Better Left Buried (19 page)

“You're kidding.”

He looks at me as the traffic slows almost to a halt. “No, as it happens. I was well into it. Considered going to college, you know, to study horticulture. Before my step-dad…” His face darkens and his eyelid flutters momentarily, as if warding off a memory. “Anyway, I always wanted to go back to it. Maybe train up in garden maintenance or design or something.”

I can't help it. I snort with laughter.

Jack looks over with a slightly hurt expression. “That funny, huh, Chicory?”

“You're having me on, aren't you?”

His features tighten. “Of course. Because I'm, what…just some lowlife who enjoys winding you up?”

“I didn't mean—”

“You're not the only one who wants to do something with their life. Make a go of things.”

“I'm sorry,” I say, meaning it.

Jack runs his tongue over his teeth and falls silent. Just taps a beat on the steering wheel. I let it go on for a minute or two before I speak.

“Anyway, what's with the chicory? Why call me that?”

This time it's Jack who laughs. When he doesn't answer I kick off my boots and put my feet up on the dashboard. Pull out my phone.

Still nothing from Lizzie, despite the text I sent telling her I was going away. I didn't say where. I thought it best not to. In case anyone has access to her phone.

A pang of guilt as I remember Lizzie's mum and my promise to let her know if I heard anything. I should have called. But what would I tell her? What on earth could I say that wouldn't make her ten times more anxious?

I'll deal with it when I get back,
I tell myself. When maybe I'll have made this whole thing go away.

“Jeez,” mutters Jack, eyeing the swathe of orange cones extending for what looks like miles up the centre of the carriageway.

I close my eyes and settle back in my seat. Am nearly drifting off when my phone gives a single short bleep. When I check it, the screen is blank. What the hell? I only charged it a few hours ago.

I give it a shake. Nothing. Press the start button and after a few seconds, the screen fires up again.

Bloody phone. Now and then it plays up, but never enough for me to bother replacing it.

Jack leans over and turns on the radio with his left hand. Rap thumps out of the speakers. I suppress a smile. True to type there, at least.

But as we get past the roadworks and speed on towards the motorway, I'm becoming more and more uneasy. Am I mad, doing this? With this guy who has more secrets than I'll ever know?

I sneak a look at him out the corner of my eye. He's got his window down, his right arm resting on the sill, his fingers drumming time on the car door. The air rushing in is blowing his hair around his face, making his features appear softer somehow. I watch him and feel a rush of something. Gratitude, maybe.

Because I know it's not only me taking a risk. Jack clearly has a lot to lose by hanging out with me. How can he be sure I won't just walk into the next police station and dump him in it?

After all, when he told me about his sister, about going away, I had a good idea where he'd been.

And I doubt it's anywhere he's keen to get back to.

I wake with a start to the screech of car tyres. Ours, I grasp, as I see we're no longer on the M25, but hurtling around the backstreets of some strange town.

“Where are we?”

Jack doesn't answer. He's watching the road with fierce concentration as he pulls right into another street so sharply that I'm flung against the passenger door, knocking my elbow. The cigarette box on the dashboard shoots into my lap.

“Jesus!” I yelp, rubbing my arm.

But Jack ignores me. He's accelerating forwards, at the same time staring into his rear-view mirror. I turn and look out the back windscreen, but can't see anything out of the ordinary.

“Keep your head down!” he barks, and I duck instinctively.

Jack turns left with another squeal from the tyres and pulls behind a white van parked by the kerb. He sinks low into his seat, his eyes fixed on his side mirror.

I try to steady my breathing. “What's going on?”

He doesn't reply, just carries on monitoring the road behind us. A green Clio drives past, followed by a black SUV.

“Jack?”

He turns round and looks out the rear window, then slumps back with a sigh.

“I thought we were being followed,” he says quietly, his eyes fixed on the wing mirror.

“Really?”

“I'm not sure. Maybe.”

I feel my pulse start to race. I have to make a conscious effort to keep breathing.

