The Camel Trail

by Merrigan, Peter J

  She felt Alan’s hand on her shoulder, more restraining that comforting this time, and she moved her shoulder away. But she had nothing more to say. She stared a moment longer at the camera, eyes brimming with tears, cheeks burning with anger and hatred, and then she lowered her eyes and brought her hands to her face. She didn’t shrink from Alan’s hand when he returned it to her shoulder.

  ‘We have nothing to add,’ Graeme said, his voice rasping. Tessa was clinging to him and sobbing. ‘I’ll do anything to get my son back.’

  ‘Sarah! Sarah!’ a voice from the assembled press called.

  More camera flashes lit up the room. Video cameras swung to the source of the voice.

  ‘Terence Redford, Daily Mail. How long were you married to Francis Catchpole?’

  ‘About nine years,’ Sarah said, her voice hoarse.

  Redford asked, ‘What was the nature of his incarceration?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Why was he in prison?’

  ‘Oh,’ Sarah said. She blushed. ‘Violence.’ She didn’t feel the need to elaborate.

  Blinding camera flashes left blue-white spots floating in front of her eyes.

  ‘Was he always a violent man?’ another reporter asked.

  ‘No. He…’ Sarah looked at Tessa, then at Sergeant Williams. ‘Not always,’ she said.

  Williams raised his hands to placate their interrogators. ‘I think that’s enough questions—’

  Redford stood again, waving his pen in the air. ‘Just one more, please. Sarah, where were you when the boys went missing?’

  She couldn’t answer. Her voice stuck in her throat like a knotted ball of barbed wire. She was asleep; probably dreaming some useless dream when her baby was taken from her. How could she have slept through that? Why didn’t she know her baby was in danger? What’s the point of intuition if it never bloody works?

  When Sarah didn’t answer his question, Redford said, ‘Graeme, Tessa—you let a disabled child out of your sight?’

  ‘He’s not disabled,’ Graeme said, clearly angered.

  ‘How does it feel to know your son has gone missing with Sarah’s violent husband? What is it—?’

  ‘Enough!’ Williams demanded. ‘No more questions.’

  Sarah felt as though the ceiling was pressing down on her. Camera flashes danced in front of her and Terence Redford’s face seemed to loom towards her like some horror-movie camera trick.

  Chief Superintendent Danny Spelling stood and drew the press conference to a close. ‘Sergeant Williams will remain to answer any appropriate questions you might have. Thank you.’ He stepped aside and motioned for the four appellants to exit the room with him.

  When they were in the next room, away from the press, Sarah wiped her eyes with her sleeve and said, ‘Tessa?’

  Tessa looked up, eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot, but her face was set and stony.

  ‘Tessa, please,’ Sarah pleaded. She needed to know they were okay, that they were still friends despite the kidnap of their children. Tessa turned away from her, back towards Graeme, and Sarah said, ‘I’m cutting myself up, here, Tessa. Please.’

  Tessa turned, straightened her dress, sucked her upper lip into her mouth, and then opened her arms to receive Sarah. They clung to each other and sobbed.

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ Tessa whispered. ‘It’s okay. It’s not your fault.’

  They left the station.

  Alan had taken to putting his arm around Sarah and appeared to be pretty good at judging when she needed it. On their way out, Sarah was grateful for the comfort and support it offered, as though she could draw strength from his touch.

  He offered her a ride home in his car and they said goodbye to Graeme and Tessa, who drove home on their own. As she was buckling her seatbelt, Alan said, ‘Tessa doesn’t blame you.’

  ‘I know,’ she said.

  ‘She knows it’s not your fault. It’s just difficult. For everyone.’

  ‘I know.’

  He patted her leg. ‘They’ve got nowhere to hide now. Once the public see the news and their photos, he’s screwed. Nowhere to go, nowhere to run to. He can’t win.’

  Sarah rubbed her face, dropped her hands back to her lap, looked at Alan and said, ‘What if he hurts them?’

  ‘He won’t.’

