DS Jessica Daniel series: Think of the Children / Playing with Fire / Thicker Than Water – Books 4–6 (72 page)
Authors: Kerry Wilkinson
Jessica shrugged. ‘Yeah.’
‘Did you think about . . . ? I dunno. After what he tried to do to you . . . ?’
For a few moments, Jessica said nothing and then she changed the subject. ‘Did you see the story about the teacher who had the affair with the student who killed herself?’
Izzy stared at Jessica, pausing before replying. ‘I saw.’ she replied. Amber wriggled gently in Jessica’s arms and gave a slight gurgle. ‘Just rock her,’ Izzy said.
Jessica began to bob the girl delicately up and down. ‘You’ll want one of your own soon,’ Izzy concluded.
‘Did you hear that Dave split up with Chloe?’ Jessica asked, again deliberately changing the subject.
‘Yes.’ Izzy shook her head. ‘He said it had just reached a natural end and tried to laugh it off but I think there’s something more. They were living together and talking
about marriage and stuff. You don’t just do that.’
‘Did he say anything else?’
‘Not really. I got the impression there was someone else.’
Jessica had been trying to catch some time alone with him but it was proving elusive. ‘Who?’ she asked.
Jessica thought she saw her friend’s eyebrows raise but, if they did, it was only for a moment. ‘No idea,’ Izzy said. Her tone sounded unconvincing but, as Jessica softly
rocked Amber back to sleep, she didn’t think it really mattered.
Jessica tapped her hand on the top of the steering wheel in frustration. ‘Lorry drivers really are knobheads,’ she said.
‘What’s wrong with them?’ Adam asked, although Jessica suspected he didn’t particularly want to know the answer.
‘It’s just one dick overtaking another dick for five miles, and meanwhile we’re all backed up trying to go around.’
Although she was watching the road, she could sense Adam rolling his eyes. ‘So where are we going?’ he asked.
Jessica eased onto the brake to let a car pull out in front of her. ‘Wait and see.’
In the week since Sebastian Lowe had been arrested, Jessica had been trying to convince herself that the reason she had been picturing him in her dreams so often was because it was her
subconscious trying to tell her something that, deep down, she already knew. When she thought about it like that, she could almost feel justified for the way he consistently intruded into her
thoughts.
She figured that it might eventually feel true if she repeated it enough times.
As she finally accelerated past the lorry and pulled back into the second lane, she eased off the accelerator. ‘Are you all right?’ Adam asked.
‘Yeah, you?’
She heard Adam breathe in deeply before he finally spoke. ‘Why did he do it, Jess?’
Jessica could feel the anguish in his voice. ‘I’m not sure you’ll ever get the answer you need if that’s the question you ask.’
It was something she didn’t know the answer to, despite telling Izzy and her other colleagues what her suspicions were. Adam said nothing for a few moments as Jessica indicated and moved
to the inside lane, ready to exit at the next junction. ‘What should I ask instead?’
‘You should ask when I want to get married.’
‘Um . . . okay. When do you want to get married?’
Jessica indicated again, this time crossing the dotted line and slowing as she entered the bend of the slip road. ‘What sign did we just pass?’
‘The airport.’
‘Yep. Guess where we’re going.’
Adam made an ‘um’ sound as if ready to play along and then said in a panicked voice: ‘I don’t have my passport.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ve got both of ours. It’s a good job we kept them at the bottom of the wardrobe. Anyway, hurry up and guess.’
‘Er, I dunno. Paris?’
‘Nah, further. The other way.’
‘America?’
‘Well, yeah. But it’s a pretty big place. I don’t think they’re going to drop us out somewhere in the middle and see where we land.’
‘New York?’
‘Further.’
‘Er, Orlando?’
Jessica laughed. ‘Hang on a minute, do you want to go to Disney World?’
Adam snorted. ‘I’ve always wanted to get in a fight with one of those mascots.’
‘You want to get in a fight?’
‘Not really. I just fancy rugby-tackling one of them. You know the guys in the big furry suit things.’
Jessica was trying to focus on the road but, considering she had never known Adam display anything approaching a violent side, she sneaked a sideways look at him. ‘Why?’
‘I dunno. Just one of those things.’
‘Right . . . And you say I’m the weird one. Anyway, we’re not going to Disney World.’
‘Texas?’
‘Too hot.’
‘LA?’
‘Nah, we would both be mega-fat there.’
Adam paused for a moment and as Jessica waited at the traffic lights to turn into the airport car park, she knew he had the answer. ‘Oh,’ he said.
‘So are you going to ask me again when I want to get married?’
She turned to face him as the light hovered on red. ‘When would you like to get married, Jess?’ he asked with a smile.
