Page 17 of A Slow Fire Burning

We consider it neither reasonable nor necessary to address every weak comparison you attempt to make...

You have made serious and false allegations against Mr. Myerson...

Any legal action by you would be inappropriate and unreasonable and would be robustly defended by Mr. Myerson; he would look to recover all legal costs from you which, in light of the above, we have no doubt the court would grant.

There it was, in black and white. For all the insults they hurled at her, for all the hurtful, unpleasant accusations, for all the dismissal of her claims asentirely without merit,flawed,weak,false,inappropriate,unreasonable, the substance of their argument, boiled down to its essence, could be found in that final sentence: We have all the money and therefore all the power. You have nothing.

Hands trembling, Miriam refolded the letter and tucked it back into the bottom of the box, retrieving instead the little black notebook in which she recorded comings and goings on the canal. She had lived here, on this boat, for six years, and she had learned that you had to be vigilant. All human life was here: good, decent, hardworking, generous people, mixed in with drunks and druggies and thieves and all the rest. You had to keep your wits about you. You had to keep your eyes peeled. You had to learn to watch out for predators. (Miriam knew that better than most.)

So, she noted things down. She had, for example, noted the time on Friday evening when Mad Laura from the launderette had shown up with Daniel Sutherland; she had made a note too of when CarlaMyerson, the boy’s aunt, with her good haircut and her nice coat and her straight teeth, had come knocking. Last Wednesday it was. Two days before Daniel died. Bottle of wine in hand.

Next, she picked up the key—Mad Laura’s key, the one she’d taken from the floor of the dead man’s boat. She turned it over in her fingers, feeling its edges, still tacky with blood. Miriam had the sense that, whatever the girl might have done, Laura should be protected. After all, she was another without power, wasn’t she? Oh, she was pretty, bright-eyed, and slender, but she was poor too, and troubled. There was something wrong with her; she walked with a limp, and had something mentally wrong too. Not quite right. People could take advantage of someone like that, a small, powerless young thing like Laura, just as they had taken advantage of Miriam.

But power shifts, doesn’t it, sometimes in unexpected ways? Power shifts, and worms turn.

What if, contrary to what she’d written down in her little book, Miriam hadn’t seen Laura at all? What if, as she’d told the police, she’d only seen Carla Myerson with Daniel Sutherland? And what if, now she came to think about it, she might even have seen Carla Myerson more than once? The detective had asked her to get in touch if she thought of anything else, hadn’t he? If she remembered something, it didn’t matter how small, that might be significant? What if—oh, now it was coming back to her!—she remembered overhearing something, raised voices, she’d thought merriment at first, but perhaps it was something else, perhaps it was an argument?

Miriam made herself a cup of tea and soaked her feet, working her way methodically through half a packet of digestive biscuits while she considered what she needed to tell the detective inspector. Should she mention, for example, her encounter with Myerson that morning? Or was that card best held back, kept in reserve to playanother time? She was acutely aware that she needed to be careful about how she handled things, that she should not be reckless, should not let this new power of hers go to her head.

She rang the detective’s mobile phone, listened to his voicemail greeting.

Hello, Detective Barker? It’s Miriam Lewis. You said I should call you, if I thought of anything? Well, it’s just that... it’s occurred to me that the woman I saw, the one I told you about, the older woman? I’ve just remembered that I saw her on the Friday night. You know, I was thinking it was the Thursday, because I’d just come back from work when I saw her going past, she was carrying a bottle of wine, you see, not that that’s important but the thing is that I’d just come back from work, but I didn’t go to work last Thursday because I had a bit of a stomach bug which is unusual for me because I’ve got the constitution of an ox generally but in any case I wasn’t feeling well on Thursday and so I did my shift on Friday instead...

Miriam ended the call. She leaned forward to take another biscuit from the packet and then reclined, swinging her legs up onto the bench. How satisfying this was, to hold something over Myerson! She imagined, for a moment, the great man himself, standing in his study, holding the phone, a call from the detectives, perhaps, telling him they were taking her in for questioning, his darling Carla. She imagined his panic. What would such an ordeal do to her? And just think about the bad press!

That would teach him, wouldn’t it, for taking what wasn’t his? For treating Miriam as though she were nothing, as though she werematerial, to be used and discarded as he wished.

And if Carla suffered too, well, that wasn’t ideal, but just as my enemy’s enemy is my friend, sometimes my enemy’s friend is also my enemy, and that just couldn’t be helped, that was the way of theworld. That was how this sort of thing happened; it wasn’t fair. In any sort of conflict, there were bound to be innocent casualties.

Miriam closed her notebook. She put it back into the box, and on top of it, Laura’s key, nestling against the mahogany with Lorraine’s gold hoop earrings, the silver cross her father gave to her on her confirmation when she was fourteen, and an ID from a dog collar, inscribed with the name Dixon.

The One Who Got Away

The sobbing has stopped. There are different noises now.

The girl uses the cover of these new sounds to break the window. Then, working quickly, she clears as much glass as she can before trying to climb out. Nevertheless she cuts herself badly, on her shoulders, her torso, her thighs, as she forces her solid flesh through the small square of the window frame.

On her haunches, she sits, back to the wall. Blood flows from her wounds, soaking into the hard ground beneath her feet. When she runs, she will leave a trail. Her only salvation will be to get to town before he comes after her; if she goes now, she stands a chance, perhaps.

It is dark now, moonless. Save the rhythmic croak of a frog, the night is still. She can, however, still hearthem inside. The noises he makes, the noises she makes in return.

She closes her eyes, admits the truth to herself. There is another chance of salvation: She could go back into the house, through the front door and into the kitchen, she could find a knife. Surprise him. Cut his throat.

She imagines, for a moment, her friend’s relief. How they would cling to each other. She imagines telling the police what happened, imagines a heroine’s welcome at school, how grateful her friend’s family would be!

How grateful would they be?

She pictures her friend’s beautiful face, her long limbs, her nice parents, her expensive clothes. She is overwhelmed by the thought of her life, her happiness.

The girl imagines herself entering the room, the knife raised, imagines him turning, catching her, punching her in the throat. She imagines him crouching over her, his knees pressing against her chest, imagines his weight on top of her, imagines the blade pressed against her collarbone, against her cheek, against her lips.

She doesn’t even know if there is a knife in the kitchen.

She could try to help; she could fight. Or she could take advantage of his preference for her beautiful friend. She could run.

This is not her fault. She didn’t even want to get into the car.

She is sorry. She really is. She is sorry, but she runs.

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