CHAPTER 61
I went back into the living room and called over to Emma, who was nearest.

“Can you call the Olive? Your phone, or the house phone, don’t care”

I gave her the number, muttering apologies to Heidi as I did so,

“Get Kim and Alicia back here now, Emma. As quick as they can, love. Heidi?”

She came back on, and the background noises told me she was driving, or at least in a car.

“Yes?”

“Talk to me”

There was a bang at the back door, and I opened it again to reveal a smiling Paul, eyes slightly red-rimmed. As he saw my face, the smile evaporated. I held a hand up to shush him

“Paul’s just parked up, Heidi. Talk. Please. No---hang on”

I called round the room.

“Girls! All of you, please, we need some privacy, quickly”

Lots of puzzled looks were exchanged, including some showing real fear, and as soon as Paul and I had the room to ourselves, I switched the phone to speaker mode.

“Just me and PC Welby now, Heidi. Go ahead. Fire?”

His eyes widened, but he managed to keep silent as Heidi spoke.

“Yes. Fire, at Serena’s family home. It seems to have started at two places, front and back doors. Brigade are investigating, but they had a real problem with the gas supply, getting it shut off. They need to know who was in the place”

Oh fuck. Keep talking to her, keep using her name, keep her functioning.

“I’ve given Kim and Alicia a shout to get round here as quickly as they can, Heidi. Where are you?”

“On my way there now”

“How far away?”

“About twenty minutes, half an hour”

“Then you hang up, and we’ll see if either of the other two have heard anything. Concentrate on the road, my love. Call us when you arrive”

I hung up on her before she could object, just as the back door banged yet again with the arrival of Kim and Alicia. Both caught the message in our eyes, and stopped dead at the living room door as Paul put his work head back on.

“Yes, girls. Problem. Have either heard anything from Serena? Anything since Christmas Eve?”

Alicia looked terrified.

“I got a text, yesterday morning”

“Can I see it please, Alicia?”

She fiddled with her phone for a couple of seconds before handing it to Paul, who looked as if he had been punched, but read it out in as steady a voice as he could.

“How’s your Xmas? Mam being lovely. I even got shoes! She says mother-daughter Xmas is best kind! Gonna have slobby night jamas sofa cake and telly So happy!”

He stared at the phone for a moment, before speaking again, eyes still looking at the screen.

“Alicia, love, I will need to keep hold of your phone for a bit. Could you please write down the password for me?”

She nodded, and he pulled out his radio. In a remarkably efficient way, considering how his hands were shaking, he called his colleagues and asked for a search for any vehicles associated with Serena’s home address. As he clicked off, he tried to smile at me.

“I memorised it, Debbie. Didn’t know if I would have to rush over there, did I? Now, I was going to ask to borrow the shower”

“Kim said”

“Yeah. I can wait. Girls, perhaps we can get a brew on, till time to call Heidi again, okay?”

Nobody really felt like breaking the silence, until my phone did it for us. I hit ‘accept’ and ‘speaker mode’ in quick succession.

“Yes”

“Debbie…”

Shit, Her voice was worse than the car crash I had feared

“Heidi, who’s with you?”

“Nita’s just arrived. Oh, Debbie… Both of them, looks like smoke inhalation. They…”

There were noises at the other end, and I clearly heard Nita say “Okay, love, it’s okay. I’m here, okay…”

Her voice came on more clearly.

“Debbie, it’s Nita. Heidi’s a bit… hang on, girl. Excuse me, mate? Um, shock, I think. Thanks… Sorry, Debbie. Just speaking to a paramedic. Give me a few seconds and… right. Who is with you?”

“Paul, Kim and Alicia”

“Had Serena contacted any of you over the last couple of days?”

Paul spoke up.

“Alicia got a text from her, a happy one. I have secured it”

“Good one, Paul. Now, could Kim take Alicia somewhere else for now?”

The two girls were slow to rise, and I could feel the fear building in them, but they left the room.

“Just me and Paul now, Nita”

“Fine. Arson, clear as day. Both entrances torched, and there was no sign of the back gate having been forced. Only one car, or what was left of it, on the drive; no garage. Got details of the other one, Paul?”

“Called it in and asked for it to be put on the system as soon as they have the details”

“Good call, mate. Sit down, Debbie”

“I am sitting…shit. No. Please tell me I’m wrong, Nita”

She sighed, long and deeply.

