Seventeen
After everything I’d been through to get myself onto the Irish trip in the first place, I damned near missed the ferry.
I dithered over packing, even though I learned to travel light when I was in the army. Having to carry everything and still keep up with the blokes soon makes you drop out the unessentials. Besides, it was a bikers’ run, for heaven’s sake, not a garden party – how posh could it be? I put my washbag, first-aid kit, and anything hard into the squashy bag that clipped magnetically to the bike’s tank, and packed spare clothing into my old rucksack.
I wasn’t planning on coming off the ‘Blade, but if I did it was better not to have anything on me that was going to make the accident worse. A mate once made the mistake of carrying his tools in a backpack and, although having some dozy old bastard in a Volvo knock him off was bad enough, then getting his left kidney punctured by one of his own screwdrivers merely added injury to insult.
Traffic was heavy and obstructive. To cap it all, just when I needed to make up a bit of time I ended up in a group of cars on the motorway who were all travelling at exactly sixty-nine miles an hour because one of them was a jam sandwich being driven by a policeman with a warped sense of humour.
The end result was that I came howling into the Port of Heysham with barely fifteen minutes to spare before they would have told me to take a hike. I gave my name at the barrier and found that, true to his word, William had sorted my ticket.
They whizzed me straight through and onto the fast cat ferry that was standing at the dockside. I watched the deck crew strap the ‘Blade down, then headed for the stairwell to the passenger lounges. I found myself hoping that the rest of the Devil’s Bridge crowd were already on board, or I’d no idea where I was going once I reached the other side.
Inside, the catamaran had a wide open-plan restaurant across the centre bridgedeck area with a bar upstairs and rows of aircraft-type seating at either side.
The place seemed to be teeming with bikers. I did a quick tour but couldn’t see anyone familiar. A couple of times, though, I could have sworn someone was watching me. But when I turned round to scan the crowd, I couldn’t see anyone paying me particular attention. Nevertheless, it made me twitchy. By the time I went out onto the small section of outside deck I was starting to get worried. It was there I found Paxo.
He was leaning on the aft railing, his leathers stripped to his waist to take full advantage of the syrupy heat. Underneath, he was wearing a white vest that was already stained with sweat and his exposed shoulders had the pink tinge of sunburn to them that was going to sting in the morning. He had a crumpled packet of Lambert & Butler clutched in his hand like a talisman. I moved alongside him.
“Hi,” I said. “Where is everyone?”
He jerked his head towards the heavily tinted windows immediately behind us. “First Class lounge. William pulled some strings,” he said, adding sourly, “The rest of ‘em are in there but it’s no smoking.”
He gave me a look of resentment but I couldn’t work out if I was to blame or it was just brought on by the prospect of a lack of nicotine in his system for four hours. Or possibly both.
The last stragglers were loaded onto the car deck beneath us and the ramp was winched up like a drawbridge. There was a sign on the rail next to me that announced we were about to cross an area of special ecological interest and to do our bit not to pollute it by throwing any rubbish over the side. Then the captain eased us away from our berth and the whole view of the harbour disappeared in a belching cloud of black diesel smoke. It almost, but not quite, managed to obscure the slab-sided concrete monstrosity that is the nuclear power station next door.
Coughing, we both retreated inside and Paxo led the way through the opaque glass door into the First Class area. It was a sizeable room with windows on two sides. One of the cabin crew smiled at him and said, “You found her, then?”
Paxo scowled back, as though it was some sign of weakness to admit he might have been looking out for me.
There were sets of tables for four all round the walls and one larger table in the centre. William and Jamie had taken that over, spilling luggage and helmets into the surrounding area. The other tables were mostly taken by serious-looking couples who’d clearly been hoping to escape the bike crowd by coming in here and didn’t exactly look overjoyed when I added to their number.
The ferry cleared the harbour entrance and the jagged remains of the old wooden pier and the captain opened her up. The deck vibrations under our feet increased to a buzz as the four massive Ruston diesels began to work. Great rooster tails of spray curved up behind the stern, casting our own personal rainbow in the brilliant sunlight.
I stripped off my jacket, unzipping it from my leather jeans and draping it over the back of one of the bolted- down chairs.
“Where’s Daz?” I asked, but caught the quick glance Paxo exchanged with the others. “What? Don’t tell me he’s missed the boat.”
“Oh no, he’s not done that,” Paxo said darkly, and his tone indicated that he thought it might be better if Daz
Before I could ask any questions, the door to the lounge opened and Daz himself sauntered through, looking cool and handsome in his snazzy race leathers. He had that faint half-smile on his face, as though life was one big joke and he was in on it. In this case, perhaps he was right.
Behind him, also dressed in bike gear, was Tess.
I stared at her blankly, then skimmed my eyes across the veiled faces of the rest of the Devil’s Bridge Club and straight away I understood Paxo’s comment. Daz had not, I surmised, told the others that he was bringing Slick’s widow with him. After all the arguments, I could understand their anger at this sudden apparently about-face decision.
Tess smiled brightly at the group of us, seemingly enjoying the discomfort her presence was causing. I suppose it was better than being ignored. Her glee lost a little of its shine when she spotted me, though.
I got the feeling she enjoyed the position of lone female amid a group of men and, from the way her gaze turned calculating, she was trying to work out how much competition I was going to be for their attention. If the way her expression rapidly cleared was anything to go by – not much.
