Road Kill (2 page)

I’d been so caught up with the renovations to the cottage that the last time I’d seen the pair of them was nearly a month ago. They’d been the same as ever, teasing, happy, vibrantly alive. Thinking of either of them dead sent me reeling into panic and denial.

Not that I was any stranger to death. I’d seen it, touched it and smelled it, more times than was good for me to remember. I’d even felt it come for me, for those I loved, and then swing away almost on a whim.

Maybe that was why I couldn’t truly believe the news about Jacob. Why I was making this near-suicidal dash to the hospital. Until I knew for certain that it was hopeless and he was truly gone, I would try to bind him to this life by sheer effort of will.

My mind kept running over and over what might have happened, but Sam had only arrived after the event, so he hadn’t been a direct witness. Clare had been asking for me, he’d been told, and he was the one who’d volunteered to try and track me down from scrappy bits of information and hearsay. Just about anything, by his way of thinking, was better than hanging around at the hospital.

The very fact that at one point after the crash Clare had obviously been conscious and lucid filled me with a small measure of hope but I shied away from the possible nature of her injuries.

Besides, what was she going to do without Jacob? Did she even know that he was dead?

I couldn’t imagine what kind of self-induced error had brought the pair of them down. Jacob was a seriously fast rider, had raced bikes in his younger days and still pushed hard on the road. He had skill I couldn’t even begin to match and a seeming sixth sense for dangers lurking round the next blind bend.

And Clare had too much respect for her classic Ducati 851 Strada to be reckless. In biking, as in all things, Clare just had too much style to do something as untidy as crashing.

So what the hell had gone wrong?

***

Lancaster on a Sunday was fairly quiet and I totally disregarded the posted speed limits all the way through town. Sam was right behind me when I finally pulled into the car park at the RLI and dived into a space marked ‘reserved for consultants only’.

For once I didn’t chain the bike up, or even check to see that it was settled fully onto its side-stand. Taking the keys out of the ignition was the most I could manage. Having Sam there made me try for composure, so we walked, rather than ran, into the building itself.

Nevertheless, I hit the entrance doors to Accident & Emergency shoulder first without slowing, punching them open and woe betide anyone unlucky enough to be standing on the other side.

Sam bypassed the reception desk and trotted off down a corridor. I wanted to stop and ask, but at the same time I didn’t want to let him out of sight, so I hurried after him with barely a break in stride.

It had been around ten months since my last visit to the RLI – only that time I’d arrived on a stretcher. I felt the familiar tightness in my chest that being inside the place again always brought on. They say the body doesn’t remember pain. They lie.

After a couple of corners the corridor opened out into a large recess that formed a waiting area. The three walls were lined with a rake of squat cloth chairs pushed together into benches. In the centre was a low table covered with nervously dog-eared magazines.

There were already half a dozen people in occupation. Most of them looked awkward and uncomfortable in their full race-replica leathers. A row of helmets sat like trophy skulls across the end run of seats.

I had time to wonder who they all were, these strangers. I didn’t think I’d been away long enough to be so completely out of touch. Nobody looked immediately familiar but I didn’t have time for a thorough inspection.

As soon as we appeared, a middle-aged woman who’d been sitting in a corner jumped to her feet and launched herself in my direction.

Before I knew it I’d been enveloped in a motherly embrace of such ferocity I barely knew how to react. Aggression I can deal with in my sleep. Affection defeats me every time.

I gave in long enough to hug her in return, then managed to lever myself back far enough to be able to breathe unrestricted.

“Pauline?” I said, suddenly grateful to see her. “What are you doing here?”

“Sam got them to call me,” she said gently. “He thought Clare might appreciate a friendly face.”

I’d known Pauline Jamieson since she started coming to the self-defence classes I was teaching around Lancaster a couple of years ago. Then, when those came to a somewhat abrupt end, she stuck by me as a friend.

After I’d introduced them, Pauline had got to know Jacob and Clare almost as well as I did. So, of course she would be here. Unaccountably, for the first time my voice wobbled and threatened to take the rest of my face down with it.

Pauline took one look at me and wrapped me in a big hug again. She was wearing a strappy summer dress that was a bit of a fashion mistake with her ample figure but she had the self-confidence to carry it off regardless. Her hair was a vivid shade of burgundy and she smelt of apples and peppermint.

“Clare will make it,” she said, eyeing me intently. Just when I thought her firm tone meant she’d had an updated report, she dashed my hopes by adding, “You’ve got to keep telling yourself that.”

“How is she? Have they told you anything?”

“Only that both her legs are broken,” Pauline said. She was one of the most matter-of-fact people I knew, but just saying the words even she winced. “Pelvis too, I think. I’m still waiting to hear.”

I blanked my mind to the image of Clare’s long artlessly perfect legs in pieces like a jigsaw puzzle.

“Jesus,” I muttered. “Does she know about Jacob?”

“Jacob?” Pauline frowned and glanced at Sam, then her eyebrows shot up and she let go of me just long enough to put her hands to her mouth. “Oh my goodness,” she said, a little faintly. “That wasn’t who she was on the bike with, Charlie. I thought so initially – everybody did – but we were wrong, thank heavens. It wasn’t Jacob.”

Parts of my brain overloaded and shut down. Anger sparked and flashed over. A gut instinct response, like the irate mother of a just-found missing child. The relief was so strong it actually hurt.

“Oh thank Christ for that,” I moaned, pulling away from Pauline’s arms to sink onto the nearest chair with my head in my hands.

“You might want to rethink the celebration a little, or at least tone it down,” said a voice above me, tight with compressed emotion. “It might not be your mate who’s cashed in his chips, but it was one of ours.”

