Devil You Know (14 page)

Where you go, I go
. Baz would not desert me. It made me feel good when he said that.

Baz stood up. “We have to find somewhere to sleep.” He looked around. “Wonder if we can get into any of these portacabins?” He walked around pushing one door after another. Finally he found one that scraped open. He turned to me and smiled. “Your room is ready, sir.”

He stepped inside. I followed him. “I’m afraid I’ll have to complain about the housekeeping in this hotel.” I drew my finger across the windowsill. It was covered in dust. “I’ll be on to TripAdvisor about this.”

Baz gave a little bow. “I’ll have the maid in to clean it right away. Now would that be continental breakfast in the morning, or the full English, sir?”

We pushed the door closed and Baz laughed as I shoved a brick against it. “I’m taking no chances,” I told him. “There’s a lot of funny people out there.”

It was a gloomy place, but at least it was out of the night cold. Even in summer, nights are chilly in Scotland. I pulled my sleeping bag from my rucksack and spread it on the ground. Baz did the same with his.

He lay on his back, his hands linked under his head. “Just think. No school tomorrow. No alarms. Not for us. Ever again. This is an adventure.”

I too wanted to think of it as an adventure. I wanted to stop being afraid. I wished so much I could be fearless like Baz. I tried to sleep, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Gary. Had he run away, just as we were running away? Or had someone got to him, just as they had got
to Claude? I hated to think of him lying somewhere, legs broken, alone, afraid. At least I wasn’t alone. I had Baz.

“I wonder how Claude’s doing,” I said softly.

“He’ll be fine,” Baz said. He yawned. “Let’s get some shut-eye.”

“He looked so scared that night at the hospital, Baz. I wish you’d seen him.”

“Yeah, but come on, do you really believe gangsters would say that to him? ‘Take your medicine like a man, little boy, and pass on a message to your friends:
Nobody messes with us. We’re coming for the lot of you.
’ I think he made that up. Heard it in a movie somewhere.”

Maybe he did
, I thought, as I drifted off to sleep. It was a bit too dramatic.

I woke up at some time during the night. Baz was snoring gently beside me. The brick was still against the door. I looked at my watch. 3.33 in the morning. Had my mother noticed I hadn’t come in? I checked my phone. I had three missed calls from her. And three texts.

Was she upset? Worried? In tears when she had sent those texts?

I thought of Gary’s mum, her eyes red-rimmed from her crying.

And Claude’s mum that night at the hospital, weeping and angry.

And Claude too, looking so scared.

And then another thought came to me.

Baz hadn’t come to the hospital. He hadn’t seen or spoken to Claude. I remember how he cut me off when I tried to tell him what had happened there – what Claude had told us.

So how did he know so exactly what Claude had said that night?

Dogs barking woke me just an hour later. I jumped to my feet and nudged Baz with my foot. “Get up!”

He was upright in a flash. We both looked out the small dusty window of the portacabin. A man was heading our way. He had two Rottweilers on a leash, both straining to get away from him.

“Security guy,” Baz whispered. “We better hit the road.”

“They’ll get us. We can’t run fast enough.” The dogs had begun to growl now, as if they could smell us, smell how close we were.

“He’ll not come after us,” Baz said. “We’re only boys. This is a junkyard, we’re not doing anything bad.” He nudged me in the ribs, and he winked. “Slip him a couple of quid and he’ll forget about us.”

He grinned at me, and I tried to grin back, but I thought I remembered a sign. Had it been on the fence outside here?

Or eaten by dogs more like, by the sound of those Rottweilers.

Baz grabbed me. “Come on.” We rolled up our sleeping bags quickly, stuffed them into our rucksacks. Then Baz was out of the door in a blur of movement. I tried to keep up with him, but I could never run as fast as Baz. I was just steps outside the hut and Baz was already out of sight.

“Hold it!” The man shouted at me. The dogs were going crazy again, barking like mad. I thought for a moment about running on, but then I
imagined him unclipping the leash and those dogs running free. I could not outrun them. I froze.

“Hold it!” he said again, as if I wasn’t even now standing still. He was a big man with a shaved head. The grey hairs on his chest were trying to escape from the collar of his shirt, and the sleeves were rolled up past his elbows to show his bulging biceps. As he came closer I could see those grey hairs popping out of his nostrils too. His face was heavy and hard. Everybody’s idea of a bouncer. “What are you doing here, boy?”

He struggled to hold the Rottweilers back as he walked towards me. I couldn’t keep my eyes off those dogs.

“I said,
What are you doing here?
” he asked again.

My mouth was dry. “Me and my mate, we’re taking a shortcut home. Sorry, didn’t mean any harm.”

He looked around. “So where’s your mate?”

Baz was gone. Maybe just as well. “He ran on.”

“Some mate, eh? Deserting you.” He pushed the door of the portacabin open with his torch. Glanced inside. “You smoking in there?”

