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looked up at the top of the house. The fire had virtually eaten away the roof slates and was now persuading the roofing beams to collapse.
    “You know this for definite, do you?” asked the fireman.
    “He phoned me earlier, asked me to come over quick as I could. When I got here, this was happening.”
    “Aw, fuck…” said the fireman.
    As they stood looking at the house, the team of firemen who had recently entered by the front door hurried out. One separated himself from the others and began to stagger towards them, ripping off his facemask as he came. The crop-headed fireman moved towards him; Larkin, not wanting to be left out, did the same.
    The fireman was in his early twenties, tall with dark hair. He was breathless and sweating and his uniform appeared to have been barbecued. The crop-headed fireman confronted him.
    “What’s the score?”
    “Ground floor’s cleared. Nobody there. Mother and baby son cleared from the first floor. The top floor’s completely blocked.”
    “How?”
    “Stairs have gone. No way we can get up there.” He sighed andlooked over his shoulder at the house. “I know it’s a bit early to say, but it looks as if that’s where it started.”
    The crop-haired fireman jerked his thumb towards Larkin. “This one says his mate lives up there.”
    The younger fireman looked towards Larkin and shook his head. “Sorry, mate. If he’s there I wouldn’t hold out much hope.”
    “Yeah,” Larkin said.
    “We’ll have to calm it down a bit with the hoses before we can get a proper look in there. Sorry.”
    “Yeah,” Larkin said again.
    The three of them turned to gaze at the house. The blaze seemed to have been caught in time; it wasn’t doing much damage to the houses on either side. As they watched, there was an almighty crack, like vicious thunder, and the roof of the house, its timbers devoured by fire, collapsed.
    The firemen at the front of the house instinctively scurried out of the way. Even Larkin took a couple of steps back. The crowd oohed and ahhed as if they were watching a fireworks display. The hoses kept up a constant stream. After a while they were the only noise. Everyone else was staring in silence.
    The younger fireman was the first one to speak. “We’re sorry, mate.” He looked genuinely upset.
    “Yeah,” Larkin said for the third time. He glanced over to the ambulance which was closing up its doors, getting ready to take the mother and child to hospital. The crop-headed fireman spoke.
    “You’d better hang around, son. I reckon the police’ll want a word with you.”
    “Yeah,” said Larkin. He was starting to irritate even himself with his newly-discovered monosyllabic tendencies. “Tell you what, I’ll just make a quick phone call.”
    And with that he turned towards the cordon, skipped underneath it and jostled his way through the dispersing crowd which, after seeing the roof fall in, had decided that anything else would be an anti-climax. Then he made it back to his badly parked Golf. The TV crew were rushing forward for an interview with the firefighters as Larkin turned the ignition over, reversed, and was off. He wouldn’t stay and talk to the police. He had a feeling he’d said too much already.

7: Carte Blanche
    The journalists stood huddled together in the main office of The News Agents. They were muted, downcast, shuffling from foot to foot. They already knew why they had been summoned.
    Bolland swept in. For once, thought Larkin, he really did resemble Michael Portillo; not the smug, arrogant-bastard, leader-in-waiting demeanour, but the constipated look he’d worn when he lost his seat at the election. Bolland took up his customary position in front of the group, and addressed them in unusually halting tones.
    “Now … erm … All right, everyone. All right …” Bolland gave a half-hearted knock on the nearest desk to quiet the non-existent noise. Larkin looked around. Knifeblades of sunlight penetrated the vertical blinds