Beanfield

I
When discussing the Beanfield Fire it’s important to set out that there is the story that everyone knows, the one that was reported in the national press for weeks following the tragedy, and then there’s the true story. Though the two are in no way exclusive – the former existing within the latter – it’s a crucial distinction to make. The fact that the true story is not widely known has been attributed to a number of factors, from ignorance to deliberate and systematic state suppression, and there may well be some truth to the rumours of a national cover-up. Alternatively, it may simply be that the truth, as was reported by the survivors – including myself – of that brutal and hellish night, was just too beyond belief for the authorities tasked with gathering evidence for the official version of what happened.

The official story plays out more or less as follows: In the early hours of the fourteenth of April 20–, a fire started on the thirty-seventh floor of Bruce House, one of the three central residential  tower blocks around which the Beanfield estate was built. Within quarter of an hour, a second fire had started nine stories below, quickly followed by a third on the fourteenth floor. The fact of three fires starting in such close succession to one another raised the obvious suggestion of deliberate arson, but this strangely seemed a route that the authorities did not want to pursue. The official account of that night claimed independent sources for all three fires, a detail that subsequent investigations have failed to challenge, however ridiculous it might seem.

The first fire started in the kitchen of the Sturrock family at number 37e, claiming all seven members of the family and swooping through the rest of the floor. The other two fires started in the laundry rooms of their respective floors and were more localised at first, although thick black smoke was spread quickly throughout the floors and many of the fatalities, although burned, were victims of smoke inhalation. Before long, all three fires were burning out of control, cutting off the central staircases and rendering the elevators useless (I can testify that two of the three lifts in Bruce House were already out of commission due to vandalism anyway.).

The first call to the emergency services was logged at 3:42AM and was placed by a Mister James Boyle of Philip Avenue on the edge of the estate. By the time the first fire engines arrived, flames could already be seen glowing on the uppermost floors, with thick smoke billowing from the fires lower down. Interviewed by Scotland Today, Neil McConnell, one of the first firefighters on the scene, vividly described the scene:

“Before we even reached the estate we could see the tops of the three tower blocks above the trees. You could tell it was a big one even from that distance. The lights were out in all three blocks, but you could see a row of red windows, sort of pulsing. It was a pretty clear night, and the smoke was already pretty thick and coming off the block at two or three points. I remember turning around to the guys and saying, ‘Looks like we’ve got a big one here…’”

“There were people standing outside almost every house. You know the Beanfield Estate, right? It’s all sort of all built around those three blocks. Anyway, everyone had come out to see the fire, standing at their front doors in their dressing gowns and underwear, just staring up at the top of the block. When we reached the courtyard it was already full of people who’d evacuated all three of the flats, packed so thick that we couldn’t get anywhere near the fire. Near the concrete pillars around the main door of Bruce House I could see people who’d come through the smoke and fire, their night clothes and skin were black. Some of them’d had their clothes burned off; some had lost their skin too.”

Despite the hindrance caused by the vast outflow of residents fleeing the fire, the initial crew managed to ascertain the extent of the fire quickly, mainly due to the clear structural damage already caused by the fire. They attempted to disperse the crowds and immediately called in assistance from various other stations around the region. The fire was fought throughout the night and much of the following day. Firefighters succeeded in bringing the fire on the lowest floor under control and were attempting to tackle the one on the twenty-eighth floor when the intense damage from the topmost fire caused several of the upper floors to collapse, necessitating a full evacuation of the area in case Bruce House came down in its entirety. The later stages of the fire and the collapse were fully captured by national news networks and shown across the globe, black smoke and dust raising up into the clear April sky.

It was another day before the building was deemed safe enough for firefighters to return to the fray, and later that night before they finally put out the second fire. A rescue attempt was commenced immediately, but even the most optimistic of commentators was frank about the unlikelihood of finding any survivors.

In the end, the final body count of the Beanfield Fire was seventy-eight dead, and over two-hundred injured. By the time they pulled the first bodies out of the rubble I was long gone from there, curled up on the armchair in my flat watching the footage on twenty-four hour news, waiting at any moment for the banging to start on my front door, the phone to ring, but there was nothing. I didn’t sleep for the next five days, I left only to pick up the newspapers – national and local. I scrutinised every line of every report, every single image and conclusion presented on the television. I watched as the official line became the truth and as that truth became history. I kept waiting for the real story to emerge, knowing that there was more behind the bare bones of a story they were telling on the news. I knew that there was more to it. I knew that the fire was no accident, that the events leading up to it were more complex and deliberate than was being made out. I knew that the fire was set on purpose.