The barking of the dogs was giving me a headache. I could hardly hear what he was saying. If only they would stop. “Don’t smoke. Sorry.” Why was I apologising?

“Drinking then?” He took a step toward me, sniffed.

“Honest. No.”

Then his face seemed to soften, taking me by surprise. He even managed a hint of a smile. “On your bike, then. But I better not see you here again.”

Would he have let me go if Baz had been still with me? Would Baz have been aggressive, challenging him, making fun of the muscles and the hairy nostrils and the shaved head? ‘Is this the best job you could get, pal? Security guard in a junk yard. You’re not even the B-team, mate.’ I could imagine Baz saying that.

He would have made things worse. Yes, bet he would have.

I was off and running the second the man said I could go, hoping he wasn’t going to let those Rottweilers off the lead, then stand there laughing as they chased me. I darted behind the other portacabins and the bags of rubbish piled against the walls, I leapt the gate out of the yard, and almost fell on top of Baz.

He caught me, steadied me. He was laughing. “You should see yourself running. Funniest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“I notice you didn’t wait for me.”

He only shrugged. “No point both of us getting eaten.” Then he ran on. “Come on, I’m hungry. Let’s get some breakfast.”

Of course I paid again. I bought rolls and a carton of milk from a stand in the street. When I found Baz he was sitting on a wall beside a park. He was on his phone.

“Who are you phoning?” I asked him.

He shook his head. “Just checking my messages. Me old auntie called.” He laughed, and put on a perfect old lady accent. “Come on, home, my darlin’ boy. I’m missing you already.”

Goodness, he was good at mimicking voices. “You should be an actor, Baz. I could have sworn that was your auntie.”

“Multi-talented, that’s me.”

“So, where are we going?” I asked.

“I still think we should head for the motorway,” Baz said. “We can hitch a lift from there.”

Would a lorry driver even pick us up?

I wanted to ask him that, but Baz seemed to know what he was doing, and he answered my unasked question. “Lorry drivers are brilliant, always picking up hitchhikers, and they won’t tell on us. We’ll say we’re heading north to spend the weekend with our dads. Give them a sob story about a broken family. And anyway, your mum won’t have contacted the cops yet, I bet.”

He was right. I had a feeling she would give it a bit more time before she did, hoping she would hear my key in the lock, and the door opening and me stepping in. Plenty of time for us to get a lift and be halfway to Aberdeen. 

There was hardly anyone around as we trudged through the streets. It was too early. Yet I still couldn’t get rid of the feeling that we were being watched. But not one of the few people we passed even looked our way. Men and women heading for work on a sunny summer morning. If our photos ever appeared on television, would they even remember they had seen us as they pushed past? Bet they wouldn’t.

I stopped dead when I saw a headline in a news stand as we passed it. It made my blood run cold.

Baz saw it too. “It’s not Gary,” he said. “It can’t be.”

But I had to be sure. I started to go inside the shop. Newsagents are always open from the crack of dawn. Baz held me back. “You buy that paper, and somebody might remember your face. It’s not worth the risk. It’s not him.”

He didn’t want it to be Gary either. But for once, I was determined to go against Baz. He waited outside while I bought the paper. He was right of course. The body that had been found was a woman, the victim of some kind of domestic assault. Baz leaned over my shoulder to read it with me. Relief flooded through me. It wasn’t Gary.

I pulled out my phone.
Low battery
it proclaimed on the screen. There had been another few missed calls from my mum. I was tempted to call her back. Baz stopped me. “What’s the point?” he said. “Unless you’re
going back. Are you?”

“Of course not,” I said quickly.

“Call when you get up to Aberdeen. Call her then.” He checked his watch. “Come on, we’re wasting time. Let’s go. Aberdeen here we come!”

Aberdeen. You don’t know how great that sounded to me. I was tired already, tired of looking over my shoulder, thinking I was being followed. It seemed like a dream, going to Aberdeen. Going back home. I would be safe up north.

“You have got money, haven’t you?” I asked Baz again.

“Yeah, yeah, I got money.” He held out some notes. “What’s wrong with you? Get out of bed the wrong side this morning?” Then he laughed, and usually I couldn’t resist laughing back with him. But not this time. “Get the joke?” he said. “We weren’t in a bed, eh? Ok.” He slipped from the wall. “What’s wrong with your face?”

“You only deserted me this morning,” I said, though that wasn’t what was bothering me.

“Oh come on,” Baz said. “If you’d got out of there first you would have kept running too. I would have expected it. And I’m bigger than you, haven’t got your sweet, wee innocent face. He wouldn’t have let me go so easy.”

That was probably true, but that wasn’t what I was thinking about. I was remembering my thought when I woke up at 3.33 a.m. “How did you know what Claude said at the hospital?”

He looked totally baffled. “Eh?”

