Read Online Little Triggers by Martyn Waites - Free Book Online

street, the first TV crew had appeared on the scene, unloading cameras, scoping out the most dramatic angle.
    As Larkin hastily parked his car, an ambulance sped past him, its klaxon clearing a path through the growing mass of onlookers. A fireman pulled aside a section of the temporary roadblock so it could pass through, and Larkin seized his chance to sneak in behind it,staying on the opposite side of the ambulance so that the fireman wouldn’t see him.
    As soon as he was inside the restricted area he stopped, dumbfounded. The fire was huge, a massive orange, red and yellow force of nature reaching about thirty feet into the air. The heat from it was so intense that Larkin felt sweat burst onto his skin spontaneously. The noise – big whooms of rushing air, explosive bursts as something combustible fed the fire’s appetite, crackles and crashes as the structure of the house began to char and disintegrate – was deafening. He could smell people’s belongings, their
lives
, both acrid and sweet, melting and being subsumed in the fire’s hunger. For all he knew he might have been smelling burning people as well. He stared at the fire, hypnotised with fear and wonder, knowing if he stood there long enough the flames would consume him too. Any closer and his leather jacket would start to bubble.
    He was startled back to self-awareness by a figure running towards him: the fireman from the barricade.
    “What the fuck are you doin’? Get behind the line, you daft bastard!”
    The fireman grabbed Larkin and started to force him back. Larkin reluctantly did as he was told, allowing himself to be pushed behind the line. He still had a ringside view of the whole operation.
    The firemen, lit by portable arc lamps, uncoiled hoses and pulled on breathing apparatus. One of the engines had been positioned with its ladder extended to an upstairs window; through billows of smoke, a gesticulating figure could just about be glimpsed. A fireman at the top of the ladder was beckoning to the figure, urging it to step out. Instead of doing so, the figure – a woman, Larkin assumed – handed out a small bundle. A baby. The fireman took the baby and hurried down the ladder, handing the fragile package to a waiting paramedic who walked briskly to the ambulance with it. From his calm expression Larkin guessed the baby wasn’t in any danger.
    The fireman climbed back up the ladder and entered the building through the window; the crowd gasped and muttered. Simultaneously, firemen entered through the front door of the house, pulling hoses with them. All the while, another contingent of firemen kept up a steady bombardment of the house with high-pressure hoses.
    The firemen at the upstairs window appeared with the woman in front of him. He gestured to her to step onto the ladder, which shegingerly did. A fireman was waiting on the ladder to escort her down to the ambulance. She didn’t appear to have been burned, but from her blackened skin and dazed expression, it seemed as if smoke and shock had got to her.
    Larkin looked at the ambulance. So far the woman and the baby had been the only people Larkin saw being brought out. There was no sign of Houchen.
Knowing that crafty bastard
, thought Larkin,
he’ll have his camera out looking for the best angle. Getting an exclusive. Or
… Larkin ducked under the barricade and ran towards the nearest fire engine, encountering the angry, crop-headed fireman who had forced him back before.
    “Have I got to tell you again?” the fireman barked, his gloved hand pushing into Larkin’s chest.
    “Just listen a minute,” Larkin said. Something in his tone made the fireman stop in his tracks.
    “What?” It was a statement rather than a question.
    “I’m looking for someone. Houchen. Ian Houchen? He lives in that house,” Larkin indicated the burning building, “in the top flat. He was probably the first out. Where is he?”
    The fireman looked straight into Larkin’s eyes. “Top flat?”
    They both