Page 50 of Savage Redemption

I pull up a chair and settle down opposite her. “I know that. Tomasz said it started in Faith’s bedroom.”

She nods. “I think so. We threw water on it, but it was spreading too fast. We tried to get out, but Andrej fell, and I went back for him.”

“What do you remember after that?”

“Andrej was a dead weight. I tried, but I was choking on the smoke. I tried to get him to get up and run, but he didn’t. I thought… I thought we were both going to die.”

Her face crumples. She starts to sob. “I was scared. I don’t know how…”

“Someone helped you?”

She nods. “A man, I didn’t know him, but he was there, in the kitchen. He picked Andrej up and told me to hang on to him. We tried to get to the door, we were nearly there, but he fell down. He didn’t move. I don’t…I don’t remember anything after that, not until I was outside and I could breathe again.”

I doubt I’ll get much more out of her for now. I smile and hand her magazine back to her. “You’ve been very helpful. Thank you.”

I’m almost at the door when she calls out to me. “Ethan?”

I turn. “What is it?”

“That man, he tried to save us. Is he… I mean, will he be all right?”

I tell her the truth. “I honestly don’t know, Natalija.”

We fileinto the other treatment room where the man claiming to be Carlos di Santo lies unconscious on a trolley. His skin is ashen, his hands and feet swathed in bandages.

“The burns are fairly superficial,” Megan assures me, “from contact with the floor and walls. Andrej didn’t get off so lightly.”

“What else do you know about his condition?”

“His airway is affected, inhaling heat as well as smoke. He’s breathing on his own, but if his condition deteriorates and his airways narrow too much, he’ll need a respirator.”

“Okay.” As luck would have it, we do have one of those on Caraksay, left over from Covid. Every cloud and all that.

The doctor hasn’t finished. “Smoke is toxic, full of all sorts of nasty chemicals. Hydrogen chloride, phosgene, sulphur dioxide, ammonia. Not to mention carbon monoxide. I’ve run blood tests to try and isolate exactly what he inhaled, and so far, he’s holding his own, but he’s not out of the woods yet.”

“Let me know as soon as you have the blood results back. Or if he comes round.”

“Of course.” She leans over the trolley. “I just need to do some obs.”

“We’ll leave you to it.” We all troop out. Once we’re away from the clinic I issue my orders. “Apart from the doc, and Natalija, obviously, I need everyone who was anywhere near that fire in the conference room in ten minutes. Two of the men who were in Dundee with us can relieve Nico. Where are the construction crew?”

“In the library, boss,” Tony informs me.

“Right, I’ll be starting there, then. Jack, you’re with me. Tony, you organise the men in the conference room. Oh, and send Nathan Darke to the library, too, please.” They are his crew, after all.

They’re an incongruous lot,a bunch of dusty, smoke-streaked workmen cluttering up my genteel library. Mrs McRae had the sense to throw some dust sheets over the furniture before they were herded in here, and now they perch awkwardly on my antique furniture, surrounded by first editions probably worth more than a year’s wages to most of them.

The foreman — correction, forewoman — sits apart from the rest and leaps to her feet as we enter. “How is he? How’s Carlos?” she demands.

“Poorly,” I reply. “Our medic is taking care of him.”

“Why isn’t he in hospital? He needs a specialist. Proper facilities.”

She’s not wrong, but I’m not about to go into the details of my security concerns with her. “You’re in charge of this lot? Right?”

“Yes. I am.”

Nathan enters behind me. “This is Rebecca Bartley. Bex. She runs this crew.”

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