by Bob Summer
‘Maybe I won’t go back to Basley. Stay out, touring the open road.’
‘Don’t be such a doughnut. How will you survive?’
‘I’ve managed okay so far.’
‘It’s only been hours. Hardly enough time to get hungry. And what about your family? They’re going to worry about you if you just vanish. Specially in the middle of a lockdown.’ The image of a bunch of forget-me-nots flashed in front of my eyes.
‘Okay, let’s keep focused on today,’ said Stuart, ‘We need to find this Mary.’ His eyes still had that glint of anger about them, but it softened when he spoke to me. ‘Joe will handle the stuff at home, try not to worry.’
Gavin kicked up the stand and pushed his bike along the gutter. ‘Yeah. Joe will be fine.’ All the emphasis on Joe. He wasn’t so blasé about his family as he’d like us all to think. His mum and kid brothers were back there too.
I opened my mouth to say something reassuring but Stuart shook his head so I left it. After all, I didn’t know his family would be okay. Or even if Joe would be okay come to that. None of us knew anything.
Mary was a stupid name, it didn’t fit the person at all. Mary’s are old, plump and bubbly, not six foot tall and string skinny. This Mary had blonde fluffy hair, boobs busting out of a plastic tube-like thing, her legs orange and endless - a typical Gav-looking girl. She studied me from neck to toe. Despite all the paint on her face she looked sour-mouthed and hostile. ‘Who’s she?’
‘These are my friends,’ said Gavin. ‘Is it all right if they ask a few questions?’
‘They can ask. Not going to promise I’ll answer.’ She folded her arms and gave Gav the glare. ‘You left without saying goodbye.’
‘I’m here now, aren’t I? How could I stay away?’
She pulled away from his outreached hand. I managed not to smile. She clearly wasn’t as dumb as she looked and I felt a twang of respect.
We were standing in the street outside a small antique shop. The owner, her boss and possibly her father, fiddled with pieces of paper at the counter, his eyes never leaving us for a second.
Stuart stepped forward. ‘Perhaps we can take you for a coffee. Or lunch.’
‘What do you want?’
‘We’re doing a project on old buildings and their uses. There’s a big Manor house a couple of miles up the road. We just want to know what it’s used for? What goes on inside it?’ He shrugged. ‘Boring stuff like that.’
No way would she believe that one.
‘What’s it worth?’ she said, quick like she’d dealt with such things a million times before.
Gavin looked shocked. ‘Eh?’
Mary ignored him and I almost laughed aloud.
Stuart took off his watch. ‘This is all I have left but it’s worth a few quid.’
Mary looked but didn’t reach out. ‘I like the bike.’
‘No way.’ Gavin shook his head. ‘Not a hope. I’ve only just got it.’
Mary shrugged and looked at her own watch.
Stuart spoke to Gavin, ‘You can get another bike.’
Gavin shuffled his feet and stroked the handlebar. ‘No way. Jeez. I’ll never get the chance to have anything like this again.’
Stuart stepped closer and spoke quietly into Gavin’s face. ‘There are lots of bikes. I have one sister.’
Mary and I watched as Gav and Stuart had a minor stand-off. There might be lots of bikes in Stuart’s world, but odds were this would be the only one Gavin ever got a hold of.
‘I’m not giving up my bike.’
Any other time I might have relaxed and enjoyed the fun of seeing Gavin squirm but the last thing we needed right then was a public scrap in the street. ‘Listen, Gav,’ I said, ‘you can’t take it home anyway, how would you explain where it came from? And you will have to go home. You know as well as I do that no other county will allow you to get a job or anything. You can’t live off fresh air. If you have to lose the bike, it might as well be now, for a good reason.’ I didn’t want to say much more, not in front of Mary who stood watching with a slimy smile on her perfectly made-up face.
‘But I could sell it.’ He stroked the seat.
‘Gav please.’ I leaned in and whispered. ‘Think what Joe will say if he finds out how you got it.’
‘Aw, sheesh.’ He pushed it towards Mary. ‘We want to know everything there is to know about that place. Everything.’
