Decay Inevitable

glittered.

“Christ.”

He knelt out of sight. Vernon moved back across Sean’s line of vision and he didn’t see anything else until Vernon was striding back across the ploughed field, sliding a neatly wrapped parcel of white, greaseproof paper into his pocket. Neither the surgeon nor the boy were anywhere to be seen.

Vernon came towards the four-by-four bringing the collars of his coat up around his neck. The wind played with his pony tail. He threw the bat and the briefcase onto the back seat as he settled behind the wheel with a contented sigh.

“Is he all right?” Sean asked.

“Depends what you mean by ‘all right’. Actually, come to think of it, it doesn’t depend on anything. He’s not all right. He’s dead, but he hasn’t quite got the grip of it yet.”

“How do you mean?”

“Look at this place, Sean. Look at the people here. Staggering, blasted shells of people they are. This isn’t living. It’s not life. Is it?”

Yes it is, Sean wanted to say. It might not be what they hoped for, but it’s what they’re dealing with.

Vernon fired the engine. He switched on Radio 3. “I like classical music after a job like this. Calms you down.”

Sean persisted. “What did he give you? What was in that white parcel? Who was that fucking freak you were talking to? Where did he come from?”

Vernon selected first gear and took the Shogun on a slow, bumpy arc away from the field. “Ask me no questions,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper, “I’ll dig you no shallow grave.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN: PIRATES

MORNINGS THEY STRUCK out early, trying to force the cold from their bones. Around midday, they rested for an hour or two, wherever they could find shelter. Come nightfall, exhausted and hungry, they would steal food, smashing the windows of bakers’ shops in villages, and sleep in dilapidated houses, huddled together for warmth.

Though he did not say it, Will was happy for Sadie’s presence. He was grateful for the way she unconsciously geed up both himself and Elisabeth. He was glad too that she acted as a check on his emotions. Had it been just Eli and Will, he might have tried to develop their night-time huddles into something more intimate as the memory of her smell seeped into his. Or he might simply have gone to pieces, happy to rot while his mind tried to cling to the broken images of Catriona.

It had been five days since the bombs went off. They were no nearer finding out who or what had been responsible for the blasts. Will had sent Sadie into a village in the Midlands to see if she could find out some news but she had returned at speed. Someone had tried to follow her, she said. It was best that they took no chances.

“How can it be that Sadie’s drawing this kind of heat?” he asked Elisabeth one night, as Sadie slept.

“She might be imagining it, Will,” Eli suggested. “She was hiding when you found her. She’s probably been frightened by what has happened to me and you. There’s tension in the air. The poor child hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep. She might be imagining it.”

“Possibly,” Will said, unconvinced.

Elisabeth was moving better now. She had taken a battering, but there was no lasting damage. She felt better once they had stolen some fresh clothing from a washing line; the blood on her own shirt had stiffened to a dark red crust. She looked good in the new clothes. Her pallor might almost have been of her own design. Her beauty was fragile, non-committal. Brittle as porcelain.

They were covering around eight to ten miles a day now, Will estimated. They shied away from people, choosing to make their way across country. It was slower, but it meant they were guaranteed passage without scrutiny. The only people they had to dodge were farmers in tractors ploughing their fields or heavy-coated figures taking dogs for a walk.

Good luck paid them a visit when Sadie found a gulley partially shielded by trees. At the bottom ran a disused railway line, great tufts of weed sprouting between the sleepers. It was a joy to walk along the gravel, hidden from view; it created a pocket of silence. It gave them direction and purpose. Occasionally, if they did hear someone approaching, they could clear the track in seconds for the shade of the boughs that dogged the line.

“How far will the line take us, do you think?” Sadie asked.

“It would be nice if it took us to the front door of Sloe Heath,” Will said. “But I doubt it will. Let’s take advantage of it though. Try to walk a bit further than usual today.”

They talked little, but the further they went along the tracks, the more Will’s thoughts turned to what he might find at Sloe Heath. He had no contact name and no understanding of what kind of facility it was. Presumably he wouldn’t be allowed to just walk in and start hunting around for clues. He wondered too if he would see any of the men that had broken into his and Cat’s flat. His palms itched. He hoped so.

Sadie was slowing them down with a series of games. First she had been playing hide and seek, which distressed Elisabeth, and now she was walking along the line, arms outstretched, pretending to be a tightrope walker. Irritated, Will barked at her to catch them up and stop fooling. His charity towards her was lessening by the minute.

“I knew it was a bad idea, bringing you along,” he snapped.

“Will,” Elisabeth said, in a voice that he recognised from their past. It was her stop it now or we’ll have an argument voice.

“Well, it was. We’ve got enough to worry about without playing mum and dad too.”

“Pretend I’m not here,” Sadie retorted. “I don’t need a nanny.”

“What were you doing back there, anyway?” Will stared at her. “What were you doing hiding in that old farmhouse? Where are you from?”

“Never mind.”

“No, come on,” Will persisted. “I want to know. You could be a missing person for all we know. The police could be trying to find you. Which wouldn’t be helpful, let me tell you.”

“What difference would it make? The police are after you anyway. They think you killed your wife.”

Elisabeth stepped between them. “We aren’t getting anywhere. Why don’t we talk while we walk?”

“Elisabeth, she could be, I don’t know, she could be helping them out.”

Elisabeth frowned. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“She might be on their side. She might be – oh, I don’t know.” Will stalked away, angry with his inarticulacy and the lunatic thought that Sadie might somehow be plotting against him. If he was going to do something for Cat, it wasn’t going to happen with his head full of wool. Elisabeth caught up with him.

“What is wrong with you, Will? She’s just a girl. What does it matter where she’s from? If she doesn’t want to talk, she shouldn’t have to. She’s with us. Friends. Let her feel secure for a while. At least until we get where we’re going.”

Will’s eyes were fixed on the horizon, where perspective made the tracks vanish. “I’m sorry, Eli. I’m not myself. I can’t stop it. I feel as though I’m being hollowed out, chipped away. I just want to get there and find out what it is I have to find out.”

Elisabeth rubbed his arm. “You’re harder than this,” she said.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Ten days ago I was sitting in an armchair, wearing a pair of sheepskin slippers, while Catriona read out crossword clues. We were drinking tea. We were being a couple, in any of the million dull ways people are couples. Like we were a couple once. Just getting on with things, quietly.”

Eli pressed her forehead against his shoulder. “I wonder if we should have had children,” she said. “I mean,