Road Kill (7 page)

When I looked out of the window onto the forecourt, it was just in time to see the post van pull up outside.

“Oh yes, very dangerous
he
looks,” I told the dogs, sarky, as the mail dropped through the letterbox in the front door. They whined and avoided my gaze and looked embarrassed. I wondered if it was the alarm rather than the vehicle the dogs reacted to, like some Pavlovian experiment. Was that why they hadn’t kicked up a fuss last night?

Jamie arrived just as the coffee was brewed. He didn’t wait to be invited but helped himself, retrieving a mug from the cupboard next to the kitchen door without hesitation.

“Know your way around, don’t you?” I said, nodding to the mug.

He paused, startled for a moment, then he grinned at me. “That’s where they’ve always been kept,” he said. “Dad’s nothing if not a creature of habit.”

He was wearing the same leather bike trousers he’d had on the night before, and a clean T-shirt with a designer label on the front. He pulled out a chair from the kitchen table, turned it round and sat astride it, leaning his forearms on the back.

“I’ve rung about Clare and they tell me I can go in and see her this morning,” I said. “You want to come?”

He frowned for a moment, warring emotions flitting across his face.

“It’s not compulsory,” I put in mildly. “She may not even be awake enough to talk to.”

“No, no, I’ll come,” he said quickly. He nodded towards the kitchen window where we could just see his Honda outside and gave me a smirk. “If you’re feeling brave enough I can give you a lift on the back of my bike.”

“Yeah, I can well imagine that getting on the back of your bike would be a pretty quick way to a hospital,” I returned with an answering smile. “But no thanks – I prefer to ride my own.”

***

Jamie watched rather anxiously as I wheeled the Suzuki out of the coach house. He only relaxed when he recognised the bike for what it was and worked out how much smaller it was than his own four hundred. Size matters – it’s a guy thing.

Like my two-fifty, Jamie’s bike was no longer a current model but it was in good nick, with a titanium exhaust can and an after-market steering damper.

Jamie already had his helmet on and the Honda revving as I locked up. I kicked my bike’s engine over and, just to give it half a chance to warm through, took my time shrugging my way into the borrowed backpack containing the nightie and washbag full of bits and pieces that I’d thought Clare might appreciate. As it was, Jamie barely let me get my gloves on before he was away up the drive.

“Prat,” I muttered under my breath. I had no intention of racing him. Not when it meant going hand-to-hand with a load of dopey car drivers in the Monday morning rush-hour, that’s for sure. By the time I reached the top of the drive and pulled out into the stream of traffic on the main road, he was nowhere to be seen.

Maybe it was with the realities of the accident well forward in my mind, but I found myself riding more defensively than usual. A couple of vehicles behind me was a Ford Transit van with two men inside. Nothing sinister in itself, but Clare’s words in the hospital came back and made me twitchy. At the next opportunity I toed the Suzuki down a gear, hit the narrow power band, and hopped three cars further up the line.

I’d just pulled back in when there was a flash of high-beam headlights in my right-hand mirror. Three big bikes came thrashing past a rake of traffic to slot in alongside me with the neatness and precision of jet fighters.

I glanced over automatically. The lead bike was an Aprilia RSV 1000, all dressed up in race replica paintwork that made it look like a cigarette packet on wheels.

Behind that was a two-year-old special edition Ducati 996, with carbon trim on the exhaust can and the fairing.

Bringing up the rear of the tight formation was a sleek Kawasaki ZX-9R in lurid green. The riders were all wearing leathers to suit the bikes and they had their heads turned in my direction but the iridium coating on their visors gave them a completely blank stare. All I could see was my own reflection.

I nodded, the usual friendly acknowledgement of one member of the fraternity to another. They totally ignored the greeting, staring at me for a moment longer. Then, as if at some signal, the trio blasted away down the white line like they were overtaking a slow-moving mule train, leaving me feeling small and pedestrian and ever so slightly insulted in their wake.

***

If I’d bothered to wonder where the three bikers were heading, it didn’t take long for me to find out. About two of them, at least.

When I got to the hospital I found the Ducati and the Kawasaki both in the car park. They had pulled up on either side of Jamie’s machine, dwarfing the little four hundred like schoolground bullies. The Kawasaki rider was still on board. He was big enough for the bike to look small under him. Through the partly open visor I recognised William’s features, cheeks squeezed by the foam padding inside his helmet.

The Ducati rider had dismounted, leaving his own lid perched on top of the tank. There was so much carbon fibre covering the body of the bike it looked like it was covered in tweed.

The rider was small and dapper, in one-piece leathers that were obviously made-to-measure rather than off the peg. He had a thin pencil moustache that circled his chin, and dark hair that was spiked into a blond mini mohican along his crown. I wondered how on earth he kept his hairstyle intact under a helmet when I could never preserve mine.

He was currently standing nose-to-nose with Jamie. He had to rise up on his toes to do so. His back was towards me but their discussion didn’t exactly look friendly.

I ran the Suzuki in alongside them and cut the engine but they hardly seemed to notice me. There was no sign of the guy who’d been on the cigarette packet Aprilia.

“You’re in or you’re out, mate – now more than ever,” the Ducati rider was saying, pointing an accusing finger. His voice sounded tight but it was difficult to tell just how wound he was without being able to see his face.

“I’m in, Paxo, believe me!” Jamie protested. He was trying not to sound desperate and not quite succeeding. He flicked his eyes nervously in my direction and lowered the volume a touch. “I just can’t believe you’re still going ahead after what’s happened.”

“We’re too far along to back out now,” William said, his tone placid, almost lazy. “Life’s a risk. You either take it or you may as well just give up now.”

