It was OK, though; the way behind me was clear apart from Spider. Not a trap after all, just a bloke walking along the canal.
We came toward each other in the dark. I wasn’t sure he’d even seen me; he just kept coming toward me in the middle of the path, like he was going to barge straight through me. He was silhouetted against the disk of light at the other end, his features blotted out. As he got nearer, I thought, He’s black, that’s why I can’t see much of his face in here. Then he got within twenty feet or so, and I saw with lurching horror that his face wasn’t black – it was blue.
It was blue and crawling with tattoos.
I swiveled around.
“Run, Spider! Run, run, run, run!”
He caught the terror in my voice, didn’t question me, just turned, and we ran. I could hear Tattoo Face behind me, heavy steps on the crunching gravel, breath rasping in and out of his lungs. It was so narrow in there, our bags were catching on the wall and the railing.
Spider slowed for a second, and I drew level with him. “Ditch the bags, Jem. Leave them there.”
I dropped what I had and he let me get past, then he threw the bags he was carrying back down the tunnel, straight at Tattoo Face. Even as I ran, I could hear the guy grunting, trampling plastic and cans under his feet. We were out into the open air now, belting back along the towpath the way we’d come only a few minutes before. We’d slowed him down with the bags, but not by much. He was a big bugger, but he could shift. I didn’t want to look behind, but I couldn’t help it, and when I looked over my shoulder, he was bearing down on us like a bulldozer.
“Here!” Spider grabbed my arm and hauled me off to the left. We ran down a rough slope until we reached another path, feeding off the main one. It led to a railway bridge: grim black riveted metal covered in graffiti. “Come on!”
We clattered up the steps. As we hurtled across the bridge, a train passed underneath us; must’ve been an express, because it blasted through, filling my ears with the sound of high-speed metal. It masked the noise of Tattoo Face’s footsteps, but as we started to go down the steps on the other side, I could feel the vibration of the bridge as he thundered across. He was right behind us.
The bridge opened onto a street, terraced houses one side, railway the other. Houses meant people – surely he wouldn’t kill us in front of witnesses. Would he? I started yelling, screaming as I ran, “Help! Help us! Call the police! Help us!”
There was no reaction. Either the houses were empty or people, hearing the noise, just sank deeper down into their sofas, turned the TV up a bit louder.
Spider wheeled around. “What you doing? Shut up! We don’t want the police. We just need to get away. Come on!”
“He’s going to kill us, Spider! We need help!” Did a curtain twitch? Was somebody watching us now?
“I’m not going to kill you!” Tattoo Face’s voice rang out along the street. “I just want a nice little chat, kids, that’s all.”
I looked back over my shoulder. The big guy had stopped running. He was standing in the middle of the street, bent forward but looking up at us, hands on his thighs, puffing and blowing. He was struggling to get his breath, but he kept his eyes on us the whole time. Of course, I saw his number. I’d seen it before, at the party. 12112010. Four days before Spider. The same date as the newspaper I’d picked up earlier. Today.
There wasn’t just adrenaline running through me now – this buzz, this awareness, shot through my veins like the first hit of the most powerful drug in the world. What did it mean?
Whatever was going to happen next, Spider would get out of it alive, and Tattoo Face wouldn’t. Of course, I didn’t know about me. Maybe Spider would be the only one to walk away…
Spider and I had stopped running, too. We both faced him in the street and then looked at each other, not sure what to do.
“What do you want?” Spider called out to him.
“You know what I want. You’ve got something that doesn’t belong to you. Something a friend of mine wants back.” The money. “We can talk about it, nice and civilized-like. No need to make a scene of ourselves.” He was walking toward us now, slowly. I could hear the blood thudding in my ears as he kept on coming. Then, to his right, someone opened a door. A middle-aged bloke, holding a big dog by its collar.
“What’s going on? “ he shouted out.
Tattoo Face stopped and turned toward him, held up both his hands. “Nothing. Bit of a domestic, that’s all. My son here’s in a spot of trouble. I just need to help him sort it out. You know what it’s like, don’t you? Kids!”
The guy looked at him, trying to suss him out. “Do I need to call the police?”
Tattoo Face smiled. “No, mate. It’s nothing like that. We’ll sort it out.”
While they were talking, Spider leaned down and whispered, “Back away.” And so, slowly, we edged down the street. Then, as they seemed to be ending their conversation, we turned and started to run again, fast, really fast, legs pumping away like mad.
“Oi!” He was after us again, but we’d got a good start now. We booked down the street. Spider was ripping off his jacket.
“What you doing?”
“Here.” He flung it across the top of the spiked railings to our left, then cupped his hands for me to put my foot into, and almost flung me over. I landed awkwardly, twisting my knee. Spider pulled himself up the other side, crouched on the top, and then jumped down. He grabbed his jacket off the top and helped me up.
“OK?”
I nodded, not wanting to admit how much it hurt.
“Come on, then,” he said, and set off, scrambling down the embankment.
I tried to follow at a run, but it was agony. I dropped down on all fours and sort of scuttled along, taking some of the weight on my hands. Spider looked back.
“What the hell are you doing?” He was down at the bottom of the slope now, by the side of the track.
“I’ve hurt myself. My knee,” I said, wincing as I tried to stand up on it.
“Why didn’t you say?” He started back up toward me, but I heard a thump behind. Tattoo Face was over the fence.
Panicking now, I scrambled toward Spider. He lunged forward at the same time as I was literally lifted into the air, scooped up by a big muscled arm wrapped ’round my waist. There was something cold and hard against my throat. That bastard had pulled a knife.
Spider tumbled forward, then froze, like a sprinter waiting for the gun. “No, no, man. There’s no need for that. Put the knife away. Come on, we can talk. We can talk about this.”
“We don’t need to talk anymore. You need to give me the money, and I’ll let your little friend go.”
Spider got to his feet. Tattoo Face tightened his grip on me. I could hardly breathe. To be honest, I’d been so surprised when he’d grabbed me that I’d just hung there like a doll; now I struggled in his arms, until he dug the blade farther into my neck. “Don’t come any nearer.”
“No, no, it’s cool.” Spider backed away. He was down on the tracks again.
“Spider, just give him the money.” My voice didn’t sound like mine.
He looked at me for a second, his face a picture of agony.
“I can’t, Jem. This is our future. You and me. This is a hotel room and a big double bed. It’s a pint or two in the pub, and fish and chips on the pier. How can we have that, how can we have all that, without any money?”
I had a big lump in my throat. He’d got this all in his head, what he wanted for us. Christ, it wasn’t much, was it? But we’d never have it. We’d never have even that. I started to cry. They were hot tears of frustration and longing, tears of hatred for the ticking clock.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen. I never meant for you to get scared. You’re right, Jem. It’s only money. We’ll get some more. Let her go,” he said to Tattoo Face, “and you can have your money.”