I looked through the cemetery gates at Meg, Phil and the baby walking off in the distance.
‘Do you know what? I think I will, Alex. Let’s go to Spain.’
Find out more about Paul J. Teague’s thrillers at http://paulteague.co.uk
Dead of Night preview
There was a heavy thud against the bonnet of the car. Something – or someone – had emerged from the woodland, out of the fog and the darkness, onto the road in front of them.
Lucy cried out, abruptly woken from her doze.
‘What the hell was that?’
It was late and, bored of chatting through the day’s events with Jack, she’d been half asleep.
‘Shit!’ he cursed, slamming on the brakes. The car swerved onto the muddy verge. They veered too far to the left, running into a shallow ditch, the wing striking a tree. Whatever it was, it had shattered the glass of the windscreen and he’d lost what little visibility he’d had.
‘That must have been a deer. It was huge.’
Jack pulled on the handbrake and put the gear stick into neutral. As if it mattered, they weren’t going anywhere.
‘What lights have we got in this bloody thing?’
He scanned the control panel of the car looking for the interior light. Damn hire cars, he could never find the right switch without fiddling around for five minutes. It was cheaper to hire than it was to get the clutch changed in theirs. When he found the light switch they gasped as they saw what was splashed across the windscreen. Blood. A lot of it.
Lucy began to panic.
‘Look at the mess on the window. What would do that?’
‘Keep calm, Luce. I’m going out to take a look. You coming?’
‘No thanks, I’ll stay here. Put the headlights on full beam, you won’t be able to see a thing out there. Take your phone too, you can use the torch.’
‘Good idea,’ said Jack, retrieving his phone from the glove compartment and opening the door.
‘Christ, it’s cold! Pass me my top, will you?’
Lucy reached over to grab his tracksuit top from the back seat. It was still wet. She handed it to him and then felt her ankle to see if her sprain from earlier was any better. It had been some run. They’d both done well to finish. And now it was a long drive home in the dead of night. They wanted to get back for Hamish, to be there before he woke up
‘Be careful out there. It’s muddy.’
‘No phone signal,’ Jack said as he stepped out of the car and looked at his screen. ‘The car is fucked. This thing is going on a tow truck. Who knows where the nearest phone box will be, if there even is one ...’
His voice tailed off as he moved to the front of the car.
‘Don’t you think you should close your door?’ Lucy called after him, but he didn’t hear her. She tried to lean over to close it herself, but she felt a twinge of pain in her leg. A half-marathon, the first in quite some time too. Of course she was aching all over. It’ll be fine, she said to herself. I’ve not noticed any headlights for miles.
Jack continued to inspect the damage to the car. Lucy lowered her window as he came round to update her.
‘It was big and heavy, whatever it was. There’s blood on the bumper and all over the bonnet. It’s made a right mess of the front. You did remove the insurance excess when you booked the car, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, it’s fine, there’s no excess. We can blame the bump in the car park on this too. It’ll be less embarrassing than admitting we didn’t see that low wall.’
‘There’s something moving over there. Please don’t tell me it’s still alive. I don’t want to have to finish it off.’
‘Is there a wheel wrench in the boot?’ Lucy suggested. ‘You could kill it with that. Is it cruelty to animals if you put something out of its misery?’
‘Press that button next to your knee and open up the boot. I’ll see if there’s anything heavy in there. I can’t see a bloody thing in this fog.’
Jack walked off, holding his phone out for light, for what little good it did him. Lucy gently stretched her legs, testing for pain and strains. She was stiff, but everything was moving fine. Carefully she eased herself out of the car. It was on a slope and she was getting out into a low ditch. As she took her weight on her injured ankle she became more confident realising that nothing seemed to be too badly damaged. She leant back into the footwell, fumbled around for the boot switch and heard the click as it opened. She heard Jack cursing several feet away. They might be needing that wrench.
Jack appeared out of the gloom. She saw the light from his phone first, then the fluorescent strips on his top. He was pale with shock, she couldn’t remember when she’d seen him look like that. She immediately knew it wasn’t good.
‘What happened? What is it?’
Jack lurched to the side and threw up onto the muddy verge.
‘It’s a man,’ he said, wiping his mouth with a tissue. ‘We hit a man.’
‘Oh, my God. Is he alive?’
‘He’s alive. I don’t know what to do. He’s barely conscious. Can you get a phone signal? Is there a first aid kit in the car?’
‘Damn it, Jack. Where did he come from? We’re in the middle of nowhere. How can we hit a man out here?’
‘Check your phone, Luce, see if we can get some help.’
‘No signal. Nothing. My battery’s almost gone too. Where is he? You haven’t left him in the road, have you?’
‘What else could I do?’
There was a feeble moan up ahead.
They turned and walked to the front of the car.
‘Jesus Christ, Jack.’
Lucy surveyed the bloody mess on the road. It was a man, forties she thought, his dark hair was greying. He wasn’t dressed for the outdoors, he looked like he’d just left the office. He was wearing a shirt, no tie, and dark trousers. His right eye was blackened and bruised, his face scratched and bleeding. His leg was bent back awkwardly, exactly as he’d fallen after being struck. Bone was sticking through his torn trouser leg. His thick glasses were damaged.
