Escape and Evasion

by Christopher Wakling

  Joseph opens his eyes and sees the tarp suspended across the lattice of roof-sticks, super focused for a second there, like a falcon, if a falcon’s eyes worked really well close up, which possibly they don’t, given that they’re mostly for looking at tiny things miles away. Like something that lives in a hole, then. A hedgehog, or a rabbit, or a rat.

  Yes, well: those creatures do all right, despite falcons, eagles, et cetera … Lancasters.

  Ha.

  And how do they do all right?

  Mostly by sitting tight.

  75

  Which is what Joseph does, for six days.

  Bar a couple of trips to the stream in the middle of nights two and four, he stays put, not always in the hide but very close to it.

  And it’s not as hard as all that, seriously!

  Sure, he’s quite grubby, and that makes him a bit itchy down below, but he has a go at washing in the brook and, fact is, he does know how to put up with a bit of physical discomfort, because he’s done it before, on exercise and in the field. It’s not so much the tricks of the trade he learned in the army that stand him in good stead as the deep sense that because they’re all part of his experience, the rich Joseph-ness of Joseph, he’ll cope.

  Even the rain, which arrives on day three, is doable. The den holds up well. After an hour or so he notices water seeping in where the roof meets the ground just above the foot of the cot, but he takes the spade outside and banks up some fresh earth to blot, block and divert the leak.

  Admittedly, the bomb hole feels pretty damp as the afternoon wears on, and therefore colder than it did, but hey, he’s out of the wind and wrapped up in proper clothes and, in any case, he has the option of lighting a fire.

  He’s already wasted no time in gathering up dead bracken for tinder, sticks for kindling, plus some good fallen branches, snapped or sawn up, for fuel. He’s also dug a fire pit to one side of the door entrance, and lined it with rocks: they’ll retain some heat after the flames die away.

  This will have to be a small fire, of course, given that it’s in the den, but he’s confident propping the hatch up will give the smoke an escape route. On the plus side, a small fire is all he needs to heat the space up. Also, it’ll produce less smoke, reducing the risk of attracting attention, though to be honest he’s starting to feel pretty secure here, the only other warm-blooded wood-visitors he’s seen being two badgers and that young deer.

  Actually, the first fire is quite a choky experience.

  As in, within a couple of minutes the den is an eye-watering smoke hole: Joseph has to fling the hatch completely open to air the place.

  And although it’s gone nine at night, almost as soon as he does that a dog starts up barking, quite nearby it seems, making him seriously consider blotting the fire out entirely.

  But the barking stops as quickly as it began, and with the door-hatch properly open, the little fire sort of works: certainly it heats the space up, and the rocks were well remembered, because they’re still gently warm when, smoke and fire experiment finished, he battens down for the night.

  76

  Day seven brings a question: what next?

  In truth that’s not the right question. Really, it’s ‘when’s next?’

  Because he knows what he wants to do, doesn’t he?

  ‘Wants’ meaning ‘has’.

  Sort of.

  As in, he knows but can’t bear knowing.

  And that’s okay, because hey, decisiveness can be overrated.

  Take, for example, Joseph’s decisive stand on the Padstow holiday house, which he bought as a gift for Naomi. It had a jetty, planning permission to extend up a floor, plus a small orchard. And he’d just bought it! Wow, he had to pull some strings to manage that. But was it the right decision in the end? Maybe not. She was super kind about it, smiled and said thank you, et cetera, but the sort of ‘no, really’ smile that means ‘really: no’. And even when he got her to admit it, later, in bed, she held him as she pointed out that she’d repeatedly said she didn’t want a second home, ever, and that surely he knew she’d meant it.

  ‘Yes, but I thought that had more to do with unnecessary pressure on our finances.’

  ‘It didn’t.’

  ‘Which I’ve sorted.’

  ‘You’re not listening.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘What do I want, then?’

  ‘We can rent it out.’

  ‘That’s not the point!’

