“I swear I heard about it only a minute ago,” he says. He points, back to where that old cop was lecturing all the other cops.
“Say it. Say it out loud.” Old tequila swills around in my throat. If I puke again, I’m going to aim it right at him.
He takes a big old breath before he speaks. “They brought Frodo in last night. And they found him in his cell just an hour ago. It’s normally part of procedure, but... I guess someone forgot to take his belt off him.”
I’m standing there staring at Hutchy, who’s still sat like a gnome on the loo, and my mind’s racing, trying to stick together all the jigsaw bits. Because Frodo’s dead and if the look on Hutchy’s face means what I think it means, then Auntie Alice was right about cops round here being crooked. Frodo was a freak, but he weren’t the type for offing himself. He wore that ASBO tag like it was a Cub Scout badge for Advanced Hacking. He was proud of being an outlaw. So if Auntie Alice was right about police being dodgy, then that means the cops knocked off Frodo for one reason and one reason only, and that’s because he knew about that fucking Blighter. He knew about it and the cops knew about it, too, all along.
Seems to me that them Blighters are making shit for everyone.
So even though I’m staring at Hutchy, he might as well not be there anymore. Because now I’m thinking about Gail, who’s the only person except me who knows about that Blighter in the bothy, apart from the cops and whoever’s up there guarding it.
Gail would do anything to get back up there. I knew that already, but now it’s way more dangerous than even I thought.
Still. At least I’ve got—
I’m patting my pockets, front and back. Hutchy’s watching me, still scared as hell, like he thinks I’ve lost it and maybe I’m going to deck him after all. I just ignore him and my hands are shaking while I turn all my pockets inside out but there’s only sweets and receipts and fluff and nothing, nothing else.
Which means Gail’s got the car keys.
11
’COURSE, THE FLAT’S empty, so I’m in and out in like ten seconds. I leg it back all the way down Busher Walk and to the river and then across the bridge. I keep tripping because the laces of my Docs aren’t tied, but there ain’t time to stop.
My brain’s dotting around like crazy.
Now I’m not thinking about Gail no more. And for once I’m not even thinking about the night I found Mum and Dad dead in the lounge.
I’m remembering a whole other time, when I was like six or seven. It was Mum in the shower who screamed, but it was Dad who pulled the cover off of the Xpelair vent and it was me who ran in to see what all the fuss was about.
Wasps.
There was five of them, if you include the one that Mum saw fall down from the ceiling. Five of them, all sleepy and lolling around on the bathroom lino.
I looked at Dad and Dad looked at me. Them wasps didn’t hardly move at all, just wriggled a bit.
Dad pulled off one of his slippers and then splut, he crushed one flat.
I must have made a sort of ‘oh’ noise. Them wasps weren’t doing nothing.
Dad squished another one, and another. He looked at me like it was my fault, or like I told him to stop.
“They made a mistake,” he said. “They have to die.”
Maybe I am thinking about finding him and Mum dead, after all.
Frodo made a mistake, too. He made a mistake and the cops did the only thing they could think of to stop him telling more and more people about that Blighter up there. He had to die.
Before too long, I’ve made it round to Aynam Road. Maybe I should have kept up the cross country after all, because when I put my mind to it I can proper fly.
I stop for a couple of seconds outside Auntie Alice’s door. Not sure why. Maybe I’m thinking about spitting on it like I usually do when I come past. But there’s more important things right now. Her car’s just round the corner, on Parr Street, like it always is. You’d be an idiot to park here, where the streetlights are too spaced out to make it feel safe, but there you go. You’d be even more of an idiot to leave your car keys on top of your back tyre, like Auntie Alice does.
It’s a right old banger, a Volvo more made of rust than metal. I check all around and then bend down like I’m finally getting round to tying up my laces, but really I’m having a good old rummage around the wheel.
There’s nothing there. Seems like today’s a day for things not being where they should be.
