Darker

by Simon Clark

  She curled up under Robbie’s coat and closed her eyes. Images streamed seamlessly through her head. The hooked noses and staring eyes of the totem pole in Pontefract. A motorway. Michael at the wheel. ‘Sorry about the early start,’ he was saying. ‘We need to be in York by eleven.’

  Through Amy’s eyes she saw cars and trucks, fields, cows, a canal with a ship ploughing steadily along it. She noticed the car was different now. Higher from the ground, and bigger. Rosemary heard Michael’s voice saying, ‘And don’t worry about your car, Richard. It’ll be safe in the hotel garage. But I thought it safer if we switched it for —’

  ‘Oh, go away,’ muttered Rosemary. Her body ached. She only wanted to sleep. She couldn’t keep running across the country in a stolen van, with stolen cash in her pocket. She’d had enough. Why didn’t she just walk away from the van, catch a train to London and start a new life there?

  The idea appealed. Yes, she could do that. Maybe she could salvage something from this wreck of a life.

  She shut out the flow of images that Amy saw and closed her eyes. She needed sleep.

  But a nagging thirst wouldn’t allow it. She remembered the bottle of mineral water in the passenger seat. She’d have a drink, a couple of hours’ more sleep, then find the railway station. She could be in London by nightfall. The idea pleased her. A new life. With no one to tell her what to do.

  She had to stand to reach into the front seat for the bottle. As she did so she looked into the rearview mirror.

  Christ, she’d forgotten about that.

  The Frankenstein face stared back at her. Bile rose up through her throat as she looked into eyes that were ringed black, and saw the crispy ridge of scabs that ran down one side of the face.

  Who are you kidding, Frankenstein? she asked herself grimly. You’re not running away from this one. Anger gripped her again, fuelling her tired arms and legs, suppressing the ache in her bones. She wanted – no, not wanted – she NEEDED revenge. She lusted after revenge. Beautiful, beautiful sweet cleansing revenge. The idea of it shone like that star that shone brilliantly over Bethlehem two thousand years ago.

  Her need for revenge was the power that would drive her all the way to Michael. Then she would open up his face.

  She slipped into the driving seat and started the motor.

  Chapter 39

  Cruising for a Bruising

  ‘Damn,’ Michael said under his breath.

  From the passenger seat Richard looked across at him. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Sign for roadworks up ahead.’

  ‘Can we make a detour?’

  ‘We could, but it’ll take longer. If we stick to the motorway we can be in York for eleven.’

  ‘But if we get stuck in a traffic jam?’

  ‘Well, as the saying goes, the brown stuff could really hit the fan.’

  ‘Great,’ said Joey from the backseat. ‘Why risk meeting the guy in person? Can’t he just stick this Roman book in an envelope and send it first class?’

  ‘He won’t do that,’ Michael accelerated to overtake a lorry. ‘He knows this thing is too valuable to me.’

  Joey ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Why don’t you use your heebeejeebee powers to make him drive down to your place in Norfolk and deliver it in person?’

  ‘As I told you, Joey, when the Beast left me at that airport hotel I lost my ability to … inspire people.’

  ‘You mean control people,’ Christine said pointedly.

  Michael shook his head. ‘I think of it as inspiring people.’

  ‘But these people under your and this Beast thing’s influence don’t have the choice to disagree with you, do they?’

  ‘The Beast gives me the ability to make people enthusiastic about what I believe in. If I try to inspire them to act completely against their natures, they can refuse. They still have free will.’

  Joey pushed his bottom lip out. ‘So you’re not sure that this bloke with the Roman book will even turn up?’

  ‘When I spoke to him last night we agreed a price that made him extremely keen to sell.’

  Joey asked bluntly, ‘How much?’

  Michael smiled. ‘Two million.’

  ‘Phew,’ Joey whistled. ‘You’ve got some money to throw at this thing.’

  ‘It might sound arrogant but I just see money as fuel to drive my plans from conception to execution. So, if it takes bucketfuls of the stuff to get from A to B, so be it.’

  ‘I’d like to see your bank statements.’ Joey spoke as if he was joking but Richard knew he meant it.

  ‘What price would you put on a child’s life, Joey?’

