He put down the can of coal chunks and settled himself close to the edge of the ash pit. Zeth sounded very close now; Jay could hear his breathing and the snicking sound of his rifle as he broke it to reload. Glancing swiftly over the edge of the ash pit he could see him, too, the back of his head and a slice of profile, his neck glaring with acne, his flag of greasy hair. Above the lock there was no sign of the girl, and he wondered, in sudden anxiety, whether she had gone. Then he saw a flicker of something red above the cutting and a stone zipped out of the bushes, hitting Zeth on the arm. Jay knew a moment’s amazement at the accuracy of the girl’s aim before Zeth swung round with a roar of pain and surprise. Another stone hit him in the solar plexus, and as he whipped round towards the cutting Jay threw two chunks of coal at his back. One hit, the other missed, but Jay felt a hot rush of exhilaration as he ducked down again.
‘Kill you, you fucker!’ Zeth’s voice sounded both very close and horrifyingly adult, a teenage troll in disguise. Then the girl fired again, hitting him on the ankle, missing once, then scoring a direct hit on the side of his head, making a sound like a pool cue potting the ball.
‘You leave us alone, then!’ yelled the girl from her eyrie above the lock. ‘Bloody well leave us alone, you bastard!’
Now Zeth had seen her. Jay saw him move a little closer to the cutting, his rifle in his hand. He could see what Zeth was doing. He would try to move under the overhang and out of sight, reload, then jump out firing. He’d be firing blind, but all the same. Jay looked over the edge of the ash pit and took aim. He hit Zeth between the shoulder blades as hard as he could.
‘Get lost!’ he shouted deliriously, firing another coal chunk over the lip of the pit. ‘Go pick on someone else!’
But it had been a mistake to show himself so openly. Jay saw Zeth’s eyes widen in recognition.
‘Well, well, well.’ Zeth had changed after all. He’d broadened out, his shoulders fulfilling the promise of his height. He looked fully adult to Jay now, fully grown and ferocious. He smiled and began to move closer to the ash pit, rifle levelled. He kept under the overhang now, so that the girl could not target him. He was grinning. Jay threw another two pieces of coal, but his aim was off target and Zeth kept on coming.
‘Get away!’
‘Or what?’ Zeth was close enough to see clearly into the ash pit now, with one eye on the overhang which shielded him. His grin looked like a bone sickle. He levelled his rifle with a quizzical, almost a gentle smile. ‘Or what, eh? Or what?’ Desperately Jay lobbed the remaining chunks of coal at him, but his aim was gone. They bounced off the bigger boy’s shoulders like bullets off a tank. Jay looked into the barrel of Zeth’s rifle. It was only an air rifle, his mind repeated, only an air rifle, only a poxy pellet gun. It’s not as if it were a Colt or a Luger or anything, and anyway, he wouldn’t dare shoot.
Zeth’s finger tightened on the trigger. There was a click. At this range the gun didn’t look poxy at all. It looked deadly.
Suddenly there was a sound from behind him and a flurry of small rocks slid from the cutaway, scattering down onto his head and shoulders. Zeth must have stepped out of the shelter of the overhang, Jay realized, into The Girl’s sights again. Funny, that leap into proper-noun status. He moved back towards the edge of the pit, never taking his eyes off Zeth. His assumption that it was The Girl throwing stones from her bandanna had to be wrong: these were not isolated flung stones, but dozens – make that hundreds – of pebbles, shards, gravel chunks, small rocks and the occasional larger one falling down the banking in a cloud of ochre dust. Something had dislodged a part of the overhang and scree was shooting off the edge in a gathering rockslide. Above the scar he could see something moving – an oversized T-shirt, no longer very white, topped by a carroty tangle of hair. She was on her hands and knees on the banking, rabbit-kicking at the scree for all she was worth, dislodging chunks of rock and soil and dust, which fragmented onto the stones below, pelting Zeth with earth and stones and acrid orange powder. Behind the sound of falling rubble Jay could just hear her thin, fierce voice screaming triumphantly, ‘Eat shit, you bastard!’
Zeth was taken completely off-balance by the attack. Dropping his rifle, his first instinct was to take shelter under the cutaway, but although the overhang protected him from thrown missiles it did nothing against the rock-fall, and he stumbled, choking, right into the thick of the falling scree. He swore, holding his arms protectively above his head, as chunks of rock suddenly came down on top of him. One piece the size of a housebrick caught him on the bony part of his elbow, and at that Zeth abruptly lost all interest in the fight. Coughing, choking and blinded by dust, clasping his injured arm to his stomach, he stumbled out from under the overhang. There came a triumphant war cry from above, followed by another avalanche of small rocks, but the battle was already won. Zeth flung a single murderous glance over his shoulder and fled. He ran up the side path until he reached the top, and only then did he stop to howl his defiance.
‘Thar fuckin dead, atha listenin?’ His voice rolled off the stones at the canal side. ‘If I ever see thee again, tha fuckin dead!’
The Girl gave a mocking yell from the trees.
Zeth fled.
23
Lansquenet, March 1999
JAY AWOKE TO A SPILL OF SUNSHINE ON HIS FACE. THERE WAS A strange yellowish quality to the light, something strained and winey, unlike dawn’s clear pallor, but he was amazed when, looking at his watch, he realized he had slept more than fourteen hours. He recalled being feverish, even delusional, that night, and he anxiously inspected his injured foot for signs of infection, but none were apparent. The swelling had subsided as he slept, and though there was some gaudy bruising, as well as an ugly cut, on his ankle, there seemed to be less damage than he remembered. The long sleep must have done him good.
He managed to replace his boot. With it on his foot was sore, but not as much as he had feared. After eating his remaining sandwich – very stale now, but he was ravenous – he picked up his things and made his way slowly back towards the road. He left his bag and case in the bushes and began the long walk into the village. It took almost an hour, with many rest stops, to reach the main street, and he had plenty of time to look at the scenery. Lansquenet is a tiny place; a single main street and a few side roads, a square with a few shops – a chemist’s, a baker’s, a butcher’s, a florist’s – a church between two rows of linden trees, then a long road down to the river, a café and some derelict houses staggering along the ragged banks towards the fields. He came up from the river, having found a place to cross where the water ran shallow over some stones, and so he came to the café first. A bright red-and-white awning shielded a small window, and a couple of metal tables were set out on the pavement. A sign above the door read Café des Marauds.
Jay went in and ordered a blonde. The propriétaire behind the bar looked at him curiously, and he realized how he must look to her: unwashed and unshaven, wearing a grubby T-shirt and smelling of cheap wine. He gave her a smile, but she stared back at him doubtfully.
‘My name is Jay Mackintosh,’ he explained to her. ‘I’m English.’
‘Ah, English.’ The woman smiled and nodded, as if that explained everything. Her face was round and pink and shiny, like a doll’s. Jay took a long drink of his beer.