Road Kill (29 page)

“Dark can be good,” he said, eyebrows dancing. “Baby, I do some of my best work in the dark.”

“Don’t call me ‘baby’ unless you want me to puke milk down your back.”

He laughed. “Oh Charlie,” he said, shaking his head, “I don’t care what the others say. Ireland’s going to be a ball with you along.”

I would have asked him more about that, but Jamie had come sidling up and was hovering nearby, looking like he had a question burning a hole in the roof of his mouth. William glanced at him and caught the urgency.

“I believe I hear the little boys’ room calling to me,” he said to nobody in particular, and strolled away after Daz and Paxo.

Jamie didn’t launch in immediately, just stood looking awkward with his hands in his pockets. I waited in silence for him to find his purpose. It took him a moment or two of staring out at the little boats creaming across Ullswater on a stiffening breeze.

“Don’t think I don’t know why you’re doing this, Charlie,” he said at last, his voice quiet and meaningful.

“Oh yes,” I said mildly. “And why
am
I doing this?”

He batted the question aside like a wasp. “Look, the last thing I want the others to know is that my fucking parents don’t think I can look after myself, all right?”

“What about Clare?” The question was out before I’d time to think about whether I really wanted to ask it or not.

Jamie’s face flamed, almost as good as an answer.

“Look,” he said again, his voice as tight as the face it came out of. “If you mess this up for me . . .”

He broke off, flicking a little sideways glance at me as though he realised I wasn’t likely to respond well to threats.

“If I mess it up for you – you’ll do what, exactly?” I said softly, deliberately pushing him to see what would happen. I expected him to fold but to my surprise he didn’t. He pushed back.

“I swear – you mess this up for me,” he said, shaking his head as though to clear his ears, “and I’ll bloody kill you!”

***

The Royal Lancaster Infirmary was beginning to look depressingly familiar. The receptionist even recognised me enough to give me a faint smile as I passed her on the way in. I’d taken the time before I’d left the Watermillock to wash the worst of the blood off my hands and leathers and I’d obviously managed to avoid looking too scary. I stopped to ask about Sam, only to be told that he was still in theatre.

I found Clare on her own for once. She was lying reading a magazine inside her wire and steel cage-like frame.

“Hi Charlie!” she said, sounding pleased to see me but there was something else too. Something bleeding through in the background like a slightly off-tune radio. It took me a moment to put my finger on it, then it clicked. She was nervous. My being there made her nervous. I tried not to let that hurt.

I pulled a chair up to the bedside and sat down on it, leaning close so we could talk without being easily overheard.

“You look very serious,” Clare said, cautious. “What’s up?”

“I passed the audition for the Devil’s Bridge Club,” I said, without preamble.

“Oh,” she said, suddenly breathless, “so . . . are you still going to Ireland?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Especially after what’s happened to Sam.”

“Sam? Clare said with a flare of alarm. She swallowed. “What? What’s the matter with him?”

“The daft sod decided to come and try out for the Devil’s Bridge brigade,” I said. “Borrowed an old GPZ from a mate, specially, and got himself wiped out, big style.”

“Oh no!” Clare’s distress knifed at me but I hardened my heart along with my resolve to keep going. “Is he OK?”

I shrugged. “They’re working on him now,” I said. “But his leg was pretty badly smashed.”

She paled at the picture presented by the words. After all, she didn’t need much of an imagination to know what it was like to feel your bones breaking inside you.

“Oh God,” she murmured. “What happened, do you know?”

“I was there,” I said. “He was hit – by a white Transit van.”

“Oh no,” Clare whispered, pale as death now, a faint sheen of sweat breaking out across her forehead.

“What the hell is going on, Clare?” I said, aware that something of her anguish had transferred itself into my own voice.

She looked away. “I-I can’t tell you,” she said, her eyes filling.

“What can’t you tell me?” I demanded. “What’s so terrible that it can possibly be worse than what’s been going round inside my head since Sunday?”

“Please Charlie! I promised, I—”

“Promised who?” I cut in. “Jamie?”

Clare’s features went from colourless to flushed red like spilt ink in water.

“What the hell do you think you’re playing at, Clare?” I said, talking fast and low now, angry, with a wary eye out for the ever-vigilant – and protective – nursing staff. “If you and Jamie have got something going, don’t you think you owe it to Jacob to tell it to him straight?”

“He—” Clare got one word out, then stopped, her hands rising to her face, her mouth a rounded O of shock. “Oh God, Charlie, it’s nothing like that. Jamie? I hardly know him. How could you think that? He’s Jacob’s
son!
”

Her horrified expression was too convincing not to be genuine. The doubt collapsed and relief flooded in, making me snappy and defensive.

“So what the hell
is
going on between you two?” And when she opened her mouth I forestalled her by adding: “There must be something pretty special because you’ve already lied for him.”

She flushed again, staring down blankly at the pages of her magazine as though she might find the answers written there. When she finally looked up it was straight into my face.

“He came to me last week, in trouble, needing money – a
lot
of money,” she said simply. “And I agreed to let him have it.”

“Just like that,” I said. “What kind of trouble?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know,” I echoed, sitting back in my chair. “So, you agreed to hand over ten grand to someone you claim you hardly know and you didn’t even ask some difficult questions about what it was for? Come on, Clare – level with me!”

She stared. “How did you—?”

“Know the amount?” I finished for her. “When Sean and I threw Isobel and Eamonn out we naturally checked round to see if anything was missing. We found a bank slip for ten thousand, but no cash to go with it.”

