Blighted Land: Book two of the Northumbrian Western Series (Northumbrian Westerns 2) (30 page)

I let go of Daniel and walked into the room, standing by the doorway, waiting until Casper saw me.
 

‘Trent?’ he said.

Becky pulled her shirt back on while he lay back with his hand over his face.

‘What’s going on?’ I said.

She slid her trousers on and went over to the pan by the fire. ‘Come and eat something.’

‘You kidding?’

She stirred the food. ‘I’ll explain.’

‘I think you’d better.’

I kept my eyes on her as I walked round, sitting on the floor. Daniel sat behind me as if he was afraid to get too close to her. She spooned out food for each of us, pasta in sauce again. It had burnt onto the bottom of the pan. Casper dragged himself over and we sat spaced out around the room. Becky ate but Casper just stared at the floor.

‘So?’ I said. ‘What’s going on?’

‘It’s not as bad as it seems,’ said Casper, his voice weak.

‘Really?’

He glanced at Becky. Then over at me and Daniel. ‘We haven’t quite told you everything…’

Becky was now halfway through her food with no sign of saying anything.

‘It was a convenience thing,’ he said. ‘It’s not that…We needed to get you on our side. Without making it too odd, difficult for you. We were going to clear it up.’

Becky put down the rest of her food and stared at me. ‘We’re not brother and sister. He’s my lover.’

I laughed at this, not so much as what she’d said but the use of word. Lover didn’t seem to fit Casper very well. ‘Right,’ I said. ‘So what was I?’

She shrugged and held my gaze, the look softening a little, but still hard to read. ‘Sometimes stuff just happens. Stuff you haven’t planned…You wouldn’t have come with us if you’d known we were a couple.’

‘I see.’

‘And you’d have asked more. Like about where we met and such like. This made it easier.’

‘And Arcadia? Is that real?’

Becky shook her head. Just a tiny movement but enough to let me know that they’d made it up. That it didn’t exist.
 

‘What else do I need to know?’

‘I think we’ve said enough,’ said Casper.
 

‘I don’t think so.’ I pulled out the pistol and aimed it at him.

‘You wouldn’t.’

I cocked and it fired just over his head. It punched a nice hole in the wall behind him. He shrunk down, folded up on himself. The sound seemed to last for ages.
 

‘Missed,’ I said. I was in the mood to shoot both of them. Hurt them at least. They’d really messed me around.
 

Becky took a deep breath then straightened up. ‘Okay. Okay. But Daniel doesn’t need to hear all of this —’

‘Yes, I do,’ said Daniel.

‘All right. Fine.’ She took a breath, moved over to the wall. Leant back against it and closed her eyes. ‘Casper was part of a gang, a big gang in the borders, once run by a guy called Maxwell – ’

‘Maxwell,’ I said. Maxwell was who I’d stolen from. Been on the run from in the past. Maxwell had been a nasty piece of work. A real bastard and so were his men.

‘Casper wasn’t one of the main people. But that was where he was. I met him in Kelso and, well, you know. That was how I found out about…’ She turned to Casper. He shook his head. Neither said anything else.

I’d had enough of this. I went over to him, pointed the gun at his head. Then I went round his back and leant the barrel against his injury. He cried out.
 

‘I want some answers,’ I said.
 

‘Okay!’ said Becky. ‘Okay. We found out about you. About Gehenna. That you had the documents with all the details on the sub.’

‘I see.’ I’d been so stupid. They’d played me all along. Gehenna. That deadly sub. That’s what they wanted. In a loch in Scotland, not their mysterious town. They’d made up all the Arcadia crap.

‘We borrowed a bike from Maxwell’s as well as the Eblis.’

‘He had the tank?’

‘The tank, weapons, all kinds of stuff. Once he was dead it started to unravel. So we helped ourselves…’

‘Right.’ I sat down again. They’d come to Faeston to find me, for what I had. There’d been no coincidences. ‘It was all planned out?’

‘Apart from me getting caught,’ said Casper.
 

‘Why Gehenna?’

‘Why do you care?’ he said.
 

I waved the gun at him. Then lowered it. I didn’t care anymore. ‘So what now?’

She shrugged. ‘That’s up to you.’

The pair of them looked at me, across at Daniel.
 

I got up. ‘I need some air.’

When I walked out Daniel followed me.
 

We went over to the trees. They’d played me all right, reeled me in and kept me interested. It explained a lot but there were still a few gaps. Gaps that didn’t matter.
 

The worst part was the Maxwell link. No one decent worked for Maxwell.

‘What you going to do?’ said Daniel.

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Are you cross with them?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You’ll feel better in the morning.’

‘What?’

‘That’s what Mum always says.’

‘Your mum’s gone Daniel. Forever.’

I didn’t give him time to reply but walked off into the trees, away from all of them. It wasn’t his fault but he was part of all this now.
 

I faced back to hotel, its smashed windows catching the morning light. In front of it was Daniel just standing there. Then there was the Eblis and off along the track the Scrambler, now all tidied and ready to go.
 

And so was I.

I
T
DIDN
’
T
TAKE
LONG
for me to pack up and even less time to say goodbye. I raised my hand and said, ‘I’m off.’ Becky looked like she wanted to say something but didn’t. Casper just stared at the floor. I still had hold of the pistol in case he tried anything but he seemed out of it.

Then there was Daniel. He was still on the front lawn when I went out. ‘I’m sorry what I said. About your mum.’

When he looked at me he blinked more than usual. ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘It’s okay.’

‘Daniel, I’m going.’

‘Oh?’

‘Are you coming with me?’

