Road of the Dead

by Kevin Brooks

  Just as I was beginning to enjoy it, though, Cole’s smile faded and he drew himself back into his shell again.

  “All right,” he said, putting out his cigarette, “I want you to tell me everything again—and this time I mean everything. Rewind that camcorder you keep inside your head and play it all back to me—word by word, scene by scene—from the moment I left this morning until the moment you came back.”

  A couple of hours later we left the farmhouse and headed up the lane toward the village road. The moorland light was dimming under a cover of darkening clouds, and the murky air felt heavy and damp. Everything seemed blurred and muffled—sounds, colors, surfaces, shapes—and I wished there were some lights around. I missed having lights. I missed their sharpness, their brightness, the way they define things…the way they show you where you are.

  I was tired and hungry.

  Vince had come back while we were talking in the bedroom. We’d heard him arguing with Abbie about something, then a short time later Abbie had come upstairs and asked us if we wanted anything to eat. It was the first time I’d seen her since she’d stormed out on me that morning, and I could tell by the way she looked at me that she hadn’t forgotten about it. She wasn’t exactly unfriendly toward me…but she wasn’t particularly friendly, either. Cole had given her his nice-guy smile and told her that we were going out, but thanks for the offer anyway…

  So we hadn’t eaten.

  And it was getting cold.

  And my head was throbbing and my legs were aching from all the walking I’d done earlier, and now I was trying to keep up with Cole as he marched on ahead of me up the lane…and I wasn’t looking forward to the next few hours.

  “What did Abbie say about not leaving the farmhouse?” Cole said to me over his shoulder.

  “What?”

  “Abbie—she told you she didn’t want to move out.”

  “Hold on,” I said, scuttling up behind him.

  He stopped and waited for me to catch up, then we carried on walking side by side.

  “It was her mum’s house,” I told him, remembering what Abbie had said. “That’s why she could never leave it. It means too much to her. Her mum was born there, she died there.”

  Cole nodded thoughtfully. “If what Jess told you is true, she must be one of the last ones left who haven’t sold.”

  “Yeah, I suppose…unless the hotel people don’t want her place.”

  “Why shouldn’t they want it? This Quentin guy has bought up everywhere else, hasn’t he? And he doesn’t sound like the kind of man who’d take no for an answer. I bet he’s offered them a pretty good deal. And it’s not as if they don’t need the money. The farm’s not theirs anymore, and neither of them’s got a steady job.”

  “What about Vince?”

  Cole shook his head. “All he knows is farming. I asked him about it when he gave me a lift to the village. He picks up a bit of farmwork now and then, but he spends most of his time just buying and selling stuff.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “Anything—motorbikes, cars, horses, all sorts of crap. I don’t think he makes much money, though…”

  Cole was quiet for a while after that, and as we continued walking through the moorland dusk I could feel him thinking slowly and carefully about all the things I’d told him—and more. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking about them, but I knew he was putting things together in his own deliberate way.

  He’s always been a cautious thinker, never quite trusting his mind in the same way that he trusts his fists, and I’ve always kind of envied him for that. In some ways we’re very much alike, but when it comes to cautiousness we’re polar opposites: My mind works as furiously as his fists, and my fists work as slowly as his mind. Not that there’s anything wrong with having a furious mind, I just sometimes wish that mine would slow down a bit and let me see what it’s doing.

  We’d reached the end of the lane now, and as we turned right onto the village road and passed alongside the forest gateway, I glanced across at the black mass of pine trees and hillside beyond, searching for the Road of the Dead. But I couldn’t see it. The hills were slumbering under a blanket of cloud, and all I could see was a spectral gray mist creeping down from the heights, smothering the moor in stillness.

  I looked away and followed Cole along the darkening road.

  He had his backpack slung over his shoulder. As he walked, it was jogging up and down, bouncing lightly against his back. I watched it for a while, focusing on the rhythm, the constant thunk-thunk-thunk, and I let the sound burrow into my mind and hypnotize the part of me that wanted to forget the things I had to talk to him about.

