Crooked Leg Road

by Jennifer Walsh

  The window was open a little way, and she realised that the people inside were making quite a lot of noise. This would have easily covered any sounds she and Skender might have made getting into position.

  They were looking across a kitchen bench littered with pots and dishes into a large, untidy room with a big table and various other items of old wooden furniture, faded cushions and lots of paintings on the walls. A mattress took up some of the floor space, with sheets and blankets strewn across it.

  There were four people in the room. A man with tangled greying hair and a beard was lying on a couch against the far wall and David was leaning over him, dabbing at his face with a white cloth. Something about that scene made Kitty’s stomach clench with fear. Standing near David were two other men, shouting at each other. These men were both dark. The taller one had curly hair. The other, fat, bearded and almost bald, was waving a mobile phone and seemed to be working himself up into a rage. It was hard to know what they were arguing about, because they were not speaking English.

  David entered the fray, raising his voice to make himself heard.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘you’ll have to go into town, so you can take Adam to the hospital. I’ll come—’

  ‘Shut up!’ screamed the fat man. He whirled towards David, and Kitty saw for the first time a gun in his hand. ‘Maybe we just kill him now!’ Kitty put her hands over her mouth to suppress a little moan.

  Speaking more quietly, the men resumed their intense debate, then they seemed to make a decision. The fat one grabbed a set of car keys from the table and turned to go, shoving the gun into the pocket of his jacket.

  The curly-haired man said something in an urgent tone and pointed at the pocket. In response to this, the other man gave a contemptuous snort. He strode over to the fireplace in the centre of the room and grabbed a heavy iron poker, whipped it through the air a couple of times, then laid it on the table. He pointed to David and snarled a few words, then walked out of sight.

  Skender grabbed Kitty’s arm and she froze. A few seconds later a door slammed, then they heard the sound of a car starting up and leaving.

  The remaining man sat down on a chair next the table, facing David and the man on the couch. The poker lay on the table behind him. No one spoke.

  Kitty sneaked a look back towards the other window where Martin and Andrea were. She could just see Martin’s face, and he was looking in her direction. He raised his eyebrows and jerked his head towards her left side, where Skender had been. It was only then that she realised Skender had gone.

  Of course, she thought, although her heart sank. Running away and hiding in the bush was probably the smart thing for Skender to do. Why should he help them rescue Andrea’s father and David? He was at far greater risk than they were – but she hoped she would be able to convince the others that Skender was not letting them down.

  Then a movement caught her eye, and she saw Skender creep into the room through the open glass door from the back verandah. David’s captor was only half turned away, but his attention was on his prisoners. Skender tiptoed with infinite care across the open space. Kitty clenched her fists, her fingernails digging into her palms, and stopped breathing.

  The man seemed to sense something. He turned and lunged forward, just as Skender seized the poker and swung it at him. With a thud the poker came crashing down on the man’s head and he twisted and fell, almost into David’s lap. David screamed and flung himself protectively across the body on the couch.

  ‘I didn’t mean to hit his head,’ said Skender, glancing at the others’ shocked faces in the window. ‘Please, he is not dead, is he?’

  30

  FOR all his apparently casual demeanour, Adam was pretty cool, David thought. After he had made that remark about the frogs he paused for a second, looked out the nearest window into the gathering darkness, then took three strides to the telephone on the small side table. But when he listened, his face changed.

  ‘Wire’s cut,’ he whispered. ‘Let’s just stroll out the back, mate, nice and slow.’

  David turned towards the back of the house just as two men burst into the room from the short hallway that led to the front door. One of them, a shortish fat man with a beard, was pointing a handgun at them.

  ‘Over there,’ he said, gesturing. ‘Over by the wall. Together.’ He had a heavy accent.

  ‘Do we have to put our hands up?’ asked David.

  ‘Why?’ The other man looked younger, and seemed very pleased with himself. ‘You got gun in your pocket? Hidden weapon? Knife in your sock?’ He laughed at his own joke.

