Stone Cold Red Hot - [52]

There was a sudden flurry of movement from the mob and another hail of missiles flew at the house. A bottle smashed against the front door, a bottle with a burning rag in it, and exploded in sheets of flame with a ferocity that made everyone rear back. A petrol bomb.

Chapter nineteen

“Call the fire brigade,” Carl yelled and Doyle spoke into his radio.

I turned to Mr Poole, he had a look of despair on his face.

“Oh, God,” I said.

“I’ll get some water,” he said.

More missiles followed, they were coming in waves. I pushed my way through to reach the police, I was jostled on the way and someone tried to trip me up. It was uncanny how they all seemed to know I wasn’t part of the mob.

“The engines won’t be able to get through,” I shouted to the police, “they keep blocking the road up.”

Doyle scowled at me but Carl Benson’s partner nodded and got back into their car. He reversed it up the Close.

Another bottle smashed against the front of the house, below the boarded up window and burst into flames. The paint on the door was bubbling and the small frosted glass panel near the top exploded with the heat. The glass landed with a tinkling sound. The stench of petrol filled the air.

The fire lit up the faces of the crowd. People were jostling each other, calling and cheering, getting drunk on the spectacle. My stomach twisted but I ignored the fear and concentrated on the practical. Water.

I pushed my way back and met Mr Poole in his hall-way. He had a large, black bucket of water. I left my bag there and took it from him, it weighed a ton. I staggered into the road with it, ignoring the man who pushed me deliberately. They wouldn’t let me through, faces turned twisted and sneering, they swore at me. I was hemmed in, my throat tightened with rising panic. PC Benson spotted me and forced his way through to meet me.

“I’ve got water,” I yelled.

He heard me and managed to forge a pathway through the mob to meet me by shouting, “Clear the way, let us through, mind your backs, move back.” People moved aside slowly and with great reluctance but they did actually let us past. The water slopped over the edge of the bucket and drenched my legs and feet. I reached PC Benson and he took it from me, pushed back towards the house and hurled it at the fire. The flames parted and some died, it looked as though the remaining ones were dwindling as the petrol was consumed.

He handed me back the bucket and I went for more. A woman turned to me her face bright with spite. “Nigger lover, slag, fuck off you nigger lover.”

Doyle spoke into a megaphone. “Clear the area, clear the area now.”

The crowd fell about shouting and swearing. One of the Brennan twins climbed up on a car further down the road, pulled down his jeans and bared his bum at the police. I saw Doyle use his radio again.

Mr Poole handed me a watering-can and I passed him the bucket. “Can’t find anything else.”

I struggled back with the watering can. The surface of the door was cracked and distorted and the frame charred but it had stopped burning. The flames were still licking up below the lounge window but I could get near enough to pour water over the plywood which was beginning to smoke. A stone smacked against the wall beside me and as I turned another hit above my head with a crack. A ripple of outrage made my cheeks burn.

I crouched and ran to the police car. Johnny sat there grim faced. I thought about the camera but reasoned that with two police as witnesses to all that was going on they wouldn’t need a video as well. The crowd began to clap, faster and faster and to shout something I couldn’t make out. Would this have happened if Mandy hadn’t been sick? If the council had acted more quickly?

There was a roar from someone and then a battery of bottles, lumps of wood, half-bricks and clods of earth came over. A whoosh and a thump which rocked my belly as a petrol-bomb exploded against the upstairs window, glass shattered and the pane collapsed in. Immediately after another hit the roof washing flames across the tiles. Other things were thrown at the window, one looked like a lump of burning cloth, it reached the curtains of the bedroom and they flared alight.

A beat. Nothing moved but the tongues of fire. I froze. Boom! The thump of the explosion blew away the remnants of the curtain and fragments and glass and lit the window in a flash of intense light. Strips of blackened curtain, dripping with flames, billowed down to the ground.

“Jesus,” shouted Carl. He ran up to the front door and began to lunge against it, using his shoulder. Three or four times and it didn’t budge.

He looked back at PC Doyle. “Come on,” he yelled.

Doyle looked spooked. His cocky assurance unsteadied by the savage turn of events. “The brigade’ll be here any minute,” he shouted. “Leave it, Bennie. They’ll sort it out, they’ve got the apparatus.”

“There’s three kids in there,” I told him, “you can’t just leave them.”

Doyle turned away, huddled over his radio and talked urgently into it. Carl Benson looked stricken. He hurled himself at the door again to no avail. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Johnny slipping out of the passenger door of the police car. I thought he was making a run for it. But he was risking a lot with the mob so close. I willed him to get away safely. Doyle couldn’t see him. Another brick hitting the house distracted me, more followed, they were aiming at Carl Benson now. He put his hands up to protect his face.