The keys aren’t on the other side neither, or on the front tyres. Just when I thought I couldn’t hate Auntie Alice more, she goes and gets herself all safe and secure and really fucks things up.
I open a few of the garden gates nearby and poke around, looking for bricks or plant pots or what-have-you. It’s like they’ve got everything nailed down around here. What’s wrong with these people? So off comes one of my Doc Martens. I bring it down smack on the Volvo’s passenger window. The sole just boings off the glass and it absolutely wrecks all along my arm and I can’t stop myself shouting.
“You could have just knocked.”
I’m still holding my shoe above my head, ready for another go, as I spin round. Auntie Alice don’t even flinch. She just reaches up and pushes my hand back down, all gentle. In her other hand she’s dangling the car keys.
“I saw you from the window,” she says, pointing back at her house. “I thought maybe you were going to come and say hello.”
There’s all sorts of things I could say to her right now, and none of them’s ‘hello.’ I grab for the keys.
She snatches them back. “What’s the big hurry?”
Words just come out. “My friend Gail. She’s in trouble and the cops are in on it.” Without meaning to, my eyes are tearing up just a bit. I tell myself it’s to make Auntie Alice give in and hand over the keys, but that’s a fucking lie.
I jerk back when Auntie Alice puts her free hand on my shoulder. She’s wearing gloves. In fact, she’s all dressed up in warm clothes and ready to go. She scoots around to unlock the driver’s door and in she goes.
I’m staring at her from outside, through the other window. I’ve got my arms out wide, meaning, ‘what the actual fuck are you doing?’
She reaches over and unlocks the passenger door. She’s already shut her door so her voice is all muffly like she’s underwater and right now I wish she was, gurgling and not breathing. “You can’t even drive, Becky.”
I get in.
“I bloody can,” I say. “Ask the cops. Chased me all round town that time, they did.”
“I’m still your auntie. I’m responsible for you, even if you don’t like it. Now. Where are we going?”
I don’t want to tell her the truth, but there’s too many lies already. “There’s a Blighter up Sadgill way, hidden. Gail’s gone after it. They’ll kill her, Auntie Alice. Them cops are fucking going to kill her like they just now killed Frodo.”
Auntie Alice is giving me this weird look, made worse by the bruise I gave her on her cheek. I’m ready to say something proper mean, but then I see that the weirdness is more like sadness. Worry. She’s actually bothered about me and my life.
I’m crying now, proper tears. My chin’s shaking like it’s not part of me.
“Go!” I scream.
Auntie Alice starts the engine, but she’s still looking over at me.
“Drive! Didn’t you hear what I just said? Go!”
She goes. We’re off. She don’t look at me again while we’re speeding through the empty streets. I’m rubbing at my face with my sleeve, rubbing and rubbing, but it takes ages for them tears to stop coming.
It’s only when we get past the out-of-town Morrisons and away up Shap Road and leave Kendal behind that I start breathing normal. I’m not really looking out the window, like maybe I don’t want to think about what’s coming up. Instead I’m looking at this dead wasp that’s lying on the dashboard. Auntie Alice don’t use her car all that much, day to day. I bet this fucker got locked in last summer and then smacked
its head again and again on the window, trying to get out, then just fell down dead.
“What you said before,” I say. “About did I think you made Dad kill Mum.”
She keeps watching the road. I know what she’s thinking. She’s thinking didn’t I just tell her Gail’s in mortal danger and the cops are all bent and killers too. And here I am talking about 1999 again.
But “Yes?” is all she says.
“You saying you didn’t? You didn’t put him up to it?”
“I didn’t.” She checks both mirrors, then takes a big deep breath. “Your Dad, he was his own man. He was bright, Becky, brighter than the sun for those of us who were in his orbit. He took what he wanted and people were grateful to give it.”
I want to tell her that’s nothing like he was. But the thing is, she’s bang on. I remember one time some kid at the amusements won a prize at the claw grab just after I’d had my go. Dad convinced this six-year-old boy that the knock-off Tamagotchi was rightly mine, because if I’d stayed on I definitely would have got it, see? That little lad gave it up pretty much right away and then went off with a smile on his face, like he’d done a Boy Scout good deed.
