rolling, with a fresh breeze blowing in from the coast. Yet despite the wind, Tyneside was obscured by unnaturally dark clouds which looked suspiciously like smoke.
Veitch had studied the maps intently before they set off, weighing strategies, discarding options. He eventually decided they should head to the Peak District, where they could find enough of a wilderness to lose themselves but would be close enough to several major conurbations if they needed the security of people.
With Shavi driving they sped past Consett, which was still reeling from the terrible deprivations of the eighties, and through the open countryside west of Durham. As they passed the branch road to Bishop Auckland the traffic began to back up.
'Probably an accident,' Church mumbled, leaning forward in his seat so he could peer over the roofs of the cars ahead. A few hundred yards away a blue light flashed relentlessly. The van crept forward a few feet. Shavi wound down the window; exhaust fumes and the stink of petrol wafted in. Above the sound of idling engines, voices carried. 'Is it an accident?' Church asked.
Shavi strained to hear, then shook his head. 'I cannot make out what they are saying.'
The van moved forward again, jerked to a halt as Shavi pulled on the handbrake. Church could see blue uniforms moving around; a few standing in a huddle. There didn't seem any sense of urgency.
'No ambulances. No fire engine.' He wound down his window and hung right out for a moment. 'Can't see any wreckage,' he called back.
Eventually the van had crept forward enough for him to get a clear view. He slammed into his seat, his face concerned. 'It's a police roadblock.'
'They're not going to be doing a traffic census with the country falling apart around them.' Ruth leaned over from the back to see. They were only a few cars away from the checkpoint now.
'I've got a bad feeling about this.' Church glanced in the side mirror. There was a solid queue of cars behind them.
'Why should it be anything to do with us?' Laura said. 'No one even knows we're coming this way.'
'For all we know, there could be blocks on every road south.' Church turned to Shavi. 'When they wave the next car through, don't pull up any further. We'll play it by ear.'
Everyone's attention was focused on two policemen with clipboards who were peering into the cars to check the passengers. Church watched them for a moment; a skittering at the back of his head told him his subconscious had glimpsed something else more important. Slowly he surveyed the scene. At first he saw nothing, but a second sweep picked out a subtle detail that sent ice water running down his spine.
Three policemen stood in a tight group away from the others, watching the proceedings carefully. There seemed nothing untoward about them at first glance until one became aware of the odd way the bright sunlight was striking their skin. It created an odd sheen on the flesh that made it appear like a wax mask.
'Fomorii!' Church hissed. Without drawing attention to himself he carefully indicated the bogus police. 'They've arranged this for us, like the trap they set at Heston services. They're using the report from the Callander cop as a pretence to pull us over.'
One of the policemen with the clipboards was marching towards them, irritated that they hadn't pulled the van forward. He started to gesticulate angrily, then paused as his gaze flickered across the faces framed in the windscreen. He glanced down briefly at his clipboard, then spoke hurriedly in the radio pinned to his breast pocket.
'Shit,' Church muttered.
Shavi didn't wait for instructions. He pounded his foot on the accelerator and thrust the van into gear. There was a screech of tires and the stink of burning rubber as he threw the wheel to one side. The van squealed out of its starting position and hurtled forward. Church braced himself on the dashboard, but everyone in the back was thrown across the floor amidst yells and curses.
Bollards went flying in all directions as the van rattled from side to side. Church had a glimpse of the fake policemen's curiously dispassionate faces as the van whirled by. Voices rose up above the whine of the engine.
'Don't hang about, Shav. Put your foot down,' Laura called out sourly from a heap somewhere in the back.
They sped down the road at ninety, but the sirens which had risen up in the background were growing louder.
'We're not going to outrun them,' Veitch said, glancing over his shoulder.
'I know.' Shavi took one look in his side mirror, then threw the van across the opposite lane in the path of a lorry. Its horn blared. Church and Veitch both swore as they instinctively threw their heads down.
The van missed the lorry by a few inches, bounced over a curb and careened down a B road leading into the heart of the fells. Shavi gunned the engine along the deserted road and didn't let up until they had put a few miles between them and the main road. A village called Eggleston flashed by and the road branched in several directions. Shavi chose the southern route; the police would have to be lucky to follow them immediately. By then the others had just about recovered from the chase.
'You mad fucking bastard!' Veitch looked angry, but there was a note of respect in his voice.
The others in the back were fine, if bruised, but they were all aware their predicament had taken a turn for the worst.
'We're going to have to abandon the van,' Veitch said. 'After that stunt they're going to be looking out for it on every road.'
Laura peered through the rear windows at the landscape, a windswept smudge of greens and browns, patches of firs, areas of dark scrub beyond the fields that lined the road, leading up to the high country in the north. 'Great. We're back in Deliverance country. Where are we going to find another van round here?'
'We aren't.' Veitch motioned for Shavi to pull up a rough side lane which led behind a thick copse. 'We're going to keep well off the roads. All roads.' Aghast, Laura dreaded what was coming. 'We've got plenty of supplies, tents, we can live rough. If we lose ourselves out there, with all the shit that's going down they're not going to have the time or equipment to find us.'
Church nodded thoughtfully. 'It's a good plan.'
'It's a plan,' Laura said in disgust. 'So's lying in the middle of the road until something runs us over! Listen, I'm not a camping kind of girl. What we've done so far, fine. At least there was, you know, civilisation nearby.' She looked back out the windows. 'All I can see are blisters, no bathrooms, cold wind and rain.'
'You'll live,' Veitch said dismissively. He grabbed the books of maps. 'We'll have to use this to navigate. The way I see it, we can pick a good route south from here to the Pennines. They'd have to really want us to come after us.'
'They really want us,' Church said.
They removed all their rucksacks, tents and provisions, shared them out, then drove the van as deep into the copse as it would go. The leaf cover was thick enough to ensure it would take a while for it to be discovered. Sirens wailed across the open landscape as they moved hurriedly south away from the road. They crested a ridge where the wind gusted mercilessly, and then they were in open countryside.
The going was slow. Although Ruth was much recovered, she flagged easily and had to take many long rests, even over the first five miles. The A66, the main east-west route across the north country, appeared in the late afternoon. They waited in the thick vegetation by the roadside for nearly ten minutes until they were sure there was no traffic nearby, and then scurried across, ploughing straight into the fields beyond.
According to the map there were only four villages between them and the next main road ten miles away. The rest of the area was eerily deserted: just fields and trees and the occasional scattered farm. Although they needed to be away from the main thoroughfares, the isolation unnerved them. They knew the old gods were not the only things that had returned with the change that had come over the world; other things best consigned to the realms of myth were loose on the land; some of them frightening, if harmless, others sharp of tooth and claw, with a wild alien intelligence. None of them relished a night in the open countryside. That thought stayed with them as they marched in silence, trying to enjoy the pleasant Birdsong that rang out from the hedgerows and the aroma of wild flowers gently swaying in the field boundaries.
As twilight began to fall they neared the first of the villages marked on the map. Ruth suggested they pitch camp somewhere within the village boundaries, for safety. If they were going to risk a night in the wild, there were plenty of opportunities ahead. She looked ghostly white in the fading light and she had twice headed over to the hedgerow to be sick; the whole journey was taking its toll.
