Andy Gunton could scarcely move. His neck was in a collar, his right arm in plaster. He was on a mattress which was supposed to ease the pain of his leg and his bruised back but he wondered how much difference it made.
He couldn’t do anything much. Only think.
Michelle had been in twice and harangued him in such a shrill voice they had asked her to go. No one else, apart from the police. He hadn’t been fit to talk to them, but they’d be back. He wasn’t complaining though, he knew he was lucky to be alive. Had Lee Carter meant him to be alive? The van had run at him, blinding him with its headlights at the same time as it headed fast out of nowhere towards him. One minute he’d been walking home from the airfield, the next rolling in agony in the deep ditch beside the black lane. He remembered little else … just a blur of noise and lights and pain, and the desperate need to stop anyone moving him. Then he had woken up in A & E.
The message had come as usual via a text. Brrtts Lane 2am.
He wasn’t going. How could he? He’d been caught, he’d talked to the police. He was in a sweat already. But Pete had made it plain that if more money in envelopes through the post was not forthcoming he was out on the street. He meant it. The police would be watching him round the clock. They’d want him to lead them to bigger fish, they’d be watching and waiting, laying a trap.
No, he wasn’t going to do another Carter job. Not till he woke up at one o’clock and lay there wondering what would happen if he didn’t. When it occurred to him that they might come here, he shot out of bed and began pulling on his jeans and sweater. It was a cold night. Matt was lying on his stomach, one foot sticking out from under the duvet. Andy lifted it and shoved it back. The foot was freezing. He hesitated but his nephew merely groaned slightly.
Barrett’s Lane was not far away. He didn’t mind the walking at night. It was keeping him fit, but it was so cold that a half-mile was pleasanter than two or three. The lane was a snicket between the backs of some old, dilapidated houses and he saw the car waiting as soon as he turned into it. It was a black Ford Focus and he didn’t know the driver who started the engine as soon as Andy came towards him and accelerated away before he’d properly climbed in and got the door closed.
‘Watch it, I nearly fell out.’
Silence. Andy looked sideways. He was a handsome lad with a shaved head and four rings in one ear. He drove fast, screaming the wheels on every corner and said nothing at all the whole way to the airfield. Once there he had driven to the hangar. ‘Out.’ Andy got out. The Focus screeched off. The airfield was silent, deserted, so far as he could make out, freezing cold and pitch black. He huddled into the lee of the hangar but the wind found him out. He edged round the other side, turning up his collar. His hands were stiff with cold. On this side it was worse, the wind coming straight towards him. He waited. Waited for maybe almost an hour. He was so cold he couldn’t think and he felt sick. In the end, he walked across the airfield and back, jogged a bit on the spot and then made for the gateway. Nobody was coming. Lee Carter had been taking the piss. Probably he could see him from some satellite, could track him the five and a half miles home through the freezing night and laugh about it.
He had turned out into the lane and was jogging along it. Then there had been the headlights and the van heading for him and the crack of pain and terror as it hit.
*
Whenever he closed his eyes he had a rerun of it.
The doctors had seen him again that morning. His arm would heal fine, though they told him his bruising would get more painful before it got less. They had been watching for concussion but decided he had none. Tomorrow morning someone would take him down to X-ray and if his neck was OK he’d only need to be in another couple of days.
He wanted it to be a week or a month. He felt safe, warm and quiet and away from both his sister and Lee Carter. He wondered if he would be allowed back to Michelle’s and if not where else he could go.
A woman in a green tunic came into the cubicle with a trolley of magazines and sweets. He wanted a bar of chocolate but he had no money. He’d gone out without any that night and he couldn’t ask Michelle.
‘Thanks,’ he said, ‘nothing.’ And gave the green woman his sweetest smile.
‘Afternoon.’
Nathan jumped-up bloody Coates and a sidekick with one of those weird, pencil-line beards. Must be like doing dot-to-dot trying to shave round that.
Sidekick looked fed up and didn’t say anything. Nathan Coates pulled up the visitor’s chair.
‘Feelin’ better?’
‘Yeah, great.’
Nathan grinned. ‘You was lucky, mate.’
‘I’m not your mate, Coates.’
‘Don’t suppose you feel lucky either.’
‘Can you lend me a quid?’
‘What for?’
‘I fancied a bar of chocolate from the trolley only I got no money.’
‘Go on then …’ Nathan took some change out of his pocket. ‘Get a couple of Mars bars, Bevin.’ Sidekick caught the money and wandered off.