I knew that because I was responsible for the first of them.

II
Diane drove us out to the Beanfield estate that morning, just after seven. I had still been half asleep, slouched down in the passenger seat in my un-ironed suit, rubbing at my eyes. I’d taken to staying up as late as I could of an evening, just to extend my days as long as possible before I had to go to work again. The principle reason for that was sitting next to me in the car that morning. Diane Barr had swept in to Town Planning a few months prior, promoted from another department and determined to make something of a name for herself. That she had done mainly through a combination of pig-headed ruthlessness and snarling dominance both of which I, as a junior in her team, took the brunt of. During her reign the office, previously a straightforward if over-bureaucratic workplace, had become a minefield of minor infractions and imperfections magnified into screeching rows and bitter silences. So it was with mixed feelings that I accompanied Diane out to the Beanfield estate that morning – dread at having to spend time in such close proximity with my nemesis, and relief and being free from the hothouse of the office, if only for a few hours.

The sun was coming over the lowland hills, but what little illumination crept through the clouds was immediately eaten alive by the grey industrial estates which had gathered around the ex-mining town of which Beanfield is, essentially, a part. As we approached the roundabout which shares a name with the estate I glanced up at the road sign and saw a series of negative options, a white circle surrounded by lines radiating off to places I never wanted to go. Over the trees I could see the same sight that the fireman would later describe vividly on television, the tops of the three concrete behemoths – Wallace House, Charles House, and Bruce House.

I knew the area from its files alone. Over the last century or so it had housed miners and their families, like most of the towns around the area. And like the surrounding habitats it had been hit hard by the collapse of that industry. An automotive plant nearby had given the place a boom in the sixties and, between 1965 and 1969 there had been a flurry of new houses and an influx of new residents, the population of the estate doubling to almost 9000. It was then that the three towers had been thrown up, crude examples of sixties social housing, towering grey shells sliced with narrow windows. Between the three of them, some desperate architect had placed a small grass park and play area. Within a year the grass was dying, touched constantly by the shade of one of the three towers.

The plant closed in the early eighties, devastating the area. The last twenty years had been a slow slide into poverty and crime, the Beanfield file passed from department to department, no one in the office taking any interest in it. The Beanfield estate was the runt of a joke town, the depression cultivated to give the rest of us an idiot to beat when we were feeling bad about ourselves. Over the years the council had redeveloped the rest of the town as a commuter hive, perfect for the cities on either side, but Beanfield was left to rot. We told ourselves that the people didn’t want help.
Still, that didn’t stop developers running in to town every five or six years with big plans for the area. “We’ll put in parks and open new stores; build a leisure facility, schools, give the people something to be proud of,” they’d say, but they were naive and didn’t truly understand Beanfield (god knows, I don’t think any of us did). The place wasn’t the problem – it was the people. A deep strain of apathy ran through the population of the estate, and they treated any and all change with suspicion and disdain. Following the perceived betrayal by industry in the 80’s, the people of Beanfield had no appetite for outsiders.

We were on our way to meet two developers, the latest set of bucks to try their hand at shaping the estate in their own image. It was our job to show them around the estate, listen to their wild pipe dreams and draft a report as to the suitability of their plans. I say ‘our’ job, but rather it was my job to draft various versions of said report each of which would be rejected by Diane principally for not being done the way she would do it. Even in the car that morning I could see her composing her own version, a version that would be nothing like the one I would submit to her. I could see her pursing her lips as the fringe of cement bunkers marking the edge of the estate gathered around the edge of the road. Behind her razor black fringe her eyes looked out at the route ahead with an irritated glare, as if the very act of driving were a challenge to overcome on her way to whatever goals she had set for herself. As we pulled into one of the car parking slots outside of the Beanfield Tavern I heard her curse under her breath. There was no sign of the developers.
We left the car and stood out in the cool and still air, Diane a good few inches taller than me. She lit a cigarette without asking me if I wanted one and immediately started to pace, heels clacking sharply on the concrete. I thought about kicking off a conversation, but knew that there was nothing we could discuss that wouldn’t lead to an argument, a disagreement, and more agonising silence. Instead I just leant back against the black stone of the Tavern and waited. I was thinking about the old ghost stories my Nan used to tell me about the old Beanfield Tavern, the one that used to stand along with its stables on this spot. Lean Jean was the phantom of choice, a skinny woman in a grey cloak who rolled into the town back some time in the indistinct ‘olden days’ and murdered and ate three to five children (the figure varied from telling to telling) before being caught and burnt alive in the stables. Where she’d come from and what her motives had been were left to our imagination. Sometimes an aunt of mine would wear her face mask and chase us around the house calling “Lean Jean’s coming to get you.” Older, the prospect of Lean Jean’s spirit wandering Beanfield, cucumbers on her eyes, was more likely to raise mirth than goosebumps.

