Chapter 26
He stands in the doorway of the caravan, baring his teeth at us like a caged zoo animal. He has the knife in his hand again and wields it at us, a vein in his temple bulging almost as much as his eyes. ‘I told you not to interfere in my caravan.’
Violet takes hold of the walker then starts backing towards the car.
‘Stop.’
My pulse pounds at my throat.
‘Get over here. You, give me that phone.’
Kat has her phone out, her brow all crinkled up as she searches for a signal. She holds it to her chest and glares at him. I nudge her. ‘Give it to him.’
‘He won’t do anything,’ she says, loudly enough for him to hear. He jumps down to our level, almost tripping over the step, and holds the knife out towards her, his hand quivering. She flinches but doesn’t avert her stare. ‘He wouldn’t hurt a bunch of sick women.’
‘Give me your phone. I’m not having you calling the pigs soon as I’m out of here.’
Jodie grabs Kat’s phone and places it in his upturned hand. He looks at it and sneers. ‘Can’t get much for this piece of shit.’
Kat shrugs. ‘Needed a new one anyway. You’re doing me a favour.’
His face darkens further, mottled patches of purple livid against unhealthy grey. ‘Any other phones? Turn out your pockets.’
Jodie says, ‘None of us have any.’
‘Expect me to believe that? Think I was born yesterday?’
We shake our heads and show him our turned-out pockets. He grabs Amina’s hijab and yanks it up. ‘Got one under this thing, have you? Hiding it from me?’
She blanches and cringes away from his touch. Violet grabs his arm and shoves him away. ‘Leave her alone. She doesn’t have one.’
‘What about the old bat in the car?’
‘She don’t even know how to use one of them things. And neither do I,’ Violet says. She is almost spitting with rage.
He shoves Kat’s phone in his back pocket and stands there staring at us, scratching his head like he doesn’t know what to do next. He looks slightly lost and out of his league, like a little kid caught stealing from the corner shop because his mates dared him to.
I swallow. ‘Look. You can go. It’s not like we can tell anyone, is it, not right now, out here.’
‘But you’ll tell the pigs when you get home.’
‘Yes,’ Kat says, ‘we will.’
He rakes his hand through his hair. I notice that the knife is lowered now in his other hand, and feel sure that this man will not hurt us further than leaving us stranded at a bus stop at dusk, out in the sticks of nowhere in a snowstorm in sub-zero temperatures.
Perhaps he hopes we will merely perish out here and take his secret with us, perhaps he thinks he can wash his hands of us now because he’s done his bit.
Something bright behind him in the caravan catches my eye, and I edge towards the door, ignoring Kat’s hand on my arm and the vehement shake of her head.
I square up to him. ‘Now we know all about what you’re up to with this whole get-up here you’ve got, I think you owe us something else, seeing as you’re leaving us out in the cold. ’
He squints through the shadows at me. ‘What are you talking about, woman?’
I push past him and he grabs hold of my sleeve, but I shake him off and scramble into the caravan.
It reeks of mould and damp and something more; something living, or maybe dead.
Its loud floral curtains clash with yet another floral design in orange and brown on its seats, frayed and torn with foam spilling out at every corner.
Stacks of iPads teeter haphazardly under the table between the two long seats, and great clear bags full of smaller bags packed with marijuana lie scattered on the seats and the floor.
This is no professional crook. On the seat to my right is a bright orange sleeping bag and a fleecy green blanket. ‘I think we’ll take these.’
It’s like all his spirit has drained out of him. ‘Whatever. But hurry the hell up.’ He glances from side to side as if suddenly a whole convoy of police cars will come screaming out of the frozen silence and bear him away.
I smile to myself as I gather up the sleeping bag then drape the blanket around my shoulders. It’s even bigger than I thought and trails down onto the floor, so I scrunch it up and double it over.
As I move towards the doorway a sound stops me still and I whirl around.
It’s high pitched, like a squeak, and my first thought is that Barbara’s plaintive prophecies about rats are at last coming true in this battered-up old van that clenches me so tightly in its mildewed, time-slipped grip.
But then the squeak turns into something longer and more pitiful.
‘What on earth—’
‘Get out of my caravan.’
I ignore him and move closer to the sound, which has turned into a full-on yowling. It’s coming from a cardboard box on one of the seats at the rear of the caravan. ‘What have you got in there?’
DCD scowls at me and shrugs. ‘Nothing.’
