Five Hundred Miles From You: the brand new, life-affirming, escapist novel of 2020 from the Sunday Times bestselling author

by Jenny Colgan

  And even as he ran, Cormac couldn’t help but feel a little comforted. He crashed across Tottenham Court Road, avoided the sofa shops and grabbed little alleyways he thought would get him through. He passed the big hospital and emerged, panting, utterly exhausted yet somehow exhilarated too, along the great throbbing gristly artery of the Euston Road. This was Lissa’s great city, and she got closer to him with every step as he pounded up the road, black and filthy with traffic, Euston station squat and grim across. Not all of London was beautiful. He glanced at his watch. Ten to nine. At home it would have been bright daylight still; here the streetlights were coming on.

  He couldn’t cross the road. Six thundering lanes of traffic were roaring without a break. He hopped from foot to foot at the traffic lights. Stop. STOP!

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  There was something almost motherly in the way the attendant on the sleeper train greeted Lissa and, worn out as she was, she almost started to cry.

  ‘Have you had a nice day, hen?’ said the woman. The accent was familiar to Lissa, and she bit her lip.

  ‘Mm,’ she said as her name was ticked off on a list and she found her way to her own tiny bedroom on the train.

  She sighed happily as she opened the door. A bed was made up with a fresh white duvet and white sheets, two pillows and a tartan blanket. There was a sink at one end, and a shelf for her clothes and a bottle of water and it felt at that moment like the ultimate in luxury. A place to shut herself in, lock the world out and lick her wounds.

  The window showed the dank black interior of Euston station. She didn’t want to see it. She pulled down the shutters and opened her bag to finally – finally – get into her pyjamas and forget about today altogether.

  ‘I’m afraid you need a ticket, son,’ said the woman on the reception desk at the train, now looking not quite as nicely at the large, rather sweaty figure in front of her.

  ‘Where can I get one?!’

  ‘From the booking office . . . if it’s still open.’

  Cormac looked back in dismay. The booking office was miles away. They both looked at the clock. It was four minutes to nine.

  ‘Am I going to make it?’ he said.

  The woman looked sad.

  ‘You can get the 23.50 to Edinburgh,’ she said brightly. ‘That’ll be fine.’

  ‘If I was going to Edinburgh that would be fine!’ said Cormac in anguish. If he didn’t get on that train, that would be it – it would be over. She’d never trust him again.

  ‘It’s nice,’ said the woman. He gave her a level glance. The train started to make noises, the engines huffing up.

  He screwed up his eyes.

  ‘Is there . . .? Someone I really need to see is on this train. Can you call her for me?’

  The woman protectively hid her clipboard with her hand.

  ‘What if you’re a murderer?’

  ‘Okay,’ said Cormac desperately. Doors were slamming up and down the train now and a guard was raising a whistle to his lips.

  ‘Can I . . . can I just run up and down the train and see if I can see her?’

  ‘Am I going to let you, a murderer, run up and down the train and peer in everybody’s windows?’

  ‘Pleeeease! This is someone . . . this is someone really important to me. Please. Please!’

  The woman looked at him sadly.

  ‘I cannae,’ said the woman. ‘Health and safety. We’ve had a lot of training.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Cormac ruefully.

  ‘Peeep!’ blew the whistle.

  Lissa stood up and leaned her head against the window of the little cabin, peering out into the world of the sooty, fluorescent station beyond, with its smell of fast food, the shouts of cheery or drunken commuters. When had London started to feel so strange?

  She gazed out. Funny, it was almost as if it were calling her name. But as she strained her ears to hear, there was another sharp blow on the whistle, and the train began smoothly to chug its way out of the great, black, dirty station.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  ‘That,’ said the train guard, covering her ears, ‘is quite the shout you’ve got there.’

  And she lightly stepped onto the guard platform as Cormac, throat ragged, cried out ‘LISSSAAA!’ one last time to no avail. As the train took off, he tried to run alongside it, even as security hailed him, and he stopped, put his hands on his knees, utterly out of breath, utterly defeated.

