by Dan Latus
‘I hope you didn’t sell me out,’ he said bitterly.
‘I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that, Tom. Now what do you want to eat? Let’s get started. It’s going to be a long day.’
He sat on the stairs, staring at me belligerently. ‘What did you tell them?’
‘Nothing, nothing at all. If it makes you feel any better, they don’t even know you’re here.’
I didn’t add that if they had known they would probably just have come in and taken him – or shot him. I wouldn’t have been able to stop them.
‘They were Logan’s men, presumably?’ I said.
‘Yeah. The guy you were talking to is called Blue.’
‘Blue?’
‘Don’t ask me. I know nothing about him, except he’s a hard bastard.’
‘Unusual name. Is that his surname or a nickname?’
‘No idea.’ Tom shrugged. ‘It’s all he ever gets called.’
He descended the stairs, apparently satisfied that I hadn’t sold him out, and we were able to get on with breakfast.
Once again, though, I had the sense that everyone else knew more than I did. How, for instance, did Tom know about this guy Blue? I’d never heard him mentioned before.
A little later Jimmy Mack wanted to show me something. He came over soon after we had finished eating and had me walk back to his place with him. His cottage is significantly closer than mine to the cliff edge.
Not now, Jim! I was thinking. I assumed he was going to complain about Tom, and I really hadn’t got time for that. I was itching to get moving. But I went with him because the car still hadn’t arrived and I wanted to placate him.
I was wrong about what he wanted.
‘There!’ Jimmy said, as soon as we were inside his living room. He pointed at the far wall. ‘It happened in the early hours.’
I peered at the wall and saw what he meant. A long horizontal crack had appeared since my last visit, twenty-four hours earlier. It zigzagged from one side of the room to the other.
I grimaced. ‘It’s new, isn’t it?’
He didn’t bother replying.
I moved up close and studied the crack. It wasn’t good, for either of us. I poked a finger into the plaster and met resistance. ‘It doesn’t go all the way through,’ I pointed out.
‘Not yet.’ Jimmy shrugged and added, ‘But it’ll be a toss-up which goes first, the cottage or me.’
I shook my head and chuckled uneasily. ‘I shouldn’t worry about it, Jim. It’s just a crack in the plaster. No need to panic.’
‘It means the ground has shifted,’ he said stubbornly. ‘It was like that just before the last two cottages went.’
I shrugged. ‘So what do you want to do?’
‘Stop here, I suppose,’ he said. ‘Be the last man standing.’
‘So you just wanted to upset my morning by showing me this crack?’
He grinned. There was nothing more to be said. He had just wanted to share the problem, and halve the load.
‘I’m going away for a while, Jim. When I get back, I’ll see what we can do.’
‘You’re going to hold the cliff up, are you?’
‘With your help.’
He chuckled, but his heart wasn’t in it. I knew how he felt.
I left him to it. I had other things, more immediate things, to worry about. But I knew he might well be right. The cliff could be preparing for another collapse, another retreat. And if Jimmy went, I would be the last man standing.
An hour later, by which time the sun had lit up Cleveland in its white blanket to look like Switzerland, Gerald’s men arrived in two cars. One turned an Audi round and waited. The other parked the Volvo I had selected, got out and came over to me. He handed over the keys and a packet of documents.
‘Sorry we couldn’t get here any earlier,’ he said. ‘There was a problem sourcing a coil spring for the suspension. Everything’s done now, though. And Gerald says you’ve got the documentation to go abroad, if you need it. There’s also a road atlas and a satnav in the car.’
I nodded my thanks and riffled quickly through the documents. Log book, insurance, breakdown cover. I couldn’t see that anything was missing. They had done very well getting all this together and sorting the car out overnight, especially given the chaos at the house. I took my hat off to Gerald.
‘Good luck,’ the delivery man said. ‘And don’t forget your passport!’ he added with a grin as he turned away.
I watched him get into the passenger seat of the Audi, and I watched the car pull smoothly away. A glimpse of long hair suggested the driver was a woman. Once the car was on the main road I turned and went back inside, wondering who the driver was. From the brief glimpse I’d had, it could have been Anne Steele’s stroppy sister, Senga.
Then the phone went.
‘I thought I told you to stay where you were. I wanted to speak to you.’
‘Morning, Bill!’
‘Is it? So what happened?’
I grimaced and took the phone over to the window. I thought the tranquil view might help me keep my temper with Bill Peart. We would both have too much to lose if angry words got the better of us.
‘I didn’t think I was under arrest,’ I said calmly. ‘In fact, I don’t see how I could have been. I’d only just arrived.’
‘What were you doing there?’
He was being particularly awkward this morning. He must have had a bad night, or not been to bed at all, perhaps.
‘The Steeles had asked me to do some work for them.’
‘What? Find out who wrecked their house?’
I chuckled. ‘That’s your job, isn’t it?’
‘It is now.’
I heard the tension go out of him with a sigh. Perhaps he had remembered at last that I was a friend.
‘So how did that happen?’ I asked.
‘I was the only one free when a call from the neighbour came in.’
‘And at calls from that road, with all those posh houses, you jump, eh? That’s if you like your job, and want to keep it, of course.’
