by Simon Mayo
‘But we’ve actually left him behind!’
‘We’ll circle round and find him!’ said Max.
The hire van had been parked as close to the Heath as they dared. Ant, Mattie and Max had made it through the woods when they heard sprinting footsteps behind them. Max turned just as Amos hit him full on the mouth, the running punch sending him sprawling into the road.
‘That’s for leaving us,’ Amos spat at him.
Ant pulled him away. ‘In the van,’ she hissed. ‘We’ll sort it in the van, not here.’ She pulled Max to his feet and they ran on. ‘As soon as we’re inside, we’ve disappeared,’ she said. ‘Then we talk.’
Spitting blood, Max staggered the final few paces. He hit the key fob and the van’s lights flashed twice. They flung the doors open and dived in; Max and Ant in the front, Amos and Mattie in the back.
Max fired the engine and pulled away from the kerb. ‘Everybody down!’ he shouted. ‘You can hit me again later, Amos, but let’s get out of here now!’
Mattie was sobbing. Ant reached behind to squeeze his hand and then they all slid to the floor.
‘I can’t believe you just left us,’ said Amos from behind the driver’s seat. ‘Daisy was down, Jimmy was down, and you just . . . ran away.’ The disgust in his voice couldn’t have been clearer. ‘I was still fighting some copper and you’ – he managed to kick Max’s seat – ‘you disappeared.’
‘Amos, I’m sorry,’ said Max, carefully keeping under the speed limit. ‘We were all about to be caught. There seemed no point—’
‘No point in helping?’ Amos interrupted. ‘You’re a coward. From a family of cowards.’
Ant bit back her retort; their situation was bad enough already. ‘We messed up,’ she said. ‘We’re sorry.’ There was silence in the van, which was a forgiveness of sorts. ‘We’re all upset. We all make mistakes.’
At each set of lights, each junction, Max looked around nervously. ‘There’s loads of police, but they’re not looking at us,’ he said.
‘That’s because they don’t know what they’re looking for,’ said Ant, still on the floor. ‘The van’s not stolen, my debit card works, my fake ID is cool and you can drive. Unless we get a puncture or something . . .’
‘Don’t,’ said Max. ‘Just don’t. We need to hide. Actually, more than hide – we need to disappear.’
‘Keep driving,’ she said. ‘For now, even not being in London would be something.’
After a few minutes a small voice came from the back. ‘How do we know they’re telling the truth?’ said Mattie slowly.
‘What?’
‘When they said that . . . Dan and Gina . . . and the others . . . well, is it true?’
Amos shifted behind the driver’s seat. ‘Actually, yeah,’ he said, sitting up. ‘Maybe they’re lying, maybe it isn’t true . . .’ He was incredulous and hopeful at the same time. ‘But why would they make that up?’
‘To flush us out?’ suggested Max. ‘To make us do something stupid?’
‘I don’t think it was stupid,’ said Ant. ‘I think it was brilliant. Right up to the point when we lost Daisy and Jimmy . . .’
‘Which makes it stupid,’ snapped Amos.
‘We need the Bug sites on this,’ said Max. ‘They’re the only eyes and ears we have. Tell them what’s happened. I suppose it’s possible that the prison released false information . . .’
Mattie was sitting up now. ‘So you do think Dan and Gina might still be alive?’ Everyone heard the yearning in his voice.
‘Maybe.’ Ant was back on her phone, logging on.
‘Why don’t you post a video on the site, Ant?’ said Max. ‘You’re the Not to Blame girl. Tell them what’s happened.’
‘Isn’t that risky?’ she said.
‘The site is the most secure I’ve seen. We made it that way.’
‘You OK with that, Amos?’ Ant turned, and he shrugged.
She propped the phone up on the dashboard, stared at the screen and started to record:
‘My name is Ant. Me and my friends are the strutters who busted out of Spike. Today we stopped a prison coach and took a few straps off. Freed some people. But we lost two of our friends – they were hit by tasers. We don’t know what’s happened to them.’
She looked away from the camera for a moment.
‘And none of us know about our parents. The news sites say that Sarah Raath, Ahmet Shah, Mishal Noon, Dan Norton and Gina Norton are all dead, but we don’t know if this true. If anyone can help, then please let us know.’