Jessica turned back to the road but couldn’t stop herself smiling. ‘As soon as we get to Vegas. And you better get ready to carry me over the threshold because my back has been
bloody killing me.’
I’ll start by saying that if you’ve skipped to the back without reading the story, you should really stop reading now to avoid spoilers.
Honestly, stop reading this sentence and go back to the part you were at before jumping to this bit.
Have you done that?
Really?
Honestly?
You’re going to spoil the story if you don’t stop here . . .
All right, good. There are sections of this book that are far more personal to me than the other stories I have written, largely because I have been in a house fire. It was nowhere near as serious as the one described here but a lot of the after-effects were similar. For instance, I inhaled a large gulp of black smoke and felt that moment of confusion and dizziness where your head just won’t clear. For anyone who has experienced it, you’ll know what I mean. I spent weeks coughing up little bits of black ‘stuff’ and simply became used to that heavy feeling in my chest. That was from one gulp.
At the time, I was living in a large house which had been converted into flats. I lived on the top floor in the attic, while beneath me were three apartments on the ground floor and another three on the first. The fire started in the kitchen shared by everyone on the bottom floor. The electricity in my flat went out and, for some reason I’ll never know, I went to the window to see if there might be an explanation. What I saw was around half-a-dozen people pointing and staring at the house.
Obviously that wasn’t a regular occurrence.
I went down the stairs, where there were small amounts of grey smoke and a young Polish girl screaming and crying. She pointed to the kitchen door and said she had put some chips on to fry and then gone back to her bedroom and fallen asleep.
No, I’m not making that up.
Stupidly, I shunted open the kitchen door, which is when the thick cloud of black smoke poured out into the hallway. It took me a few seconds to clear my head and it’s only since then that I’ve been able to understand why people say it’s the smoke that kills you. You can feel it inside you, like a parasite. Your breathing feels heavy, your voice doesn’t sound right and you simply can’t stop coughing.
Luckily, the door was the type that swings back into place, so it closed itself. I managed to call 999 and told the girl to get out and then left the house myself. With the fire brigade on their way, it only then dawned on me that others might still be inside, so I went back into the building and knocked on every door.
At first I thought it was fine but in the flat directly below where I lived another Polish woman, who was around twenty or so, answered the door. You might think that ‘fire’ is a universal word. Either it isn’t, or she simply didn’t understand my dulcet West Country tones.
Some people have told me that they think Jessica sometimes doesn’t appear to take things too seriously. That maybe a fair criticism – but then I am a person who has stood in a burning building playing what can only be described as a piss-poor game of charades with a half-asleep woman in her pyjamas who didn’t speak English.
Either way, through a combination of me waving my hands around and saying the words ‘fire’, ‘flames’, ‘hot’ and ‘out’, I somehow managed to convince her it was a good time to leave the house.
What has that to do with the story? I’m not sure. Perhaps this is just my public safety message telling you all to check your smoke alarms?
In any case, I hope you enjoyed book five in the Jessica Daniel series.
Kerry Wilkinson
Contents
Cameron Sexton’s finger hovered over the standby button on the television remote control. He thought about calling upstairs to see if his wife was almost ready but
figured if he kept quiet he might at least be able to watch the kick-off before having to leave the house.
He glanced at the teenager fidgeting nervously in the armchair across the room.
‘Are you all right, Ollie?’ Cameron asked.
The young man looked up from the television, nodding a little too enthusiastically. ‘Yes, Mr Sexton,’ he said. ‘Thanks for calling me.’
‘It’s Cameron and thank
you
. It’s always nice to have a reliable babysitter. How are your mum and dad doing?’
Oliver nodded, offering a vague ‘all right’, which Cameron thought could mean either ‘they’re absolutely wonderful, never been better’, or ‘they’ve
split up and are living at opposite ends of the country’, depending on which way the teenager’s hormones were raging.
The sound of a whistle and an overly excited commentator took Cameron’s eyes back towards the television screen. If he had remembered that the football was on, he would have suggested a
different night to go out for a meal with his wife.
Cameron leant back into his seat as the commentator’s voice plus the oohs and aahs of the crowd broke the uneasy silence between him and Oliver. He tried to focus on the screen, resisting
the urge to tug his suit trousers into a more comfortable position. They were feeling a little tight around his waist, although he tried to tell himself it was because they must have shrunk
slightly at the cleaners, as opposed to his forty-something stomach being less forgiving nowadays.
The match was dull and Cameron felt his mind wandering. It was strange to be leaving your child at home in the hands of someone else, especially a person you didn’t know that well and who
wasn’t technically an adult. Using Oliver had been his wife’s idea. Eleanor knew his mother and, because he was about as polite and sensible as a teenager could be, they had asked him
to look after Lara for an evening a few months ago while they went to the pub around the corner for a meal.