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name?’
    ‘Kimberly Guyver.’
    ‘Stay right there,’ he instructed her.
    The fire officer gestured for him to stay back. ‘Behind the cordon. It isn’t safe here.’
    Goodhew quickly explained the situation. The fire officer shook his head and instinctively they both glanced back towards Kimberly Guyver.
    She, too, ducked under the tape. ‘They can’t be in there. Why wouldn’t they have just got out? Oh, shit. Shit. Riley, Riley!’
    Goodhew reached her first. ‘They’re doing everything they can.’ He hated the words even as he said them. They sounded so ineffectual but they were all he had.
    ‘And they’re searching the house, aren’t they? Who’s gone inside?’
    ‘They can’t go in,’ he replied quietly.
    Kimberly drew a long breath, and then fell silent.

 
    EIGHT
    The fire blazed ferociously, and for a time it seemed that the fire brigade’s attempts to quench it would not put it out far ahead of its natural end.
    Kimberly waited.
    Four police cars soon arrived, the first bringing a man she guessed must be a more senior officer. She watched as he spoke to various people. He glanced over at her once, but she read nothing in
his expression.
    She felt the urge to approach him, to ask him for news, but she gave in to a greater urge that told her to stay where she was. Keep still and quiet like that would fool fate into moving on and
leaving herself and Riley untouched. Like those plane-crash victims she’d read about, dead in the wreckage but with their fingers still crossed in hope.
    She didn’t notice who came with the other three vehicles; she studied each as it arrived, but only to see whether a small boy might be staring back at her. Everything else seemed a silent
and timeless blur. She had no idea how long she’d stood there before she was gently led over to one of the cars. Nor had she any idea how long she sat in the car before the flames and smoke
cleared enough to reveal the dead features that had once been her friend’s home. Someone had put a cup of tea in her hands; her fingers were woven together to cradle the cup. It looked full
still, but felt almost cold.
    Mr Senior Officer was talking on his mobile. He looked like a serious type, a man obliged to deliver bad news many times in the past. She studied him, wondering what he would say to her. He
tilted his head slightly to one side or he was listening, but apart from that seemed contained and neat, not one to waste time or energy on any unnecessary movements. Someone who could keep his
feelings to himself. She guessed that’s how it had to be, in a job like that.
    Her brain created a half-formed picture: his face remaining expressionless as his words dragged her down into darkness and loss. She stopped herself from taking that thought further, since it
was disloyal to Riley. It felt like she’d lost faith in him, even though nothing that was happening could have been within his control.
    For the first time she realized that she wasn’t alone in the vehicle. A WPC sat in front of her, in the driver’s seat. She must have become aware that Kimberly was now watching her,
for they suddenly made eye contact via the rear-view mirror.
    The policewoman turned. She had large dark eyes which seemed to assess Kimberly’s face before she spoke: ‘Are you warm enough?’
    ‘Yes.’ Realizing, as she replied, that she was shivering. ‘Tired, I think,’ Kimberly added.
    ‘Sure. But this isn’t necessarily the best place to wait. I can arrange for us to be inside somewhere nearby. ‘Somewhere warmer, more private?’
    Kimberly shook her head. ‘How long before they can carry out a search?’
    ‘I don’t know – but not yet. I’ll ask them in a minute.’ She reached over the back of her seat to the one next to Kimberly. ‘Put this round yourself, at
least.’ It was a thermal blanket.
    ‘Is that clock correct?’
    ‘Yes.’ It read five minutes past midnight.
    ‘And I’ve been here all this time?’ Kimberly wondered