Rob and Emma looked at each other. ‘Quite a party,’ said Emma.
Rob quickly pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater.
‘Where you going?’ asked Emma.
‘To find Ste, of course. Tom’s right, he’s a hazard on the road.’
‘Shall we call the police?’ asked Emma.
Rob shook his head.
‘He’s already on probation for a drugs charge.’
He grabbed a pen and some paper and scribbled something before handing it to Tom.
‘I’m going to see if I can find him. Look, it’s 1.15 a.m. Give me twenty minutes or so. Then call his manager, the number’s on here.’
‘Do you want me to come?’ asked Emma sitting up on the pillow.
‘No. You stay here. Most of the guests and press have gone, but let’s try and keep this as low-key as we can.’
Cassandra opened her eyes and, for a minute, wondered where she was. The surroundings were unfamiliar, the room dark. Then she remembered how a driver had brought her to Emma’s house, a converted stable block a mile away from the main house. There was silence; the moon filtered in through the windows and, lifting her head with difficulty, she saw that she was in the living room lying on a leather sofa. Her gown had crinkled and she had snagged the fabric on the corner of Emma’s coffee table. Damn. Won’t be so easy to get dresses for free now, she thought. She desperately wanted to be under her Pratesi sheets in her Knightsbridge home. She wanted to be back behind her Christian Liagre desk telling people what to do – like the old days. She heard a chinking sound outsi
de, like a milk bottle falling over. She dismissed it, maybe it was a cat. She was too tired, drunk and emotional to care or be scared. Nothing could hurt her now anyway! The darkness was her friend, a comfortable black cloud where she couldn’t be seen. Her head was pounding. She wanted to shut out the noise of people whispering about her at the party. Yes, she just wanted to sleep. Sleep. It would all be over in the morning. She dimly remembered Emma saying something about there being a spare bedroom and clean sheets. That sounded good. What harm would it do to stay here for just a few more hours? She could be gone in the morning before Emma could see her. She dragged her body off the sofa and walked up the stone staircase towards the back bedroom. As she shut the door and peeled off her dress to slip between the cotton sheets, she didn’t hear the creak of the letterbox, or the splash of petrol being poured carefully through the slit. And she was fast asleep by the time the burning scrap of linen was thrown into the hall and the flames began to fill the house.
After Rob had roared off in his Range Rover, Tom went back into the garage and found the keys to Rob’s motorbike. He kicked it into life and drove fast out of the grounds, but after a few minutes it was obvious he was on a futile mission. He pulled up and turned around. The main gates to Winterfold were about two miles behind him on B-roads, but he wasn’t far from the East Gate that would take him back through the estate and straight to the house. It was only as he drove back into the grounds that he smelt the strong and pungent smell of wood smoke. At first he thought there was a problem with the bike’s engine. But then he turned a corner and saw flames pouring from the windows of a building.
‘Fucking hell! Emma’s house.’
He pulled his mobile out of his pocket and called 999, shouting at the operator for the fire brigade.
‘Is anybody in the property?’ asked the dispatch officer.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Tom, thinking of Emma in Rob’s bed only thirty minutes earlier. He hung up and opened the bike’s throttle, powering back towards Winterfold. As soon as he got there, he saw Rob stepping out of his Range Rover.
‘No sign of him,’ called Rob, angrily slapping the car door shut.
‘Forget that! Get Emma quick,’ shouted Tom. ‘The Stables is on fire. I’ve called 999 already but it looks pretty bad.’
‘Fuck,’ shouted Rob, running back towards the car. ‘Get in! Cassandra is in there and the fire station is ten miles away. They won’t make it in time!’
It was the acrid, choking smoke seeping under her bedroom door that woke Cassandra. She felt dreadful. No hangover had ever made her head pound so hard and her limbs felt like lead. She opened her eyes and was suddenly wide awake: the room was filling with smoke.
She threw back the sheet and moved to the door. The bedroom had a wooden floor that was hot under her bare feet. She reached for the doorknob, but was doubled up in a coughing fit before she even got there. Cassandra grabbed a towel and held it over her face as she forced herself to think. She cautiously touched the door handle. Not too hot – she opened the door and gasped when she saw the landing. It was full of thick, black smoke and flames filled the whole opening at the top of the stairs.
Slamming the door shut, she realized that she had only seconds before her room would also be engulfed in flames. Her eyes darted to the window. Dare she open it? She had seen films where fresh air inflamed the fire. Was that a backdraught? She couldn’t remember. Would flames rip through the door and burn her alive? Would the house explode? She had no more time to think – smoke was pouring under the door now and she was beginning to suffocate.
She began coughing so hard that she was forced to her knees. Outside, she could hear a car horn hooting violently. She ran to the window and saw a black Range Rover screeching to a stop at the back of the Stables. The doors flew open and Rob and Tom jumped out. Tom could see his sister’s face in the window thirty feet above him, her features twisted in fear.
For a second he felt paralysed. What could they do? Fire had ripped through the ground floor of the house and was leaping out of the front windows. Getting into the house to help her would be impossible.
‘She’s got to jump,’ shouted Rob, running to the back of the car to open the boot. He pulled out a blanket covered in horse hair and ran over to Tom.
‘Grab one end of this. I’ll take the other and we can stretch it out. We won’t catch her, but we should manage to break her fall.’
Beneath her Cassandra could see her brother mouthing words she couldn’t hear but when she saw the blanket, she realized that they wanted her to jump. She knew she had no other option if she wanted to stay alive. All around her the house creaked and groaned as it struggled to still stand, its beams and joists twisted by the heat. Her hands shaking, she inched the old window open and put her face to the hole, greedily sucking in fresh air. Revived, she opened a space big enough to jump through and hoisted herself up, her feet gripping onto the windowledge. Savage flames were only two feet beneath her, licking up from a ground-floor window and Tom and Rob seemed to be standing a long way from the house.
‘We can’t come any closer, Cass!’ shouted Tom. ‘You’re going to have to jump out as far as you can. Don’t worry, we’ll catch you.’