by Jane Jesmond
It was round the next corner. Even in the dark, with rain distorting the windscreen, with no lights, and the hedge blurring the road, I was sure. Or was I? Don’t overthink it, I told myself. Breathe and go for it. I took my foot right off the accelerator. Still too fucking fast. Shit, shit, shit. I fought my foot, stopping it from stabbing the brake. Too fast, my senses howled. There’d be no time to check the planks were there. The bend approached. I crunched the gearstick into second. Felt the car judder. Don’t stall. Don’t fucking stall. The end of the hedge flashed past. The road was open to the moor except for the ditch deep in the verge. The familiar landmarks slipped past. The car slowed. And I dragged the wheels to the right, mounted the verge and went down. And down. And down. And just as I was sure we were going into the ditch, I felt the wheels hit the wooden planks Jory Treeve put down every year to get his tractor onto the moors during the bad weather, when he needed to check his sheep and didn’t want to go the long way round.
My speed made the planks bounce wildly and I fought to keep the car straight. The front wheels hit the bank on the other side with a thump and the car stalled. Fuck. Jory’s tractor had big wheels with a thick grip. Mine were tiny and smooth. My hands shook as I turned the ignition key, expecting the lights of our pursuers’ car to round the corner any moment. The engine fired.
‘Put your foot down and get into second as fast as you can,’ Nick said. His voice was icy calm.
The wheels gripped and took the front of the car up onto the bank and into the field. As soon as the back wheels were clear, I dragged the car round to the right and tore back the way we’d come, splattering the windows with gobbets of grass and mud, until the hedge hid us from the road. Too fucking fast again. A dry-stone wall raced towards us. I watched it. Helpless. Didn’t dare brake. We smashed into it and, once again, the car stalled.
Twenty-Three
A moment of nothingness. Not long. Seconds, maybe. I wasn’t even sure if I’d lost consciousness. There was a break, though. A sense of before and after, as if shock washed through my body and shut it down. I moved my arms and legs. They all worked and nothing hurt. Much. Rain drummed on the car roof.
Nick was beside me. Quiet and still.
Get out of the car, I thought. The men are still out there. I clawed at my seat belt and reached for the door.
‘Wait.’ Nick was awake and moving. Pain had mangled him into a jumble of limbs and hands.
‘Got to get out.’
‘Lights,’ he said. He tried to form other words, gave up and said, ‘Lights’ again. I reached out for the door.
‘No.’ His voice was sharp. With pain? With… what?
And then his meaning hit me and I snatched my hand away from the door. I had so nearly blown it. Outside the dark dripped with water. Each droplet waiting to reflect a stray beam of light. And the interior light in my car was bright. A beacon for the watchers who must now be waiting on the top ridge, eyes fixed on the darkness in front of them like hungry raptors. I stretched my hand up slowly to the switch and turned it off. Beside me, Nick sighed and slowly uncurled. I wondered how badly he’d been hurt.
‘We have to get out of the car,’ I said.
‘I know. But quietly.’
I opened the door and the steady tumble of the rain blotted everything else out. I shook out my arms. The shock of the smash and the aches from driving were disappearing. My shins and toes were sore but I moved freely. Nick got out of the car. He seemed OK. A bit of a stagger as he stood but he walked round the back of the car to me without too much difficulty.
The Golf was totalled. It didn’t matter, though. We weren’t going to be using it again and we’d ended up in a place where the hedge was super thick. No headlights would penetrate and reflect back a giveaway glint.
Nick’s hand pushed my shoulder.
‘Get down,’ he whispered.
Through the noise of the rain came the sound of a car. I slammed my body down, knocking the breath out of my lungs. Nick followed. It must have been agony for him but he didn’t even grunt. The car swept by, its lights poking through the bottom of the hedge where the leaves were thin. It passed and disappeared.
‘Was it them?’
‘Who else?’
‘It wasn’t going very fast,’ I said. ‘I think they know they’ve lost us.’
I ran to the planks over the ditch. They were too much of a giveaway and I started heaving them up the bank but it was impossible. They were heavy and embedded in the soft muddy earth. My feet slipped from under me and I fell. Nick came up behind me.
‘I need to get rid of the planks. They’ll work out where we left the road.’
He tried to help me up with one hand but it was no good. ‘Listen for the car,’ I shouted through the rain. He nodded and drops of water flew off the end of his hair.
‘Did you say your phone was in the back of the car?’
‘Shit, yes.’
How could I have forgotten?
‘I told him the code and even in the dark, I swear I caught the quick flash of his smile as he went back to the car. I kicked at the planks until they slid sideways through the wet earth and jumped up and down on them until most of their length was under the muddy water in the ditch, scanning the road for any sign of the car coming back. It wouldn’t be long. As soon as they reached the fork, they’d realise we’d gone off the road and come back to look for us.
Nick came back, talking to someone on my phone and clutching my coat. The rain was lighter now and a faint wind had got up. It curled round my legs and chilled my skin through jeans heavy with mud and water. If we didn’t get moving soon we’d be in trouble.
I clambered out of the ditch and Nick broke off his conversation.