The developers arrived twenty minutes late. Diane looked at their car as if she wished she could flip it over on its back with nothing more than the power of her stare. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d managed it, either. Jason Braid almost fell over himself apologising, all smiles and handshakes, dawn jokes. I liked his colleague, Paul Foyle, a lot more. He looked as pleased to be there as I did and I assumed his role was much the same as I, to put in the work that helped his boss get to where he/she was today.

“Okay, let’s get started,” said Jason.

“Right, we better get going then,” said Diane.

Paul Foyle and I followed, neither of us sure who had given the order.

III
Beanfield was starting to wake up. Across the road from the tavern two old women with the appearance of having risen from their beds fully clothed pottered around the paltry number of shops that serviced the estate. Outside the newsagents a parcel of papers lay torn open, shredded headlines flapping; in the window of the video shop a bleached and faded cut-out of Mel Gibson stood sentinel. We passed beneath the angled grey slabs slanted above the shopping precinct. Jason was waving his hands at his surroundings, saying “All of this has to go. We’ll give people the things they need. Get rid of all these tawdry little stores – bring in electronics, hardware, the stuff people need to give them a decent quality of life again.” The old women turned their collapsed faces towards him as they passed. In the window of the butchers an immense man in stained whites paused, one hand holding a cleaver over his head. He brought it down hard.

We came out the other side of the precinct and Jason scuttled down a small lawn verge to the cracked pavement. The houses on the other side of the road depressed me. They seemed shrunken, forced together too tightly. Their lawns were narrower than a prison cell. Row on row of them ran off the road. The cars parked in front of them looked as convincing as their matchbox counterparts. Near one of them stood a young man and a young girl. They glowered at us as we approached. Jason, of course, was oblivious of their presence, still sermonising to a clearly unimpressed Diane. But Paul leant towards me as we walked and said, “Here’s our first neds of the day.”

It seemed fair comment. A white tracksuit top hung off the boy’s bony shoulders, his slim face shaded by the brim of his baseball cap. His girlfriend, if that’s what she was, eschewed the chunky gold of her peers, but she shared the hard suspicious face. Their eyes followed us as we approached. Diane and Jason passed by unobstructed, but as Paul came close the boy reached out a hand and gasped at the sleeve of his suit. With a yell, Paul recoiled. “Don’t touch me, man.”
The boy leant forward, a cloud of bad aftershave drifting towards us. He chattered something quick near Paul’s ear, breaking off as Paul jammed the flat of his hand into the boy’s chest. The boy looked more hurt than offended and, as he staggered back, his girlfriend put out her hands to stop him fall. They were still watching as we walked away, brows heavy with surprise and confusion.

“What was all that about?”

Paul shrugged. “Christ knows. Pissed before breakfast by the smell of things.”

“What did he say to you?”

“That we shouldn’t be here, or didn’t belong here. Something like that. I think he was trying to threaten us or something.”

I didn’t buy it even then, the couple had looked too surprised by Paul’s violent reaction, but let it go. There was no reason to think that there was anything else going on at the time.

We wound past small parks, the grass rubbed bare; rainbow goalposts, tagged by every idiot with a spray can in the entire estate, stood ready to collapse. The small primary school that serviced the estate looked more like a chicken coop, its windows decorated with paper clown faces. I thought for a moment I could hear them laughing. Jason continued to talk, waving his hands as if he had the power to craft the streets to his will. This would go, that would change, everything would be different. Not once did he mention the people who watched us from their windows, who passed us on the street, who stood in the parks with their half-dressed children, hostility in their eyes.

At last his attention turned to the three towers, visible from wherever we’d stood in the estate, but so far unacknowledged by him. “And these relics,” he said, “levelled completely. In their place we’ll have the hub of our new estate – brand new homes circled around a leisure area, somewhere for families to come together, to talk, to build up the community once again.”

They’d tried that before, although the rusted swings and roundabout between the three blocks were primitive entertainment compared to Jason’s plans. Diane, politely furious, was trying to bring him back to earth, “Of course, there’s the logistical issue of how we resettle the current occupants of the towers. I’m sure they won’t be too keen on the idea. They don’t like change around here.”