Mary turned and nodded at the man behind the counter and he came out followed by two steroid-bulked guys who must have been hiding under a table or something. I glanced at Stuart who watched Gavin hand over the bike. Gavin put his hands into his pockets, slouched his shoulders, glum as a week old plum. I patted his shoulder. Like I cared. Stuart turned his attention back to Mary and I began plotting where to light the flame on the shop-front if she failed to keep her side of the deal.
‘It’s a research centre,’ she said. ‘A chemical laboratory developing drugs for kids. Something to do with keeping the population down – chemical sterilisations or whatever.’ She shrugged. ‘Some foreigners have commissioned it. Brings a lot of money into the town. That’s all I can tell you.’ She turned and stepped through the door. Her dad closed it firmly behind her and Gavin, Stuart and I were left standing on the street like an unwanted delivery of muppets.
‘How many words was that?’ Gavin waved his arms about. ‘A bike like that baby for what? A dozen words?’ He pointed through the window towards the man who had returned to the counter like nothing had happened. ‘Are we going to let them get away with that?’
Stuart spoke icy cold. ‘Yes. We don’t need any trouble and I already told you, I’ll get you another bike.’ And to me, ‘We need to get the kids out of there. Today.’ He walked away.
Gavin looked like he might cry. ‘Atty?’
‘I guess if it’s all Mary knows, it’s all Mary knows.’ I followed Stuart.
‘But,’ Gavin danced alongside me, ‘but we could take them, come on. What’s happened to you? You never used to be so … so obedient.’
‘I’m picking my battles.’
Gavin sneered. ‘You’re being a wuss.’ He faked a wussy voice, ‘It’ll work out, Atty.’ Then he played it whiny, ‘Okay Stuey wooey, I’ll just roll over and do everything your way.’
‘Shut the a-hole up, Gavin,’ I said, ‘it’s running away with itself and talking crap again.’ And to think I almost felt sorry for him having to give up the bike.
‘If it was your bike I bet you wouldn’t walk away so easily.’
I stopped. ‘And if it was one of your kid brothers in there, getting drugged up to stop them breeding, would you walk away with the bike?’
If Gav loved anybody it was his brothers. He looked everywhere but my eyes. ‘We don’t know whether Mary is even telling the truth.’ But the fight had gone clean out of him. He turned quiet and sulky. ‘I should have just kept riding and left you to it. Gone up to Scotland or somewhere.’
‘It’s not too late to keep walking. Go.’ I strode away to catch up with Stuart knowing Gavin would follow. He had nowhere to go, nobody to run to, and, without the bike, no way of getting there.
It only took two hours to hike to the Manor. And this time, we all climbed the easy route up the hill, one after the other. We sat side by side, me in the middle, looking over into the grounds. The blinds were still drawn and nothing moved anywhere. It looked like a painting.
‘So,’ said Stuart. ‘Ponies and go-karts, eh?’
Gavin ignored him. ‘What do we do now?’
Stuart adjusted his position. ‘We have patience. Something has to happen sometime. And then we watch and learn.’
Brilliant. More waiting.
After what felt like several awkward hours, but might have been only five minutes, a truck with ‘International Security Specialists’ written across its flank, pulled up at the Manor entrance. A man got out, keyed a number into the pad, and the gates swung open.
‘That looked easy,’ said Gavin.
&nbs
p; Such a dork. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘He used a code, Gavin.’
‘We can get a code.’
‘How?’
‘We’ll stop him down the road and ask him.’
‘What - you think he’ll just spit it out? Or have you got another bike we can bribe him with? Stashed in your pocket perhaps?’
He glanced at his lap and waggled his eyebrows. ‘I’m just delighted to see you again, Atty.’ He laughed. ‘We can persuade him to hand it over. A little not-so-gentle encouragement should do it.’
‘You mean batter him.’
‘You got a better idea?’
Stuart sighed. ‘Guys, you’re going to have to cut out this senseless squabbling. If we’re going to do this we have to try and work together.’
It felt like a slap in the eye. ‘What? There are three of us now?’
‘He says he wants to help. We need all the help we can get.’
‘But, you agreed he’s not on our team. What happened to it being just us? We can’t trust him. It’s all his fault.’
