‘She’s still our mother,’ Robert said.
Frankie shook his head. ‘She stopped being my mother a long time ago. You don’t remember the arguments, do you?’
‘The arguments stopped when Dad died.’
‘I moved out when Dad died. The arguments just happened over the phone instead.’
‘About what?’ Robert asked.
‘“Don’t you go getting into trouble, Francis,”’ he mocked his mother’s voice. ‘“You’re mixing with the wrong people, Francis.”’
In the backseat, Martin groaned in his sleep, wheezed, air whistling in his throat. Frankie glanced back and scowled.
The front, driver’s side wheel bounced over a rock or a small animal and the steering wheel juddered in Frankie’s hands. The back of the car was swinging round on the ice and a sharp bend in the road was coming up fast in front of them. Frankie pulled on the wheel, tapped the breaks. The car skittered left and then right, seemed to be correcting itself, but continued swinging further out. The back of the car crossed the dividing line between the lanes. Sleet pelted the windscreen and Frankie could see very little. He’d been doing ten miles over the speed limit and it was too late to stop.
He forced right on the steering wheel, drew up the handbrake, pumped the foot pedal. ‘We’re going to spin,’ he said.
‘No,’ Robert breathed.
The corner was close, a left-hand bend coming up on the right side of the car.
‘Shit.’
‘Hit the brakes.’
‘I am!’
In a fraction of a second, Frankie could see the ditch at the side of the road gaping out in front of them, could feel the tyres slipping uselessly over the icy road, heard the drumbeat of the rain on the roof of the car. Robert was screaming when the back side of the car slammed against a tree and started back the other way, across the road. Their headlights illuminated the black ditch as they bounced over the side of it and went nose first off the road.
An airbag puffed and squashed up around Frankie’s face and chest.
‘They can’t be going too fast,’ DS Gwen Thomason said over the radio. ‘Not in this God-awful weather.’
David Ellis ran the back of his hand over his forehead, clung tightly to an umbrella and said, ‘They haven’t come this far, at least. They must have cut off another road somewhere.’ He sighed. The freezing rain was pelting his legs. He had pulled up on the hard shoulder at one of Thomason’s checkpoints a couple of minutes ago and learned from the stationed policemen that Catchpole hadn’t passed this way.
To Thomason on the radio he now said, ‘I’ll stay here a minute or two, then I’ll head back the way I came and turn off at the first available junction. Keep all your men alert. I want this man in custody tonight.’ He signed off and dropped the radio receiver back in his car.
He looked back at the length of cars queuing up to pass the checkpoint, looked the other way and saw the policemen ushering cars through. He swapped the umbrella to his other hand, held it low over his head—what little good it was doing—and moved out into the middle of the road. Walking slowly, deliberately, he started down the length of cars, staring intently into each, looking for a male driver and two boys, making sure his ID was visible on his heavy coat. He kept an eye out, too, for a man and one boy, in case Catchpole had ditched his son’s friend somewhere along the way. He hoped not, in the condition the boy must be in, but the possibility was there.
As he moved, one car driver cracked his window open slightly and shouted above the sound of the driving rain. ‘What’s the hold up?’
David stared in through the opening in the window, saw a beefy man in the driver’s seat, a woman in the front passenger seat, and a young girl curled up and sleeping in the back.
‘Just a random spot check,’ David said. ‘Can you wake your daughter, please? She needs her seatbelt on. Thank you.’
He walked on. When he had gone the length of about twenty cars, he gave up and turned back. Catchpole wouldn’t be heading this way. For all David knew, he could have already passed through the checkpoints and was this very minute on his way to Holyhead. David refused to think that Catchpole would be heading in any other direction. Sometimes you just had to go with your hunches. So far, his route north had been consistent. If Thomason had spread her men out as far as she suggested, one of them would find him soon enough. It was just a matter of time.
He spoke briefly with one of the constables and then got back in his car, dumping his sodden umbrella in the foot well of the front passenger seat. His trousers hugged his legs, wet and cold. He thought of his two little girls, their huge blue eyes, wide smiles from Evelyn every time he came home. At six months old, every burp and facial expression from Amy was a smile to David, too.
