I could just about hear Jeff shouting, 'What the fu . . . ?' in response as we mounted the kerb and slammed straight into a bright red Royal Mail postbox.
Our airbags erupted.
From somewhere south of consciousness I heard Alison cry, 'I'm hormonal!' before everything went dark.
* * *
Chapter 33
We were fortunate, in a way, that the police no longer send patrols out into the countryside. Out there, it's the law of the meadow.
The only witness to our collision with a Royal Mail postbox was an elderly woman who lived in one of a row of cottages opposite it. She came scurrying out as best she could and helped us out of Alison's car. Or so I'm told. I was unconscious. Together, the old woman with the one leg - did I mention that? - and the moderately pregnant Alison dragged me out and laid me on the side of the road. Alison, knowing me too well, refused to give me the kiss of life, so the old woman knelt over me and pressed her lips to mine, which meant that not only did I get a lungful of old woman's breath, but also several crumbs of slightly stale shortbread. No one can say country folk aren't generous.
Her affections, for there was certainly a little tongue action, absolutely brought me round, enough to appreciate that I was in considerable pain, having been elbowed on my broken nose by Alison and then assaulted by an airbag. Alison curled her lip up at me and said, 'It wasn't that bad, lightweight.'
I growled at her that it was entirely her fault, and she snapped back, 'So? What's your point?'
'That's my point!'
'So? What's your point in making that point?'
'That's just ... stupid talk.'
'Oh, I'm stupid now?'
The old woman looked from Alison to me and shook her head. She rolled her eyes, though I'm not sure if that was voluntary or not. She said, 'Ah, I remember young love.' She must have had a good memory. She shepherded us into her cottage. It was full of china. She made us a cup of tea. While she was in the kitchen, I said, 'Is the baby all right?'
'For all you care.'
I sighed. 'And the car?'
'Oh, get your priorities right!'
'I did!'
'Yeah, right.'
She was fuming.
I said, 'I know you're upset with yourself.'
'Oh, fuck off.'
The woman came back in with a tray. There was shortbread. I felt sick. She said, 'They collect the post in about half an hour. If you want to make a clean getaway, you'd better get moving soon.'
I looked at Alison. 'We better. We have things to do.'
She nodded. She was settling down. She came over and gave me a hug.
'Sorry,' she said.
The old woman looked moist-eyed. She probably always looked moist-eyed.
The front of the VW was badly staved in. But it started first time.
Alison reversed, then got out and we examined the damage to the postbox together. 'There's not a scratch on it! It's a miracle!'
'Not really,' I said. 'It's a Jubilee pillar box dating from 1887. When the IRA bombed the Arndale shopping centre in Manchester in 1996, just about the only thing that survived unscathed was a Victorian box exactly like this. They're built to last.'
'You,' Alison said, 'know far too much crap.'
'It's why you love me,' I said.
I was slowly learning that like the worst kind of soap-opera actor, Alison had a limited range of looks. The same expression seemed to cover love, loss, tragedy, elation and hatred, and so was always open to misinterpretation. Often no reaction was the best policy, so I ignored her and got into the car and waved goodbye to the old woman whose tongue I had so recently played host to.
All told, between the crash, the aftermath and the tea in china cups, we had lost about an hour, and we were still twenty minutes away from Tollymore. Besides my fractured skull and internal injuries, and the staved-in front and the cracked window, the only other damage was to my mobile phone. It looked perfectly fine, but, like Sophia Loren, was otherwise dead.
'Effing brilliant,' I said as we drove. I had already taken the SIM card out and rubbed it like an expert, and replaced it to absolutely no effect. 'What are we supposed to do now? How're we meant to find Jeff? What if he's been trying to call us and ...'
Alison's hand snaked into her handbag. Thankfully her lesson was learned and her eyes did not once deviate from the road ahead. She still managed to produce her own phone and hand it to me with a theatrical 'Duh!'
I examined it. 'There are no messages from Jeff,' I said, 'but there are dozens of texts from Brian.'
