Road Kill

Twelve

I woke the next morning to the smell of fresh coffee. When I opened my eyes I found that someone – it could only be Sean – had been into my room and left a mug of it on the bedside table while I slept.

I sat up in bed fast, twisting round to stare at the door, but it was shut tight. I reached out to the mug and picked it up carefully. Still warm.

I’m a light sleeper. The slightest noise usually wakes me but Sean had always had the unnerving ability to creep up on you unawares. When I’d been training there were times when I would have sworn there was something paranormal about it. Now I knew for sure.

Feeling twitchy and vulnerable, I grabbed a quick shower, dressed and headed downstairs, only to find the house was empty. I ducked my head into all the rooms but there was nobody there, not even the dogs.

From outside came a distant yipping noise and when I looked out of the kitchen window I saw Sean heading up from the direction of the river. He was walking through the tall grass towards the back of the house with a long easy stride.

Behind him came Bonneville, holding her head up high out of the seeds like a nervous swimmer trying to keep water out of her eyes. The only sign of the terrier was an erratic swirling disturbance through the grass around Sean’s feet and the occasional excited bark as she encountered something interesting and furry lurking there.

Sean was watching the swallows swooping and diving over his head and he was smiling. Every now and again he paused long enough to let the old Labrador catch him up, turning to scan the tree-line behind him while he waited. It was difficult to tell with Sean if he suspected there was something out there, or if he was just obeying long-ingrained habits.

When he walked back in I held up the mug, self-conscious. “Hi,” I said. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, giving me a slow smile that could have meant he’d done just about anything while he’d been in my room. Damn, the man made me nervous.

He was wearing black jeans and a ribbed T-shirt today and his hair was still damp from his own shower. So were the legs of his jeans where he’d walked through the dewed grass. He looked, not relaxed exactly, but a hell of a lot more composed than I felt. The dark smudge under his left eye was the only indication of what had happened between us last night.

He was carrying a white plastic bag, which he turned upside down next to the sink, emptying the contents onto the worktop.

“Mushrooms?” I said in surprise.

He flashed a quick smile. “Why not?” he said. “The field at the back there’s full of them. Be just the thing with a bit of bacon.”

I didn’t bother to ask him if they were safe to eat. Sean had been taught to survive on what he could pick, dig out, catch or steal by the best in the business.

“So,” he said as he began sorting through his harvest and wiping dirt from the stalks. “Where do we go from here?”

For a moment I couldn’t speak. I just stared at him, floundering.

“I meant,” he said gently, “about the situation with Jacob and Clare.”

“Oh. Right,” I managed, trying and failing not to let the relief show. I hauled my brain back on track, forced it to concentrate. “Well—”

That was as far as I got. The drive alarm squawked at that moment and the dogs, who’d slumped onto their blankets trying to pretend Sean had run them to the point of exhaustion, suddenly leapt up and started shouting.

“Oh, for God’s sake, you two,” Sean muttered. “All right, all right. We heard it.”

In fact, you couldn’t fail to catch the heavy rattle of the diesel engine that arrived on the forecourt a minute or so later. We moved to the window and watched as a Citroën Relay van covered with local hire company stickers pulled up outside.

“It must be Jacob,” I said in surprise. “I didn’t expect him this early.”

“Neither did I,” Sean said. “He must have driven through the night and caught an earlier boat.” There was a trace of suspicion in his voice, as though hurrying home faster than expected was a sign of guilt rather than devotion.

Outside, Jacob was climbing stiffly out of the cab. His long peppered dark hair was scraped back into a ponytail and the back of his shirt was soaked through with sweat. He looked utterly exhausted, stressed out, and every one of his fifty-two years. My heart went out to him.

“So,” Sean murmured, “how much do you want to tell him?”

“All of it,” I said, on impulse, then caught his disbelieving glance and amended quickly, “Most of it, anyway.”

When Jacob caught sight of us coming out to greet him his face creased into a desperately relieved smile. The desire to pour out everything to him was a strong and insistent one.

“Charlie!” he said, coming forward to give me a quick fierce hug. His wiry arms enfolded me so tight they dug in and actually hurt, but I held on just as hard. “Sean! It’s good to see you again, boy.”