Still, that don’t prove nothing really.
Auntie Alice’s voice gets mousey when she says, “Your mum knew, too.”
My throat goes all scratchy right away. I can’t speak.
“She knew about me and your dad. And she wanted out, even before that. We talked the whole thing through. We still loved each other—me and your mum, I mean. There were no hard feelings, if you can believe that.”
“There’s no way Dad would’ve carried on with you.”
Auntie Alice waves the hand that’s not on the steering wheel, meaning I’m probably right about that. “Anyway. Your mum was going to leave him, although I’m not sure it was because of what me and your dad were getting up to together.”
“Don’t sound all that likely. Mum hated travel. Dad was the one who liked gadding about.”
I can hear the smile in her voice. “You never went further than the Dordogne on your family holidays, did you? I know what you’re thinking about, though. You’re thinking of all those pictures he put up. Exotic locations. Am I right?”
I don’t say nothing to that because it’s scary, her reading my mind.
“Thought so,” she says. “But here’s the thing. I’ve got pictures like that on my walls, too. I’ve got the Dominican Republic in my downstairs loo. I don’t even know anyone who’s been to the Dominican Republic. You see what it means? Pictures like that don’t show we’re adventurous types, me or your dad. They show we’re panicking, that we wish we could change our lives. With your mum it was different. She didn’t need pictures, because it was the actual escape that mattered. Where she went was a minor detail. But this is the really important thing. She would have taken you with her. You must believe that, Becky?”
I cough. I think about spitting the ball of phlegm her way. I don’t.
Auntie Alice is still talking. “And... this is only what I think, but... I guess your dad couldn’t handle the thought of you both leaving him. He wouldn’t stand for it.”
She flicks the windscreen wipers on. The scraping sound mixes in with her breathing.
“I didn’t give him that weedkiller, Becky, I swear. He took it from my car. I had no idea until afterwards.” Her voice is going all croaky. “Your dad was always insecure, being so much older than your mum, being closer to my age than hers. Maybe that’s part of why he did what he did. I don’t know.”
I can’t think what to do to make her stop talking.
“But he didn’t just stop Mum and me leaving, did he?” I say. “He killed himself too.”
She shakes her head, but only in a way that says she’s buggered if she knows why.
But I know, because I’m a lot like him.
Pride.
“I’m glad I’ve had a chance to tell you this, finally,” Auntie Alice says.
“Wish I could say the same.” My throat’s thick and the words are all squeaky.
“I always wanted to tell you about that part especially, about you and your mum and what might have happened next. And it’s not exactly true that your mum didn’t care where she went. She had plans for the both of you, and I wanted to tell you, I did, but you’ve never let me talk, even after I was proved innocent. She talked about it all the time, Becky. You’d both have left Kendal and headed to the coast. Your mum always talked about it. There was a particular image she had stuck in her mind, like it was a painting or a photo she could see. Nothing very specific, but beautiful all the same. It was you and her, facing out to sea. Starting again. Finding yourselves some calm.”
I slam my hands on the dashboard, making that dead wasp go flying like it was still alive.
There’s flashing lights up ahead, just past the Selside turn at Garnett Bridge.
“The blockades,” I say. “They ain’t letting folks go up there.”
This is why I’d have been better off twocking the car. Auntie Alice fucking loves rules, I bet. And she’s the one who’s driving, so this is basically game over.
But Auntie Alice gives me a serious teachery look. “Your friend. You’re sure about her, about what’s happening?”
“I’m not a kid. I know what’s what. I see things.”
“I know that. Becky, I know.”
We’re close enough now to see the fencing they’ve put up across the road. If you didn’t know better you’d think they was setting up for roadworks. The fence is all white and yellow stripes and they’re shining bright enough to make my eyes hurt, reflecting the headlights of Auntie Alice’s Volvo.