‘I owe you.’
‘You bloody do. OK, Andy, you was in no fit state to answer questions before. Let’s have another go. What happened?’
‘I was run over.’
‘Who by?’
‘Couldn’t see.’
‘Just like that – you was walking along a country lane near an airfield at three o’clock in the morning by yourself, out for a stroll, and blow me, car comes and runs you over. Come on, don’t mess me about.’
‘He shone his headlights into my face. How could I see who it was?’
‘Could have been a she then.’
‘Yeah, right.’
‘What sort of car?’
‘Van.’
‘What sort of van?’
‘Couldn’t see.’
‘But you saw it was a van?’
‘It was big … bigger than a car.’
‘What were you doing?’
‘How do you mean?’
Nathan sighed. Sidekick came back with the Mars bars and handed them over. Nathan scooped both into his pocket.
‘Here –’
‘You give me some straight answers, I’ll give you the Mars. Right. You’re already in a mess, aren’t you? Let’s see what you can do to get yourself out of it. Who sent you down to the airfield this time? What kind of car was you picking up?’
‘I wasn’t. I got a text telling me to go down to Barrett’s Lane, two o’clock. I’d be met.’
‘And were you?’
‘Yeah and I don’t know who he was, I never seen him before. Black Ford Focus.’
‘And?’
‘Drove to the airfield. He dropped me by the hangars. Told me to wait, then he drove off. I waited … waited till me balls was frozen off just about. No one was there, no one came. I started to walk home. I was walking up the lane when this van come out of nowhere straight at me. Had me in the ditch. I don’t remember any more till I woke up in A & E. Don’t even remember much of that. Can I have me chocolate?’
Nathan hesitated, then threw it on to the bed. It was out of Andy Gunton’s reach. But he did not protest. It was as if the stuffing suddenly went out of him. He sank back looking exhausted and tried to turn his face to look out of the slab of sky.
Nathan reached over, opened up the Mars bar and handed it to him.
‘Thanks,’ Andy said dully.
‘OK, you sure that’s it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Nothing else at all?’
‘No.’
‘Do you think it was Lee Carter drove at you?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because he wouldn’t do it himself, would he? Be tucked up in bed. He don’t get his hands dirty these days, pays other people to do that.’
‘Right – people like you. You’re a bleedin’ idiot, Andy. You had your chance. What got into you?’
‘You got no idea, have you? None of you. I was trained, I was getting a good job in market gardening, I was straight, I was clean, I had it all sorted. Only there ain’t no good jobs … it ain’t like you plan or like you want.’
‘And then you bump into Lee Carter.’
‘Right.’
‘And everything goes out of your stupid head.’
Andy looked at him. If he had not ached everywhere, if his arm wasn’t hurting, if he hadn’t felt so crap, he’d have yelled into smug Coates’s mushed-up face. But he hadn’t the energy and where would it get him?
‘Everything,’ he said.
Nathan Coates stood up. ‘That’ll do. When you out of here?’
‘Couple of days.’
‘Back to your Michelle’s?’
‘She’s thinking about it.’
‘Where else is there?’
‘Shop doorway.’
‘Your probation officer can sort something, that’s what he’s for.’
‘She. Nothing doin’.’
‘They won’t let you sleep on the street.’
‘Don’t hold your breath.’
‘Come on,’ Nathan said to sidekick. ‘Here.’ He threw the second Mars bar on to Andy Gunton’s bed. ‘On the house.’
Andy watched them go out of the cubicle. Sidekick’s shoes squeaked.
It occurred to him that something Nathan Coates had said, or maybe behind what he had said, had been a hint. He was hinting at a chance – and it would be a last one too, Andy knew that. Not that Nathan had power to give him anything but he could speak to people who had and what he had to do now was decide. He’d decided before, in prison, and it had all gone wrong though he couldn’t quite work out how, it had happened too quickly, almost while his back was turned. Now he might have a chance to decide again and see it through. Somehow he had to avoid Lee Carter and anyone to do with him. Somehow he had to get away from Michelle’s. Somehow he had to get a job, preferably one he was trained for but to start with, any job. Somehow … You had to feel strong to see that sort of thing through and he wasn’t feeling strong. When Carter found out that he hadn’t been killed by the van he could be in danger again too.
A nurse came in. The plain one with the weird hair like his mother used to have, in flat waves. Her front teeth rested on her bottom lip, like rabbits’ teeth.
‘Now Andy, let’s have a look at this dressing, see if we can’t get it off you for good.’