Gavin put his hand on my arm and tilted his head in mock sincerity. ‘You can trust me, Atty. I promise.’
I rounded on him. ‘Don’t you dare touch me.’ I gave him my most evil eye. ‘Ever again.’
‘Look,’ said Stuart. ‘I’m not asking you to kiss and make up. Just to put your differences to one side while we get Gemma out of there.’
Stuart and his all dancing, duck-plucking sensible, understanding, reasoning. He made me feel stupid and juvenile. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘But it would be much better if we just stowed away in the back of the truck. Then, if there is somebody monitoring the camera, they will see a familiar face punching the keys.’
Stuart nodded. ‘Excellent suggestion.’
I felt ridiculously chuffed despite a sneaky suspicion he might be being more than a teeny bit patronising.
Gavin looked from me to Stuart and back again, confused and gormless. ‘So when we batter him, we mustn’t batter his face.’
Brains of a banana might be the best description.
Stuart continued in the assumed role of guvnor. ‘We need to get a means of following the truck when it comes out.’ He pointed at Gavin. ‘You can steal us a car.’
‘What now? Where from?’
‘That’s up to you. You’re either in our team or not. Get us a car and wait for us down there. Park up behind the clump of trees.’
Gavin pouted, bit like trout face, but twisted onto his knees and put one leg over the edge of the cliff. And then he looked at Stuart. ‘You won’t go anywhere and just, well, leave me here, will you?’
If only his estate mates could have seen him. Talk about pitiful. I shook my head and sighed in sympathy. ‘Wow, Gav. Did you see that?’ I looked up at the cloudless sky. ‘That bad-ass meadow-fracking image you took all those years to establish? It just rocketed straight out the atmosphere.’
Chapter 21
Gavin’s head disappeared over the edge of the cliff. Stuart put his arm around me. ‘You shouldn’t tease him like that.’ He nudged my head with his forehead. ‘Naughty.’
‘He asked for it. You should see him strutting his stuff at home. He thinks he’s the donkey’s plums.’
‘You appear more than a little obsessed with donkeys and certain parts of their anatomy.’
‘And you appear pretty obsessed with pointing it out.’
He gave me a squeeze. ‘I like the reference.’
I laughed but it sounded false. I coughed, left a couple of beats then asked, ‘Are you feeling okay about all this?’
He swallowed. ‘As much as I could be, I suppose.’ He still looked angry but smiled at me. ‘Yeah. Better when we get Gemma back, which we will. But yeah, I’m okay. You?’
‘Of course.’ I clenched my fists and held them up to my chin. ‘Experienced, remember? I’ll be fine.’
‘Great stuff.’ He winked. ‘You can go in first.’ Before I could reply he said, ‘So what do you reckon? Do you think Gavin will make a run for it or come back with some wheels?’
‘Oh he’ll be back. He only wanted to run away so he could keep the bike. And even if there was no lockdown, Joe would go mental if he ran home without me.’
Stuart kept his arm hooked around my neck. ‘He must think a lot of you. Joe.’
‘Yeah. He’s been good to me.’
‘Will he be okay? I don’t mean now, the lockdown, I mean after all this is done? Will he take you back?’
I swivelled to look at him straight on. ‘What? It’s not like … that. He’s old enough to be my father. He’s my dad’s best mate, that’s why he looks out for me.’
‘I know. But back into his confidence I mean.’
‘He’ll be okay.’ I thought about it. Given what I’d learned about Dad, I had as good a reason to be mad at Joe as he had to be mad at me. Well, almost. Maybe. Anyway, whatever, Joe might be a buffoon mobster but he loved me even if he might be bad at showing it. It would take something seriously rotten for him to write me out of his life. Thinking harder, it wouldn’t happen. ‘He’ll come round,’ I said. ‘Why?’
‘I just don’t want any of this mess to cause you any long-term grief.’ He looked at me and rolled his eyes before gazing back down into the valley. ‘You know I like you.’ A long pause. ‘A lot. I don’t like to think of you being lonely.’
‘I’m used to being on my own. I like it.’
