“This is hopeless,” Bobby’s father’s voice cut through the darkness. “We couldn’t spot train tracks in this darkness if we fell over them.”
He took another tentative step forwards and vanished.
Mary gave a yelp as she was yanked off her feet. The two fugitives tumbled and rolled down a steep embankment, coming to rest against a line of rusted metal. The girl sat up and felt her arms and legs, but she was unscathed.
“You were saying?”
“Hey. I always had a fine sense of direction.” Gordon’s pained voice came from somewhere to the left. “Could we possibly put the torches on now? I think I’m lying in a patch of nettles.”
With their flashlights trained on the metal line, they were able to make swift progress. In less than half an hour the embankment levelled out and they could see the remains of the abandoned Pitlour Station silhouetted against the orange glow, tepees of torn up rusting girders in the background. The station had always been a makeshift affair and all that was left standing were a couple of boarded up engine sheds. Mary played both torches on the barricaded windows while Gordon tested the nails that held them in place.
“I can prise these off with a branch or something.”
“It’s probably safe to light a fire inside. Nobody will see it.” Mary handed a flashlight to Gordon. “You get us in and I’ll collect some firewood.”
“Ok.” The man began looking around for some sort of lever to force off the slats on the windows. “Hey! Can’t you call Bobby on your mobile? I left mine in the house. Just not used to having one, I suppose.”
“I don’t own a mobile,” the girl replied awkwardly. “And I think Bobby left his in the house too.”
“He did? I thought that thing never left his pocket.”
“Yeah. But some idiot told him the police could track mobile phones.”
“I’m surprised he believed them. Not the trusting sort, our Bobby.”
“Maybe he’s learning.” Mary sheepishly turned away and began looking for fuel for their fire.
An hour later Gordon had a small fire going in the middle of the shed. Mary watched him from the doorway, which she had managed to unbar once they got inside. The man hunched over fledgling flames, blowing on them until they took proper hold of the damp wood. A flickering lambency danced across Gordon’s face giving him a devilish countenance. Mary clenched her fists and winced as her fingernails cut into grazed palms. For the first time it struck home that she was alone in the wilderness with him. The teenager remembered how easily and ruthlessly he had battered the soldier to the ground. When he acted like a teenager it was easy to forget just how broad and muscular he was.
And how unstable.
There was a drawn out lupine howl in the distance. Gordon looked round.
“There are wolves in Scotland now?”
“No.” Mary felt the hackles rise on her neck. “It sounded like one though, didn’t it?”
She half-heartedly left the doorway and joined Bobby’s father. The concrete floor was freezing, so he had unrolled sleeping bags to sit on. Mary shared out what was left of their food, leaving some for Bobby. Neither dared mention the possibility that he wouldn’t turn up to eat it.
“What do you think was happening back there?” Gordon stuffed a chunk of Mars Bar into his mouth. “Why were there sholdiersh on the road? Where’sh everyone going?”
“I haven’t got a clue.” Mary glanced through the window at the orange horizon and shuddered. “I’m probably being stupid but… it seemed like….”
“What?”
“It was like the end of the world was starting. And everyone was trying to run away from it.”
“Sorry I asked.” Gordon pulled a piece of twig from his jumper and threw it on the fire. The flames were the same colour as the glow in the sky.
They sat in silence for a while, listening to the fire crackling.
“So… are you going out with my son?”
“Me?” Mary stammered. “We’re just friends. Anyway he’s almost a year younger than me.”
“So? My wife was ten years younger than me.” Gordon stoked the small fire. “I’m obviously no expert but you guys seem right for each other.”
Mary considered this for a moment.
“I’m not very pretty.”
“Oh. Is that it? Well, neither am I.” Bobby’s father hugged his knees and stared disconsolately into the flames. “I’m an old man.”
The two of them sat watching the flickering shadows snake around the concrete walls.
“Gordon.” Mary said. “How did you know your wife was younger than you?”
“Eh? I’ve no idea.” The man thought for a second. “But I do.”
“I guess you must have really loved her.”
“I can’t have if I left her.”
“Maybe it wasn’t your fault.”
“That’s the problem. I think and think and I don’t remember anything. I’m left with what I feel. And I feel that, somehow, everything’s my fault.” He hit the side of his head with his palm, as if it would shake loose some blocked memory. “The officer knew exactly who I was, though. You heard him.”
“Maybe the police put out an APB on you.”
“That was the army, not the cops.” Gordon wrinkled his nose. “Maybe I’m some sort of secret agent! Could it be I have a cover identity? Then I hit my head or something and got them mixed up.”
“And your cover is being a fifteen year old?” Mary slid her rucksack closer and peered inside. “If you’re exploring crazy ideas, here’s one. What if Gordon Berlin and Dodd Pollen are different people in the same body.”
“Yeah. That makes sense!” Bobby’s father slid his own rucksack across and lay back, using it as a pillow. “You mean, like a split personality?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then what?”
“Forget it.”
“I’m knackered. Not as young as I used to be, you know. Damn! I feel like someone’s hammering bloody nails into my brain.” He sighed and closed his eyes. “I’m just going to rest for a few minutes, and then I have to go look for Bobby.”