Jason nodded. “Too stupid to realise when they’re being offered a better deal. Let’s head down to the blocks so I can get a better look.”

Cul-de-sacs of council houses leeched off the main road. I saw more than a couple of curtains twitch as we followed Jason on his crusade down towards the three towers. Closer, they looked like the legs of some great tripod, striding over the estate, the pillars around the main door like claws driven into the ground. The play park on the green between them felt like a bad joke or a last crass attempt to paint some humanity onto the scene. I thought back to the file, about the architect who’d designed these monstrosities back in the 60’s. His name had been Connaught, Owen Connaught. No more than a jobbing architect as far as I could tell; he’d left his stamp on a dozen newly refurbished estates up and down the country, Beanfield just another line on his CV. With the failure of that mode of housing, his work seemed to dry up and the man himself had all but disappeared sometime in the early seventies. That was all I knew. Then.

Paul tapped me on the shoulder and pointed over to the corner of the road. The boy and girl from earlier were there again, this time accompanied by a middle-aged man in a football shirt. “Looks like they’ve gone and told their old man on me,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

Diane and Jason were on the other side of the road by then, voices raised in what would be called an argument anywhere outside the office environment. Paul made to join them, but for some reason I hesitated. They were coming towards me, the three locals, and I almost fled, worried that I’d been mistaken for Paul and was about to take a stomping in revenge for his earlier aggression. I hesitated a little too long and had just made the decision to hurry across the road when I felt a large hand on my shoulder.

The man’s face seemed tiny in the centre of his wide face; this close I could see the uneven shave of his scalp, the map of stains on his shirt. The two youths hung back, uneasy, glancing across to the blocks. I tried to pull away, but his hand clamped harder, bruising me beneath my suit. “You need to get out of here, son,” the man said. “Now.”

All I had in my defence was the council-spiel. “Sir,” I said, “we’re from the town planning department of West Lothian Council. We’re here today simply to conduct a survey of the local housing conditions with a view to-”

“Aye, aye, aye. Look, pal, I don’t think you understand. I’m warning you, now, to get out of here. There’s still a bit of time. They’re usually not up before lunchtime, but you and your mates better just-”

Diane’s voice cut the man off, calling to me. I shrugged the man’s grip off my shoulder and backed away. From further back his looming face seemed less threatening; he almost appeared concerned. Quickly, I crossed the road and rejoined the others where Diane waited with a vicious glare. “You better not have said anything to let the residents know what we’re doing here. If you have…”

The threat hung there, all the more terrifying for its ambiguity. I knew there would be hell to pay when I got back to the office. Already I could see Diane’s aggression and resentment at being forced to listen to Jason’s bullshit building up, and I was the only outlet available. It was only a matter of time.

“Imagine it,” Jason was saying, still swaying his arms around like the backing dancer in a boy-band video. “All of this wiped away and replaced by an oasis of luxury, a special little garden. We get rid of the… well, the frankly scummy element and bring in good people with good jobs. Make this place exclusive, desirable.” He crossed down to the centre of the play park, put one hand on the roundabout and tried to spin it. A loud squeal rose up and it moved maybe an inch and a half and, just for a second, Jason’s PR grin faltered. I couldn’t help myself – I blurted out a little laugh. To my surprise, I thought I saw Diane smile too. That was a first. And a last.

Jason fell down.

I thought he’d slipped, that perhaps the momentum he’d expected to be carried by the roundabout had knocked him off balance. But he fell all wrong, his legs just giving out beneath him, his body collapsing straight down. His arms folded over the edge of the roundabout, his head striking the metal rim with a loud ringing sound. Paul stepped forward, frowning. “Jason,” he said, and then “What’s that sticking out of his neck?”

Something struck the ground near my feet, rattling over the tarmac. Someone was throwing sticks at us. A second his the ground near Diane, then another. Paul was turning around towards us, breath catching like he had the hiccups. One of the sticks was jutting from his mouth at a strange angle, saliva bubbling up around it. He lifted his hands to the stick, flinching as his fingers brushed its bloodied tip. Then he stumbled off to one side and my eyes were drawn to the doorway of Bruce House, and the figures standing in the shade, shoulders hunched, taking fresh aim.