“You too,” Sean said, shaking Jacob’s hand once he’d released me. “I’m just sorry it’s in these circumstances.”

A shadow passed across the older man’s face, carving a deep vee between his eyebrows. He had rich dark velvet eyes you could almost drown in.

“Well, you can say that again. I rang the hospital when I got off the motorway but they told me she’s still sleeping so I thought I’d nip home and clean up before I go in.” He pulled a rueful face and scratched at the day’s worth of greying stubble on his chin. “I don’t think it’d do the poor girl much good seeing me like this, do you?”

I thought of Clare’s pallor. Anybody putting the two of them together at this moment would almost think that Jacob was her father. Perhaps it wasn’t surprising that Jamie should seem so attractive . . .

I forced a smile. “I think she’d be glad to see you any time.”

He smiled back at me and dragged a small overnight bag out of the passenger side of the van and slammed the door. Sean took it from him to carry inside. Hard to believe, watching them, that Sean had been the one so sceptical of Jacob’s motives only a few moments before.

It was a sign of Jacob’s fatigue that he was limping more heavily than usual, a harsh reminder that he knew exactly what Clare was going through because he’d been there himself. Too many times. Some of the tales he tells about the bike crashes he’d been through, both on road and racetrack, make my bones itch in sympathy. The cobble-together he’s walking around on now is the best the surgeons at the time could do with the bits he had left.

“Did you speak to any of Clare’s doctors?” I asked as we passed along the hallway. “Have they given you any idea how she’s getting on?”

“I talked briefly to your father,” he said over his shoulder. “He tells me she’s making progress but the nerves grow back very slowly – barely a millimetre a day – so it’ll be a while before we really know how much she’s going to get back in her legs. I want to try and speak to him further when I go in today. He’s going home this afternoon.”

“Is he?” That was news to me. Affront that he was leaving without telling me warred with a sense of relief. He wouldn’t go if he didn’t think his patient was out of danger.

We reached the bottom of the stairs and Jacob put a hand on the newel post. “Anyway, I’ll go and get cleaned up and then we can talk,” he said, dredging up a false brightness. “I don’t suppose there’d be the likelihood of any grub going, would there? I’m half starved.”

“Of course,” I said. “We even have fresh mushrooms.”

He smiled at me again, pausing. “Thank you, Charlie,” he said quietly, heartfelt. “For being here for her. For us.”

With that he turned and trudged slowly up the staircase, his shoulders coming down a little more with each step, as though he’d made a superhuman effort to be upbeat in front of us and now he’d done his bit he could stop putting on the act.

I turned away, feeling his pain like my own.

“Be very careful here, Charlie,” Sean’s soft tone stopped me dead. I looked over and found him watching me intently, a certain coldness to his features. “Just remember – you can always tell him more later if you want to. But once it’s out in the open you can’t take it back . . .”

***

An hour later we sat at the scrubbed pine kitchen table, regarding the debris of a huge thrown-together breakfast. It’s amazing what you can do when you’ve access to a well-stocked freezer and a microwave with a fast defrost setting. And, of course, someone who can tell a mushroom from a toadstool.

Sean had taken care of the cooking with his usual undramatic competence, leaving me to sit and fill Jacob in on events so far. Bearing in mind Sean’s warning, it was an edited version I delivered.

He made shocked noises about the Transit van that had tried to run me down and had been responsible for my trashed Suzuki but for the moment I glossed over its true significance. I’d skipped over quite a few other elements, too, including MacMillan’s visit and all of what Tess had said at the wake about Clare’s possible entanglement with Jamie.

When Jacob raised an eyebrow that she should have been on the back of anyone’s bike, let alone a chancer like Slick, I’d just shrugged and repeated Clare’s story about the Ducati, without adding that Sean and I had already torn holes in it.

Jacob seemed surprised when I told him about Jamie’s arrival. But more by the fact he’d turned up at all, rather than by his unorthodox method of entry at some ungodly hour of the night. Jamie clearly wasn’t a regular visitor – at least, not when his father was around.

Jacob was even more taken aback when I told him about Isobel’s visit.

