Runaway (13 page)

The only one of us completely at ease with the situation was Dennis. He lit another Kool as we passed a road sign for Penrith. It was just ten miles away.

‘Won’t be long now,’ he said.

I could hear him grin in the dark, and saw his smoke rings flattening out against the windscreen in the lights of an on-coming vehicle.

And then we were off the A6, heading west towards Keswick on the A594, and it was like a huge weight had lifted off us all. We had made the turn-off before the dads caught up, and now we were home free, as if the invisible umbilical that had somehow kept us attached to everyone and everything we had known since birth had finally, irrevocably, been severed. We were into the uncharted territory of our new lives.

Dave, it turned out, had cans of stout planked in his rucksack. He passed them around, and we smoked our Player’s No. 6 and speculated about how much longer it would take us to get to London, and what we were going to do when we got there.

The road wound its way through undulating, open country peppered with darker areas of forest, and a three-quarter moon shone its colourless light across the land. We passed through tiny villages, houses huddled in darkness, and became aware of the land starting to rise up around us again as we drove into the Cumbrian mountains.

Moonlight cascaded across black water below us as we drove down into a larger town beyond the village of Threlkeld. Its street lamps twinkled in the night, light pollution masking the great canopy of the cosmos whose jewelled sky had, until then, sparkled above our flight path.

‘This is Keswick,’ Dennis said. ‘And Derwent Water.

Jeff changed down the gears as we descended into the town, past slate stone villas sitting proud above steep gardens, and a red-sandstone police station on the bend at the foot of the hill.

As we turned into the main street Dennis said, ‘Stop here.’

Jeff pulled up sharply. Dennis swung the door open and jumped down on to the pavement. Cigarette smoke from the van billowed out and cold air rushed in.

‘Going to call the missus, just to let her know I’ll be arriving with a few fellas. If you’re lucky, she might do you a fry-up.’

He grinned and pulled open the door of the red telephone box that stood on the corner, swinging himself into the light inside and fishing in his pocket for some coins.

I pulled the passenger door shut and said, ‘We don’t need him any more, and we’ve got him almost home. We could just drive off.’

Jeff swung himself round in the driver’s seat and glared at me. ‘Are you mad? The bloke’s just saved our hide. And do you really want to spend the night in the van?’

‘I don’t like him,’ I said.

‘Neither do I.’ Luke’s voice came from the back, and I felt bolstered by his support.

But Dave said, ‘He seems alright to me.’

And Jeff clamped his hands firmly on the wheel. ‘Well, I’m driving, and I’m not leaving him here. End of argument.’

And it was.

Dennis climbed back in, bringing the chill of the cold night air with him. ‘It’s all set. My good lady’s cracking eggs into the pan as we speak. Bet you fellas are hungry.’

‘Sure are,’ Dave piped up from the back.

Luke said nothing, and Maurie, who had been ominously non-committal about the whole thing, remained silent.

Jeff glared at me. ‘I could eat a scabby dug,’ he said, and crunched the column shift back into gear.

The van lurched off through Keswick, gathering speed until we emerged from its leafy suburbs on to a road signposted to Braithwaite. We were there in a matter of minutes, slowing to wind our way through narrow streets crowded by stone cottages, then out again into vivid moonlight that washed across a valley floor of fallow fields and phosphorescent streams.

Tree-covered hills folded in around us. We passed a cottage called Sour Riggs
crouched behind high hedges
,
and the entrance to a place called Ladstock Hall. But we couldn’t see the house itself.

‘Take a right just up ahead here,’ Dennis told Jeff. His earlier, relaxed demeanour had gone, and he seemed alert now, a little on edge, sitting forward in his seat and peering ahead through the windscreen.

Jeff had to slow almost to a halt to make the turn into what was little more than a lane. I saw a wooden signpost pointing the way to Thornthwaite Church.

‘You live in a church?’ I said sceptically.

Dennis glanced at me. It was clear he knew I didn’t like him.

But still he smiled. ‘Haha, no. Irreligious, me. The missus, too. Haven’t been in a church for years.’ He paused. ‘The cottage is just beyond it.’

Jeff had reduced the speed of the van to little more than walking pace to guide it between the hedgerows, the bowed heads of thousands of daffodils smothering overgrown verges and glowing virulent yellow in the headlights. We came round the bend at the foot of the slope and saw the church brooding darkly behind a high stone wall and surrounded by the headstones of the dead, big and small, and canted at odd angles. A farm gate closed off access to a muddy track from a small parking area, and a car sat, half-reversed into a path that disappeared into dark pasture beyond a small, fast-running stream.

Jeff stood on the brakes, surprised by the unexpected car, then blinded as its headlights came on full beam.

Dennis was out of the door before any of us could even speak, and shadows moved through the lights like ghosts in the night. Men with stout poles that they started banging along the side of the van. Fists thumped on the back doors and a voice shouted, ‘Open up!’

We were trapped. There was no way forward, and it would have been impossible to back up at any speed. The driver’s door opened, and a grinning Dennis leaned in to turn the key in the ignition and pull it out. The engine spluttered to a stop and the lights dimmed imperceptibly.

‘Jaisus,’ he said. ‘What a bunch of losers you kids are.’ Then, ‘Everybody out.’

And we knew there would be no arguing with him.

Jeff and I jumped down from the front, and the others opened the back doors to climb out. All five of us were herded into the glare of the headlights from the two vehicles, and I saw that our attackers were only four in number. But they were older than us, and bigger, and armed. Resistance just wasn’t an option.

