The Camel Trail

by Merrigan, Peter J

  Kevin cleared his throat and shuffled his feet nervously.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Martin asked.

  Kevin couldn’t answer. He picked up another copy of the newspaper and thought his heart was about to explode out of his chest. His knees were actually shaking. Hot tears were welling on his eyelashes. He moved forward, his whole body itching with each pulse of his heart, his vision swimming.

  ‘—and one of those scratch cards,’ Frankie was saying to the woman.

  She torn a card from the plastic rack and looked at Kevin walking slowly towards them, the newspaper outstretched in his hands. ‘Forty pence, love,’ she said.

  Frankie turned, a smile fading rapidly from his face. A single tear leaked over the rim of Kevin’s eyelashes as Frankie snatched the newspaper from him. ‘We don’t need a paper,’ he said, punctuating every word for emphasis. ‘I told you to wait back there.’

  Kevin cowered as though Frankie might hit him. He looked at the elderly woman behind the counter and saw something on her face—sympathy, maybe, but certainly not recognition. He ran his coat sleeve over his eyes. His throat was tight and dry. To Frankie, he rasped, ‘C-can we have a can of Fanta?’

  Frankie looked at the woman who had been watching the exchange impassively, then patted Kevin’s shoulder. ‘Get three,’ he said, a smile stretched tightly across his face. ‘Can you take it out of the money, love?’

  ‘I’ll get them,’ the woman said and she walked down the length of the shop. As soon as she was out of ear shot, Frankie punched Kevin’s shoulder. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? What is this?’ He looked at the newspaper, doubled it in half, and thwacked it across Kevin’s face. ‘Get back there and don’t move a muscle. You’re in big shit this time, boy.’

  Kevin scurried back to his place beside Martin, sniffling and trembling and fighting back tears. He still wanted to scream but couldn’t suffer the consequences. Disobeying Dad often came with severe punishment.

  Frankie pushed Martin into the car, closed the door and activated the locks from his key fob before Kevin could get in the other side. He kicked the wheelchair out of his way and came around the car.

  Kevin backed up against the wall and seemed almost to melt into it as Frankie reached out and gripped his throat. ‘You useless fucker,’ Frankie growled. He raised his hand. ‘What the hell were you playing at back there?’ He brought the back of his hand down across Kevin’s cheek. ‘You should know better than to try anything stupid.’ Another slap, harder this time.

  Kevin was choking and crying and coughing.

  Frankie punched him firmly in the stomach and released him, allowed him to slide down the wall onto his backside.

  Choking and crying and coughing.

  ‘Get up.’ He kicked him, the point of his shoe connecting with Kevin’s hip. ‘Get up!’

  Kevin tried to say something but only wheezed.

  Frankie kicked him again, this time striking Kevin’s elbow as the boy curled into a foetal position on the ground. Kevin yelped in agony and Frankie crouched, took him by his hair, and hauled him to his feet. Without letting go of his hair, he slapped Kevin across the face again, panted with exertion as he watched a thin line of blood trickle from his nose.

  ‘Don’t ever do anything so’—another vicious slap, the scrape of his gold ring across Kevin’s cheek, a rivulet of blood curling around the boy’s mouth—‘stupid again, you hear?’

  He released his hold and Kevin slumped to the ground, bruised and bloodied, dirty and sobbing.

  Frankie stood over him. He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed deeply. ‘Get in the car,’ he said. He turned and collapsed the wheelchair as Kevin got slowly to his feet. The boy watched him as he unlocked the car and folded the chair into the boot.

  ‘Where’s the—?’

  Frankie turned. ‘Have you not had enough?’

  Kevin got in the car without another word.

  Martin smiled and asked, ‘Are you all right?’

  Kevin both nodded and shook his head at the same time, wiping blood from his face with his sleeve. When Frankie closed the door to the boot, Kevin said, ‘We’ve lost the newspaper. I don’t know where it’s gone.’

  Martin pulled up the end of his jumper, just enough for Kevin to see what was underneath. He whispered, ‘I took the front page and threw the rest away. I knew your Dad would see it and take it so I hid it.’

  Frankie eased himself into the front seat.

