The man started back to the car, his steps morphing from earnest strides to nigh on a sprint. Harry took to the hoof after him and made a move for the passenger's door.
“Where the fuck do you think you're going?” asked the man.
“You even know what you’re chasing, vehicle, or man?”
“Get in.”
Harry opened the door and dipped inside the vehicle.
Harry barely got the door shut before the driver got some heat pissing its way through the engine like wildfire. The driver turned to Harry. “Which direction?” There was a junction a little ways up. Harry had seen the van take a right. He told him and the man took that corner like tread on a tyre was something infinitesimal. He had the engine earning its keep, switching with skill up the gears and handling the road like he'd tamed it himself. Half a minute of traffic dodging and law breaking and they saw the white van up ahead, a good few lengths of car away. Though it was night the driver knew how far to keep back so as not to become something suspicious in another man's rear-view mirror.
Harry couldn't help but state some of the obvious, even though the bloke was showing more than a passing proficiency. “Ease up, don't want them to know we're this close to them.”
“I've not got my hazards on, nor am I beeping the fucking horn. This is my car, this is my chase, this is my…revenge.”
“And they've got a woman in the back of that van, who, just like you hasn't asked for any of this shit to happen.”
The driver took some deep breaths and kept any retorts from spilling from his head.
“Thompson didn't tell me much, just that my brother might be needing some help and that one of the girls from his club was involved. Care to tell me some more?”
So Harry started to share his knowledge on Evan Noolan. The driver nodded in all the right places and kept his own council until Harry had finished. The driver shook his head. “Think he's planning on killing the girl?”
“I think it's pretty much a given, she's the reason they lost their messiah.”
“That part of it isn't my war, but I'll help you get her back, then I will do my own thing.”
Harry looked at the man, his face looked as though it was carved from stone. Harry himself had known violence and death in abundance and this man's features had been chiselled over the years by destruction and Harry knew that there was nothing, no words that would alter the course of what was in the man's mind. “You got a name? I'm Harry.”
“Not one that you need to know.”
“Fair enough.” Harry didn't bother trying to make any more conversation. He just watched the roads that they were taking, wondering where the van was heading. He cottoned on as they made their way through the heart of Lancaster. He broke the silence with. “I think I know where they're heading.”
“Where?”
Harry chastised himself. He should have guessed a good few miles back. The van was en route to Heysham, the van was heading back to the place that had born the madman and tailored his diseased mind. It made sense, the family farm back on that small island, the place that Noolan knew best. “He's going to the ferry, Noolan's going home.”
“You sure?”
“Certain.”
The driver started tooling about with the sat-nav. The woman's voice kicked in and the driver eased off the speed. No need to get made if they had a destination.
“Gonna need your name if you’re wanting to get on this boat.”
The driver mulled it over. “Ernest Jones, don't ever fucking call me Ernie, or Ernest.”
Harry used his phone to book them two tickets and the car onto the ferry. He shook his head as the final carriage fee was displayed on his phone. “They should be calling themselves the Steam Racket.”
The driver ignored the attempt at humour and asked. “What's security like at the port?”
“Same as anywhere I guess, probably have a sniffer dog doing laps of the car deck, anything like that in the car?”
“No, but there's two shotguns and a couple of nine millimetres in a hold-all in the boot, think they'll sniff them out?”
“Doubt it.”
“Good. You figured out a plan?”
“I figure I've got about thirty miles to think of one, something else has been bothering me.”
“What?”
“How Noolan and his mental cases caught up with her the same time as I did.”
“You found her, what's so surprising that they did?”
“Yeah, something just isn't sitting right.”
They joined the queue of cars waiting to board the ferry; it was pretty much bumper to bumper considering that it was half-two in the morning. Harry could see the van up ahead, a good two dozen hunks of wheeled metal were idling in-between. The driver turned, looked at Harry. “Looks like the thirty miles is up, we just going to start breaking shit when we get on the boat?”
“No, there won't be any law on the boat, but whatever goes down during the sailing you can guarantee that there's be a welcoming party of flashing blue lights waiting for us when we dock. But there is one thing in our favour, if this is like any other 'roll-on-roll-off' ferries then drivers and passengers aren't allowed on the car decks whilst the boat's in transit. My thinking is that they'll have Alice in the back of the van, drugged to fuck no doubt to keep her quiet for the duration of the journey. But they'll have to go to the passenger decks.”
The driver was following Harry's train of thought and drove them clear of the line of traffic and did a full circle of the terminal before re-joining the queue.
Harry had never been bothered by darkness, but the confined space was making him a little edgy. He just hoped that the crossing was going to be mild, being stuck in the boot of the car in high seas wouldn't make for the most comfortable of journeys and he knew he had to stay secreted until they were a good few miles out to sea. The driver had given him the spare key fob so he could open the boot with the push of a button. The driver had said he'd keep close to the hatch-doors that led to the car decks to make sure no one disturbed him whilst he got Alice out of the van. He heard the engines rumble to life and before he knew it he could feel the slight roll of the sea as the ferry made its move away from the harbour. He didn't have a nautical bone in his body so he had no idea how fast these ships could move, he'd take a gamble and stay confined for half an hour before finding out whether his plan would be fruitful or turn out to be sheer lunacy.
At the half hour mark he thumbed the key-fob and the boot opened. He kept it held low, giving himself just enough of a gap to have a gander and make sure there was no one else mooching about the car decks. He opened the boot a little bit further, only enough for him to slip out and kneel down, peeking around three-sixty. There was just him and row upon row of cars and vans. He groaned. He hadn't imagined that there could be so many white transit vans wanting to get to the small island; he counted six. He grabbed one of the handguns from the holdall, the driver had taken the other. The shotguns would remain where they were as they weren't the easiest of weapons to conceal. He grabbed a large flat-headed screwdriver that he reckoned would work as well as a key to get into the van. He kept low, in case he had missed some lone worker. He found the van with the number plate he had memorized, that and there was a stain of shit-brown blood about the handle where he had tried in vain to grab at it and get it open.
He stabbed the business end of the screwdriver into the small gap and wrenched the door open. It made more noise than anticipated but there were no calls of alarm. Harry pulled the door further open and got his second shock of the night. It cleared the loose ends up in his head but those valuable few moments whilst it happened threw him into danger. The woman ran at him, throwing herself out of the back of the van. Harry didn't have time to grab at the hand that wielded a curved knife. He felt the cold steel slip through his skin, slicing flesh and then scraping bone. He yelled, twisted his body and used the weight of the woman to send her flying to the floor. A hand went to his wound, once again the night had given him red hands, this time it was worse, it was his own claret. The woman was gathering herself up, eyes of the maniac were bulging, lips the contorted spaghetti-mess of the fanatic. Mary Henley, mother of Alice. Noolan hadn't caught up with Alice, Harry had delivered her on a plate. Had let her mother hire him to find her and he had kept her up to date, so much as to inform her that he was almost positive that he had located her just that morning. He chastised himself for being a fucking idiot. He hadn't even thought about checking out her background. He still had some faith in humanity, but that was bleeding out of him, just like the liquid from his shoulder. Mary, what a fucking misnomer of a name, there was nothing biblical about the lunatic before him. With his good hand he drew the gun from the waist of his pants.