  ‘I’m lost.’

  ‘Please sell it.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Her hair smelt so good. He wasn’t angry. Not even when he thought of the pointless extortionate stamp duty. Probably he’d make money flipping the house despite it, though sadly he didn’t.

  But that was later.

  For now he just said, ‘Okay, I will. I’m sorry.’

  Decision, decidedly undone.

  77

  In the end this new decision sort of makes itself, as in Joseph finds himself thinking, hey, they – meaning Lancaster – clearly bought the Southampton stunt, because if they hadn’t they’d definitely have winkled him out of this here hole by now, and since they haven’t, they won’t be expecting him any time soon, will they?

  No.

  Expecting him where?

  At the house, of course.

  Really, he’s going there?

  Yes! Under cover of darkness, obviously.

  But why?

  Because it’s just over that ridge and needs must.

  Needs?

  As in, he’s run out of tinned delicacies, sugared almonds, et cetera, and for some reason none of the many rabbits who live at the edge of the field bordering the southern tip of the woods have been fooled by the three snares he set there on the way to fetch water from the stream at the end of day four. Excellent snares they are, too: it only took him a couple of goes to remember how to run a length of cord from a sturdy stick to a wire noose positioned on the ground between funnelling twigs and whatnot, though possibly the wire is a bit thick, it being more garden centre than garrotte, but thank you anyway, Charlie, for trying.

  Rabbit number one: what have we here, then?

  Rabbit number two: bless!

  Rabbit number forty-six: there are more than enough of us; it’s almost tempting to help him out, no?

  Rabbit number ninety: no.

  He’s thought about fishing instead, but the best he could expect is to refill a relish jar with sticklebacks plus possibly a frog, and sadly he didn’t think to ask Charlie for a net. Quite probably there are things to eat in the woods, fungi, speciality fruits and so forth, and he has had a good look around for anything resembling a berry or button mushroom, but he’s no expert, and the only bush he found with anything fruit-like growing on it – hard, bright red pellets – looked a bit unviable.

  Bush: good choice, now back off.

  Okay, okay.

  But he’s hungry!

  So hungry.

  Having no belt, he’s had to cinch in his waistband with twine, and there’s a sharpness to the bones beneath his beard.

  He’s got four pounds sixty pence in his pocket. That wouldn’t go far in Ye Olde Shoppe. Possibly he should not have given quite so much away. But actually, no, it wouldn’t have made a difference, because face it, he’s not really shoppe-presentable now. In fact, despite his best efforts, he’s a mess, outdoors being a fairly muddy place, and mud being persistent stuff. Still, that makes for good camouflage and, while we’re looking on the bright side, the hunger has a generally clarifying effect: he’s alert and quick-thinking and hyper-aware and …

  Hungry.

  That too.

  But there’s a solution what, two and a half miles away, in the shape of his own house. Or ex-house. Or … ex’s house.

  Bollocks to that.

  He bought it, more or less.

  Certainly he notched up more mowings of the front roundabout, frequently tangling the Flymo cord in the alloy sta
g’s hoof-feet.

  And although Naomi changed the locks last December he doubts very much she’ll have messed with the combination on the side door to the double garage, behind which, unless something strange has happened, sits a Capital Titan chest freezer full of food.

  So that’s the plan, then, to rob Naomi and the kids?

  No, no, no.

  He hasn’t missed a payment, or not until very recently, at least, so it’s his food too, and you can’t rob yourself, can you?

  No!

  The bank wasn’t Joseph Ashcroft, and the share of the money that was his he gave away knowingly.

  He’s not eaten anything since that last can of baked beans the day before yesterday. So he has no choice. Waiting until well beyond nightfall and setting off for Nine Pines with an empty rucksack is not so much a decision as a fact. Look, he’s already done it.

