by Zoe Sharp
The back end had let go like it was slowly tearing, the revs ripping up as the engine gouted power through the broken grip like blood. The bike was starting to skate and I had fractions of a second to do something about it or become another one of Superintendent MacMillan’s much-vaunted statistics.
I rolled the throttle off just a fraction, an infinitesimal amount. Enough to control the slide and use the rear-wheel-steer effect to get me through the bend.
I catapulted out the other side, amazed to find myself still attached to the bike, and the bike still attached to the road. Reality righted itself and resumed its pace. I snapped upright and sent the Suzuki hurtling into the village main street, the exhaust howling its triumph and rage in equal measure.
Behind me, the Transit’s lights suddenly began to thrash wildly from side to side. It took me a moment to work out that the erratic movement was caused by a monumental slide of its own. The driver had pushed too far in his efforts to pursue me and the van responded violently to the abuse.
The fact that the driver was prepared to try so hard scared me badly. Not that I wasn’t fairly well scared already. The rain was falling more strongly now and I knew I hadn’t a hope in hell of outrunning him in this.
A side turning opened up seemingly almost alongside me. I grabbed for the brakes, locking up the rear wheel, and just made the turn in. The side street was lined with semi-detached houses, mostly with cars in the driveway. I picked the first one that looked empty and threw the bike up onto the pavement, diving down the side of the house right up to the gate into the back garden. I’d flicked the lights off and killed the engine before I’d even come to a stop.
I struggled to turn the bike round so it was facing outwards again, just in case they spotted the damaged back end, and jumped off, crouching down in its shadow. My breath was a harsh rasp in my throat. I was hard up against the fence, my feet in a flower border. All I could smell was creosote and honeysuckle and hot rubber and rain.
The Suzuki nearly rolled on top of me and I realised belatedly that I hadn’t put the side-stand down. I shoved it down and wedged it in place with my fist, aware of the blood pounding in my ears and beating against the inside of my ribs until I thought they’d crack.
The van wasn’t far behind me. It fishtailed into the end of the road, engine wailing, and slowed to a crawl. I peered round the Suzuki’s fairing and saw it creep past the end of the driveway, the slanting rain coming and going in the headlights.
There were at least two people inside. I caught outlines but no detail as they passed in front of the light from the house opposite. They were both leaning forwards, hunting, and despite the cloudburst they had the windows wound down to catch the slightest trace of me. Professionals.
The van seemed to pause for a long time in front of the driveway where I was hiding but it could only have been a second or two, then they were moving on to the next one. I shut my eyes briefly, sagging against the bike.
I should have known it wouldn’t last.
A bright light flared in my eyes, making me jerk back, blinded. The light over the back door to the house had come on. There was the rattle of a key turning in a lock and the door opened. An elderly woman ventured out onto the step. She was in her slippers, with a fire iron gripped in her bony fist.
“Oi,” she yelled. “What d’you think you’re doing in my bloody garden?”
My eyes skated to the van. All I could see of it over the front hedge was the roof but that was enough. It jerked to a stop fiercely enough to make the nose dip.
I glanced back. Persuading the old lady to let me in to her house was going to take too long. Besides, the men who were after me seemed determined enough that they might choose to follow regardless. I couldn’t take the risk.
Ignoring the irate householder, I vaulted back onto the bike, hitting the run switch and the kick start at the same time. The Suzuki, bless it, fired up first time. Out on the street came the graunch of gears and the harsh whine of the van’s differential spinning up in reverse.
I rammed the bike into gear and launched along the drive, feet trailing. The van reached the mouth of the driveway at almost the same moment I did and I had to swerve across the pavement to evade him. I thumped down off the kerb, taking the wing mirror off a parked car with my elbow as I went. Its alarm started shrieking.
The back of the Transit bore down like a wall as it came storming after me, still locked in reverse. There were cars approaching on the main road and I dived fleetingly on the brakes at the junction. My choice of direction was made entirely on the first gap in traffic that presented itself. Unfortunately, it meant I turned back the way I’d come, away from the safety of home.
As it was, I just made it out in front of a car that had to veer violently to avoid me, braking hard enough to skid. Shit! I ducked my head and risked a quick look in my mirrors as I caned the bike away, thinking at least that should slow the van down a bit.
It didn’t.
The Transit driver never even hesitated. He punched straight out across the main street, T-boning the car that had nearly collided with me and sending it spinning across the road. It bounced up the kerb and into a low garden wall, scattering debris.
By the time I hit that nasty S-bend again on the way out of the village, the van was less than a hundred and fifty metres behind and closing faster than was healthy for me. The road was still slick and the rain had become a steady downpour.
I knew then that I needed a particular kind of help and I needed it fast. And there was only one immediate place I stood a chance of getting it.
***
When I’d ridden the lane up to Gleet’s place with Sam earlier in the evening, I’d done so slowly and with great care, skirting round the larger craters rather than risk buckling a wheel by riding into them. Now the puny beam from the Suzuki’s headlight meant I couldn’t see them in time, in any case.