‘Where are we exactly?’ he asked.
‘Opposite the entrance to Typridl Farm, but we can’t wait here. We’ll take the path through the woods on the ridge and follow it down to Garswell village.’
He repeated what I said and then swore and looked at the phone. No signal. It was always patchy up on the moor.
The rain stopped and the wind was shifting the clouds above us. I shivered. He handed me my coat.
‘Put it on.’
‘You need it more than I do.’
‘I can’t get it over my arm.’
It wasn’t going to be easy getting him down the path to Garswell. It was steep in places and you needed both hands to steady you. We didn’t have a choice, though, not unless we went over the moor, and if the clouds lifted like I thought they were going to, the moon would poke through and we’d be two vertical sticks on miles of flat land. I looked at him. His arm must have been in agony but he was in control of himself. We’d manage.
‘The Garswell path? Is it the best way?’
Every bit of me shrieked we should be moving, not talking about it.
‘Once we’re on the path they’ll never catch up with us,’ I said. ‘Otherwise, we walk on the road – obviously stupid. Or go out onto the moor, where there’s nowhere to hide. No brainer, isn’t it? So can we get a move on?’
‘Which way over the moor?’
I exploded.
‘Listen. There’s nowhere to hide on the moor. What part of that don’t you understand? We haven’t got time to get far enough away. You’re not exactly in a state to be challenging Usain Bolt, are you?’
My rage passed over him without settling. He thought for a few seconds and then spoke.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘You’re going down the Garswell path but on your own. I’m going to take my chances on the moor.’
His words made perfect sense. They were after him. Not me. This wasn’t my affair and here was my chance to escape, except my feet stayed stubbornly fixed to the mud and my brain hunted for reasons why I shouldn’t leave.
‘Go on, Jen.’ His voice was cool. No hint of emotion. No trace of doubt. ‘You’ve give
n me a chance. I’d never have got away from them if you hadn’t picked me up.’
He held his hand out. Not to me. He held it out as if ushering me towards the path. The gesture reminded me of the first time we met, when he opened the door of his car and offered it to me. And suddenly it was all too much. Too confusing. The contradictions in him. My own tangled feelings.
‘Come with me,’ I said.
‘No.’
‘Look, I know exactly what you are, Nick Crawford. And what you and your thug friends do. I found the coke in your sideboard. You’re a crook. But I don’t think you’re as bad as your friends and you won’t get away from them over the moors.’
His hand wavered and he took a step towards me. Then he froze. Like a dog we’d had, a pointer, when it caught sight of a bird and every muscle in its body twanged and vibrated with the alert. I heard it too. A car.
We dived behind the hedge and onto the ground.
The road was visible through the bottom of the hedge and I saw the headlights coming. But slowly – so, so slowly. I sensed the gaze of the men inside, piercing the dark like searchlights. They’d worked out where they’d lost us. Not hard to do. And now they were coming back to see where our car had left the road. I held my breath as they passed the place where the planks had bridged the ditch but they didn’t stop, didn’t even hesitate. There was more than one car, though. Fuck. Three other vehicles in convoy. I mouthed curses into the grass. They were big four-wheel drive brutes, capable of driving over the moorland at speed.
A long, slow moment while they passed. Nick raised his head and risked a look. Then he dragged his legs beneath his body and pushed himself up. He slipped round the side of the hedge, as quiet as a shadow.
‘They’ve stopped further up,’ he whispered when he came back, his breath warm on my ear. ‘I think some of them are getting out.’
‘Fuck. The path to Garswell starts there.’
He pointed onto the moor. I shook my head.
‘We can’t stay here, Jen.’
Torch beams cut the dark, far up but on our side of the hedge. They were coming back on foot as well as by car. And on both sides of the hedge. But with torches. Idiots. A seed of an idea took hold.
‘Come on,’ I said.
I spent precious seconds rummaging in the boot of my car, my coat rammed over the interior light, and pulled out my rucksack and rope. We ran onto the moor, crouched over and staying close to the dry-stone wall until we were a few hundred metres from the road. Then I turned and headed towards the coast, using the scrubby bushes and rocks as cover until we reached the trees lining the ridge. No cries came from the hunters. No shouts of discovery. That’s the problem with torches. They light up everything in their beam but they blind you to everything outside it. They’d find the car, though, and guess we were out on the moor.
‘Careful,’ I said as Nick’s feet skidded through damp leaves. ‘There’s a sheer drop the other side of the trees. Follow the path along the ridge.’
And then, because I was cold and crampy from running bent double, I raced down the path, jumping and bouncing over the tree roots and rocks. I ran and ran without caring if Nick was keeping up, feeling the tightness in my chest relax and my lungs pump air into my body. The clouds had thinned and a watery moonlight cast the trees’ shadows over the path but it was bright enough to see where I was going. It felt glorious.
After a while, I made myself stop and think. I forced myself to go over all the details of my plan, to be sure it was going to work. Kit would have been proud of me. Except I wasn’t going to think about Kit and his meticulous planning right now.
