by Angela Peach
I shook my head.
“I don’t know. I just know we will.”
“Then let’s do this!” she said, looking nervous.
We got into our new car and drove out of London in silence. We’d both agreed that going to a larger airport would be ridiculous with all the security surrounding it, and that a smaller airport would be much more beneficial for sneaking our way out of the country. So we were heading for Bournemouth airport and hoped that once we got there, we’d be able to work out how to smuggle ourselves onto a flight leaving for somewhere closer to Canada.
But when we were about thirty miles away from the airport, our new car spluttered and died at the side of a road.
“Tris? Can’t you just make it work?” Spencer asked, looking puzzled. I tried to will it to work, then turned the key again.
Nothing happened.
“I don’t get it? How can I make Kate Winslet knock on our door, but I can’t get our car to start?” I muttered to myself, heart sinking-maybe I’d used too much luck in one go? Maybe I’d abused it in the casinos? We were both quiet as we thought of a new plan.
“Maybe this is meant to happen?” Spencer finally said.
“What do you mean?” I said, turning to her.
“Think about it! The only stuff you don’t seem to be able to control is stuff that’s meant to happen! Suppose the car has broken down for a reason.”
“You mean like in case there’s a police car down the road that might have pulled us over or something?”
“Yeah! Or maybe we weren’t supposed to go to Bournemouth!”
“Right! So what do we do now?”
“Um…I don’t know!”
We both went quiet again. The theory about being on the wrong track felt right-we certainly hadn’t been able to get any positive feelings about what we’d do once we got to the airport, and I think that had contributed to our uneasiness. Now, however, I felt calm again!
“Ok, let’s get out and start walking. We’re not going to get anywhere sitting here” I said, unbuckling my seatbelt. Aside from the wigs, we’d both been wearing leather gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints in the car, so we just unloaded our bags and shut the door, leaving the key in the ignition.
“Should we at least push it onto the verge or something? Just so it’s off the road” she said once we’d checked we had everything.
“Yeah, I’ll put the hazards on as well.”
We managed to push it haphazardly onto the verge, and just as I’d shut the door, a car came along the road. It slowed to a halt when it saw us, and we tried to hide our faces by turning away and busying ourselves with our bags.
“Hey, you girls ok?”
“Yes, thanks” I called out, still facing away. I saw Spencer’s worried face look at me through her hair.
“You broken down or run out of petrol?” he called out.
I was about to tell him to mind his own business and fuck off when the conversation we’d just had in the car came back to me. To Spencer’s surprise, I stood up straight and turned around.
“Broken down. You’re not a mechanic, are you?”
“No, sorry. But I can give you a lift if you want?”
“Sure, that’d be awesome! Where you headed?”
“Well, I’m going to the airfield, but I can drop you off in town if you want?”
“You’re shitting me? We were heading for the airport too!” I exclaimed excitedly, looking at Spencer. She was smiling nervously. I mouthed ‘meant to happen’ at her. She nodded and picked up her large rucksack.
“Here, let me help you with those” the man jumped out of his car and helped us put our belongings into his boot. We’d managed to pack everything we needed into two very large hiking rucksacks figuring they’d be easier to carry, especially if we needed to smuggle ourselves onto a flight. “Oh, my name’s Keith, by the way” he said, holding his hand out.
“I’m Laura, and this is Georgia” I said, glad I’d removed my gloves a minute ago-they would have looked a little strange in this heat! He shook both our hands.
“It’s a pleasure! So, what are you headed to the airfield for?” he asked as we all got in. “It’s just, you look like you’re planning going on holiday with your bags and all.”
I glanced at him, confused.
“Isn’t that what most people go to the airport for?”
“Oh. I think we might have crossed wires. Were you both headed for Bournemouth airport?”
“Yes, why? Is there more than one?”
“Ah. I’m going to Salisbury. It’s just a little airfield, and no commercial flights go from there I’m afraid. Would you like me to take you to the town centre, so you can get a train or something?”
“Oh shit! I didn’t realise there were two. Um, yeah, town would be great thanks.”
I sat back in disappointment. I’d felt so sure this man had turned up for a reason, and now we were back to finding a way to the airport without anyone seeing us.
We both knew without discussing it that by now, our disappearance would have been linked to Alex’s, and it would be foolish to assume we weren’t being looked for. So avoiding town centres, and anywhere with cctv was essential for us now.
“Why are you going to the airfield?” Spencer asked from the backseat.
“I’m a pilot. I’m just going out to do a bit of work on my plane.”
I looked at him in astonishment. We were back on!
“You own your own plane? What sort is it?”
“Well, I sort of own one. It’s a Piper Chieftain” he said, but then went quiet and didn’t offer any more information.
“What do you mean, you sort of own it?”
“I’ve got to sell it. My wife…she’s had to give up her job. She’s got cancer and has to have chemo. We can’t really afford to keep the plane, so I’d rather sell it than re-mortgage the house” he seemed reluctant to go on, and I could tell he was on the verge of tears.
“How much are you selling it for?”
