Catherine Jinks TheRoad (73 page)

‘But what if there
is
no other property? What if we can’t even find another road? And suppose the police come down here, looking for us, like you said?’ Peter could think of a million objections to this latest plan. ‘Shouldn’t somebody stay here, just in case? What direction will we be going in, anyway? I don’t remember seeing anything after Thorndale, do you? No roads or mailboxes or anything. And we can’t seem to get any farther than this –’

‘Please, Peter.’ Noel raised his hands. ‘It isn’t all settled yet.’

‘But –’

‘Let’s just go and have lunch, hmm? You must be hungry. We’ll talk about it over lunch.’

They did talk about it,too.They talked about it long and hard, all of them, as they ate salted peanuts, Devon-and-tomato sandwiches, tinned asparagus, water biscuits, apples and muesli bars. They argued vehemently about whether someone should wait by the road, and if so, who; whether the petrol should be distributed fairly between two cars, or preserved for Del’s Ford, so that it could travel longer distances; whether fuel should be wasted taking the kids back to Thorndale; whether, if someone did go back to Thorndale, it was really advisable to interfere with the crime scene; and who might have committed the crime, and why. What they
didn’t
talk about, Peter noticed, was the reason behind their unhappy state. They didn’t seem to want to dwell on the cause of their problem – just its possible solution.

The trouble is, Peter thought, there might not
be
a solution if we don’t work out what’s happening first.

He was about to suggest this when Mongrel twitched his ears and raised his head. Alec stiffened. The discussion died away as, one by one, every member of the group heard the whine of an approaching car.

‘From the south,’ said Ross. ‘Is it coming from the south?’

‘It might be those two,’ said Noel. ‘You know – those two we saw earlier.’

‘Georgie and Ambrose,’ Linda supplied. ‘God, I hope not.’

‘They could have turned back.’ Noel rose, in a distracted fashion, dusting off the seat of his shorts. ‘They might have worked out that something was wrong.’

‘There,’ said Alec.

They had been sitting around on eskies and camp stools, some on old towels, Ross behind the glove box of his own sedan. The sound of the oncoming vehicle brought them all to their feet; they sidled around the sedan and planted themselves at the roadside, waving. Linda yanked Rosie back again. ‘Peter! Louise!’ she cried. ‘Stay right away from the edge, please, or you’ll get run over!’

‘That’s not Ambrose,’ said Noel, and Peter understood what he meant. The car in the distance wasn’t black, or dark blue. It was white. It was slowing, too – that was a good sign.

‘Hoi! Stop!’

‘Stop!’