“You good?”
I gave him a look through the visor. “Ask me that again and I’m hiding prawns in your locker.”
“Cruel woman.” He grinned. “Rear bedroom, yeah?”
“Last reported.”
“And if he’s decided to have a nap in the airing cupboard?”
“Then we rescue him and judge him privately.”
Brian laughed, and for one bright second, before the door went in, before the smoke swallowed everything, the world was exactly where it belonged.
That was the memory.
The call in front of me wasn’tthatcall. Eight months later it was a different street, different house, different partner at my shoulder, and my body still remembered Brian’s laugh so sharply that grief almost buckled my knees right there on the pavement.Not now.I shoved it down and got on with the job, the way I always did.
The house in front of us was a semi-detached in Ealing, two stories, white render gone gray from weather and now from smoke. Kitchen fire, according to dispatch. Everyone was out, except a neighbor was screaming that the little boy from next door had run back inside after his cat. Of course he had. Kids always went back for the cat or dog.
Rain needled down through the cold morning, hissing where it hit hot glass. The front door stood open, smoke pulsing out in slow breaths. A woman grabbed my sleeve as I passed.
“He’s six,” she said. “His name is Milo. He hides when he’s scared. Please.”
I took her hand off my jacket, gently as I could. “We’re going to look for him.”
“He’ll be under something. He always hides under things.”
That was helpful. “Understood.”
My partner, Hassan, moved up beside me. Steady lad, good firefighter. Too young yet to know all the ways a building could lie to you, but old enough to listen when it started talking.
I gave him the quick rundown. “Child likely hiding low. Kitchen origin. We take the left side first, check under furniture, behind curtains, cupboards if we have to. Watch the ceiling. The flames have had time to travel.”
He nodded. “You lead.”
Inside, the house had shrunk down to a narrow world of smoke and heat. The hallway carpet squished under my boots, soaked through from the first hose line. Family photos blurred on the wall as we passed. School uniforms, beach holidays, a gap-toothed boy holding an orange cat like a trophy. The smoke layer hung low enough that we dropped to a crawl, our torches cutting weak little tunnels through the murk.
My breathing settled into its old rhythm. In, move, sweep, out, listen. People thought firefighters weren’t afraid. Rubbish. Fear turned up every single time. You just trained it and gave it jobs to do. Mine counted doors, read the smoke, tracked the hose line, and listened for the moment a room changed its mind about you.
The living room was bad, curtains gone, sofa smoldering, and a plastic toy box melted into a bright, poisonous lump that smelled like chemicals. I swept under the coffee table while Hassan checked behind the sofa. Nothing. Then a crack overhead made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
“Ceiling’s unhappy,” Hassan said.
“Ceilings often are. Keep moving.”
We backed out and made for the stairs. Heat pushed down from above, far too much heat for a simple kitchen fire. It had climbed. Fire loved a staircase. A ready-made chimney, sitting right there in the middle of the house.
“Milo!” I called, my voice strange and amplified inside the mask. “Fire brigade! Shout if you can hear me!”
Nothing. Then a small shape darted across the landing above us, and for half a second my chest loosened. Then the shape yowled. The cat.
“Found His Majesty,” Hassan said.
The orange cat vanished into a bedroom with the speed of a creature that blamed all of us for this outrage.
“The boy might’ve followed it,” I said. “Up.”
The stair treads creaked under us. At the top, the smoke thickened and the heat pressed against my shoulders. Bathroom to the right, front bedroom ahead, and off to the left the rear bedroom where the cat had disappeared, its door half shut with smoke licking around the frame.
