And then she was whirled around by the handsome black dude on stage with her and Lucas had taken the only sensible course of action. He’d fucked right off out of there. At speed. He just hoped he’d done it fast enough to deny her the chance of a second look. With any luck she would think she was mistaken; that she’d only seen some guy who looked a bit like him. His long, straggly dark hair and short beard combo… kind of hipster meets biker… was quite in vogue at the moment. Loads of guys probably looked like him. In fact, even as he’d pushed out of the double doors of the lobby, he’d nearly barged right into another guy who looked quite like him - dark curly hair, jeans and T-shirt, designer stubble. Very fit. Fitter than he was, probably.
He stopped himself checking the guy out before he could get caught erroneously on gaydar and all but ran back to Hugh (as he liked to call the Triumph Bonneville). Because he must not be here a moment longer. Kate must NEVER know he had dropped in and seen her. He guessed she was here on holiday, although he would never have pegged her for a Buntin’s Holiday Village punter. Still… with a bunch of friends he guessed it was a fun, cheap weekend away. And it had looked like she was there with a bunch of friends. She clearly knew the man and the woman on stage with her, and there were others, whooping and cheering them along. It seemed odd to think of Kate with normal, party-animal mates.
It seemed odder still that he had, once again, inadvertently dowsed his way back into her world. Still, at least it wasn’t a crime scene this time. But as he unchained his helmet from the rear wheel and dug his gloves out of his backpack, a tide of goosebumps was washing over him. Because this was a crime scene, wasn’t it? That guy — Martin — had not killed himself. Someone else had.
There was some commotion across the well-lit car park and he realised, with a belt of shock, that Kate had come after him. For a few seconds he froze, his mind in free fall. He couldn’t see her amid the tangle of pissed-up mates threading their way through the cars, but he sensed her with too much intensity to be mistaken. He could make out the handsome black dude too, among the knot of six or seven people.
Then he realised, with relief, that they were not coming his way. They stopped at an old, mustard yellow… what..? Was that a Ford Capri? Yes. Someone had actually paid for a Ford Capri and driven it off on holiday. They were all crowding around it and he wondered if he should just walk over, introduce himself, and inform Kate that they were doing it again: meeting under the shadow of death.
The Capri started up reluctantly and then backfired, causing some shrieks and shouts of hilarity. No. He and his gothic warnings did not belong here, regardless of what Sid was trying to get him into. This wasn’t even her patch — it was a couple of hundred miles away from Wiltshire. She really didn’t need some dark sentinel looming up like something out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and suggesting there was another unsolved murder case they needed to see to. He could already hear her response. Words of only one syllable. Or maybe a high kick to the solar plexus. Which, in those high-heeled boots, was going to hurt.
‘Oh no, Sid’ he said, pulling on his helmet as the party of friends locked up the car and wandered off towards the rows of whitewashed chalets. ‘Oh no no no. We are leaving right now.’
Barney had always felt like this. Forever on the outside. Going to the bar had been a bad move. He had watched the friends from the shadows, nursing a vodka and Coke and trying not to look weird. Even after all this time, he still couldn’t locate normal.
He remembered the black guy well… Bill, his name was. Tall and loud and a good singer, he and Talia were belting out a Stevie Wonder track up on the small stage and Bill was strutting around, getting a lot of attention from everyone in the room, of course. He’d been just the same seven years ago. Back then, Bill had been the one who’d called him a pikey. Right to his face with a grin, like it was a joke they were both sharing. Barney had smiled back and not responded. That was the way he’d been taught. She had insisted on that. ‘Never rise to it, Barney — never give them the satisfaction.’
‘Bill, you bloody bigot!’ That was the girl called Nikki, her shrill Welsh voice rising through his memory. ‘You’re in the bloody 21st century - not the 1970s! Apologise right now!’
‘Ah, Barney don’t mind, do ya, pal?’ Bill had said, smacking him hard on the shoulder.
He hadn’t said anything. He wasn’t a pikey, anyway. He’d spent a fair bit of time with travellers — proper travellers like the Jericho fair that he’d toured with for a couple of years when he was in his late teens. He should have felt more comfortable with them, but as his mother had gone to brick before
