The older man beside Pete nodded. “Let the other lads focus on cars. I don’t want the army knocking on my door. Get out there and find me somewhere secluded; somewhere that’s big enough to stash cars and machinery and that has plenty of space for people to sleep.”
Pete stared at Harry. He was talking about kidnapping people as if it was completely normal. It was all Pete’s fault.
“Pete,” Harry said. “Go with him.”
He looked up dazed.
“You heard me. Go with Ian. We can’t stay here forever. We need to organise. Did you hear that lads?”
The others mumbled and nodded.
“Good. Get out. You all have work to do.”
Pete’s first reaction was pride: he was back in Harry’s good books. That feeling soon turned to shame. Had he not seen enough to turn him off this life for good? He felt sick to his stomach.
“Davy,” Harry said, coughing. “Go after Zane and his lot. I want another car on the road just in case…” he stopped and the room fell silent. “Freeman, didn’t I tell you to do something?”
Pete’s heart hammered as he dashed out the door after Ian.
36. Clive
Clive watched the girl. He’d been so busy congratulating himself on securing several months’ worth of pills for Olivia that it had taken him a while to notice the atmosphere in the car.
He hadn’t seen her this jumpy, not even when they were bumping across that vacant land at the back of the scrapyard.
“What is it?” he asked. “Is something wrong?”
She glanced back at him over her shoulder and shook her head. He wished she’d keep her eyes on the road—it was narrow and winding and needed all of one’s concentration, but he didn’t say anything.
“It’s nothing,” she said.
“It can’t be nothing. You’re gripping that wheel like you’re trying to squeeze the life out of it.”
She sighed heavily. “That place gave me the creeps. Thorndale. It was so deserted, but then I smelled coal.”
“Lucky people. If I’d had a fireplace in the flat I’d never have left,” Terry said.
“I’m not talking about how lucky they are,” she snapped. “I’m saying it’s weird. There were obviously people there, so why didn’t they try and stop us?”
“Maybe they were afraid to.”
She laughed wildly. “Afraid? Afraid of a scrawny teenager and a bunch of old people who’d look more at home in a nursing home?”
“Thanks a lot,” Terry mumbled, looking daggers at the back of her head. The car had none of the modern comforts like headrests or power steering.
Clive couldn’t help but laugh, even though it was uncomfortable to imagine them from an outsider’s perspective. Was that how they really looked?
It was Annie who spoke. “That’s no good. We’re going to have to make ourselves seem more formidable.”
“How are we gonna do that? Do you want me to take off my t-shirt and draw a six-pack on with false tan?”
Annie wrinkled her nose, though the smile in her eyes was evident. “Please don’t.”
“Well, how then?”
“I don’t know. We need to look less like targets; Si said we look like easy targets.”
“That’s because she’s young. Anyone over the age of twenty-five is going to seem ancient to her.”
“I’m right here,” Si interrupted, her face thunderous. “And can you lot stop joking around? There was something weird about that place.”
The others shrugged. Maybe it was everything that had already happened that day that meant they were no longer capable of getting worked up. Clive didn’t know.
“Yes, I suppose it was eerie, but we’re out of there now.” They were about halfway back to the motorway, going back the way they’d come. “Do you know where you’re going?”
Si’s shoulders were still tensed up. “I suppose. Back to the motorway and north.”
He sighed. It had been one thing after another since they’d left that dairy truck, which was now little more than a distant memory even though it had only been a few hours. They hadn’t even had a chance to discuss everything that had happened. And yet, even though the horror of being locked in a burning building was clinging to him like a weight and making it hard to breathe, he didn’t blame the girl. Not after what she’d told them; not after the horror of hearing that big engine screaming around after them. He reached for Olivia’s hand. She was staring blankly out the windscreen in front of her. He had no way of predicting how the events of the day would affect her long term, but perhaps the tranquillity of a farm would help.
“Yes, the north,” he muttered. “Where it’s hopefully safe.”
Si snorted. “We have a long way to go yet.”
“Yes, but that’s made far easier now that we have a car. How much fuel do you have in this old thing?” He frowned. Maybe he was losing his edge. It should have been the first thing he thought of.
“Enough,” she said.
“What does the fuel gauge say?”
She laughed. “It says empty. It always says that. It also says we’re going ten miles an hour.”
“You realise that we’ll find ourselves in trouble if we run out of fuel.”
She turned around. “No shit. You asked me what the fuel gauge said. I told you. I said we have enough. I should know, I put twenty litres in it last week.”
“Oh.” He sat back. He was exhausted, but he fought it. They were far from safe, no matter how much his body protested.
He looked around at the others. Terry had fallen asleep. He couldn’t see Annie’s face, but judging by the way she was slumped in front of him, there was a good chance she was dozing too. Olivia’s eyes were open, but only she knew what was going on behind them. He hoped the pills were giving her some relief.
Clive’s eyelids drooped despite his best efforts to stay awake. He dozed off for a few seconds at most, starting awake when his vision filled with a wall of petrol-fuelled flames. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself.
“If you’d poured fuel around the door we’d never have gotten out.” It was something that had been plaguing his mind all day, no matter how much he tried to brush it aside.
She shrugged. This time she didn’t turn around, which he was grateful for. “I had to make sure I had time to find out where Max was. It would have been pointless otherwise. I left that wall clear and poured the petrol around the other three.”
He shook his head. “There was so much room for error. You could have hurt yourself before anyone came.”
“So?” Her voice was flat. “I did what I could with the tools I had around me, alright? This isn’t some school project. I don’t care if it was a C effort or a messy job…” she sighed. “I’m sorry you got involved in it, believe me. If you hadn’t turned up, I could be on the way to Max by now. Not going off in the opposite direction.”
Clive looked out the window. They were making good progress now they’d gotten on the motorway, but he was wary of the fact that they’d have to pass the outskirts of various large towns and cities before they hit Yorkshire. It would only take one roadblock to cancel out all the progress they had made. “Do you have any idea of who they were or where they might have taken him?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’d never seen them before. Four of them. They had shotguns. Rough. You know.” She took one hand off the wheel and waved it around as if searching for the right word. “Common, I suppose. Though people might say that about me too.”
He watched her as she drove in silence. When she wasn’t looking back the wrong way and scaring the life out of him, she was a meticulous driver, watching her side and rearview mirrors compulsively before her eyes darted back to the road in front. “What were you going to do then?” He cleared his throat. “If those men were working for some sort of gang—which seems likely—you’d have had to go in there without weapons.”