“Still see anything?”
“No. Have we lost ’em, Stones?”
“Maybe.”
The Nissan had been there a long time, just a blackened lump of metal now. Slow Kid knew exactly where it was on the track and screeched round with inches to spare. Then, up ahead, there was another car. It was a Peugeot hatchback, its lights off and its windows smashed. Three kids stood round it pouring petrol onto the seats. They were laughing and shouting to each other as they got ready for their bit of excitement. They looked up in amazement as our tyres slid round the corner and our headlights caught them.
Slow Kid pulled the wheel to the right and the car tilted at an angle as we skidded half off the track to get past. The white face of one lad was so close to the window as we went by that I could have counted the spots on his chin. The kids didn’t have time to react before we were past them and away again. One more minute, though, and we could have been copying those stunt riders who go through burning hoops.
“Close thing, that,” said Slow cheerfully as he floored the accelerator and got back onto the track to take the hill.
A minute later we heard a bang and the horrible grinding of crumpled metal. I craned my neck to look down through the trees and saw lights down below and figures milling about. I thought I could hear voices, too — several of them, and they sounded angry.
“Looks like one of them expensive German jobs. Saloon car.”
“Nice motor,” said Slow Kid.
We drove on for a few minutes, then Slow Kid stopped on the edge of the access road, killed the lights and switched off the engine. I pressed the button to lower the window.
All we could hear were an owl complaining in the woods and the sound of someone having a party down on the estate below us. It sounded like Meatloaf’s Bat out of Hell turned up to full volume. I kind of wished I was there right now.
“Nothing. We lost ’em.”
“We going to the Shah Naz now then, Stones?”
“Right, Donc.”
The Naz it was. Maybe I’d find the party later. We’d gone like bats out of hell ourselves for a few minutes there, I thought. But hell was closer than I knew right then.
10
On Tuesday morning I called some of the boys round for an emergency meeting. There were three of them making my sitting room look untidy. Untidier than usual.
“We lost another load last night,” I told them.
“Shit, Stones, what’s going on?”
Slow was slouched on my second armchair, kicking his trainers over the arm like some street kid. Metal Jacket was flat on his back on the floor, meditating or something. There wasn’t much room for him on the settee, because it was occupied by Doncaster Dave.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m getting nowhere and things just keep getting worse.”
“It’s a pisser all right.”
“Is it the police?” asked Metal.
“No, no. Somebody’s tipping them off, that’s what.”
“Only, I hope it isn’t my fault, what with that nicked motor, you remember. The Citroen.”
“I don’t think so, Metal. Forget it.”
“Ta.”
They all had cans of Mansfield Bitter in their hands, at my expense. It was supposed to make their brains work, ease their ideas out. But it wasn’t having any effect so far.
“What you going to do then, Stones?”
“Yeah, what you going to do?” That was Metal, doing his impersonation of an echo.
“Some planning meeting this is, if all you lot can do is sit there and ask me what I’m going to do. Why does it have to me who has the ideas? You’ve all got a brain, haven’t you?”
Slow Kid did an eye roll towards Dave. “Sort of. Well, two out of three ain’t bad.”
Dave stirred, like a slag heap settling. “Is he taking the piss, Stones?”
“Never mind, Donc. We’ll skip the brains bit. What we need is some cunning.”
“Right,” said Slow.
“Right, right,” said Metal.
“Uh?”
“The thing that’s worrying me now is Eddie Craig.”
“No. You think he’s in this somewhere, Stones? That’s real bad,” said Slow Kid.
“Me and Dave saw his lads last night at the Ferret. And they were looking for Mick Kelk. It’s like they were just a few minutes behind us, as if they knew where I was going and what I was doing. I don’t like that.”
“You could have sorted ’em out, Donc, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Baffled ’em with your wit, I bet.”
“Eh?”
“Only Stones is always saying we’ve got the brains to take this market.”
“What you on about?”
“Give over, Slow.”
“Is he taking the piss again, Stones?”
“Here, have these biscuits, Donc.”
“Right.”
“You think Craig’s got it in for us? Is he trying to sink us just when we’re getting going?”
“Could be, Slow. Maybe he sees us as a threat.”
“But we’re not, though. Nowhere near. Hasn’t he got the sense?”
“Doubt it.”
We all thought about Eddie Craig for a bit. At least I did, and I reckon Slow Kid did. Not Dave, obviously. And Metal Jacket looked to be asleep, dreaming of Morris Travellers.
“What can we do then, Stones?”
“Hell, I dunno. Just keep our eyes and ears open. And be careful.”
“Yeah, right.”
“That includes you too, Metal.”
“What? Course.”
“We keep our heads down. Keep out of the way of the cops, don’t try anything too ambitious. And don’t attract attention.”
“You going to keep Dave indoors then?”
Doncaster Dave looked pissed off, and I’d run out of chocolate digestives. It was time to bring the meeting to an end.
I wanted some time to turn things over in my mind, but Nuala didn’t understand. Does she ever? She can’t get the idea that sometimes people need to think about what’s going on in their lives. Thinking doesn’t feature much in Nuala’s lifestyle. Basically, it’s something unpleasant that happens to her brain when she has to stop talking.
You’ll have noticed that she doesn’t give up talking very often. Maybe it’s like that film a few years ago — you remember, Speed, with Keanu Reeves? Where he has to keep driving the bus, because if the speed drops below fifty miles an hour a bomb will go off? Maybe if Nuala stops talking at fifty miles an hour her head will explode. It’s just a theory.
The person I really needed to talk to at the moment was Lisa, but she’d swanned off to Sheffield. Heritage Bleedin’ Management. When was she back? Thursday? And she hadn’t even phoned me, had she?
For some reason, this made me feel really bad. I dwelled on it for a while, until it really rankled. Then I found myself on the phone ringing a list of hotels in the centre of Sheffield. Did they have a Heritage Management course on? They wanted to know who was running it. But how the hell could I tell them that? I hadn’t asked.
After a lot of this stuff, I finally got through to the Old Victoria Hotel. It felt like the three hundredth phone call I’d made, and I was losing enthusiasm. So it took me a bit by surprise when they asked for the delegate’s name and said they would get a message to her when her seminar broke up for lunch.
I put the phone down regretting what I’d done. What was Lisa going to think when she got the message? ‘Here’s Stones, phoning up to pester me. He can’t do without me even for a couple of days.’ Oh, shit. What a mess. That wasn’t what I wanted at all.
I still had this feeling inside, as if I was missing something that I really ought to take notice of.