planning, he was his best man, for Christ's sake! Surely Mark was out there, leading a team looking for him? Unless, he thought bleakly, something had happened to him, too. Maybe he'd joined them at the next pub and been in the van with them?
It was ten past four, Friday afternoon. He tried to imagine what was happening right now. What was Ashley doing? His mother? Was everything still going forward for tomorrow as planned?
He raised his head, so his mouth was up a few precious inches closer to the lid, and shouted, as he did regularly, 'Help! Help me! Help!'
Nothing but numbing silence.
I have to get out.
There was a fizz, then a crackle that for a moment Michael thought was splintering wood, until he heard the familiar hiss of static. Then a disembodied Southern drawl: 'You mean that, what you said, 'bout me being on television?'
'Davey?'
'Hey pal, we just got back - that was a real wreck, boy! You didn't want to be in that automobile, I tell you. Took 'em two hours to cut the driver out, he was in pretty bad shape. Better shape than the woman in the other car, though, you know what I'm saying?'
'Yes I do,' Michael said, trying the tack of humouring him.
'Not sure about that. I'm saying she's dead. Y'all understand?'
'Dead? Yes, I understand that.'
'You can tell y'know, just by looking, who the dead ones are and who the ones gonna survive are. Not all the time. But wow, I'm tellin' you something!'
'Davey, that wreck you went to on Tuesday night, can you remember how many young men were in it?'
After some moments of silence, Davey said, 'Just counting the
ambulances. Bad accidents you get one ambulance for each person. There was one leaving when we arrived, one still there.'
'Davey, you don't by any chance know the names of the victims?'
Almost instantly, surprising Michael, Davey rattled them off to him. 'Josh Walker, Luke Gearing, Peter Waring, Robert Houlihan.'
'You have a good memory, Davey,' Michael said, trying to encourage him. 'Was there anyone else? Was someone called Mark Warren in that wreck, also?'
Davey laughed. 'Never forget a name. If Mark Warren had been in that wreck, I'd have known about it. Remember every name I ever heard, remember where I heard it, and the time. Ain't ever been a shitload of use.'
'Must have been good for history at school.'
'Mebbe,' he said noncommittally.
Michael fought the temptation to shout at him from sheer frustration. Instead, keeping his patience, he said, 'Do you remember where the accident happened?'
'A26. Two point four miles south of Crowborough.'
Michael felt a ray of hope brightening inside him. 'I don't think I'm very far from there. Can you drive, Davey?'
'You mean like an automobile?'
'Yup, that's exactly what I mean.'
'Guess that would depend on how you define drive.'
Michael closed his eyes for some moments. There had to be some way to connect properly with this character. How? 'Davey, I need help, really badly. Do you like games?'
'You mean like computer games? Yeah! Do you have a Play Station-2?'
'No not here, not actually with me.'
'We could connect online maybe?'
Water slopped into Michael's mouth. He spat it out, panicking. Christ it was rising quickly now. 'Davey, if I give you a phone number, could you dial it for me? I need you to tell someone where I am. Could you get someone on the line while you are talking to me?'
'Houston, we have a problem.'
'Tell me the problem?'
'The phone's in my dad's house, you see. He doesn't know I have this walkie-talkie -1 shouldn't have it. It's our secret.'
'It's OK, I can keep a secret.'
'My dad would be pretty mad at me.'
'Don't you think he'd get even madder if he knew you could have saved my life and you let me die? I think you might be the only person in the world who knows where I am.'
'It's OK, I won't tell anyone.'