  Kevin and Martin grinned at each other and, for the first time in a lifetime, Kevin felt relaxed. He knew that having the newspaper article was nothing substantial, nothing that could get them rescued, but knowing that it existed, that people would be reading it this very moment, was all the hope he needed.

  ‘Let’s get cracking before the light fails, then,’ Frankie said. ‘Do you want to see your Uncle Robert?’

  Chapter Twenty

  Sergeant Williams came back through the door into Tessa’s kitchen and flipped his phone shut. ‘Bristol,’ he said.

  ‘What’s he doing in Bristol?’ Alan asked.

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine. Sarah, does he have any friends or family up that way?’

  At the kitchen table, watching a milk-skin form over another cup of coffee, Sarah shrugged. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘So what are you doing about it?’ Graeme asked. He stood beside Tessa as though he’d lose her if he didn’t.

  Williams smiled warmly. ‘We’ve already alerted Avon and Somerset Police. They cover Bristol. My office is faxing Catchpole’s booking photograph and physical descriptions of him and your two boys to Bristol right now. He made a mistake calling you from a payphone. We’ll catch the S.O.B.’

  ‘Bristol’s not very big, Sergeant,’ Alan said. ‘He made that call hours ago. What’s to say he hasn’t already moved on?’

  Williams shook his head. ‘All we can do is out best. They’ll likely set up road blocks—’

  ‘But if he’s already beyond the blocks,’ Graeme almost shouted, ‘there’s no point in having them.’

  Williams raised his hands to soothe him. ‘Our officers are a smart bunch, sir. They know what they’re doing. He’s heading north, that’s a starting point. They’ll start their search in Bristol and if he’s not there, they’ll widen out, involve neighbouring constabularies. It won’t be long before we have him, I assure you. Now that we know what direction he’s heading in, he’s got nowhere to hide.’

  Sarah stood and carried her cup to the sink. ‘What do we do now?’

  ‘Wait,’ Williams said. ‘As soon as I hear anything from Bristol, you’ll all be the first to know.’

  When Sergeant Williams and his team had gone, Sarah motioned discreetly for Alan to follow her and they left Graeme and Tessa in conversation in the kitchen.

  She walked across the hallway and stopped short of the front door, catching the slightest glimpse of herself in the mirror opposite: she looked tired; they all did.

  When Alan came to her side, she whispered, ‘I can’t do this.’

  ‘We’ll get them back,’ Alan said.

  ‘No, I mean I can’t just sit here.’ She lowered her voice further, leaned closer to his stubbled cheek. She could feel his breath on her face. ‘I want to go to Bristol.’

  Shock. ‘Sarah, you can’t—’

  ‘I know he might not even be there anymore, but I have to do something.’ Her eyes pleaded with him for understanding.

  His voice matched her hushed tones. ‘If Frankie sees you…’

  ‘Frankie’s a bastard,’ she said. ‘I’m not scared of him anymore. There’s nothing he can do to hurt me other than take my baby. I want him back. Don’t you see?’

  He nodded, touched her arm. ‘Sergeant Williams’ll have a field day with this.’ He sighed. ‘I won’t let you go alone.’

  ‘You can’t come with me. I won’t have it,’ Sarah said. Alan tried to protest but she stopped him with a hand on his chest. ‘You need to stay here with Tessa. Co
mfort her. She needs it.’

  ‘No,’ Alan said.

  Sarah closed her eyes and shook her head. ‘Please. You have to understand. I need to do this on my own. If you…if you care, even just a little bit—’

  He held her thin waist. ‘You know I do. That’s why I can’t let you go off on your own. You need someone with you.’

  She looked into his hazel eyes and bit back her own tears. ‘Don’t make this any harder for me, Alan. I need to go to Bristol. I have to go. But you can’t come with me.’

  ‘I’ll go with you.’

  Sarah and Alan turned, stepping away from each other as though caught in an illicit tryst. Tessa stood in the kitchen doorway, her arms folded across her breasts, chewing on the inside of one cheek.

  ‘I’ll go,’ she said, ‘and you can’t stop me.’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ Graeme said. They had gathered around the kitchen table, fresh cups of coffee held defensively in front of adamant faces. ‘I won’t allow it. Don’t you see how foolish it is?’ His face, Sarah saw, held something more than tiredness and anger, an emotion she couldn’t quite place.

