We sat there among the dark trees.
‘Nice touches, the Uber,’ I said after a while. ‘And clever, psychologically. And probably right. You hollow fuck. You’re a user,’ I said, ice-clear. ‘You are and were, of me and everyone, anyone useful. Here and now, back in the day. You’ve got all the words, and now the tech to spy into everyone’s weaknesses, twist for your reasons. And you had me once,’ for a long time. How useful I’d been to him, once: a pal, a warm body, a family, a source of support and knowledge, a worshipping base from which to venture out into the big bad world and make it his own. And how young and dumb I’d been, once, how in need of love and family myself, willing to make do with any crumb of affection, at the mercy of hormones—I cut myself every last bit of slack. It had worked, once, his game on me. For him, once, I’d gone against all sense, betrayed Alan again and again. I’d done everything, once: gone along with his recklessness, skipped out on Alan, sold the bead, financed his dreams of New York, got myself educated for us both, loved him. And once his plans came true he was off, in the coldest way, as he would be again once he had that book.
‘Isn’t it more like: you’ve got what you wanted out of me, where the book is, you can cut me loose.’
‘And that’s really what you think?’
I hadn’t thought it until I said it but what sudden terrible sense. Here now, in the middle of the woods at night alone with him, whoever he was: turning to me, reaching down between his legs, the glint of something in the moonlight at his feet: his knife. Lifting it up while I watched dry-mouthed, watched him lift up my burka, reach for my belly, cut the ropes there, do the same to my bound wrists behind me and my bound feet in the footwell.
‘It’s OK, I’m not going to kill you, is that what you think, that I’m going to kill you? I’m setting you free,’ pulling off the ropes.
My aching arms and shoulders. My damaged wrists and the blood. Set free in a forest. What was worse: alone in the trees in the dark here or with him in his car?
With him for sure.
But.
‘I’ll drive you somewhere, anywhere. Someplace you can get a bus.’
I undid the seatbelt and scrunched my shivering body up in the seat under the burka, my throbbing wrists under my arms.
‘And then what you going to do?’
His eyes flicked over me. ‘I’ll drop you off.’
‘And then? Drive on to Flora?’
‘And then drive to Flora.’
Off-grid Flora, whom I couldn’t contact till morning at least, unless I tramped through the forest, got the police, and what would they make of this?
Flora and Poppy, her seven-year-old daughter, and the new baby I hadn’t met yet: let this Chris loose on them before I could get to the police, persuade them, wait till they heard this story.
‘Without me you don’t know where she is.’
‘I know enough. Somewhere in the Brechfa Forest.’
‘Cos you still have access to the machines.’
He looked at me. ‘Is that what you think?’ He shook his head. ‘I had them once, that’s enough. The shipping container in the field, that’s enough. I’ll drive down every road till I see it. I’ll ask people. I’ll find her.’
‘Then?’
‘Deal with whatever’s up. See if Sean’s got there first. Make sure she’s OK.’
‘Then?’
‘Try and find the book. If they haven’t found it. Try and fuck with them if they have. Get her to come with, decode the message, bring her with me to wherever. Look after her. She has a daughter, right?’
And a little baby boy. And Rhodri, her boyfriend, who built things, who had muscles. ‘You’re saying all this so I’ll come with.’
‘I don’t want you to come now, it’s over, I should never have come to you. I’ll look after them, I won’t hurt them, I swear.’
‘On your life?’ He opened his mouth but had nothing to say. ‘Look. If there’s one iota of truth in anything you’ve said: leave her alone, forget the book. Tell me the message you found in Cuckfield. We don’t need the book—I knew it off by heart once, maybe I still do.’
He shook his head. ‘We…can’t. It doesn’t matter what I feel about you. Some things go beyond people and what they feel about each other. Even if you know it by heart. I need the book.’
‘Why?’
‘I need to see…what he sees. You can’t understand. I won’t hurt them. And I won’t hurt you by telling you things they might pull out of you later.’
We sat there. ‘I need to wee,’ I said. I scabbled round, tried to pull the burka up off the back of the seat. He reached into the back seat and dragged out some dirty dark hoodie I pulled on over the burka. It stank of him, authentic old Chris B.O. if I recalled it right, for what that was worth.
I opened the door, stepped out free into the trees, watched him put his key back in the ignition, switch on the headlights.
I stood with the burka over my jeans in my ruined slippers in damp cold among gnarled trees lit by car and moon. My sore, swollen, bruised body: I could barely stand, I was filthy in the hoodie, the nick in my cheek, my swollen wrists and ankles and aching shoulders and dirty scratched body.
I walked away from the car, turned and watched him let me, free of him at last.
I went behind trees and wee-ed, listened to hoots and rustles. I stood there among bare old trees at night in the wind. What was he up to? Him and his stump.
I could hitch.
There are no cars.
I could walk, even in the forest, even in the dark. Anything except get back in that car with him.
