The Marks of Cain

9

Her eyes were locked on the mirror. David copied her gaze.

'Jesus.' He squinted. 'Are you sure? Is it the same one?'

'Numberplate. It's him.'

The road ahead was narrow, the fog was thickening as they climbed the mountainside.

'But…' David gripped the steering wheel tightly. 'Was he there all along? Following?'

'Who knows. Maybe he followed us. Or…'

'What?'

'He is ETA. This is real ETA territory.'

'So…'

'They watch the roads all the time. He has friends and contacts all over. Maybe someone made a phone call. We were just parked there by the village. What do we do?'

The fear was tangible. But David felt the rising defiance — again. He thought of his beloved mother and father: who left him alone. He thought of his loneliness: he'd had to fight his way through college, on his own, with just a distant grandfather in Phoenix. He had made it through all that shit, he had dealt with all that, so he wasn't going to be frightened off, even by the most demonic of murdering terrorists. Not now. Not when he knew his grandfather's mystery was linked to his own background, his own identity. This revelation of his Basqueness.

And he didn't like being hunted.

'Let's lose this bastard.'

Pressing the throttle, he accelerated up the narrow, sharply curving road; the noise of the engine was painful as they shot between the stony hedgerows and the muddy slopes. Then he checked the mirror.

The red car was closing.

'Shit.'

David could taste the savour of alarm; he ignored it, and changed down a gear or two — then he surged on, as fast as he could.

'David — '

On their left was a sudden cliff-edge. The slope was brutal — a fall of three hundred metres, or more. Just a few metres the wrong way and they would spin helplessly over the precipice.

David steered back to safety — but then — thump.

The red car had smacked into them. The bump from behind was firm, deliberate, and destabilizing. David gripped the wheel desperately, and kept them gripped to the road — then he flicked a frightened glance at the mirror. He couldn't see for sure, but it felt like their pursuer was…smiling?

'Don't worry, it's alright — ' he said to Amy.

Why was he saying this? He was terrified. And yet he was feeling a rush of fury as well. Not now. Don't give up now. If he gave up — what had it all been for? All those years of doing nothing, sitting in that sterile office, being a lawyer; struggling to make relationships, so scared that people would leave him — leave him alone, again.

His heart swelled with angry revolt; he was going to save Amy, and save himself — he could do it.

The accelerator crushed to the floor, he raced the car as fast as he dared. He felt a certain confidence as he did this — despite his grinding fears. He'd had to learn to drive when young, to get himself around. He was pretty good.

But this was a different kind of driving: they were skidding madly round bends, higher and higher. And they were being chased.

Then the road began to zigzag, turns getting tighter, until at last it slashed around a sheer rock wall, totally blind — David caught his own breath, his heart thumped, this was it — but the corner was clear.

David scoped the mirror. The red car had slowed for a moment, he'd outpaced their remorseless pursuer. He had a few seconds' grace.

As they roared along, he tried to think. If they stopped the car and got out and ran, maybe they could hide…but the red car was surely too near. Miguel had a gun, maybe he would chase them across the rocks. Teasing them — then shooting them. A simple execution in the forest.

'David!'

The red car was speeding towards them. David couldn't go any faster. They had reached the crisis: the terminal moment. No one would see. They were right above the clouds now; the sun was brilliant and dazzling, shining off clumps of unmelted snow. This was where they would die. A man and a woman in a car. Like his parents. Both dead.

But then David saw a chance. Up ahead was an expanse of bare rock. Three seconds later he slid the car onto a flank of raw limestone and did a squealing handbrake turn. They spun like they were kids in a nightmarish fairground ride, a vicious carousel.

And it worked. The red car shot right past. At once David took off the other way, descending fast and hard.

He was racing vertiginously down the mountain road — he could see the red car turning, in his mirror. But this time he had a plan, as he rounded the sharp rocky corner at eighty miles an hour and they raced into the grey forests. He took a wild right turn up a farm track.

Into the trees.

The track swung this way and that, catapulting them into the dark woodlands. The car bounced and groaned, and after half a mile the track stopped. David parked the car with a jolt, he kicked open the door and jumped out — Amy was already outside and waiting. He grabbed her hand and they fled into the woods, running between the trees and the rocks and leaping over a stream until they found a great boulder.

And then at last they stopped, and crouched down. And waited. Panting and breathing.

David's heart was a madman clattering his prison bars; Amy's hand was tight and clammy in his fist.

They crouched there, cold and mute. The forest crackled, under the mournful drizzle. Nothing happened. Wisps of fog drifted between the sombre black larches, like fairytale wraiths.

The low sound of a car engine throbbed in the distance. The red car, presumably — looking for them. The engine seemed to slow, somewhere on the road. Somewhere quite near. David felt Amy's fingers tighten on his. The agonizing moments marched slowly by, like a funeral parade. They waited to be found, and shot.

Or worse.

The car engine throbbed again. It was going. The red car was taking off, heading downhill maybe. Silence surrounded them. David allowed himself to breathe.

But his relief was aborted by a singular snap: the sound of twigs, broken underfoot.