  ‘You are David Newman,’ the fat man said, ignoring his companion.

  ‘No I’m not.’

  ‘Huh? What is your name, then?’

  ‘John Clayton. This is my Uncle Adam.’

  The fat man snapped his fingers. His companion pulled out a smartphone from one pocket and a battery and SIM card from another. They fumbled to put everything together and get the phone working, then started flicking through images, looking from the screen to David and back again. The younger man shoved the phone in David’s face, and he was chilled to see pictures of himself outside his house, at the school gate, even on the school bus.

  He tried bravado at first. ‘Hey, didn’t know I had a double!’

  ‘You are David Newman,’ said the fat man again.

  There was a picture of Andrea outside David’s house. Was that how they had found him? There was even a scan of his passport.

  ‘How did you get this stuff?’ he asked. ‘That’s invasion of privacy!’

  ‘We have good network,’ said the fat man. ‘No one hide from us.’

  They posed David then, in Adam’s living room with some of his paintings in the background. The fat man, his head swathed in a scarf with only his eyes showing, held the gun to David’s head.

  ‘Hey, steady on!’ said Adam.

  ‘Do what we say and no one get hurt,’ growled the bearded man. ‘All ready, Enver.’

  The other man took a few pictures and they chose one. They composed a text message, attached the selected picture to it and sent it off. As soon as they had clicked the Send button they pulled the phone apart again.

  So they knew about people being able to trace you through your phone, thought David. But they didn’t seem to know about patchy phone coverage. He would have left the phone on for a while to make sure the message got through, but he could see that hadn’t occurred to these guys.

  The two men explored the house, peering into cupboards.

  ‘You got food?’ the bearded one asked Adam.

  ‘David was just about to heat up the stuff in that pot,’ he said, ‘and maybe cook some rice.’

  The man lifted the lid on the pot and sniffed the contents suspiciously.

  ‘What kind of meat is this?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s tofu,’ said David. ‘Adam’s vegetarian.’

  ‘Tofu?’ David might as well have said cyanide. ‘Hmmm. Okay, maybe we have some. You get it ready.’

  ‘Well, don’t eat it just to be polite,’ said David. ‘We haven’t got all that much.’

  ‘Cook,’ growled the man.

  David measured out a generous amount of rice, hoping that this turn of events meant that the men did not intend to kill Adam or him, or at least not for a while, and that in the meantime there might be a way to outsmart them.

  The younger man, Enver, grumbled about the food, but he ate his share and finished off the chocolate biscuits and grapes from Adam’s last shopping excursion. David watched glumly. He got up and cleared the table, stacking the dishes on the sink and rinsing out the pots. He and Adam usually left the real washing-up till morning, because it was easier in daylight.

  Later in the evening Marko, the bearded man, had another look around the house and came back with the front door key. He locked the glass doors that usually stood open at the back and put both keys in his pocket, then he barked an order to Enver. Looking resentful, Enver went into Adam’s ro
om and came back dragging Adam’s mattress and bedding, which he laid against the living-room wall.

  ‘You sleep there,’ said Marko, pointing. ‘Both. Lie down there.’

  ‘Can we clean our teeth?’ asked David, miming.

  ‘Lie down! Sleep!’

  They arranged themselves as comfortably as they could on the double mattress while Enver stretched out on the narrow couch against the wall. Marko sat at the table, the gun close by, and glared at them all. In his right hand he held a string of beads that he passed constantly through his fingers, and the soft clinking sound was the last thing David heard as he drifted off into a troubled sleep.

  It was just getting light when he felt a hand on his arm and opened his eyes to see Adam’s face close to his. Adam held a finger to his lips and pointed. Marko was now on the couch, sleeping. Enver was sitting at the table, on guard, but he had slumped forward, his head in his hands, and from his soft, regular breathing it was clear that he was also asleep.