  I don’t know how long it took—maybe five minutes or so—but eventually I found myself catching up with Cole again and walking alongside him without the fear that had been niggling at me for days.

  He turned his head and saw me staring at him. “What?” he said. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Nothing—I need to talk to you about something.”

  “What?”

  “When I was with Jess today, she mentioned Billy McGinley.”

  “Who?”

  I smiled. “Yeah, that’s what I said. It didn’t fool her, either. We both know what happened.”

  “Yeah? And what was that?”

  “I’m not stupid, Cole.”

  “I never said you were.”

  “Just because I don’t talk about it doesn’t mean I don’t know about it.”

  “Know about what?” he said irritably. “How am I supposed to know what you’re talking about if you don’t tell me?”

  “All right.” I sighed. “If that’s how you want to play it.” I looked at him. “I’m talking about Dad’s fight with Tam Docherty—OK?”

  “What about it?”

  “It was a setup, wasn’t it?”

  He hesitated briefly, then nodded. “Yeah, the gavvers were after Dad for a bunch of stuff he’d done years ago—fake license plates, stolen cars, that dodgy Range Rover deal he had going…” He shook his head. “It was all nothing stuff, but he’d gotten away with it for so long the gavvers were desperate to nail him for anything. So when they heard about the fight—”

  “Who tipped them off? The Dochertys?”

  “Probably.” He looked at me. “They never liked Dad.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know…it’s just one of those family feud things, I suppose. The Dochertys and the Fords have hated each other for years. It’s been going on for so long now that no one can remember what started it.”

  I looked into his eyes. “That’s bollocks, Cole—and you know it.”

  He stopped walking and stared back at me. “What?”

  “There’s no family feud,” I told him. “There never was. The reason the Dochertys tipped off the cops was to pay back Dad for taking out Billy McGinley.”

  Cole shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yeah, you do,” I told him. “Billy took a little girl from a site in Norfolk and kept her locked up in his trailer for two days. The girl was Jem Rooney’s daughter—Jem was Dad’s best friend.” I looked at Cole. “You used to call him Uncle Jem—remember?”

  Cole didn’t say anything.

  “I don’t know exactly what happened,” I went on, “but a couple of days later Billy McGinley was found dead in a field near Cambridge. He’d been shot in the back of the head.”

  “So?” Cole shrugged.

  “So the night Billy was killed, you and Dad went out and didn’t come back till late. And when you got back to the yard, you stashed something in the trunk of that Volvo where Dad keeps all his dodgy money and stuff.”

  “You know about that?”

  “I’ve known about it for years. I used to break into the trunk when I was a kid and help myself to a few fivers.” I looked at him. “That’s how I know you put the pistol in there that night. I saw it the next day.”

  Cole went to say something,
then changed his mind and closed his mouth.

  “I know you’ve got the pistol in your bag,” I told him. “I saw you take it out before you left the yard.”

  He shrugged again and started walking, his eyes fixed intently on the village up ahead. We were nearly there now, just passing the old stone house at the end of the street. The streetlights were on, but it hardly seemed worth it. The gray of the village just soaked up the dim orange light like it soaked up everything else—sound, color, life, death. Everything just faded to gray.

  “You’re not denying it, then?” I said to Cole.

  “Denying what?”

  “The pistol…”

  “No,” he said blankly, “I’m not denying it. Why should I? It’s only a gun. It’s no big deal. I just thought we might need it, that’s all.”

  “Like you needed it before?”

  “When?”

  “When Billy McGinley was killed.”

  He stopped again—stopped, turned around, and looked me in the eye. “Billy was sick,” he said quietly. “Whatever he did, it wasn’t his fault. He just got sick, like a mad dog gets sick. Locking him up wouldn’t have done any good. He’d have gotten out eventually and done it again. Some other little kid would have suffered.”

