‘Why don’t you say something? What’s your name? I’m Chloe.’ She repeated her conversation to the stranger a short distance away. She got no reply. ‘My Dad always says it’s rude not to say hello back when someone says hello to you.’ Still there was no reply to her questions. ‘You are not a very polite man.’ She said indignantly.
This is going rapidly pear shaped, thought Mark as he put his finger to his lips in a gesture that he hoped she would understand.
Chloe made a grand gesture of sitting back in her seat. She folded her arms and screwed up her face in the way that only a nine year old pissed off little girl can. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘He’s not a very nice man is he daddy?’
Daddy, still watching, but not believing what he was seeing, didn’t say a word. He shook his head and stared at the road ahead.
Chloe looked back to the man perched on the petrol tank and gave him the ‘look’. The look was what she reserved mostly for her older brother when she was really, really pissed off with him. She also gave the look to others who displeased her and it would be fair to say, you were left in no doubt whatsoever when Chloe was none too happy with you. So, she thought to herself, arms still folded tightly, chin in the air, and staring straight ahead. What do you think of that then? She remained in this position for a few moments until she was satisfied that he would have been well aware that Chloe Jones was most definitely not amused.
As she looked back across the divide at her reluctant, would be playmate crouched on the petrol tank of the lorry, she saw something in his eyes that made her question her own thoughts. She didn’t understand what it was. Whilst she didn’t know what it was, she certainly knew what it wasn’t. At that instant, she knew it wasn’t bad.
She stopped giving him the look and began to frown. There was something to be worked out here, but she couldn’t quite decide what it was.
Mark took his finger from his lips and she saw a slight smile. He wasn’t a bad man she thought, as she smiled back at him and she began to feel a little annoyed at herself for her feelings of a few minutes before. She saw his mouth open and his lips began to move.
‘Daddy, he’s saying something but I can’t hear him. He’s pointing at the back of our car and winding his hand around. What does he mean by that?’
Fred snapped out of his disbelief and looked across. He understood the gestures only too well. Even though he understood his intention, he didn’t quite believe it and thought to himself, I was right. This must be a film and he must be a fucking stunt man. Either that, or he’s had enough of life and decided to end it all!
Back in the wagon, Dave’s eyes were transfixed on his driver’s door mirror. He caught just a glimpse of a black gloved hand making some kind of gesture.
Swifty, what are you playing at? Get your arse off that wagon now. That’s a fucking order. Move it.’ Lee Evans in the following response vehicle was about ten vehicles behind the wagon as all the traffic around them began to pick up speed.
‘Sorry Skip. Too fast for me to jump off now. Wish me luck.’
The electric motor on the rear passenger door kicked in and the window began to lower. Chloe looked at her Dad’s finger on the switch.
‘What are you doing Daddy?’ She looked up and saw her Dad with his serious face on. Both hands were now firmly fixed on the steering wheel in the ten to two position and he was looking directly ahead; concentrating hard. ‘Are you alright dad?’
As he checked his mirrors he said, ‘Listen love, I can’t explain just now. I need you to be very quiet and we’ll talk about it later OK?’
Chloe didn’t understand what on earth her Dad was talking about. She hardly ever knew what the grown ups were talking about. It was a conversation she’d had with her friends lots of times. She and her friend Mary had decided that it was often better not to ask them too many questions because they always got confused and angry, something about their age, and the grown ups usually ended any further discussion with the phrase she’d heard many times before, ‘because I said so’.
This was definitely one of those because I said so moments but she instinctively knew, something in the tone of his voice told her that now wasn’t the time to ask questions. Plenty of time for questions later she thought as she sat, arms folded, slightly miffed that she seemed to be not included in dads thoughts as he concentrated deeply on. On what? she didn’t know; he hadn’t told her. She thought once more of her friend Mary.
Definitely one of those grown up things.
Chapter 8
Dave Watkins looking in his mirror, and Lee Evans watching from the ARV behind, instantly knew what was about to happen and, unknown to each other, shook their heads in disbelief and said, ‘You’ve got to be joking mate.’
‘What are you going on about?’ Came the voice from the bunk behind and Dave realised he had spoken out loud the words that he’d been thinking. Johnson was leaning forward over Dave’s shoulder and at any second would be able to see the driver’s door mirror. He knew he had to divert his attention away from the mirrors and prevent him from seeing what was going on behind.
‘Look at that tosser’ said Dave, pointing ahead. ‘That idiot trying to squeeze into the gap. Don’t let him in,’ shouted Dave as he banged on the steering wheel and sounded his horn. ‘I fucking hate that, wankers in wagons using the size of their lorries to force their way in. It’s no wonder we have accidents up and down the Motorway every fucking day with drivers like that idiot.’
Johnson looked ahead to see the tanker edging into the nearside lane in anticipation of being diverted off the motorway. ‘What do you expect him to do? He’s got to get off the road, same as us. If you’ve got three lanes of traffic all having to get into one lane you’re bound to get people squeezing in.’ Johnson started to laugh. ‘Looks like I’ll have to bang your head again. Calm down, stop whingeing about the traffic, and just drive the fucking lorry.’
Dave hoped his little rant had done enough to divert the gun mans attention away from the mirror.
The rear window of Chloe’s car was down as far as it would go. It didn’t go all the way down inside the door and there was still about six inches of the glass sticking up. The gap looked impossibly small. Now it was she who was staring in open mouthed silence. Is he really going to do that, she said to herself?
The thought had barely entered her head when she saw the man in black crouch down, put his hands out in front as if he was standing on the edge of a swimming pool and launch himself off the side of the lorry towards the open rear window. Chloe’s Dad had tried hard to get close to the wagon and to match its speed.
It looked so easy when you watched these things on the big screen with the all action hero carrying out impossible feats with daring expertise. In the here and now however, it was a different matter. The gap between the two vehicles was still about five feet and the rear window of Fred’s car slightly behind the fuel tank.
In the wagon, Dave winced. ‘Fuckin hell mate, four out of ten for artistic impression,’ Shit, he hoped he hadn’t said that out loud. A few seconds silence, no movement from behind him. No questions from the bunk. He looked in the mirror again. He’d heard the expression many times before. He’d said it himself on numerous occasions. Now, he fully understood the meaning of ‘heart in the mouth’.
‘Shite,’ he bellowed. He had definitely said that out loud as he felt the gunman begin to move from the bed behind.
Mark Swift might well have been quite an athlete, but he had not tried to dive through the small open window of a family car at twenty five miles an hour before today. It would be fair to say that it did not go exactly as he had envisaged it. In his mind, he had sailed through the air with his torso barely touching the sides and had entered the ‘water’ without barely creating a ripple. The reality was, his head, shoulders and chest, had made it through the opening and his forehead and face rested on the back seat but his pelvis knees and thighs had hit the side of the door with considerable force and knocked the wind out of him. He was now bent double in a pike position with his upper body sprawled on the seat while his lower body and legs dangled outside.