Nigel was still trying to contain them through normal means, without throwing open details of the facility to all the world. The train stations, the ferry ports, the airports, the motorway service stations: they were all on full lockdown. Anyone leaving the country that night – particularly Caucasian couples – were in for a slow and tedious time of it and would complain, as they always did, that Britain was absolutely broken, and maybe they should go abroad and stay abroad when they were treated like criminals in their own country, and the security guards tried to stay calm and not rise to belligerence even as the evening wore on and people had had more opportunity to drink while waiting for their delayed flights and boats, and a general sense of unease would settle over the land, exacerbated, as it always was, by a warm night and a full moon. A&E would be busy.
Connie reached Queen’s Fleet at full sundown, just after 8.30 p.m. In other circumstances it would have been the most beautiful evening.
She wondered idly what Luke’s plan was. Presumably it had something to do with the big ferries she could see from here, ploughing their way between eastern England and the Netherlands. She hoped he didn’t mean for them to stow away on one. It couldn’t be that easy. Or worse – there were some weekend hobby boats bobbing around the little jetties at the edge of the river. Surely he wouldn’t…
She thought of his extraordinary strength, and wondered about that. With Luke, it was difficult to know exactly what he thought was possible; whether he even knew himself. She took a long pull of water and ate another bar of chocolate. She wished she could phone somebody, but their phones had been confiscated. She still missed it. But who would believe her? Her dad?
Under the rising moon and the pink and purple sky, she waited for Luke, waited and waited, staring at the sky, carefully hidden under a huge, spreading oak tree that gave her a view of every inlet without being seen. But it was no use. Sleepless night after sleepless night, and a fifteen-mile tramp across the flatlands and moors of eastern England finally overcame her and, as the last pink frond lit up the distant horizon and the lights of the ferry boats turned into enchanted fairy ships, and the oil rigs on the distant horizon lit up like Christmas trees, she fell fast asleep.
‘We’ve had reports that they robbed someone of their wallet,’ said the young constable, nervously rubbing his acne.
‘Okay, good,’ said Nigel, looking at what so far was a very bare incident board. There had been a possible sighting at the railway station, round about the right time, but there were about forty destinations they could possibly have got off at, if they hadn’t just alighted at the next stop and walked home.
‘What was the name of the vic?’
‘Ah,’ said the policeman, looking up from the report.
‘“Ah” what?’ said Nigel.
‘Ah, well, anyway, the girl was talking to the man at the station then she said it would be quicker just to tell the policeman and went off to tell the policeman.’
‘Good. Which policeman?’
‘Ah. Well. It turns out no policeman, sir. Railway Supervisor Kenneth Turlington called it in from Ipswich, said we’d have it already but he just wanted to cross the t’s and dot the i’s.’
Nigel stood up.
‘Really? None of our boys have anything? Nothing came in?’
PC Mbele shook his head, anxiously.
‘Nothing at all, sir.’
‘Well, that’s brilliant,’ said Nigel, marching to the map.
‘Sir?’ said the constable, who’d thought he was in for an almighty bollocking.
‘Well, yes,’ explained Nigel kindly. ‘If a girl got robbed and didn’t make a police report – with a bunch of policemen right there – about her wallet, when she said she was going to, any ideas as to who she might be?’
The light dawned in the PC’s eyes.
‘Was it her do you think?’
‘Any mention of hair colour?’
The PC looked down. ‘Just a hat.’
‘A hat. On a twenty-six-degree day.’ Nigel ran over to Ipswich and stuck a pin in the map.
‘FINALLY,’ he said. ‘A breakthrough. Well done, that railway station man.’
He looked at it closely.
‘I wonder if they’ve split up,’ he said. ‘Would make sense.’
He traced a line with his finger on the map.
‘Where would you go from here, DCI?’
Malik approached it with a frown, and followed the line of Nigel’s finger.
‘Felixstowe,’ he said. ‘You change at Ipswich.’ Then he laughed. ‘You know we spend half our time opening those lorries coming into the UK.’ He shook his head. ‘Will make a bit of difference doing it the other way round.’
Nigel nodded.
‘Yup, up the ferry port security, both ends,’ said Nigel. ‘You know, if I was going to sneak out the country, that’s what I’d have done.’
‘Not me,’ said Malik promptly.
‘Oh no?’
‘Nope. Big party hat on, join a stag night conga line, cut out a pretend passport from a kiddies’ colouring book and samba through Stansted at 5 a.m., the big dozy buggers.’
‘Interesting,’ said Nigel. ‘Well, we’ll call them too.’
The young coppers got on the phones, then jumped into their cars to get to Felixstowe to give the local boys a hand. PC Mbele brought sixty extra evidence bags.
