We sat around the fire in the gathering dusk. The sky was smeared with pink and purple streaks where the sun had recently set, and the first stars were visible above us. I lay back in the long grass with my hands clasped behind my head, watching the heavens twinkle and feeling the first droplets of the evening dew settle over me.

I enjoyed the smell of the fish as it cooked. Ty had cleaned them, topped and tailed them both, spread them open and wedged them in split sticks. This apparatus was propped close to the flames, and he turned them regularly. Occasionally, he would baste them with a little squirt from an old and ostensibly rusty oilcan. I was unsure as to the contents of the can, but it smelled a lot better than WD40.

Ty and Martha were talking but I wasn't listening, all I heard was the crackle and spit of logs on the fire. I was feeling glum and ever-so-slightly sorry for myself. I knew that it was immature, but I felt jealous of him. I don't know why I was surprised; since Sarah had died, I had received no requited interest from any of the women I have met. Admittedly, I didn't look at another woman for a long time, but as the loss and depression had faded somewhat, I began to notice again.

Now I realized that the pattern was repeating with Martha, and that there didn't seem to be any hope of a relationship growing there.

Regardless, some part of me wanted to tell her something, anything really. I recognized that it was a vain hope; that telling her my feelings might somehow cause a change of heart, and she would recognize what a handsome, witty catch I was.

"... What do you think, Satchmo?" I was dimly aware of Martha's voice.

They were both looking at me expectantly. I rolled onto my side and propped myself up on an elbow.

"Um-Hmm? I'm sorry," I replied, by way of asking for a repeat of the question.

Ty poked some embers with a long stick. Martha watched him attentively, reflected firelight dancing in her eyes like playful sprites.

"The pieces of pottery that Martha found," Ty explained.

"Oh yes, very nice," I said, a lack of interest creeping into my voice.

"It's mostly junk." she held up several fragments of earthenware, red in the light of the flames.

"Except this," she mused, holding up a complete jug-like object about the size of a clenched fist. "This is unusual. I have never seen anything quite like it before. I need to check my books."

"Uh-huh," I grunted, rolling back to look at the stars, more visible now that the sun had slipped further.

"Are you OK, Satchmo?" Ty eyed me suspiciously.

"Is the food ready yet?" I asked, sidestepping neatly. Ty held my gaze a little longer and then turned the fish-on-a-stick over the fire once more.

*

When the fish was cooked, I nibbled slowly and glumly. I'm sure that it was excellent, but it just tasted like ashes to me. I remained quiet whilst we ate, thoughts running through my head like the fleeing tourists at Pamplona. Ty had produced two four-packs of Stella and a bottle of red wine from the Aladdin's cave of his Land Rover, and we had drunk the lot in a short space of time.

At last, and with the booze having made its way to my bladder, I rose and made my excuses.

Instead of going inside to use the toilet that Ty assured me was now functional, I made my way down into the darkness of the meadow. I gulped the sweet summer air deeply into my lungs, it was fresh and clean, and I hoped that it would clear away some of the gloom that had crept into my chest.

Upon reaching the bottom of the pasture I looked out at the shadows of the trees that dotted the hillside bordering Ty's land. The wood looked dark and forbidding and I thought again of the wisdom of allowing myself to become embroiled in something for which a man had been murdered. Perhaps more than one had been murdered, I thought. If that were the case, the culprit would have few qualms about adding to his tally with the likes of me.

With the long dewy grass wetting my ankles, I stood and peed. I thought I could still catch a whiff of burning wood on the breeze, which was odd because I was upwind of the cook fire. I looked around and saw that the sky was light to the west, and a large plume of smoke was just visible billowing up into the inky night.

Something was wrong. I shook, zipped and trotted back up towards the others.

"What's up, Satchmo?" Ty asked, perturbed at the urgency of my return. I pointed to the faint glow and wisps of grey-black smoke that rose over the treeline.

"What's that?" I panted.

He stood and followed the direction of my arm. He thought for a moment, and then started running toward the drive.

"Holly Corner!" He shouted over his shoulder.

*

Martha and I caught up with him outside Holly Corner. Martha's home was entirely engulfed in flames. Fire licked out from the windows and hungrily devoured the thatched roof above, burning a deep blood-red at its heart. The heat was tremendous, and it was painful to get closer than the twenty metres at which we stood.

"No!" Martha shouted, snapping out of a daze and darting towards the front door, which hung open and looked like a portal to Dante's Inferno. Reacting quickly, I caught her in two strides. I locked my arms around her slim waist and lifted her, kicking and writhing like an angry cat, and carried her back away from the flames.

"My Father's work!" she wailed, flailing uselessly with her forearms. I took several hearty blows before Ty came to my aid by lifting her legs.