She stopped recording and there was ironic applause from the back.
‘Quite the TV star,’ muttered Amos.
‘Ignore him,’ said Max.
‘Like you ignored me back on the Heath,’ he replied. ‘This is getting boring.’
They lapsed into a heavy silence, Max driving, Ant, Mattie and Amos still slumped out of site. Ant’s head was full of Jimmy, tasers, Daisy, rain, storming the coach, taking off straps, Dan and Gina.
What a mess. What a total, hideous mess, Ant thought. Why couldn’t I save any of them? How come I always lose everyone? She reached behind to hold Mattie’s hand.
‘Nou pral dwe OK,’ she said. She felt him squeeze her hand, then noticed Max glancing over. ‘What?’
‘I’d forgotten,’ he replied. ‘How you speak to each other. Your secret language.’
She shook her head. She hadn’t realized. ‘That’s just stupid,’ she said. ‘It just comes out that way sometimes.’
‘What did you say?’ asked Max.
‘In my “secret language”?’
Max hit the radio button and the van filled with classical music. He changed stations till he found something with a guitar in it. ‘Anything’s better than silence,’ he muttered.
‘I said, We’ll be OK,’ said Ant, relenting, and he nodded.
‘Thanks.’
Eventually Mattie asked, ‘Where are we going?’
‘I’m heading south-west,’ Max said. ‘I know my way around there. Unless anyone has any other ideas . . .’
‘Fine,’ said Ant. ‘Actually we should head for Cornwall.’
‘Really? Why?’
‘It’s Bodmin Prison,’ said Amos; it was the first time he had spoken for a while. ‘I spoke to one of the strutters.’
‘Yeah,’ said Ant, pleased he’d joined in. ‘Seems like everyone’s being put in one place. In which case Jimmy and Daisy will be there.’
‘And if my dad’s alive . . .’ said Amos.
‘Yeah, but why?’ persisted Max.
‘Because we should,’ said Ant. ‘I know it sounds useless, but if every strutter is being taken there, then we need to be there too. No one else wants to help. Maybe there are some coaches to storm, more strutters to free. I don’t want to go back to Spike, but we can’t just do nothing.’
‘Revenge,’ said Amos.
‘Call it justice,’ said Max.
Amos snorted. ‘If it makes college boy feel happier, sure. We’ll call it justice.’
The clouds and the rain had vanished, and by noon the heat was back. The van’s air-con had broken so Max drove with his window open. The M4 became the M5, and everyone but him fell asleep. No one noticed him looking forlornly at the signs to Bristol; he wondered what Sara was doing, what she would say to him. Were his mum and dad really dead? Images of the riot filled his head and he pushed them away. No one actually knew anything, so driving to where his parents might be seemed like a plan.
He remembered Sara talking about ‘disappearing’ people. Three students had needed to vanish and had gone what she had called ‘stealth camping’. One had pitched a tent in some woods; the others hid in a disused quarry. The key, so she said, was finding a safe space, but as it turned out, the quarry was used by quad bikers. They reported seeing gas canisters, uncollected rubbish and tents – the students were soon arrested.
‘We need a safe space,’ he muttered, assuming everyone was still asleep.
‘We need a
what?’ said Ant, stirring.
‘We need to hide. Bodmin Moor isn’t huge, but it’s big enough. And we need to hide this van too.’
‘Are we going to live in this van?’ asked Mattie.
‘Might have to,’ said Ant.
They refuelled and Max used Ant’s card to stock up on provisions. The gloom in the van was un-shiftable but lack of food and drink had been making everything worse.
‘I nearly drove into a service station while you were asleep,’ said Max, ‘but there were cops there. This will keep us going for a bit.’
They ate tacos, sandwiches and chocolate as the road twisted and narrowed. On either side of them the moor rolled out as far as they could see. Apart from a few rocky outcrops, it seemed featureless, almost desolate.
‘What a boring place,’ Mattie groaned. ‘I don’t want to live here.’
‘A bit of boring would be fine,’ said Max. ‘I’d settle for that.’ He explained about stealth camping. ‘We go off the grid. To all intents and purposes, we disappear. Wait for everything to die down.’
