Son of Heaven (33 page)

He went across and, crouching down, looked at the projection box. It was on a loop. He pressed pause. At once the image froze.

Jake stood, looking about him.

Maybe they were out. Maybe they’d gone to town, to get food and supplies. But if so, then why all of them? Why hadn’t someone stayed to mind the fort? And why had they left the
screen on a loop?

He went upstairs. The place had been ransacked. Totally trashed, like someone had been through everything with a fine-tooth comb.

Looking for me. Or for some clue as to where I’d go.

Only where were they? Had they been taken somewhere?

Jake hoped not. But what other explanation was there?

What surprised him most, after all he’d seen these past few days, was that there were no signs of violence. No blood. No bodies.

He grabbed the gun then went outside, checking the barn, the summer house, the garden shed.

Nothing. No sign of them at all.

Jake stood there, back in the lounge, wondering what to do. He’d had no other plan except to come here.

If they’d been here once, then surely they’d come back. And if he were here…

He had to leave. He couldn’t risk staying.

Jake found the keys to Jenny’s car where he knew she always left them, in the drawer to the right of the sink, then loaded his things.

He should have gone, there and then, before they came. Every minute he was there he was in danger. Only he couldn’t leave. Not before seeing her once more. Not without hearing her
voice.

Jake went back through and, for the next hour, stood before the screen, watching it all. His life with Kate. One evening of their charmed and wonder -ful life.

Only then, at the end of it, did he tear himself away and, tears running down his face, reversed out onto the slope, heading away from there, knowing he’d never see any one of them
again.

The car got him as far as the village of Pimperne, just outside of Blandford Forum. There the compressed air cylinder gave out. Taking his knapsack and his gun, he abandoned
the car and set off on foot, heading south, round the town, meaning to get back onto the main road and follow it down to Dorchester. Only it was getting dark and when he got to the roundabout he
could see, along the road a bit, that two houses had been set ablaze, and knew that trouble lay that way.

Which was why he took the Poole road.

Two hours later, having made good time on an almost empty road, he found himself on the outskirts of that great sprawl of suburban architecture that was the Poole and Bournemouth enclave.

It lay like a great swathe of brightness between him and the darkness of Poole Bay, that very brightness an encouraging sign. Elsewhere almost everything had been cast into darkness, but here it
was different. Here they’d kept things going.

It was only streetlights, he realized, only he had never seen anything quite so welcoming, anything quite so expressive of what they stood to lose.

Even so, it was no use going that way. It might have
looked
welcoming, but there was nothing for him there. Not while
they
were after him.

It was standing there, taking in that stirring sight, that he finally made his choice.

Corfe. He’d go to Corfe.

It wasn’t far, after all. An hour’s forced march to Wareham, maybe, and then a further hour after that.

And then he’d rest. Jake closed his eyes. The simple thought of it made him realize just how tired he was. More tired than ever. In truth he could have found himself somewhere right there
and then and lain himself down, only why prevaricate? Now that he knew where he was going there was no point. Not until he got there. Not until he reached the end point of his journey.

He would walk all night if he had to.

Jake sighed, then, taking the Wareham turn, set off. Away from the light. Out into the ancient Purbeck night.

Jake had no idea at all what time it was when he arrived. The place was in total darkness, not a light to be seen for miles, and the castle was a mere suggestion of a shadow
atop the looming blackness of the mound.

There was a barrier, however, blocking the road into the village, and manning it were two, maybe three men. Again he could barely discern the details, it was so dark.

For a moment he thought about throwing himself at their mercy. Of going over to them and begging them for a place to sleep. Only it was late, far too late. After all, he had not come all this
way to be shot by some nervous villager merely because it was dark.

Silently he turned away, taking the road that went about the castle’s base, recalling it from his childhood. Before his parents had been killed in that awful accident. Back in those heady
days of innocence.

There had been a campsite about a mile down the road. They’d even stayed there once or twice. A little way on from that, he knew, was Church Knowle. He would try there. See if he
couldn’t find somewhere to bed down for the night.

As luck would have it, there was a place, its windows boarded up, a padlock on the door, an estate agent’s sign set up against the garden gate. As quietly as he could, he forced the back
door and made his way upstairs, finding himself a bed. There, almost as soon as his head touched the pillow, he fell into a deep sleep; a sleep in which, for the first time in several nights, he
dreamed of data streams and virtual landscapes.

It was there, in his dreams, that they came for him. And it was there, in that small back bedroom, in the light of a wavering candle, that they woke him, two of them holding him down by the
arms, while the third held a shotgun to his throat and smiled darkly.

‘Who’s been sleeping in
my
bed?’

Jake was dragged down the stairs and out into the dark, his hands roped tightly together, the shotgun jammed into his back.

There, just outside the house, a small group of villagers had gathered in the flickering light of their hand-held torches.

‘Where’s Tom?’ one of them was saying anxiously. ‘Go and get ’im! Tell him we ’as an intruder!’

The accent was purest Dorset. The man himself, in that faint light, was of typical local stock, broad-shouldered and dark-haired. He looked to Jake and glared.

‘A fuckin’ Lunnun-er, I tell ’e!’

Jake lowered his eyes, determined to keep silent. To speak only when he was spoken to. Maybe, that way, he would survive this night.