Julia wasn’t on the service. They had met at a party of a mutual friend and were married within a year and a half. His colleagues had said it would fail—‘Only a cop could love a cop’—but he had proved them wrong. They were as in love today as they were seven years ago, if not more so, and had two sweet, adorable little girls to prove it. And for Julia, Evelyn and Amy, he vowed he’d get those two boys back to their mothers. He’d see they were returned safely and that Catchpole was banged up for a long time to come.
He started his car and swung around the checkpoint and headed up to circle back on southbound lane. He’d noticed a slip road about five or six miles back on the northbound approach; a flyover would take him back in that direction.
Kevin woke with a searing pain in his neck and across his chest. It took him a moment to figure out where he was, and longer to figure out why he was slumped forward at an awkward angle. He looked left and saw Martin leaning forward, too, and tried to ask him what had happened.
From the front of the car, Kevin heard Frankie curse and Uncle Robert groan. When he looked out the window, he saw that they were tipped forward into a three or four foot ditch, their back wheels in the air above the edge of the road. He tried to sit back but gravity pulled him forward again. ‘Where are we?’ he managed to ask, using his arms against the front seat to relieve the pressure of the seatbelt.
His question was ignored.
Frankie cranked at the engine but it choked uselessly. ‘We’re stuck,’ he said.
Kevin lifted his feet and propped them against the chair in front, reached down and unbuckled his seatbelt. He fell forward, air expunging from his lungs and the pain in his neck exploding. Cramped in the foot well, he tried to turn around and crawl across to Martin.
‘Bobby, get out.’
‘Why?’ Robert said. He stretched his right arm and twisted his head from side to side.
‘We’ll have to push it back up onto the road.’
‘What’s the point? It’s not going to start anyway.’
‘Get out,’ Frankie demanded. He pushed open his door and the wind ripped it form his hand, yanking it open fully. Rain and sleet forced its way into the car to explore the dry haven. He stumbled out and pushed the door closed.
In the silence, with the howling wind locked outside, Robert mumbled, ‘Who does he think I am—Superman?’
Robert clambered out of the car.
Kevin watched as the two men stood in the rain, leaning against the wind, and shouted at each other. He reached for Martin’s seatbelt clasp. ‘Are you okay?’
Martin smiled weakly. ‘Been better,’ he croaked. He didn’t move a muscle.
Kevin couldn’t get the clasp to release. ‘Lean back a bit,’ he said. He tugged on the belt and pushed repeatedly at the red button.
‘Can’t.’
Kevin bit on his lower lip and forced with all his strength on the catch release mechanism. At last there was a click and the seatbelt withdrew. Martin tumbled down on top of Kevin and cried.
‘I’m sore,’ he said, and coughed.
Kevin said, ‘You want some more medicine?’
Martin shook his head. ‘I want to go home.’
‘Me, too.’ Kevin squirmed out from under Martin an
d helped him into a slightly more comfortable position on his back.
‘What are they doing?’ Martin asked.
Kevin looked. Frankie and Robert were at the front of the car trying to push it back out of the ditch, with no success. Their feet seemed to be slipping in the mud. When Frankie stopped pushing, he looked around and shouted something at Robert, pointing into the distance. Robert shook his head, then nodded when Frankie pointed his finger at him and shouted again. The wind caught and tore their voices away so that Kevin couldn’t hear what they were saying.
He watched as Frankie clambered up the side of the trench and pulled the back door open. ‘Get out,’ he commanded.
Kevin moved slowly towards his dad. ‘Where are we going?’
‘There’s a barn in a field over there. We’ll hole up until the rain passes.’
The other rear door opened and Robert appeared at it. He reached inside and tugged at Martin. ‘Come on, kid.’
‘Careful,’ Kevin said. ‘He’s sore.’
Outside, the wind and rain battered them, a curious family of men and children standing in the middle of a deserted road. Robert had clasped Martin around the chest to hold him upright. Above the whistling of the wind, he said, ‘What about the car?’