“Well, I’m having to let her go for ninety thousand. It’s a lot less than she’s worth, but I just want a quick sell.”
I turned round in my seat to face Spencer. She simply nodded, knowing what I had in mind.
“How would you like to make fifty thousand, and still keep your plane?” I asked him.
“What? Well…how?” he spluttered, trying to keep his eyes on the road, but looking at me incredulously .
“We need to get out of this country, pretty much now. We’ll pay you fifty thousand, cash, to fly us out.”
There was a long pause as he assessed what I said.
“I’m guessing you girls have done something pretty bad” he finally said quietly.
“I’m not going to lie to you Keith. We’re probably being looked for by the police right now for something that would get us jailed for a very long time. But I can assure you that what we did…it wasn’t our fault. We’re not bad people, and we don’t deserve to go to jail for what we did” I said, heart thumping as I did. I was putting a lot of trust in that he wasn’t going to drive us to the nearest police station. He pulled over at the side of the road, and as he stopped, I saw his hands were shaking slightly.
“I just want to know two things. Are you girls dangerous? Cos I’ve got a sick wife at ho…”
“We’re not dangerous. We’re unarmed, and what we’re running away from…it was done in self-defence. We’ve got no intention of harming you in any way” I said, interrupting him. “What’s your second question?”
“Where do you need me to fly you to?”
“Babe? Should we trust him?” I asked Spencer, not wanting to leap in head first.
“Yes. I think we can” she said, smiling.
“We need to go to Canada. Off the radar, if that’s possible.”
“Canada? That’s quite a trip!”
“Can you do it?”
He thought about it for a minute, rubbing his face with his hand.
“I’ll do it…but I�
��ll want more than fifty for it. We’re gonna have to make a few stops on the way for fuel, and it’s not just going to be a quick jaunt around the block.”
“Name your price?”
“I’ll do it for seventy five.”
“Ok, you got a deal!”
“Oh my god, what am I doing?” he asked himself, shaking his head laughing. “If we get caught, I don’t know anything about you being in trouble, you understand?”
“We won’t get caught! And if we do, we’ll just say we took you hostage, ok?”
“But, if we don’t get caught, this trip never happened. You never saw us” Spencer added.
“Hey I won’t breathe a word to anyone! You think I want to admit aiding and abetting criminals out of the country? Plus, they’d probably confiscate the money, and I don’t even want to know where that came from.”
“It’s ok, the money’s legit. Um, it is in Canadian dollars though. Is that a problem?”
“Just promise me it’s real and you’re not taking me for a ride and there’s no problem” he said.
“We’re trusting you not to call the police-you trust us, we trust you, everyone’s a winner.”
“Ok. Suppose I’d better call my wife. Tell her I won’t be home tonight!”
Keith got out of the car to make the call, and when he got back in, he looked a little sheepish.
“She wasn’t too happy that I won’t be coming back tonight, but I told her some business execs offered me a lot of cash to take them to Holland for a stag do. So, let’s go get some supplies for the trip. We’re gonna need a lot of sandwiches!”
We made three stops on the way to re-fuel, at Iceland, Greenland, then Newfoundland. On the way, we gave Keith a brief rundown of what we were running from, saying instead that it was my boyfriend who’d attacked me, and that ‘Georgia’ had come to my rescue, but had accidentally killed him. He asked if my boyfriend had attacked me because he’d found out about our affair, and I realised he must have clocked our holding hands and loving looks-so we confirmed that yes, that was why he’d flown off the rails. He didn’t ask us any more questions about our private life, and I guessed it was because the less he knew, the better.
On our final approach into Canada, he got on the radio and asked air traffic control where the nearest emergency landing strip was as he was experiencing engine difficulties. They directed him to a disused strip near an old mine which wasn’t too far from where we were. He thanked them, declining the offer of assistance saying he had the necessary equipment on board to fix the problem, then took us off in that direction.
When we’d descended, he showed us where we were on the map we’d brought with us and told us which direction the road was. We thanked and paid him, and as I hugged him goodbye, I told him I had a really good feeling his wife was going to be alright, and something in the way I said it made him study me.
“Thank you. And good luck. I hope everything goes right for you both” he said before boarding his little plane again. We waved him off, watching as he flew up into the sky before walking quickly in the direction of the road. It was a good four mile hike and it would be getting dark soon, so we wanted to make it there before we could no longer see the trail.
Because we’d landed on a disused airstrip that had been used for an old mine, it was fairly simple to follow the old trail left by trucks when it had been in use. We walked quickly, taking short breaks only to adjust our backpacks and have a drink, so by the time we reached the road we were both hot and sweaty, but nevertheless happy to have made it before dark!
We sat at the side of the road and discussed our next move while eating a snack. We both agreed that we should try to flag down the next vehicle, whichever direction it was going, and just trust it would be the right way.
The first car drove straight past us without even slowing, as did the second. The third, however, stopped straight away and we hopped in. Adopting (barely) passable Australian accents, we said we were just hiking around Canada. The young couple that picked us up both had French accents, but spoke English fluently. They said they were going to visit relatives in a place called Dolbeau-Mistassini, and we were more than welcome to ride with them as long as we wanted.