  Joey shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘The truth of the matter is,’ Michael said, ‘that politicians and hospital administrators do just that. Sometimes for the want of a few thousand pounds a child’s life is lost.’

  Amy woke up in the back seat. Yawning, she scratched her chin and said, ‘Michael, Rosemary Snow’s following us.’

  ‘Rosemary Snow?’ Michael shot Richard a grin. ‘By heaven, that imagination works overtime.’ He smiled back at Amy. ‘Amy, is she sitting on the roof with the Boys?’

  ‘No, stupid.’

  ‘Amy,’ Christine said. ‘Don’t call people stupid.’

  Then, as if stating the obvious Amy said, ‘Rosemary’s driving a big, big van. She’s following us.’

  Richard noticed that beneath the smile something troubled Michael. ‘Is she far away?’ He spoke in a way that adults use to humour imaginative children.

  ‘Not too far away. It’s a big van and … and it’s got some aeroplanes in the back.’

  ‘Some aeroplanes?’ Michael’s smile was almost one of relief. ‘Bet there’s a swimming pool in there, too.’

  ‘No. It’s real. I saw it when I was asleep; only it —’

  ‘Christ,’ whispered Joey, appalled. ‘We’re in for it now. Just take a look at that.’

  Richard looked forward through the windscreen and his heart slipped a beat.

  * * *

  Rosemary Snow floored the accelerator. The VW engine clattered. Blackpool was a good thirty miles behind her now.

  She’d seen enough through Amy’s eyes to know that Michael’s destination was York. She could be there in a couple of hours. She swung round a roundabout, almost putting the van on two wheels. Behind her Robbie’s model aeroplanes slid across the van’s metal floor.

  Richard’s hand tightened around the seatbelt and he clenched his jaw. Because ahead the motorway was a solid mass of unmoving traffic.

  ‘Christ,’ breathed Joey. ‘The mother of all traffic jams and we have to be slap in the middle of it.’

  ‘Mum, what’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing, honey, just a bit of a traffic jam, that’s all.’

  ‘Why’s Uncle Joey so worried, then?’

  ‘He doesn’t want to be late,’ supplied Richard lamely. But the last thing he wanted was to put Amy through the same trauma she had been through yesterday.

  They joined the queue of traffic. Michael eased the Range Rover behind a car in the slow lane and pulled on the handbrake. Here, the motorway was raised up above the surrounding fields with grassy banks running sharply down. The next exit from the motorway was still several miles away.

  ‘There’s a sign up ahead,’ Richard said, ‘Damn. Three lanes are being condensed into one. It might take some time to get through.’

  Joey leaned forward until he’d squeezed himself between the two front seats. ‘Michael. Can you tell how far away that thing is?’

  ‘It won’t be that far. We put a lot of miles between us and the Beast yesterday but we’ve been stationary at the hotel for more than twelve hours.’

  ‘Hell fire,’ Richard breathed. ‘Well, we’re not going anywhere fast here; the traffic’s choked to a standstill.’

  ‘If I see anything, I’m getting out and hoofing it,’ Joey announced.

  Michael glanced back. ‘If you want to look like a doormat, be my guest.’
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  Richard looked out at the hundreds of cars and trucks choking the M62. Nothing moved. The car in front, an ancient cream-coloured Morris Minor, puffed balls of oily smoke from its exhaust. Inside sat an old guy in a corduroy cap, placidly smoking a pipe. Richard felt a burst of irritation that was as savage as it was irrational. Here they were, trapped in their own personal hell, with God knows what bearing down on them, and all the rest of the smiling, smug, don’t-give-two-hoots population of the whole damn planet were doing their own sweet thing. They just didn’t know what he was going through. His daughter sat in the back. Just four years old. And he didn’t even know if she’d still be alive by suppertime.

  Richard began to sweat. He felt it dribble down his chest beneath his shirt. He wound down the window. The air smelt of exhaust fumes. No cars moved. They were just sat there waiting for —

  Christine said, in a low voice, ‘Michael, we can’t just sit here.’

  ‘Any suggestions?’ He spoke calmly, too, but Richard noticed him begin to tap the steering wheel with his finger.

  ‘Can you sense it, Michael?’