This time it was Lucy who threw up. She’d seen things like that on TV, but with a real person lying there, crying with pain, it got the better of her. She wiped her face, as Jack had done, and walked back over to him to try and figure out what to do next. She struck something with her foot and knelt down to inspect it. It hadn’t felt like a stone or a stick. It was the man’s wallet. She picked it up, they’d need it for identification when help came.
‘What shall we do?’ Jack asked. ‘I don’t know whether we should move him or leave him here. We might do more harm than good if we carry him to the car.’
‘What’s your name?’ Lucy asked, finding the courage to bend down and get closer to the man. He was struggling not to pass out, muttering urgently. She put her hands on his head to try to make him more comfortable, but he flinched.
‘Careful, Lucy, he might have broken his spine. We can’t just move him, we’ll need to get some help.
‘What the fuck am I supposed to do? He’s in pain, he could be dying. I wasn’t the dickhead who hit him anyway!’
And there it was again. Her rage could surface at a moment’s notice.
‘Look, Luce, we’re going to have to go for help. One of us will have to stay with him. We’ll need to find the emergency triangle in the back of the car and set up some sort of cordon or warning in case another car comes along the road. There’s nothing else we can do.’
She knew that he was right. And it made sense for her to stay with the man. Her ankle was not as bad as she’d thought it was, but who knew how far it was to the next village? Jack would have to go.
‘You get off, try and get some help. I’ll make it as safe as I can here. Put your running bib on, you’ll light up better if any cars come. In fact, get mine out of the car too, it’ll make us both more visible.’
In silence they put on the safety gear that they’d used during the race only hours before. Jack went to kiss Lucy, but she was in no
mood for it.
‘Be as fast as you can, Jack. I don’t want to be left alone here with him.’
He touched her arm and jogged off into the thickening fog. The man became agitated. At first Lucy thought it was the pain, but he was desperately trying to get her attention.
‘What? What is it? What’s the matter?’
She leant in closer, his voice was so weak.
‘Run …’ he said, his hand reaching up to hold her arm, ‘run … for your life!’
From nowhere came headlights on full beam, a vehicle revving hard, speeding towards them. Lucy flung herself out of the way. It struck the man, spinning his body with the force of the blow. Lucy gasped.
‘Jack!’ she screamed, but he didn’t hear her, he was too far along the road.
The vehicle stopped beyond their own car, and she heard the change of gears as it started to reverse. The passenger door opened. She saw a hand, it was holding something. It was a gun. She saw the light as it fired, the bullet hitting the injured man’s head, its impact spattering her with blood.
Lucy watched as the shooter fired a second bullet into the body and then levelled up his weapon to aim at her. She’d seen all she needed to. Still clutching the wallet, she turned towards the trees and did exactly what the man had told her to do.
She was running for her life.
‘How are we doing for time?’ Lucy asked, breathless and in need of more practice runs like this before the main event took place.
‘You’re doing well, just over 105 minutes, we’ll finish in under two hours.’
Jack’s phone beeped. He kept it safely in an armband while he was running.
‘Do you have to wear that bloody thing all the time? Can’t we just go for a quiet run?’
‘It’s how I motivate myself,’ Jack replied.
They’d had this conversation a hundred times. Here it was again.
‘It’s called accountability, you should try it some time. It pushes me on if I know somebody’s doing better than me with their times. Clive, for instance. That bastard cut five minutes off his time last week. I’m not allowing that. Besides, I like reading all the comments on Facebook when I’ve finished. And it helps me connect with other runners—’
He stopped mid-sentence. He was justifying himself too much. She’d never get it. Lucy didn’t like social media and would never dream of sharing what was going on in her life so publicly. He glanced over towards his wife. She was struggling to keep up with him. He wanted to run ahead and whip Clive’s arse, but he thought he’d better keep pace with her. She’d done well to get back into shape so fast, he knew how difficult it had been for her. They needed this. It was important that they still did this together.
Her cleavage was beginning to glisten with sweat. It always turned him on when he saw her like that. Before Hamish, he’d have burned up all his excess energy as soon as they got home. These days she dived straight into the shower to get freshened up.
‘Fifteen minutes max,’ he encouraged. ‘Do you want to try for a final burst?’
‘No, let’s not push for time. How about we slow down a bit and talk. We’ll be back soon and Maxine will need to get home. She’s leaving for uni in a couple of months, she won’t be available for much longer.’
Good old Maxine. She’d been a godsend, particularly when Lucy had been really down. Things couldn’t have been much worse for them. Fancy losing your job when your wife’s just gone on maternity leave and your first child is due in less than a month.
Maxine was one of those rare eighteen year olds who looked like she still inhabited a more innocent world where the Famous Five wouldn’t be out of place. She lived in the council housing in the next village, she’d had a stable, but uneventful, upbringing and the banality of rural life was driving her crazy.
Maxine was getting out of there. She’d almost missed her chance, dropping a grade in her A-levels and being rejected for the summer intake. Thanks to her cutting-edge university, she was able to get a place on a second semester start course, but only after a period of additional and intensive study. She’d made it, albeit a little later than her school chums. Nothing was going to distract her from her studies or mess up her future, she wanted this more than anything.