‘It’s not going to die down,’ muttered Amos. ‘It’s never going to die down. We’re going to have to disappear for a long time.’
‘Well, it’s better than Spike,’ said Mattie.
‘And some people can disappear for years,’ Max went on. ‘They just don’t want to “join in” with anything any more. So they come to places like this. Run their own lives.’
‘Great,’ said Amos. ‘Good for them. But I can’t do that. We can’t do that. I want to know about my dad. I need to find out what happened.’
The winding road had forced Max to slow down. ‘Bodmin two miles,’ read Ant from a road sign. ‘How close do we want to be?’
The question was left unanswered, but when a small dirt track opened up ahead of them, Max took it. ‘How about this?’
The track was narrow, with concrete posts and a wire fence on either side, and they bounced along over the potholes. Max steered round rusting furniture and piles of scattered engine parts.
‘Where is this?’ muttered Amos. The fencing had given way to a roughly made, three-metre-high wall, its granite stones topped off with corrugated iron sheets and barbed wire. Looking up from the van, they could see the tops of roofs, but nothing else. Even the padlocked gates had sight screens attached.
‘Friendly neighbourhood,’ said Ant. ‘Let’s keep going.’ The buildings fell away to scrubland but the track continued onto the moor, the van bouncing and rolling on the turf.
‘If anyone sees us, we should keep going.’
‘It’s not like that here,’ said Max, steering around granite rocks. ‘If you’re living on the moor, you don’t watch the news. And you certainly don’t go calling the police. It would just draw attention. Everyone wants to be invisible. Left alone.’ Ahead was woodland, the trees wide enough apart to allow them to drive in. ‘Let’s try here.’ Max headed into a clearing, coming to a stop when he couldn’t go any further.
They tumbled from the van, stretching and yawning, taco and sandwich crumbs falling to the ground. Ant looked around and almost smiled. Mattie said out loud what she was thinking: ‘It’s like everything has disappeared.’ From where they stood, all they could see were trees and moorland.
‘But the van is still white,’ Ant pointed out. ‘Let’s do some camouflaging.’
She and Mattie walked deeper into the woods, picking up branches as they went. It felt good to be out of the van but still invisible to the outside world.
‘Hey, Mattie, look at that,’ whispered Ant. She pointed at a deserted caravan wedged between tree trunks. The door was hanging off its hinges, the windows missing altogether. They approached cautiously, but a brief glance inside told them all they needed to know. The floor had given way, tall grass pushing its way inside.
‘On balance, I think our van is better,’ said Ant, and they moved on, picking up more camouflage as they went.
When their arms were full, they turned back, but pulled up short, hearing the sound of running water.
‘There was a river on the satnav,’ said Ant, ‘and we’re seriously filthy. When was the last time you swam, Mattie?’
‘Before Spike,’ he said. ‘Dan took me.’ He paused, and Ant guessed what was coming next. ‘Do you think they’re alive, Abi?’
‘You know I don’t know,’ she said, ‘but we’ll find out. Let’s go for a swim.’
He looked unconvinced but followed her anyway. There was no path – they climbed over fallen trees and squeezed through dense bracken. A crunching noise underfoot revealed a sea of rusting tin cans and discarded rubbish.
‘This is like a tip,’ said Mattie. Now piles of bundled newspapers appeared, like stepping stones across the wood. ‘Abi, this isn’t safe . . .’ He stopped. ‘We’re following the sound of the river but it’s like we’re really following a trail. And we don’t know what’s at the end of it.’
She walked back to where Mattie had stopped. He was looking at a shopping trolley half buried in the undergrowth, flowers blooming under its wire basket.
‘I don’t think we’re alone here,’ he said.
They both heard the precision click of a gun being loaded. From behind it came a growling West Country voice.
‘You got that right, kid.’
My favourite things RIGHT NOW:
Not being in Spike.
Seeing sheep and foxes.
Thinking D and G might be OK.
Ant and Mattie walked slowly into the clearing.
Amos and Max looked up and their expressions changed immediately. Max’s face drained of colour. A shirtless Amos cursed loudly. Ant and Mattie joined them in the line-up, backs to the van. The shotgun was in the hands of a portly, balding man with frizzy tufts of hair around his ears. His skin was weather-beaten and lined, his eyes narrowed.