Her face coloured slightly. 'Why don't you mind your own beeswax and just call him?'
'Brian?'
'Jeff! Honest to God . . .'
I called him. There was no response. It gave me the option of leaving a message. I chose not to, in case his phone now lay in enemy hands.
'What do we do now?' Alison asked. 'Drive around Tollymore looking for him? It's huge, and he was supposed to be hiding, and it'll be getting dark soon.'
'I don't see what else we can do.'
So that's what we did. It wasn't much of a plan.
We drove for the next ten minutes in silence. Then I asked Alison how come all the texts from Brian.
'He's my ex, and we're not enemies, and he has issues.'
'What kind of issues?'
'Hating you issues.'
'He can't handle that you chose the better man.'
'I didn't choose the better man. I chose a different man.'
'Same difference,' I said.
'I can easily change my mind,' she said.
I snorted. 'Yeah, right.'
She looked at me. I looked back.
I said, 'When I was unconscious, I dreamt that I was trapped on the golf driving range at Blackheath, and Dr Yes was firing giant balls at me, and they were exploding, and getting closer and closer, and he kept shouting four! and four! and four! until the very last one came right at me and it was about to blow me into little pieces, and he shouted five! What do you think that means?'
'Baby's fine,' said Alison.
We stopped at the gate leading into Tollymore. It was a National Trust forest park. I didn't trust them. They were do-gooders and jobsworths and holier-than-thousers. Places should be allowed to fall into disrepair. Forests should burn. God created woodworm and arsonists. The man in the yellow jacket said, 'It's a fiver and we're closing in half an hour.'
That's fine,' Alison said, handing over the money out of her window.
We drove the official roads within the park until we came to the end of them. There were locked gates, supposedly to stop you going further, but you could drive around them. So we did. The fiver also gave us a map, and the tracks, ostensibly for walking, were clearly marked upon them. I had it open on my lap. I told Alison there were dozens of tracks covering hundreds of miles, if you added them all up. She asked where we should start. I said at the very beginning. She said that was a very good place to start. By the end of the first stretch we were well into The Sound of Music soundtrack. She had a voice that could pickle eggs. But together we sounded like Sonny and Cher, if someone had taken a mallet to Cher. We were looking for killers, and our silent friend, in hostile country full of moss and twigs. The singing was a way to mask our fear. We knew that. And sang louder.
The tracks were rough and strewn with boulders, and the VW rattled and clanked. We crissed and we crossed. The trees were dense and the sun was blocked out by the mountains, so it was dark and getting darker. The last few walkers were making their way back to the entrance; any we saw we stopped and asked if they'd seen the Mystery Machine, but no luck, at least until some superannuated Scout, all kitted out for an assault on Everest, appeared suddenly out of the murk and nearly paid for it with his life. As he dragged himself out of the brambles, Alison repeated the question, prefacing it with a lazy 'sorry', and he surprised us by saying yes, he had seen it, parked about half a mile further up, partially hidden amongst the trees. We asked if there'd been any si
gns of life about it and he said he had been reluctant to approach in case the occupants were, you know . ..
'Screwing,' said Alison.
'Making love,' said the Scout.
'That's what I said,' said Alison.
We drove on. After exactly half a mile, we stopped. I'm good with distances. It comes with thirty years of counting footsteps, and recording them in my ledger. The problem was that the Scout didn't have my talent for it, so his observation was just a guesstimate. It was now pitch black. We couldn't see the van. We couldn't see anything.
'What now?' I said.
'Spare keys for the Mystery Machine?'
'Don't call it that,' I said, though I did myself, in secret. 'And of course.'
I had three spare sets about my person, because you can't be too careful. I gave her a set, and she got out, and I got out and stood beside her, and she pointed them into the trees and moved them across 180 degrees, pushing the unlock button repeatedly.
Nothing.
I said, 'Give them here.'
'I've already . . . please don't click your fingers at me.'
'Then hand them over.'
