Keeping low and focused on the vibrations, he reached the edge of the park and pushed into the hedging and out the other side, onto the edge of the long, molehill-pocked meadow.
As he ran for the distant curve of the coastal cliff, Lucas realised the shifting of soil and sand and grit in these parts had been whispering a story to him for the past two days. Sometimes the patterns he was chasing were part of a much bigger picture — something he’d been getting shown for maybe hours or days before he truly focused on it.
The sink hole; the way it had opened up, the land dropping down into the cavern below with a sigh that seemed like relief… a release of tension held in check for decades. Something waiting to be resolved; to find its settling point; its resting place.
This had meant something and maybe, if he hadn’t been busy rescuing those stupid teenagers from their own folly, he might have picked it up then and acted sooner. It wasn’t that dowsing foretold the future — he was no clairvoyant — but it did sometimes give him a warning. The patterns of frequency, the whirls and lines of fourth-dimensional energy, the almost audible hum and crackle of it all… these suggested the shape of things to come, like weather forecasts on the radio. If you were paying attention — and properly tuned in — you could learn a lot; plot a better course across the hours ahead.
But he had been obsessing about Kate… and then getting distracted by sex. Not until this morning, when Sid had conveyed the sense of more land slipping, away to the south east where he knew Kate was, had he started to wake up.
Now, as he chased after the killer of at least three people, it all connected up. The slip and the slide and the dizzying panic. Was it just inside him? Or was he properly tuned in now? He could just make out a distant figure, maybe a half kilometre away — a blurred shadow on the cliff edge. As the sky darkened it was getting harder to see. It might have been a scarecrow or even a footpath signpost, but Sid was certain this was their quarry. Lucas ran on, trying to ignore the sharpening pain in his knee, which had been comprehensively injured and rebuilt within the last few months.
He hoped Kate had called in backup from the police. Despite her fear of being grounded when she most needed to run to her friends’ rescue, he did not want her anywhere near this guy. Because he was also picking up an almost pyrexial level of madness in the streams of energy billowing back through the air between them. He could sense there would be little point in reasoning. Kate was capable, highly trained and fit, but there was some terrifying instability crouching on that cliff — both human and mineral.
His phone went off in his back pocket, and he snatched it out and picked up the call from Kate.
‘It’s the bunker!’ she yelled, between tearing gasps, running as hard as he was. ‘The last bunker of three. Are you there?’
‘I’m on my way!’ he gasped back. ‘Kate — stop! Don’t go any further!’
‘I can’t stop! Get there, Lucas! Just get there!’ The call ended and he knew there was no hope — or time — to change her direction and her velocity. He felt like he was already witnessing a car crash.
As soon as he opened his eyes to see the young man leaning over him in horror, Barney recognised the fair hair and the well-defined features. ‘You’re Francis… Kate’s brother,’ he burbled, on his back in the grass verge on the opposite side of the road.
‘How do you know Kate?’ demanded Francis. ‘Are you stalking her? Are you planning to murder her?’
‘What?’ Barney sat up with a wince and said. ‘No, of course not! I just wanted to show her my tattoo!’
‘You what?’ Francis stared down at him, pale and shaken.
Barney pulled up the sleeve of his silver shirt and showed Francis the calligraphic black wording encircling his pronounced bicep with a Celtic bracelet design. It read: You are always enough.
Francis hunkered down and read the words, screwing his face up in confusion. ‘What has this got to do with my sister?’
‘It’s what she said to me, seven years ago,’ Barney explained. ‘Um… can we get in your car and park up, and I’ll explain? I’m a bit visible here and I think the police might be after me for Julie’s murder.’
‘Did you murder her?’ demanded Francis, narrowing his eyes and clenching his fists.
‘No. But I’m the pikey in the caravan.’
Francis considered this and nodded. ‘Yep — see your point.’ He glanced around warily, clearly considering whether he should yell for help. Then he looked back at Barney and seemed to properly read his expression. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Get in.’
Barney threw the unicycle in the back seat, wincing at the pain in his elbow, which had taken the brunt of the fall. He’d rolled pretty well but a sideways shunt with a Ford Capri would test even Charlie Chaplin.
‘Are you… injured?’ asked Francis, as he jerkily engaged first gear and drove fifty metres or so along the road to a leafy lay-by, out of sight of the Buntin’s camp gate.
‘I’ll be OK,’ Barney said. ‘I know how to fall.’
‘I wasn’t intending to run you down,’ Francis went on. ‘It’s just the clutch is a bit slippy.’
‘OK. I believe you.’
‘So… I’ve got to go… but what about this tattoo… and what Kate said?’ asked