  David rose slowly and carefully, picked up his shoes and tiptoed after Adam to the back of the room. There was a single glass door which was locked on the inside with a simple bolt at floor level. It looked as though it hadn’t been opened for a while. Adam turned the bolt to the open position and it made a tiny creaking noise. David crammed his shoes on while he watched, holding his breath. Adam pulled the bolt up very carefully, centimetre by centimetre. David’s eyes were fixed on the two men, who had not stirred.

  There was another small creak as the door opened, though Adam pulled it infinitely slowly and carefully. David was right behind him as he tiptoed across the verandah towards the ute parked beside the house, and cannoned into him as he suddenly stopped.

  ‘No go,’ whispered Adam. ‘The bastards have slashed the tyres.’

  The old car looked very forlorn, sitting on earth.

  ‘Can we take their car?’ said David. ‘The keys are on the table, I could just sneak in and grab them.’

  ‘Too risky. We’ll go cross-country. Let’s get to the other side of the studio so we’ve got some cover.’

  The studio was several metres behind the house, down a close-packed dirt pathway. They were nearly there when they heard an angry yell from the house.

  ‘Run,’ hissed Adam, pushing David ahead of him.

  The shot wasn’t really loud, just a sort of pop in David’s ears, then he heard Adam cry out and felt him stumble. Momentum kept David running a few more steps, then he heard another shot. Something pinged on the ground by his feet and he stopped.

  For a moment he stood there, his back to the house, not wanting to turn around, dreading what he might see; then he was on his knees at Adam’s side.

  ‘Sorry, mate,’ whispered Adam. ‘If you get another chance, go up and over.’

  AT first Adam hadn’t seemed too bad, although the wound was ugly. He had been able to struggle to his feet, which was lucky because the two men did nothing to help. With Marko still pointing the gun at them and gesturing impatiently, David managed to get Adam back into the house and settled onto the couch. The bullet had hit him on his right shoulder, and there was a lot of blood but no sign of major damage, nor was he in too much pain. David tore strips off a sheet and wound them around Adam’s body as tightly as he dared, to slow down the bleeding. Enver and Marko still made no move to help.

  As time went on, Adam grew feverish, and David got some water and took to sponging his forehead and giving him regular sips. He seemed to be deeply unconscious now, and the area around the wound was red and very hot.

  ‘Listen,’ David said to Marko, ‘Adam’s not too good. How long do we have to stay here?’

  ‘Not so long,’ said Marko. ‘All over by tonight.’

  ‘Well, whatever you’re planning to do with me, please take Adam to the hospital in town.’ David spoke as firmly as he could, trying not to reveal his fear of what these men might intend for him and his family.

  Marko shrugged. ‘Maybe.’

  Soon after this, Adam entered a period of restlessness. Still unconscious, he started tossing and turning, groaning and gasping. Seeing that it was getting on Marko’s nerves, David tried again.

  ‘Marko,’ he said, ‘You don’t want Adam to die, you’d be in much bigger trouble then. Why don’t you drop him outside the hospital and then just take me somewhere else and hide until – I don’t know – whatever you’re doing is finished.’

  Not looking at him, Marko and Enver conferred, then Marko pulled out the phone and assembled it. David thought for a split second that they were calling a doctor, but then he realised that they had decided to ask someone else, presumably someone higher in the chain of command, for advice.

  They were halfway through composing a text message when the phone beeped. This caused great excitement for a moment, as they clearly thought they were about to get a reply to their message from the previous night; then Marko read what the phone had to say and started shouting at Enver.

  David didn’t need to know a word of their language to follow the next exchange, as they blamed each other for the message not getting through, for not knowing that the message had not got through, for not composing the message properly, for not taking the picture properly, and so on. They both seemed worried and frightened. Enver even picked up the landline phone as if to use that, but Marko knocked it out of his hand, snarling.

  It was pretty obvious that their priority now was to get phone coverage and send their precious message, so David weighed into the debate.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘you’ll have to go into town to use your phone, so you can take Adam . . . ’

  ‘Shut up!’ screamed Marko. ‘Maybe we just kill him now!’

