risk.
Ignoring the irate householder, I vaulted back onto the bike, hitting the run switch and the kick start at the same time. The Suzuki, bless it, fired up first time. Out on the street came the graunch of gears and the harsh whine of the van’s differential spinning up in reverse.
I rammed the bike into gear and launched along the drive, feet trailing. The van reached the mouth of the driveway at almost the same moment I did and I had to swerve across the pavement to evade him. I thumped down off the kerb, taking the wing mirror off a parked car with my elbow as I went. Its alarm started shrieking.
The back of the Transit bore down like a wall as it came storming after me, still locked in reverse. There were cars approaching on the main road and I dived fleetingly on the brakes at the junction. My choice of direction was made entirely on the first gap in traffic that presented itself. Unfortunately, it meant I turned back the way I’d come, away from the safety of home.
As it was, I just made it out in front of a car that had to veer violently to avoid me, braking hard enough to skid. Shit! I ducked my head and risked a quick look in my mirrors as I caned the bike away, thinking at least that should slow the van down a bit.
It didn’t.
The Transit driver never even hesitated. He punched straight out across the main street, T-boning the car that had nearly collided with me and sending it spinning across the road. It bounced up the kerb and into a low garden wall, scattering debris.
By the time I hit that nasty S-bend again on the way out of the village, the van was less than a hundred and fifty metres behind and closing faster than was healthy for me. The road was still slick and the rain had become a steady downpour.
I knew then that I needed a particular kind of help and I needed it fast. And there was only one immediate place I stood a chance of getting it.
***
When I’d ridden the lane up to Gleet’s place with Sam earlier in the evening, I’d done so slowly and with great care, skirting round the larger craters rather than risk buckling a wheel by riding into them. Now the puny beam from the Suzuki’s headlight meant I couldn’t see them in time, in any case.
I stood up on the footpegs to lessen the jarring on my back and kept the throttle hard on, gripping tight with my knees. Even in very low light the Suzuki couldn’t be mistaken for a trail bike but it scrambled gamely over the rough ground. The only protest was the intermittent squealing of the engine as the back wheel bounced, slithered and bit on the loose surface.
As I reached the pair of stone gateposts leading into the farmyard the Transit was around sixty metres behind me. It suddenly occurred to me that I could have made a fatally stupid error of judgement. If Gleet and the rest of the Devil’s Bridge Club decided not to step in, the yard would turn into a dead-end rat trap. My attackers must have thought they couldn’t have planned for a better place to finish what they’d started.
I flicked my eyes away from the mirrors and realised that I was aiming for the side of a barn at a speed not best suited to good health and long life. I hauled on the brake lever and prayed the Suzuki would stay upright on the gravelly surface. The bike skidded slightly, wriggling its body in disgust, but it didn’t let go on me.
There were two sodium lights on, their orange beams crossing in the centre of the yard, misting the rain. It looked different in the dark and I realised I’d missed the gateway to the field where Slick’s wake was being held. I started to swear inside my helmet.
The yard was too small and too overcrowded to play dodgems and hope to get away with it for long. There were half a dozen partly dismantled bikes of various descriptions parked up along the front wall of the barn, next to a rusting Bedford van and a collection of other vehicles that looked as if they might or might not still crank.
But, more importantly, there were no signs of any people.
I knew from experience that the horn on the RGV was a pathetic toot that didn’t even make errant cyclists look round. The only thing I could think of doing was yanking the clutch in and whacking the throttle wide open.
The Suzuki’s two-stroke motor surged round to the redline and sat there, screaming. It was the mechanical equivalent of Faye Wray stuck fast in King Kong’s fist, and just as good at attracting male attention. I winced at the sound and prayed the rev limiter would hold the engine intact.
Faces appeared in the gateway and I shut off instantly. The door to the workshop swung open, spilling light out across the yard, and I saw Gleet’s head appear round it. He made fleeting eye contact, turning to inspect the Transit, which had scraped to a halt just through the gateway. My adversaries sat it there, blocking my escape route. The only sound was our combined engines ticking over and the slap of the van’s wipers across the glass.
Gleet glanced back at me calmly, then disappeared back inside the workshop, letting the door bang shut behind him.
“You bastard!” I muttered under my breath, a bitter taste in my mouth. I would have expanded further on this theme, but at that moment the Transit leapt forwards.
As he came at me I tried to duck round him and head back for the gateway, but the Suzuki’s steering lock at low speed was awful. Unless I got lucky, I knew I wasn’t going to make it back out onto the open road again. And then where did I go?
Instead, I ran the bike down the narrow gap between the old Bedford and the stone wall that bordered the yard, and jumped off onto the top of the wall. Without the stand down, the bike toppled sideways and scraped against the stone, gouging the end of the handlebar and mirror as it did so, and then stalled. On top of the abuse I’d already heaped on the poor thing, I didn’t think a bit more would make much difference one way or the other but it grieved me to let it happen, all the same.
The Transit driver obviously thought seriously about ramming the bulky Bedford to get to me, but even he must have realised that he’d be on to a loser if he tried it.
Instead, he lurched the front corner of his vehicle into part of the dry stone wall further down. The ripple effect caused the whole thing to buckle. A section about five metres long, including the part I was standing on, collapsed as neatly as if the Royal Engineers had laid the charges.