Nick stumbled down the path, his steps uneven and his breathing rough. The moon caught his face full-on as he came near. It was set in grim lines, a black and white sketch of someone forcing himself to keep going. He stopped when he saw me and took a few shuddering breaths, then laughed and ran the fingers of his good hand through his hair to fling the wetness away. He smiled at me.
‘Where to now, boss?’
‘About a mile from here we’ll disappear. But we need to go fast. They’ll get the cars onto the moor.’
‘Disappear?’
‘You’ll see.’
We ran on. This time I kept with him. Ready to push him on. But it wasn’t necessary. He ran with his right hand clutching his left arm and if he’d gone any faster he would have fallen over.
The trees thinned until we came out of the woods and onto the bare ridge that was the south-western boundary of the moor. The land dropped vertically down into a valley which curled back to the coast road. It was the last place on the moor they’d look for us, but they’d come here eventually.
When we got to the highest point, I stopped and pulled the rucksack off my back.
‘Here?’
‘Yup.’
‘We must be visible for miles.’
‘Then keep down.’
The moon was low in the sky and its cloudy light threw long shadows after the tussocks of reedy grass and the stray bushes of sloes and thorns scattered across the ground. Nick looked drained. His lips were the same grey as his face and dark stains were spreading from his beaten eye over the bridge of his nose.
I emptied the rucksack and prayed everything would still be there. I hadn’t checked it in a long time. Not since the day of Grid’s fall. Doubt drained my confidence. Was I leading us into more danger?
‘What is it?’ Nick’s voice was quiet but insistent. ‘Are you missing something?’
‘No. It’s all here.’
He crawled over from where he’d lain down and looked.
‘Rope,’ he said. ‘A harness and some other things whose names I don’t know, but I’d say you were planning to climb down the rock.’
He picked up a karabiner and clicked it open and shut a few times.
‘Very clever. You’re very, very clever, Ms Jenifry Shaw. But I would have expected nothing less.’
‘I don’t see another way off the moor, do you?’
I was speaking to myself as much as to him.
‘You know it better than I do.’
There was no other way off. They had four vehicles, maybe more, three of which could comb the moor. So, yes, I could see no other way. And if I got it right, they’d never know where we’d gone. I started preparing the kit.
Nick rolled over and lay on his back and watched me coil the rope and prepare the belay. My hands worked automatically as I went through all the steps of my plan. Nick still lay in the heather. His ribcage slowed. He said nothing and after a while his silence worried me.
‘Maybe they’ll give up,’ I said.
‘I don’t think so.’
So he was still conscious.
‘What have you done to fall out with them?’
There was a short pause before he answered. ‘I really don’t know.’
I passed him the harness. ‘Put this on.’
The moonlight was a blessing and a curse. It made rigging the belay far easier but it would light me up like a beacon of white fire against the sky when I lowered him down.
‘Phone?’ he said.
I looked at it.
‘Still no signal.’
I tied the rope round the rock we’d always used as an anchor and checked everything. All ready.
‘Put the harness on.’
‘I can’t climb.’
‘You don’t need to. I’m going to lower you. That’s the reason for all this stuff.’
‘I’m too heavy.’
‘I don’t take your weight. The rope round the rock does. I just pay the rope out through the belay.’
I showed him how the belay controlled the speed of the rope passing through the device.
‘It’s easy,’ I said.
‘And you?’
‘I’ll climb down.’
; There was a pause while he considered what I’d said and I felt the old, familiar rush of impatience. We didn’t have time for this. The men would be on the moor already. Coming after us. Nick was sharp, though – I’ll give him that. He went straight to the flaw in the plan.
‘They’ll find the ropes and come down after us.’
Or what would have been the flaw if it hadn’t been my plan.
I laughed. And suddenly my impatience drained away. This was a place of safety for me. There was no need to rush. The flatness and emptiness of the moor worked both ways. They could see me for miles and I could see them. And no matter how quickly they crossed the distance between us, I’d be away before they got close. I laughed again.
He hauled himself upright, grabbing a handful of tall grass. ‘Or,’ he went on. ‘They’ll cut the rope when you’re halfway down. We’d be better keeping going. They’ve got a lot of moor to search.’
‘They’ve got locals with them, I’m sure. People who’re used to herding the sheep up here. They know how to find missing animals. Which is exactly what we are. This is our only chance.’
His hands fingered the metal pieces of the harness while he scoured the horizon. He was not, I thought, a man used to trusting. I gave the knots a final tug and checked the rope would uncoil freely.
Everything was ready.
And there was no sign of our pursuers. Not yet.
‘They won’t find the ropes,’ I said. ‘And they won’t cut them when I’m halfway down.’
He went to interrupt me but I spoke over him. Hissed in his face. Suddenly pissed off at his doubts. At his silences. At the questions I hadn’t asked and he hadn’t answered.
‘Listen. I don’t need the fucking ropes to get down this rock face. I’ve been climbing it since I was a child. I know it like I know how to tie my shoelaces. Because, guess what? I’m an ace rock climber. An absolute magician.’ And then because some tiny bit of me wanted to be sure. ‘How did you think I escaped when you left me dangling off the lighthouse?’
He froze.
What did it mean? Did he know what I was talking about?