  ‘But what if he does?’ She could feel tears welling up behind her eyes again, could taste the tang of fear in her mouth, old pennies mixed with vomit. ‘What if he hurts them, or leaves them in the middle of nowhere? He could just dump them somewhere and go on the run on his own. They could freeze to death.’

  ‘Listen, Sarah, he won’t hurt them. It’ll do more harm to him once he’s caught. And if he leaves them somewhere, they’re smart kids, they’ll find their way to a phone or a policeman.’

  She shook her head, clenched her fists. ‘He’s going to kill them. I can feel it.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  The engine spat and coughed.

  Frankie looked at the dash; the petrol tank was practically running on fumes. He should have topped it up before leaving the services, but they left in such a hurry that he hadn’t thought to do so. And now they were in the middle of nowhere, driving along a road that would be dusty if it wasn’t for the rain, and the car was about to stall and strand them and they’d be picked up by the cops in two seconds flat. It was inevitable.

  He eased up on the accelerator, safe in the knowledge that the faster you push it, the more petrol you burn. Slowing down wouldn’t buy him much more time, but maybe enough to pull in somewhere and find a new mode of transport—a car, a bus, a tractor. Hell, even a tandem bike with a basket on the front for Martin.

  In the back seat, the boys were playing thumb wars. Kevin had shuffled back into the rear some time ago and Frankie let him go without complaint.

  Frankie couldn’t remember the name of the town they’d past half an hour ago, but he wondered about the feasibility of tucking the car between a couple of bushes, locking the boys inside and walking back to find a petrol station. He couldn’t trust leaving Kevin and Martin alone for so long.

  It was probably a good thing they were running out of petrol. By now the car was likely to be hot and would stick out on the roads like a rabbit at a greyhound race. If he could get his hands on another car and ditch this one in a lake somewhere, they could travel faster and further without being spotted, at least until the new car was reported missing. But he thought he could stay ahead of the game by successfully swapping cars every seventy or eighty miles if he had to—until they found a hole in the ground to hide in and give him some time to plan things out. Driving and thinking usually came naturally, but at the minute his brain had decided it couldn’t multitask.

  Ireland was looking like a better prospect than Scotland or Wales. He’d already figured that out. He was pretty sure there was some red tape that hampered the extradition of wanted criminals from the Republic of Ireland to the UK. Not that he was a criminal. Wanted, maybe, but criminal? All he did was take his kid for a drive.

  They could get a ferry from Holyhead to Dublin and be on the other side in three hours. Money might be a problem, but he’d work around that.

  Up ahead, through the forceful rain, he could make out a road sign. Congresbury was three miles away. It wasn’t a place he had ever heard of before, which meant it probably wasn’t very big—Main Street and a post office, no doubt—but the car wouldn’t make it. The intermittent coughing and gurgling sounds the engine had been making had rallied into a steady stream of incessant expletives.

  He indicated to turn left at the next minor-road junction, even though there was no one on the road to indicate to, and when he’d driven a safe distance in from the A370 he pulled into the ditch at the side of the road and stopped the car before it gave out completely. The engine sighed and ticked. The noise of the rain drumming on the rooftop broke the ensuing silence as they sat there, unmoving, for some minutes.

  Finally, Kevin ventured, ‘Why did we stop?’

/>   Frankie didn’t answer him. He faced forward and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, as much in time with the rain on the roof as he could. His dilemma was simple: leave the boys in the car, or take them with him? Martin would only slow them down, but he wasn’t sure he could trust to leave him there alone.

  He unbuckled his seatbelt, opened the car door—three miles; could they do it?—and got out into the rain. He opened the rear driver-side door and said, ‘Out. Both of you. Now.’

  ‘It’s raining,’ Kevin protested.

  Frankie took him by the coat collar and tried to pull him out, seatbelt and all. Kevin scrambled for the buckle before he had a permanent seatbelt tattoo across his shoulder and chest.

  Slowly, somewhat reluctantly, Martin followed Kevin out into the cold and rain. They stood there while Frankie leaned back into the car, pulled out Martin’s backpack, and threw it to Kevin. ‘Carry that,’ he said. He shut up the car, locked it, and started back towards the A370.