“Last night. You could tell me what Claude said at the hospital, word for word. How did you know? I didn’t tell you.”

“Yes, you did,” he said.

“No. I didn’t. I tried to, and you wouldn’t let me.”

“You must have. Or Gary did. How else would I know?”

And I didn’t want to think about how else he could know. It was too scary.

“You’re not thinking straight, Logan. Let’s get out of here.”

He was right about that. I felt as if my head was buzzing. Buzzing with all sorts of strange notions. The calls from Mum, the way we seemed to be stumbling about going nowhere, the strange feeling I had about Baz. Yet when he began to run, I followed him.

As I hurried after him, my phone rang. I looked at the number. Mum again. I ignored it. A moment later a message came up on the screen:

I wasn’t going to listen to it. But couldn’t stop myself. I heard my mum’s heartbroken voice.

“Where are you? I know you were angry when I saw you last, upset because I said I wanted you to talk to someone. Forget that, you don’t have to, you don’t have to do anything, but please, Logan, come home. Please. I’m begging you.”

She was crying all the way through the message.

Baz looked back at me. “Your mum? Is she upset?”

I nodded. Baz smiled. “This’ll teach her a lesson, eh?” The smile didn’t stretch to his eyes. He sounded so cold.

Mum’s voice was like a knife through my heart. I could picture her clutching the phone, knuckles white, waiting, hoping for it to ring. For me to call her back.

“You’re not thinking of calling her are you?” Baz snapped.

I shook my head.

The battery would be dead soon. She wouldn’t be able to phone again, and I wouldn’t be able to call her. Was that what I wanted? Baz was striding on ahead of me. I shoved the phone back in my pocket and caught up with him.

“Where are we?” We seemed to be heading through some kind of derelict industrial estate.

“Shortcut to the motorway,” he said.

“Are you sure you know where you’re going?”

He stopped in his tracks and turned back to me, a scowl on his face. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

I didn’t want to argue with him. I couldn’t risk losing Baz. I shrugged. “No offence. We just seem to have been walking for ages, and not getting anywhere.”

“This takes us further up on the motorway. We cut off and we’re on the road north. I know a spot where the lorries park. We need somewhere lorries can stop and pick us up, don’t we?”

I hadn’t thought of that. I apologised right away. “Sorry, Baz. On you go.”

My phone buzzed again. Baz heard it too. He turned to me. “Don’t answer it.”

I held back. Let it ring till it stopped. And Baz grinned. I’d done what he wanted, again. Why did I do that? A moment later there was a ping on the phone. It was a text. I stopped again, took the phone from my pocket.

I could imagine Mum’s fingers trembling as she typed that in. Bet she had to type it more than once. She always made mistakes when she would text; Vince and I would laugh at her autocorrect fails and some of the crazy messages she sent. But this text was perfect.

I love you so much.

I could hear her sobs as she typed that in, see the tears running down her face. My mum loved me. I’d always known she loved me. Why was I doing this? Why was I hurting her so much? Why was I running away from the one person I could trust? The one person who would help me?

“Come on,” Baz said. As if he expected me to follow.

Why was I following Baz? Why did I always follow Baz? There was a part of me beginning not to trust him.

The text message pinged again, urging me to answer.

“Trying to get round you, eh?”

I couldn’t look at Baz. I was biting my lips so hard, you know the way you do when you are trying to stop yourself from crying? But I couldn’t let Baz see me cry, could I?

“You want to go back, don’t you?”

And I knew in the moment when Baz said it, my decision had been made.

I looked at him, and nodded. What was I doing all this for? All this running away. What was I really running away from?

“If these people are as bad as we think, they’ll come after us. Aberdeen won’t be far enough. And if they can’t find us… maybe they’ll turn on my mum.” I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone hurting her.

“And what are you going to do when you go back?”

“Tell my mum everything.” I wished I had done that before. “About the fire, about the Machans. Everything. I’m not going to run any more.”

I knew it was the right thing as soon as I said it.

“I thought you were worried she would put you into care?”

I shrugged. “She won’t do it unless she has to.” And maybe, after all, it would be the best for me. Something
was
wrong with me. I was beginning to realise that.

For the first time I felt I was thinking clearly. This was the right thing to do.

“And the polis? You gonny tell them everything as well?”

I nodded, waiting for him to explode. “Are you with me?”

That big smile spread across his face. “I told you before, where you go, 
I go.”

I was going home. I didn’t care what happened. I wanted to be free of this fear. I wanted my mum. Baz walked on ahead of me, he took out his phone. Walked away from me, turning his back.

“Who are you calling?” I asked him.

“My old auntie. Just texting her to tell her I’m on my way. Just in case she does anything crazy.”

Maybe I should call my mum, I thought. I pulled out my phone again, and pressed our number on speed dial. The screen went black, that little circle began spinning so fast I felt dizzy. I was out of battery.

Didn’t matter. I was going home.