Smoke Alarm by Priscilla Masters

or even whether this glimpse into the Barton’s family life would help but it was worth a try.
    â€˜Mum was just coming upstairs with a mug of tea.’ Again his eyes clouded as he remembered, probably realizing that this had been the last time he had seen his mother, wished his sister goodnight and heard his grandfather breathing. Randall didn’t want to remind him, but had to prompt, ‘Ye-es?’
    â€˜I went up to my room. I had my headphones on.’ He hesitated. Swallowed with a noisy gulp. ‘I can’t hear a thing when I’ve got them on.’ A look of mischief lightened his expression. ‘Drives Mum mad.’
    â€˜And a thousand other mothers, I expect.’ Randall joined in. ‘Then?’
    â€˜I must have dropped off to sleep.’ He paused. Frowned. ‘
Something
must have woken me but I’m a long way off all the others. I opened my door and I could smell smoke.’ He looked away. ‘I panicked, Detective Randall. I didn’t know what to do. I thought Grandad must have . . .’ His voice trailed away miserably but Randall knew what he had thought: that his grandfather had started another fire.
    â€˜I made a plan. I shut the door. Then I thought I’d take my keys down with me and climb down the rope ladder.’ There was another brief spark of mischief. ‘I’d tried out my rope ladder before. I knew it was safe. I thought I’d climb down,’ he said again, ‘and see what was happening. When I got down I went round the front of the house. Then I could see it was worse. Much worse than I’d thought. It was terrifying. There were flames and smoke bursting out of the front windows. The bedrooms, too, where Mum and Addy sleep. I got in through the back door. But it was hopeless.’ He buried his face in his hands and groaned.
    Alex interrupted. ‘Was the back door closed or open, locked or unlocked?’
    The boy looked at him with respect, as though he had just realized that DI Alex Randall was a real policeman. ‘As far as I remember,’ he said carefully, ‘it was unlocked but closed. I might be wrong but I don’t remember having to use my key. I think it’s probably still in my pyjama pocket.’ Jude Barton’s pyjamas were currently in forensics. He looked anxious. ‘I closed the door behind me to stop the draught making the fire worse.
    â€˜Did you decide which key you needed?’
    â€˜I had both,’ Jude said carefully. ‘Front and back. But when I’d looked out of my window I could see that the fire was worst at the front. I could either hang the ladder from a hook at the front or at the back but I could never have climbed down the front of the house or got in through the front door so I went round the back. I got into the kitchen but not much further. It was like hell.’
    â€˜Could you hear anything else?’ He meant the women screaming, the grandfather calling, but he didn’t labour the point.
    The boy closed his eyes wearily. ‘I don’t know. There was so much . . . drama . . . and noise going on. I don’t know what I heard or what I thought I heard. I might even have been screaming. There were sirens and . . .’Again he paused. ‘I’ve thought and tried to remember if I did hear Mum or Addy or Grandad but I don’t really know. Not for sure. I don’t know what was in my head and what was real. When I close my eyes I seem to hear them screaming but I still don’t know whether it was my imagination or what.’ Again he covered his face with his hands. ‘I don’t know what’s real any more. And then I saw the policeman coming for me and my clothes were on fire. My hands felt hot. I couldn’t find the door because the smoke was thick. I
think
I was shouting for Mum and Addy but I don’t know. The screaming might all have been inside my head. I just don’t know.’