  ‘Graeme’s right,’ Sarah said. ‘I need to do this alone, Tessa.’

  ‘No,’ Tessa disagreed, ‘you don’t. You need someone with you. And I especially need to be there for Martin. You can’t stop me.’

  ‘But I can,’ Graeme said. ‘Let the police do their job; that’s what they’re there for. You heard Sergeant Williams—they’re making progress, getting close. If you go gallivanting after Frankie it could jeopardise their whole operation.’

  ‘If we don’t go after him he could get away,’ Tessa said. ‘Where’s the sense in that?’

  ‘The police—’

  ‘The police don’t have a clue what they’re doing.’

  ‘So you think vigilantism is the answer?’

  Tessa smacked her mug on the table so hard it should have shattered. She stood and smoothed her skirt. To Graeme she said, ‘Come with me. We need a word.’

  Alone, Sarah looked at Alan’s ashen face. ‘You’ve been quiet.’

  He inhaled deeply, looked at her, and exhaled slowly. ‘It shouldn’t make sense but it does. It’s just…dangerous.’

  ‘We’ll be careful.’ She glanced at the doorway, heard Graeme’s raised voice but couldn’t make out his words. ‘I think Tessa does need to come. You couldn’t know what it’s like being a mother. It’s just something we have to do.’

  He nodded. ‘I wish you’d let me come with you.’

  She took his hand, brushed her thumb over his palm. ‘I want you to stay here,’ she said. ‘In case he calls again. I don’t think he will—he’ll believe I’ve somehow managed to call the police off his back—but just in case.’ She moistened parched lips with her tongue. ‘And you need to keep an eye on Graeme.’

  ‘But who’s going to keep an eye on you and Tessa?’

  ‘We’ll be fine. We have to be.’

  The angered voices from the next room had gone quiet. Sarah thought she heard sobbing, then mumbled and apologetic words. For a long time there was only the settling silence of a childless house. Sarah and Alan sat at the table, their hands still joined but forgotten, each staring into their own dark thoughts. When at last Alan stood and rinsed their mugs, Tessa and Graeme returned. Both had evidently been crying, their eyes red and puffy. They were holding hands like teenage lovers.

  ‘I don’t agree with it,’ Graeme said, ‘but I’ll go along with it. You both have to promise to be careful. I couldn’t stand it if…’

  ‘I promise,’ Sarah said.

  Graeme nodded. She saw now that the illusive emotion on his face was a mix of profound love and grief. ‘Do you have a mobile phone?’ he asked her. When she shook her head, he sat his own phone on the table. ‘It’s got our home number programmed into it. Just press and hold number four. Tessa’s mobile is number three, so if you get split up you can call her.’ He wrapped his arm around Tessa’s shoulders. ‘And I want hourly phone calls. If we don’t hear from you, I’m calling Sergeant Williams. Okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ Tessa said and Sarah nodded.

  ‘And what do we do?’ Alan asked. ‘I mean, we can sit here and wait, but…’

  ‘I guess that’s all we can do,’ Graeme said.

  ‘That,’ Tessa said, ‘and pray.’

  ‘I still think Graeme or I should go with you. There’s no point in both of us moping around, doing nothing.’

  Sarah shook her head. Alan had accompanied her back to her house so she could pack a few things to take with her. ‘Tessa and I’ll be fine. I promise. You need to stay here, keep Graeme company.’

  The memory of their fleeting moment together in Tessa’s hall skulked in the short distance between them, she by the wardrobe, he perched on the end of her bed, hands clasped in his lap as though to touch anything would imply wanting, longing.

  He had said he cared, said it while he held her tight. But she refused, as best she could, the idea of anything more than friendship. All her love and devotion was swallowed up by Kevin right now, her whole mind bent on getting him back that thoughts of anything else were automatically pushed to one side—except Alan’s voice, his touch.

  She pulled her underwear drawer from the chest and upturned it, spilling the contents into her overnight bag.

  ‘How long do you plan on being away?’ Alan asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I just need to be prepared.’

  ‘Can’t you just turn them inside-out and wear them two days in a row? Isn’t that what people do when they run out?’

