WHEN I EVENTUALLY make my way up the stairs to Luc’s room, I’m not expecting to sleep. I’m expecting another night of lying there, questions churning in my head as Freya slumbers beside me. But I’m tired – more than tired, exhausted. I climb into bed fully clothed and as soon as my head touches the pillow, I fall into uneasy dreams.
It’s some time later – I’m not sure how late – that I am jerked awake by the sound of voices in the room above. They are arguing, and there is something about the voices that prickles at the back of my neck.
I lie for a moment, dragging myself out of disturbing dreams of Kate and Ambrose and Luc, trying to orientate myself, and then my eyes adjust. Light is filtering through the gaps in the floorboards of the room above, flickering as someone prowls back and forth, voices rising and falling, and a thud that makes the water in my glass ripple, as of someone hitting a wall in barely contained frustration.
I reach out for the bedside light, but the switch clicks uselessly before I remember about the electricity. Damn. Fatima took the lamp to bed with her, but in any case, I have no matches. No means of lighting a candle.
I lie still, listening, trying to work out who is speaking. Is it Kate, ranting to herself, or has Fatima or Thea gone up to confront her for some reason?
‘I don’t understand, isn’t this what you wanted all along?’ I hear. It’s Kate, hoarse and ragged with weeping.
I sit up, holding my breath, trying to hear. Is she on the phone?
‘You wanted me to be punished, didn’t you?’ Her voice cracks.
And then the answer comes. But not in words, not at first.
It’s a sob, a low groan that filters through the darkness, making my heart leap into my throat.
‘It wasn’t supposed to be like this.’
The voice is Luc’s, and he sounds beside himself with grief.
I don’t think. I slip out of bed and go to Fatima’s door, rattling the handle. It’s locked, and I whisper through the keyhole, ‘Fati, wake up, wake up.’
She’s there in a moment, her dark eyes wide in the blackness, listening as I point to the creaking boards above. We hold our breath, trying to listen, trying to make out who’s speaking.
‘What did you want then?’ I can hardly understand Kate, she’s crying, her words blurred with tears. ‘What did you want if not this?’
Fatima’s fingers close on my arm, and I hear her intake of breath.
‘Luc’s up there?’ she whispers, and I nod, but I’m trying to hear Luc’s words, between the sobs.
‘I never hated you …’ I hear. ‘How can you say that? I love you … I’ve always loved you.’
‘What’s going on?’ Fatima whispers frantically.
I shake my head, trying to replay everything from last night in my mind. Oh God, oh Kate. Please tell me you weren’t …
Luc says something, Kate’s voice rises above in anger, and then there’s a crash, and a cry from Kate – of pain or alarm, I can’t tell – and I hear Luc’s voice, too choked for me to make out words. He sounds on the verge of losing it.
‘We need to help her,’ I whisper to Fatima. She nods.
‘Let’s get Thea, and we’ll go up together. Strength in numbers. He sounds drunk.’
I listen as I follow Fatima down the landing, and I think perhaps she’s right. Luc is beside himself.
‘It was only ever you,’ I hear as we run down the stairs. His words are anguished. ‘I wish to God it wasn’t, but it’s true. I would have done anything to be with you.’
‘I would have come for you!’ Kate sobs. ‘I would have waited, made him change his mind. Why couldn’t you have trusted him? Why couldn’t you have trusted me?’
‘I couldn’t –’ Luc chokes, and then his words come faintly as I run down the corridor to Thea’s room. ‘I couldn’t let him do it. I couldn’t let him send me back.’
Thea starts up from bed as we burst in, her face wild with fear, changing to shock as she sees Fatima and me standing there.
‘What’s going on?’ she gasps.
‘It’s Luc,’ I manage. ‘He’s here. We think – oh God, I don’t know. I think we might have got it all wrong, Thea.’
‘What?’ She’s out of bed in an instant, pulling her T-shirt over her head. ‘Fuck. Is Kate OK?’
‘I don’t know. He’s up there now. It sounds like they’re fighting. I think one of them just threw something.’
But she’s already out of the room, running towards the stairs.
She’s barely reached the bottom step when there is another crash – this one much louder. It sounds like someone pulling over a piece of furniture and we all freeze, just for a moment. Then there is a scream, and the sound of a door opening, running footsteps.
And then I smell something. Something that makes my heart seem to clench in my chest. It’s the smell of paraffin. And there’s a strange, alien noise as well. A noise I can’t place, but it fills me with a dread I can’t explain.
It’s only when Kate comes running down the stairs, her face full of horror, that I realise what I can hear. It’s the crackle of flames.