Her shoulders came down a little, rounded in defeat. “OK,” she said tiredly. “Yes, I lent him ten thousand pounds and, however unbelievable you find it, I didn’t ask him that many difficult questions.” She sighed, pushed the magazine aside and smoothed down the front of her nightgown. “He said he was desperate, that he was in deep trouble, that he’d got in over his head.”

“The Devil’s Bridge Club,” I said and felt the despair wind through me. “Oh Clare, why didn’t you come to me? I could have tipped the word to MacMillan and he could have picked up the lot of them before it ever got this far.”

“Picked up who?” she shot back, not entirely out of spirit. “It’s not the lads in the club who are the problem, Charlie, it’s whoever’s after them. Slick was the one organising the Irish trip and look what happened to him.”

“If you thought Slick was a target of some sort, what the hell were you doing out with him on Sunday?”

“You think I wanted to be there – with that creep?” Clare said bitterly. “Oh, I know Slick’s reputation. I can imagine the rumours.”

“So why did you get onto the bike with him?”

She looked guilty as well as wretched. “I was supposed to go up to Devil’s Bridge and give Jamie the money there—”

“Why at Devil’s Bridge?” I demanded. “If he was getting off the Heysham boat, why didn’t he just go to the house?”

“I don’t know but, just as I was about to leave the house, Slick turned up, being his usual slimy self. He said how he knew all about the money I was lending to Jamie. He made all kinds of assumptions about
that
, I can tell you,” she added, giving me a twinge of guilt for my own train of thought. “He said how he wouldn’t shout about it if I agreed to ride pillion with him. I think he just wanted to turn up with me on the back of his bike. Bragging, you know.” She pulled a face. “I hope that was all he wanted, anyway.”

“But you left the money at home.”

She nodded. “I-I didn’t really trust him, so I said he could give me a lift up there, but that I’d get a ride back with Jamie. He agreed and, well—” she shrugged, indicating her surroundings, “—the rest is history. If I’d known how deep he was mixed up in it, I wouldn’t have gone within a mile of him.”

“You think whoever knocked you and Slick off did it because they were trying to stop them going? All the more reason to get Jamie out of there, surely?”

“And then what?” Clare said, strained. “He’s going to be looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life.”

I paused. “What’s Jacob’s role in all this?”

She looked even more forlorn. “He didn’t know anything about it until he got back from Ireland yesterday and I-I asked him not to tell you too much,” she muttered. “I was too ashamed.”

I stood, pushing my chair back against the wall.

“The only thing you have to be ashamed of,” I told her then, “is not telling me the truth from the start.”

***

I waited until I got to the cottage before I called Sean. I’d hung around at the hospital until Sam had come out of theatre and it was late by that time, but I felt a desperate need to hear his voice. Even so, I wasn’t looking forward to what he might have to say.

I’d ridden the ‘Blade home sedately, thankful that the pair of us had escaped undamaged. When I’d locked the bike away in the lean-to at the back of the cottage, I went inside and picked up the phone before I’d even switched on the lights.

I called Sean on his mobile, not sure if the Heathrow job was over, or where he’d be, but he picked up on the second ring.

“Hi, it’s me,” I said.

“Charlie!” he said. “Where have you been? I’ve been trying to call you but your damned mobile’s been off again.”

“Sorry,” I said, pulling the offending phone out of the inside pocket of my leather jacket and dropping it onto the table, along with my keys. “I turned it off while I was at the hospital and I guess I just forgot to turn it on again when I left.”

“How’s Clare?”

“Oh, she’s OK,” I said. “It’s Sam I was worried about.”

“Pickering?” He paused. “Tell me.”

So I told him about the Devil’s Bridge Club audition and Sam’s accident and my subsequent conversation with Clare.

“Call MacMillan,” Sean said right away when I was done. “I never thought I’d hear myself say it, but he’s all right for a copper. Dump it all in his lap and let him sort it out.”

“You know I can’t do that,” I said wearily. “You wouldn’t do it if it was Madeleine lying there in that hospital bed, would you?”

I heard him sigh. “No,” he said at last. “You’re right. But then, I hope she wouldn’t give me the runaround to start with. Are you sure Clare’s told you all she knows this time?”

“Not really,” I admitted. “But I think it’s the best I’m going to get for now. I’ll have to see if I can crowbar the rest out of Jamie while we’re away.”

“While you’re—” The disbelief made his voice harder than normal, made me shiver. “You’re not still going to go,” he said, and it wasn’t phrased as a question.”

“What else can I do?”

“Don’t, Charlie,” he said urgently. “Madeleine’s been doing some digging but we haven’t had anything useful back yet. Until then you’ve no idea what you’re up against or who may be after these lads.”

I shrugged, a useless gesture when you’re talking to someone over the phone. “Then that’s exactly why I have to go.”

After everything I’d been through to get myself onto the Irish trip in the first place, I damned near missed the ferry.

I dithered over packing, even though I learned to travel light when I was in the army. Having to carry everything and still keep up with the blokes soon makes you drop out the unessentials. Besides, it was a bikers’ run, for heaven’s sake, not a garden party – how posh could it be? I put my washbag, first-aid kit, and anything hard into the squashy bag that clipped magnetically to the bike’s tank, and packed spare clothing into my old rucksack.

I wasn’t planning on coming off the ‘Blade, but if I did it was better not to have anything on me that was going to make the accident worse. A mate once made the mistake of carrying his tools in a backpack and, although having some dozy old bastard in a Volvo knock him off was bad enough, then getting his left kidney punctured by one of his own screwdrivers merely added injury to insult.

Traffic was heavy and obstructive. To cap it all, just when I needed to make up a bit of time I ended up in a group of cars on the motorway who were all travelling at exactly sixty-nine miles an hour because one of them was a jam sandwich being driven by a policeman with a warped sense of humour.