Road Kill (38 page)

Is that it? So what?

The words formed in my head but I didn’t let them out. In fact, for a moment the only sound was the rush of the surf against the rocks and the raucous cries of the gulls circling overhead. It sounded like they were laughing at us.

Then Paxo snatched his arm away, flushing furiously. He took a step back and gave a splutter of laughter that died in his throat.

“Ah, mate, come on!” His eyes swivelled from face to face, looking for the first chink in the practical joke. “Don’t kid us about!”

“I’m not,” Daz said calmly, more confident. It was like, now it was done, the act of coming out had lost its terrors for him. “It’s true. I’m gay.”

William nodded slowly. “Well, good for you, Daz,” he said. “I know that must have taken some doing, telling us that. I admire you for it.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Paxo wailed. “Not you as well?”

“What’s the big deal?” Jamie said, nonplussed. “So, he’s gay. So what?”

“Plenty – if you’re completely homophobic,” Daz said, body tense.

“Why did you wait until now?” Paxo demanded. “I have to tell you, mate, your timing on this stinks.”

Tess, I realised then, had been standing silent in the background. But when I glanced at her I found she was wasn’t entirely still. She was trembling. As I turned towards her she took a couple of quick steps forwards and launched a long telegraphed right at Daz’s jaw, regardless of her swollen fingers. He ducked away easily enough and her punch hit his shoulder.

“You bastard!” she cried, flailing at him then. “You only wanted me along on this trip as cover!”

Jamie grabbed her arms and pulled her off and, after a moment’s struggle, she turned her face into his chest and burst into tears. He led her a little distance away and sat her down on a short basalt column, holding her hands and shooting reproachful glances in Daz’s direction.

“Is that right?” Paxo demanded, watching them. “You told us she wouldn’t be left behind, that you didn’t have a choice but to let her tag along. And all the time—” He threw up his hands and spun away.

William raised an admonishing eyebrow. “I realise it’s difficult, but you could have handled this better,” he said at last. “It’s not what you’ve done, Daz, it’s the way that you’ve done it.”

“Yeah well,” Daz muttered, flicking his eyes to Sean. “Maybe I didn’t have much of a choice about that.” And he too walked away, stumbling slightly over the rocks, in the opposite direction to Paxo.

“I guess from that that you forced his hand somewhat?” William said to Sean.

Sean shrugged. “He was doing his best to break his neck proving what a man he was,” he said. “And he was going to get round to bringing it out in the open at some point. I just hurried him along a little.”

“Best part of ten years I’ve known Daz,” William said sadly, shaking his head. “And I’d never have guessed.” He paused, gave Sean an assessing glance. “How did you know?”

“I’ve learned to be a good judge of people,” he said. “It goes with the territory. Besides, there were one or two things in Daz’s background that made it a possibility and then on the ferry there was something about him so I played along and he—” Sean shrugged, “—revealed himself, shall we say.”

Sean had always a sixth sense for, not weakness exactly, but people’s secrets. I’d never successfully been able to hide much from him, that was for sure. But even so . . .

“Revealed himself how?” I demanded and thought, unbelievably, that I saw a faint slash of colour across his cheekbones. “What? What did you do?”

Sean’s eyes flicked from me to William and back again, a slightly pained expression on his face.

“You made a pass at him, didn’t you?” I said, incredulous, and saw the pink darken round his neck. “You did!” I concluded. “So
that’s
what you found out when you were out on the back deck together,” I said. “I’m not surprised you wouldn’t tell me.”

“I just wanted to be sure,” he said, nodding, still looking a little sheepish. “I gave him my word that I wouldn’t say anything – that I’d let him tell you and the others himself. If he hadn’t been riding like he had a bloody death-wish I would have left him to it, but this was getting beyond a joke. Someone was going to get killed.”