“Anyhow, if that was them, I think we've shaken them off.” He sits back up and turns the keys in the ignition, pulling out into the road and heading back the way we came.

My hand is shaking as I lean forward and pick the pack of cigarettes from my lap. I've never smoked before, but I'm figuring now might be a good time to start. I open the lid, but there's nothing inside.

“You're out.” I hold up the box so he can see it's empty.

“I know.”

I chuck it back on the dashboard and glance at Jack. It occurs to me that I've never actually seen him smoking.

He meets my gaze. “I gave up a few years ago, but I missed having something to keep my hands busy. And, I dunno, having the box reminds me…”

“Of what?”

“Not to slip up again.”

I think about this until I see, several miles later, the signs to Colchester. “Where are we going?” I'd assumed we were heading for Dover, to get the ferry to France and then drive north. More or less the way I'd have gone by train.

“Change of plan, Chicory.” Jack's voice is curt, decisive, and I decide it's best not to ask why. I have the feeling he knows what he's doing.

“We can get a boat from Harwich straight across to Denmark,” he says. “It'll cost more, but I'd rather spend less time on the road.”

“Okay.”

I wait a full half-hour before I tell him I need the loo. He pulls up at the next services without a word and I jump out and head into the building. He locks the car behind us and trails me across the car park.

“Five minutes,” he says, before disappearing into the cafe.

When I get back, Jack's already sitting in the driving seat. He tosses a packet of sandwiches at me as I climb in. I peer through the cellophane. Cheese and ham, oozing mayonnaise. I put them back in the little space in front of the gearstick.

“It's all they had,” Jack says. “You can always take out the ham.” He looks tired and cross, the lighter mood of earlier turned dark and sour.

I shake my head. “I'm not that hungry.”

“Fair enough.” He gives me a funny look, then picks up the packet and rips it open, devouring the first sandwich in a couple of wolfish bites. I can hardly believe how fast it disappears.

As he gets out to dispose of the wrappers, his mobile drops out of his pocket. I hand it back when he returns. “Why so old school?” I ask, nodding at it. “You wouldn't need to draw maps if you had a smart phone.”

“Keep it simple,” he sniffs. “I'm not keen on too much technology, leaving traces of yourself everywhere. Basic phone, one that doesn't break easily, and pay-as-you-go – that's your safest bet.”

I consider this as we head off eastwards, wondering if I should switch off mine. Could this gang, this Tommy and his crew, pick up its signal? Use it to trace us? After all, it's a fair assumption that they know my number.

Surely not, I conclude. I'm pretty certain only the police can do that. I'm about to ask Jack when he pulls off the main road and heads into the centre of town.

“Harwich isn't this way, is it?” I say, confused.

“I know. I'm taking the scenic route.”

Jack drives through the town centre and onto the road signposted to Ipswich, turning off after a couple of miles into a country lane. He pulls up in the gateway of a field, and we sit there for five minutes, the engine idling.

“What are we doing?” I ask, when Jack doesn't offer any explanation.

“Just checking.” He pulls back into the road and heads deeper into the countryside, following the satnav north. It takes ages. Most of the lanes are too narrow for two cars, so we're always having to pull over to let people pass. Several times we have to back up for a tractor.

Eventually we emerge onto the main road and this time Jack follows the signs for the ferry terminal. A few minutes later we arrive.

“What was that all about?” I ask as we pull up outside the ticket office. “Back there. Do you still think we're being followed?”

Jack shakes his head as he releases his seat belt and climbs out the car. “I don't reckon so. But you can never be too careful.”

Maybe I'm going about this all wrong, I worry, as he disappears into the building. Maybe I should get in contact with this gang, tell them I'll cooperate, will get them what they want.

I close my eyes, trying to rub away the tension in my forehead. But what if I don't find those notes? What then? They don't seem the kind to accept failure lightly.

I feel another lurch of panic.

No, I decide, opening my eyes again and letting the world drift back into focus. I have to do this on my own terms.

