hillocks so that it looked like a vast volcanic landscape in miniature; the wire fence that encircled it, with connecting concrete posts, was still in place but heavily twisted and rusted, in some areas split open. They rushed towards a gate, the padlocked chain having been cut open. They entered another similar yard, treading over the ghostly outlines of buildings long since demolished. Through another gate at the far end they emerged onto a side road. Waiting for them was an old, pale- green Commer van; sat behind it was a Volkswagen Beetle. Pipistrelle opened the door of the van and Stephanie helped the young woman up into the seat. The engine spluttered into noisy life.
She slammed the door shut as the van drove off, its wheels giving a tiny squeal as they sought purchase on the icy road surface, and she launched herself into her Beetle, her breath pumping out in clouds as she fumbled with the ignition key. She’d avoided the staff car park tonight. Once locked behind those gates it would have been difficult to get out with the girl. She wondered how Pipistrelle knew about this exit. There was much about him she did not know.
She looked through the side window at the rear of the looming, dark hulk of the squat Art Deco building, sitting there like a malevolent behemoth. She turned the key in the ignition and the car refused to start. Her urgent breathing fogged up the windows, which iced up on contact, pasting a thin diaphanous glaze on the glass. At length the engine exploded into motion. She stuck the car’s heater onto full, knowing even on high they were lukewarm at the best of times, when they worked at all. She had not expected such a sharp frost tonight, and she cursed herself for not having placed something over the windscreen to keep it clear. The windscreen wipers scraped a few channels in the frost. She had no choice, she could not hang around.
Through the fogged screen she saw the twin specks of car headlights in the distance and instinctively knew they were headed for her.
She hit her foot hard on the accelerator, the car taking an infuriatingly long period of time to get moving on the ice. When it did eventually get going it slewed dangerously from side to side until she managed to get it back under control. Then she was off, taking the corner ahead, her heart pumping, her temples throbbing, the sound of coursing blood loud in her ears.
It was her fault, she said over and over to herself; her fault she hadn’t gotten out without being discovered. They should have had plenty of time. It shouldn’t have come to this. She swung the car around corners, determined to lose the car before she headed out to the meeting place arranged with Pipistrelle. She had to be doubly sure she wasn’t being followed.
But to her horror she saw the car’s headlights blazing behind her. It was still some way off but the Volkswagen wasn’t built for speed. Ahead of her the bright moonlight made the frosted road appear as if it were silvery, sweating skin.
‘Come on, you old pile of junk!’ she ordered the car, and it ignored her. She felt the rear tyres swing alarmingly as she rounded another corner, narrowly missing a series of parked cars. Panic welled up within her; she saw a one- way sign and took the street, the wrong way. A brief thought flickered in her mind that she was ordinarily such a law-abiding person. Wouldn’t even throw litter on the ground. Never put a step out of line her entire life. That particular Stephanie was long gone. Too many things had happened. Now it was survival at any cost.
On either side of the car was a stretch of waste ground where once there had stood rows of back-to-back houses, the sad reminders of the bombing during the Blitz, land due for development shortly according to the signs on the wooden fence that encircled the area. She checked the rear-view mirror; she was clear of them, lost them somewhere.
Her attention returned to the road a split second too late for her to slow down to take the bend ahead. She yanked the wheel hard, the car hitting a patch of black ice and spinning wildly in the middle of the road. The Volkswagen mounted a curb and ran headlong into a concrete street lamp. Stephanie Jacobs’ head lurched forward as the front of the car crumpled up like tinfoil. With no seatbelt to protect her she smashed into the windscreen, her world engulfed by a deafening blackness.
The Rover came to a halt beside the wrecked Volkswagen. Petrol was leaking onto the road, as if the car bled away its lifeblood. The windscreen was completely shattered. The front of the car a mangled, unrecognisable lump of distorted metal. Two men exited the Rover. One of them glanced nervously around him but there was no one around.
‘Shit!’ he said. ‘What a fucking mess!’ He wasn’t simply referring to the car. He went over to the Volkswagen, peered through the cracked glass of the heavily dented driver’s door. Stephanie’s head was resting against the wheel, a cat’s cradle of deep gashes, her entire face lathered in blood. ‘Christ, she wouldn’t win any beauty competitions now,’ he said.
The other man came to his side. ‘Is she dead?’ he said dispassionately.
‘She’s moving, Mr Tremain. I reckon she’s only just this side of alive.’
Randall Tremain was angry. So fucking angry. Bitch, he thought. For her to escape on his watch was not what he wanted to hear. He was in danger of slipping down the ranks because of this, unless he could put some of it right. He yanked open the door. ‘Pass me your flashlight, quickly,’ he rasped.
He handed him a heavy-duty metal flashlight from the Rover’s glove compartment. ‘What are we gonna do, Mr Tremain?’ he asked. ‘It’s one hell of a shit hole we’re in now.’
Tremain turned on the flashlight, shone it at Stephanie’s bloodied face. He lifted the torch then brought it down hard on her head, three, four, five times. The sound of splintering bone caused the other man to step back, his face screwed up in horror. Tremain calmly handed the torch back, reached in and took Stephanie’s pulse.
‘Now she’s only just this side of dead,’ he said.
The Rover drove away, its exhaust fumes lingering over the Volkswagen like a sad spirit that whirled in the still air and quietly faded into the chill night.
6
He checked his watch again. She should be here now, he thought, scanning the country road, his breath being pumped out in clouds into the frosty night air. He’d pulled off into the entrance to a farmer’s field, the spot where they’d agreed to meet up. But there was no sign of Stephanie’s Volkswagen.
He took one last glance at his watch. He’d already hung around for half an hour longer than they’d planned. He couldn’t wait any longer. He clambered back into the Commer van and reached under the wheel for the ignition keys. They weren’t there.
The next second there was a screwdriver held at his throat, pressing through the scarf and into his flesh. He gingerly lifted his hands away from the steering wheel.
‘Who are you?’ she said, pushing the screwdriver harder.
He gave a little groan of discomfort. ‘Put it away,’ he said. ‘I don’t mean you any harm.’
‘Are you from Doradus?’
‘Doradus? No, most certainly not!’ he turned his head to look at her. ‘The point of all this is to save you and your babies from him, from anyone who seeks to harm you.’ His voice was slightly muffled by the scarf. ‘Stephanie risked her life to save you. Who knows what’s become of the poor woman. This isn’t helping us; we have to be moving on.’
‘Take off your scarf, let me see you,’ she said.
‘I’d rather not.’
She drove the screwdriver deeper. ‘I’d rather you did,’ she said.
He lifted a reluctant finger, hooked it into the folds of his scarf and peeled it down from his face. His skin was an alarming bubble of growths, like cists, ranging from very small to an inch across. He sat in silence for a while and then pulled the scarf back into place. ‘It’s part of a condition I have to live with. Sunlight doesn’t agree with me. They’re not malignant, yet, but I realise they’re not pretty either.’
