Shirley had disappeared behind the hedge bordering the layby, having a piss River hoped, but possibly snorting coke. Coe had remained behind the steering wheel, giving a good impression of a man who didn’t care where he was. But he wasn’t dressed for the weather, and if River had been in the business of giving a toss, he’d have been mildly concerned for Coe’s welfare: it wasn’t going to get warmer soon.
On the other hand, his own clothing didn’t match the conditions. His jacket was little more than an anorak.
And this was just another of the drawbacks of being a slow horse. The sort of thing his grandfather would have warned him about, once: that their enforced inertia, the mind-mushing sameness of their days, meant that any hint of action and they leaped at it, and damn the consequences . . . Frank would be laughing, he thought. If Frank could see him now he’d shake his head, laugh, and look for another river to drop him into. So it would be best to make sure Frank didn’t see him; that the first Frank knew of his presence was when he felt River’s hands round his neck . . .
Jesus. Was that what he intended? To kill his father?
A ripple ran through Coe, as if River had wandered across his grave
“I checked out the hostiles,” she said. “Car’s empty. But the lorry’s not. It’s got a nice warm cabin, quite roomy. And there’s a man eating hot food and watching TV.”
“How roomy?”
“Bigger than my flat. I told him there were three of us here.”
“And?”
“And he asked if any of us were women,” Shirley said.
“Did you let him live?”
“I’m going back later, to stuff him in his microwave.”
Coe opened his eyes. “I’ll check the boot.”
“Maybe Ho keeps his spare pizzas in there,” Shirley said hopefully, but when Coe returned all he had was a large cardboard box, which had once contained a plasma screen and now held only sheets of filmy-grey packaging.
“Bedding?” River asked.
Coe shrugged.
“We’d better huddle,” River said.
“No way am I fucking huddling,” said Shirley.
“Fine. Freeze to death.”
“I would genuinely prefer that.”
“Can we have your coat, then? Since you’re going to freeze anyway.”
“Fuck off.”
River and Coe looked at each other, it dawning on both that any huddling was going to be an all-male affair.
“I don’t like being touched,” Coe said at last.
“Huddling isn’t touching. It’s . . . survival.”
They rearranged themselves, Shirley in the front, slamming the door loud enough that nobody was in doubt as to her state of mind. Coe hovered in the snow a moment, handing the sheets of packing foam to River before tearing the cardboard box along one seam to open it out. When he got back in he arranged this over them: a stiff, graceless blanket laid over the spongy wrappings.
“Where’s mine?” Shirley asked.
“It’s for huddlers only.”
“Bastards.”
“Your choice.”
After a minute’s thought, much of it audible, Shirley got out and climbed back in next to River. “Lamb finds out about this, he’ll shit,” she said. “Loudly and often.” She twisted sideways. “And that better be a gun in your pocket.”
River didn’t reply.
“Jesus . . . You’ve got a gun in your pocket?”
“Lamb gave it to me.”
“That is so fucking . . . He never gives me anything!”
“Possibly he thinks you’re a little excitable.”
“He probably meant us to share.”
“I’m pretty certain that was the last thing on his mind.”
Shirley said, “Yeah, well, if you have any big psychological block about shooting your father, I’ve got dibs.”
“We have to find him first.”
Coe said, “We should get some sleep.”
They fell quiet, if you didn’t count Shirley’s stomach.
J.K. Coe remained awake, though, his head against the glass. The world outside had vanished, and he liked this—the absence of everything, as if all feeling and event had been subtracted from existence. Here on this side of the door, he had River Cartwright’s sleeping form slumped against his shoulder; they were jammed thigh to thigh, and he could feel River’s pulse, a steady echo of his own. And just beyond River Shirley Dander, who, in sleep, seemed to pump out warmth, as if the fires that burned within her never rested. Coe could sympathise, though he wasn’t sure it was heat his own demons thrived on. He thought they preferred the cold.
He closed his eyes at last, and summoned up the sound of a piano; a tune so fragile, it could wander trackless through the snow. He wasn’t clear that this was sleep, but it was near enough that his breathing became regular, and whatever gremlin stalked his thoughts ceased its fidgeting and let him be.
They were woken hours later by a snow plough lumbering past.
When Emma looked up, everyone around her was dead.
“Christ . . .”
And then Louisa was there too, using her good arm to help haul her to her feet among the gravestones.
“This way.”
Because there was only one route: through the churchyard to the gates.
Lucas was ahead, though he had stopped to look back, unsure what to do next. And behind them, the other side of the wall she’d just cleared, was a man with a gun.
