‘You what?’
‘I’m at number 1, Lucas Oxley’s house.’
‘Ben ‘
‘Listen, that skeleton in the churchyard - it looks as though it might turn out to be Barry Cully, Fran Oxley’s bloke.’
‘Ben, haven’t you noticed the fire?’
The what?’
‘Fire. Smoke, flames. You must be right in the middle of it. Get everybody out, for God’s sake.’
Cooper turned off the running tap and pulled back the lace curtain to peer out of the tiny bathroom window. It looked out on to the back yard, with its mountains of scaffolding poles and wooden pallets, and towards the front doors of the derelict houses of Trafalgar Terrace.
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‘Oh shit/ he said. That’s more than just smouldering tyres.’ Now he could hear what Marion Oxley was shouting in the kitchen downstairs. It came to him clearly above the increasing noise of crackling flames and the barking of the normally silent Alsatian dog.
‘Where’s Jake?’ she was shouting. ‘Has anybody seen Jake?’
By the time Diane Fry reached Withens, the derelict houses of Trafalgar Terrace were well ablaze. Coming over the hill from Shepley Head Lodge, she could see the smoke billowing out of the upstairs windows, thick and black. There was an acrid stench in the air, as if the houses themselves had been full of old tyres that were now burning. The upper floor must already be smoke logged. The windows had been shattered by the heat, and the smoke was pouring out of them in waves. The smoke was so thick that only the occasional tongue of flame could be seen in the midst of them.
Fry found PC Tracy Udall and a colleague parking their Vauxhall across the road to stop any traffic going further than the car park.
‘Where the hell’s the fire service?’ said Fry.
‘According to Control, some of the local crews are still up on Withens Moor damping down. The nearest appliance is coming from New Mills.’
‘Is there anyone inside?’
‘We don’t know. We’ve looked in the ground-floor rooms at this end of the row, as far as we could. But the fire seems to have started at the other end, and the smoke is too bad to get near. The fire crew might find anybody who’s in there, if they get here soon. But if there was anyone upstairs, then I reckon they’ve had it by now. No one could breathe in that smoke.’
‘And what about the people in the other terrace?’
‘Mrs Wallwin is over there, from number 7. She’s perfectly OK.’
‘And her neighbours? The Oxleys?’
‘She doesn’t know. She’s a bit stressed and confused.’
‘They all have to come out. There are hundreds of railway sleepers and wooden pallets stacked in the yard at the back. A couple of vehicles, too. If all that stuff catches fire, their homes will go up like a bomb.’
‘There are some demolition contractors down there in the field with a JCB and a bulldozer,’ said Udall. They say they’ve been sent in by the landlords. They were due to start work on knocking
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down those empty houses, but someone has got to them first.’
‘So I see.’
The contractors have created an access through the fence at the bottom of the field. The trouble is, we can’t get to Waterloo Terrace.’
‘Why?’
‘Because they’ve dropped a couple of trees across the entrance, using chainsaws.’
They jogged through the farmyard and down the field to where the contractors’ machinery stood uselessly by.
Now Fry could see the pigeons circling Trafalgar Terrace. Their pale grey shapes were passing in and out of the smoke like tiny ghosts. At the far end of the terrace, the roof slates were glowing red from the heat of the burning rafters beneath them. But the pigeons kept trying to land on the ridge of the roofs, despite the heat and the flames, which were now licking through the slates. After making repeated attempts to land on the roof, one of the birds was finally caught by a burst of flame that erupted from a gap in the tiles. Its pinion feathers flared and blackened immediately, and its feet curled and shrivelled as the tendons burned. The pigeon tumbled on to the roof, where it writhed and flopped desperately as it roasted in the intense heat from the slates. But finally it gave up the struggle, slid down the roof and disappeared into the smoke. Oblivious to its fate, the other birds continued to attempt to land.
‘We did see people moving around earlier on,’ said Udall. ‘One of them was carrying something. No - two of them were. Long, heavy objects. But we couldn’t quite see ‘
‘Were they armed? We know they have air rifles, at least.’
‘I’m not sure. Not air rifles anyway. Maybe just chainsaws.’
Fry tried Cooper’s number again, but there was no answer.
“Tracy, ask the contractors if I can borrow a hard hat and one of those yellow jackets.’
‘Why?’
I’ve got to go in. I’ll use the access they’ve made through the fence here, and see if I can work my way through the yard before the flames get to those pallets.’
‘Diane, you can’t.’