‘What are those for?’ said Nigel. ‘Two pairs of handcuffs should just about cover it?’
‘You won’t believe the other shit we’ll turn up, sir,’ said Malik. ‘Incidental, like.’
‘No, I suppose not,’ said Nigel. He’d never been a policeman, and he knew they knew it. He hoped it wouldn’t hold them back.
Chapter Eighteen
Connie didn’t know how long he’d been standing there, nor what exactly woke her. All she knew was that she was in the middle of the loveliest dream, where the air was soft and warm and smelled of the sea, and everyone else had gone away and there was nobody else in the world except Luke, he was there, standing in front of her, smiling that uncertain, lopsided gentle smile at her, the one that went straight to her heart, that felt that it had only ever been for her, and she knew for absolute certain that everything was going to be all right, that it was all going to be completely and absolutely fine as long as they were together, she knew it absolutely for certain.
Then she breathed in and something woke her – a honking from one of the ferries just round the landing – and her eyes blinked open and couldn’t focus and for a horrible moment all she could see was a shape in front of her, dark, blotting out the stars, and then sleep fell off her like dust and she saw it was Luke and was just about to shout his name when he put his finger to his lips.
‘Sssh,’ he said, but his eyes were dancing with mischief.
‘How long have you been standing there?’ she demanded quietly, her heart beating fast, all happy and terrified all at once, adrenalin shooting through her just at the very sight of him.
‘Um. Less long than would be creepy?’ he volunteered, and she smiled at him and stood up, facing him.
Connie realised suddenly she had never wanted to kiss somebody more in her entire life, not even the first time she was ever kissed (age fourteen, Math Olympiad training in Bath: Chester Carson, the fifteen-year-old superstar who had won a gold medal at the IMO the year before, who was greeted like the rock star he resembled. Now he posted lots of pictures of himself on his jet ski in his Hamptons house. More pictures, Connie occasionally thought, than someone who was truly fulfilled and happy would bother to post of themselves. He had never followed up that early promise in research terms; had taken the grant cash and made it work for him. Each to their own, she supposed. She was the one on the run from the police sleeping on the beach).
But now, with Luke here, standing in front of her – now it was a stronger impulse than any she had ever felt. She swallowed hard, and blinked. NO. No. It was ridiculous. She had seen his arm with her own eyes, she knew it was wrong
and he was different.
But it didn’t change how she felt about him. How much she longed to be in his arms again. She took a step towards him.
‘It is good to see you,’ he said.
She told herself to stop it. It was ridiculous. This was ridiculous.
‘Would you like some chocolate?’ she said. A confused expression passed over his face.
‘Um, I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Would I?’
‘It’s biscuit,’ said Connie, in case that was important. Oh for goodness’ sake, she thought, stop being such an idiot.
Luke regarded the piece of chocolate carefully.
‘You eat it,’ added Connie helpfully.
He sat down cross-legged, and she moved closer towards him. He unwrapped the bar carefully, then sniffed it and snapped off a piece. Connie giggled suddenly.
‘What?’
‘You doing alien stuff.’
‘Hey,’ he said, hurt. ‘I was actually doing very brilliantly until they found me! You’re the civilisation that puts holes through your own skin for fun.’
‘True,’ said Connie.
‘And have stupid bony legs that nobody likes using. Nobody likes them; it’s not just me.’
Luke bit into the chocolate.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Oh. Well.’
Connie laughed. ‘Don’t get your nose stuck in the honey pot.’
‘I shall arrange my I-don’t-understand-this-cultural-reference face,’ said Luke gravely, which made her giggle even more.
‘What do you mean people don’t like using their legs?’
‘Oh, the round moving things,’ said Luke. He ate another square of chocolate.
‘See, what’s interesting about this is that it melts at thirty-eight Celsius, which is the same ambient temperature as a healthy body, which gives it a particularly luxuriant…’
‘Luke,’ said Connie. ‘I’m an Earth girl. I can assure you, there is very little you need to tell me in the way of chocolate. What do you mean “round moving thing”?’
Luke waved his long fingers. ‘You know, car things.’
‘Car things. Do you mean, “cars”?’
‘Yes,’ said Luke. ‘Why do people move about that way?’
‘Because it’s quicker?’
‘So what? It’s bad for you and bad for the air you breathe and bad for people who fall in front of them and bad for children who get stuck in them and bad for trees that get in their way and bad for countries that fuel them. Why can’t you just go places a bit slower on your big stick things?’
‘Because… um. Hmm. Because we have to get overseas in a huge hurry?’ She glanced at him. ‘So do you… I mean, were you thinking about… I mean, how we’re going to get to Belarus?’
Connie didn’t want to admit she only roughly remembered the bare facts of Belarus from school. Now they were on the very edge of England, on the very cusp of adventure, she very much hoped he had a plan.
