Sean stepped in close to him, moving suddenly enough to make Sam jerk back in the seat. “Just make sure you look out for her,” he said with quiet intensity.
Sam swallowed and flipped his visor down so he didn’t have to reply. He toed the bike into gear, circling out of the car park with a roar.
“Well, that was mildly embarrassing,” I said lightly, watching him go.
Sean smiled at me and there was a hint of smugness to it. “Sometimes you’ve just got to reinforce who’s top dog.”
“Top dog?” I repeated in disgust. “You two were practically sniffing each other’s bollocks. I expected one of you to start humping my leg at any moment.”
Sean’s smile widened into a proper grin. “Charlie,” he said, “I’d hump your leg any time.”
“Try it,” I said sweetly, “and I’ll have you straight down to the vet’s.”
“Damn, but you’re a hard woman.”
***
The wake for Slick Grannell was held in a long sloping field behind the barn workshop belonging to Gleet, out in the wilds. When Sam explained the format I was expecting something rather cheesy. In the event it was a thoroughly pagan affair, heartfelt and strangely moving.
The field, cut and cleared for hay, was stubble under foot. Someone had gathered a huge stack of dead branches and old pallets for a bonfire at the top end to rival anything put together on Guy Fawkes’ night. Perched on top, in a bizarre piece of symbolism, was Slick’s disfigured Shoei helmet and his gloves.
The music was mainly rock ballads, played at volume through a pair of Marshall stacks that had been dragged just inside the gateway on extension leads from the barn. Lots of raw-throated songs about crashing and burning and dying young.
Gleet, so Sam informed us when he swung by to collect me, was big on the custom bike scene. His family had been farmers but Gleet left the running of the farm to his sister, a sour big-boned woman who trudged silently round the place like a resentful ghost. Gleet turned his back on the day-to-day drudgery and instead, in the barn behind the house, he devoted his time to building show-winning creations that were masterpieces of steel and paint.
It was probably as much out of respect for Gleet as for Slick that the attendance for the wake was so high. There must have been over a hundred bikers turned up. Their machines clogged the yard outside the barn and ended up slotted in rows across the end of the field. Everything from the latest MV Agustas to tatty old rat bikes. My Suzuki and Sam’s Norton were safely swallowed up in the crowd. We grabbed bottles of beer from one of the overflowing barrels next to the hedge and did our best to mingle with the others.
The hot sultry weather had taken on a sudden glowering edge, like it was spoiling for a fight. The shock of the early evening sunlight on the brilliant greens of the far tree-line was startling against a gunmetal gathering sky. It was heavy enough for thunder and I began to wish I’d remembered to pick up my waterproofs when I was at the cottage.
They lit the bonfire just after eight. Gleet himself walked up the hill from the barn carrying a flaming torch, with Tess by his side. She had forsaken the scrunchie and had her thin flat hair down around her face. Over a shapeless black dress she was wearing a scuffed leather bike jacket that was much too big for her. I recognised it as Slick’s.
Trotting by her side, stumbling over the stubbly ground, was an extraordinarily beautiful blonde-haired toddler of about four. She clutched tight to Tess’s hand and stared at the apparitions around her with her eyes big and wide and her thumb in her mouth.
“Slick’s daughter,” Sam muttered to me.
I remembered Jamie saying Tess had a kid. My only brief recollections of Slick were of a cocky womaniser, not a family man. I wondered how Tess felt, sitting at home with the baby while he was out on the prowl. And suddenly I could understand her bitter anger towards Clare. Whether there’d been anything actually going on between her and Slick was beside the point. It was enough that Clare had been the one who was with him at the time of the accident.
The bonfire grabbed instantly at the flames when Gleet dipped the torch against the dry timbers. He walked right round the stack so it caught evenly from all sides and went up with artificially accelerated momentum.
Within a few minutes the flames were dancing round the helmet on the top of the pile. I moved in a little closer and watched the visor twist and buckle and blacken in the heat. Someone turned off the music mid-chord and then all you could hear was the crackle of the fire.
“You all know why we’re here,” Gleet said then, his deep voice loud enough to boom and carry across the field. “We all knew Slick. Some of us are probably going to his funeral next week.” He nodded to Tess and took a swig from the bottle of beer he was holding. “But some bloody vicar who never knew him, mouthing a few meaningless phrases don’t mean jack shit to us, his mates. So we’re here to give him a proper send off and to tell it like it is!”
He glared at the people who’d bunched up close around the fire. They stared back in silence. The little girl was now clinging to Tess’s leg, hiding her face from the heat of the flames. Tess reached down and hoisted the child onto her hip, never taking her eyes off Gleet.
“Me, I knew Slick for ten years. Since he built his first bike and came begging a welding rig he’d no idea how to use,” Gleet said. He shook his head sadly and smiled. “The daft bastard. Blew so many holes in the frame he was trying to repair, it was fit for scrap by the time he was done.”
The crowd let out its collective breath, almost a sigh, the surface tension broken.
Gleet raised his beer bottle and took another gulp. “He was loud and flash and he was mouthy, but if you needed a lift with something, Slick was the first to volunteer. He was a good mate to me.” He glanced at Tess for the first time, meeting and holding her gaze. “And I know he thought the world of you, Tess, and little Ashley,” he went on, gruff. “And if there’s anything I can ever do to help you, you know you’ve only got to shout.”
There was a general murmur at this sentiment. Gleet necked the rest of his drink in one long swallow and turned away before she had time to react to that one. Telling. Either he didn’t really mean it, or he meant it too much for his own comfort.