Alison did her eye-rolling thing before dumping them into the palm of my hand. I selected the right key before raising it and pointing it at my head. I pushed the button, and two hundred yards away the lights of the Mystery Machine automatically switched on as it unlocked itself.
Alison's mouth dropped open. 'How the fuck did you do that?'
I smiled. 'It's quite simple, on my planet.'
It is good to keep some mystery. It literally isn't rocket science. The key fob is basically a low-power transmitter that functions on a line-of-sight basis. As with any transmitter, the higher the antenna is, the further the signal travels. Thus pointing it at my head might have seemed like I had a mechanical brain capable of amazing technological feats, but I was just using common sense.
Alison said, 'Yeah, right.'
She went to her boot and rummaged around before producing a flashlight. She locked the car and started walking towards the Mystery Machine. I followed, but stayed well behind. If there was going to be any shooting, they would go for the light first.
With the lights of the van on, we could tell from some distance that it was empty. When we got there, we checked the back just in case Jeff had taken refuge there or his body had been dumped inside.
Nothing.
'Now what?' Alison asked. 'It's not like there's even trampled grass or anything to follow his tracks.'
No tracks, but ample moss. I had already sneezed a dozen times. The moss was soft but spongy. You would make an impression if you stepped on it, but it would quickly spring back into shape, like a community of travellers ejecting a truancy officer.
I clicked my fingers again. She gave me the torch, and another warning. I did a 360-degree sweep. Jeff was my assistant, my helper, he was the sorcerer's apprentice; he would know better than to desert the Mystery Machine in the middle of nowhere without leaving some kind of message. Quite possibly he had left one, on my dead phone. But equally, when he couldn't get through to speak to me, he should have surmised that something untoward had happened, and therefore sought another means to convey his intentions. That is, if they were his intentions, and he hadn't been forced away.
Alison was just saying, 'There's no point, we'll never . . .' when my third sweep found it, and I signalled for her to follow. It was sitting roughly eleven point seven metres into the trees, at thirty-eight degrees from the manufacturer's trademark in the centre of the MM bonnet. Alison stared down at it. 'It's just a sweetie paper.' 'No, it's an Opal Fruit wrapper ... an orange one 'You mean Star—' 'And if I'm not mistaken . ..' The flashlight beam picked up a second, a lime- green one, twenty metres further into the trees. 'This way,' I said.
There was a third and a fourth, and before very long we'd left the track and the MM far behind. The paper trail was smart thinking on Jeff's part, thinking no doubt enabled by the sweets themselves, a splendid source of vitamin C.
Alison caught up with me where I'd stopped, and asked why I had.
'This is the last one.' It was another orange paper.
'How do you . . . ? Oh - I get it, six, that's all there is in the packet? I thought there was more ...?’
'There's nine. But I make him take the blackcurrant ones out and throw them away; they're not one of the original flavours and I won't have them in the shop.'
'Because . . . ? Oh, bugger because. Whatever you say. So what do we do now that we're in the middle of . . . what's that smell?'
I normally have a very acute sense of smell. I have to, with my allergies. But repeated bashings of my nose, with the resultant swelling and bleeding, had impaired my smellbuds. Alison was getting something I wasn't.
'Smoke,' she said, answering her own question. She knocked off the flashlight and we both peered ahead. There was a wavering pinprick of light just visible through the trees.
'Keep it off,' I said.
We advanced. The only way I could avoid sneezing was by holding my nose. My nose hurt. I was a martyr to the cause. We drew closer. Spring had not yet advanced sufficiently towards summer to render the
twigs dry enough to snap underfoot, while the moss acted as an efficient muffler. We got close enough to establish that there was a bonfire, and that there was a figure sitting on a log beside it. As we drew further in, we realised that that figure was Jeff.
We stopped.
Alison whispered, 'What if it's a trap?'
Jeff laughed abruptly. 'I can hear you!'
It might have been the cool, crisp mountain air carrying Alison's words to him with such clarity. Most likely, though, it was the higher state of enlightenment that came with the huge joint he was smoking.