  There is less moonlight tonight, fewer stars, more dark cloud. This makes walking through the woods more of a stumbling-tangly job. He goes slowly, yet takes a fall near the boundary fence, something thorny whipping him across the face as he trips. Ouch. He’s cut the soft skin beneath his left eye. Quite deeply, by the wet feel of his cheek. Not to worry: it’s no shrapnel neck slice. He’s nearly at the fence and the going will be easier when he picks up the footpath.

  Which it is.

  He knows where this path leads.

  Up here, to the junction, which turns onto the bridleway that used to be part of the cross-country course at school.

  Still is, probably. He can remember running along this sandy track thirty-five years ago in shorts and a pair of Dunlop Green Flash. Of course he can, just as he remembers walking here with Naomi, Lara, and Zac, on many a Sunday morning. There are blackberry bushes here. If it was a sunny September afternoon … but it’s not, it’s a pitch-black May night, and he’s not been here in the dark before. No, but this little path here, behind the Days’ house, this is part of Gordon’s home-circuit: he’s walked the dog here a million times on winter evenings. Possibly not a million. Some, though. Generally, he was late home and Naomi had already done it.

  Gordon, ha.

  The name was a compromise. Zac had wanted to call him Flash. Possibly they should have let him.

  Joseph pauses.

  Will Gordon be a problem?

  Pretty good nose on a Labrador–lurcher cross. Remember Lara’s game with that stuffed badger? She could hide it anywhere around the house and Gordon would sniff it out in minutes. But at this time of night he will be curled up chasing imaginary rabbits in the kitchen, right over on the other side of the house.

  Which is … just there.

  Behind that beech hedge.

  Nine Pines!

  78

  He skulks forward until he can make out the chimney stacks silhouetted against the night sky. They make him suddenly light-headed. The feeling is like love, but undercut. Not by hate exactly, more like resentment.

  What’s he talking about? He adores this place.

  Take those chimneys, for example. There are twenty-two of them. Ten down the main end of the house and two clumps of six on the far side. One year a pair of rooks decided to build their nest in amongst the main stacks. Big bastards, rooks, plus bold: they used to strut around down the bottom of the lawn as if they owned it, and when you got up close they’d just give you the eyeball, as if to say: I’m a rook, what of it?

  Get off my lawn!

  They did in the end. Possibly because, although rooks are famously clever birds, rook chicks: not so much. One of them chose to end its first flight by picking a landing spot in the pool. Joseph hooked out its limp body with a net and burned it on the bonfire, the big parent rooks watching him the whole time from not quite far enough away. They decided Nine Pines wasn’t for them after that.

  Nine Pines!

  Actually there are ten.

  Either an Edwardian idea of a joke, or a self-seeding thing.

  Joseph creeps along the hedge to where he knows it’s thinnest, on account of the horse chestnut shade problem, and works himself through a gap, much like the deer that ate all the clematis that year. He’s at the bottom of the garden now and from here he can see that the house, a hundred or so metres away, is not entirely dark. There’s a light in a window upstairs. That’s Lara’s room! Joseph checks his watch. It’s a quarter to midnight. She must have fallen asleep with it on, unless she didn’t, meaning she’s still up.

  He’s mesmerised by that light.

  Lara.

  Christ, what he’d give to see her now, to talk to her, or at least give her a hug.

  She’s just there. A short stroll away. As is Zac, whose window is at least dark, and Naomi, who also appears to have turned in for the night, either there, or …

  Might she have moved back into their bedroom?

  Don’t think about that.

  But might she?

  Stop it.

  She might, but probably not, though, because of …

  Naomi: ‘You …’

  No.

  ‘You fucked …’

  Not now, please.

  ‘You fucked her …’

  Do you have to? Now? Yes, apparently.

  ‘You fucked her in our head?’

  Bed, bed, bed.

