In his stomach now, a tightening knot. He was breathing hard and his teeth were clenched. What had been excitement had drained away, and he was in the grip of dread; dread of not finding Sid; dread of finding her body. He’d been half a second away from piling into that oncoming car: subtract an atom of luck and he’d be dead or badly injured. And whatever was going to happen to Sid would carry on happening, unless it already had. And she’d never know he’d tried to stop it.
A gunshot broke the evening in two, but it was only his engine, the knock that was a rattle reaching new heights.
And then a dull grey something shone through trees on his left, and River remembered a lake, a picnic spot. A small piece of his boyhood fell into place, and he slowed approaching the next long curve, suddenly sure there’d be a parking place here, behind a line of trees. Even as the thought formed, reality arrived to meet it: déjà vu made physical. He turned off the road, drove into the darkness, and came to a halt twenty yards from the space’s only other vehicle: silver, its registration ending
River killed his engine, and for a second or two was aware only of how loud his breathing was.
The airbag was still in the footwell, and tangled his foot as he climbed out. His heart was beating too fast, and his legs trembled as he approached the other car, thinking
‘Let’s finish it here in the car,’ Sid said, and pushed the O.B.’s letter opener up through Jim’s jaw, into his head. She was surprised at how easy this was, if not as surprised as Jim. Because his seat belt was still in place he didn’t fall forward but sagged back against the car’s upholstery, and bubbled some nonsense, and died.
Jane screamed.
Sid opened her door and tumbled out.
She was away already, running along a track to the water’s edge. Speed mattered. Maybe Jane would wait to check that Jim was beyond help, but Sid already knew he was. She hadn’t even bothered trying to remove the blade, it was in so deep.
He had only been cold a few moments, but Sid guessed it was already starting to feel quite normal.
The trees thinned out, and she reached the lake. The path turned into a narrow wooden jetty, lapped by lake water, and leading to a wooden shack on stilts: a bird hide. It wasn’t much bigger than a telephone box, and Jane could probably tear it down with her bare hands. So Sid stuck to the shore, veered left, ran a few paces, then ducked among trees, which immediately attacked her, slashing her face and hands with low branches. She stopped, and they calmed down.
Her clothes were dark. She could blend into shadow. But she’d already used up a lifetime’s luck, along with her only weapon.
The look in Jim’s eyes when he’d known he was dead. There’d been outrage there, rather than fear.
All was quiet.
There were no birds, no traffic; only the fussing of the lake as the wind skated across it. You’d have thought there’d be lovers, or drinkers, or both; you’d have expected at least one small group of idiots looking for romance or similar oblivion. But there was only Sid and Jane, who’d be coming for her now, armed and with urgent intent, because this was no longer a job, it was personal. Whatever toxic bond had fused Jim and Jane, she’d avenge its sundering. So it was likely that Sid would die in this unfamiliar place, and with the thought she pressed against the tree trunk, as if trying to melt inside it, become invisible, become tree.
Sid yelped, but it hadn’t been a gun, had been a passing car, and she opened her mouth to scream for help, then snapped it shut. A scream would bring Jane, and it wouldn’t take Jane a moment to finish her job. Which was what Sid had become: an unfinished job. Like an unswept floor, or an unwashed dish. Fuck that, she thought.
She could slip back onto the track and keep running. She doubted it went anywhere. It would circle the lake and bring her back where she’d started, but didn’t most paths do that? Look at her own travels. When she’d fled Cumbria she’d imagined River a place of safety. For some reason he was a fixed point among a mess of scattered detail: a pair of shoes in a wardrobe, beyond use, but never thrown away. Rubbish littering an office floor. Bad coffee drunk in a car at night.
There was no fathoming what the mind kept hold of.
‘Bitch!’
She was grabbed by the arm and pulled onto the track, flung to the ground and kicked hard. She tried to roll with it, a lesson supposedly burned into bone memory on the Park’s training mats, but she landed like a bag of wet sand, the air punched out of her.