  ‘Are we leaving the car?’ Kevin asked.

  ‘I’m tired,’ Martin said.

  Frankie trudged on, pulling his collar up around his neck to ward off the chill. He walked ahead of them, knowing they would follow—what else could they do? When they were back on the A-road, walking north along the verge, he slowed to allow them to catch up. At this rate, they’d be in Congresbury by tomorrow.

  Kevin’s hair clung to his forehead as the rain stung his face. He was going slow, matching Martin’s loping gait, his sodden jeans adding to the feeling that he was a swamp monster lumbering through a marsh. ‘We can’t be going far,’ he whispered, indicating the road sign marking the distance to the next town.

  Martin stumbled but didn’t fall. ‘I can’t walk three miles.’

  ‘Yeah, you can. It’s easy,’ Kevin said. ‘Just think we’re on the Camel Trail.’

  ‘If we were on the Camel Trail, I’d turn around and go home again. It’s raining.’

  ‘Bet you can’t count how many steps it is to Congresbury.’

  ‘Bet you I don’t want to count them.’

  ‘I’ll count them,’ Kevin said. ‘One, two—’

  ‘Hurry up,’ Frankie shouted over his shoulder.

  Martin stumbled again, his foot twisting inwards and buckling, but he caught Kevin’s coat sleeve and restored his balance. For the next quarter of a mile, he walked with a more pronounced limp than usual.

  Kevin was hurting, too. This wasn’t like the Camel Trail. The road surface wasn’t even, it was raining hard, and Frankie was cajoling them along at a rate they couldn’t keep up with. He wondered what was in Congresbury, if that was their final destination, and his mind ticked away with scenarios of escape and rescue. There’ll be a police station. You’re allowed to talk to policemen even though they’re strangers. He learned that in school when he was younger. He remembered telling his mum about the policeman that came to visit his class. She said, ‘You can always trust a policeman.’

  Frankie, from his armchair that evening, had said, ‘Unless he’s a lying, cheating bastard of a bent copper. Then you can’t. What about the Brixton riots in ’ninety-five? Should’ve been done for that.’

  Kevin hadn’t known what happened in the Brixton riots, but he looked it up in the school library one day. Some man got killed because he had a heart attack or something, but apparently the police were being abusive to him. But they couldn’t be abusive to a kid. All he had to do was say his Dad took him away from his Mum and they’d arrest Frankie and question him for hours and then lock him up. Kevin knew his rights.

  ‘Come on,’ Frankie called.

  Kevin took Martin’s hand, who didn’t object, and tried to walk a little faster. His coat was starting to soak through and he was beginning to feel like he was carrying an elephant on his back. He wished he hadn’t detached the hood last year. Martin’s hood was up over his head and the drawstring pulled tight and knotted under his chin.

  ‘I can’t go any further,’ Martin said.

  ‘It’s not far now. We’re nearly there.’

  Kevin could see that Martin was struggling. His grip on Kevin’s hand was tightening and his feet weren’t going half as far as they had been. On tiptoes, Martin was bobbing up and down over the loose chippings and grass verge.

  ‘I can’t do it.’

  He tripped and this time he brought Kevin along with him. They tumbled together on the saturated grass with a splash. Kevin got to his knees, mud squelching beneath him, and stood, wiping his muddy hands on his coat. ‘Come on,’ he said, reaching down for Martin as Frankie came back towards them.

  ‘Get up,’ Frankie said.

  Martin lay there, face down in a slurry of mud and rainwater. He turned his head and spat. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘I won’t tell you again.’

  ‘I can’t move,’ Martin cried. Tears washed mud from his cheeks. ‘I want to go home. I want you to leave me alone. Let me go home!’

  Frankie stooped, slapped Martin’s head. ‘You want me to leave you in the mud to rot and die?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Get up, you piece of shit.’

  ‘I can’t, I can’t, I can’t!’ Martin screamed.

  Frankie reached out and Kevin tugged at his arm. ‘Leave him, Dad. He can get up in a minute. Just give him a minute, okay?’