“Mother’s room, Deb. Both in the same bed. Brigade says it was a really freaky one, not that much actual flame damage there. Something to do with lack of oxygen, but it still got hotter than hot. Looks like…”

Her voice went faint, and I caught some form of prayer, the words ‘Almighty and merciful God’, before she came back to us.

“I am really sorry, Deb, but I am finding this one hard. Brigade says it looked like they had gone to bed together, cuddling up. Not enough left for them to see if there was a smoke alarm, but it looks like the two were asphyxiated before it got… Before it got really hot. A mercy, he says. Paul?”

“Here, Nita”

“Where is the father?”

“Being looked for. Nita, I know you don’t need asking, but you look after our friend. I am going to start pushing the rest of the nick along. Anyone called SOCO out?”

“Brigade has. Paul… I am not feeling much loving-kindness at the moment”

“Heidi, Nita. Give it to Heidi. Now, I need to start pushing people along. Speak later, okay?”

She clicked off, and Paul picked up our landline with a raised eyebrow of enquiry.

“Course you can. It’ll have been the father, won’t it?”

“Not saying anything, Debbie, especially as it probably was. Now, do you feel up to speaking to the girls? I think they need a little warning”

I left him to do his professional best, and joined the clutch of young women in the other house, Rachel clinging to Emma and Patricia in particular looking terrified.

“It’s bad, Debbie, isn’t it?”

I nodded, slumping into a dining chair.

“I am afraid it is, girls. Really bad. There was a fire at Serena’s old home”

Several of them started weeping, and at Patricia’s “Both of them?”, I just nodded again. I couldn’t get anything else past the solid lump filling my throat. Kim could speak, though, as she cuddled a sobbing Alicia.

“Where’s her father, Debbie?”

“They are looking for him, love”

Three awful, bleak days later, they found him, still in his car, in a derelict shed by a disused quarry, the hose pipe still running from the car’s exhaust to the partly-open driver’s window, and a shitty suicide note in his pocket, blaming his wife for everything, and yet again I was sitting in ‘chambers’ for an inquest on a girl that should have been in the House sharing stories of the New Year party we didn’t have the willpower to attend. Needless to say, the findings were that Serena and her mother had been unlawfully killed, while Daddy Dearest’s departure from this world went down as suicide.

The Fire Investigation people had spoken of fuel and accelerants, of how it seemed he had prepared the front door before walking round to the back garden, where he had unlocked the gate, prepared and lit the back door and then trotted or strolled or however he moved round to the ever-so-ready front door, which was inside a porch and, as the back door went up, he lit the fire on the front one before simply driving away.

There was no CCTV in the area, but I wondered how long he had waited in his car, just to be sure that all was happily getting with his fucking programme.

It was not the best start to a year. That was Maisie’s comment, and if it hadn’t been for the tears in her eyes I would have slapped her, but I recognised her pain in time to avoid lashing out. The only good thing to come out of the whole pile of shit, if it can be called a good thing, was the funeral.

It seemed like most of the school was there, and I noticed my other girls were getting just as many hugs as what Serena’s father had probably considered ‘real’ girls. I even managed to persuade Charlie and Tiff to come along, to leave the House for the first time since their arrival.

Two coffins, two hearses, and one more small victory, as one miserable piece of shit had also gone, in that the service was all about Grace and Serena, and not that other name.

I was screaming inside at that touch, thinking that it shouldn’t have to take a death for the world to see who a girl is and speak her name, but at last the day was over, and we all had to settle down and make what we could of the rest of the day.

I sat in the House’s front living room with Heidi, Nita and Paul after that horrible afternoon was done, staring into space, until Gemma came into the room and knelt at my feet to take my hands.

“Girls have been talking, Debbie”

“What are they saying, Gem?”

“We are saying that we can use some sleeping bags and stuff, and squeeze in together. If you and the others want to go up the road for the evening”

“Up the road?”

She smiled, and I could see the maturity growing in her.

“You, Heidi, Anita, Paul… and, well, Kim? Kim. You go up and see Harry, or you get a taxi to Marlene’s place, and we sort spare beds out, and you give our sister a proper send-off. I can look after the place for tonight”

So we did, and yes we were more than tipsy when we got back. Marlene had known exactly why we were there, and a small room was closed off, just for us, and the next day was hard going as the hangover clung to my head and guts.

Nobody went anywhere near the other funeral, although I did visit the place a couple of months later to offer my respects in the same way as I had with the Parsons.

The night after our visit to the Smugglers for Serena’s wake, a boy got raped after he had left the place.