For what seemed an eternity it was all she could think of, but as awful as it was, nothing—just nothing—mattered more than her mother right now.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Once I realized you were inside the house I’d set fire to I seemed to wake up, panic, and I started to run. Coward, eh? Well, what do you expect of someone who’d do something like that?

I’d hidden the van at the back of a layby on the edge of the moor. I was still in it when the air ambulance took off, so close that the van shook like it might fall apart. No one saw me, they weren’t looking. I suppose I was in a daze, shocked, spaced out, because honest to God I hadn’t known that you were in the house. I saw you get in the car with the others, your granddaughter drove off, so you must have gone back inside while I went round to the shed to get my stuff.

It was the only explanation that made any sense.

I watched the helicopter carry you off until it wasn’t much more than a few pinpricks over the estuary. I reckon I stopped thinking, or feeling, even breathing, I just remember that more than anything in the world I wanted you to be all right. Not for me, for you. OK, for me too. Next to that I wished to God that I’d never taken the job. I’d had a bad vibe about it from the get-go, so why the f*** had I allowed myself to get sucked in?

Then I was speeding off over the moor—there was no chance of getting back to town the way I’d come, the road was blocked by police and fire engines.

I’ve no idea how long it took me to get home, but I don’t suppose it matters. I dumped the van outside my mate’s lockup and ran to the house. My ma wasn’t there, no idea where she’d gone. I texted BJ to let him know job done. A while after I sent another fessing up that someone had been inside.

I knew there was going to be hell to pay. I’d been told to torch a house, not to cremate one of the occupants.

I thought about you then, and your daughter and granddaughter. I’d seen you a few times while I was staking the place out. You’d always looked decent enough people to me and I wondered again what you’d done to piss someone off so much that they wanted to incinerate your home. It wasn’t any of my business, of course, but I couldn’t help trying to work it out.