I called: 'Is it safe?'
'Is what safe?'
'To approach!'
'Yes!'
'You're sure?'
'Yes!'
'If it was a trap, you would say that!'
'Good point!'
If it was a trap, they would have us anyway. I couldn't run for toffee, and gasping for air would only lead to me inhaling even more moss molecules, which would cause me to expand to the size of a Zeppelin.
Alison went forward first. When she failed to be shot, stabbed or pounced upon, I emerged into the firelight.
Jeff waved us closer. 'Pull up a log,' he said.
We stood, warily. He was very relaxed. We were not. We peered into the darkness.
'Jeff,' said Alison, 'what's going on? Where are they?'
'They? Oh, here, there, everywhere. They buzz, but they're not mosquitoes.'
I took a step towards him. 'Jeff . . .'
Jeff suddenly pulled his hands up to guard his face. 'Don't hit me!' he cried. 'You're always hitting me!'
'Jeff, for goodness' . . .'
Alison swept past me and put a protective arm around him. When he had settled sufficiently, she gently peeled his fingers back. 'Jeff, baby,' she purred, 'he's not going to hit you.' And then she snapped the joint out of his hand and tossed it into the fire. 'But I fucking will if you don't wise up. Do you hear?'
Jeff cowered down. 'I hear! Okay! Sorry! There was no need to . . .' He looked wistfully after the joint. His eyes flitted up to me. 'Where were you? I waited and waited
'Jeff,' said Alison, lowering herself on to the log beside him, 'tell us what happened.'
He nodded. He looked at me again.
Alison snapped: 'Do you think you could sit? You're making him nervous.'
There was another log. I rolled it closer with my foot, and then positioned it more carefully with my hands. I wanted the heat from the fire, but I didn't want to be so close that a spark could set my hair alight. I have precious little of it as it is. When I took my hands away they were smeared with gunk. Being short of my usual packet of baby wipes, I wiped them on my trousers. The countryside is disgusting.
Jeff stared into the fire. As I sat, I said, 'Jeff . . .
Jeff?' His e
yes didn't move. 'Did you see Pearl? Was Pearl here?' I was aware of Alison's eyes upon me, but the question had to be asked. It was no time for jealousy. I had a case to crack.
'Pearl?' Jeff answered vaguely. 'Pearl the singer?'
'No . . . Pearl from the clinic . . .' I was trying to remember if he had ever actually laid eyes on her. 'Pearl . . . she's like a model, really good-looking.'
'Will you just let him tell us what happened?' Alison snapped.
'I'm trying to
'Then shut up and let him do it in his own words. Jeff? Do you want to tell us? Was Buddy here? Buddy Wailer?'
'The long tall thin man . . . yeah . . . Bunny was here . . .'
'Buddy,' said Alison.
'Yeah, Bunny. I followed Bunny.'
'Buddy,' I said.
'Shhhhh,' scolded Alison. 'You followed . . . ?'
'I followed Bunny. He was dragging the bags, I followed him into the trees. The trees. Like giant Ents, but . . . trees. I couldn't get too close ... He was gathering wood . . . wood for a fire . . . wood for this fire . . . and I had to hide 'cos he couldn't get it lit and he went back to his car for petrol . . . and he nearly saw me . . . the big, tall, thin man nearly stepped on me . . . but he didn't and he came back and he lit his fire and he threw the bags on it and some more petrol and up they whooshed .. . and the sparks just . . .
fizzled up into the trees and the branches . . . and the hair of the Ents . . . but then, but then there was someone else there . . .'
'Pearl?' I said.
'No . . . no . . . not the singer ... a fella, a man . . . I couldn't really see ... I knew it was the big tall thin fella because I'd followed him, but in here, in the dark, but with the fire, it was all kind of brighty-dark so it was hard to tell . . .'
'Silhouettes,' suggested Alison.
'That's the one
'Was it Dr Yeschenkov?' I asked.
'Didn't you just hear him say he couldn't see because of the brighty-dark?'
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