Diane roared, and I was convinced that she had been hit too. Then her arm was around mine, hauling me away from the clearing and back towards the road. I stumbled, tripping over one of her discarded heels. The world twisted around me, Diane determined, Paul still flailing around the playground, a dark line drawn through his face. The group from Bruce House were rushing forward, splitting in to two groups. I had only the briefest glimpse of them, their sinewy torsos – some darkened with grime and faded line-art tattoos and tribal art, some strangers to the sun – taut and strong. Their weapons were crude, old rusted saws and stanley knives, gardening implements still clogged with soil and dead grass. I saw men and women, all clad in strips of torn sports gear and leisure wear, break silently from the main group and fall on Jason’s body. One had the teeth of his rake in Paul’s back and was dragging him to the ground. I twisted my ankle on the kerb and screamed out. Diane hissed back, “Shut up or I’ll leave you here.”

Focusing my attention ahead, I let the momentum Diane had leant me carry me forward. At the end of the road I could see the man and the two youths fleeing into the garden of one of the council houses and realised too late what they had been warning us about. All around, blinds were closed, doors slammed. The streets were abruptly empty, some kind of silent alarm having passed through the estate. Instinctively, I knew that our only chance was to make it to the tavern and the car. In retrospect, it was naive of me to have had any hope at all.

Sudden pressure hit my lower back, throwing my balance off and pushing me against a wire fence. I toppled over, collapsing into the overgrown grass. A dampness was soaking across the back of my trousers and shirt and when I reached back I felt the splintered tip of an arrow. Desperately, I searched for Diane. She was two houses away, still running. She’d leave me, I knew, that was the sort of woman she was. Ruthless to the end. I was sinking into the grass, hoping it would be long enough to obscure me from our pursuers, when I saw Diane hesitate and look back. She was coming back. Trying to ignore the pain, I pushed myself back up towards her, reaching out a hand. Then they were on me, surging over the fence and pushing me down, driving my face into the grass and dirt, and the wooden arrow deeper into the flesh of my back.

IV
I know now that it was hours before I regained consciousness, but at the time I knew only that it was dark and that I was somewhere strange to me. My clothes were gone, my skin stuck to the cold floor. When I peeled myself away from it I felt as if my skin was coming away from my muscle. The arrow was gone from my back, but I could feel the deep ragged hole where it had been, now glued shut. Blindly, the pain from my back punctuating every move, I scrabbled about in the small room. The floor beneath my fingers was like hardening tar, its warmth enveloping my fingers.

Something like broken crockery crunched beneath my hands and knees, biting into the bare flesh. Wet tendrils which seemingly hung from the ceiling trailed slickly across my back. As my eyes grew more accustomed to the darkness, I could see the outline of the room, little more than a narrow cell. At one end I came across what seemed to be broken doors and a boarded orifice of some kind. A laundry room, it had to be. I started to tug at the boards, seeing a way out, but my fingers could gain no purchase and the hard wood tore at my skin. Fingers cut and splintered, I fell away in despair and lay there in a still panic, numb terror spreading throughout my body.

Later – who could say how long – I heard movement from the other side of the door. Voices and laughter, then nothing. They faded soon afterwards, but still I kept myself pressed against the wood, hoping for some sign of rescue. Perhaps Diane had escaped and was even now on her way back with help. I might even have believed that were true, if only she hadn’t stopped to come back for me.

My ear was against the door when it was suddenly opened and I fell out into the dark corridor. There were fingers in my hair, hauling me across a rough uncarpeted floor. Cold cement scraped the flakes of blood from my legs. I couldn’t see who had a hold of me, just the parade of the broken strip lights above. Eventually we stopped, and my head was twisted to one side as my captor fumbled with the handle of a door. A dark sky, heavy with cloud, filled my vision and I realised that I must be on one of the long balconies that ran along the front of Bruce House or one of the other blocks.
Kicking, I was hauled into the corridor of one of the flats. The walls were peeling like sunburn, the carpet beneath me chafed and worn. A furious row was taking place in one of the rooms we passed, the cockney accents and underlying hum identifying it as coming from the television. I caught a glimpse of three young teenagers, a boy and two girls, barely clothed with their faces pressed close to the screen. From another room came the sound of animal rutting, but the crash and creak of an old cheap bed suggested that the sounds came from something more than an animal, though possibly less than human.

The sick yellow of an unclean kitchen flashed past my eyes as I was dragged past it and thrown into what appeared to be a back bedroom. Thick curtains were pulled over the windows, but through worn patches small beams of moonlight came, casting a dull illumination over the room. The ground was soft with discarded clothes, into which my hands sunk, and the rank odour of abandonment hung thickly in the air, choking me. In the centre of the room lay a low double bed, the sheets piled high and pulled away from the mattress. It was so warm in there that it was hard to imagine anyone needing to cover themselves.

