Out of the Ashes. Vicky Newham

of people who’d been injured, display cabinets and product racks. A Sikh man was stretched out on his back on the floor with an oxygen mask over his face. Teenagers were huddled against the wall, looking pale and scared. Others were sitting on the floor, cuts and burns on their faces and arms. A lady with a blue-rinse hairdo was sitting on a plastic chair, clutching her arm, her entire demeanour one of shell-shock. Her hair was dishevelled and flecked with ash and dust, and she was clinging to her bag as though she was scared for her life. Beside the door, a paramedic was trying to attend to a lanky boy who had a large gash on his forehead. The young lad seemed unsteady on his feet and was muttering in Arabic.

      Amidst the bodies, I spotted Dougie. As crime scene manager, his job was to talk me through the evidence and forensics. As soon as he saw us, he hurried over to the shop entrance. His large frame filled the doorway. He had a smear of blood on his cheek and ash had lodged in his hair and eyebrows, making his eyes seem greyer than usual.

      ‘Practising your First Aid?’ I smiled at him.

      ‘It’s been mayhem.’ He turned away from the shop so we were out of earshot. ‘I had a feeling you’d turn up when you heard it was the old bagel shop.’ Affection creased the corners of his mouth before he switched into professional mode. ‘Uniform have begun eyewitness interviews, including some of the teenagers from the flash mob. The woman with the sling was on her way to visit her mum and someone pulled her into the crowd. She fell on her wrist. The young lad by the door is anxious to get moving – something about his parents being worried. His English isn’t great so it’s hard to figure out exactly what he saw, but the priority is to get stitches over that cut before he gets a nasty infection. He’s already feeling dizzy. Rima’s on her way to interpret.’

      I was absorbing the details. ‘A flash mob and arson?’ I frowned the question.

      The three of us began walking towards the burnt building.

      ‘It is a bit of a coincidence,’ Dougie replied.

      My mind was spinning.

      Dougie wiped his blackened face with the sleeve of his jacket. ‘The fire investigators think the blaze started on the ground floor. Probably at the foot of the stairs. It would then have spread quickly upwards, building in intensity, and then blown out the windows. The top floor has collapsed under the weight of the water.’

      ‘In that case, I’ll get the H-2-H teams started so we don’t waste time.’ I glanced ahead. A neon sign lay on the ground. Over the front of the shop, smoke-charred in places, I made out ‘SOUP’. I turned to face the shop opposite the fire and felt nostalgic momentarily.

      FELDMAN’S NEWSAGENT.

      ‘Dad often brought us here. He and Mr Feldman were pals.’

      Suddenly, I heard something. Faint and weak, but its distress gnawed through the air. ‘What’s that? I can hear someone.’ I wheeled round, trying to locate the source. ‘It’s coming from one of the shops.’ There it was. ‘It’s the newsagent’s. Someone’s calling for help.’

      I dashed over to the shop; pushed the door open and entered the shop alone. ‘Hello? It’s the police.’

      A different smell greeted me. Musty. Less of the acrid smoke, and the water-drenched tarmac and masonry; this was damp timber and plaster. It reminded me of our first flat. In the dim light, it was like stepping back in time. It was as if the whole place hadn’t been touched for thirty years, and suddenly I was a child again, in here with my brother and sister, choosing sweets.

      ‘Help, help,’ came the voice, followed by a series of rasping coughs.

      ‘Hello? Help’s arrived.’ I scoured the room for signs of movement or noise. Around me, white MDF shelves were thin on stock. Tea bags, tins of soup and jars of coffee lay in rows, collecting dust. A central aisle housed packets of envelopes and writing paper. ‘Can you tell me where you are?’

      The paintwork was a nicotine-stained ochre, and had a sheen to it, as if the place hadn’t been painted for decades. By the till, a barely touched drink sat in a cup and saucer. Behind the counter, folding doors were drawn over a cabinet with a lock in the middle. The closer I got to the back room, the stronger the damp smell got. Years of living in unheated flats had tuned my nose.

      ‘Mrs Feldman? Is that you?’

      ‘Here,’ came a croaky voice from behind the counter. She was flat on the floor, cheek to the ground and lying on one arm.

      ‘It’s OK. Don’t try and move. Have you hurt yourself?’ She was an older version of the one I remembered but it was definitely her.

      She cleared her throat. Once, twice. Then wheezing coughs erupted.

      I was about to dial 999 when Mrs Feldman began spluttering and gurgling again. She was gasping for breath – and failing. If she didn’t get help quickly, she was going to die. ‘Emergency in Feldman’s Newsagent’s,’ I shouted down the phone at Dan. ‘Get one of the paramedics and bring them in. Behind the counter. The shopkeeper is having trouble breathing.’ I took in her grey features, the rasping breath, and her bloodshot eyes. ‘Hurry. We’re losing her.’

Maya, 3.30 p.m.

      Back on Brick Lane, the air was damp, and a bitter nip was creeping in. The paramedics stretchered Rosa Feldman into an ambulance, their faces worry-streaked. Her body was barely a bump beneath the blanket and an oxygen mask was clamped over her tiny face.

      My phone rang. I took in the news and conveyed it to Dan. ‘The soup shop belongs to a young Lithuanian couple. Simas Gudelis and Indra Ulbiene. Uniform have spoken to Indra. She’s been out all day, visiting her sister in Upton Park. They closed the shop because Simas wasn’t feeling well. He was going to dose himself up and try and sleep it off.’

      Dan’s expression mirrored mine and I wondered if he was thinking about the fire investigation officer’s warning when we arrived.

      ‘She is the person who rang emergency services earlier. Someone told her about the fire. As far as she knows, Simas was at home in bed today. She’ll be here any minute.’

      ‘Has she heard from him since the fire?’

      ‘No. She said his mobile goes straight to answerphone.’ An awful thought occurred to me. I’d seen the bodies of people who had been in fires, including my brother’s, still as vivid now as when I’d seen it in the Sylhet mosque eighteen months ago. Laid out on a shroud, Sabbir had looked like a bag of greasy bones. ‘If Indra’s husband is in there, I don’t want her arriving just as we are hoisting his body out.’ There was a practical concern too: fire victims often lost their skin and tissue, and this made DNA analysis and formal identification a slow and frustrating process.

      ‘Let’s hope that no-one else was in the building then.’

      I gathered my thoughts. I needed to update Simon, the fire crew manager, and joined him and Dougie. ‘One of the shop owners has confirmed that her husband was in the building. He was in bed, ill. Are we any closer to getting someone inside?’ I sensed from their expressions that it wasn’t good news.

      ‘Not at the moment.’ Simon’s voice was unequivocal. ‘It’s still not safe to enter. We are waiting for a taller aerial platform to arrive from Bethnal Green station.’ He pointed at the building’s height. ‘That should enable us to lift an officer up the outside.’ He paused. ‘We’re pretty sure the fire is out but we’re waiting for a structural engineer. He’ll be able to conduct a more sophisticated assessment of the building’s strength. If he says it’s OK to lower someone in, we can do it, but until then we cannot risk it, I’m sorry.’

      ‘Alright.’

      Dan joined us. ‘I’ve just spoken to Indra. She’s in a cab on her way here. Their bedroom is on the top floor, at the front. She’s asking about her husband.’

      It was always difficult to know what to tell the families of victims