Where There's Smoke

“He won’t believe you.” Lucy’s voice was quavering.

“Shut up,” Ellis said, flatly.

Tears rolled down Lucy’s cheeks as she stared across at Kate. “I said — I told him you hadn’t, but he wouldn’t believe—”

“Don’t talk about me as if I’m not here!” Ellis screamed, and Kate saw his arm tense. No! she thought as he pulled back the knife, but the blade was unbloodied as he shoved Lucy towards her.

Lucy stumbled forward and almost fell. Kate went to help her, but stopped when Ellis pointed with the kitchen knife, looking at Kate.

“Sit over there,” Ellis told her. “In the chair.”

Lucy did as he said. He turned to Kate.

“Get the t-tape.” He gestured to a roll of parcel tape on the coffee table.

“Listen to me—”

“Get the fucking t-tape!”

She went and picked it up.

“Wrap it round her ankles first, then her wrists.”

“Please, you can’t—”

“Do it.”

Kate looked at where Jack was sitting bound on the settee. His eyes stared at her over the brown strip, trying to communicate some message, but Kate didn’t know what. Beside him, Emily’s bottom lip was quivering. Only Angus was making a noise as he sobbed. Standing this close, Kate could smell the sour, unwashed odour of their bodies. On the floor around them were opened and empty tins of food, some furred with several days’ worth of mould. Wadded up pieces of parcel tape lay among them, too many to count. Kate tasted bile in the back of her throat as she grasped the significance of what she was seeing. How long has he been here.

“Ankles first,” Ellis said.

Kate knelt down in front of Lucy. It wasn’t her moving. She was watching this happen to someone else. She pulled the end of the tape free with numb fingers, but stopped as Jack gave a muffled grunt. She looked up at him. He was staring at her with a desperate intensity. He shook his head, violently.

“Now!” shouted Ellis, and took a step towards where Angus was snivelling in the playpen. She saw him shift his grip on the knife. With a last glance at Jack, Kate wrapped the tape once around Lucy’s ankles. The red marks from earlier strips formed bands on her flesh.

“Do it again. T-tight.”

She hesitated, then did as he said. The roll of tape dangled, still attached.

Kate felt a weak hope. “I’ve nothing to cut it with.”

“B-bite it.”

The hope went out. She tore the tape with her teeth.

“Now her wrists.”

She could feel the tremor in Lucy’s hands as she bound them. There was no accusation in Lucy’s eyes when they looked at each other, only fear.

“Put a strip over her m-mouth.”

“What good—?”

“Just do it!”

Lucy shut her eyes, compressing her lips as Kate stuck a piece of tape across them. Kate straightened and threw the tape down.

“Feel safe now, do you?”

Ellis stared at her, then pointed to a corner of the room.

“P-pick that up.”

Kate looked to where he was pointing, and felt as though she had been punched on the heart. Against the wall were materials for Jack’s desktop publishing, a sprawling pile of cardboard boxes and containers. On top was a stack of posters. Seeing them, Kate felt events nudge into a final focus. She wondered, almost absently, whether Ellis had gone there with the intention already in mind, remembering all the conversations he’d had with Jack about printing and publishing. Or if the idea for the posters had only come later, with Lucy and Jack bound and impotent under the threat of his knife, and all the equipment he needed lying idle in the cellar.

But it wasn’t the posters that Ellis was pointing to now. Standing near them was a red plastic petrol can.

She looked at Ellis, understanding now what Jack had been trying to tell her. “Oh, no.” She shook her head. “No, you can’t...”

“P-pick it up.”

“Please—” She tripped over what to call him. “Please, just think what you’re doing.”

“Pick it up.”

“At least let them go! You’ve got me here now, you don’t need them!”

He advanced towards her. She backed away, but he stopped when he reached Jack. He put the knife against his neck.

“Pick it up.”

Kate slowly walked across the room towards where the petrol can waited. The sheaf of posters drew her eye. They were new ones. This time her smiling face had been planted on a journalistic photograph of a woman holding a dead child. It was black and white, obviously taken from some war zone, and flames had been clumsily superimposed to make it look as if mother and baby were on fire. KATE POWELL BURN IN HELL BITCH was printed across the bottom.

She looked away. The petrol can was at her feet. Next to it was a shallow cardboard box filled with the small yellow tins of lighter fluid that Jack used as a cleaning agent. Beside that was a cluster of aerosol cans of spray adhesive. The “flammable” sign was printed on all of them.

Kate reached down and took hold of the red container. It was heavy. A faint sloshing came from inside when she lifted it.

“T-take the lid off.”

Kate did as she was told. It felt greasy. It dangled from a plastic strip when it was unscrewed. The smell of the petrol was a sickly, sweet taste at the back of her nose and throat.

“P-pour it out.”