William’s gaze had tracked over Jamie, still crouched with the upset Tess, and to Paxo, a hundred metres away sucking furiously on a cigarette. “Still,” he said, his voice mild, “Paxo and Tess haven’t taken it well. Might have been better to have left it until we got back, don’t you think? Instead of pushing him out of the closet now.”

“Why?” Sean said. “What’s so special about this trip?”

William just smiled and shook his head again, as though Sean wasn’t going to catch him out that easily.

“If you’re so good at this intuition business,” he said, “why don’t you tell me?”

“Don’t worry,” Sean said, favouring him with a tight little smile of his own. “We will.”

***

Tess refused to get back on Daz’s bike for the few miles from the Giant’s Causeway down to the little village of Bushmills. Paxo wouldn’t take her and, although Jamie offered, he was struggling to keep up solo. Neither Sean nor I wanted the added encumbrance, just in case of trouble, so in the end it was down to William to pat his pillion seat and give her a ride. She scrambled onto the Kawasaki behind him and wrapped her arms round his waist like she was using him as an oversize comfort blanket.

Daz just shrugged, fired up the Aprilia and resumed the pace he’d been setting all morning. If anything, I suppose he felt he had even more to prove now than he did before.

Either way, Paxo wasn’t about to be outridden by his mate, regardless of his sexual preferences. The two of them goaded each other to ever greater risks, scything past what little traffic we encountered and carving through bends on totally the wrong side of the road.

“Hey guys,” I said at last over the radio. “Remember Sam? This is going to end with somebody going home in an ambulance.”

Nobody replied.

Jamie and I were in the second wave with William, making progress but still going a lot more cautiously than Daz and Paxo. I occupied the small part of my mind that wasn’t tied up with the mechanics of riding the bike, with the problem at hand. Daz’s announcement explained a few things about his behaviour, but not everything. So, he’d been keyed up and worried – quite rightly, as it turned out – at how some of his mates would react. But that told nowhere near the whole story.

My eyes flicked ahead to where I could just make out Paxo, hunched over the tank of his Ducati. Paxo might be angry enough to be less cautious than William, in which case we might get something useful out of him. Not that Paxo had a very high opinion of me, but perhaps he was scared enough of Sean to tell him something. It was worth a try.

We all of us made it the short distance down to Bushmills intact, with no sign of the Vauxhall behind us. The road was teeming with other bikers and I started to get a stiff neck from all the friendly nodding I was doing.

Bushmills village itself was small and picturesque. The only odd note was the little local police station, which was bristling with razor wire and CCTV cameras. It seemed out of place in such a peaceful rural setting. That and the sprawling distillery on the outskirts.

Paxo was still sulking during the tour of the distillery but he didn’t unleash his outright hostility until we got to the tasting at the end. Then he couldn’t resist a dig about such fine whiskey being wasted on Daz – what with him being more of a Babycham man.

For a moment I thought Daz was going to rise to it, but then his shoulders came down a little and he smiled, wryly. “Well, I seem to remember it was you who got smashed out of your skull on Snowballs when we were in the third year at school together,” he said.

Tess was watching Paxo with her fists clenched by her sides like she was hoping they’d start brawling. She came close to getting her wish, then Paxo gave a bitter smile of his own and raised his tasting glass in reluctant salute. Whether it was at the reminder of his own previous drinking habits, or just how long they’d been friends, I couldn’t be sure.

“Touché
,” I murmured.

“I think you’ll find that’s
sláinte
,” Jamie pointed out, aiming for light relief.

“Na zdoravye,”
Sean put in. Of course, he
would
know the Russian.

“Cheers!” William said.

But Daz just pinned Paxo with one of the brilliant smiles he occasionally produced and raised his glass in very deliberate provocation.

“Bottoms up,” he said.

***

Knowing that the next leg of the journey was a run right the way down to the south end of Strangford Lough, I sought out the loos before we left Bushmills. The way Daz was behaving I wasn’t sure he’d stop on demand and nothing disrupts your concentration on a bike like a full bladder. Besides, some of the Irish roads were so bumpy it could have been disastrous, not just uncomfortable.