‘Very funny. Did you see who broke into the house?’
‘No. It was all over by the time me and Josh Steele arrived. The wife was there all the time, though.’
‘So I understand. In a bloody panic room, would you believe! Hell of a set up they’ve got there. I’ve never seen anything like it.’
‘Me neither.’
He sighed again, considered things and decided there was nothing more he wanted to say to me just then. His parting shot was, ‘I’ll drop by later and see what you can tell me about these people.’
‘It’s not a good time, Bill.’
‘I’ll drop by anyway.’
The phone went dead. I shook my head. I deliberately hadn’t bothered telling him I wouldn’t be here. He might have stopped me and Tom leaving.
‘Come on, Tom,’ I said, looking round at my guest. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
‘We’re leaving?’
‘Yeah.’
‘When?’
‘Right now.’
Chapter Thirteen
Moving was good. It took my mind off all the problems I couldn’t solve or get out of my head.
I was happy, happy-ish at least, with what I’d been recruited to do. Getting Tom out of harm’s way was something I could handle, and was worth doing. It was all the other stuff that really bothered me. The sheer scale of the vendetta against the Steeles, for one thing. And the antagonism – hostility at times – between Tom’s parents. Plus their antipathy towards the police.
That last consideration, together with Tom being able to name the guy he said was called Blue, added to my feeling that the Steeles knew a lot more about their persecutor, Logan, than they had been prepared to tell me. That was worrying. What had I got myself into?
Whatever it was, there was nothing I could do about it at that moment. So I concentrated on the driving, and hoped my time away with Tom would provide some of the answers I wanted.
I dropped down to the A171, the main road to and from Whitby, and turned to head for Guisborough on the southern edge of Teesside, or the ‘Tees Valley’ as we are being encouraged to call the area in its post-industrial incarnation. The ploughs and gritters had been out in force overnight and we hadn’t had any more snow. So the road wasn’t too bad now. We were able to travel at a reasonable speed.
Tom still seemed uninterested in what we were doing and where we were going. Most of the time he spent fiddling with his mobile phone; texting, it looked like. I let him be for a while.
My thoughts turned to the theatrical performance on my doorstep that morning. What had that been about? It appeared that Logan felt I was a threat to his plans. I wasn’t too bothered that he knew about my involvement. It would keep me on my toes. The job hadn’t changed.
All I had to do, still, was keep Tom out of the way while his parents got the problem sorted. Easier said than done? Possibly. I hoped not.
‘There was some trouble at your parents’ house,’ I said eventually, breaking the silence.
‘Yeah? What kind of trouble?’
‘This Logan guy? Some of his men raided the place. Fortunately, your mother was able to hide herself away safely before they broke in. Then your father’s security team arrived and chased them off.’
He nodded and continued fiddling with his damned phone. I might as well have told him about yesterday in Parliament.
‘There was a bit of damage to the house – broken windows and doors off their hinges, and so on,’ I added. ‘Nothing that can’t be fixed, though.’
‘Right.’
His thumbs were still working away at the keyboard.
‘Tom, I have to tell you this,’ I said with some exasperation. ‘The plan is we drop out of sight for a couple of weeks, and let your dad fix the trouble. Right?’
‘Right.’
‘That means we can’t let anyone know where we are. If no one knows, Logan can’t find us. Right?’
‘Right.’
‘Now I don’t know who you’re texting, but you’d better not tell them where we are or where we’re going.’
He sighed, shook his head and gave a bitter little laugh. ‘Like that, is it?’
‘Yes, it is,’ I said with some irritation. ‘And while we’re on the subject, I have to remind you that I’m at risk here, as well as you.
‘You may feel your parents owe you plenty, you being a poor little rich kid and all, but I don’t owe you a thing. I want you to remember that. If you put me in danger I’m going to give you hell!’
‘Tough guy, eh?’ he said with a sneer.
‘Any time you want to find out, son, just let me know.’
The scorn and derision were inescapable, and they had got to me. I had to admit it. But I could live with that. I just didn’t want him letting the world know where we were. At least he put the damned phone back in his pocket after my little outburst.
Past Guisborough we dropped down through Ormesby to the Parkway. Then we circled round the south-west edge of Middlesbrough until we hit the A19 and could start heading north into Durham. The traffic eased once we were north of Billingham, and I could give Tom some attention again.
‘Who’s Julie?’
His head swung round.
‘She was asking about you at the house.’
‘Just a girl, a friend.’
‘Your girlfriend?’
‘Yeah. Something like that.’
‘She seemed a bit … hazy?’
‘That’s her.’
‘And your mum’s sister was there, too. Senga?’
He nodded but didn’t volunteer anything about his aunt.
‘Where are we going anyway?’ he asked suddenly.
‘Northumberland.’
‘Oh, great!’ he said with a bitter little laugh.
‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘Where do you think I’ve spent the last year?’
‘No idea. Where?’
‘Fucking Acklington – Northumberland!’
The Young Offender Centre, or whatever it was called now. I shrugged and kept going, desisting from telling him it would be different on this side of the wall.
‘What are you looking at?’ he asked. ‘You keep watching the mirror.’
