Road Kill (30 page)

The end result was that I came howling into the Port of Heysham with barely fifteen minutes to spare before they would have told me to take a hike. I gave my name at the barrier and found that, true to his word, William had sorted my ticket.

They whizzed me straight through and onto the fast cat ferry that was standing at the dockside. I watched the deck crew strap the ‘Blade down, then headed for the stairwell to the passenger lounges. I found myself hoping that the rest of the Devil’s Bridge crowd were already on board, or I’d no idea where I was going once I reached the other side.

Inside, the catamaran had a wide open-plan restaurant across the centre bridgedeck area with a bar upstairs and rows of aircraft-type seating at either side.

The place seemed to be teeming with bikers. I did a quick tour but couldn’t see anyone familiar. A couple of times, though, I could have sworn someone was watching me. But when I turned round to scan the crowd, I couldn’t see anyone paying me particular attention. Nevertheless, it made me twitchy. By the time I went out onto the small section of outside deck I was starting to get worried. It was there I found Paxo.

He was leaning on the aft railing, his leathers stripped to his waist to take full advantage of the syrupy heat. Underneath, he was wearing a white vest that was already stained with sweat and his exposed shoulders had the pink tinge of sunburn to them that was going to sting in the morning. He had a crumpled packet of Lambert & Butler clutched in his hand like a talisman. I moved alongside him.

“Hi,” I said. “Where is everyone?”

He jerked his head towards the heavily tinted windows immediately behind us. “First Class lounge. William pulled some strings,” he said, adding sourly, “The rest of ‘em are in there but it’s no smoking.”

He gave me a look of resentment but I couldn’t work out if I was to blame or it was just brought on by the prospect of a lack of nicotine in his system for four hours. Or possibly both.

The last stragglers were loaded onto the car deck beneath us and the ramp was winched up like a drawbridge. There was a sign on the rail next to me that announced we were about to cross an area of special ecological interest and to do our bit not to pollute it by throwing any rubbish over the side. Then the captain eased us away from our berth and the whole view of the harbour disappeared in a belching cloud of black diesel smoke. It almost, but not quite, managed to obscure the slab-sided concrete monstrosity that is the nuclear power station next door.

Coughing, we both retreated inside and Paxo led the way through the opaque glass door into the First Class area. It was a sizeable room with windows on two sides. One of the cabin crew smiled at him and said, “You found her, then?”

Paxo scowled back, as though it was some sign of weakness to admit he might have been looking out for me.

There were sets of tables for four all round the walls and one larger table in the centre. William and Jamie had taken that over, spilling luggage and helmets into the surrounding area. The other tables were mostly taken by serious-looking couples who’d clearly been hoping to escape the bike crowd by coming in here and didn’t exactly look overjoyed when I added to their number.

The ferry cleared the harbour entrance and the jagged remains of the old wooden pier and the captain opened her up. The deck vibrations under our feet increased to a buzz as the four massive Ruston diesels began to work. Great rooster tails of spray curved up behind the stern, casting our own personal rainbow in the brilliant sunlight.

I stripped off my jacket, unzipping it from my leather jeans and draping it over the back of one of the bolted-down chairs.

“Where’s Daz?” I asked, but caught the quick glance Paxo exchanged with the others. “What? Don’t tell me he’s missed the boat.”

“Oh no, he’s not done that,” Paxo said darkly, and his tone indicated that he thought it might be better if Daz
hadn’t
made it on board.

Before I could ask any questions, the door to the lounge opened and Daz himself sauntered through, looking cool and handsome in his snazzy race leathers. He had that faint half-smile on his face, as though life was one big joke and he was in on it. In this case, perhaps he was right.

Behind him, also dressed in bike gear, was Tess.

I stared at her blankly, then skimmed my eyes across the veiled faces of the rest of the Devil’s Bridge Club and straight away I understood Paxo’s comment. Daz had not, I surmised, told the others that he was bringing Slick’s widow with him. After all the arguments, I could understand their anger at this sudden apparently about-face decision.

Tess smiled brightly at the group of us, seemingly enjoying the discomfort her presence was causing. I suppose it was better than being ignored. Her glee lost a little of its shine when she spotted me, though.

I got the feeling she enjoyed the position of lone female amid a group of men and, from the way her gaze turned calculating, she was trying to work out how much competition I was going to be for their attention. If the way her expression rapidly cleared was anything to go by – not much.

“Oh, hiya Charlie,” she said, wrapping herself round Daz’s arm like she was staking a claim on the alpha male and I’d have to make do with pickings lower down the food chain.

“Hello Tess,” I said, adding dryly, “I’m glad to see you’re coping so well with overcoming your grief.”

“Yeah well.” She pouted. “Life goes on.”

“You’re certainly proving that,” I said, watching Daz’s obvious uneasiness with some amusement. “I must admit I’m surprised to see you here, though.”

That injected a new smugness to her smile. “Well, this trip
was
my Slick’s idea in the first place and when the boys found out how I was the only one with certain vital—” her eyes slid over them, “—arrangements at my fingertips, they realised they really couldn’t do it without me. So what made them bring
you
along?”

“She was fast enough,” Paxo said shortly. It was a testament to his dislike of Tess, I reckoned, that he’d felt inclined to jump to my defence.

The ferry was out of the lee of the land now and pushing up towards its maximum cruising velocity as it struck out across Morecambe Bay. At that kind of speed the gentle swell had lumps in it like concrete sleeping policemen. As soon as we got into open water it had also begun a perceptible cindering motion, a slight corkscrewing, that always seems to come with a following sea.

I noticed Jamie was gripping the edge of the table like it was a designated flotation device. He had a sheen of sweat across his pale skin and when one of the cabin crew approached to ask if we’d like anything to eat, he actually took on a greenish cast.