Just about everybody had the same idea. When I got back to the car park, it was to find only Sean was ready and waiting, and he was frowning.

“What is it?” I asked as soon as I was close to him.

He nodded across the busy car park to where there was a line of other bikes. “That Suzuki over there,” he said, indicating an old GSXR with Lucky Strike paintwork. “I’m sure I’ve seen that one a couple of times already so far this trip.

I shrugged, scanning for the grey Vauxhall. “Hardly surprising,” I said. “There were a lot of bikes on the ferry and they all seem to have had the same idea when it came to routing.”

“Hmm,” he said, ducking his head slightly and pulling a face. “Maybe.”

“If you’re bothered,” I said. “Why not give Madeleine a call with the reg number and see what she can find out?”

Sean patted the top pocket of his jacket, where I could see the slight bulge of his mobile phone.

“Already done.”

“What did you make of Tess’s reaction to the ring earlier?”

“Oh, she was definitely lying,” Sean said casually. “The interesting question is why?”

***

I took the opportunity of the stop to give Jacob another try. This time my mobile phone was playing ball and it connected right away. It seemed absurd to have such a clear line when it felt like we were in another country, regardless of official boundaries. When I’d asked after Sam and Clare I filled Jacob in on events so far, including Daz’s revelation.

“It’s an odd setup,” was all Jacob said, rather sadly, when I told him about Daz’s revelation. “But apart from these blokes following you, there hasn’t been any sign of any trouble?”

“Someone tried to run us down last night,” I said. “It was too dark to see if it was the Vauxhall crew or not.”

“And you think it was definitely deliberate?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It had that feel to it. It would help if they’d come clean with us about what they’re up to. It turns out that Tess is wearing a fortune in diamonds and we’ve no idea where the money for that came from. I’m sorry, Jacob, but if it’s drugs, Sean and I are out of here.”

“I’m sure it won’t be,” Jacob said quickly. “Jamie wouldn’t be so stupid as to get himself mixed up in something like that, I promise you.”

“Maybe,” I said, still dubious despite his reassurances. “We’re down to Portaferry next, apparently. We’ll see if we can prise any more information out of the lads then about what’s going on. Who knows? When they’ve had a few drinks they might be a bit more forthcoming.”

***

The others arrived back in dribs and drabs – Paxo first, then William. Jamie and Daz arrived together.

“You not worried about being seen coming out of a public toilet at the same time as him?” Paxo asked Jamie, his tone sour.

Daz’s face twitched like he’d finally had enough. He rounded on his mate, jaw set.

“Look, Pax, you weren’t accusing me of shagging anything that moved yesterday, were you? So, what’s changed, huh?” he snapped, almost but not quite hiding the hurt in his voice. “OK, so I’ve admitted I’m gay. That, given a choice, in the right circumstances, my preference would be for a guy rather than a girl. That doesn’t suddenly make me a slag, does it?”

Paxo’s lips twisted in disgust. “Frankly, mate,” he said, wheeling away, “I have no idea quite
what
that makes you.”

“I knew he’d be like this,” Daz said, not quite hiding the bitter note in his voice. “When I was in art college down in Manchester it was practically the norm. Get further north and it’s like some people still don’t know it’s legal.”

It was a relief, once Tess had reappeared, to get back on the road. The Suzuki rider hadn’t shown up to claim his bike and it was still sitting there when we pulled out of the car park and headed south.

We ran down through Ballymoney and dropped into the top end of Belfast on the urban motorway. I noticed signposts off for the Falls area and wondered how my father had felt, working there when the Troubles were more or less at their height. Apart from that one occasion during dinner with Sean, he’d never talked about his time in Northern Ireland. Mind you, he wasn’t exactly the reminiscing type, good or bad.