Until them stripes suddenly aren’t shining no more.
I look over at Auntie Alice but I can’t hardly see her face now she’s turned the headlights off. Her body’s all bent forwards. The car’s going faster and faster.
Next to the fence there’s one of them tents that builders use. I can just about see someone coming out of it. The streetlights round here are shite, but I can make out the outline of the police hat.
A torch flicks on. Auntie Alice puts her foot down. We’re heading straight at the fence.
It’s thicker than it looks. When we hit it, there’s a ripping sound, along with the smack of metal on wood. My head goes backwards and forwards, thwacking into the headrest twice.
But we’re through. There’s this nasty scraping sound coming from Auntie Alice’s side of the car, and there’s a big fuck-off wodge of wood on the bonnet, blocking part of the windscreen. But we’re through.
We fly round the corner, past Garnett Bridge and further up Shap Road and away. When we’re clear of the village, Auntie Alice turns the headlights back on. It’s only now that I realise she’s been basically driving blind for like a minute. I can’t help giving her respect for that, but I swallow it deep down rather than say so out loud.
She shoots me a look. Part of it’s checking on me, I reckon, but I can see this pride in her. I swear she knows what I’m thinking.
“Let’s go and help your friend,” she says.
When we get off the main road, I point out the way to go. Both of the other times I came this way I was sneaking looks at Gail out the corner of my eye. She knew it, too. Now I’m staring right ahead, watching walls and postboxes and trees show up like ghosts in the headlights.
Gail’s Corsa’s just off the road at Sadgill, parked all cockeyed like she was driving it in her sleep. I jump out and put both my hands on the bonnet.
“It’s cold,” I say. “She could have had like an hour’s head start.”
Auntie Alice hasn’t got out of her seat, she’s just wound down her window. “And how far away’s this bothy of yours, on foot?”
I make a face.
“Then hop back in.”
She’s right. There’s no time for sneakiness now. We’re in emergency rescue mode. If that cop at the blockade saw our number plate, we’re fucked. And even if he didn’t, he’ll have Oscar-Miked on
his walkie talkie and every bent cop in the county’ll be on our tails right now.
12
THE BONNET OF the Volvo bounces up and down every time we hit a bump. And there are a lot of bumps once we leave the main road. Auntie Alice guns the thing straight up the fellside so it ends up skidding around all over the place on the wet grass. Dad used to say that back in Grandad’s day they raced cars up the fells, before health and safety and the environment and all that. Even though I’m scared to death I’m still sort of enjoying the feeling of us smashing a car to bits, driving it somewhere nobody should drive.
The car’s just about to give up or tip over when I see the people standing at the top of the hill.
“There!” I shout.
There are two of them, black against the purply sky. The one on the right has mad hair flying around. That’s Gail, for sure. The other one has their hands on their head like they’re playing a game of Simon Says.
My foot gets caught on the car door while I’m trying to get out.
“Stop!” I shout while I’m pegging it up the hill. “Gail! Don’t!”
Soon as I get close I can see the other person’s that same farmer, the one who looked so surprised when he caught me with my sound grenades the other night. He don’t look surprised now, just pant-shittingly scared. He looks at me and then back up at the rifle that Gail’s got pointed at him.
Gail looks over my shoulder and makes a face. Auntie Alice has showed up and now she’s standing beside me.
“Becky,” Auntie Alice says, all whispery. She tilts her head to one side.
I look where she’s nodding.
Further up the hill the wind’s blowing at something. At first I think it’s a pile of old clothes, but then I spot a hand sticking out. The fingers are all twisted and dug into the grass. Now I can see the guy’s face, too, sort of. There’s not much of it in one piece. My mouth suddenly fills up with sick. I spit on the floor and hope I don’t lose it, not while there’s work to be done.
“Come with us,” I say, jabbing my thumb over at the Volvo. “We can still get away. Away away.”
Invaders From Beyond Page 19