  Michael nodded. ‘But I don’t know how far away it is. It still might take another half an hour to get here.’

  Quickly Richard switched on the car’s radio. He tuned it to the dead zones between stations and upped the volume.

  Static sizzled through the speakers. Beneath the steady hiss came a regular burst of static that pulsed in a rhythmic squelching beat. Richard let out a breath. ‘Well … there she is.’

  They listened to the heartbeat of static coming through the car’s speakers.

  ‘Turn it down,’ Christine whispered. ‘Please turn it down.’

  ‘I have turned it down. It’s getting louder by the second.’ He turned to Michael. ‘You heard it, Michael. Now what?’

  ‘It … it’s so unpredictable. I just don’t understand it any more.’

  Joey clutched Michael’s shoulder. ‘Understand this. That thing’ll be here any second. Don’t dress it up in silly names – the Beast does this, the Beast does that – you know as well as I do it’s going to roll over about two hundred cars, flatten every poor sod into the road, then us, too.’

  Richard had noticed that Michael had been looking forward in a detached way at the old man smoking his pipe in the cream-coloured Morris Minor.

  Michael rubbed his face with both hands and took a deep breath. ‘Everyone hold on tight. Christine. Put your arms round Amy … dear God, here goes.’

  Shifting the Range Rover into four-wheel drive, Richard slowly but deliberately drove the car forward into the rear end of the Morris Minor. There was a crunch. Richard had a clear view of the pipe popping out of the old man’s mouth. The old man looked round angrily, his lips screwing into a shout round the yellow dentures.

  The big Range Rover easily pushed the Morris forward until it crunched into a milk tanker in front. Michael flicked the car into reverse. Richard saw the old man climbing out of the car shouting in fury and waving his knobbly hands.

  ‘Sorry about that, sir,’ said Michael under his breath, ‘but I really didn’t have enough space to pull out.’

  Richard heard the static heartbeat of the Beast getting nearer and nearer. He looked back, expecting to see the cars behind them beginning to implode under its crushing weight.

  Not yet. But, God knew, it must be here any moment.

  The static heartbeat cracked at the speakers like a hammer.

  THUD-THUD … THUD-THUD.

  Richard gasped. Joey cried out. They were falling.

  ‘Damn,’ hissed Rosemary Snow. She’d reached the tail end of the same traffic jam on the motorway. All she could do was sit it out. Unless she could glue sweaty Robbie’s balsa wood wings on to the van’s side and glide above the traffic like something out of a Spielberg movie.

  She looked at the fuel gauge. It was running pretty low. She’d have to try and get some petrol into the thing at the next service station.

  The traffic didn’t seem to be moving anywhere fast. She switched on the van’s radio. Christ, hear that crappy reception. Almost drowning out the song were great fat bursts of static. For all the world they sounded like a giant’s heartbeat.

  At first Richard thought Michael would drive along the hard shoulder and exit the motorway at the first opportunity.

  Instead he felt his stomach strain for his mouth as Michael drove off the motorway altogether.

  Hell … the slope down from the motorway was so steep he hung forward against the seatbelt. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the belt he’d have fallen slap into the windscreen.

  ‘Christ, what’re you doing?’ Joey panted. ‘You’ll turn the friggin’ car over.’

  Michael didn’t answer: he let the car run faster as gravity took control. And with the car almost standing on its nose there was a real danger if he did brake they would end up rolling forward nose first to cartwheel down to the bottom.

  ‘Just pray there’s not a deep ditch at the end of this slope,’ Michael grunted, hanging onto the steering wheel as it tried to wrench itself from his fingers.

  With an almighty crash the car hit the level. Still Michael didn’t brake.

  Richard held his breath. Because now Michael raced the motor, powering the big car straight at a hedge. It bust through it in a spray of leaves.

  ‘They say,’ shouted Michael. ‘These are off-road vehicles.’ He gave a grim smile. ‘Let’s put the sod to the test.’

  He put his foot down, driving hard through a field of waist-high corn. Richard hung on to the grab handles. For all the world it looked as if they were speeding across a straw-coloured sea, sending out a rippling wake behind them, the corn stalks swishing noisily across the paintwork.

