‘You suspect foul play?’ Max asked.
The constable’s chin squared off. ‘I can’t talk about an active investigation.’
Reid was frowning as he looked between them. ‘Arson? This wasn’t an accident?’
Flynn rubbed at a vein that had started to pulse in his temple. ‘Prita said there was someone here when she got here last night. Inside the house. She believes they started the fire.’
‘What? Who would do that?’
‘They’d also left a dead possum and a message written in blood on the back door. I saw them when I arrived. I expect you’ll want to interview me about that,’ he said to the constable.
The constable pulled out his phone. ‘Do you mind?’
‘Not at all.’
He pressed record and recited the time, date and Flynn’s name and then asked, ‘Why were you here last night, Mr Findlay?’
‘What? Wait,’ Reid said, holding out his hand. ‘Flynn isn’t under suspicion of anything. The fire had already started by the time he got here and prior to that he was with Nat and Barb and me at our place. He followed Prita here.’
‘Why did you follow her here?’
Flynn waved Reid’s concern away and answered as best he could.
‘How far behind her do you think you were?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. About forty-five minutes. I don’t think she drove straight here.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘If you’re suggesting she’d set the fire herself, you know you’re chasing down the wrong lead. Aside from the fact that there is no reason why she would set fire to her own house, she was inside fighting the fire, putting her life in danger.’
The constable nodded. ‘I have to ask these questions.’
‘Do you?’
They shared a long silent look until Max piped up. ‘Doctor Prita wouldn’t have burned down her house. What about that Bob Thompson? He was harassing her a few weeks ago. I saw him.’
The constable dropped his gaze down to the phone in his hand and cleared his throat. ‘We’ll certainly look into that. Did you see anything else last night, Mr Smith?’
‘No. I arrived after the explosion. I can tell you what I saw then.’
‘I’ll get to that, but given you were there before the explosion, Flynn, perhaps you could tell me what you saw.’
Flynn would rather not have to relive that moment again, especially standing next to the smouldering remains where the sight, the smell and sounds of shifting, crumbling charred wreckage could set him off at any moment.
Thankfully Reid chose that moment to butt in. ‘Do you mind if we do this back at CoalCliff? We’d like to find Carter’s cat and get it back to him as soon as possible. The little boy has lost too much already.’
Yes, the cat. He had to find the cat. That gave him something to do to ignore the tremors starting in his extremities. ‘I’ll go find him. I’ll answer the rest of your questions at CoalCliff later.’ He didn’t wait to hear the constable’s response, just turned and limped off down the drive to the back garden, forcing himself to call out the cat’s name, trying not to remember the flames and smoke and smells from last night. Trying not to think about what he’d do if he found the cat dead, another victim of a fire he couldn’t stop.
His knee ached like a bitch, the pain giving him something to hold onto as he rounded the edge of the house and made his way across the rubble-strewn lawn of the backyard. Prita was going to give him hell if he hurt it more. That was something to look forward to. The thought helped him to ignore the sweat that sprang up on his skin, prickling the back of his neck, his nerves and muscles twisting and trembling as he tried not to look at the destruction of the house, think about how close they’d come to losing Prita. He’d done so well so far. He couldn’t give in now. ‘Machiavelli,’ he called out, voice hoarse with the effort to sound something close to normal.
‘Miaow.’
He turned, certain he’d heard the sound, that he hadn’t imagined it.
‘Machiavelli.’
A streak came running from behind the shed and over the grass towards him. He bent, still shaking, arms outstretched to the cat who leaped into his arms and burrowed into his chest. Flynn rubbed his face against the cat’s soft fur, taking comfort from the warm little body as much as it took the same from him.
He’d found the cat. It was alive. This fire hadn’t taken everything.
‘That’s incredible,’ Reid said as he came up behind him. ‘I called and called and nada. I can’t believe that cat just came up to you. Anna always did say your way with animals was what had attracted her to you in the first place.’
At the sound of Anna’s name, Flynn stilled. Reid paled, an ‘oh shit’ expression crossing his face. ‘I’m so sorry. I thought you said last night you were okay to talk about her now.’
‘I am. I always am.’ Flynn rubbed his face against the cat’s head as it bumped at his chin, purring. ‘I didn’t realise until you said it last night that I didn’t talk about her. She is on my mind so much, feels so present all the time, I never realised I didn’t speak those thoughts out loud.’ And in so doing, he’d managed to almost wipe her from existence without realising that’s what he was doing. He’d been so busy trying to live up to his promise to never forget her, making her live large in his mind despite the pain that brought and didn’t realise she was being forgotten outside of it.
What an absolute and utter clueless arse he was.
‘You okay?’
That question again. He so wanted people to stop asking him that. He hadn’t had to endure the annoying ‘you okay?’ for many years, not since that first year after Anna died, but in
