else, to show her support for those brave heroes who battled the flames, while also plugging her latest single, the release of which had been specially brought forward and was available on iTunes that very day.
Barry Milligan read through every paper and cradled his head in his hands. The death toll had now risen to forty-one. Eight of them attended his school. A further twenty-three had been former pupils and twenty-seven were still in hospital. Special services were being held in churches across town that morning and he had sat and prayed with everyone else, to whatever might be listening.
Then he drove to the school. There was an emergency meeting of governors and department heads at 2 p.m. and he wanted to be the first one there. He needed to be in his office to sort out the details for tomorrow. As he approached, he saw that floral tributes and messages were already being laid outside the gate. There was another reporter hanging about, ambushing groups of sobbing girls. News editors loved intrusive images of raw grief. Snot and tears are real attention-grabbers. Barry slipped by them and entered the building.
A school after hours and during the weekend is a strange, lonely place. It needs children to bring it to life and give it purpose. Standing in the corridor, which echoed and smelled of floor polish, Barry wondered how he was going to get through Monday’s assembly tomorrow morning.
The meeting only lasted an hour; no one was in the mood to argue and everything was settled. There would be counselling available for any child who needed it throughout the week. It was going to be a rough time and like nothing Barry had ever experienced in his professional life. Downing Street had even been in touch. The Prime Minister would like to come and deliver his condolences in person and give a sympathetic yet inspirational speech to the students. Only one discreet camera crew need be present, the press office assured him. Barry had vetoed that immediately in very colourful language. The week was going to be difficult enough without an unctuous Prime Minister and his entourage having to be considered. The Headmaster’s sole duty was to the children. Publicity-hungry politicians seeking to boost their ratings in the opinion polls by exploiting such a tragedy didn’t even figure. It made Barry furious.
After the meeting and making the necessary phone calls and doing everything he possibly could, Barry returned home. He donned his favourite rugby shirt and spent the rest of the day with a bottle of twelve-year-old malt. The pubs were infested with reporters, sniffing for grime.
The rest of Felixstowe could not remain indoors any longer. The grieving town needed company: they needed to see familiar faces, to stop and talk, to share their sorrows and disbelief and give thanks if their immediate circle had not suffered a loss.
So that Sunday afternoon saw unusually high numbers wandering down to the seafront. They chatted in hushed, respectful tones while they walked past the cheerfully painted beach huts and deserted amusements, and found their steps gravitated towards the peninsula. But they demurred at completing that solemn journey just yet. Instead they stopped at the Martello tower along the way and browsed through the boot fair that was held there every Sunday, floods permitting, on the surrounding wasteland.
Conor Westlake was sitting on the low sea wall in front of the boot fair. His face still bore the discoloured marks of Friday’s fight, but they looked worse than they felt.
The gulls were floating above, shrieking mournfully and swooping down on any scraps that the chip-eaters flung their way. The sea was grey and featureless, except for the movement of the enormous container ships that sailed from the dock around the infamous headland. They were so immense they looked like drifting cubist islands. Conor checked his phone for messages, but there were none. He swivelled about on the wall and looked across the car roofs and bustling boot fair.
The tall, solid, round shape of the Martello tower dominated everything. It was one of many built during the Napoleonic Wars for an invasion that never happened and was now a Coastwatch Station. Others had been turned into eccentric homes, while the rest were crumbling. Suffolk was peppered with old defences along its sea-ravaged coast: pillboxes from the Second World War, or concrete bunkers from the First.
Conor’s grey eyes scanned the crowds. The boot fair was busier than usual. More people than ever were inspecting the unwanted junk arrayed behind the cars. He recognised several faces in there. He checked his phone again. Emma was late.
Cursing under his breath, he looked back at the sea. Yesterday had been a blank fog for him. No one at home knew what to say and the more they fussed the more he resented them. Now he felt like a can that had been violently shaken and was ready to explode at anyone who said the wrong thing. The sight of the sea was calming though; he could watch it for hours.
“I don’t have no money or nothing,” Emma said flatly. “So you can forget that right way.”
Conor looked around. The girl was standing beside the wall. He had been so wrapped up in himself he hadn’t heard her approach. She was chewing loudly.
“I’m not stopping long,” she told him, flicking her ponytail behind her with a toss of the head. “What do you want?”
“Money?” he repeated in confusion. “What are you on about?”
“You tell me, Goldilocks. Aren’t you after something to keep you quiet? That’s blackmail, you vile sicko. If it’s not money you’re after then it can only be the other and you have got to be kidding, you filthy perv.”
Conor held up his hands defensively. “Oi!” he cried. “I only wanted to talk about it, nothing else. You got it so wrong.”
Emma folded her arms and eyed him sharply. She couldn’t understand any motive that wasn’t selfish.
“So talk,” she said at length.
The boy wasn’t sure how to begin. He glanced down at the tracksuit bottoms she was wearing and guessed she was deliberately hiding her bandaged legs.
“How are they?” he asked.
Emma shrugged. “I’m not about to marry Paul McCartney,” she said.
Conor watched as three gulls fought over a generous piece of battered fish skin.
“It keeps going round and round in my head like a bit in Grand Theft Auto I can’t get past,” he said. “Nobody who wasn’t there can understand.”
“Are you confusing me for an agony aunt? I’m not Denise bleeding Robertson. You got problems with it? Go to a head doctor or chuck some Prozac down your neck.”
“Don’t you keep seeing it in here?” he asked, tapping his forehead. “Those faces – the screams and the panic…”
Emma turned away. “That’s my business,” she replied.
“But Ashleigh and Keeley…?”
“What do you want me to do, shave my hair off or something? They’re in the morgue, dead and blue, but I’m still here. There’s no amount of talk or blowing my nose going to bring them back or make it go away. No sense in banging on about stuff like that. It’ll do your brains in.”
Conor shook his head. “God, you’re hard,” he said. “They were your best mates.”
“I’m my best mate! Have you finished, pretty boy?”
“Not yet. I saw the papers today. No one knows why the car was out of control. What happened?”
Emma chewed and clicked the gum in her mouth. “Danny Marlow was driving, that’s what happened. He was a useless pillock. It was his fault – all of it.”
“Why don’t you tell someone? You should.”
“Who? The fuzz? Are you from Norfolk or what? I had a visit from them last night about that Sandra cowing Dixon. I’m not going to give them an excuse to come back and ask me a load more questions. I had nothing to do with that crash. I was just lucky to get out of it alive. The other poor pieces of toast didn’t.”
“Danny’s family would want to know. So would Kev’s and the others.”
“So what? Not my problem