you?”

“She used to say that it was for our own good, a way of ensuring that we wouldn’t get lost.” She gave a short laugh. “I guess it is a bit like marking your pencil case at school. Putting your initials on it so no other kid would steal it. My Mother did it to all those she wanted to keep as her own.”

“But that’s abuse! It’s sick!”

Kathleen’s eyes searched his face before answering. “I think Lloyd thought that too. Hence him taking me away.”

“Did you see any of them again? Did you see Mark again?”

Kathleen nodded but didn’t say anymore. She had clammed up. Hammond wanted to push her to telling him more. He moved closer towards her, noticing she didn’t move away.

“Your father asked me to investigate the deaths of the other foster children. Did you know they had committed suicide?”

Kathleen nodded, but her eyes remained lowered. “Yes. But there is nothing to investigate Wallace, this is what I have been trying to tell you. There is no great mystery, no sordid secret. My Father probably wanted to protect me, maybe he felt guilty that he couldn’t protect the others, but in his confusion he saw things as being more significant than they really were. I don’t know why they killed themselves. Mark was a very sensitive boy, he couldn’t cope with life as we know it, he probably just had enough.”

Hammond knew the subject was closed. Kathleen’s shoulders became hunched as if her body was closing in on itself. An unconscious attempt to become invisible. He knew she was exhausted. He got up to leave. Suddenly she pulled at him.

“Wallace, don’t go! Please stay here, just until the morning!” Her voice had taken on a sudden urgency. The dramatic change in her behaviour un-nerved him.

“Kathleen, I can’t stay. I’ve got to go.”

She stood up suddenly and walked towards the door, placing her back against it so that he couldn’t exit. He was confused. She was irrational. He tried to be firm with her, to gently encourage her away from the door but she wouldn’t co-operate.

“Why are you being like this? I’ll come back.”

Suddenly Kathleen pulled off her robe and stood before him naked. “Make love to me again Wallace.”

This time Hammond decided to be the wise man he should have been earlier. He picked up her robe and attempted to cover her whilst gently urging her away from the door. From the other side of the door, Hammond heard the uniformed officer calling Kathleen’s name. He sounded concerned. Alarmed, Hammond remembered Kathleen’s threat and found himself unable to speak. He waited whilst she decided what to do. It seemed as if minutes passed before she called back to the officer, telling him she was fine. The sound of footsteps filtered off down the corridor. Kathleen looked at Hammond, she was breathing heavily, anger darkened her face.

“I thought you of all people would enjoy a bit of attention. But obviously you are out of your depth.”

Hammond was perplexed by Kathleen’s sudden change of mood. He declined to answer and instead reached for the door handle, pulling the door open.

He heard her sneer. “Don’t take it all so seriously Wallace, it’s just a game.”

Hammond looked over his shoulder at her. Kathleen was standing clutching her robe tightly against her. “That’s just it, Kathleen. You play too rough.”

He closed the door before she could answer.

The early hours of Friday 7th January would forever stay in Hammond’s mind as a bad memory. He arrived home at 2.30 am. His body coursed with unspent anger flooding through his veins that made him feel shaky and out of control. His mind was distracted and he forgot his pin number for his credit card much to the irritation of the taxi driver who demanded Hammond pay him in cash instead. Despite the urge to clout the driver in the face, Hammond remembered his pin number in time and punched it into the machine, before snatching the receipt and marching as much as he was able to with an ankle in plaster towards his porch steps.

He slammed the front door shut before remembering Jenny would be asleep upstairs and for the first time since the Forensic team had left, he entered the living room. Traces of white fingerprint powder could still be seen on the mahogany sideboard; furniture had been moved, including the sofa bed. He surveyed the room and reminded himself to dispose of the Christmas decorations first thing in the morning. Out of habit he checked his phone messages, Lyn had left a terse warning not to send any unwanted furniture to her home again unless he wanted to see it smashed on his front lawn, the other message was from Paul, thanking him for the treadmill. Hearing his son’s voice made Hammond want to return Paul’s call. He felt the need to warn Paul not to fall in love. No woman was worth the heartache, but remembered Paul was probably asleep so resorted to texting it from his mobile phone instead. He tried to remember where he had left the Brandy but failed so climbed onto the sofa bed and allowed himself to drift off to sleep.

In his dream, Kathleen was standing over him. She was smoking a cigarette and exhaled clouds of smoke over his face. It caused him to choke, and he turned his face away from her, but she got closer to him and tried to kiss him. She touched his face but her hands were hot and burnt him. He yelled at her to get away but instead she began to climb over him. Her skin scalded his thighs. Burning smoke bellowed from her mouth and nose, circling him in a devil’s pit of fire. He couldn’t breathe. Kathleen started to laugh, her mocking was shrill. The noise woke him up and he discovered he wasn’t dreaming. The smoke alarm was heckling. The room was on fire.

For a second his mind was paralysed, he couldn’t think what to do. The smoke drenched the room in darkness. He was blind and already disorientated, but then he remembered Jenny. He clambered off the bed and crawled his way towards where he thought the door was only to discover that he was heading into a wall. His ears filled with the sound of hissing and popping as trapped air escaped around him. The heat began to sear his lungs. He covered his nose and mouth with his shirt and lowered himself onto his belly. Desperate to find his way to the door he began to pull himself along on the carpet, the thought of Jenny upstairs driving him forwards. One arm stretched outwards as he attempted to identify any obstacle with the back of his hand. His mind became foggy, he found himself wanting to sleep but fought the urge to close his eyes. He knew his hands were burnt, the skin was tight and unable to grip his shirt against his face for much longer. His fingers from his outstretched hand grasped a lead of some kind and he knew he was now in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs. The temptation was to go to his right where the front door was but he couldn’t leave Jenny, even if it meant leaving this sorry life with her. He wriggled towards the left where the stairs were and found the bottom step but exhaustion had claimed him. He knew he wouldn’t make it. A sob clasped his throat, his eyes streamed, his chest was burning from within.