‘It’s my wood,’ he growled. ‘Has been for years. There’s no room for the likes of you.’
Ant exchanged nervous glances with the others. ‘What do you mean, the likes of us?’
‘Ha!’ he said. ‘You know what I mean.’ He waved the barrel of the gun at them. ‘You’re a curse, the lot of you.’
‘Why are we a curse?’ asked Amos.
Max was conciliatory. ‘We honestly didn’t realize this was your wood. We can go somewhere else.’
A brief look of confusion passed over the man’s face. ‘You all speak English?’
‘Of course,’ said Mattie nervously. ‘Why wouldn’t we?’
‘’Cos you normally only speak Lithuanian. Or Latvian or something. ’S where you fruit pickers normally come from.’
The four relaxed immediately. ‘We’re not fruit pickers!’ Max would have laughed if there hadn’t been a gun pointing at him. ‘We’re just . . . on a gap year. On holiday.’
The man stabbed the gun in Mattie’s direction. ‘He’s on a gap year? Don’t make me laugh.’ Mattie took Ant’s hand.
Amos whispered, ‘Max, the water!’
‘Oh, yeah,’ said Max. ‘We were making tea, on the other side of the van. I should turn off the gas . . .’
The man walked round the van to check, then sat down, the shotgun discarded. ‘White. Three sugars,’ he said.
Now Max did laugh. ‘What? Can we stay then?’
‘Depends on the tea,’ said the man. ‘White, three sugars,’ he repeated.
Ant looked at the saucepan and the portable barbecue it sat on. ‘Got them at the petrol station!’ Max said. He brewed the tea and handed an oil-company-sponsored mug to the stranger.
The man blew on it twice, sipped it twice and said, ‘I’m Henry.’
More glances between the four, followed by shrugs.
‘Max,’ said Max.
‘How do you do,’ said Henry. ‘Your friend there used to be a strutter.’ He pointed at Amos. ‘S’pose you knew that though.’
Amos reached inside the van for his T-shirt and pulled it back on. He looked furious.
‘Yes, we knew,’ agreed Ma
x.
Henry drank his tea. ‘You OK with that?’ There was caution and surprise in his voice.
‘Sure,’ said Ant, her tone matter-of-fact.
‘Are you all strutters then?’ Henry sounded incred- ulous.
‘We should go . . .’ Ant was heading towards the van.
‘Agreed,’ said Max, kicking earth into the barbecue tray. ‘Sorry to trouble you, Henry. If you could keep quiet about us . . .’
The stranger found that funny. ‘I’ve been in this wood a long time,’ he said. ‘You’re the first English speakers I’ve come across. I don’t have too many folk to “keep quiet” to. And anyway . . .’ He paused. Something in his tone made Ant turn to hear what was coming next. The man looked at each of them in turn. ‘Truth is, I should be a strutter too.’ They glanced at each other. ‘I would have been in prison, but I chose to come here. To disappear.’
Ant and Max sat down next to Henry; Mattie glanced around nervously.
‘Ten years ago my old man ran a cowboy building firm. He was very good at it too – till one of his houses collapsed. Killed an old couple, injured loads. Dad died before his trial. When they passed the new laws, I knew they’d come for me. I’ve got no family, so disappearing was the obvious thing to do. I remembered the moorland from holidays we had around here . . . I tried some other places but it didn’t work out.’
‘Why not?’ asked Mattie.
‘Oh, many reasons. Who wants people like me living nearby? And anyway, most of the best places were taken.’
‘Really?’ said Amos.
‘Yeah, there’s quite a lot of us, as it turns out,’ said Henry. ‘Faced with either prison or disappearing, we all chose to disappear. It’s not bad here. The river’s good for washing, and there’s even a phone signal there sometimes—’
‘Hang on,’ said Mattie. ‘There are others like you?’
‘We’re classified as “on-the-runs”, though actually we try to stay put, if we can. You’re more invisible that way. Let me show you . . .’ Henry picked up his gun and headed off into the woods. They followed a few metres behind, stepping carefully over bracken and bin liners. He parted some curtain-like branches and waved them through. ‘I’m guessing it’s not what you expected,’ he said.