  Empty, exhausted, feeling foolish and simply ridiculous for having pinned so many hopes and dreams on that day, Lissa sank down on the bed, feeling the soothing motion of the train beneath her. She glanced at her phone . . . No, no, no. Of course.

  She had been so stupid. Well. This was modern life, she supposed. She sank back against the pillows. No way was she going to sleep. She was going to lie awake in a frenzy of embarrassment and recrimination all night, then she’d have to get straight back to work the next day, which was why she’d bought a sleeper ticket in the first place.

  She turned her head into the pillow. Well, tomorrow was another day, she supposed. But somehow – and having her phone off definitely helped – the slightly jolting motion of the train, the fresh white linen, the sheer exhaustion and, let us be honest, the several gins somehow worked their magic and, within moments, Lissa was utterly and completely asleep.

  Outside in the streets of London, it was dark, and the corner pubs were starting to take a more aggressive tone. There was distant shouting and omnipresent sirens, and a helicopter somewhere overhead. Cormac again had the faint, tense feeling that there were too many people, all hot and drunk and angry, in too small a space. King’s Cross was absolutely heaving, its restaurants and piazzas overspilling with people.

  It crossed his mind – it absolutely crossed his mind – that Larissa would still be in her fancy restaurant with her fancy mates. That he could at least sit and lick his wounds surrounded by sympathetic company.

  But it was strange: those girls didn’t appeal to him. Not at all. Not Larissa; not Yazzie. Nobody did. Nobody except the person who probably thought he’d dropped her. After all, who these days didn’t have their phone? Who would ever believe it? Only a very stupid person, and he knew she wasn’t that.

  Cormac turned blindly south again. Retracing the steps he had run with so much hope in his heart was bitter and exhausting. A group of cabaret performers shouted at him as he accidentally trod on the tail of someone’s feather boa, and he recoiled and apologised. A drunk heckled him from the street and, instead of stopping, he passed on by, head down. Stop trying to care for everyone and just care for one person, he thought to himself bitterly. Well, look how brilliantly that had turned out.

  It seemed so far now, through endless paved roads, past endless taxis at endless junctions, their yellow lights glinting into the distance. He considered taking one, but there was no benefit to arriving home any earlier, was there? Even if he plugged his phone in straightaway, by the time it charged she’d be over the border, cursing him for ever. And ‘I was in prison’ wasn’t exactly the excuse he’d been hoping to give.

  He sighed as he passed the police station for what he hoped would be the last time ever. The lads were still, to his utter amazement, at the pub next door where, he was astounded to see, the coppers were now drinking as well; everyone seemed very merry. A mass cheer greeted him as he stumbled past.

  ‘Did you find her? The fuckbeast?’ shouted Nobbo. One glance from Cormac convinced him otherwise.

  ‘Awwww,’ said the group in chorus.

  ‘What’s this?’ said the sarcastic copper, and to Cormac’s horrified amazement, they immediately started telling him the entire story, while someone fetched Cormac a pint, which he declined in favour of a very large glass of water. The absolute last thing he needed was to get maudlin.

  As the story unrolled, the sarcastic copper screwed up his face.

  ‘He’s never even seen her?’

  ‘Naw, mate!’

  ‘That’s nuts!’ He pulle
d out his phone.

  ‘What’s her name? She’s got to be on Instagram.’

  But he found nothing.

  ‘Look for her on the police database,’ said his colleague.

  ‘Do not do that!’ said Cormac.

  ‘Well, you tried, you failed,’ said Fred. ‘Might as well just hang out with the rest of us . . .’

  ‘No!’ said the sarcastic policeman. ‘If you want her, go get her! That’s what I had to do with Gus!’

  ‘Where did Gus go?’ said his colleague.

  ‘Um . . . West London,’ said the policeman, and everyone gave a sharp intake of breath.

  ‘Well, I tried that,’ said Cormac. ‘Didn’t quite work.’