“Here he is, dad.”

The door closed behind me and I was alone in the room. No, not quite alone, for the sheets on the bed were moving, falling away from its occupant. A scarred, bald head appeared first, followed by a face folded in by the fat on all sides of it. The hair around the man’s ears had grown long and fell to broad white shoulders that looked blotchy and scabbed in the faint light. His chest was marked with stains and accumulated grime. The folds beneath his breasts blended with the rolls of his stomach; it was almost impossible for me to tell where the waves of his body ended and the creases of his quilt began.

The man’s mouth opened, revealing teeth too perfect to be real.

“What are you doing here?”

All I could do was cower, my desperate mind failing to understand the question. I was here because someone had shot me and brought me here. I’d sooner have been anywhere else. I’d sooner have been falling from a plane without a parachute into the open mouth of a volcano. Naked. Anywhere but there.

My mouth was flapping. I was speaking, but had no control over the words. “Sir,” I said, “we’re from the town planning department of West Lothian Council. We’re here today simply to conduct a survey of the local housing conditions with a view to-”

The man on the bed roared, voice filling the room. “Don’t”, he said. “Don’t come the cunt with me, laddie. You were heard, you know. You were heard saying that you’d bring this place down, that you’d flatten Beanfield.” He jutted a fat finger towards me. Rolls of skin hung down from his arm. “You need to mind your own business.”

I collapsed into my own arms. “It was Jason and his company… they want to change the estate, make it something new…”

“Aye. It’ll be something new, alright. But it’ll be nothing to do with your Council. Connaught knew…” I saw his bulk settle. “Connaught knew everything. But you – you know fuck all. “Boy!” he called. “Take this meat away.”

Light filled the room as the door swung open, a long slim shadow cast over the bulk on the bed. An arm clad in thin, crepe-like material was around my throat pulling me back. In the hall I was wrestled down and dragged into the kitchen. If anything, the smell here was even fouler than in the bedroom. The linoleum on the floor was torn and stained with liquid, black and sticky, a naked toddler sat amongst it, mopping at the floor with a piece of raw meat. I was pulled before a work surface where a woman stood, canvas apron nowhere near wide enough to cover her immense frame. Grey curls hung loose from her hairnet. A face, seemingly molded from dough, turned harshly towards me. Even as she scrutinised me, her hand continued to pound the tenderiser she held down onto the work surface. A slim hand hung over the edge of the work surface, fingers twitching with every blow.

“Put him with his friends,” she said.

Beyond the work surface stood an enormous cooker, a blazing heat emanating from within. The wall beside it had been smashed in, leading to another kitchen that once had belonged to the flat next door. The fittings had been stripped and piled into one corner; walls that once had been white or yellow were now stained black with dried blood.

‘My friends’ were here, as she had said. All three hung from the ceiling, hooks dug deep at the point where the skull meets the spine. The flesh and muscle had been systematically stripped from their bodies, so close the bone at points that it was amazing that they were still holding together. Beneath their dangling toes (untouched, sitting plump and pink at the end of otherwise riven feet) lay lumps of skin and flesh, discarded by the butcher as he or she had gone about their business.

But that wasn’t what made me sick, wasn’t the worst thing of all by a long shot. For although their bodies had been stripped of all sustenance, their heads above the neck were unscathed. Each face looked down on me as if at any moment it would come alive again and beg for help. Jason’s eyes were rolled back in his head, his mouth clenched unusually closed as if he’d been flummoxed by a particularly hard question from a client; Paul’s mouth, on the other hand, was slack and flooded with congealed blood, but his eyes were closed. Diane’s face was locked in that same singular grimace she usually saved for when I’d done something wrong, like mistype a report, or fail to understand her instructions, or… or get her killed by falling behind.

It may have been the guilt that I felt then that saved me, for it sent a wave of indignation through my body where previously I’d been almost resigned to whatever fate events had in store for me. The boy who’d been dragging me throughout the flat stood near the hole in the wall, his back to me, chattering away to the woman, something about ‘good hunting’. I was barely listening. Knowing that I barely had time to make my move, I scuttled across to what was left of the kitchen fittings and started pulling aside the work surfaces looking for a weapon. The desperate commotion I was making turned the head of the boy and he began to stalk towards me, his narrow face contorting in anger, the tight muscles flexing his tattoos. “Whatever the fuck you think you’re doing – “ he started, then stopped. The splinter of wood my hands had found was embedded in his stomach.