Luke took her hand and helped her up. Then they both turned round to stare at the sea. Luke let out a great sigh.
‘Oh,’ he said.
‘Is it hard to look out on the water?’ said Connie.
‘Why do you think I moved somewhere I couldn’t see any?’ said Luke. ‘Not a thing. Completely land-locked.’
His gaze didn’t move from the waves.
‘Otherwise it is too hard, you know?’
He turned to her.
‘It is already too hard. Are you sure you want to come? It isn’t too late to turn back.’
She shook her head.
‘It is for me,’ she said simply. They looked out at the waves. ‘Are we going to catch a ferry?’
‘A what?’
‘A ferry. The boats. Down there? See?’
Luke glanced at them very briefly.
‘Those are boats?’
Connie started to get seriously worried now. What if she’d run away with an alien version of Ranjit? What if he had absolutely no idea what to do? She had no idea how to get them to Belarus. She had absolutely no idea what they were doing at all. In a crazed rush of infatuation she had done this, had run away with him, and now…
‘Luke, have you any idea how we’re going to get there?’
She tried to keep the note of panic out of her voice.
He turned to her, smiling.
‘Of course. Of course I do.’
He gently caressed her hair again. It seemed to soothe him; the hat had fallen off while she was sleeping.
‘We’re going to swim.’
At first she’d just laughed, then wondered if she was in some madman’s dream, that the entire thing had been some kind of an illusion, that she’d been totally taken in. Luke hadn’t noticed her laughing, simply started taking off his jacket.
‘Do you have a bag?’ he said. ‘Is it waterproof?’
She did have a plastic bag inside her rucksack, and he took it from her and started filling it.
‘Look, I can… I mean, I can swim, but I can swim for, like ten minutes.’
Connie was babbling.
‘I mean, I know it’s summer, but that’s the North Sea – it really does get too cold, I mean, people die in there all the time. And it’s… I mean, it’s miles to Europe, really far. It takes the boats hours. I know… I mean, I know you say you could do it and you’re kind of a fish thing and everything but me, no. I can’t do it. I thought… I thought we were going to sneak onto a ferry or something.’
Her voice quietened.
‘Well, I didn’t even really think that far.’
Luke eyes were amused.
‘Do you think I won’t help you?’
‘I don’t think it will matter,’ said Connie. ‘Unless you carry, like, an inflatable lifeboat underneath your skin.’
They looked at one another.
Luke stepped closer.
‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll help you. Can you trust me?’
Connie thought briefly where trusting him had led her to.
‘I want to,’ she said.
‘Well,’ said Luke happily. ‘That ought to help. Come with me.’
‘I don’t have my cossie,’ said Connie weakly.
‘That’s okay,’ said Luke. ‘I don’t know what the rude bits are.’
‘Well, keep your underpants on,’ said Connie, watching him as he ran into the water, then turned back. Standing, slim and straight, his face smiling at her, she felt her heart leap.
‘Come on! Come on! Put your clothes in the bag and come on! Come, swim with me.’
Connie’s heart was beating nineteen to the dozen. She couldn’t possibly. She couldn’t… Maybe if she swam a little, near where she could see the land… this was madness. This was absolutely and completely crazy.
‘In for a penny,’ she shouted, pulling off her shirt and trousers and tearing down the beach.
Connie was out of her depth, and she knew it.
But on they swam, deeper into the dark water. The surface was still warm, but as Connie kicked her legs underneath she could feel its cold, dark pull beneath her. The lights of the Folkestone ferries were just visible to her right over her shoulder. She turned and paddled lightly on her back to watch Luke. He was clumsy in the water, moving with a kind of awkward doggy paddle, the sealed bag bundled over his shoulder.
‘I thought you’d be a really good swimmer,’ she said, frowning. ‘I thought you being half fish and all that.’
Luke smiled. In contrast to her nerves and fear, he was completely and utterly relaxed.
‘Just you watch,’ he said, suddenly sounding wolfish. ‘I’m coming for you.’
She giggled and squealed in the water, getting away from him, splashing her face as she laughed out loud and did a somersault in the water.
Connie had always loved to swim but it had been so long. She gasped at the cold of the water – although she was getting used to it, enjoying the large waves buffeting her; feeling, for the first time in ages, free. Even with everything that was going on and t
he way things were going, out here, under the stars, the lights of England behind them, just the two of them in the water… They moved out further, and Connie felt herself become slightly nervous about how far away from land they were. But he could rescue her, couldn’t he?
Treading water, she turned and looked round for Luke again feeling, as she did so, how cold the water had become under her toes. He caught sight of her, held her gaze, one second, two – then he was gone in a flash: he had dived underwater.
Resistance is Futile Page 18