It was as we were entering a small town named Blirristope that I had a sudden urge to get out of the truck. I wasn’t sure if it was because the name sounded like ‘blurs stop’ or because it was so out of the way it didn’t even show up on the map, but it just felt right.
We got out of the truck and thanked them for their kindness, then found a small lodge to stay in.
We both knew this was it! This was the town we were going to live in for the rest of our lives!
CHAPTER 20
Once we’d rested up completely, we headed for the town’s local law enforcement office. Having no identification was going to make buying a place to live and getting jobs very tricky, so we knew we were going to need help.
We asked to speak to the head of police in private and were taken to a small office. About ten minutes later, a tall, slightly overweight man came in and introduced himself as Chief Inspector Michael Thorn. He asked how he could be of assistance, and we told him our cover story.
We said that we’d both been key witnesses in a huge mafia style bust, but that every single other witness had died in suspicious circumstances, and that a few weeks ago, we’d discovered the corruption went deep into the police and law network. When not one, but two FBI agents assigned to protect us had instead tried to kill us, we’d been advised by a friend in the police that we should get out of town, and disappear for our own safety.
He got some fresh coffee for us all at this point and told his secretary to hold all his calls. We continued by saying that we’d been on the run for nearly three weeks, but wanted to settle down and stop running. We also told him that someone had had our identities erased from the system, and we had nothing except the bags at the lodge, and a large sum of cash we’d managed to procure before we ran.
This was all so incredibly far-fetched, it had to work! (Although as Spencer reminded me, it only mattered that I knew it would work!)
He stared at us grimly from across his desk for a while, and I felt myself get nervous. Maybe it was too much?
Just as we were starting to fidget in our seats, he stood up and came to sit directly in front of us. He told us that everything he was about to say was confidential and no one here apart from him and his wife knew about it, and that was how it was to stay. Then he proceeded to tell us that before he’d moved to Blirristope, about twenty years ago, he’d been a cop in New York. He’d been involved in a case very similar to ours, and experienced the corruption first hand when his partner of nearly eight years shot him and left him for dead. The witness they’d been protecting, a young lady of twenty four, had been shot dead, but when Thorn had been taken to the hospital, his partner had come for him again there to silence him. Luckily for him, his brother had been visiting and managed to stop him from finishing the job. Although he’d been given an armed guard to watch over him, the guard swore he hadn’t seen anyone approach.
Once Thorn had got better, he returned to work to find the case had been closed, and more or less swept under the carpet. To add insult to injury, he uncovered a huge cover up conducted by Internal Affairs and was advised to forget it all ever happened. When he continued pushing, his family received death threats, but he still fought for the truth. It wasn’t until his brother and sister in law were killed in a suspicious road accident that he realised he was never going to win and knew he had to get out. The coroner had ruled death by drink driving, despite his brother being a tee totaller his whole life.
So Thorn had moved here with his wife and two kids to start a fresh life and escape the dirty city.
We listened to all this in amazement. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that Spencer had thought up the only elaborate excuse that this man could wholly empathise with!
He assured us we’d be safe here in his town, and that he’d do
everything in his power to not only protect us, but help us settle in!
Four weeks later, Thorn produced some identification for us in the way of birth certificates and driving licences. Our new names were Hannah Le Saux and Jessica Palmer. He told us not to ask how or where they came from, but hinted he’d pulled in a lot of favours to pull it off. By this time, we’d had dinner with his family a few times, and knew we were all going to be firm friends.
Six weeks after we received our identities, we were the proud owners of a cute little three bedroomed cabin in the woods with thirty five acres of land for our back yard!
It wasn’t long before the town, of which the population was only nine hundred and fifty five(nine hundred and fifty seven with us!) figured out that we were a couple, but we faced no prejudice from them whatsoever. They all accepted us with open arms into their small community, thanks mainly due to Michael and his wife, Fleur.
After a few months, Spencer (or Hannah, as she was now known) turned one of our spare rooms into a therapy and treatment room and gradually started rebuilding her business. She offered hypnotherapy, counselling and massage sessions at more than reasonable rates, even bartering with some of the towns people! She would swap a half hour massage with the local hairdresser to do her hair, or offer the butcher hypnotherapy to help stop smoking in exchange for some choice cuts of meat!
I threw myself into looking after our land and cabin, enjoying the peace and quiet surrounding us.
A year after we’d first moved to Blirristope and with a lot of encouragement from all our new friends, (although we hadn’t needed much!) we got married and I became Mrs Jessica Le Saux!
Fifteen months further down the line, a very good friend of ours named Remy offered to help us have a baby by donating his sperm. Spencer got pregnant on our first homemade go at IVF! Nine months later, she had two baby girls! We named them Eleanor and Sophia.
When Spence was able to return to work, I watched Ellie and Sophie and put my hand to writing stories for them. These stories turned into quite a hit, and I started writing proper novels, something I seemed to be quite a natural at. I turned out a series of very popular sci-fi novels which became very successful in their own right and kept our bank accounts nicely topped up!
