Only a few months later Harry Wood had had them all eating out of his palm. Well, maybe not all of them, but the ones who counted.

And so the plans had been approved, the building work started. Anyone who knew the first thing about architecture should have been able to see the offices would be a thing of beauty – too much so for an advertising agency perhaps?

By then the same residents had begun to forgive Harry Wood for anything. He had recruited locally, was supporting charities close to their hearts. The Lymington Care Home had never had so many minibuses and outings to the New Forest.

Yet once upon a time some of the people now gawping at the fire, as it continued to ravage the building, might have joked to their friends that they’d have liked to have burned it to the ground themselves. Because even after it was built, when its tall glass front reflected the light from the water, dappled against the setting sun, it still left a bitter taste in the mouths of a few. The ones who saw through people like Harry Wood.

Possibly, she considered, over the course of the next few days the police might wonder if there was any link between those early protestors and the fire.

Her heart beat rapidly at this thought, her eyes scanning the small crowd.

Might they think that? Was it possible the police would focus their attention on something so altogether different from the truth?

She pulled back against the wall, hoping to keep out of sight. Her pulse reverberated through her ears, deafening her to the sounds of the commotion unfurling in front of her eyes.

Three fire engines were now parked haphazardly, at least two police cars that she could see, and now an ambulance was pulling to a halt. The scene played out like a silent movie. She could imagine it unfurling in slow motion, even though the reality was frenzied.

There was a taste of salt on her lips and she licked it away, realising tears had escaped without her knowledge. Clenching her arms across her chest, she wrapped them around herself as tightly as she could, almost folding inwards. Her fingers tingled. If she brought them to her nostrils she would smell the fuel on them. She didn’t think she would ever forget that stench, its potency making her want to retch.

Is this what you wanted? she asked herself.

She pulled a hand away from her chest and held it over her mouth, her mind racing. She tried to imagine what would happen in the morning. How many employees would turn up to find nothing more than a pile of rubble where their precious offices once stood, or if they’d already have been told they no longer had jobs to go to.