The Placebo Effect by David Rotenberg Page B

them clearly knew what he was doing out there. He probably had managed a brief career in the national game and just as likely had fallen prey to injury—inevitable in a game played literally at breakneck speed.
    Decker sat and watched the fluid carving and movement on the rink.
    The arena echoed but he felt private there—safe—like he had as a kid inside the snow-pile igloo he’d built. He’d slowly carved away the ceiling so that he could see light outside but no one could see in—to his privacy.
    A shout from the rink brought him crashing back to the present as a puck sailed past his left shoulder and rattled on the seat two rows behind him.
    With a shock he realized that he had slipped back into layers of his past without consciously intending to. He knew it was not a good sign. Maybe a result of the lingering shock from the fire, he hoped. But he knew he had to be careful of such behaviour. Unless he wanted to be like those others—incapable of being part of the world; freaks with strange abilities but nothing really more than embarrassments; kids who peed their pants when they stood to answer questions in class.
    He calmed himself as he had done so many times in the past by reciting a simple mantra—“You are from them, but not of them.”
    He picked up the puck and tossed it back to the ice. The talented player he had spotted earlier batted it from the air and in one graceful motion headed back up ice. The game continued. Decker smiled. Sure it does; the game continues.
    Metro fire captain Hugh Highlander was thinking about the Bantam girl’s hockey team he coached. How they really needed a scorer. Girl’s hockey, even at the high rep level at which he coached, seldom had more than four or five goals a game. And he was tired of losing 2–0, 2–1, 1–0—he needed a scorer.
    â€œOver here, Captain,” the young fire department tech called from behind a charred upright.
    â€œComing,” Hugh called as he hoisted a leg over a fallen beam and moved deeper into the charred wreck of Decker’s house. He’d seen way too many of these old houses—now so prized—go up in flames. They were never built with any thought to fire,or even comfort. On the whole, what this city referred to as century houses were built for workers by their employers. They were made cheaply and not intended to last. But yuppies or yippies or Generation Xers fancied them and gussied them up—but seldom did they go deeply enough into the intrinsic problems of the houses’ design to solve any real issues. Like so much renovation, their efforts just plastered over troubles. Especially when it came to fire. And these old things burned hot and fast—and often. But then again he knew that there had been suspicious fires in this very neighbourhood in the past sixteen months. As Hugh maneuvered his now growing bulk deeper into the wreck he took a deep breath and attempted to sharpen his focus. Arson was a serious crime, he reminded himself. If it was arson.
    The young fire tech pointed at a V scorch mark on the remaining standing wall. When an object catches fire it leaves such a mark—the bottom of the V pointing to the source of the fire. The young tech pointed out three more V marks. They were none too subtle. Each blocked a potential exit.
    Hugh’s expression darkened, but he made himself speak slowly. “The kitchen was there?” The fire tech brought out the house blueprints and nodded. “We dealing with a gas fireplace?”
    â€œNo sir. Gas for the drier in the basement, but that’s it.”
    â€œAnd the gas line is…”
    â€œNowhere near those,” the young firefighter said, pointing at the V scorch marks.
    Hugh turned from the tech and within five minutes found the telltale pour patterns that arson specialists called puddles on the cement stoops outside both the front and back doors. A flammable liquid when poured on a