He’s calm now, he’s OK, he’s done his bit, he’s pathetic, he’s crazy, he’s used himself up, he’ll drop you off some place, you’ll find the police. Or else he’ll just drive off now, get to Flora way before you find anyone, leave you here in the trees.
I went back to him in the car.
He was staring out of his windscreen, a path lit before us by his headlights. ‘Britain, land of yews. “Loegar”, the lost land, they call it in Welsh. “Savernake Forest”, this place is called. Seven oaks, sacred grove. A biofactory grown on purpose from wayback to make timber for ships, kept on as a hunting ground for those old kings whose pleasure was hunting, who came here to ride off the cares of the world by murdering prey. Who came here to compete and cast off rank and roles and fuck whores in hunting lodges in the middle of the forests. Who lived by the good creed: honour, valour, wit, seduction. Blazing out, like the sun. And who cares about that anymore?’
We sat there.
‘You’re certainly pulling out all the stops,’ I said. ‘But I’ve got a life, things to do in about four hours. I’ve got a job, meetings, responsibilities, all that dull stuff. I’ve even got a boyfriend, of sorts, for fuck’s sake. As you’ll know. I’m sorry you’re caught up in all this, whatever this is. It sounds bad. I’d like to help. I’m really sorry.’
‘Yeah me too.’ He looked at me. ‘It’s the good choice. It’s good, what you’ve become, grown up. Nim Burdock. Put the past behind you. Sensible. I’m glad you’re fine, normal. I’m glad you chose well. Thank you. Sorry about everything, the craziness. Don’t worry about Flora, she’ll be fine. I’ll make sure. I give you my word. You’ve given me so much but this is my battle. There’s things you deserve to know. I’ll make sure you do, one day. I hope. But now go back to your life. I’ll drive you to Marlborough or Swindon, I’ll drive safely, with my eyes open, I’m sorry. You can get a bus. Go to the police if you want, it’s OK, it won’t make any difference, say what you want. There’ll be some weird stuff, for a bit, but you’ll be OK, they’ll know you don’t know anything. Back to your old life. Thanks for everything. It’s meant everything. You can’t know,’ the silver glint of the key sparking the ignition.
‘I thought you stole this car?’
‘I did.’
‘So how come you have the key?’
‘Stole that too, from the guy’s pocket.’
‘Did yo
u?’ I said, suddenly feeling so sleepy, so dreamy.
‘Sure I did,’ he said, starting to back the car out.
10
He wafted a coffee under my nose, prodding me from thick sleep: ‘I need your help.’
Semi-dark, me tucked up under a rank sleeping bag seeing my breath. Us parked in fir trees off a thin country road next to a sign:
Grid gwartheg
Cattle grid
Anifeiliad
Animals
Wales, in the damp winter dawn. Me still with him in that fucking car. I felt sore and groggy and sick to my pits.
Suckered again.
‘We’re near Brechfa. Not far now. You’ve been asleep a while. It’s about 7 am, I reckon. Deep sleep, out for the count. Tried to wake you in Swindon, in the bus station, do you remember? All those weird people, no buses till 6 am, didn’t want you there left all alone conked out like that. Tried again at Pont Abraham, when we came off the M4. Abraham, Brahma: has it ever struck you?’
It had never struck me.
Reeled in, walking back to his car of my own free will to the sweet tune of his repentance.
Plus the liquid cosh.
This scum.
‘Drink,’ handing me the coffee, then shoving that atlas at me. ‘Where to from here?’
I clutched the tepid cup. I was frozen. I wasn’t tied up. No central locking in that dumb car. I could run.
‘Sorry,’ he said, not sorry at all. ‘But we’ll be with her soon, it’s faster if you’re with. We’re here, just beyond Brechfa village,’ showing me where on the page with his bitten stump while I gripped warm coffee to tamp the panic. ‘But she’s not in the village, right? She’s in the forest, somewhere, off-grid, up some road near here, right? Which road?’
Who knew but not far now from that book he had to get his hands on at all costs.
I sat there, staring at the map, clogged by sleep and terror, and maybe drugs, and fury at myself for not running when I could.
You can still run.
He’ll get there before you can tell anyone.
You set him on her.
He drugged you.
Think.
Flora’s place was really remote. That’s why she’d chosen it, her and Rhodri: off-grid freaks wanting out of the world. Up in the forest outskirts, industrial nature, open hillsides of neat firs grown for flatpacks. That’s why it was off-grid: any prettier and the internet would come, phones, power lines, estate agents. Her and Rhodri and Poppy and the baby in their place, another couple and their twelve kids a bit further up. Other friends in a sort of encampment perhaps five miles away, networks of hippies in the wider area. And in the field next to her: the shipping container and the wrecked farmhouse it belonged to and the men who lived there. Who might or might not be drug dealers: hydroponics or meths in their container, people said. Different people lived off-grid for different reasons. The men were OK, a bit silent, I’d met them two summers before, the last time I’d been up, a big summer party. Three burly young men from Liverpool, big muscles in their wrecked farm with their shipping container in the field.
