they were mine. I said, ‘If you knew me, mate, you wouldn’t ask.’ Bit of humor there, eh. Me swotting over fitness magazines, planning my next workout.”
“Ah,” I said. “I heard that. I wondered.”
“They think he probably did something else to make it light up, too,” Mum said. “Sprinkled those magazines with petrol, maybe, though they’ll have to check. I can barely get a fire to light in the wood burner. I’d never manage to light a stack of magazines.”
“Not an efficient method, no,” I said. “But the choice of magazines is pretty significant, I’d say. Brides. Fitness. Fashion.”
“Worldly,” Daisy said. “Sinful. And is that all you’re going to say? Aren’t you going to ask about the damage?”
I looked at Mum. “What’s the damage?”
“Water damage, mostly,” she said. “Broken window. Some scorching. First time I’ve been glad the couches are leather.”
“If you didn’t want leather,” I said, “why didn’t you say so?”
“Dunno,” she said. “Maybe because you didn’t tell me it was meant to be my house, too? You don’t choose the decorating scheme in somebody else’s house.”
“Fair point,” Iris said.
Daisy said, “I’m two seconds away from screaming. How can you two be so casual about this? It could have burnt down the entire house. You could have been in it! Do you know what burns do?”
I sighed. “I’m insured. Or, rather, Mum is. And the house has sprinklers. I’m a builder. Of course it has sprinklers. You’re not burning down that house.”
“Oh,” she said. “Why didn’t you say?”
“I just did,” I said. “There’s only area carpeting, but that’ll likely be ruined, and the floor scorched as well. For the rest—we mop the water up, chuck out anything else that’s damaged, scrub the soot off the walls, put a few fans around, and she’ll be right. I’ll redo the floor and do that painting when I have a bit more time, Mum.”
“All the sprinklers will have gone off, though,” Chelsea said. “You’ll have major water damage.”
“No,” I said. “Unless you had a significant accelerant that sent the whole place up, it’s room by room.”
“You can’t know that,” Chelsea said. “In films, all the sprinklers go off. Every time. I’ve seen it.”
I said, “Reality’s a bit different, maybe,” and wondered who would argue with a builder about the functionality of sprinklers.
“How about if he comes back?”
That was Frankie. Her voice was low, she was only half twisted around on her stool, she was trembling a little, and she wasn’t looking up.
I took her hand and squeezed it. It was freezing. I said, “No worries. I’ll take care of that. I’ll ring a mate tonight and get him to replace the glass straight away, and to install cameras tomorrow. There’s an alarm, but I haven’t done cameras. Never mind, easily sorted. It’s all good, Frankie. Does your neighbor have a key?” I asked Mum.
“Yes,” she said. “But I should go back and see to things.”
“And that,” I said, “would be another no. I’m not going to say anything about wishing women would do what I say, for obvious reasons, but …”
“What obvious reasons?” Chelsea asked.
“That everybody’s had enough of that,” I told her, then asked Mum, “Who could you get to clean up inside?”
“A few of my girls,” she said. “The most reliable ones. I’ll pay them well for helping me on the weekend, and order a dumpster from the council on Monday. They’ll do it better than me, honestly. I’m too fat to work that hard anymore. Carrying sodden carpet? Not me.”
“Sorted, then,” I said.
“But …” Daisy said.
“Cameras,” I said. “That should do it. That was a pretty average attempt. Intimidation, that’s all. We don’t have to be intimidated, though.” I stood up, put my plate in the sink, and said, “Excellent risotto. Cheers for that. I have to be up at five, though, and Daisy wore me out running, so Xena and I will say goodnight.”
Frankie said, “I can’t … I can’t let your house be in danger. Or Honor. I can’t,” she said, when Mum would have said something. “I need to talk to him and see if I can get him to stop.”
“No,” Mum said. “That’s the very last thing you need to do. That’s why we have a protection order. You don’t talk to him. You don’t go near him.”
“What if he comes here, though?” Frankie was pleating the edge of her shirt with nervous fingers, her thin face strained. “What if he does it again, and everybody’s here? I should go stay at Daisy’s house, and