‘Nothing. I’m just keeping an eye out for trouble.’
‘Are you expecting any?’
I shook my head. ‘Not really.’
But I wasn’t sure. There had been times ever since we’d set off when I’d wondered, have I seen that vehicle before? Is this one keeping pace with us? I didn’t want to be paranoid, but I didn’t want any nasty surprises either.
The trouble was there were so many dark-coloured four-by-fours on the road these days, and on a major road most vehicles travel at a constant speed. Easy to imagine this one or that one was following us. Besides, realistically, how likely was it that someone could have picked us up and tailed us this far unnoticed? Not very.
Still, the possibility niggled away at me. So I slipped off the A19 and took a small road that would take us west past Trimdon Colliery and Deaf Hill, and eventually put us on the A1 Motorway.
Our speed immediately dropped to less than forty. The snow was deeper up on the Durham plateau, and the road I had taken was down to a single lane because of it. Ploughing minor roads was understandably not a high priority.
Tom’s interest was aroused. ‘Where are we going now?’ he demanded.
‘I’m cutting across to the A1. We have to do it at some point, and this is as good a route as any other.’
‘So we get stuck in the fucking snow? Great thinking!’
I bit my tongue. He shook his head at the folly of us taking a snowbound minor road and returned to his smartphone. He was travelling with a total idiot.
‘Let me know what the cricket score is,’ I told him.
‘What?’
‘The third Test in India. England are playing to save the series.’
He just shook his head again. Cricket wasn’t on his agenda. I wondered what was. I also wondered what he did for fun.
We reached the A1 without me seeing anything in my mirror to fuel my suspicions. I relaxed and suggested stopping at the Durham Services place for a coffee. Tom couldn’t have cared less. We stopped.
As well as coffee we had a full English, all-day breakfast. Why not? I had plenty of money from Tom’s dad for expenses.
‘I missed this sort of thing when I was inside,’ Tom confided, betraying interest in something we were doing at last.
‘What? Food?’
‘Good food!’
I grinned. ‘Welcome back, in that case.’
I wasn’t sure that what we were eating qualified as good food, but at least the meal had brought him back to life.
‘Do you need some cash?’ I asked him afterwards as we headed for the exit.
He shook his head. ‘I’ve got plenty.’
I bought a paper. Tom bought a chocolate bar. Then we headed back to the car, ready to travel on.
I started the engine and adjusted the rearview mirror just as a big pickup truck pulled up close behind. Another vehicle, a Toyota four-by-four, drew up alongside us. The door of the Toyota was flung open and banged into us.
‘Hey!’ Tom cried.
But I had already reacted.
We were hemmed in. The only way was forward. I slid the gear stick into first and stamped hard on the accelerator.
The car leapt forward and into a mass of shrubbery that separated one row of parking bays from the next. There might have been a concealed fence to stop us in our tracks hidden away in there. But we got lucky – there wasn’t.
We burst out the other side, branches and bushes falling off the windscreen and trailing off the bonnet. I steered between two parked cars, scraping one of them with my front bumper, and turned a hard right. The tyres squealed in protest but we stayed upright. After that nothing held us back. We were away.
By the time we rejoi
ned the motorway from the slip road we were already doing eighty. I cut between two massive trucks, ignoring the flashing lights and blaring foghorn, and took off in the fast lane.
‘You OK?’ I shouted.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Tom nod.
‘They were coming for us,’ he said, almost in wonder. ‘I saw them getting out of the vehicles.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ I told him.
But he was right. That was what they had been doing – coming for us. Half a dozen of them, as well.
‘We’re OK now,’ I added. ‘They have no idea where we’re going. Nobody does.’
And as long as Tom kept off his bloody phone, nobody would.
‘Switch your phone off, Tom.’
He nodded and did it. The message had got through to him at last.
Chapter Fourteen
We kept going. So far as I could tell, we had lost the pursuit. Impossible to be sure while we were on the A1, with the heavy traffic around Newcastle, but it became easier when I turned onto the Jedburgh road and then, at a little place called Belsay, got onto country lanes. There was nothing behind us for miles now.
‘You’ll have to start navigating soon,’ I said, thrusting a road atlas at Tom.
He didn’t seem very keen on the idea but he took the atlas and opened it. I told him where we were heading.
‘Christ!’ he said when he’d spotted our destination. ‘It’s bloody miles away.’
‘That’s the idea.’
‘What will we do there?’
I hadn’t really thought of that. Saving Tom’s life had seemed enough of a challenge.
‘We’ll just get dug in, and wait for your folks to tell us the problem has been solved.’
He shook his head. ‘It could be a long wait.’
‘You know more than me, son, but your dad seemed pretty confident. A couple of weeks, he said.’
‘And the rest!’
‘You think?’
Tom shrugged. ‘He should know, I suppose. He’s the one that got us into this mess in the first place.’
And there was me thinking it was Tom himself who had done that. It confirmed my growing belief that I didn’t know the half of it. We kept going. Twenty minutes later we passed through a big village.
‘What on earth do all the people here do for a living?’ Tom wondered aloud. ‘Look – they’ve got shops and pubs, and everything!’