I lifted my head to find one of the group of bikers had come over and was glaring at the three of us in fairly equal measure.

He was black, with high cheekbones and a buzz cut. Probably somewhere in his late twenties, he was built like a gym junkie, bulked out further by the snazzy one-piece leathers he was wearing. On the outside of both knees were hard plastic sliders, stuck on with velcro. The sliders were well scuffed, so either he had the bottle to lean his bike over far enough to get his knee down, or he fell off a lot.

The leathers were the latest pattern of expensive Nankai gear in white and two shades of bright green. I would have laid money on him having the latest pattern of expensive Kawasaki sports bike to match.

We each of us reacted to his intrusion according to our nature. Sam took a step back, I got to my feet and took a step forwards, and Pauline moved into the middle ground between us, stoutly undaunted.

“Don’t you think there’s been more than enough bloodshed for one day, young man?” she asked, her voice mild.

To my surprise, the big guy looked flustered at her quiet admonition. He dropped his gaze, hunching his shoulders uncomfortably inside all that kevlar-reinforced padding as though he’d developed a sudden itch.

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly, giving him a way out with honour along with an apologetic smile. I had to tilt my head back to look up at him and I was no short-stop. “I’ve just ridden down here like a bat out of hell believing one of my oldest friends was dead.” I shrugged. “But it was still thoughtless of me.”

He nodded at that, little more than a ducking of his head. On impulse I stuck my hand out.

“Charlie Fox,” I said. He took it and shook it, gently, his fingers engulfing mine.

“William,” he said in grudging response.

“Just William?”

There was a pause, then his face cracked in spite of himself. The smile lightened him up by about ten years and took him several notches down the threat scale at the same time. “Yeah,” he said. “Just William.”

Pauline introduced herself, too, then announced she was going to roust the medical staff again for more news. Sam had been hovering nervously while this exchange took place. “I’ll get coffee,” he offered and scurried away before I could do more than nod and smile at him.

William watched him leave with a shrewd stare. “I see your mate’s enough of a New Man to let you stand up for yourself,” he said wryly. Now he’d relaxed I could hear the culture in his voice, close to the lazy drawl of the wealthy classes.

“Sam knows his limitations,” I said. “But don’t underestimate him. He may not like physical confrontations, but he could beat your computer to death with one hand tied behind his back.”

William nodded and the humour left his face as the conversation died away.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” I said. “Who was he?”

“His name was Simon Grannell,” he said simply, “but everybody called him Slick.”

The name tickled at the back of my memory but I couldn’t put a face to it. “So, what happened, do you know?” I asked.

“Not sure. We got there not long after,” he said, sounding both tired and angry, running a hand over the top of his scalp. “Slick was already toast and your lady friend was still lying in the middle of the road. I damned near ran over her, too.”

Despite the heat my arms went cold enough to sprout instant goosebumps. “‘Too’?” I said.

“Yeah.” He nodded. “I’m no expert but it looked like something went over her after they hit the deck.”

“Jesus,” I muttered under my breath. “I suppose her Ducati’s totalled?”

“Ducati?” William frowned. “What Ducati? Slick’s bike was a Suzuki streetfighter. They were on that.”

Slick Grannell and a streetfighter Suzuki.
Now
I remembered him. One of the flashy group of riders who liked to show off at the local bikers’ haunt near Kirkby Lonsdale.

The last time I’d seen him was probably one mild dry Sunday in early July, setting off from Devil’s Bridge like the lights had just gone green on his own personal drag strip and someone else was picking up the tab on his tyres. An idle thought had crossed my mind at the time that he was heading for a fall. I never expected for a moment that he’d take my best friend with him.

For a moment I said nothing but something started niggling at the back of my mind. Clare had passed her bike test before she learned to drive a car and I’d never known her willingly ride pillion. She hated it. Yet there she’d been, out on the back of this guy Slick’s bike when I could have sworn she thought he was as big an idiot as I did.

“What the hell was Clare doing out with Slick?” I asked.

William glanced at me sharply, as though maybe he sensed the implied criticism of his mate. “I don’t know,” he said. He saw my expression and was back to his grim-faced look again. “I just want to find out what happened to them,” he said, “and she’s the only one who can fill in the blanks.”

Pauline reappeared at that moment and I glanced at her, hopeful, but she shook her head. “They aren’t for telling me anything,” she said.

“Right,” I said, determined. “My turn.”

***

“Look, I appreciate that you’re concerned for your friend, but there really is nothing I can tell you beyond the fact we’re doing everything we can.”

The doctor finished making some illegible scrawl on her clipboard and almost threw it down onto the cluttered desk. She barely seemed out of her teens but she must have passed out top in her class for stubbornness. She was frail and slender and looked tired down to her bones.

The pager in the pocket of her white coat went off and she picked it out, reading the display distractedly, then shut it off. Her attention was already somewhere else. I touched her sleeve, enough to bring her back to me.

“OK,” I said quickly. “I know I’m not family but to me Clare
is
family. Closer than family. I understand her legs are smashed. Can you at least tell me if it’s as bad as I’ve heard?”

The young doctor’s eyes flicked down to where my fingers rested on her arm, then up to meet my gaze again and I saw wariness replace exasperation. I took my hand back. She sighed noisily and pushed a lank strand of hair out of her eyes.

“Yes, it’s bad,” she said at last, the admission seeming to sap the last of her meagre energy. She stuck her hands into her pockets, pulling her shoulders down, too.

I shrugged helplessly. “So – will she walk?”