‘We’ll have to leave it,’ Frankie shouted back. He held a hand in front of his face in a weak attempt to ward off the rain. ‘Come on.’
They crossed the road and descended the ditch at the other side, scrambled up the far side of it and struggled over the barbwire fencing, Robert passing Martin to Frankie before taking him back when they were all in the field.
Kevin took Martin’s hand. ‘You okay?’
Martin coughed and spit phlegm onto the grass. Robert was still holding him up; he couldn’t stand unaided.
As they started out across the field, clawed at by the wind and sleet, Kevin watched as Robert practically dragged Martin along beside him. Kevin slipped in the rain-logged field, stumbled, and fell to his knees. He pushed himself upright, swaying in the wind, and trudged on. He thought about running in the opposite direction. If he could hide among the bushes at the edge of the field, Frankie would have a hard time finding him in the dark. Then Kevin could jump out onto the road when a car passed, beg them to stop and help them.
As if sensing Kevin’s thoughts, Frankie grabbed his arm, pulled him forward, shouted into the wind, ‘Get a move on. Hurry up.’
Robert struggled with Martin, trying to hold onto him without losing his own balance as he dragged him along. They both fell forward into the muddy grass. Robert was quick to his feet, crouched, tugged at Martin.
‘Leave me alone!’ Martin screamed and coughed.
‘Come on, kid,’ Robert said. ‘We have to get out of the rain.’
Kevin tore out of Frankie’s grip and ran to Martin, kneeling down beside him. ‘Come on, Martin, it’s okay. It’s not far to the barn. Just a bit further.’
‘No.’
‘Yes,’ Kevin shouted. He could barely hear his own voice.
Frankie walked on towards the barn, kicking up mud as he went, ignoring the others.
Kevin stood, looked around.
‘Don’t even think about it, Kev,’ Robert said. ‘Help me get him to the barn. He’ll die out here.’
Kevin didn’t move. He clenched his fists, squinted against the freezing rain, breathed heavily through his nose.
‘Kevin, he’ll die, I said. We need to get him inside and get him dry,’ Robert shouted.
Kevin looked down, saw the pleading look on Martin’s face. He stooped, took one of his arms while Robert took the other, and they hauled him to his feet. Robert picked him up in his arms, struggling with the extra weight. ‘Walk in front of me, Kevin. Make sure there’re no holes or rocks I can trip over.’
Kevin fell into line, leading Uncle Robert towards the barn where Frankie—a shadow among shadows—was now pulling open one of the doors.
Chapter Twenty-seven
David Ellis dropped his speed down to fifteen miles per hour. The roads were treacherous, black ice spreading out before him, heavy sleet drumming against the car. His headlights strained to penetrate the gloom. He thought he heard a rumble of thunder unfurling across the sky but he couldn’t be sure.
It was pushing six o’clock, when any respectable job would have finished for the day, but a cop’s day was a long day. He didn’t mind. On certain cases, such as this, David’s brain wouldn’t shut off until he had apprehended the suspect. He didn’t know how he would cope if one of the bad guys ever got away, living at large for the rest of their natural lives. You read about that; cops going off the rails, spending years of their own private time chasing after their nightmares, seeing the eyes of their adversary in the face of every stranger. David wouldn’t let that happen, wouldn’t let the bad guys get away. He’d been lucky so far.
Maybe he’d just had good clean cases.
Maybe, like Julia said, he was good at what he did.
The radio barked and sputtered. ‘Elli—?’
‘This is Ellis. Gwen, you’re cutting out,’ he said.
‘Nothing at…eck points,’ Gwen’s distorted voice said. David figured the storm was interfering with the reception. The radio crackled.
‘What about the road patrols?’ David asked. As well as the stationed check points, both Gwen’s Oswestry colleagues and David’s guys from Bristol were roaming the land in unmarked vehicles. There were as many on B-roads as there were on motorways.
‘Nega…ive,’ Gwen croaked. ‘You?’