“I’ll come with you when you do.”
“Cool. I don’t want to go out there on my own.”
Mary sat quietly watching Bobby’s father. His breathing slowly became more rhythmic and his clenched fists relaxed. After a few minutes she realized he had fallen asleep.
“Hmmmm. My dad used to do that as well.”
Mary waited until she was sure Gordon was out for the count. Silently she opened her rucksack and took out a stoppered phial of water and a small Bible. Inside the cover was a thin sheaf of hand written papers. She dug in the bag again and produced the cross from her bedroom wall. The two halves of the broken Jesus had been fastened back on it with Sellotape - a transparent bandage round his bony torso.
“All right. This is the best chance I’m going to get.”
Clutching the Bible, Mary began to read quietly from her notes. The first part was in Latin and she faltered over many of the words. She kissed the cross and placed it on the floor in front of her.
She unstoppered the phial and began to chant.
“By the power of Jesus Christ our Lord, I compel you, demon, to leave the body of this man. By the power of Jesus Christ our Lord, I compel you, demon, to leave the body of this man.”
Gordon gave a low groan, his face twitching.
She repeated the phrase over and over, picking up and kissing the cross each time she finished. Then she shook the phial in Gordon’s direction. Some of the water landed on the fire making it hiss and coil away. A few splashes of water landed on the man’s heaving chest. Mary held the cross out towards him, the flickering glow of the fire writhing across his sleeping face.
“By the power of Jesus Christ our Lord I compel you, Demon, to leave the body of this man!”
Gordon’s eyes shot open.
-36-
Bobby crouched at the foot of a tree, listening intently, hearing no
thing but the wind weaving through the branches. The gun was still in his hand, cold and heavy, but he knew that he’d got away.
The teenager had found the revolver in the attic, just like Gordon had said, before he lost his memory. Bobby had never seen a real gun before and he’d taken it on impulse. He never thought he’d actually fire it, never mind threaten an army officer with the weapon.
He wondered just how much trouble he was in.
Yet, he had never felt the way he did now.
At first he had been terrified, fleeing through utter blackness – a reckless dash that bordered on suicidal. He only stopped when he ran full tilt into a wire fence and was catapulted onto his back with a force that nearly knocked him out. After that he had walked briskly but cautiously, using the weird glow for illumination, trying to put as much distance as he could between himself and the soldiers.
It wasn’t hard to keep his bearings, for the orange glow in the sky was like a signpost saying north. If he headed diagonally towards it he was bound to come across the abandoned rail line Mary had been talking about. Then all he had do was follow it to the derelict station and hope she and his dad would be there.
He guessed it was safe to use his torch, so he switched it on and headed north east.
At first every unfamiliar sound made him jump. Then he got used to the owl hoots, cracking twigs and gusts of wind. They simply added mystery to the wonderful silence in the vast black void he was travelling through. He felt like a mythical hero in some giant inverted cavern, perhaps travelling into the underworld or the land of the dead to rescue his father.
He put the gun back in his bag. He didn’t need it. He felt instinctively that nothing could harm him here. The countryside was finest velvet and the stars glittered like a massive chandelier. But the myriad pinpoints of light didn’t make him seem insignificant as they always had before. No. This was his black world and he was the most important thing in it.
He stopped, threw back his arms and howled like a wolf, listening to his cry echo across the midnight fields.
“All right. That was totally uncalled for.”
But he couldn’t stop smiling. He had saved his dad. He had taken on the army and won. He was walking across Fife on his own in the dark to who knew what fate.
He felt alive.
Baba Rana scuttled further and further from the A91, kicking out with both boots to propel herself backwards, until she was too exhausted to go any further. Whimpering, she pulled a blanket from her backpack and tugged it over her frail body, hoping the thick wool would provide a little warmth and some measure of camouflage. Her mind wouldn’t stop churning. Long submerged memories were scratching at the edges of her consciousness, just beyond reach. Memories she hadn’t realized even existed or, perhaps, never dared recall. It seemed like she was walking into her own past and the strange boy she had met was responsible, somehow. But how? Who was he?
The old woman clutched at her blanket and pulled it over her head. Shaking with fear and cold and misery, she curled into a ball and cried uncontrollably until she finally fell asleep.
WPC Arnold sat on a hard plastic chair in the interview room of Methyl Police Headquarters, hands folded across her knees. Policemen, soldiers and suited civilians hurried past the door in both directions, gloomy expressions plastered across their faces.
The Constable was still seething. Nobody had answered her questions. Nobody paid any attention to her. Sitting alone in the drab windowless room she finally had an inkling of how suspects felt. If she were a criminal, she’d have been willing to confess a long time ago.
WPC Arnold wondered, for the umpteenth time, if she had done something wrong. Surely the insubordination she had shown to the Chief Inspector didn’t warrant this kind of treatment?
And she was acutely aware that every hour she stayed here, Gordon Berlin and the children were getting further away.
-37-
Gordon’s stare froze Mary to the spot. The Bible and cross were still clutched in the girl’s hands.
“What are you playing at, you daftie?” The man sat up, wiping drops of water from his face. “You could have just given me a nudge!”