  ‘Hang on!’ said Fred, possibly somewhat over-refreshed. ‘Where is Scotland anyway? If you drove, would you get there faster?’

  ‘Where is Scotland?’

  ‘Focus on the question, mate, not your national pride.’

  Cormac glanced at his watch. ‘Well. Maybe. But I haven’t got a car.’

  ‘We’ve got a car!’

  The policemen immediately looked up.

  ‘You have?’

  ‘It’s insured!’ said Fred instantly. The others nodded.

  ‘I won’t be on your insurance,’ said Cormac. ‘And youse are all too pished up to drive.’

  ‘Yeah, we are,’ said Fred thoughtfully. ‘But the insurance covers everyone.’

  ‘Otherwise we can’t afford it,’ piped up Nobbo. ‘We had to pool it between everyone.’

  ‘You have a shared communal car?’ said Cormac.

  ‘Rotas are a nightmare,’ said Fred.

  ‘I’m going to run the plates,’ said the sarcastic police officer.

  ‘Leave ’em,’ said the other copper. ‘You’re off duty, Nish. Just leave it. For once.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Nish.

  ‘You’re a great copper. You just need to know when to relax. Switch off. Do a bit of self-care.’

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘Just . . . do your job. Don’t let it consume you.’

  ‘Thanks, Harry.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ said Harry, looking sadly at Nish’s wedding ring.

  The lads were getting up.

  ‘Okay, let’s go,’ said Fred.

  ‘You’re not coming,’ said Cormac.

  ‘Course we are! It’s our car!’

  ‘Also, we’re not doing anything else,’ said Nobbo, a little sadly.

  ‘ROADTRIP! ROADTRIP!’

  Cormac looked at them for a second, about to say don’t be ridiculous, everyone had to go home to bed and work to go to. Except they didn’t, did they?

  ‘ROADTRIP! ROADTRIP!’

  Then he thought about Lissa. And then unexpectedly he had another thought.

  He took out his phone, remembered it was dead, then reminded himself to text Lennox as soon as it was charged that he might have solved his harvest crisis.

  Chapter Forty

  Unsurprisingly, the boys bantered and chugged beer and yelled and tried to honk the horn for at least all the way to Birmingham. He’d explained there might be jobs up there for them, and they’d agreed to check them out instantly. Whether they’d feel the same in the morning was another story, of course.

  Then, like the lads they all still were, they fell asleep, snoring loudly on the back seat, Fred beside him.

  Cormac had managed to plug his phone into the charger in the car – at last – and watched it anxiously as it pinged into life. There were messages up till about four o’clock, jolly at first, then increasingly curt (from Lissa and, in fact, Larissa too), but they stopped abruptly (this was when Kim-Ange had got hold of the phone). Nothing recriminatory; nothing drunken or angry.

  This was the worst thing of all. If there had been upset texts, he could have convinced himself there was still a chance that she cared for him; that this had meant something to her too, not just been some stupid fantasy he’d concocted in his head.

  He couldn’t help it. He pulled over onto the hard shoulder and texted her. Just a simple ‘Hey’.

  It pinged back immediately. Number blocked. His stomach plummeted.

  He was, he realised, exactly halfway between London and Scotland. Two hundred and fifty miles to go. Before he could fall down at her door. Or not.

  He could turn around, work out his half of the exchange and never see her, only talk briefly about the cases. They never had to meet at all. He could go back; professional relations would be resumed. She’d succeeded in what she had to do and given her evidence. Everything would go back to normal as if it had never happened.

  Lissa woke suddenly on the train, not sure why. At first, she was completely disorientated, couldn’t remember where she was. Then she went to the window. They were flying through moonlit valleys and dales, not yet in Scotland but somewhere in the heart of the UK, between two worlds. London and Scotland. She sighed. That was what it felt like to be in different places at once. Her heart in Scotland but her life . . . well. Her life was in London. She knew that now. She could thank Cormac for that, she supposed. Whoever the hell he had turned out to be in the end.

  Cormac’s phone pinged. He leapt on it, his heart beating, pulling over to do so safely.

