Joe Country полностью

Perhaps they’d heard her. Hard to move silently through packed snow, so perhaps they’d heard her, which meant Shirley had to sacrifice stealth for speed, because once you thought someone might be sneaking up on you, you didn’t forget about it in a hurry, and they’d be ready for her, another two seconds they’d be swords drawn. So she ran, as best she could, carting the lump of wood two-handed like a rifle, and Marcus would be proud of her if he could see her now; Marcus would think she was a bloody idiot, but still, he’d be proud of her, taking the fight to the enemy; who was, it turned out, a young woman in a donkey jacket and wellies, reaching up for a transistor radio on a hook; the look on her face one of amusement rather than alarm, as if energetic strangers were part of her morning round. In the darkness behind her Shirley could make out the heavy shape of animals, fed and resting among straw; warmth radiating from them in industrial waves.

The young woman shook her head. “Look at you, where did you spring from? You must be freezing!”

Shirley couldn’t speak, but found herself nodding.

“Cat got your tongue? You’re another lost one, aren’t you? My second this morning.”

She dropped the transistor into her jacket pocket.

“Well, I’m all finished here. And you look like you could do with a slice of toast, am I right?”

Well, Shirley reflected, if this wasn’t death, it might at least be heaven.

“You are,” she said. “I’m starving.”

“Come on, then.”

Shirley tossed the lump of wood aside, and followed her saviour.

It didn’t, in the end, take half a moment.

“What?” the man said into his phone and Emma moved; her fist, clamped round the stone, heading towards his face; her elbow angled to knock his gun arm aside in the same movement. Muscle memory suggested she’d done this before; wearing sweats, on a padded mat. A risky move, but they were the only kind available; he wasn’t going to let her go, not now she’d had contact with Lucas. I don’t even have to kill him he’d said, but not in the expectation she’d believe him. Simply because some things always got said; some lies needed the light.

Punch him in the face.

Knock his gun arm aside.

Some of this happened, but not enough.

No special noise was involved; Emma heard not much more than a cough. That, and the overhead branches sawing each other in the wind, and the soft whumps their burdens of snow made when they laid them down. The sound winter sunlight makes when it passes through dead leaves.

And then nothing.

She supposed she’d get used to wearing Emma’s coat sooner or later; probably around the time Emma wanted it back.

Unless Emma fell in love with Louisa’s own white puffa, of course. Never too late to change your image.

Lucas was pulling ahead; not quite walking fast, more like running slowly. Which presupposed that safety lay ahead, whereas all Louisa was confident of was that danger lay behind.

“Lucas . . .”

“What?”

“Let’s take it easy.”

In case they had to make a sudden reversal. In case they found themselves walking into the other half of a pincer movement.

She wasn’t sure how much more she could manage. Her safe, secure little flat felt a long way away; its bed and fridge like details from a fairytale.

Way behind her, out of sight along the wooded track, she thought she heard something: a snapping branch, a breaking limb.

And then they were in daylight; ahead of them the estuary, broadening as it greeted the sea, and to their left a steep hill, lumpily white, up which there must be a footpath, because Louisa could make out a stile at the bottom, underneath a signpost loafed with snow. That would lead up to the coastal path. Descending the hill now, trudging carefully, was a bundled-up figure using a stick. And ahead of them was a building; a pub, its wooden sign flapping in the wind. A single car had been there some time, judging by its rich crop of snow. The pub wouldn’t be open, but the car suggested there might be someone inside. And Louisa would pay way over the odds for a sandwich, a cup of coffee.

Beyond the pub, on the far side of a low harbour wall, was an expanse of shingle, daubed with seaweed and torn bits of netting. Slushy-looking snow formed turrets at intervals, but mostly the shingle was just wet . . . More stones, Louisa thought, remembering those she’d slipped into her jacket pocket earlier. A little surprise for Emma, there.

A couple stood on the beach, throwing a ball for a spaniel just this side of hysteria. Its ears flapped like a loose-fitting cap.

“Can we go in there?” Lucas asked. He meant the pub.

“Hope so.”