His eyes fell on the Bible.
“What exactly are you doing?”
“Please don’t hurt me.” Mary raised the cross in defence. “I was only trying to help.”
“And what’s that for?” Gordon’s mouth twisted in disbelief. “I’m not bloody Dracula, you know.”
“I don’t know what to believe.” Mary slid a little further away, still holding the cross in front of her. “It was like the End of Times back there. Like Revelations in the New Testament. And you seemed to think it was your fault.”
“I don’t think I’ve caused the end of the world!” Bobby’s father gave a guarded laugh. “Who do you think I am? The Antichrist?”
The girl stayed silent. Gordon’s eyes widened as comprehension dawned on him.
“You have got to be kidding me!”
“I don’t think you’re the Antichrist. I just…” Mary faltered.
“Just what?”
“I think you might be possessed,” the teenager blurted out. “I think Dodd Pollen is real and that, somehow, he’s gotten inside you.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“I’m not!” Mary’s eyes flashed defiantly. “I saw something in the church at Puddledub! In the confession booth. It sounded like a demon and it warned me to leave Dodd Pollen alone!”
Gordon tried to repress a snigger.
“I’m not making it up!”
“I know you’re not.” The man straightened his face and picked guiltily at his jeans. “I… eh… was there.”
“Excuse me?”
“I was in my house when that Mrs Smith from the boarding kennels came knocking on the front door. So I sneaked out the back and went looking for Bobby.”
“You went to the church?”
“Yeah, but it was empty. Then I heard someone coming up the path, so I hid in the booth thingy. I didn’t realise it was you until Bobby turned up.”
Gordon took a deep, theatrical breath and warped his mouth to one side.
“Dodd Pollen is here to stay,” he rasped in a low glottal voice. He gave a cough and tapped his chest. “It’s actually my Donald Duck impression, but I’m not very good at it.”
“You were the thing in the confession booth?” The girl’s voice was flat and hard.
“I was just having you on. I was going to jump out and give you and Bobby an even bigger fright but you both took off.” Gordon spread his hands. “It was a joke!”
Mary was still glaring at him. The man tried a half-hearted smile.
“All right, settle down. It was a stupid joke.”
“What about the dogs?” The girl waved the cross angrily at Bobby’s father. The top half of Jesus came loose and dangled on the strip of Sellotape, arms spread wide in protest. “They went crazy when you were near them. And how did you know the police were coming to Pennywell Cottage before they even got there?”
“I didn’t know. I was just making sure that stupid woman from the boarding kennel wasn’t still hanging around. And the dogs went nuts because I was throwing stones at them.” He rolled his eyes. “I thought if I got them barking she’d come and see what the noise was about and I could get back in my house.”
Mary flung the cross to the ground and burst into tears.
“Hey! I didn’t hurt the dogs.” Bobby’s father scooted round the fire. “I was just annoying them. Honest.”
“It’s not that.” Mary wiped angrily at her face. “I feel so stupid! I wanted to believe you were possessed. I thought I finally had proof that God and the Devil and all the stuff in the Bible was real.” She let her hands fall and tears slid freely down her cheeks. “Then I’d know my mum and dad were really in Heaven and I’d see them again someday.”
“Well… they might be.” Gordon picked up the cross and tried to fit Jesus back, but the bottom half came off in his hands. �
�That’s what faith’s supposed to be all about, isn’t it?”
“I’m tired of believing in things. They never turn out to be true.” The teenager shoved the cross angrily back in her bag. “It’s like my gran. She told me all about Romany sixth sense and folk tales and Little People and I tried to believe that too.”
“Maybe she’s right.” Gordon gave up on the cross and dropped the broken Jesus unceremoniously into the dirt. “She ought to know, if she’s a proper Gypsy.”
“But she’s not!” Mary sobbed. “That’s what I was going to tell Bobby in the confession booth. She admitted to me long ago that she’s not Romany at all. She’s just a lonely old lady who loves all that kind of stuff. Just like she loves comic books and superheroes.”
“Me too! The Green Lantern is my favourite. Not that it matters,” Gordon added quickly.
“I read Tarot and make spells and I try to convince myself I’ve got second sight, but the truth is I haven’t got a drop of Gypsy blood in me.” The girl slammed shut the Bible with a loud whump. “I’m a complete fake.”
“Hey, none of us can predict the future. That’s probably a good thing.” Gordon put his arm round Mary and gave her a hug. “I bet it would be hellish if we could.”
He patted her head awkwardly and yawned.
“I been thinking. There’s no way I’ll find Bobby in the dark and we have to sleep. I’m totally pooped and you must be too. As soon as it’s light we’ll go look for him. I promise.”
“I suppose that makes sense.”
“The Antichrist!” Gordon chuckled, lying down again. “Ach. I bet I’ve been called worse.”
But Mary stayed awake until she was sure the man had drifted off. As she put the broken effigy back in her rucksack, she suddenly remembered a line from one of her favourite films - The Usual Suspects.
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing people he didn’t exist.
-38-
The door leading to the Methyl Police Station interview room opened and a Police Sergeant stuck his head in.
Waiting For a Train That Never Comes Page 12