Peter May - Runaway

Broad walkways on either side of black water in spate ran beneath the low arch of the brick tunnel, and we had to stoop as we ran. I glanced back as the tunnel curved round to the right, and the lights of the city behind us vanished from view. It seemed unlikely that Andy and his pals would pursue us into it without light. But his voice did. A voice filled with hate and anger, bellowing above the thundering of the water.

‘You fucking bitch! You’re dead! Fucking dead when I get you!’

I caught a momentary glimpse of her scared rabbit’s eyes as she glanced back over her shoulder, and I felt again that strangely powerful urge to protect her, no matter what.

We pressed forward into the darkness for eight or ten minutes before Rachel suddenly stopped. She turned the beam of her torch into a crudely constructed side tunnel that narrowed as it twisted off and up. ‘I think this is one of the culverts.’

‘You’re not sure?’ Jeff seemed ready to blame her entirely for our predicament.

And I suppose, in a way, she was. But I was quick to defend her. ‘She’s never been down here before. How could she be sure?’

Luke took the torch from her. ‘I’m taller than the rest of you. I’ll lead the way. If I can get through, everyone can.’

‘What about fat Mo?’ Dave said, and I saw him grinning in the peripheral light of the torch. ‘He’s no’ as tall as you, but he’s twice as wide.’

‘Fuck off.’ Maurie glowered at him.

We set off up the side passage in single file, Luke leading with the torch, the rest of us in touching contact with the one in front. I felt Rachel reach for my hand, finding it in the dark, and I let her take it and held it as we climbed more steeply and the passage narrowed. We waded through water rushing down from street level, soaking into shoes and socks, and the roof sloped down so that we had to bend almost double.

Then suddenly we emerged into a wash of yellow sodium street light, and we straightened stiff backs and breathed fresh air to fuel our relief. We were in a narrow, overgrown culvert beneath a tall brick building on one side, and an overgrown stone wall below a railing on the other. But it was easy enough to climb up and over the railing to drop into the cobbled lane on the far side of it.

Rachel stood gasping and looking around anxiously. ‘Okay, I know where we are. And we’re ahead of Andy,’ she said. ‘But he’s bound to check it out. Where did you park the van?’

‘Edward Street,’ Jeff said.

Rachel nodded. ‘Then we’re just a couple of streets away.’ And she set off at a loping run without another word.

We exchanged glances and set off after her.

She took us into Bridge Street, then cut up into Templar Place, before we found ourselves back in Lady Lane and immediately got our bearings. Edward Street was less than fifty yards away.

The van seemed like a haven of safety, and it was an enormous relief to reach it. For once, I got the passenger seat, with Rachel perched up on the engine cowling. The others all squeezed on to the settee in the back. Jeff started the motor and the headlights picked out reflections on the wet cobbles as we turned into Lady Lane and headed down towards the Eastgate roundabout.

We were almost there, cruising cautiously and keeping a wary eye on the streets around us, when Andy and three others came running out of Bridge Street and into the middle of Lady Lane. Pale faces were caught full in our headlights.

‘Jobbies,’ Jeff muttered. He dropped a gear and accelerated straight at them.

Rachel screamed and braced her feet on the metal dash, but at the last moment the drug dealer and his friends leapt out of the way. I could hear their raised voices swearing at us in the dark, and someone thumped the side of the van as we passed.

Jeff swung left on the roundabout, following the curve of Oastler House north, before turning right into New York Road and accelerating past the length of Moynihan, from where we had just escaped. No one spoke as we watched the serried ranks of balconies pass by on our right, misted windows rising up seven and eight storeys to cast diffuse yellow light into a thickening fog.

From there, York Road ran almost straight through the city, heading east. The rain got worse, and Jeff eased back on the speed, headlights raking the misted night as we cruised through what felt now like a ghost town. We passed only occasional vehicles, and there was nobody about on foot.

I checked the time. What had seemed like an eternity had, in fact, been little more than an hour. It was twenty minutes to midnight.

I juggled the AA book of maps on my knees by the intermittent light of passing street lamps, trying to get our bearings.

‘We’re on the A64,’ I said, ‘heading sort of north-east.’ I looked at Rachel. ‘You got any idea where that’s going to take us?’

She shrugged. ‘Not a clue. I’ve hardly been over the door since I’ve been here.’

Suddenly Jeff said, ‘I think we’re being followed.’

I craned my neck to try to catch a glimpse in the wing mirror of the car that was on our tail. But all I saw were headlights. Luke clambered over the settee and the piles of gear to look through the back windows.

‘It’s a Cortina,’ he said. ‘White. Pretty bashed-up-looking.’

‘Oh shit.’ Rachel was even paler than when I’d first seen her. ‘That’s Andy’s car.’

‘How in God’s name did he manage tae find us?’ Dave said.

‘His car wouldn’t have been parked far away,’ Rachel said. ‘They must have gambled on which way we went.’

‘Lucky bloody gamble.’ Maurie’s muttered oath was almost inaudible but summed up our collective sense that the only luck we‘d had since leaving home was the bad kind.

‘I don’t think they’ll try anything in the middle of a main road,’ I said with a great deal more confidence than I felt. There was, after all, virtually no other traffic on it. ‘We’re never going to outrun him, that’s for sure. Just don’t let him get past us.’

‘How am I supposed to do that?’ I could hear the panic in Jeff’s voice.

Then Luke called from the back, ‘He doesn’t seem to be trying to catch up or overtake us. He’s just kind of hanging back there.’

‘Hanging back for what?’ Jeff could hardly keep his eyes on the road for looking in the mirror.

‘Waiting for something. I don’t know. The right moment to get past us, maybe.’

I looked again at the map and said, ‘Just follow the signs for Tadcaster, and that’ll keep us on the main road.’

Jeff began banging his palms up and down on the wheel. ‘Jobbies, jobbies, jobbies. You shouldn’t have poured that stuff down the toilet, Luke.’

But Rachel said quietly, ‘It’s not about the H, or the money. It’s about me. I told you. He thinks of me as his property. And if he can’t have me back, then he’ll kill me.’

‘We’re not going to let him do that,’ Maurie said.

‘Oh, aye?’ Dave’s voice was loaded with scepticism. ‘Who’s this we , kemo sabe?’

For ten, maybe fifteen minutes, the Cortina followed at a discreet distance. We were out in suburbia now, residential streets branching off left and right. We took a left at a roundabout and followed the ring road for half a mile, before turning right at the next, sticking to the A64 and the signposts for Tadcaster.

The housing around us became more sparse, and up ahead I saw that the street lamps came to an abrupt end, leaving only darkness beyond them. Fear sat among us like another passenger. It could only be a matter of time before Andy made his move.

To make things worse, the rain began falling harder. Jeff was hunched over the wheel, staring through the wipers, trying to focus on the road ahead.