  “So you killed him.”

  Cole shook his head. “I’ve never killed anyone. I’m not saying I don’t know what happened to Billy, but I can promise you that I’ve never killed anyone.”

  “What about Dad?”

  Cole blinked once. “He killed Tam Docherty, but that was an accident—”

  “I’m not talking about Docherty, I’m talking about Billy McGinley. Did Dad shoot him? Is that why the police were really after him, because they knew he’d killed Billy but they just couldn’t prove it?”

  Cole touched my arm. “I’m sorry, Rube,” he said softly. “I can’t tell you anything else.”

  “Why not?”

  “I just can’t.”

  We stared at each other for a long time then, both of us graying in the village light, and I didn’t know what to think. I couldn’t feel anything—there was nothing from Cole, nothing from me—but somehow it felt OK. I didn’t understand it, and I wasn’t sure if it was right, but it was what I felt—and that’s all I had.

  “All right,” I said eventually, “but whatever happened with Billy McGinley, this had better not be the same.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’re just here to do what we can to get Rachel’s body back—right?”

  “Right.”

  “And that’s all?”

  “That’s all.”

  “You’re not after anything else?”

  “Like what?”

  “Vengeance, justice, reckoning, revenge…all that Hollywood shit. Tell me the truth, Cole—is that what you want?”

  “No,” he said simply. “That’s not what I want. I don’t want anything. I’m not doing this for myself, or for you, or even for Rachel—I’m doing this for Mum. It’s all I can do. Look, I’m not saying that no one’s going to get hurt, because I think they probably will, but it won’t have anything to do with revenge or punishment or justice, it’ll just be because that’s how it has to be—OK?”

  I looked at him, seeing the truth in his eyes, and I nodded.

  He gave my arm a gentle squeeze, then he looked away and gazed down the street.

  “Are you ready?” he asked me.

  “I suppose…what do you think’s going to happen?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, moving off down the street. “Let’s go and find out.”

  When we entered the bar at the Bridge Hotel, it was like walking into a time warp. Nothing had changed from the night before—it felt the same, looked the same, sounded the same. Loud voices, glasses chinking, drunken laughter…there was even the same sudden silence as we walked through the door. Sky Sports was still flickering on the TV, and the bar was packed with the same sour faces that had welcomed us before. They were all there: Nate and Big Davy, his neck in a brace; Red and Henry Quentin; Skinny and the metalheads; the hoods in tight T-shirts; Ron Bowerman; Will the barman. A bunch of boys I hadn’t seen before were hanging around by the window, and from the way they kept glancing outside at the street, I guessed they were keeping an eye out in case any of the Delaneys came looking for Red to pay him back for killing Jess’s dog.

  Red himself was sitting at an alcove table with his back to the wall, raising his glass and smiling across the room at us. Henry Quentin was sitting beside him, with Big Davy and Nate standing guard behind them.

  My belly felt sick and my legs were shaking. I wanted to do something—move, talk, turn around and leave…anything to take my mind off those staring faces—but Cole just stood there, gazing quietly around, soaking it all up. The looks, the smiles, the whispers—they didn’t exist for him. They were nothing.

  I saw his eyes settle on someone at the back of the room, and when I looked over I caught sight of Vince trying not to be seen. He was with a plump-faced blonde girl in a very short dress. They were sitting close together in a cozy little nook in the corner, all lovey-dovey and holding hands. The girl couldn’t have been much more than seventeen. When Vince saw us watching him, he dropped the girl’s hand and quickly moved away from her, but he knew he wasn’t fooling anyone. I could see the realization dawning in his face. In less than a second his eyes went from troubled to angry, from angry to scheming, before finally settling on casual defiance—Yeah, all right, so you’ve seen me—so what? What are you going to do about it?

  Cole didn’t care—it was nothing more than information to him.

  “Come on,” he said to me, putting his hand on my shoulder and guiding me toward the bar, “let’s get a drink.”