Life’s a risk.
I remembered my defence of idiots like him to MacMillan and felt my anger climb. So it seemed that Slick had been road racing when he’d had his final crash, despite having a passenger on board. I got off the bike and yanked my helmet off, glaring at Jamie. He wouldn’t meet my gaze.

“Does it mean nothing to you that your mate Slick’s dead because of what you lot have been up to?” I demanded bitterly. “Not to mention the fact that Clare might still lose her legs?

“Now look—” Jamie began earnestly.

All I did was turn my head slightly in his direction. He shut up.

“When I spoke to Clare yesterday she reckoned they were deliberately brought down,” I went on, my attention back on William and the Ducati rider Jamie had called Paxo. “Who have you been annoying enough that they want you dead?” It was overly melodramatic, but I was aiming for shock value.

“We don’t know what you’re on about, Charlie,” William said evenly, but I hadn’t missed the little anxious glances they’d shared.

My patience didn’t so much run out then as it petered to a stop. I hadn’t expected to be taken into anyone’s confidence but being treated like I was stupid was always going to sting.

“OK,” I said wearily, shrugging. “Whatever.” I began to turn away towards the entrance.

“Hey Charlie, hold up there, will you?” Jamie called after me. I stopped and looked back. “Just give me ten minutes,” he said to Paxo, his tone close to pleading. “Wait here, yeah? I’ll be right back.”

Paxo cocked his head towards William. The big guy lifted one shoulder in lacklustre assent.

“Ten minutes,” Paxo warned, making a big show of checking his watch. “Then we’re out of here. With or without you.”

Jamie gave them an anxious nod and hurried after me.

“Funny how you never mentioned last night that you run with the same crowd as Slick,” I said as we walked into the hospital reception area.

“You never asked,” he said.

I eyed him for a moment. That much was true. But the very fact that he hadn’t volunteered the information as soon as I’d mentioned Slick’s name was suspicious in itself.

“I’m asking now,” I said. “Bit off your home ground, aren’t you?”

“William works for one of the ferry companies and they come over to Ireland a lot,” Jamie said after a moment’s pause. “That’s where I met them. They’re a fun bunch to ride with, that’s all.”

“Oh, a laugh a minute, by the looks of it,” I said. “So, what the hell was that all about?”

He shrugged like he was trying to shake off a hand on his shoulder. “Oh, nothing,” he said lightly.

“It didn’t look like nothing,” I said. “You want to end up like Slick? You carry on using the roads for a racetrack you’re heading the right way. It will catch up with you in the end – just like it did with Slick.”

Just for a moment there was a flicker across Jamie’s good-looking face.

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, Charlie,” he said, the smile belying the words. “Until you do, why don’t you keep your nose out of it, OK?”

It was my turn to shrug. “It’s your funeral.”

***

Being inside the hospital had the same tightening effect on my nerves that it had the night before. I couldn’t quite pin down what it was about the place that made me so jumpy. Maybe it was just the total loss of control I had difficulty coping with.

I knew from bitter experience that if you came in here as anything other than a visitor suddenly any personal freedom was stripped away. Complete strangers could come and rob you of your dignity any time they felt like it. They governed your sleep, your food and water, and your pain.

Making a conscious effort to relax, I led Jamie on towards the waiting area I’d occupied the night before. From there a nurse directed us to the female orthopaedic ward.

The male nurse at the ward entrance looked surprised when I mentioned her name. “She’s a popular lass today,” he remarked. And when we neared her bedside I found out what he meant.

Sean Meyer was sitting in a plastic visitor’s chair next to Clare’s bed and was chatting to her like it was the most natural thing in the world that he should be there.

I stopped dead and they both looked up at us. Clare was marginally less pale than she had been the night before, but it was a close-run thing.

They’d erected a framework around her bed like a minimalist four-poster. Wires stretched from it to pins that appeared, from this angle, to actually go right through her legs, like she was some kind of suspended executive toy. The equipment seemed medieval in its crudeness. I could almost believe that the pins I could see sticking out of her torso were penetrating her body completely, impaling her to the bed.

Jamie was silent next to me. When I glanced at him he was staring fixedly at Clare. He seemed to sense my gaze and looked away quickly. But for that unguarded moment his expression had been on full view and there was no mistaking its stricken quality. So he wasn’t quite as hard-faced about all this as his mates had been.

Then Sean stood up and I’m ashamed to admit that my attention was entirely diverted. He looked exactly the same as he had the last time I’d seen him. Tall and wide without ever being bulky, he nevertheless filled the narrow space between the bed and the window, exceeded it, even.

He was wearing black jeans and a black v-necked T-shirt that emphasised the shifting layers of muscle across his chest and shoulders but I knew it wasn’t intentional. He dressed more for comfort and necessity. There was no vanity to Sean.

“Hi,” I said, uncertain and a little defensive when I should have been nothing but grateful. “I didn’t expect you to come.”

I found I was clutching my Arai helmet against my body like a shield. My legs had started to tremble and I had the horrible feeling I was just about to burst into tears but I couldn’t understand why.

“I know you didn’t,” he said, eyeing me closely. He turned back to Clare with one of those slow smiles of his. “Would you excuse us for a moment?”

“Of course,” Clare said, her cheeks dimpling.

Sean just gave me time to dump my stuff down on an empty chair before he took my arm.

Jamie, meanwhile, had kept his head down during the exchange. Now, he edged round the pair of us and sat down quickly in the chair Sean had just vacated. I wasn’t sure if I needed to introduce Jacob’s son to Clare, but Sean was already ushering me towards the door and I didn’t get the chance.

We got as far as the waiting area where I’d spent so much time the previous day before he stopped and put both hands on my upper arms, turning me to face him.