THE FAMILIAR BONFIRE

Doyle fiddled with the handle of his cup for a while before he continued.

"have you heard of the Martel family" he began.

"which officer hasn't" replied Flint, adding a cube of sugar to his coffee. Today, he wasn't feeling up to having his coffee bitter. The news of the kids going missing right under the nose of a building crawling with police officers was bitter enough pill and left a fresh sour taste in his mouth.

"I hear their leader recently died" Flint continued, stirring his cup with a little silver spoon as he spoke.

"yes" Doyle continued, "they're very much still active and the entire incident reeks of their stain"

"what do you mean"

"the woman who came to pick the children up was not social child care"

"she was sent by them"

"them....you mean the Martel family" Flint asked.

"yup"

"the chief..." Flint began.

"is in on it" Doyle interjected.

Flint's eyes grew wide.

"Flint that's all i know so far i swear"

"nope, you know a lot more than what you let on, more than what you're telling me"

"my ad....." Doyle started to say, but stopped as the waitress came to serve Flint's order. After she left, he continued.

"my advice Flint, wash your hands off the entire thing" Doyle added.

"it goes up wayyy high"

"how high" Flint asked.

"commissioner of police high...or even more...one thing's for sure, it's wayyy wayy above our pay grade"

Doyle said, watching Flint who had finished his coffee and was biting into a freshly baked chocolate cake.

***********

By nightfall, Annie and her siblings had found nowhere to lay their head.

After Jon's spectacular acting with the gentleman reading the paper, who wasn't so gentle afterall but kind enough to help them with change for food, they had walked to the nearest roadside food stand and bought themselves a plate of rice each then they sat on a park bench and filled their bellies.

Bertha gave a satisfied groan after she had picked the last grain of rice off her plate.

Jon had yawned and stretched, while Annie busied herself with opening one of the bottles of water she had bought from the remaining loose change of the ungentle gentleman.

When they were through, they had rested for a while before they continued their walking.

They got to the riverside where Catherine and Sam lived but spotted a gathering of fire trucks and police officers swarming the residence.

The fire men were struggling to put a roaring flame under control.

"stay here" Annie said to her brother and sister as thy approached the house.

She casually walked towards the crowd of onlookers by the yellow tape where they stood. Pushing her hands in her pockets, she stood casually in their midst as she listened to bits of their conversation that floated in the air.

A brunette stocky woman was shaking her head as she spoke.

"they were lucky those girls...got out before the fire started"

"i hear a person died in there. What if one of them did come back maybe to pick up something or to change her mind about their trip" added another woman, who shuddered after she spoke. Annie felt her heart break as the women spoke. She caught a glimpse of a stretcher being taken out of the house, a body covered in white cloth lay on it. In her heart, she prayed it did not belong to any of the kind women who had saved their lives.

She didn't wait to hear more of their conversation, she turned and walked back to her siblings.

The moment she was close to them, she said "let's go"

"why" Jon questioned.

"Miss Cat and sammie are no more there"

"where did they go....we can wait for them" suggested Bertha eagerly.

"i don't know Berth" said Annie grimly.

"did you ask the neighbours?" asked Jon.

" there's been a fire Jon...i saw a body....." she said, then she pursed her lips before continuing.

"it's their house"

"What?" Jon said, his eyes growing so wide they almost popped out of their sockets.

" but....butt... how" he asked stunned, his eyes begining to moisten.

"enough with the questions you two...we need to get out of here" she said, pulling Bertha up.

"come on Jon" she said, grabbing hold of his arm and pulling him by his elbow, with her holding back her own tears.

Jon followed her robotically, shaking his head as she pulled him by his arm.

She turned her head and began walking ahead. Only when she had done that, did she permit her tears to flow down her cheek.

Now they were truly alone with no one and nowhere to turn to.

************

Flint couldn't believe his eyes as he looked at the building that the firemen were unleashing their liquid force of nature. He couldn't believe he had just visited the same building the night before.

He ran his hands through his hair, then proceeded to run his hands on his face, starting from his forehead to his lips.

"gimme a brief run through" he said turning to an officer he found at the scene when he arrived.

The man went straight to the point as he was familiar with Flint.

"at exactly 5:05 this evening, neighbour called in a fire incident"

"and where is this neighbour?" asked Flint butting in. The man pointed in a direction with his index finger. There was a woman standing by another police officer. Flint turned, gave her a brief once over, then he turned his attention back to the officer he was conversing with.

"carry on" he said, when he turned back to the man.

"when she phoned, she said there were two women who occupied the houses" we arrived to find the damn bonfire you're looking right at"

Flint was scribbling furiously on his note pad as the man spoke.

"from the questions we asked during witness questioning, she said they only came down once in a while and were not permanent residents"

"here's the oddest part of the entire thing... there's ony one woman or body lying down in that thing....no second" the man said.

As they spoke, the firemen had managed to douse the flames and were already making their way into the house.

His heart flew into his chest when he saw a body being carried out the front door.

"dear lord" he thought as he walked towards the men carrying the stretcher. He raised his hands in a stop gesture as the men came down the stairs which led to the front door.

He flashed his badge and didn't bother to look at the looks on their faces as he proceeded to lift the white cloth. He closed his eyes as he lifted it slowly, his heart all the while pounding in his chest.

He only opened them only after he had opened the cloth enough to peek through.

"what in the..." he began as he could not fathom what he was looking at.

It was apparently the body of a woman, judging by the few tufts of hair remaining at the back of her head. She was burnt through,

down to the bones. How the hair had managed to still remain, he had no idea.He turned his head and for the second time in three days, he emptied his guts.

He was too destabilized to cover the body, or rather, the skeleton or what was left of it.

The men did the work for him and covered it themselves, moving on.

After he was through, he wiped his mouth on his sleeves.

He struggled to regain his composure. After a while, he did.

He stood up and headed towards the woman who had notified the police of the fire incident.

"ma'am may i have a few words with you" he said, when he approached her.

"of course officer" the woman replied.

Flint again produced his trusty companion, his note pad, and his pen.

He didn't think of what questions to ask but just released them off the top as they appeared in his head.

"can you repeat the statement you gave to the officers who questioned you first" he asked.

"Why" the woman asked eyeing him.

"we just need to confirm some things madam...it is necessary and important to the investigation" Flint replied with his poker face.

The woman threw him a look, then she started talking. Flint worked hard at jotting words down as she was a fast talker. It was almost as if she took no breath between her words and sentences.

He had not been assigned to this case. He had enough on his plate already with the missing children and the Hart massacre but he had been here just last night, the children had slept in the very building which just got turned into a huge bon fire and not to mention it's close proximity to the Hart estate. He smelt something fishy and he knew his gut feelings had never been wrong.

Never.