She was perfect for Hamish, who seemed to sense his mother’s unhappiness the moment he entered the world. They were constantly at odds with each other. Jack hated himself for it, but sometimes he thought couldn’t have picked a better time to have to be away from home so much, working on a contract.
It was as if she’d read his mind.
‘What time do you have to leave this evening?’
He was getting angry again, and he always ran faster when he was wound up. Lucy was short of breath. He’d need to cool off, she wouldn’t thank him for wearing her out. He slowed a little, he could see Lucy was tiring. Her face was reddening now, and that wasn’t so sexy.
‘I have to catch the train at six. You know I’d rather be at home with you and Hamie. I don’t have a choice, we need the money. Until you can get a job—’
‘And how the fuck am I going to get a job living in that bloody house!’
Her outburst was ferocious. She was always difficult on Sundays, it meant another week on her own with Hamish.
She stopped running, bent over and caught her breath. Jack kept his cursing to himself. That bugger Clive would get to keep his time record for another week. He knew they needed to run together like this, but she slowed him down. And they had met at the running club, after all. It’s what they had in common at the beginning. Now it seemed to be all they had in common. And the baby, of course.
‘I’m sorry, Jack, I didn’t mean it. I feel so isolated in that damn house. It seemed such a good idea when it was only us, but now ... well, you know what I think.’
Jack ran on the spot for a few seconds, then realised that Lucy was done. They’d be walking for the rest of the way. Clive would take the piss when his GPS tracker recorded his route and timings.
‘Had to stop for a rest, old man?’ he’d jeer. The bastard, he knew how it was with Lucy. They’d had long enough to discuss it on the train to Aberdeen.
‘If I can keep this contract going for another few months, I’ll be able to get rid of that ridiculous sports car. What were we thinking of, buying a two-seater? I suppose it was sensible enough before Hamish came along. Anyway, the contract is still month-to-month. We’ll be in shit street if we lose the house. When I make up the missed payments, I promise we’ll get a decent family car. But it still might go tits up. If it does, we’ll be struggling again.’
It was a delightful cocktail of rural isolation, closed bus routes, no money and marital tension. Truth be told, Jack was finding it easier to step on that train every Sunday evening and return on the Thursday evening. They’d cut him some slack, let him work from home on Fridays. But they didn’t pay his rail fares or hotel bills, so he was making very little out of the deal by the time everything was paid.
He saw the bright red For Sale sign in the distance. It was easy enough to spot, for Christ’s sake. Why was no bugger buying it? It was probably to do with the closed village shop and the threatened village school. Even if they stayed, there was no way Hamish would ever get to attend the local school. It had just under fifty pupils. What’s idyllic to parents is an obvious cost-saving target for councillors. Its days had to be numbered.
‘I’ll see if they’ll let me work from home on Thursdays too, but it’s difficult, they need me there in the office. I have to be there in person or they can’t access the software. I’ll try though.’
Lucy was recovering her breath. She too had seen the For Sale sign and wanted to avoid the house a little longer. She knew that Jack suspected her motives when she offered to run Maxine back home in the car. It was another twenty minutes away from that albatross of a house. And, yes, away from the baby. She could barely admit it to herself, let alone Jack or the health visitor, but she was struggling with Hamish. These runs gave her head
space. Sometimes she wanted to run away. From everything. Jack too. They’d been in love once, but it was slipping away from them. And if she and Jack split up, she couldn’t face being left on her own with Hamish. She hated herself. She’d never had depression before becoming a mother. She despised herself and what it had done to her.
‘We’d better get back,’ Jack said. ‘Maxine will want another fiver if we break into a new hour. Race you?’
There was a time when she’d have smiled at him, her face glowing with health and vigour, and they’d slam their hands on the front door to show who’d got there first. He always let her win. She knew it, but he’d get his reward, either on the kitchen table, on the rug in the sitting room, sometimes in the bedroom, and even in the garden at the back of the house once. That passion seemed a long way off now.
‘You run, I’ll walk back. I’m tired. I’ll not be long.’
Jack looked at Lucy and studied her face for a moment. He wasn’t sure how long they’d got left. He could see she was close to breaking point, but what could he do? If they lost the house, things would only get worse. It had seemed so idyllic living in a big house in the country before the company went bust. Now he just felt like an idiot.
Jack picked up his pace, sprinting towards the house at great speed, craving the shot of adrenalin that it would give him. Maxine had spotted them coming along the road. She was obviously jittery, wanting to return home and get on with her studies. She was taking university very seriously, before it had even begun. What would they do when Maxine left? She’d been a great find. And there was Hamish, calm, happy and relaxed. He grew fidgety as Lucy walked up the garden path.
‘Hey Maxine!’ she waved, as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
‘Good run?’ Maxine asked, getting ready to hold out Hamish so that she could take the baby. Lucy didn’t respond to the cue. Maxine held him tightly, giving him a little squeeze. He began to gurgle happily again.
Don't Tell Meg Trilogy Box Set Page 74