Suddenly Maurie broke free of the circle of light and started running back up the lane. I craned round the van to watch as one of our assailants went after him, catching up with him quickly and bringing him to the ground with a whack across the back of his thighs. I heard Maurie cry out in pain and then, as he was dragged back into the light, saw tears of fear and humiliation staining the dirt on his face.

Jeff became almost incandescent with rage. ‘You bastard!’ he screamed, and leapt at Dennis.

But he didn’t even get close. A baton swung through the headlights and I heard the crack of it on his skull, dropping him to his knees.

‘Stupid runaway kids,’ Dennis said, his smiles and pretence of geniality long since lost to his true colours. ‘Bet you’ve got every penny you possess on you. And anything and everything of any value.’ He strutted across the tarmac in front of us. ‘So you can just empty your pockets on to the ground and step back. Everything, mind. We’ll search you.’ And he nodded to one of his accomplices. ‘Go check out their bags.’

Maurie helped Jeff back to his feet, and Dennis brought his face to within inches of the drummer’s. ‘Should have listened to your mate here, sonny.’ And he flicked an unpleasant look at me.

But I wasn’t feeling particularly vindicated just then. I could see the blood trickling down Jeff’s neck from his head wound, and was too angry and scared.

One by one we laid out the contents of our pockets on the tarmac. Wallets and keys, cigarettes, lighters, loose change. One of Dennis’s henchmen scooped it all up and began assessing the haul. We must have had nearly a hundred quid between us, which for a bunch of schoolkids was a lot of money back then. But Dennis seemed less than pleased with his booty.

He glared at us in the headlights. ‘You hiding something?’

‘What would we have to hide?’ I said. ‘There’s only one of us not still at school. That’s all our savings.’

The one who had gone to rifle through our bags came back empty-handed. ‘Just clothes and toiletries and a few cans of beer wrapped inside a
Playboy
magazine,’ he said. He had a broad North of England accent.

The mention of the
Playboy
magazine drew all our eyes towards Dave, and I’d swear he blushed, although it was hard to tell in that light.

Dennis sneered. ‘Hardly worth the bloody trouble.’

‘What about all that gear in the back of the van?’ the one with the accent said. ‘Drums and guitars and shit.’

But to my relief Dennis shook his head. ‘Too big. We’d need to take the van as well. And we’d only get pennies for the stuff.’ He leaned in towards us, leering. ‘If you’ve got any sense you’ll get into that van and head back up the road. It’s way past your bedtime. Your mammies’ll be wondering where you are.’ Then he grinned. ‘If you can ever find the keys, that is.’ And he turned and hurled the ignition keys through the darkness, over the wall and into the cemetery. ‘Happy hunting. Or should that be haunting?’ Which brought guffaws of laughter from his mates. ‘And you’ll not be needing this.’ He held up Jeff’s driving licence and tore it into little pieces before casting them into the night.

They jumped into their car and its engine kicked and revved. With a squeal of tyres it kangarooed out of its place of semi-concealment, accelerated past us to squeeze by the van, two wheels gouging deep ruts in the verge, and sped off into the dark.

We stood then without moving or speaking, hearing the sound of the car slowly vanishing into the night, watching its lights track back along the road we had travelled just ten minutes earlier, until both sight and sound of it were lost to us.

Jeff sat down suddenly in the middle of the road and put his fingers to his neck, bringing them away smeared with blood, startling and red. ‘Aw jobbies.’

Maurie said, ‘I’ve got some first-aid stuff in my bag.’ And he ran round the van to get it.

Dave’s voice, laden with sarcasm, injected itself into the gulf of silence he left us with. ‘Thanks, Jobby Jeff!
That’s a really gen bloke. I’m not leaving him here
.
’

Jeff’s head swung slowly round to turn dangerous eyes on Dave. ‘Fuck off,’ was his only comeback. But then, ‘And don’t call me Jobby Jeff!’

‘Fighting among ourselves is not going to do us any good,’ Luke said. ‘We’ve got to figure out what to do. We’re not going to get very far without any money.’

Maurie returned to more silence and knelt beside Jeff to wipe the blood from his wound and slather it with antiseptic cream, before crudely covering it with a sticking plaster. We watched despondently, each of us nursing his own private despair.

Until Dave said quietly, ‘They didn’t get
all
the money.’

Every head turned towards him, and he opened his jacket to start pulling his shirt out of his trousers, revealing a canvas money belt strapped around his waist.

‘Got it as a Christmas pressie a few years ago and never used it. Till noo. Thought it might be a good way of carrying my cash.’ He unzipped one of its many compartments and pulled out a wad of notes. He held them up. ‘Twenty quid. Should get us somewhere.’

And suddenly our predicament didn’t seem quite so bleak.

‘More than enough to get us back home,’ Maurie said, provoking a chorus of unanimous dissent.

Luke said, ‘No fucking way am I going back.’ His determination to see this thing through was resolute.

It took me a moment to realize why I was so shocked, before I understood. It was the first time I had ever heard Luke swearing.

‘So what
are
we going to do?’ Maurie’s voice was almost plaintive.

I said, ‘Well, the first thing we need to do is find those keys.’

‘How are we going to do that in the dark?’ Jeff winced as he placed his hand over the gash on his head.

‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ I said. ‘But I’m sure you’ll figure it out.’