  We squeezed into a space at the bar between a couple of gnarly old farmers and a tough-looking lunk with a teardrop tattooed under his eye.

  “What do you want?” Cole asked me.

  “I don’t know,” I mumbled. “A Coke, I suppose.”

  “Any crisps?”

  “Yeah, cheese-and-onion.”

  Cole took a £20 note from his pocket and waved it at Will the barman. After pretending not to see us for five minutes or so, he eventually made his way over.

  “Yeah?” he said to Cole.

  “Two Cokes and a packet of cheese-and-onion crisps,” Cole told him.

  The Teardrop Man snorted into his drink, and at the end of the bar I saw Ron Bowerman smirking drunkenly to himself.

  “Two Cokes?” The barman grinned.

  “Yeah,” Cole told him, “and a packet of cheese-and-onion crisps. Do you want me to write it down for you?”

  The barman stopped grinning and glared at Cole for a moment, then he shook his head and started fetching the drinks.

  There was a mirror at the back of the bar. I could see the rest of the pub behind us, and I could see that everyone had started talking and drinking again. Just like before, the bar was gradually returning to normal. We were still being watched, though, and watched very closely—particularly by Ron Bowerman and the Teardrop Man. In the mirror I could see Teardrop staring at Cole. Cole was just ignoring him. Teardrop kept staring at him for a while, sucking dumbly on his lower lip, then suddenly he snapped his mouth and started looking around the room, sniffing loudly.

  “Hey, Will,” he said, turning to the barman. “You got rats in here or something? This place is really starting to stink.” He stared openly at Cole again. “What do you think, mate? D’you smell anything bad?”

  “Only you,” Cole said calmly, without looking at him.

  Teardrop slammed his beer glass on the counter and leaned into Cole, but before he could do anything the barman reached over and shoved him away.

  “Not in here,” he said, glaring into his eyes. “I don’t want any trouble in here—OK?”

  Teardrop gave him a look, glanced at Cole again, then swore under his breath and went back to his beer.

  The barman turned his glare on Cole. “Her
e,” he said, passing him the drinks, “but when you’ve finished those, I want you out.”

  Cole slid the £20 note across the counter and picked up the Cokes. As he passed one to me and took a sip from the other, Teardrop pushed past us, heading for a door marked GENTS, giving Cole a sly shove in the back as he went. When Cole jerked forward and spilled his drink, I fully expected him to turn around and smash the glass into Teardrop’s face—but he didn’t. Incredibly, he didn’t do anything. Didn’t even look at him. Just wiped the spilled Coke from his sleeve, wiped his mouth, and lit a cigarette.

  “You all right?” I asked him quietly.

  He nodded, blowing out a stream of smoke. “Was that one of them?”

  “Who?”

  “The tattooed guy—was he one of the ones you met on the moor?”

  I shook my head.

  “Are they in here?” he said.

  I nodded.

  “Don’t look at them,” he told me, “just tell me who they are.”

  I looked in the mirror. “Nate’s the fat one in the army jacket standing behind Red. Skinny’s at the table with the metalheads—he’s the one in the hat.”

  Cole glanced casually in the mirror. “The baseball cap?”

  “Yeah.”

  Cole nodded.

  The barman had crossed over to the other side of the bar now. He was talking to Ron Bowerman and gesturing in our direction. He didn’t look very happy.

  “What are we going to do?” I said to Cole.

  “Nothing.”

  I looked at him. “We can’t just stay here—”

  “It’s all right,” he said calmly. “We’re going in a minute. I just want to see what this piece of shit has to say.”

  I followed his eyes and saw Ron Bowerman heading toward us with a pint of beer in his hand. His eyes were glazed and his bald head was sweating under the gleam of the bright pub lights.

  “Mr. Ford,” he slurred at Cole, leaning on the bar beside him, “nice to see you again. I see you decided not to go home, then?”

  “We’ll be gone soon,” Cole told him.