“Not so good,” I said. “They’re operating on her legs again this afternoon. No visitors for a while.”
He looked disappointed and relieved at the same time. “Any sign of Jacob?”
Sean shook his head. “Not yet,” he said.
Sam looked at him fully then. “You must be Sean,” he said in a hearty tone, holding his hand out. “I’m Sam Pickering. Charlie and I are old mates, aren’t we, Charlie?”
Sean raised an eyebrow but shook Sam’s proffered hand easily enough. Sam was wearing his habitual old jeans and battered black leather jacket and when he took his helmet off his hair reached down to his shoulder blades. I watched them sizing each other up. The ex-squaddie and the modern hippie. What a combination.
“Really?” he said, pleasantly. “Well, thank you for coming and telling her about Clare’s accident. We appreciate it.”
“Erm, no problem,” Sam said, frowning as he realised he’d just been firmly sidelined and scrambling to regain lost ground. “So, you going tonight then, Charlie?”
“Going where?”
“Slick’s wake,” he said. He’d turned slightly further round to face me, as though he was trying to exclude Sean from the conversation altogether.
“Wake?” I said. I glanced at Sean to see how he was taking this behaviour but his face was shuttered. “That might not be a bad idea. See what rumours are flying around.”
I turned back to Sam. “OK,” I said. “We’ll come. When and where?”
“Kicks off about seven. It’s up at Gleet’s place – he’s got a workshop on a farm somewhere out towards Wray. I can probably get you in but—” He cast Sean a dubious look. “Look, don’t take this the wrong way, mate, but I’m not sure you’ll blend in too well. You’ve gotta be on a bike, for a kickoff.”
“I’ll take it the way it was meant,” Sean said dryly.
My mind skated over the spare bikes at Jacob’s, but there wasn’t much beyond the Laverda and Clare’s Ducati. Both of which were too well known not to cause comment. I thought of my own FireBlade, sitting down at my parents’ place in Cheshire but there wasn’t the time to go and fetch it. Even if Sean had had a helmet or any leathers.
“OK,” I said. “I’ll go with you, Sam.”
Sam’s grin flashed. I saw Sean gathering himself to object and put my hand on his arm. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine,” I said. “I’m only going for a nosy. And Sam’s right about needing to be on a bike.”
He saw the sense in that. Didn’t like it, but saw the sense in it nevertheless.
“So, we going undercover, Charlie?” Sam kicked the Norton back into life and rammed his helmet on. He grinned at me again through his open visor. “Just like old times then, eh?”
Sean stepped in close to him, moving suddenly enough to make Sam jerk back in the seat. “Just make sure you look out for her,” he said with quiet intensity.
Sam swallowed and flipped his visor down so he didn’t have to reply. He toed the bike into gear, circling out of the car park with a roar.
“Well, that was mildly embarrassing,” I said lightly, watching him go.
Sean smiled at me and there was a hint of smugness to it. “Sometimes you’ve just got to reinforce who’s top dog.”
“Top dog?” I repeated in disgust. “You two were practically sniffing each other’s bollocks. I expected one of you to start humping my leg at any moment.”
Sean’s smile widened into a proper grin. “Charlie,” he said, “I’d hump your leg any time.”
“Try it,” I said sweetly, “and I’ll have you straight down to the vet’s.”
“Damn, but you’re a hard woman.”
***
The wake for Slick Grannell was held in a long sloping field behind the barn workshop belonging to Gleet, out in the wilds. When Sam explained the format I was expecting something rather cheesy. In the event it was a thoroughly pagan affair, heartfelt and strangely moving.
The field, cut and cleared for hay, was stubble under foot. Someone had gathered a huge stack of dead branches and old pallets for a bonfire at the top end to rival anything put together on Guy Fawkes’ night. Perched on top, in a bizarre piece of symbolism, was Slick’s disfigured Shoei helmet and his gloves.
The music was mainly rock ballads, played at volume through a pair of Marshall stacks that had been dragged just inside the gateway on extension leads from the barn. Lots of raw-throated songs about crashing and burning and dying young.
Gleet, so Sam informed us when he swung by to collect me, was big on the custom bike scene. His family had been farmers but Gleet left the running of the farm to his sister, a sour big-boned woman who trudged silently round the place like a resentful ghost. Gleet turned his back on the day-to-day drudgery and instead, in the barn behind the house, he devoted his time to building show-winning creations that were masterpieces of steel and paint.
It was probably as much out of respect for Gleet as for Slick that the attendance for the wake was so high. There must have been over a hundred bikers turned up. Their machines clogged the yard outside the barn and ended up slotted in rows across the end of the field. Everything from the latest MV Agustas to tatty old rat bikes. My Suzuki and Sam’s Norton were safely swallowed up in the crowd. We grabbed bottles of beer from one of the overflowing barrels next to the hedge and did our best to mingle with the others.
The hot sultry weather had taken on a sudden glowering edge, like it was spoiling for a fight. The shock of the early evening sunlight on the brilliant greens of the far tree-line was startling against a gunmetal gathering sky. It was heavy enough for thunder and I began to wish I’d remembered to pick up my waterproofs when I was at the cottage.
They lit the bonfire just after eight. Gleet himself walked up the hill from the barn carrying a flaming torch, with Tess by his side. She had forsaken the scrunchie and had her thin flat hair down around her face. Over a shapeless black dress she was wearing a scuffed leather bike jacket that was much too big for her. I recognised it as Slick’s.
Trotting by her side, stumbling over the stubbly ground, was an extraordinarily beautiful blonde-haired toddler of about four. She clutched tight to Tess’s hand and stared at the apparitions around her with her eyes big and wide and her thumb in her mouth.
“Slick’s daughter,” Sam muttered to me.
I remembered Jamie saying Tess had a kid. My only brief recollections of Slick were of a cocky womaniser, not a family man. I wondered how Tess felt, sitting at home with the baby while he was out on the prowl. And suddenly I could understand her bitter anger towards Clare. Whether there’d been anything actually going on between her and Slick was beside the point. It was enough that Clare had been the one who was with him at the time of the accident.
The bonfire grabbed instantly at the flames when Gleet dipped the torch against the dry timbers. He walked right round the stack so it caught evenly from all sides and went up with artificially accelerated momentum.
Within a few minutes the flames were dancing round the helmet on the top of the pile. I moved in a little closer and watched the visor twist and buckle and blacken in the heat. Someone turned off the music mid-chord and then all you could hear was the crackle of the fire.