“I’m just going outside for a bit of fresh air,” he managed, lurching to his feet.

“Remember to throw up on the downwind side, mate,” Paxo suggested helpfully.

“We’re doing forty knots,” William pointed out. “It’s
all
down wind.”

Jamie just gave them a panicked look and fled. Tess took his vacant seat, seeming pleased with herself. I wondered if I was going to be able to stand a whole weekend of her like this.

“So where are we going when we get in to Belfast?” I asked Daz.

“Nice little hotel I found up on the Antrim coast,” he said, prompt but almost deliberately vague. “Then tomorrow morning you have to suffer some culture by looking at the Giant’s Causeway. Your reward is a trip round the distillery at Bushmills afterwards.”

“I’ll try to contain my boredom,” I said.

The others slipped into a discussion on the merits of Irish whiskey versus Scottish single malt but I let it flow over me. Through the tinted windows I could see Jamie standing at the railing, hunched over like a man who knows his digestive system is about to suffer a violent inversion and there’s nothing he can do about it.

Most of the other people on the outside deck correctly identified the signs and steered well clear of him, but one guy strolled over to stand alongside him. He was dressed in plain black bike leathers, with a cotton scarf round his neck to keep the draught and the bugs out. Jamie glanced up sharply, recognised the figure and seemed to relax a little. The newcomer turned sideways to speak to him and then, with a jolt, I recognised him, too.

“Excuse me a minute,” I muttered, getting to my feet. “I’m just going to check on Jamie.”

Paxo groaned. “Not you as well,” he said, leaning back in his chair to call after me. “Well don’t come back in here if you smell of sick.”

The other occupants of the lounge stared fixedly at their newspapers and their laptops and tried to ignore him.

Outside, the wind whipped through my shirt and made me wish I’d put my jacket back on, despite the gorgeous weather. Jamie was still clinging miserably to the railing and there, alongside him, was Sean.

Sean turned to meet me as I approached. He smiled, and I wanted to run and throw myself into his arms. Aware of the audience from inside the lounge – not to mention Jamie – I contented myself with an answering smile.

“Surprise, surprise,” I said with admirable cool. I nodded to the leathers. “I didn’t know you still had a bike.”

“I don’t, but one of the guys who works for me does and as a) he’s out of the country at the moment, and b) I’m his boss,” he said, counting the points off on his fingers, “he’s generously agreed to lend me his Super Blackbird for the weekend.”

“Wow,” I said. “He must really like his job.”

Sean grinned. “Yeah, he does.”

Jamie chose that moment to start to heave and Sean and I both instinctively stepped back. “Unless you really want to watch the kid trying to turn his stomach inside out, I would suggest we take a walk,” Sean murmured. “Where are the others?”

“First Class lounge,” I said nodding to the windows as we moved round the corner, more towards the side of the boat. “William wangled it or I’d invite you in.”

“Madeleine sorted my ticket,” Sean said, smiling. “I’m already in.”

I waited a beat. “What are you doing here, Sean?”

“Watching your back,” he said. His eyes flipped down to my thin shirt. “Although, in this breeze, your front looks pretty good, too.”

I folded my arms across my chest, defensive. “Be serious.”

His face sobered. “I am being serious – about your back, I mean,” he said quietly.

He glanced across but Jamie was out of sight and undoubtedly too preoccupied to be even thinking about listening in. And besides, the wind was whipping our words away over the stern as soon as they were spoken.

“We think we might have made some headway but that’s not necessarily a good thing,” Sean said. “Madeleine’s being doing some searches on our friend Eamonn and it turns out he moves in some very nasty circles.”

Eamonn’s words when he’d first laid eyes on Sean came back to me in a cold rush.
Now that wouldn’t be a bastard squaddie I can smell, would it? Seen plenty of your type
. . .

“He’s connected to the IRA?” I said, tense.

Sean ducked his head in a ‘maybe, maybe not’ gesture. “More likely the other side of the sectarian divide,” he said. “Our intelligence suggests good old Eamonn Garroway is just an old-fashioned thug, but you can’t operate in Northern Ireland without the knowledge and tacit approval of the paramilitaries – regardless of your politics. The bad news is, he’s heavily into the drugs trade.”

“Shit,” I murmured, my eyes straying to Jamie again. “We were afraid of something like that.”

“Quite,” Sean said, letting his voice drawl. “You see now why I thought you might be glad of some back-up on this one?”

“Yeah,” I said, giving him a wry smile. “But I’m glad to see you anyway, Sean – not just for that reason.”

He raised an eyebrow, momentarily lost for words, then he laughed softly, shaken. “Well, that’s progress, I think,” he said.

Impulsively, I moved in closer so I could take some shelter from his body. He only hesitated a fraction then put his arm round my shoulders and pulled me in closer still. I tilted my head against his chest and we stood like that for a long time without the need to say anything further, watching the foaming white line of wake stretching out behind us from the ferry’s twin hulls.

I could feel the heat of him seeping into my bones but it wasn’t just a physical warmth. It felt good just to be near him, whatever my father’s doom-ridden predictions.

Nevertheless, the memory of those words chilled me. I broke away, turned to face Sean a little. I’d forgotten how good he looked in leathers, dark and dangerous, with the wind tousling his hair. I swallowed, forced myself to concentrate.

“Did Madeleine manage to dig out anything on Isobel?” I asked, peering round the corner of the superstructure to check on Jamie. He was still where we’d left him, slumped onto the rail now, eyes shut, but at least he had more colour. Being his bodyguard, I reasoned, just meant ensuring he didn’t fall over the side. It didn’t mean I had to go and mop up after him.

“Some,” Sean said easily. “She’s not averse to walking a thin line when it comes to the law.”