  Frankie jerked his arm out from Kevin’s grip and pushed him back. Kevin fell onto his rear on the road. Rain pelted him like a thousand needles penetrating deep into his skin. He watched Frankie push Martin onto his back—‘Leave me alone!’—and shove his arms under his back and his knees. He lifted Martin off the grass and Kevin expected him to drop him back to his feet, but he didn’t. He turned back the way they had been heading and marched on, Martin squirming in his arms.

  As Kevin got to his feet and hurried after them, he heard Martin’s feeble voice. ‘I’m sore and I’m sick and I’m tired.’ A cough rattled in his throat.

  Martin was a dead weight in his arms. When Frankie looked down, it seemed the boy was asleep or at least pretending to be. The rain had eased up enough to no longer be a hindrance, but they were already drenched.

  Kevin walked beside him, head bowed, keeping up as best he could. Frankie adjusted Martin’s weight and said, ‘We’ll stop when we get around the corner up there. You hungry?’

  Kevin shook his head, no. He stuffed his hands into his pockets.

  When they came around the corner and into Congresbury proper, Frankie stopped and sat Martin down on a low wall. Martin yawned and looked around.

  ‘I want both of you to stay here. Don’t move a muscle until I’m back, you hear? If you’re gone when I come back, I’ll find you and kill you.’ They nodded solemnly and he left them, walking further along the road towards town. He doubted anyone would notice them let alone pass along that stretch of road in this weather.

  Things hadn’t gone smoothly at first, but a fresh plan was formulating in his mind. Ireland was a definite target. They just had to get there first. A road sign told him they were thirteen miles from Bristol, and from there he estimated it was about two hundred miles to Holyhead. They could be there by this evening if they had a car.

  When he turned onto High Street and passed a church, he walked a little farther and saw a few cars parked along the side of the road. The street wasn’t deserted, but only a few village folk hovered here and there. Still, perhaps it was too populated to steal a car and get away with it.

  He walked on, head bowed, conscious of his wet clothes and the mud stains smeared on his coat from carrying Martin. It may have been a good thing. The few people he passed gave him quick, contemptuous glances and hurried on their way. He never thought being mistaken for a tramp would work in his favour.

  Round another corner, this new street appeared abandoned by humans. The buildings weren’t derelict, but were certainly in disrepair. Along the street, there was a car garage whose door appeared rain-warped. There were three cars parked in the lot. Frankie had been in enough garages in the pas
t to know that car keys were usually pegged on a board inside the door, and as the street was deserted, he was willing to take a chance.

  At this time of the afternoon, he was betting the mechanic had shut up shop for the day and was probably in the local pub on his second or third pint by now. In Frankie’s opinion, these mechanics were all the same.

  As he approached the garage, he looked at the cars. The first car was a Ford Mondeo in a deep plum colour, muddy on its underside, washed clean from the rain above the bumper. The second was a blue Fiesta, smaller, cleaner, well-kept; and the third was an old convertible 2CV that had seen better days. The Mondeo would be a nicer drive, but the Fiesta wouldn’t stick out so much on the roads as the larger, plum car. Now all he needed was keys.

  Frankie walked casually up to the garage door and knocked, shouting, ‘Hello? Anyone there?’ When there was no reply, no shuffling from inside, he called, ‘My car’s broken done just outside of town. Can you help?’

  He tried the handle but the door didn’t give. Of course. And so he tried pushing the old warped door with his shoulder, gently at first, giving it a heavy shove the second time. The door rattled and whined but the lock on the inside was strong. He felt along the front of the door, pushing with his fingers until he found the place of most resistance—where the lock was located. He sighed, turned, looked along the road and saw no one, and then he forced his shoulder against the door where the lock was.

  Breaking into a building had never been easier. If there was a God, he was on Frankie’s side.

  Inside, he didn’t stop to flick a light switch on. He stumbled around in the semi-darkness, feeling along the wall, but not finding a peg board for keys. He moved further into the garage, sliding his feet along so as not to trip over spare car parts or dangerous equipment, and he bumped into a desk. Half seeing, half feeling the objects on the desk, he found a bowl full of keys.