Suddenly he noticed all noise had stopped, his head was clear of sound, his mind numb of fear as if he were out of the fire and in a bubble of absolute clarity. He realised none of it mattered anymore. Life would go on without him as if he had never been born. The thought calmed him and he allowed his eyes to close.

He would have liked to have watched the house burn down. He hated to start something without knowing how it would end but he would return later, he would admire his handiwork when it was safe to do so. He had chosen the flames because they were his favourite. He had chosen a beautiful death for the policeman, because in some way he respected the man’s refusal to be scared or back down. She considered the policeman to be stupid, an idiot. He didn’t share her opinion, although he would never say. But he chose the flames for this reason; to share beauty as a sign of respect. And he knew the flames would be beautiful, they always were. It wasn’t just that they were hypnotic or unpredictable, although he liked that. It was his relationship with fire. The attraction to something that was unattainable, that would never love you back. The promise that no matter how much you admired it’s power or mystery, it would hurt you. That was why he loved her of course, she was his fire. Her heart was cold and unfeeling but she burned with such intensity, it made him want her more. She was his paradox. No-one would or could ever understand her, It made her a mystery. And no one would ever be able to claim her as their own. That made her powerful, but also deadly. She was his fire. He looked at the house and wished again that he could stay. The thrill of what was to come excited him, but he was prepared, just this once, to let the policeman have the pleasure for himself. The policeman had no idea how lucky he was.

“
One must win one’s own place in the spiritual world painfully and alone. There is no other way to salvation.”
Henry Havelock Ellis. The Dance of Life. 1923

Hammond woke up choking, He felt coolness on his face and drank in the air greedily. The sudden intake made him vomit. The hands that were pumping on his chest ceased as the figure that had sat astride him rolled off. His eyes were stinging, he couldn’t see anything but blur as he lay. Gradually his vision returned. All around him he could sense heat. He had no sense of smell but he could hear. The crackle of flames were deafening. Slowly he moved his head and saw an elfin like figure kneeling beside him. Hammond recognised Jenny and tried to speak her name. She couldn’t hear his whisper so he reached to touch her and then she looked down at him. Through the blur he could see her blackened face, streaked with the tears that rolled down her cheeks and dripped off her chin. As he moved to a seated position, he saw the smoke that bellowed from the door and then he realised. He shouted to Jenny but found his throat had tightened and he couldn’t speak. He moved quickly, grabbing her arm and gesturing wildly. The sudden movement made him dizzy and he almost fell but he recovered and grasped Jenny again, pushing her towards the front of the house. He mouthed the words he wanted her to understand. “Mary!” He pointed to the next house and she gaped in horror before joining him. He half ran, half limped his way to the next house, desperate to find something that could smash the window. Eventually he found a plant pot and threw it at Mary’s living room window. Smoke seeped through the broken glass and he knew he had to get into the house quickly. He held his breath as he tried to stop himself from inhaling more smoke. Neighbours had started to run into the street, a man saw Hammond and realised what he was trying to do, he ran over to where Hammond was and helped him to remove the glass from the window frame. The man leaped into the house through the opening. Jenny was shouting at the man, he didn’t hear her so she vaulted in after him. People were surrounding Hammond, they tried to pull him away from Mary’s house but he resisted. He waited, feeling powerless. He shouted for Jenny to come out but he couldn’t see her. By now the smoke was pouring from both houses, ashes rained down onto the street like snow. The street was a blur of activity as people gathered watching the scene before them with helpless horror. He saw the lights flashing from the approaching fire engines and found himself praying a mantra. “Please get her out safely.”

“
We make our own world.”
Henry Havelock Ellis. The Dance of Life. 1923

Later Jenny would say that it was Hammond’s temper that had saved them. He had awoken her when he had slammed the front door closed. She had tried to get back to sleep but had smelt burning before the smoke alarm had alerted her to hurry downstairs. The fire had taken less than four minutes to take hold before she found Hammond at the foot of the steps. Somehow she had dragged him to the door and pulled him down the front steps by wrapping her arms around his chest and struggling backwards. He never would understand how she had managed it. She had not only saved his life, but also Mary’s. Mary hadn’t smelt the smoke that seeped through the walls of the terraced house or heard the roar of the flames on the other side of the wall, but she understood Jenny’s signing as the girl and the man jostled her awake from her bed. All three had escaped the house before the poisonous gases had polluted the air enough to have rendered them unconscious.

Hammond rested his head on his bandaged hands and waited for the nurse to complete her tasks. He had waited over an hour whilst she attended to Jenny and during that time he found he couldn’t get the image of his blazing house out of his mind. It was hard to believe that there would be no home to return to. The smell of burning lingered on his body and clothes so that even the slightest movement was enough to overwhelm him with the stench of destruction. He tried to doze but every time he closed his eyes he envisioned flames devouring his possessions. He couldn’t care less about the furniture or even his prized collection of vinyl records, it was the lost photo-albums that caused him to feel despair. The albums with his wedding pictures, images of Paul growing from a wrinkled baby into a young man. They were irreplaceable. The thought made him catch his breath and he found himself weeping silently into his cocooned hands.

Eventually the nurse pulled back the curtains around Jenny’s bed and beckoned him to approach. She occupied herself ticking boxes on the forms attached on a clipboard but he was aware of her sympathetic gaze whilst watching his disabled advance. The nurse replaced the clipboard onto the foot of Jenny’s bed and looked at him directly as she replaced her pen into her top left breast pocket of her uniform.