There were a good dozen there already and more kept arriving by the moment. Then, through the growing crowd, the one named Tom appeared. He was a big man, much bigger than most of his fellows,
and he moved gracefully, but what surprised Jake most was his age. He’d been expecting a middle-aged man, or someone even older – some village elder from whom they took instruction
– but this one was barely Jake’s own age.

‘What have we here?’ he asked, coming directly up to Jake and looking at him, as if he were some kind of specimen. ‘What’s your name and where’re you
heading?’

There was Dorset in that, too, only less than in the others’ voices, and it made Jake think that maybe he’d spent some time away from there – at college maybe, or up in
town.

He spoke up confidently. ‘My name’s Jake Reed and as for where I’m heading… well, here I guess. I used to come here for my holidays when I was young.
I…’

Jake stopped, seeing that the other was getting a touch impatient.

‘They tell me you had a gun,’ Tom said. ‘A big thing. A semi-automatic. That’s a bit odd, wouldn’t you say?’

Jake looked down. ‘I took it from a dead man. They… killed my girlfriend. We were staying at her parents, in Marlow. I…’

The man waited. Then, ‘Go on.’

Jake shrugged. ‘There’s nothing more to say. I’ve walked from there to here. Three days, it’s taken me. I was going to stay with some friends, up near Salisbury,
only…’

He fell silent. It didn’t matter what he said. They would either kill him or not. Or send him on his way, which was just as bad. Because in the end someone would lose patience with him. Or
try to rob him, or…

Tom reached out. Undid the rope that bound his hands together.

‘Jimmy… you got a spare room till we can find out what to do with this one?’

‘I ’ave… you know I ’ave, only…’

‘I’ll vouch for him,’ Tom said. ‘I’ll even sit up and guard him, if you like.’ He looked to Jake and lowered his voice. ‘You won’t mind that, will
you? Me taking precautions?’

Jake almost smiled at that. ‘I’d think you mad if you didn’t.’

‘Then it’s agreed,’ he said, addressing them all again. ‘We meet in the morning, at the church, a’right? Ten o’clock, and not a moment later. And we’ll
work out then what we’re going to do with this here Jake fellow.’

There was a murmur of agreement and then they began to file back to their houses, the excitement over.

‘Thanks,’ Jake said. ‘Thanks a lot.’

But now that the others were gone, Tom’s face seemed harder when it looked at him. ‘Don’t thank me yet,’ he said. ‘And let me warn you, friend Jake. Don’t try
anything. Understand me?’

Jake nodded. ‘I understand.’

‘Good. Then let’s get you back to bed.’

That was the morning it began. The same morning he met Annie for the first time. The first day of his new life.

There, in St. Peter’s, before a packed hall of more than two hundred locals, he answered all their questions, leaving nothing out. Being straight with them because, as he reasoned later
when they talked of it, they either had to take him as he was or end it then. There could be no half measures.

And so he told it all. Even the mad stuff, the stuff about the Chinese coming after him.

And at the end, when they came to decide, he stood there, naked in his soul before them as, one after another, they stood up to cast their vote.

‘Aye,’ one would say.

Then ‘Aye’ again from another.

And Tom would write each one down in the book.

‘Aye.’

‘Aye.’

Not a single nay.

Jake stood there at the end, humbled and astonished, deeply moved by the strange power of the ritual. Becoming, there and then, one of them. Bound to them by this. For just as they had accepted
him among them, so he felt he must prove himself to them. As Tom came up to him and put his hand on his shoulder, Jake smiled, touched, maybe even changed by their kindness.

‘Well, my friends,’ Tom said, grinning broadly, speaking to the gathering. ‘We have a new member of our host. A new friend. A good friend, let’s hope. Jake
Reed.’

There was applause, then a shout from the back.

‘What are we waiting for?’

It was answered immediately. ‘Don’t know about you, Daniel, but I’m waitin’ for the bloody pub to open!’

There was laughter.

‘Well?’ Tom asked. ‘Will you come and have a drink with us?’

Jake looked down. He couldn’t meet the other’s eyes. Couldn’t bear such kindness after all that had happened.

‘Hey… it’s okay. You’re safe now. Among friends. You’re home now, boy. Home.’

Jake looked up, gratitude in his eyes.

Home.

He sniffed, then wiped the tears away. ‘I guess I am.’

Chapter 8

THINGS BEHIND THE SUN

T
om had aged. The journey back, the jolting of the cart, had aged him. Anxious to return, they had not gone to Wareham as they’d planned, but
taken the quickest route back, following the old road and then the railway line directly into Corfe. They arrived just after five, in the last few shreds of daylight.

A small crowd was awaiting them there, torches lit against the encroaching dark. Peter, Mary and the girls were among them, but it was Charlie Waite, who owned the New Inn, who pushed in
front.

‘Jake! We need to talk!’

Jake looked about him, wondering what had been going on, and saw at once that something was up. Peter wouldn’t look at him, wouldn’t meet his eyes, and Mary – Mary looked
troubled.

Jake jumped down, confronting Waite.

‘What is it, Charlie?’

Waite took him aside, out of hearing of the others.

‘Your boy… he showed me up.’

‘Showed you up? How?’

‘We’ve taken three prisoners.’

‘Prisoners?’

‘Midlanders.’

‘So? What’s this got to do with Peter?’

‘They’re scum. Vagrants. I was going to deal with them.’