Them versus this gaunt stump Chris with his sticks and knives and ropes and gags and tall tales and bogus history and mock craziness and what else? Guns? Drugged coffee? Plenty more up his sleeves, I was sure. The book at all costs.
I held the coffee and studied the map. A paper map: prehistoric. When I’d visited before I’d taken the train to Carmarthen, Flora had picked me up in the yellow campervan and driven me where? Up into twisty hills, tiny fast streams. White space on the map: winding roads, everything looking the same. Gwernogle: a village name on the map I remembered. Then up from that, maybe half-way towards Rhydcymerau, which felt familiar, seeing that on signposts. Maybe. And then, yes, marked between them: Llamian Blau, that was her village, the one nearest to her. The one with the farm shop a couple of miles down the hill from her where you could buy eggs and phone and leave messages. I was pretty sure.
‘Well?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t tell from this. Need a more detailed map.’
‘We don’t have one.’
‘From some shop in Brechfa?’ There’d be people in Brechfa, call the police if I wanted, run out screaming right now.
‘Nothing opens till nine, I tried before. When you were asleep.’
Oh really. ‘So where’s the coffee from?’
He pointed out his window at a small camping stove on the grass beside the car.
‘Mushroom coffee? Did you drug me before?’
‘Nescafe, I swear. You should drink it. You should eat something. Biscuits? An apple? One of these?’ offering a tiny green chilli from a chilli plant in a plastic bag in his footwell which I declined. ‘Appetite suppressant, perks you up.’
He opened his door, got out, did stretches, tai chi or something, big lunges. He packed up his stove, put it into an army-looking duffle bag, bundled that into the boot.
If he had a stove why buy coffee from service stations before? Especially since money must be scarce, his ridiculous coin sticks. And how come he had a stove, money, coin sticks if you couldn’t trust metal? How come he had car keys, for a stolen car? How come he had a car at all?
I undid the seat belt, threw off the sleeping bag, wedged up the peg of the manual door lock, opened my door, stepped outside into cold damp Wales with his hoodie on over the burka over my jeans, my freezing feet. He watched me from the boot, didn’t say anything. Bringing him here with me, close to her, like a virus. I shivered, poured the coffee away, crumpled the foam cup. I stamped my feet and stretched a bit myself, to warm up and get good air into me, still in that big hoodie that smelt of him. I was so sore, my muscles and bloodied swollen wrists and ankles. I went behind a tree for a wee and a think. I was starving. I ought to be at work in a few hours, they’d try to call me, straight to voicemail or was my dead phone now working? Where were the bloody police? Why weren’t they after us, since the Glen stuff in my flat? And what would I say to the police?
Gimme some tips, Alan.
Fuck Alan. This one’s on you.
I could scream, run into the road, head for Brechfa, wherever that was, if we were even near Brechfa. Run away, find some house or car, get mown down by him, maimed in the legs, bundled back into the car. I could dodge him, run, flag something down, call the police. Call the farm shop, leave a message warning her? Get the farm guy to go up and check on her right now, then call me back. Could work, might not: if someone said all that to me I’d think they were crazy.
Speed off fast, get to Flora now in his car.
And that remote chance that he was right, that Flora was right now with someone who looked like Chris but wasn’t, his twin.
Or was it me here now with the one who looked like Chris?
The big looming trees.
Breathe.
He was sorting stuff out in the boot, one eye on me.
I went over to the driver’s side.
‘You’ll want this,’ he called from beyond the open boot, holding up the keys to me through the front mirror.
The empty useless ignition.
‘Should have learnt to hotwire,’ he said, like Young Pete had taught him with coat hangers in Scritchwood.
Should have done. Then I could be driving off right now, reversing back over him, if I had a wire or coat hanger to hand.
We looked at each other in the mirror.
‘I’ll find her. Even if you’re not with me,’ his gaunt face pale in the grey dawn, his glittering eyes. ‘Go up and down every road, ask around till I find that shipping container. Find out if he’s got to her. Quicker if you come too of course. Get there faster. Safer for her. And her family.’
The three container muscle men.
‘I’ll drive,’ I said.
‘No.’
‘That’s the only way I’m coming. If we need to get to her faster.’
‘Do you know the way? Do you remember?’
‘I will if I drive. Or else leave me
here. I want to get to her. As much as you want to get to her. More.’
So I drove, screeching him down narrow empty hedge-lined roads, out up into higher land, right next to streams, down wrong turns, reversing back. Him strapped into the passenger seat trying to instruct me, following my eyes, trying to get me to say where we were going, me with the atlas page spread in my lap. After about maybe forty minutes of this we came to a sign: Llamian Blau 5m. But a mile or so on up a hill there were cones and cordons and the road ahead just stopped. It had cracked and crumbled away.
I got out to look, clutching the car key. The weirdest thing: the tarmac just gone, the ground beyond looking just the same as the side of the hill we were driving up: mud and scree, torn trees and branches. A wrong dead end, the road eaten by nature.
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