It was hard to know how long I’d lain there, watching them smoking, talking and drinking, but it had to have been several hours when their leader waved a few of them to one side and had a low conversation with them, too quiet for me to hear from this distance.
After a few minutes of conferring, two of them went around the clearing, tapping some of the others on the shoulders and motioning them back towards the village while others stayed where they were, talking and laughing.
By the time the ones tapped on the shoulder had slipped away, I counted seven left. Still too many for me to tackle them head on, but I’d always prided myself on my ability to think outside the box, and if I had any hope of Ralph and Emily getting out of this alive, I needed that skill now more than ever.
Chapter 16
By the time the sun dropped over the horizon I felt half-delirious with thirst, my tongue several sizes too big and my head thumping painfully. I could have slipped away and tried to find water but I’d been too scared, both of being seen and not finding my way back.
There were still half a dozen men sitting around the tree, and from the occasional reappearances the leader had made throughout the day, his threats more and more esoteric each time, I had the firm feeling that this was now less about the car and more about his pride, maybe even his standing in the eyes of the others.
His last visit had been about an hour before dusk, one of the others daring to ask when they could leave only to have him roar at them incoherently before stomping off back to the village.
I’d nearly been discovered several times throughout the day, the lip of the small dell I lay in perfect for those who wished to relieve themselves, seemingly competing to see how much of my hiding place they could splash with urine, the smell only adding to my headache.
More than once I’d been tempted to give up and crawl off into the bushes, but the imagined look on Harriet’s face was enough to keep me there, along with the understanding that Emily and Ralph were most likely relying on me to do something to help.
I’d made and discarded a dozen plans during the day, all of them either risky, unworkable or downright stupid, but as the air cooled and small creatures began to rustle in the leaves around me, I knew that I had to find a way to distract the men around the tree.
Then it came to me. Not much would draw these men away, but there was one thing that they would value more than the car and the potential for sated lust and violence that capturing my friends would provide.
Praying they wouldn’t hear me, I scrabbled through the leaf mould to the far side of the dell and into the bushes at the edge, then half crouched, half hobbled as fast as I could, cutting in a wide circle back towards the village.
It took me the best part of quarter of an hour to get there, hurrying from bush to bush and freezing at the slightest hint of movement.
My palms were sweating and my head was thumping like a drum by the time I reached the first garden fence, my courage all but gone before I’d even started on my hazardous course of action.
Keeping low, I used the fence as cover and crept towards the street we’d driven through when we’d seen the two cyclists with their packs full of looted gear. I’d heard white-vest talking about bikes earlier, and so I had to assume that they were linked.
When I reached what I thought was the right spot, I rolled over a fence and into the garden beyond, immediately getting tangled in the undergrowth.
The lawn hadn’t been cut in months by the look of it, and children’s toys were scattered at random in the long grass like brightly coloured mantraps, tripping me as I tried to make my way silently to the side of the house and the path that led past an old wooden shed to the street.
The houses were dark but I could see the faint hint of flames from the street, and as I sidled along the path and peered around the corner, I saw white-vest and several other men sitting around an oil drum, flames licking up from it to illuminate their faces as the drank yet more beer and smoked cigarettes from cartons of two hundred that were littered around their feet.
They’d clearly done well out of the disaster so far, but I wondered how long they’d last when they realised their microwave ready-meals were no longer on the menu and they had to find real food to cook.
I shook my head to clear it. Now was not the time to be making silent jibes about lifestyle, not if I had any chance of helping Emily and Ralph. I put the stray thoughts down to my lack of water, and looked in vain for anything I might use to quench my thirst.
Nothing presented itself, however, so I moved in a crouch to hide behind a pair of metal bins that gave me a good view of the road and its occupants while keeping me firmly hidden.
I stayed crouched there for about ten minutes, watching the comings and goings around the fire. While the houses on this side were semi-detached, the ones on the far side were terraced and all crammed together with tiny gardens that were little more than scrubby patches of brown earth, and if I was to have any effect at all I realised that I needed to cross the road without being seen.
Drawing back to the shed, I tried the door gently. It moved, but the hinges were rusty and the squeak they gave was enough to raise the dead.
I froze, heart in mouth as I waited for a shout of discovery, but none came and after a long minute I moved the door again, this time lifting it slightly as I pushed.
It still groaned, but not so loud now, the noise more than covered by the laughter and conversation coming from the fire, and in moments I had it wide enough to slip inside.
It was pitch black inside the shed. I hadn’t thought this far into my plan, trusting that I’d find the things I needed, but without being able to see I was at something of a loss. The small space smelled strongly of creosote, old wood and mouse droppings, and I ran my hands through all manner of unidentifiable, cobweb-covered things looking for anything that might do as a light source.
After several minutes of searching I found an old torch, the batteries almost dead but giving out just enough light to see by after being in the dark for so long.
Shining it around, I realised that no one had used this place for months. Dust and cobwebs were thick on every surface, the workbench holding tools that had rusted to their clamps.
Checking the lower shelves, I repressed a shudder as a spider the size of my hand darted into cover with alarming swiftness. Working with as much haste as I could while remaining quiet, I looked through the shelves until I found what I needed. Stuffing it all into an old garden sack, I turned the torch off but kept hold of it, then exited the shed and crossed the back garden again, going back over the fence and along several houses until I reckoned I was far enough away from the fire not to be seen.
I was about to climb another fence when I saw a footpath, a narrow dirt smear that separated two of the fenced gardens. It was littered with dog mess, but I picked my way along it, pleasantly surprised that my ankle was bearing up well.
I paused at the end of the footpath, leaning out past a hedge to check the road in both directions. Once I was sure I was clear, the fire and its complement of men a good twenty metres away and all but lost around a slight curve in the road, I hurried across to the far side and straight into the first garden.
This was where my plan got a little hazy. I’d seen from the car earlier that all the gardens were linked, a concrete path running between house and garden just wide enough for one person, passing every front door in the row, so I could get as far along the road as I needed to without jumping any more fences. But could I really do what I was planning? Despite everything, even knowing that the people around me would quite deliberately and cheerfully tear myself and my friends apart if they caught us, I was about to put them and their dependants at risk, possibly even kill some of them. Could I honestly justify my actions? My father, a civil servant for most of his adult life, and a particularly law-abiding man, had once said to me, ‘don’t do anything you couldn’t put your hand on your heart and justify in front of a jury’. Despite our disagreements about other things, that particular quote had stuck with me, and I’d always tried to follow the spirit of it, if not the letter.