I stood up on the footpegs to lessen the jarring on my back and kept the throttle hard on, gripping tight with my knees. Even in very low light the Suzuki couldn’t be mistaken for a trail bike but it scrambled gamely over the rough ground. The only protest was the intermittent squealing of the engine as the back wheel bounced, slithered and bit on the loose surface.
As I reached the pair of stone gateposts leading into the farmyard the Transit was around sixty metres behind me. It suddenly occurred to me that I could have made a fatally stupid error of judgement. If Gleet and the rest of the Devil’s Bridge Club decided not to step in, the yard would turn into a dead-end rat trap. My attackers must have thought they couldn’t have planned for a better place to finish what they’d started.
I flicked my eyes away from the mirrors and realised that I was aiming for the side of a barn at a speed not best suited to good health and long life. I hauled on the brake lever and prayed the Suzuki would stay upright on the gravelly surface. The bike skidded slightly, wriggling its body in disgust, but it didn’t let go on me.
There were two sodium lights on, their orange beams crossing in the centre of the yard, misting the rain. It looked different in the dark and I realised I’d missed the gateway to the field where Slick’s wake was being held. I started to swear inside my helmet.
The yard was too small and too overcrowded to play dodgems and hope to get away with it for long. There were half a dozen partly dismantled bikes of various descriptions parked up along the front wall of the barn, next to a rusting Bedford van and a collection of other vehicles that looked as if they might or might not still crank.
But, more importantly, there were no signs of any people.
I knew from experience that the horn on the RGV was a pathetic toot that didn’t even make errant cyclists look round. The only thing I could think of doing was yanking the clutch in and whacking the throttle wide open.
The Suzuki’s two-stroke motor surged round to the redline and sat there, screaming. It was the mechanical equivalent of Faye Wray stuck fast in King Kong’s fist, and just as good at attracting male atte
ntion. I winced at the sound and prayed the rev limiter would hold the engine intact.
Faces appeared in the gateway and I shut off instantly. The door to the workshop swung open, spilling light out across the yard, and I saw Gleet’s head appear round it. He made fleeting eye contact, turning to inspect the Transit, which had scraped to a halt just through the gateway. My adversaries sat it there, blocking my escape route. The only sound was our combined engines ticking over and the slap of the van’s wipers across the glass.
Gleet glanced back at me calmly, then disappeared back inside the workshop, letting the door bang shut behind him.
“You bastard!” I muttered under my breath, a bitter taste in my mouth. I would have expanded further on this theme, but at that moment the Transit leapt forwards.
As he came at me I tried to duck round him and head back for the gateway, but the Suzuki’s steering lock at low speed was awful. Unless I got lucky, I knew I wasn’t going to make it back out onto the open road again. And then where did I go?
Instead, I ran the bike down the narrow gap between the old Bedford and the stone wall that bordered the yard, and jumped off onto the top of the wall. Without the stand down, the bike toppled sideways and scraped against the stone, gouging the end of the handlebar and mirror as it did so, and then stalled. On top of the abuse I’d already heaped on the poor thing, I didn’t think a bit more would make much difference one way or the other but it grieved me to let it happen, all the same.
The Transit driver obviously thought seriously about ramming the bulky Bedford to get to me, but even he must have realised that he’d be on to a loser if he tried it.
Instead, he lurched the front corner of his vehicle into part of the dry stone wall further down. The ripple effect caused the whole thing to buckle. A section about five metres long, including the part I was standing on, collapsed as neatly as if the Royal Engineers had laid the charges.
I felt it start to cave under me and half-fell, half-jumped, clear. If I’d been given a free choice, I would have gone for the other side of the wall, into the comparative safety of the field beyond, but luck and the laws of physics weren’t on my side.
Instead, I cannoned off the front of the Bedford’s bodywork and landed sprawled on my hands and knees in the yard, only a couple of metres away from the van. Even as I started scrambling to my feet, he was backing out of the debris and swinging the vehicle towards me. God, that front grille looked like a truck from down there.
Then, just when I thought it was all over, we went into unexpected injury time.
The door to the workshop swung open again, and people started pouring out. Not just any people, but big, pissed-off looking bikers, wearing greased down denim and leather. They were brandishing a collection of improvised armaments and they advanced as one body, ominous.
It was enough to take the Transit driver’s mind off grinding me into the dirt under his wheels. He paused, uncertain. But that wasn’t what made my assailants decide to cut and run.
Gleet himself reappeared, stepping neatly to one side like a showman introducing his star turn. Behind him stumped a bulky woman in a grubby dress and Wellington boots who could only have been his sullen sister.
In her hands she was holding a wicked-looking crossbow with the string drawn taut, an arrow already in the groove.
When she brought the weapon up to her shoulder it was with a practised grace, like the steps of a formal dance. She was leaning in to it, with her feet planted wide to steady her aim.