  Behind Richard the three on the back seat were bounced around like peas in a tin. Incredibly, Amy had a huge grin on her face. Christine looked stoic. Joey looked as if he was going to up-chuck.

  Michael didn’t hesitate. Driving the car hard, he crossed cornfield after cornfield which, fortunately, had been raked pretty flat. When he reached a fence he simply crashed through it. In the distance a man on a tractor stopped it and stood up to watch them pass.

  Michael shot Richard a grim smile. ‘Next stop York.’

  Chapter 40

  Blood on Road

  Michael cut through the last fence and bounced the Range Rover on to a country road. He drove purposefully, but kept the speed down so as not to draw attention to the vehicle.

  When Joey managed to speak, he grunted, ‘Nice driving, but you’ve guaranteed to get the police onto us.’

  ‘What for?’ asked Michael.

  ‘For shunting that old guy on the motorway and doing a rally cross over Farmer Whatsit’s field, that’s what for.’

  ‘You really think the police are going to be that interested?’ Michael carefully overtook a bus. ‘Believe me, Joey, the old Plod are overworked as it is. What’ll happen is that that old guy will file a complaint: maybe he took our number, maybe he didn’t. In a few hours one overworked, footsore bobby will be given the complaint to work on. Our number will be fed into the constabulary computer. Out will come an address. What then? Will our bobby dash out to his car, slap on the blue lights and go screaming off looking for us? Will he hellfire. He’ll amble up to the canteen for his egg and chips and mug of tea. Then he’ll waddle back to his desk and stick our piece of paper with another fifty pieces of paper like it. Then gradually plod through them.’

  ‘You have to admit,’ Richard said, ‘playing dodgems on motorways is one way to get noticed.’

  Michael smiled. ‘School teachers and your parents have done a good job. You’ve been brainwashed into being nice law-abiding citizens.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with that.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with being a sheep but I wouldn’t chose to be one.’ Michael shook his head. ‘Forget it. An old guy got his bumper dented, Mr Farmer’s got a few bent stalks of corn and maybe five quid’s worth of damage to his fence
s. Hardly crime of the century, is it?’

  ‘Okay,’ Christine sounded businesslike. ‘What now?’

  ‘Number one objective is reach York and get our hands on the document that should solve all our problems. Also, we need to keep moving quickly. Beastie Boy ain’t too far behind.’

  ‘What will have happened to those people on the motorway?’

  ‘They’re OK. It didn’t have time to begin condensing itself enough to do any damage before we started moving. Amy?’

  ‘Yes, Michael?’

  ‘Monkey nicked your tongue?’

  She chuckled. ‘No.’

  ‘You haven’t had much to say for yourself, sweetheart.’

  ‘You drove over so many bumps it bumped my breath out of my body.’

  ‘Sorry about that, Amy. We had to get away from that stinky traffic jam. Would you like some Rolos?’

  ‘Oh, yes, please.’

  Richard glanced back at Christine, expecting to see in her expression her irritation at Michael taking control of their daughter again. But Christine looked out of the window, her face expressionless. He guessed this cascade of events, the destruction, the total rupture of their everyday life had left her numb. He was feeling that way, too. Even when he recalled what had happened to the two policemen at the diner he didn’t feel the horror any more. It had happened – that was all. Perhaps nature had a way of anaesthetizing the mind when the body was plunged into a dangerous situation. He remembered what his great-grandfather had told him when he was a boy. His great-grandfather had been a corporal in the Army in the First World War. He’d stood in a trench that was waist-deep in rainwater for three days while the enemy had bombarded him and his comrades with artillery shells, night and day. The men were cold, hungry, disorientated by the constant noise of exploding shells. After a couple of days men would simply fall asleep and sink down into the water where they drowned. At first Richard’s great-grandfather had tried to haul his pals out of the water. But, after a while, a kind of cold trance set in. At the end of three days he’d stood there and watched with a strange detachment as his best friend sagged down into the water just an arm’s length away. He remembered watching the bubbles popping to the surface. Then his friend’s cigarettes floated out of his pockets to lie on top of the water. At the time Richard’s great-grandfather had just felt a distant kind of disappointment that the cigarettes had got wet. The realization that he’d watched his best friend drown in the ditch inches from him only hit him a month later when he was on leave.