Still he swiped at me with his kitchen knife, missing my eyes by less than an inch. I fell back, grabbing at the debris, hoping to find something else to last out with. I found a long, blunt piece of skirting and hit out with it, striking him on the side of his head. He swore, staggered, then fell forward. Not too hard, and if it hadn’t been for the wooden shaft in his stomach, he might have dragged himself back up. But the fall had pushed it in further and flicked some switch inside of the man. He didn’t move again.

Both hands on the blade of skirting I ran across to the space between the two kitchens, hoping that the woman had been too caught up in her work to hear the brief commotion I had caused. I was in luck. Her back was still turned to me, and she continued to pound at the human meat in front of her. I crept towards her, raising the piece of wood. Just as I was about to strike I caught sight of the slightest movement to my right and glanced over to see the naked child still sitting on the floor, wide eyes on me. In that second I hesitated; just a moment, but long enough for the woman to sense me behind her. She moved fast for her age, catching me on the side with the tenderiser. I leapt back and she came after me with an animal wail which I could only hope the television still blaring away outside was loud enough to mask.

I still don’t know exactly what happened, how the Beanfield fire started. I’d thrown up the piece of wood I held in an attempt to fend off her next blow. Her implement shattered it in one swing, showering me with tiny splinters of wood. Closing my eyes against the sharp rain, I kicked out at where her legs would be and must have caught her just so, for I felt her bulk fall against me and then off to one side. A crash of cutlery and hissing water followed, and a scalding pain swallowed my right hand. Screaming, I rolled away, almost back through the hole in the wall. Opening my eyes, expecting to see her once again bearing down on me, I was met with flame. The woman had fallen on to the stove, throwing pots and pans across the floor and igniting her hair on the hob. She lay thrashing on the floor, head aflame, watched by the curious and wide eyes of the child sat no more than three feet from her. Already the fire was spreading, small sparks spreading across the work surfaces on either side of the woman. My makeshift weapon had also caught, the fire flickering around the far end. Fleeing for the door, I grabbed a bloodied knife from a shelf; my thoughts were of escape alone, I didn’t care about the child trapped on the floor by the spreading fire. In the hallway I stopped, trying to get my bearings. The front door lay ahead of me, down a short hall. On one side was the door where the teenagers had been watching the television. Surely I could make it past them without being noticed. In retrospect I should have calmed myself, made my way towards the door more slowly, but in my panic I ran, crashing against the door, realising too late that it was locked. I fumbled with the deadlock and chains, my haste rendering me clumsy. They had heard, and were on me as I tumbled out onto the balcony, strong despite their youth. I tried to stumble free of them, feeling their small teeth bite at me. One girl toppled back as my knife opened a second mouth on the side of her cheek. The other girl was on my arm, teeth in my shoulder. I bucked hard, trying only to shake her off, but we were on the edge of the iron railing and she fell against it, the rail smashing into her stomach. A huff of air escaped her mouth and she balanced there for a second before falling forwards, off the balcony and down however dozens of stories to the ground below. Her long, tragic wail seemed to go on for far too long.

The boy was screaming then, backing off. He pointed at me and shrieked like a creature unable to articulate what he saw. All along the balcony I could see lights coming on in the windows of the other flats and I realised he was summoning help. Knowing a losing battle when I saw one, I turned and fled in the opposite direction, running for the lobby at the end of the balcony. When I glanced back I saw figures emerging from the black smoke that was already snaking out of the door of the flat where I had been taken, thick as some giant worm. I pounded on the button for the lifts, but saw too late that crude ‘out of order’ signs hung from them. Down the stairs, I went. Down and down as quickly as I could. On the landings I could hear shouts and screams from above. They were trying to tackle the fire, giving me the chance I needed to escape. I spiraled down, further and further, thinking that I would never reach the bottom. Maybe the stairwell just winds deeper and deeper into the ground, I remember my fevered mind telling me, all the way down to whatever hell had infected the people of the block. “Connaught knew…” the foul creature in the bed had said. Knew what? I thought of the three towers that he had designed, the highest point in the estate, the three of them grouped close like… sentinels. But of what? “Connaught knew…”

“Stop!”