  ‘Only gross boys,’ she said and slapped his shoulder. ‘Anyway, this way I won’t run out, will I?’

  She struggled with sliding the drawer back into its slot. ‘I’ll do it,’ Alan said. He got on his knees beside her, brushed her hands as he took the drawer, and eased it into the small chest of drawers. A nervous tingle bubbled up from her stomach and she stood, backed towards her holdall.

  ‘I think that’s everything.’

  Alan got to his feet and faced her, hesitated, then said, ‘You will be careful, won’t you?’

  She nodded. ‘Alan, I…’

  ‘You’ll be back before you know it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Kevin’ll be pleased to see you.’ Sarah zipped and lifted the holdall and Alan took it from her, slung the strap over his shoulder. ‘Everything’s going to work out just fine,’ he said.

  Outside, a light mist of rain had begun to fall. Sarah pulled the collar of her coat tighter around her neck. Graeme was pointing out a route on a road map to Tessa. When Alan had placed Sarah’s holdall in the back of Graeme’s people carrier, Sarah said, ‘If we take the car, how will you guys get around?’

  ‘If we have to, we can use Alan’s car,’ Graeme said, ‘but we’ll be too busy sitting by the phone. Hourly phone calls, remember?’

  Sarah nodded. Tessa said, ‘Let’s go.’

  She got in the driver’s seat and Alan opened the passenger door for Sarah. As Sarah got in, Alan started to say something but stopped before anything came out. Sarah nodded and smiled. ‘I’ll see you soon,’ she said.

  Alan closed the door, bent towards the window and looked at her. She smiled again and then faced forward.

  ‘You ready?’ Tessa asked.

  Ten seconds later, Sarah had turned to look out the rear window, saw Alan and Graeme standing in the road, her vision obstructed by the empty wheelchair in the modified back seat of the people carrier as they turned a corner.

  ‘You okay?’ Tessa asked as Sarah turned back in her seat.

  ‘No,’ she said. She was far from okay.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Frankie kicked Robert’s foot to wake him and threw a bottle of Peroni on the bed beside him. Robert had turned up an hour ago in their mother’s old car that Frankie promptly told him to ditch.

  ‘Got a bottle opener?’ Robert asked.

  ‘Use your teeth,’ Frankie said and popped the lid off his o
wn bottle with the corner of a white lacquer nightstand.

  They were less than ten miles north of Bristol, holed up in Lucy’s Bed & Breakfast in Bradley Stoke. Lucy, passed her prime and her ideal weight, had checked Robert and Kevin into a twin room and Robert had let Frankie and Martin in after the old woman had gone back into her office. The idea was not so much about saving money as avoiding suspicion.

  Kevin and Martin were tucked up together in the other single bed, sound asleep or pretending to be, Frankie couldn’t tell. He had made sure they remained fully clothed, ready to flee if they had to, but the old doll downstairs was none the wiser and as long as they kept out of her way they could probably stay there for a couple of nights if they had to. He aimed to be back on the road tomorrow morning but it never hurt to have a contingency plan.

  A siren wailed through the night outside, startlingly close, but it kept going and faded into the blackness beyond the window. Frankie heard Robert let out a long, slow breath.

  ‘Thought they were coming for us,’ Robert said.

  ‘You think too much, Bobby Davro.’ Frankie sat on the edge of the boys’ bed and lit a cigarette, swigged from his bottle. ‘Sarah’ll have done what she was told.’

  ‘You think the cops will believe her? “Oh, I’m so sorry to have wasted your time, officer. My estranged husband was supposed to have the kids.”’

  Frankie raised his hand as though to slap Robert and Robert flinched, even though they were too far apart.

  Hurt and pathetic, Robert said, ‘Stop calling me that.’

  ‘Davro,’ Frankie teased. ‘Anyway, I don’t care how she does it, she’ll figure something out. She’s not stupid. If she ever wants to see these two again, she’ll work it out.’

  ‘We still need to be careful, though,’ Robert said. His voice was weak, mildly defensive. ‘You still plan on going to Holyhead?’

  ‘Got a better suggestion?’

  Robert propped the pillows behind him and leaned back. He still hadn’t opened his beer. ‘And what do we do when we get there?’