  Up for baby. Good news; desperate need.

  His heart sank. It was Lennox, expecting him to be turning up with lads who would work for a bit.

  Maybe he could drop them off and turn around. Have a quick nap and head back.

  Nobbo snorted in the back, turned over. Cormac thought of them all, young lads, nothing to do, hanging about on street corners, starting fights. How much they might change; how much they were capable of. He already knew how well Robbie had settled in, and he had been in a much darker place.

  He stared at his phone again. She’d blocked him. Maybe Kim-Ange had dissed him – he hadn’t even though of that. Told Lissa what a rube he was, how many mistakes he’d made. Maybe they’d laughed themselves silly at the narrow escape she’d had. Oh God.

  He took a deep breath. Turned the key in the ignition.

  He drove on.

  It was strange; he didn’t feel tired. Even though it was the early hours of the morning, he felt strangely alive, crossing the fells through the beautiful Lake District; climbing higher and higher through Cumbria till he finally crossed the border, and on and on they went, through a blissfully snoozing Glasgow and up, north, ever north, across the Campsie Fells, and now when he opened the window the air was fresh and freezing and clouds passed across the moon as the stars began to vanish, one by one and at first it was the faintest passing of black to navy and navy to blue and a very thin line at the horizon to his right, promised a new day.

  Chapter Forty-one

  It was just after six when Cormac reached Lennox’s farm, but everyone was up already, Lennox beaming broadly when he met the lads stumbling out of the car, blinking and rubbing their eyes, some of them already regretting their drunken plans from the night before. Nina had got up too and prepared a large breakfast for the incomers.

  The train didn’t arrive till seven. Cormac was edgy and itchy and couldn’t put his phone away, which Nina noticed.

  ‘Can I use your shower?’ he asked awkwardly.

  ‘Why don’t you go to your own lovely house and use your own lovely shower, Cormac MacPherson?’ she said.

  ‘Because . . . there’s a girl in it,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, she’s lovely, Lissa,’ said Nina. ‘I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.’

  Cormac turned bright scarlet and tried to answer, but couldn’t. Nina gave him a very shrewd look.

  ‘Here, I’ll get you a towel,’ she said, John on her hip as she went towards the airing cupboard. ‘You can borrow a shirt of Lennox’s too, if you’re desperate.’

  ‘Uh, thanks,’ said Cormac.

  ‘If you see her,’ said Nina, bustling off, ‘tell her I’ve got that copy of Daddy-Long-Legs in I ordered for her. Actually here, take it yourself.’

  And she went ba
ck downstairs to pour thick cream and honey on the porridge and brew fresh coffee for the new batch of harvest boys.

  Cormac followed her outside.

  ‘Actually, I might just . . . head back to London,’ he said, head down. Nina looked at him, frowning.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Um, long story. But I need to get packed up down there. Head back here. Just . . . tie up some loose ends.’

  ‘Are you okay?’

  Cormac shrugged.

  ‘Ach. There was a girl. It didn’t work out.’

  Nina smiled sympathetically.

  ‘English girls,’ she said. ‘We’re terribly tricky.’

  ‘I might as well go back and get it sorted out. Plus I think the lads share that car with about twenty other people. Don’t want to get anyone into trouble.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to sleep?’

  ‘Neh, can’t really miss a shift. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Okay then,’ said Nina. ‘See you next week.’

  He paused.

  ‘I don’t think the streets of London really are paved with gold.’

  Nina looked around the bustling farmyard. In the corner, a quiet Robbie was sitting on the ground, crawling up to little John and pretending to be a bear while John cackled hysterically. Robbie had adjusted to the quiet of the farm so quickly, Nina hadn’t seen him take a drink since he got there. He ate with the other labourers every night, kept himself to himself, but the relief in his face was obvious, and Nina always dug him up an extra slice of bacon from somewhere. Little John adored him; he was the only person who could make Robbie smile, and he crawled around after him half the day. If it hadn’t been ridiculous, Nina would have thought he understood that he was needed.