By this time the Transit had gone into full retreat. It shot backwards, transmission howling, then swung into a wild reverse flip and made a dash for the gateway. He was nearly out of the yard when Gleet’s sister delicately squeezed the trigger and let fly. The string snapped forwards with a crack, and the stubby arrow whirred through the air on a surprisingly level flight.
The woman must have put in a few hours of practice with that thing, because her first shot ran true. The arrow punched a hole the size of a closed fist in the glass of one of the van’s rear doors, instantly shattering it into fragments. The vehicle flinched wildly, colliding with one of the gateposts as it was caned away down the drive.
The lump of stone he’d hit suddenly grew a diagonal split about two-thirds of the way up. Very slowly, the top half of it canted over and then fell off, bringing up a splash of mud as it landed with a dull wet thud.
Gleet had been watching the van retreat with a certain amount of satisfaction. Now he scowled as he eyed his ruined stonework. He turned to me. His entourage did the same. By the darkly glowering looks on their faces I wasn’t sure if I’d just found a refuge, or a new fire to jump into.
I got unsteadily to my feet, undoing the strap on my helmet and pulling it off slowly with hands that I couldn’t stop from shaking. My hair was plastered wet to my head but it was a relief to be out in the rain.
Gleet walked over to me and I forced myself not to back away from him.
“Well, Charlie, I gotta hand it to you,” he rumbled. “You certainly know how to make a fucking entrance.”
Nine
I sat on a paint-splattered chair in the middle of Gleet’s workshop, shaky hands wrapped round a mug of tea so sweet I could feel my teeth loosening with every mouthful.
“Get that down yer neck,” Gleet’s sister said with gruff approval. “Do you the world of good.” Close to she was a hulking woman, so near a match in build to her brother that if I hadn’t seen them both together at the same time I’d suspect it was one person in drag. She’d put on a dirty green waterproof jacket in deference to the rain. It was ripped in places and tied round the middle with bailer twine.
I smiled at her, though it had no obvious effect. “Thank you,” I said, heartfelt, and meant not just for the tea.
I didn’t need to say anything else. I got the impression words embarrassed her and, just in case I was planning on coming out with any more, she nodded sharply and stamped out of the workshop, rolling her gait to compensate for her knackered knees.
She’d hustled me inside the moment the Transit had gone, with an angry instruction to her brother and the others to stop gawping and do something useful. I’d spotted Sam hovering anxiously on the outskirts of the crowd and fractionally shaken my head. He’d hesitated, torn, then nodded his agreement and withdrawn. No point in him revealing his allegiances and getting chucked out, too. Particularly not when that van was still on the loose.
For a moment I sat alone in silence, waiting for my system to reboot. The realisation of what had so nearly happened, coupled with the memory of what had actually happened to Clare and Slick, was stark in my mind. The adrenaline was dissipating, leaving me trembly and lightheaded.
I’d got away with it. But only just.
I concentrated on my surroundings. The workshop was in half of the big barn, partitioned off with slatted planks at one side. There was probably a hayloft above and someone had lined the ceiling with pegboard that was sagging in places and had come down altogether in others. Above it were layers of black plastic and what looked like sheep fleeces. Insulation, I guessed. Even allowing for the stone barn’s natural thermal qualities, it must be bitter working out here in the winter.
The place was full of bikes and bits of bikes. It smelt of oil and paint and thinners and, very faintly, of sweet meadow hay. A partially completed bike frame stood on a low bench in the centre, surrounded by off-cuts of tubing. A TIG welder was nearby. In the corner a small area had been closed off with sheets of heavy clear plastic to make a paint spray booth. It might all look a bit scruffy but the tools on show were good quality and Gleet clearly knew what he was doing with them.
I got to my feet and did a quick circuit while I finished my tea, walking the wobbles out of my legs. At the back, behind a huge Snap-On tool chest, were piles of dead bikes and engines, stacked one on top of another. Either discarded parts of Gleet’s old projects, or future ones he hadn’t got around to starting yet.
It was darker back there, the light fro
m the bank of fluoro tubes strung across the ceiling hardly penetrating. I stuck my head round the tool box and peered into the gloom, reluctant to venture much further in case of rats. I shuddered. Why did I have to go thinking about rats?
Then something caught my eye. A little flash of colour among the oil stains and the grime. I glanced behind me but the door to the workshop was still closed, so I dumped my empty mug on top of the tool box and stepped over a cracked crankcase, bending to pick up what I’d seen.
It was a small piece of broken fairing, not quite the size of my hand and jagged at the edges. It was dull white on one side but sprayed partly metallic blue, partly gold on the other. Distinctive colours that were instantly recognisable.
Slick’s bike.
I was so caught up in my discovery that I didn’t immediately hear the growling.
It started low and quiet over to my right, building until it sounded like a diesel engine running. A big diesel engine at that. I slipped the piece of broken fairing inside my jacket but kept the rest of my body very still, turning my head slowly to find a pair of wide-spaced eyes glowing at me from the dark, less than a couple of metres away.