Between the two of us we moved her to the roadside ditch and laid her lightly down. She was sobbing uncontrollably, the soot on her face smeared by tears. I looked at Ty and he nodded. I released Martha, and she clung to him as he stroked her hair and made comforting noises.

The fire was like a living beast; a squirming sea monster from a B-movie that always had more tentacles than terrified crewmen had axes. As the thatch of the roof caught properly, the cottage walls were completely obscured by flames and ancient cords of ivy on the stone burned bright like fuses.

It was awesome in the truest sense of the word.

Ty kicked me in the ankle to rouse me from the trance in which the fire held me. He put his free hand to his face and made a phone gesture. I looked back at the cottage, it seemed that it was far beyond the abilities of the Fire Brigade, but never-the-less I patted my pockets and noticed that I did not have my mobile with me. Realizing that it would be quicker to get into the village than back to the farm, I set off to the nearest house to make the call.

The first house I came to seemed to belong to Pebble Deeping's least hospitable resident; a grizzled octogenarian woman with a face like a full bedpan who opened the door on the third, increasingly desperate, knock.

As I babbled my need to use her phone, she simply shook her head, the hair curlers she wore rattling. Eventually, convinced I was not an opportunistic Tupperware salesman or door-to-door rapist, she stood aside, and I scurried inside. I dialled 999 and spoke to the operator, giving her the details.

"How long will it take?" I asked.

"I'm despatching a crew now; they will be with you in approximately half an hour," the operator answered calmly.

I sighed, knowing that the house would be charcoal before then.

"Is there anybody inside the building, sir?"

"No," I replied, thankful for small mercies.

*

By 2 am the fire was effectively out after having consumed every source of fuel that the cottage had to offer. The old stone walls were black with soot, and the beams of the roof looked eerily like the ribs of a burned elephant carcass in the pulsing lights of the fire engine.

Smoke and steam rose from smouldering areas and various hot surfaces that had been doused. A few firemen milled around, tidying away equipment and chatting.

Martha stood staring at the remains of her home, a heavy grey blanket draped over her narrow shoulders, her face grimy with soot and mud. Ty was deep in an animated conversation with the Fire Chief who wore his white helmet tilted back on his head and stroked a thick sandy moustache with a gloved hand. After a moment the fireman nodded, passed a helmet to Ty, and they both ventured inside the cottage.

I approached Martha and tentatively laid an arm around her, giving her what I hoped was an are you OK? squeeze. She looked up at me, her face no less beautiful when smeared with grime.

"It's all gone..." she croaked. I didn't know what to say to that, so I merely nodded and reaffirmed my embrace. She turned back to stare at the mess, shaking violently; I don't know whether it was from the shock or cold.

"Come on," I said, "there's nothing else you can do tonight. Let's get you back home."

It was her turn to nod. We walked back to the Farm and I led her up to the bedroom of the farmhouse. She was in a Zombie-like state as she sat on the edge of the camp bed.

"Get yourself out of those smoky clothes and I'll go and see if I can find anything to warm you up," I said softly.

It didn't take much searching in the bounteous Land Rover before I came across a hip flask full of something that smelled of cherries. One sip of the contents told me that it was not only alcoholic but that it could most likely fuel aircraft.

I returned to the bedroom and found Martha standing by the window looking out at the fire crew down the road. She had stripped to her underwear and the sight made the breath catch in my throat. Her pale skin shone in the moonlight coming through the small glass panes and her petite figure was even more perfectly formed than I had thought.

Snapping myself out of a stare, I drew her away from the window and onto the camp bed, the flesh of her arm as cold as marble. I helped her into her sleeping bag and zipped her up tight. She took the hip flask from me without question and took a gulp. She grimaced briefly, then upped the bottle and proceeded to down the entire contents in three long gulps.

Jesus, I thought, if that doesn't kill her, she will be out like a light in no time.

I stayed with her, holding her hand and smoothing the hair on her head for about half an hour until finally, and fitfully, she slept.

*

I found Ty back at Holly Corner, sharing a cup of tea from a steaming Thermos with the Fire Chief.

"Satchmo," Ty nodded. "This is Chief Wilson."

I took the man's extended paw, which crushed my hand in a fierce grip. "Is Martha OK?" he asked.

"She's asleep. I dosed her up with some stuff I found in a hip flask," I replied.

Ty smiled. "The nuclear home-brew? Well, she'll sleep alright, but tomorrow..." he shook his head, indicating that she would be a little the worse for wear in the morning.

"Come on, the Chief has a few things to show you," he urged as Wilson handed me a spare helmet and a large torch encased in luminous yellow plastic.

"Now, I warn you, Satchmo; you enter here at your own risk. If any injury befalls you, I will report that I was trying to remove you from the property at the time," he said.