  After a bit more debate the two men reached a conclusion, but they didn’t look at Adam, and David guessed they were not going to do anything to help him. Marko put the gun in his pocket, grabbed the car keys and turned to go.

  Naturally Enver objected to being left without the gun. Once again, David didn’t need the benefit of their language to understand when Marko produced the poker from the fireplace and suggested that Enver could hit David with that if there was any trouble.

  Marko slammed out of the house. Enver sat brooding, watching David, who turned back to Adam. A fly buzzed against the kitchen window and there was a faint swishing sound in the air, then suddenly a heavy body collapsed onto David and a strange, wild-eyed boy was standing in Enver’s place, brandishing the poker.

  David screamed.

  31

  MARTIN was in the room in a flash, Andrea and Kitty at his heels. Andrea pushed David aside and leaned over her father, stroking his face and sobbing. Kitty had thrown her arms around David, who was looking up at Skender with puzzled recognition. Martin took the bloodstained poker from Skender’s hands and put it back on the table.

  ‘What happened to me making the decisions?’ he said.

  ‘We have to act quickly,’ said Skender. ‘The other man, Marko, has gone to find phone coverage because it’s very important to them to send a message right now. They believe that when the message goes through they’ll be able to find my father, Korab Hassan. They mentioned his name.’

  ‘Who’s Korab Hassan?’ asked David, moving to join them. ‘And who are you? Haven’t I met you before?’

  ‘My name is Skender. I go to your school.’

  ‘The message they’re talking about is the one that says they’ve got me,’ said David. ‘They thought they’d sent it last night, but there’s no coverage here.’

  ‘That explains a few things,’ said Skender. ‘There’s something happening today and they need my father for it, but they won’t be able to find him until the message gets through that they have David. They are worried that they will run out of time.’ He glanced at the man on the floor, who was stirring and groaning, and motioned the others to come closer.

  ‘We are running out of time too. Whatever the thing is, it’s at two-thirty. They mentioned a boat waiting in a boatshed somewhere. They need to find my fa
ther and put him on the boat.’

  ‘Why on earth—’ started Martin.

  ‘I can’t explain,’ cut in Skender, ‘but we must get out of here and warn people. It’s already after twelve.’

  ‘Have you got a taxi at the gate, or something?’ asked David hopefully.

  Martin shook his head. ‘We’re gonna be walking – or running, if we can.’

  ‘We can’t leave Adam here,’ said David. ‘I don’t know what they’d do to him if they saw I’d gone. Let’s use his blanket as a sort of stretcher.’

  ‘Should we tie this man up?’ Kitty gestured towards the unconscious figure on the floor.

  ‘That’s Enver,’ said David. ‘I don’t think he’ll be going anywhere for a while.’

  With some difficulty they eased Adam onto the stiff grey blanket. Andrea gasped when she saw the blood-soaked mattress. They carried him to the back door, but even with four of them, one on each corner, they staggered under his weight.

  ‘We can’t take him far,’ panted Kitty. ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘We’ll have to hide him outside, and keep him quiet while some of us go for help,’ said Martin, thinking fast.

  ‘Okay,’ David agreed. ‘I know a good place.’

  Not far from the house there was a little clearing with a grassy hollow ringed by ferns and bracken. David had discovered it several days previously, he explained, and had found it a nice place to lie on a rug and read on sunny days. They dragged Adam here and settled him in the hollow on the blanket, out of sight of the house.

  ‘Someone’s got to stay with him,’ said Kitty.

  ‘I’ll stay, he’s my Dad,’ said Andrea.

  ‘But you’re the fastest runner,’ Kitty pointed out. ‘It’d better be me, because I wouldn’t be able to keep up anyway.’

  ‘She’s right,’ said Martin. ‘What about you, Skender? Can you run?’

  ‘I can keep up,’ said Skender. ‘And I need to get out of here and call my father.’

  ‘I’d better stay with Kitty, and help look after Adam,’ said David. ‘I feel responsible anyway. He was trying to get me away when they shot him.’