We sat and watched the gates while we waited for Gavin. After an hour or so the delivery van left and headed back towards Shepton. Stuart groaned. ‘Gavin’s not very quick, is he?’
‘Maybe he’s got caught.’
He tutted. ‘Wouldn’t that be just what we needed?’
‘Perhaps we should have stolen something ourselves,’ I said. Judging by his panic after nicking the DVD I doubted Stuart had ever nicked anything else, certainly not a car.
He turned away, squinting into the sunshine. ‘Mm.’
But we didn’t have to wait much longer before a jeep came crashing down the lane, bouncing off the hedgerows. I groaned. ‘What’s the betting?’
‘So long as he’s on his own, who cares?’
Gavin created an untidy doughnut around a mash of brambles before skidding to a hand-brake halt behind the trees. We watched to make sure nobody had followed him before we clambered down the cliff.
‘Nice one. Thank you,’ said Stuart as he slipped into the passenger seat. I climbed into the back. Stuart no longer appeared impatient or fed up at having to hang around waiting. Quite the opposite. His ability to maintain super politeness whatever the occasion, with whoever was around, even Gavin for sanity’s sake, was beginning to get right up my rear. He slapped Gavin on the shoulder like they were best buddies. ‘Let’s go find that truck. It left about twenty minutes ago, heading towards Shepton.’
The jeep bunny-hopped out of the field, my head nearly bouncing off my shoulders.
‘Is it supposed to be doing this?’ I said, my voice shuddering with the rattling.
‘I’m still getting used to the clutch.’
‘We’ll hardly keep a low profile going through town bucking like a kangaroo on acid.’
‘Do you want to drive?’
Stuart put on a sing-song voice. ‘You’re doing it again. Arguing like two-year-olds.’
I glared at him. ‘A girl can go off somebody, you know.’ As soon as the words were out I wanted to snatch them back. Gavin grinned at me through the rear-view mirror. I smacked the back of his head. ‘Watch the road.’
Most shops along Shepton seafront were reserved for seasidey stuff, such as sticks of rock and bikinis. So when we saw the van parked half way along, we guessed the driver had likely gone in the one general store. Despite, or maybe because of all the CCTV, the place heaved with people and a lot of them were security. I didn’t fancy testing their tolerance.
‘We need to keep going,’ I said. ‘Don’t stop.’ The Shepton Law might have appeared all warm and cuddly but I suspected the town was only so wel
coming because they had a good hold on the petty stuff. Like jeep-nicking. Basley Law took the hard-line approach so the town was a wreck and I assumed places with a soft, ineffective Law would be equally shambolic. It looked like Shepton Law had the balance pretty much perfect. It seemed to make for a happy home. Of course a dodgy science lab offering ample jobs, possibly even community-boosting hush-money, might also have had something to do with it.
Gavin cruised past the store. ‘We’ll ambush him along the lane, half way up the hill, where it’s quiet. That way, if he gets uppity we can give him a slap.’
‘The less violence the better,’ said Stuart. ‘All I want you to do is distract him while Atty and I climb in the back of the truck. Hopefully he’ll take us all the way into the Manor.’
‘How am I going to get in?’ Gavin gave me the filthiest look in the rear-view mirror.
I liked being picked because I liked Gavin’s ego getting bashed, but I wasn’t sure about going into the Manor without any sort of plan. Not that I admitted it. Quite the opposite. ‘No probs,’ I said, grinning like a monkey.
‘We need you to wait outside with the jeep,’ Stuart said to Gavin. ‘Ready to get us away. That small gate at the back of the grounds looks the best bet. Wait for us there.’
My stomach flip-flopped and my voice sounded weak, even to me. ‘What if we get caught?’
‘We won’t.’ This must be macho, tough-man Stuart. He was so full of surprises I’d run out of boxes to tick.
Before we headed off up the hill, we stopped at the B&B to steal the duvet cover.
‘It’ll be doing the next guests a favour,’ said Stuart.
‘Stained, is it?’ Gavin raised his eyebrows at me.
Stuart sent him a big-man scowl. ‘I’ll be slapping your bloody head in a minute. Now just drive and stop being a bloody …’ He tailed off, screwing his mouth up in frustration.