“She was in here turning the place over?” he queried, frowning. “Well I can’t imagine what she was hoping she’d find. Hell, I thought she took everything of value with her when she went.”

“We didn’t spot anything obviously missing,” Sean said, starting to clear away the dirty plates and taking the opportunity to pass me a meaningful flicker as he did so. “But you might want to have a check round yourself, just to make sure.”

Jacob nodded, distracted. “Mm, I’ll do that later,” he said wearily. “Nothing like asking for a divorce to bring them out of the woodwork, is there?” he murmured, almost to himself.

He rescued a piece of crispy bacon rind off the plate Sean was collecting and dropped it towards the floor. I don’t think it ever hit the tiles. There was some undignified scuffling under the table and a low growl before Beezer emerged the victor.

“Until she told me, I thought you two were already divorced,” I commented.

Jacob shook his head, eyes fixed on the terrier. “Never had the need for it,” he said, sounding gruff. “But I thought Clare might—” He broke off, glanced up and smiled suddenly. “I thought it was time I made an honest woman of her.”

“You don’t know anything about the guy Isobel was with – Eamonn – do you?” I asked, remembering his venom and his speed. My knee still ached this morning and the skin on the outside had turned the colour of summer storm clouds. “Seemed a bit of a nasty piece of work.”

“New one on me,” he said. “But then, I never did keep track of her dalliances – before or after we separated.”

Sean finished filling the dishwasher and came and sat down, leaning his forearms on the table and linking his fingers together. When they weren’t actually engaged in activity he’d always had the quietest hands.

“What do you know about a mob called the Devil’s Bridge Club?” he asked Jacob.

Jacob reached for his mug, took a sip. “Not much,” he said but there was something uneasy tugging at the back of his voice. He must have heard it, too, and he rushed to elaborate. “I know of them, of course. Can’t go to Devil’s Bridge of a Sunday and not be aware of that bunch of idiots. Why?”

It was quite something, I thought, for a rider as fast and as fearless as Jacob to refer to them that way.

“So you don’t know about Jamie being part of some jaunt to Ireland they’ve got planned?” Sean asked. He’d kept his voice absolutely level, but there was still a challenge there, even so, that wasn’t lost on Jacob.

“Is he?” he said, his expression hardening fractionally. “Well, I’d have hoped he’d have more sense, but the lad’s old enough to make his own mistakes.”

“But you’re not a member yourself?”

“Of course not,” Jacob said, more confidently now, with maybe a touch of defiance. “Why would you think so?”

“Just something we heard,” Sean said with a shrug, and suddenly I wished he hadn’t included me in that statement.

As it was Jacob sat back in his chair and looked sharply from one of us to the other. “I think,” he said grimly, “you’d better tell me what else it is you’ve heard.”

“It seems that the Devil’s Bridge mob have got something dodgy going on in Ireland at the end of this week, and we’ve heard that you’re mixed up in it,” Sean said baldly. He’d gone very still again but I could almost feel the air quivering between them.

“And just why would you think I’d want to be involved in something ‘dodgy’, as you so nicely put it?” Jacob said, his tone flat now.

“Because it wouldn’t be the first time, Jacob, now would it?” Sean said softly.

A dull flush had crept up the sides of the older man’s neck. I could feel the anger blossoming – on both sides. I jumped to my feet and slapped my hands down on the table top hard enough to make the coffee cups rattle. The dogs sidled nervously across the room and slunk into their beds.

“OK. Whoa. Time out,” I said. “Now just hear me out, Jacob, before you go off on one. We don’t know what’s going on. I don’t think Clare’s telling us the whole story about what she was doing, or why, but this Devil’s Bridge lot have got the police right on their tail.”

It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was the best version of it I could come up with and I was too much of a coward to tell Jacob what Clare might really have been up to.

“If Slick was taking part in some kind of road race when he died,” I went on, only too aware of Jacob’s doubtful stare, “then MacMillan’s going to go after everyone involved and that includes Clare. All we want to do is keep her out of it but we can’t do that if we don’t know what’s going on.”

Jacob slid his eyes away but I could see him making an effort at calm.