Keep my options open.

Jack's gone for twenty minutes or so, then returns clutching a printout and hands me my passport. We join the line of cars waiting to embark.

Jack tilts his seat back and leans along it. He closes his eyes, and I can see how tired he is, noticing for the first time the dark hollows around his cheeks. I let my eyes linger on the scar on his lip, wondering again how he got it, and can't help thinking he's quite nice-looking in a scruffy, careless sort of way.

I swing my gaze up to the big white ship, hung with three small lifeboats.
DFDS Seaways
, it says on the side in large blue lettering. It's much bigger than I imagined. At least seven decks, counting the rows of little round portholes.

A man approaches and taps on the window, his hand held out for our ticket. Jack jumps at the sound, his eyes blinking open. He winds down his window and passes it over. The man scans it briefly before nodding and pointing towards customs.

We drive through slowly, Jack's eyes fixed on the lane ahead. But as one of the customs officers raises his palm for us to stop, I see the tendons in his neck go rigid. His jaw is tight as he lowers his window again.

The customs officer nods at Jack then peers into the car, looking briefly at me then across to the back seat. I feel a twinge of embarrassment – he must be assuming we're together.

“Would you mind stepping out for a minute, Sir?”

As Jack reaches to open the door I notice that twitch again in his left eye. A tiny flicker, there for a moment, then gone. Jack appears almost relaxed as he gets out the car, casting a friendly smile at the customs man.

“Could I ask you to open the boot?” The man addresses Jack with a face devoid of expression, observing him carefully as he walks round and swings up the back of the car.

I see Jack eyeing the large black dog, held on a leash by another customs officer, a woman about Mum's age, with a demeanour as blank as her colleague's. She brings it over and it sniffs the air around the boot as the customs man leans in and sifts through our bags. Jack stands watching, his hands tucked casually into the front pockets of his jeans, only he's standing more stiffly than usual. Uneasy.

“That's fine, Sir.”

The customs officer gestures for Jack to close the boot before ambling back round to the open window. He glances at the back seat again before his eyes rest on me.

“Have a nice journey, Miss.” He smiles, and retreats to the white booth a few metres up ahead.

Jack climbs back into his seat, leaning across me to throw his passport and the ticket into the glove compartment. I can hear a slight catch in his breathing, see his skin has lost its colour.

He's hiding something, I realize. Something he's scared they would find.

Neither of us speaks as we drive up the ramp and into the bowels of the boat, and all I can think is that I have just made the worst mistake of my life.

I follow Jack into the cafeteria on the main deck of the boat. He joins the end of the queue, ordering a plate of chips with two dense-looking sausages.

“You want some?” He nods at his food as he sits at an empty table. It's nearly six and the place is already filling with people, most of them speaking Danish or another Scandinavian-sounding language.

I shake my head. “I told you. I don't eat meat.”

“Why not?”

“I gave it up years ago, when I was around ten or eleven. It just freaked me out somehow, the thought of eating something that had been alive.”

Jack lifts an eyebrow. “So what exactly do you eat, Chicory?” His tone mocking.

I ignore him, turning to look out the window at the receding coastline. The sun is setting, lighting up the distant fields with a warm golden glow. A sudden rush of homesickness threatens to overwhelm me and I have to blink hard for a minute to clear my vision.

What the hell am I doing here?

I take a deep breath and walk up to the counter. Buy myself a cheese roll, a packet of crisps and a can of Coke. I return to Jack's table and hold out my hand. “Can I have the room key?”

He fishes in his pocket, still chewing on a lump of sausage, and pulls out a plastic card. I make my way down to the bottom deck and let myself into the cabin, turning on the light.

A loo and shower are tucked into a tiny bathroom just inside the door. There's no porthole – only a couple of dim lamps on the wall. The whole place is claustrophobically small, about the size of our garden shed, though at least it's clean and has no cobwebs.

But there are two bunks. And I'm guessing Jack only booked one cabin.