  And there it is, laid out like a dead dog in the sun, which might as well have come straight out in the middle of the night, illuminating the length and breadth of the striped lawn bisected by the path up to the pool and the tennis court and the hedge cut to look like the top of a castle, crenellated, yes, that’s the word, and he got it first time, because he’s still got it, he’s still rapier-sharp, perfectly capable of running multimillion-pound deals, and of building a hide in a bomb hole, and of reading a screen full of figures faster and more insightfully than any of the younger guys coming up, Rafiq included, especially Rafiq in fact, despite his Harvard maths whatsit, and he’s also capable of evading goddamn Lancaster, because he’s Joseph Ashcroft, damnit, and he’s not ill, because in fact he’s in the prime of his life, and therefore still perfectly able to pull abstruse words like abstruse and crenellated straight out his head.

  He did fuck Heidi in their bedroom, though.

  Yes, but hold on: he’s not denying now and never has denied that he did make love to Heidi Sparks, his twenty-four-year-old PA, in his and Naomi’s room, once, on a Tuesday afternoon.

  Why?

  Well, there’s a question.

  And he’d love to sit here and debate the answer, but strangely he’s not going to.

  Naomi: ‘Heidi Sparks? What kind of a name is that?’

  He didn’t answer that question, either. Naomi, leaning back against the kitchen island (which had recently acquired a big dead-central pan-burn, courtesy of Zac, and yet she still refused to get a proper kitchen put in!) let her eyes fall to his feet and work their way slowly back up to his face, as if seeing him for the first time, looking him over with genuine curiosity.

  Then she laughed.

  Not a long laugh, just a sort of ‘huh’.

  Meaning: wow.

  Also meaning: that’s it, we are now dead.

  Don’t exaggerate.

  But that’s what it felt like, truly: her ‘huh’ was the final bullet, wasn’t it?

  Maybe, though other stuff came beforehand. Namely the time she found him sitting on the laundry box with his head in his hands, possibly weeping, definitely lost for words when she said, ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I know what’s eating you up, Joe.’

  It took Joseph a minute to manage: ‘Know what?’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I’m lost here.’ (True!)

  ‘You don’t have to talk to me about it. But you should see someone. I know—’

  Joseph, hopefully: ‘The bonus was a bit disappointing, yes, but everyone’s was down. Next year—’

  ‘It’s not that, Joe.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘You need some help.’


  ‘For what!’

  ‘Look at you.’

  Joseph stood up and looked out of the big window instead, at a hard blue sky cut by a contrail that, though he stared at it for a while, didn’t want to fade.

  Naomi sighed, then said, ‘Ben Lancaster told me all about what happened.’

  ‘Lancaster?’

  ‘Yes, ages ago.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘What happened on your tour. The real reason you left the army.’

  Joseph couldn’t help it: he let out a snort of relief.

  Which may have been, well, unwise, since it led to the ultimatum re the counselling, which Naomi seemed to think would actually help! With what? Post-traumatic stress disorder. She’d read up on it. Bless her. Allow a thing like that to fester and it might make a person somewhat erratic. Which explained things.

  Joseph tunes in to the actual aching gnawing feeling in his belly that’s making his head light and his hands shake now. Yes, let’s think about that instead. It’s something annoying he can do something simple to solve, isn’t it, because that’s right, it’s straightforward: he must eat!

  Immediately he remembers he’s hungry, Joseph is absolutely ravenous again.

  The big chest freezer, then. He skirts the lawn until he reaches the wrought-iron gate, behind which is a path of flagstones which leads round the side of the house to the double garage.

  This flat bit here is where Zac fell off his skateboard and cracked his head open, or cut it, at least, concussing himself in the process, while Naomi was out, meaning Joseph was in charge and hadn’t made his five-year-old son wear his tiger-striped helmet, a fact she didn’t bring up either when she joined them in the A&E queue, or when the doctor was putting in the stitches, or at any point afterwards actually, because she knew he was beating himself up about it anyway and, back in the day, that, meaning kind, was what she was like.

  Still is, deep down.

  He knows it.

  And he also knows the code to the side door of the garage, because he set it himself, and C2244Z pressed quietly into the keypad – ta da – works, so there.