‘Nothing yet,’ David said. ‘I’m on—’ he looked at the road ‘—I could be in the middle of the countryside, for all I can tell. I think the sleet’s turning to snow. Visibility can’t be any more than twenty feet. I’m practically crawling along.’
He could feel the car wanting to ice skate across the road, the tyres losing traction. He slowed further, dropping down to five miles per hour, peering through the front windscreen for every bump or chink in the road.
‘—longer, could be…essing evening.’
‘Say again, Gwen. I didn’t catch that.’
‘If it takes…longer,’ she said, ‘could be…depressing even…’
David shook his head, looked back at the road, cursed, slammed on the brakes, and went into a spin. Instinct made him work with the car, helping it through its graceless pirouette over the ice—forcing the other way would just throw the car wildly off course. He pulled gently on the steering wheel, eased down on the brakes, one hand perched on the handbrake. ‘Easy, love,’ he coaxed. ‘You can do it.’
He had rotated a complete 360, when he was confident about pulling on the handbrake and slipping into a stop. He put both hands back on the wheel and breathed deeply.
The radio crackled again and a deep, male voice broke the relative silence. ‘Dispatch, we have an abandoned vehicle on the roadside. Plates are showing it’s the stolen Congresbury car.’
David snatched up the radio.
Kevin slumped in the corner of the barn beside Martin. It was more of a large shed than anything else, sixteen feet by forty, empty except for a smattering of debris across the dusty concrete floor. The roof of untreated wooden slats leaked in numerous places, dirty brown rain water pooling in cracks and dents on the ground, but largely the structure was dry and sheltered from the wind that threw itself against the walls outside.
Martin shook and shivered, curled into a foetal position on the ground. Robert had taken off his wet coat, turned it inside out and laid it across Martin’s slender body.
Kevin wiped rain from his face with his hands and drew his knees up towards his chest. He stared down at Martin. ‘At least we got out of school,’ he whispered, trying to make his friend smile. Martin didn’t look at him. ‘I didn’t see any cows in the field outside. Did you see any cows?’ Kevin continued. ‘I saw this thing on TV once where these kids went into a field in the middle of the night and pushed cows over. Cows sleep standing up. We should go cow tipping.’ He mimed a p
ushing motion with his hands. ‘It’ll be fun. ’Cept we’d have to run after we did it because I think they’d get up and charge at us like bulls.’
Martin shivered, coughed.
‘You could put your hand up a cow’s bum and see if it’s pregnant. That’s what farmers do.’ Kevin sighed, hugged his knees. ‘I wonder where the farmer of this field lives.’
Frankie and Robert had migrated towards the other end of the barn, almost swallowed by the murky gloom. They were whispering to each other so that Kevin and Martin couldn’t hear them.
Kevin looked around again. In the dark, he could just make out the front door of the barn through which they had entered. On his right, behind him, there appeared to be a smaller door in the side wall. He couldn’t tell if it led out into the night or into an annex of the barn. He couldn’t even see, from here, if the door was locked or not. He considered it; if the front doors had been unlocked, maybe the side door was, too.
He looked at his father, at Uncle Robert. He chewed on his lower lip and looked at Martin, who coughed and spit thick phlegm on the concrete.
Kevin lowered his legs, got to his knees, and leaned his face close to Martin’s. ‘Keep quiet,’ he whispered. ‘I’m going to get help. Stay here, okay?’
Martin groaned weakly.
Kevin crouched, felt the ground with his hands to ensure there were no stumbling blocks and, keeping low, sidestepped twice, slowly. He looked back into the gloom where Frankie and Robert had been. He could see nothing now, which equally meant that they could see nothing of him.
He rose from his crouch, looked behind him at the closed door, and turned to it, baby-stepping quietly towards it. The door had a barrel bolt which was in the closed position, but it did not have a padlock or safety chain. He reached for the bolt, cold metal in his hand, and tried to slide the bar back. It wouldn’t move. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and tried again. The bolt gave with a harsh grating noise.
The Camel Trail Page 17