Then Shahida caught sight of Fariman’s inert body and she started screaming. It was the kind of scream that nightmares are made of. A full-blooded howling roar with the sort of breath-control an opera singer would have killed for. It didn’t do me much good, so it must have struck utter terror into her husband’s attackers.
And, having accomplished that, Shahida broke free of her supporters, and bolted across the garden to avenge him.
“Shahida, no!” I’d failed Fariman, I couldn’t let her down as well.
As she rushed past me I let go of Friday’s straining leash and grabbed hold of her with both hands. Such was her momentum that she swung me round before I could stop her. She struggled briefly, then collapsed in my arms, weeping.
Suddenly unrestricted, Friday leapt forwards, eager to be in the thick of it. He bounded through the ranks of Langford’s men and into plain view on the gravel, moving at speed. With the idea of an attack from the dog firmly planted in his mind, the boy with the cigarette lighter must have thought he could already feel the jaws around his throat.
He panicked.
The tiny flame expanded at an exponential rate as it raced up the rag wick towards the neck of the bottle. He threw the Molotov in a raging arc across the garden, onto the stony ground. The glass shattered on impact, and sent an explosive flare of burning petrol reaching for the night sky with a whoosh like a fast-approaching subway train.
Langford and his men ducked back, cursing. I dragged Shahida’s incoherent form to safety, yelling for Friday as I did so.
He appeared almost at once through the smoke and confusion, ears and tail tucked down, looking sheepish.
Voices were shouting all around us. Langford’s crew had skirted the flames and redoubled their efforts to get to the boys. Christ, would they never give up?
Another Molotov was lit, but it was thrown in the other direction. Away from the vigilantes.
And into the shed.
This time, there was more than the contents of the bottle to fuel the fire. With bitumen sheeting on the roof, and years of creosote on the walls, they couldn’t have asked for a more promising point of ignition.
The flames caught immediately, sparkling behind the window, washing at the doorway. The speed with which they took hold, and the heat they generated, was astounding.
Fariman!
“Get the fire brigade,” I yelled, jerking one of the neighbours out of their stupor. “And an ambulance.” Where the hell were the police when you needed them?
I shouted to the dog to stay with Shahida, but didn’t wait around to find out if he obeyed me. I ran forwards, shielding my eyes with my hand against the intensity of the fire. The old man was still lying where he’d fallen by the shed door. The flames were already licking at the framework nearest to him. I grabbed hold of a handful of his paisley dressing gown and heaved.
For all the difference it made, I might as well have been trying to roll a whale back into the sea.
I shouted for help, but nobody heard in the brawl that was fast developing all around me. The smoke hit in gusts, roasting my lungs, making my eyes stream. I tugged at Fariman’s stocky shoulders again, with little result.
In the mêlée, somebody tripped over my legs and went head-first onto the gravel, landing heavily. I lunged for the back of their jacket, keeping them on the ground.
“Wait,” I said sharply as they began to struggle. “Help me get him out of here.”
The boy stared back at me with wide, terrified eyes over the scarf that had slipped down to his chin. He tried again to rise, but desperation lent me an iron grip.
Something exploded inside the shed, and shards of glass came bursting out of the doorway. I spun my head away, but still I kept hold of the boy. I turned back to him.
“If you don’t help me, he’ll burn to death,” I said, going for the emotional jugular. “Is that what you want?”
There was a moment’s hesitation, then he shook his head. Taking a leap of faith, I let go of his jacket and fisted my hands into Fariman’s dressing gown again. To my utter relief, the boy did the same at the other shoulder.
He was little more than a kid, but between us, a few feet at a time, we managed to drag the old man clear.
We got him onto the crazy paving by the back door of the house. It wasn’t as far away from the inferno as I would have liked, but it was better than nothing. The effort exhausted the pair of us.
I searched for the pulse at the base of Fariman’s his neck. It throbbed erratically under my fingers. I heaved him over onto his stomach and pulled up the dressing gown. Underneath, he wore pale blue pyjamas. The back of the jacket was now covered with blood, which was pumping jerkily out of the row of small holes in the cloth.
I glanced up at the boy, found him transfixed.
“Give me your scarf.” My words twitched him out of his trance. For a moment he looked ready to argue, then he unwound the scarf from his neck and handed it over without a word.
I balled the thin material and padded it against the back of Fariman’s ribcage. “Hold it there,” I ordered. When he didn’t move I grabbed one of his hands and forced it to the substitute dressing.
The boy tried to pull back, didn’t want to touch the old man. If you didn’t want his blood on your hands, sonny, you should have thought of that earlier. With my forefinger and thumb I circled his skinny wrist, and dug cruelly deep into the pressure points on the inside of his arm, ignoring his yelp of pain. “Press hard until I tell you to let go.” My voice was cold.
He did as he was ordered.
I checked down Fariman’s body. When I got to his legs I found the skin on one shin bubbled and blistered where it had been against the burning shed door. It looked evil. I carefully peeled the charred pieces of his clothing away from the worst of it, and left it well alone.
Burns were nasty, but unless they were serious they were low on the priority list when it came to first aid. Besides, without even a basic field medical kit, there was little else I could do.
“Where the hell’s that ambulance?” I growled.
Shahida reappeared at that point, with Friday trotting anxiously by her side. I braced myself for another bout of hysterics, but she seemed to have run out of steam. She slumped by her husband’s side and clutched at his limp hand, with silent tears running down her face.
I put my hand on her shoulder and shot a hard glance to the boy, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes.
The neighbours had swelled in number and organised themselves with buckets of water and a hosepipe. Where the first petrol bomb had landed there was now a soggy, blackened patch on the sandy-coloured stones.
Then the whole of the roof of the shed went up. A rejuvenated blast of flame kept the people back to a respectful distance. Burning embers came drifting down on the still night air like glitter, dying as they fell.
“Well, we lost the little bastards.” Langford’s voice was thick with anger as he came stamping up. He lit a cigarette, cupping his hands round the match and dropping it on the paving. His cold gaze lingered briefly on Shahida, but he made no moves to try and help. The boy kept his head down.
The first wail of sirens started up in the distance. We all paused, trying to work out if the sound was growing louder.
When it became clear that it was, the boy’s nerve finally broke. He jumped to his feet, abandoning his nursing duties, and ran like a rabbit. Langford suddenly realised that he’d had his prey right under his nose. He gave a bellow of outrage and took off after him.
The kid might have been built for lightness and speed, but gravel is murder to sprint on, and he didn’t get the opportunity to open out much of a lead. Before they hit the hedge at the bottom of the garden, Langford had brought him down.
And once the boy was on the ground, the vigilante waded in with his feet and his fists. His methods were unrefined, but brutally effective, for all that.