‘You going on the motorbike?’

‘Yes.’

He took a deep breath. ‘I’m staying.’

‘You’re welcome to come.’

‘Not on the motorbike.’

We stood there for a minute. Then I put my arms around him and hugged him. It was like holding a bag full of wooden stakes. When I released him he wouldn’t look at me.

‘Look, Daniel…’

‘Bye.’ He went back into the dining room with Becky and Casper.

I walked out with my kit under my arm. It seemed further to the bike than it had before.

I turned the Scrambler around and climbed onto it. Across at the hotel Daniel was at the window. I waved to him but he didn’t move.
 

I started the bike. It settled into a smooth tick over. Gehenna’s details were in the bottom of my bag as was the shotgun, bike parts, siphon tube, money and my few clothes. There was a can of food in there as well, something I’d put there just in case. In case I had to leave like this.
 

I rode the Scrambler along the track, rutted and chewed up. At the end the main road was empty in both directions. Either was fine. I had everywhere open to me. Nowhere. Despite Casper and Becky messing me around, they had given me some kind of purpose and direction for the last week. Now I was drifting again.
 

Mist hung over the road as I headed south. There was no real reason why I’d chosen this way but we’d done the last few miles without difficulty and it was the opposite direction to Becky and Casper’s intended route.
 

The Scrambler pulled well, cruising at a comfortable fifty despite the road’s pitted surface. Frost had lifted the tarmac in places and the far side was further chewed up by the Eblis. There were clear track marks going for miles.

It was a shame about Daniel. I felt bad about leaving him. I’d found him and brought him with me. It was because of me he was here. But it wasn’t like I’d refused to take him. He’d been offered the chance to come and he’d chosen not to. Still, I felt bad.

Now I had to sort myself out.

Once I got past Stirling I’d decide where to go. There was the east coast of Scotland. Fife: Kirkcaldy or St Andrews, even. The stories about the new developments in those places all sounded interesting, even if they weren’t keen on outsiders. I’d have to prove myself to settle somewhere like that.

I dodged a pothole and accelerated the bike up to sixty, swinging it round the ruts in the road. The bike really was running well.

Maybe it was time to head south, well south. There wasn’t much worth seeing in the Midlands, it seemed, not from what traders passing through Faeston had said, but there were places in Cornwall that sounded good. Those that hadn’t completely disappeared into the sea. There was nothing decent in the South East, of course, after what had happened to London. That wasn’t worth visiting.
 

But there was no need to decide where to go yet.

As the miles clocked up I got back into the rhythm of travelling, that floating sensation that always came with being on the road. Moving through the scenery but not part of it, automatically driving without thinking. I passed by forest and open moors, wrecked vehicles and debris. The land fell away to the left as a small river followed the road. Eventually I’d pass Gregg and Will’s wrecked car and bodies. But that was just another piece of the landscape.

A white Transit van approached from way off, the first vehicle I’d seen. There was nothing special or significant about it. It travelled at a steady speed keeping a straight track down the road. As usual I avoided eye contact or any kind of signalling just in case it was neo-reivers.

Off in the distance the sun lit a hill, a bright patch of green in the grey mist-covered land. Maybe I’d stay up here, where there was plenty of space and fewer scavengers.

The Transit swung across the road towards me, a sharp manoeuvre so it was head on. Maybe the driver had fallen asleep at the wheel. Without thinking I swung out of the way, steering to the left to avoid it. The van followed so it was still directly in front of me. I tried to go over to the right, where it should have been but it followed again, shifting to the middle.
 

Rather than hit it I swung further left, towards the road’s edge.

The van was really close now but there was just enough space for me to skirt round it on the roadside.
 

Then it eased further over. I had nowhere to go.

It was going to hit me head-on. Smash into me and the bike.
 

I steered onto the verge, tried to ride across the rough grass.

The handlebars jerked as the front wheel clipped a stone. It skipped away to the left. Skidded. Then it was off the verge and dropping down. It fell away so that I was weightless for a second. My stomach dropped into my boots as I lost control of it. As the bike careered off the road.

As I was launched into space I saw the faces of the driver and passenger in the van. It was Nico with Gregg beside him, his faced all smashed up but both of them grinning, smiling at me as I flew down the riverbank.
 

T
HE
BIKE
’
S
WHEELS
CAUGHT
the ground and it flicked onto its left side. It kicked and bounced and upended. For a second I thought I could regain control. Keep it upright, ease the brakes on and bring it to a stop.
 

Then it smashed into a boulder. I was flung over it and down the slope. I held my hands in front of me as I tried to slow myself, as I shot through the undergrowth. Briers and thick bracken cut at me as my momentum sent me onwards, headfirst towards the stones at the river’s edge. I stuck my arm out and spun off to the right, in the direction of a pool. I’d missed the rocks but was now headed for the water. My foot caught in a crevice and I was catapulted into it, hitting it splayed out. I smacked into the pool and took a last breath before it dragged me down, into its icy turbulence. The weight of my rucksack sent me straight to the bottom. The water foamed around me as I thrashed to get out. I kicked with my feet until they hit solid ground and I burst from the surface taking in a great lungfuls of air, grasping at vegetation to pull me to the side.
 

The Scrambler lay against a rock nearby, just beside the small waterfall feeding the pool. The bike’s headlamp was bust and tank split.
 

As I struggled out of the stream a thud came from the bike and it burst into flames. There was laughter. Nico and Gregg stood on the roadside. Nico had a pistol in his hand and he aimed it at me. I grabbed a breath and pushed off the side. Ducked into the river.