“It doesn’t matter!” Miss Ashwood got stiffly to her feet. “Fabian is wrong to threaten you. We came here with a request and you have given us your answer. As you say, we must manage without you.” She reached out and Fabian gave her his arm. “But there is one thing I will add,” she went on. She turned her empty eyes on Matt and for a moment she sounded genuinely sad. “You have made a decision but you may have less choice than you think. You can try to ignore who you are but you may not be able to for much longer. You are central to what is happening, Matt. You and four others. I think you will have to accept it before too long.”
She nudged Fabian and the two of them left together. Richard waited until he heard the front door close, then he sank back into a chair.
“Well, I’m glad they’ve gone,” he said. “And I think you’re absolutely right, by the way. What a cheek! Trying to drag you back into all that. Well, it’s not going to happen. They can get lost.”
Matt said nothing.
“You must be hungry,” Richard went on. “I managed to look into a supermarket on the way over. There are three bags of food in the kitchen. What do you fancy for dinner?”
It took Matt a few moments to absorb what he had just heard. Richard had been shopping? It had to be a first. Now he remembered his surprise when he had arrived at the flat, seeing Richard there at all. “What’s happened?” he asked. “How come you’re home so early?”
Richard shrugged. “Well, I was thinking about what you said this morning. About you and me. And I realized you were right. I can’t look after you when I’m travelling back and forth to Leeds all the time. So I threw the job in…”
“What?” Matt knew how much the job meant to Richard. He wasn’t quite sure what to say.
“I just don’t want you to go back to the LEAF Project. I said I’d look after you and that’s what I’m going to do. I can always find a job in York.” Richard sighed. “Anyway, you’re lucky I was here tonight. Did you really want to be left alone with Mr and Mrs Creepy?”
“Do you really think it was OK to say no?” Matt asked.
“Of course it was. If you didn’t want to go, then why should you? It’s your choice, Matt. You must do what you want.”
“That’s not what she said.”
“She was wrong. You’re safe here. Nothing’s going to happen while you’re in York except – possibly – food poisoning. I’m cooking tonight!”
Seventy miles away, on the M1, a man called Harry Shepherd was just coming out of a service station. He had started earlier in the day at Felixstowe and was on his way to Sheffield. As darkness had fallen, he had stopped for a bite to eat and a cup of tea. He was only allowed to drive a certain distance without a break, and he liked this service station.
There was a waitress he always chatted to.
It was now properly dark as he drove out. Also, it had begun to rain. He could see the streaks of water, lighting up as they slanted across his headlamps. He slammed the engine into second gear, preparing to rejoin the motorway – and that was when he saw her, standing on the slip road, one thumb out. The universal symbol of the hitch-hiker.
It wasn’t something he saw very often these days. Hitchhiking was considered too dangerous: nobody in their right mind would get into a car or a truck with a stranger. Not with so many weirdos around. And here was something else that was odd. The hitch-hiker was a woman. She looked middle-aged, too. She was wrapped up in a coat that wasn’t doing much to protect her from the rain and her hair was dragging over her collar. He could see the water running down the sides of her cheeks. Harry felt sorry for her. Somehow she reminded him of his mother, who was now living on her own in a bedsit in Dublin. On an impulse, he took his foot off the accelerator and pressed the brake. He slowed down. The woman ran forward.
Harry knew that he was breaking every regulation in the book. He wasn’t allowed to give lifts. Especially when he was carrying fuel. But something had persuaded him. An impulse. He couldn’t really explain it.
Gwenda Davis saw the petrol tanker as it slowed down. The motorway lights reflected off the great silver cylinder with the word SHELL in bright yellow letters. She should have been further north by now. It had definitely been a mistake leaving Eastfield Terrace without any money, and she had almost given up trying to hitch-hike. She knew she had let Rex McKenna down. She hoped he wouldn’t be angry with her.
But now her luck had changed. She wiped the rain from her eyes and ran to the passenger door. It was a big step up but she managed it, her bag swinging. The driver was a man in his thirties. He had fair hair and a silly, schoolboy smile. He was wearing overalls with a logo on his chest.
“Where are you going, love?” he asked.
“North,” Gwenda said.
“A bit late to be out on your own.”
“Where are you heading?”
“Sheffield.”
“Thanks for stopping.” Gwenda closed the door. “I thought I was going to be there all night.”
“Well… put your seatbelt on.” The man smiled at her. “My name’s Harry.”
“Mine’s Gwenda.”
Gwenda did as she was told. But she made sure that the seat-belt didn’t restrict her movements. She had her bag next to her with the axe handle sticking out of it and she’d decided she was going to use it as soon as they slowed down. It would be so easy to bring out the axe and swing it into the side of Harry’s head. She had never driven a petrol tanker before but she was sure she would be able to manage it. Rex McKenna would help her.
Ten thousand litres of petrol might well come in useful too.
FIRE ALARM
Matt went back to school the next day with a sense of dread.
None of the adults would blame him for what had happened the day before, but the boys might have a different view. He had been there. He was weird. He was involved. It occurred to Matt that he had probably given them yet more rope to hang him with.
And he was right. The moment he stepped onto the school bus, he knew that things – which had always been bad – were now set to get much worse. The bus was just about full but somehow the one empty seat always happened to be next to him. As he walked up the central aisle, the whispers began. Everyone was staring at him, then looking away when he tried to meet their eyes. As the doors hissed shut and they began to move, something hit him on the side of the head. It was only a rubber band, fired from the back, but the message was clear. Matt was tempted to stop the bus, to get off and go home. He could get Richard to phone in and say he was sick. He resisted the idea. That would be giving in. Why should he let these stuck-up kids with their stupid prejudices win?
The dining hall was closed for the day. Lunch would be served on temporary tables set up in the gym while the damage was repaired and electricians tried to work out what had caused it. The rumour was that there had been some sort of massive short circuit in the system. It had caused a power surge and that was what had made the chandelier explode. As for Gavin Taylor (he had needed three stitches and had come to school with his right hand completely bandaged), it seemed that he had broken the glass he was holding himself. It was a perfectly natural reaction to the chaos that had been happening just above his head.
That was what the boys at Forrest Hill were told. The headteacher, a grey-haired man called Mr Simmons, even mentioned it at morning assembly in the chapel. The teachers, sitting in their pews at the very back, nodded wisely. But of course a school has its own knowledge, its own intelligence. Everyone understood that what had happened must have had something to do with Matt, even if nobody knew – or wanted to say – exactly what it was.
They sang another hymn. Mr Simmons was a religious man and liked to think that the rest of the school was too. There were a few announcements. Then the doors were opened and everyone flooded out.