The Lucy Ghosts

He backed her out of the parking space and turned towards the automatic garage doors. The remote control was clipped to the sun visor and he pressed the button.

It was the last thing the surveillance team had expected. The driver saw the garage door spring upwards. He hurriedly tried to wind the window down as he couldn't see clearly through the thin layer of frost and condensation, but by the time he'd done so, the red Ferrari had spurted to the top of the ramp, its full-beam lights blinding him, swung to the right and roared down the street.

'It's him!' he shrieked to the others as he started the engine. 'It's him! He's doing a fucking runner!'

The engine turned, was slow to fire before it came to life. The driver gunned the accelerator too hard in his anxiety and the car slid sideways, its rear wheels spinning as it tried to grip the tarmac, but only contacted the thin layer of overnight frost. It slid helplessly into the next parked car, slammed into its side.

'Shit!' screamed the driver as he tried to extricate himself from the situation.

'Come on!' yelled the man in the rear seat.

The car eventually pulled away from the kerb and drove after the F40. But it had disappeared at high speed into the early morning darkness.

* * *

'They'll radio all the police cars,' said Adam. 'Not to stop us, but to keep an eye on us.'

'Why not stop us?'

'We've done nothing wrong. And they'll want to know where we're going.'

'Then don't speed. Unless you want to be caught.'

He grinned. 'It's all right. I'm taking all the back roads.'

They drove for nearly forty minutes through the empty suburb streets. Past Chiswick and Heathrow Airport, under the M25 and through the villages of Wentworth and Sunningdale, out towards Woking.

They parked where he always did, hidden deep in the shadows.

'Will you be all right here?' he asked.

'I'd rather come.' As she answered, she sensed his nervousness. 'If a cop comes and finds the car, with me in it, I wouldn't know what to do.' They both knew she was lying.

Suddenly he didn't care. There was nothing to hide. He wanted to tell her, had never shared the secret with anyone before, only Lily, and that was a long time ago.

'Come on,' he said and they both left Steed parked there and made their way to the twisted and bent railing that was his door to the family. She shivered as they crossed to the west hill.

She stood back and watched him approach the three headstones, saw him touch them as gently as she had known he would. She heard his low voice as he spoke to them, greeted them after his long absence. When he'd finished, he turned and called out to her, beckoned her over.

Billie picked her way between the graves, stumbled just before she reached him, but he leant forward and easily caught her. She was always surprised by the strength in such a compact body.

'Morbid? Eh?' he chided her.

'Don't be stupid,' she snapped back. 'You should know better.'

'Sorry. Not used to letting my defences down, I suppose.'

She touched his cheek. 'Talk to me, tough guy. Like you talk to yourself'

'Just like that?'

'Just like that.'

'I've already told you about Marcus. And my parents. About how they died.'

'What do you talk about when you come here. I know they're real. In there…' she stroked his forehead.'…they're alive.'

'Yes.'

'Can you feel him now?'

'He never leaves me.'

'What's he saying?'

'Nothing. He is me.'

'How?'

'I don't know. I…there's feelings inside me that I can't explain. Evil with depression. It comes from nowhere. For no reason.'

'Is it there now?'

'Was. Before we left home. It consumes me. When I'm in danger, when it's all going against me, that's when it's at its strongest. I kill without thinking, so cool I think I must enjoy it. Pain becomes bearable through pleasure. I have no soul in those moments.'

'And you think that's how you really are?'

He nodded. 'I was the best field agent we ever had. That's true, because you always know your own worth. It wasn't because I enjoy killing, not just going out and doing it. Or danger. That's how they saw it. The boys behind the desks. No, it was because I didn't care. Didn't give a shit whether I lived or died.'

'Why?'

'No-one to care for. They were dead, since I was that small.' Adam held his hand down, palm outstretched. 'I just had a go at everything. If I lost, then I got the final reward. I went over to the other side.' He smiled as he said it.

'To join them.'

'Something like that.'

'The death wish. They saw it in New Orleans.'

'Spooky, that.'

'I've seen you with Lily. With me. Here, with your family. You do care'

'So what is the blackness that I feel inside? The evil?'

It suddenly hit her. 'You think it's Marcus. Him, pushing inside you.'

'No. Not him. Me.'

'Oh no. Not you, tough guy. Not you.' She put her arms round him and held him. 'Not you. Not even Marcus. Just the hurt. Of a little boy. Don't you see? Not any of you.'

'But Marcus is there. I know he's inside me.'

'He is. He always was. But he loves you. Like you love him. But you were still a little boy left on your own. Don't you see? It's just what you were. Lost and hurt and full of pain. Don't you see?'

And he started to cry, there, alone with her in the cemetery, next to those he had loved the most and missed the most.

* * *

The police had picked up the red sports car nine miles south of Ashford in Kent. It was doing seventy down a country lane, in a fifty mile an hour zone.

The police car was speeding up to give chase when the co-driver warned his partner to ease off. 'That's the car they were looking for. Report but don't apprehend.'

'But he's over the limit.'

'Stay well behind while I report in.'

By the time they had received instructions to follow and observe, they had lost it in a swirl of speed at one hundred and forty miles an hour.

'They're really going to come after us now,' said Billie pinned to the seat as it accelerated through the corners.

'By the time they get search teams out we'll be there. You okay?'

'Yes. In a numbed sort of way.' She'd never been driven that fast before, never experienced the sheer exhilaration and heart stopping fear that merged into one as the F40 powered on the knife edge of its optimum limits. But she trusted him, saw the way he handled it through the bends, fed the power in as it was required, was part of the hurtling machine that he controlled so gently. 'Like making love,' she thought. And then shuddered when she remembered his death wish.

Just north of Dungeness atomic power station, he slowed through the village of Lydd and followed the road out to the small airport. The F40 swung into the entrance and pulled up outside the terminal. Adam parked the car behind a large yellow Ford Transit van and switched off the engine.

'Let's get going,' he said, turning to Billie.

'I can't!' she gasped. 'Not yet.'

He suddenly realised how much the speed had affected her. He leant over and put his arm round her shoulders. 'Legs shaky?'

'Don't laugh, you bastard.'

'I'm not.' He grinned cheekily back. 'But we've got to go.'

'In a minute, in a minute.'

He kissed her on the forehead, then climbed out of the car and walked round to the other side. He opened her door and held his hand out. 'Come on. We've got to get moving.'

'Shit to you, tough guy,' she answered, then took his hand and scrambled out.

'They really are shaky!' he exclaimed as she wobbled towards him. 'Sorry about that.'