I fell to a halt, my grip on the railing the only thing preventing me from toppling over and breaking my neck. Three figures stood on the landing below me, glaring up. I was convinced that it was over then – that the three of them would overpower me and drag me all the way back up to the burning kitchen where they would roast my remains and tear me apart. Then I recognised them – the boy and the girl who’d approached Paul shortly after our arrival on the estate, and their father, the cold eyed man who’d accosted me later on. The thought of them as a threat seemed laughable now that I’d seen what true monsters Beanfield could produce. Weeping, I fell into their arms, still not sure whether they would turn me over to the creatures above; I no longer cared. The man wrapped his thick arms around my skinny shoulders and leant his head close to my ear. The stale smell of alcohol and tobacco on his breath was a comfort. “Christ. You’ve really riled them up, haven’t you?” he said. “Come on, son, let’s get you out of here.”

V
The events that took place immediately after that exist to me only as fragments of memories. Delirious, I allowed the man and his children to help me down another couple of flights of stairs before collapsing again. I remember protesting that even if we escaped now they’d just come after us, that we had to stop them. “Worry about that later,” the father had said. “After we get you out of here. We’ve taken enough of a risk coming up here after you.”

“He’s right, though, dad,” the girl had said. “While they’re distracted, this is our chance.”

“No.” He’d shaken his head. “No. Too much of a risk. We can’t.”

The boy had his hand on his father’s shoulder. “It’ll only take a few minutes. I’m ready, dad…”

I was fading away, trying to keep myself awake. If I lost consciousness then I’d be even more of a burden than I already was. I didn’t want to do anything that would stop them doing what needed to be done. “Connaught,” I said to them, not even sure what I was trying to convey. “Connaught.”

The man was staring at me, looking like he wished I’d just die and let him and his family out of there. To this day I don’t know why they came back for me and the others. After all, they’d already tried to warn us. Maybe they’d had a final attack of conscience; or maybe they’d seen the girl I’d thrown from the balcony and realised that not everything was going as expected, that they may have a chance to rid their estate of whatever corruption the block housed. I could see conflict in the man’s eyes, but finally he nodded and turned to his children. They were making plans that I couldn’t hear when, finally, I lost my grip on consciousness and drifted down into the dark.

VI
They took me to their home and dressed and cleaned me. I woke up soaking in a bath with the boy and the girl looking down on me. “We did it,” the boy said. “We finished it.”

The girl looked at me with an utter lack of interest, seeing through me to the stains that she’d have to wash away when I was gone. “Clean yourself off. We’ll get you fixed up.”

A sick looking man turned up near dawn and told me he was the local GP. I’m told that I laughed at him, but the pain of what he did to the hole in my back during that visit has driven all memory of those hours from my mind. All I remember is watching him in the doorway of the bedroom shaking hands with the father. “You did the right thing,” the doctor said.

“It’s out of control,” said the man. “Not all of them were with Connaught’s people…”

“Nonetheless, you did the right thing.” He shook the man’s hand. “What’ll you do with him?”

What they did was take me home, huddled down in the back of their car. My flat door was locked, keys lost back in Beanfield. The boy broke in without fuss. As the door swung open he gave me an embarrassed glance and an apologetic shrug.

The man rested me down on my sofa. “Not a word,” he said as left.

I just managed a “Thank you.”

“Not a word.”

I never knew their names. It was for the best, I suppose.

It took me months to pull myself back from the brink. When I slept I was back in the kitchen in Bruce House, the three corpses hanging above me, finally coming to life. Their eyes would roll towards me and their withered, skinned limbs would reach out to pull me towards them. Their fingers, like their toes, still had skin on them. Diane’s touch was warm, but sometimes I would pull three. Behind me, always, would be a screaming child, consumed by flame, arms open in anticipation of an embrace.

Eventually the people from my office stopped calling, but I knew that before long Diane’s absence would send them and the authorities to my door. I left home that evening, a week after the disaster, and have never returned. What little money I had left carried me south under the impression that I was wandering aimlessly. It was only when I arrived at my destination that I realised what was driving me.

You’ll have heard of the fire at the Blair Estate on the outskirts of Luton, of course. Most of the journalists who reported on it had drawn specific parallels between what happened there and the Beanfield Fire. Thank God, they’d said, that the loss of life hadn’t been higher, that the fire had been contained before it could spread.

Again, there was the reported story, and there was the true story.

It’s clear to me that I will have to wait before I try to take down the towers of the Blair Estate again. I won’t make the same mistakes the next time. In the meantime, there are plenty of other targets for me to turn my attention to. Connaught was a busier man than I thought, his towers scattered up and down the country, forgotten, stagnating. In time, I’ll find them all, and I’ll bring an end to whatever rot and corruption he’s brought down on the people of the old estates.

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