“I can’t tell you what’s going on if I don’t know what’s going on,” he said at last. “I don’t know why Clare should be trying to hide anything from you, Charlie – if she is. Until I’ve had the chance to talk to her myself, I can’t answer that.”

He drained the last of his coffee and stood up, planting his knuckles on the table top to push himself stiffly out of his seat.

“As you’re well aware,” he went on, “I was in Ireland to buy motorbikes. Two Vincents and a Brough Superior that were due under the hammer this morning.” He jerked his head towards the hired Citroën outside. “The only reason they’re not in the back of the van right now is because I dropped everything when I got that phone call. I’ve already got a buyer lined up for one of the Vincents, who’s going to be very fucking pissed off that I’ve come back empty-handed, I can tell you.”

I hardly ever heard Jacob swear seriously and now, despite the evenness of his tone, it gave the profanity an uncommon weight.

And still I had to have one last go.

“Clare’s asked me to go to Ireland and keep an eye on Jamie,” I said. “She said she’s worried about him punching out of his weight, trying to keep up with the big boys. Can you think of any other reason why she might be worried for his safety?”

“I don’t know. Jamie and I don’t see as much of each other as we probably could – or should – have done,” Jacob said, candid. “But if he’s any sense he’ll have given Slick and his bunch of nutcase mates a wide berth. I’ve certainly been doing nothing underhand with them and you either believe that or you don’t,” he added with a quiet dignity. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think it’s time I went to see my other half.”

He didn’t even slam the kitchen door on his way out but the soft click it made when he pulled it shut behind him still made me flinch. He closed the front door on his way out with more force, though, and we watched him hurry across the forecourt to the Range Rover. I let out a long breath.

“Well, that went down well, I thought,” Sean said, heavy on the irony.

“Yeah, like a knackered lift.”

The elderly diesel Range Rover, ostensibly cream but long patinated with rust, started up in a cloud of black smoke. It swung round in a tight circle on the mossy cobbles, leaning precariously, and shot off up the driveway.

“So, do you believe him?” Sean asked then.

“About what?”

“That he’s nothing to do with the Devil’s Bridge brigade.”

“I’m not sure,” I said, aware of a low-level churning beneath my ribs that could have been anxiety. “When you first mentioned them, I don’t know, there was something in his face . . .” I broke off, remembering the doubt. “But when you mentioned Ireland he seemed a lot more . . . emphatic, somehow.”

“And you don’t fancy the idea of tying him to a chair and shining bright lights in his eyes until he cracks,” Sean said.

“No,” I said with a smile, “I guess I don’t.” I paused, let my breath out hard through my nose. “Why is it that it’s a hell of a lot easier asking questions of people when you don’t give a shit about them?” I muttered.

“I always make it a rule never to interrogate people I like,” Sean agreed gravely, although there was a flicker of amusement at the corner of his mouth.

“So, where do we go from here?” I asked, repeating his earlier question.

“I think you just have to wait and see what story Jacob comes back with.”

I glanced up. “I have to wait?”

He nodded. “Yeah. My gear’s already packed. I’m afraid I have to go back to work,” he said, softening the blow with a smile of his own. “There’s a diamond courier flying in to Heathrow tomorrow afternoon from Amsterdam and they want me to head the team looking after him personally.”

“Why do they need you?” Can’t someone else do it? “I mean, why are they so jumpy?”

“The customer is always right.” Sean shrugged. “And if you were walking round with a briefcase chained to your wrist with half a million in gems inside, you’d be jumpy, too.”

I didn’t answer that. He’s going. I felt a sudden tightness in my chest, the anxiety upgraded close to panic.

“I think it might be for the best, in any case,” he added.

“Oh. I see,” I said. Stupid, when clearly I didn’t. “Why?”

He shrugged again, little more than a restless lift of a shoulder. “I need you to come to a decision about me – us, the future,” he said, turning away. “I’m not sure you can do that when we’re together.”

I opened my mouth to speak, realised I didn’t have anything worthwhile to say, and shut it again. The silence stretched between us until it had become a chasm too wide to fill with mere words.

“OK,” I said at last. Tell him, an internal voice urged loudly in my ear. Tell him not to go. Tell him how you feel.

But I couldn’t, and I didn’t.