The Nothing is making a sound so piteous my heart sinks into my stomach. As I edge closer to the box I see little air holes punched into it. I pull the flaps open, and inside the most exquisite white cat I have ever seen cowers away in one corner, its entire body quivering.
‘Oh,’ I say.
‘Leave that alone. It’s mine,’ he yells, and at his voice the cat arches its back and hisses, its fur standing on end, then cringes further into the corner, shaking violently.
A commotion sounds outside. It sounds like a car, crawling up the hill towards us.
DCD turns his back and ushers the others away, hissing at them.
‘Get back behind the van. Don’t let him see you.
’ I see the glint of the knife again as he holds it out, and I also see that his arm is even more unsteady than before.
I look at the door, and then I look at the cat, and I make a snap decision.
I’ve suffered for too many years under the hands of a bully, and while it’s in my power I won’t let another creature suffer the same fate.
I slide my arms around the cat’s belly and gingerly lift it to my chest, waiting for it to spit and hiss at me just as it did at its master’s voice.
But it’s strangely compliant, curling into my parka as I zip it up to the neck.
I pull the blanket tighter around us both, hiding its little head from sight, feeling it quivering against me and then, just slightly, relaxing.
It’s a ball of warmth in the midst of a great chill as I step into the doorway of the caravan with the sleeping bag over my arm.
Outside the other car is approaching slowly and I step back as it comes to a stop, a filthy Landrover that looks at home on these roads.
‘Can I help out?’ the driver shouts out. ‘Are you broken down?’
DCD has obviously managed to get the others out of sight around the other side of the caravan. ‘You’re all right,’ he shouts back. ‘Just fixing something on the van. I’m all good to go now.’
‘Well, if you’re sure,’ the other driver says, and then he’s off before one of us can shout out, roaring away up the road and cutting a deep tread through the snow.
I should have called to him. I should have made him see us. But all I could think about was DCD and his knife, far too close to the others for comfort. I don’t think he’d hurt us, but I can’t be completely sure.
He finds me standing in the doorway holding the sleeping bag tightly to me. I made sure to close the flaps on the cardboard box and I’m glad, because he pokes his head in and glances over at it. ‘Are you quite done?’
The cat stiffens against my chest and I try to breathe slowly, to calm it.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Thanks. I mean, for the ride. And the blanket.’
He slams the van door and skits back round to his car. ‘Get this old bint out of my car and then get out of my way.’
By the time we have Barbara arranged back in her chair, oxygen cylinder safely stowed in its holder, and into the bus shelter, all we can see is the caravan’s one working taillight, flickering and fading into the foggy distance.
I crash my palm against my forehead. I didn’t even look at the licence plate.
‘Well, he were a right barrel of laughs, weren’t he,’ Barbara says.
Kat snorts. ‘Oh, Barbara.’
Barbara screws up her nose. ‘Well, it’s true.
’ She shivers suddenly and I gaze around us, taking in this predicament in which we find ourselves, this tiny frozen shelter in a wasteland of oblivion.
It’s three sided, so at least the snow doesn’t drive in over us through the sides, and the storm is blowing north so doesn’t drift too much into the shelter. Small mercies, I suppose.
‘You’d best get praying again,’ Jodie says to Kat. ‘Only ask for someone a bit more human.’
‘Look here.’ Amina is clearing a small transparent box attached to the side of the shelter.
It’s a timetable, but it looks old and grubby and I wonder if it is in use at all or if we are going to find some relic from the eighties.
She leans in and squints at the tiny font enclosed in the smeared laminate. ‘Oh.’
My stomach clenches.
‘What?’ Kat asks.
‘There are buses on weekdays on this route, two times a day, but not weekends.’
The shelter presses in on me, its shadowy corners suddenly a whole new depth of darkness trailing out into a limbo of hopelessness.
I unzip the sleeping bag and signal to Kat to help me lift Barbara slightly and slide it underneath her frail body.
She has no weight to her, she feels like an insubstantial puff of breath in my arms. I pull the bag around her, blankets, oxygen line, and all, and zip it all the way round so she is completely enclosed.
I pull the tog at the top so that her head is covered and her little white face with its nasal cannula pokes out of the puckered elastic, her Rovers hat askew, her skin stark against the violent orange of the bag, almost as white as the snow gathering in great drifts outside on the road. She gives me a wan little smile.