That made me feel a whole lot better.

We approached the front door and Ty directed his torch beam at the frame. The door itself hung from one hinge, it was resting wide open and was blackened and warped.

"Exhibit A," Ty said. "Please note signs of forced entry here, and here," he pointed.

I could see the splintered wood around the lock and hinge for myself. I nodded and followed them inside. We entered the room that had once been a snug little lounge. Wilson shone his light at the floor.

"Tread carefully, Satchmo. It's burned through most of the boards," the burly Fire Chief warned. I dutifully dropped my beam and gingerly made my way across the room to where they stood.

"Now, this is not official," Wilson began, "because the police and the Fire Investigation Team will be out here sometime tomorrow. But when you've been doing this for thirty years you can spot these things," the fireman smiled grimly.

"The blaze started in the corner," Ty said highlighting the area with his torch light.

There was a large circular patch that was burned a much darker shade than the surrounding boards. Similar patches fanned out from it like the legs of a flattened spider; some streaks of blackened char ran up the nearby wall.

"What is that?" I asked.

"Traces of accelerant," Wilson answered. "Most likely petrol, paraffin or the like. Fire always burns hotter at the point of acceleration, hence the darker colouration."

"You mean this was deliberate? It was arson?" I stated the obvious.

"Unless the Doctor was in the habit of dousing her living room in fuel and then a stray spark set this off in an empty house," Ty said a little unnecessarily. My question had been largely rhetorical.

"Yes, I'd say this was an open-and-shut arson," Wilson admitted. "But as I said, the boys will clear all that up tomorrow after an official investigation. Judging by what was done to the door it was either extremely unprofessional, or the perpetrator showed very little care to disguise their actions."

Ty nodded in the gloom. "They just jimmied the door off its hinges, sloshed the petrol about and lit a match," he said.

"Okay gentlemen, I think that's enough. Out you go." Wilson shooed us back with sweeps of his great arms.

We retraced our steps back outside, mindful of hazards at every step, where we found that the crew had packed up their equipment and were waiting to leave. Ty and I both shook Wilson's hand before he heaved his frame up into the cab of the fire engine and it roared off into the night.

*

I sat with Ty in the kitchen of the farmhouse, cradling a steaming mug of hot sweet tea in an effort to get some warmth back in my bones. After the blast of heat from the flames, and the afterglow of adrenaline had faded, the night had become chilly for the time of year. I thought the weather may be worsening, but a cold snap was the least of our concerns at that moment.

Ty had stripped to the waist; his smoke-fouled clothes lay in a bucket of water. The smell of burned belongings was assaulting my nostrils from my own clothing, but not enough to make me sit bare in the frigid kitchen.

"Arson," I said.

"Hmm," he replied.

"Do you think it might be Michaels?" I asked.

"Hmm..." Ty responded, as forthcoming as ever.

"I just don't see him being so brazen about it, somehow. He would have a lot to lose if the fire were pinned on him. Wilson himself said the job was unprofessional," I pondered.

"You think those two lumbering goons are capable of anything professional?" Ty countered.

He made a good point; they were hardly deft and subtle.

"Besides, if he had a hand in the deaths of my uncle, the Professor and Jonah, then arson is small beer for him," Ty's voice was quiet, flat.

"He does have previous in this area," I told him about the information I had been given regarding Michaels' murky past and how he had started out in the world of property development.

"Then it's definite. This will not stand, Satchmo," Ty replied.

"All of this for some land?" I mused.

"The deal could be worth millions if that land is developed. Then there's the gold."

Oh, yes, the gold. I had forgotten about that.

I made my excuses and crept upstairs to check on Martha. I peeked around the bedroom door; she lay on her side, the bedding drawn up around her like a child's comfort blanket. Despite being asleep she was still shaking slightly from the cold. I pushed the door closed quietly and went out to the hayloft.

I returned to Martha's room with my sleeping bag, unzipped it, and opened it out like a duvet. I lay it across and tucked it gently beneath her. She murmured in her sleep and drew the new source of warmth around her. I stood over her for a while, watching her, then crept out and shut the door behind me.

Ty was waiting at the foot of the stairs and eyeballed me as I descended. He said nothing; his face remained impassive as ever, as if carved from stone.

"I thought I might sleep in the car tonight," I said by way of answer to the question he hadn't asked.

He nodded and threw me the keys from his pocket. I walked past him and out to the Land Rover, it would be warmer than a night in the barn with no bag, and more comfortable than a night on the stone floor of the house.

I wound the passenger seat back as far as it would go and lay with my hands clasped behind my head, trying to make sense of it all.

By the time I eventually dropped off I was sure of only one thing: None of it made any sense at all.