Roddy’s car chose this moment to come back to life.
It sounded crazy loud, though had a lot of competition—horns were blaring from the traffic behind, and there was a certain amount of wailing coming from the bus. A police siren, too, had joined the chorus, though was some distance away; the noise remained a flashing blue suggestion behind a screen of trees. Only the coach driver had lost his voice, and he didn’t even yelp when Roddy missed him by maybe half an inch—Roddy couldn’t reverse, because the traffic behind had shunted forward, so swinging round the fat idiot who’d started all this was his only option. It would have been the work of a moment to lean across, open the door and let Shirley jump in, so Roddy really should have thought about doing that, but he was too busy avoiding the tree which had reared up, grinding against his paintwork as he passed, and suddenly all he had in front of him was nothing, a big black darkness that his headlights barely scratched, while the ground beneath his wheels was all over the place; an assault course of bumps and shallows and missing bits. He was breathing noisily—okay, maybe yelling—and the resulting sound ran up and down its own peculiar scale in time with the rockabilly motion of the car. It was all he could do to keep both hands on the wheel. Welcome to the Rod-eo: a lesser driver would have been thrown through the windshield by now.
Really should have given serious thought to being a stunt-man.
Because he was getting into the groove now, and it felt kind of wild. Okay, not doing the suspension any favours, but face it: a hot rod belonging to Hot Rod was going to have its suspension put through its paces sooner or later. As for the scene he was leaving behind, yeah, things had got messed up, but what could you expect with Shirley Dander providing distraction? Any job involving that mad chick was bound to go fruit-shaped. Enough to make you wonder whose side she was on. But that didn’t matter right now.
What mattered right now was: on the passenger seat lay his phone, screen upwards, dumped there by Shirley when she left to kill the bus.
And what mattered was: the pulsing dot that was Louisa’s phone was getting nearer. Or rather, Roddy was getting nearer the pulsing dot.
Which had been the mission all along, and he was the only one out here completing it.
The only one bar Lech, that was, though Roddy didn’t know Lech was on the common. For his part, that he was on the common was about the only thing Lech did know, as far as his whereabouts went. Until the commotion following Shirley’s shattering of the coach windscreen, he’d been striding in what he hoped was a straight line, this seeming a more sensible option than wandering in circles, though neither amounted to what could be called a plan. Odd sounds had drifted his way—sighs and mutterings—but it was possible, he thought, that the ground had stored away these daytime whispers; was softly releasing them, now night had fallen, like so many pockets of gas. But the noise that erupted after Shirley’s party trick blew past him like hot air. He turned, and saw the distant chaos as if it were a rock concert viewed from afar: all the light and sound focused on one corner of the darkness. But even as he had that thought, something broke away from the stage; a pair of headlights had come loose, to make their bumpy way across the common. Had to be some kind of idiot, thought Lech. But given that the vehicle was heading more or less in his direction, it at least provided illumination of sorts; when its twin cones of light weren’t pointing at the sky, they were throwing themselves haphazardly onto the common, and picking out movement somewhere not far ahead.
Some of this was Louisa, dodging another kick thrown by Number Eleven.
It was a favourite gambit of his, despite its lack of success so far. Perhaps he’d watched it done on screen; perhaps he thought he was doing it right. A good talking to would have put him straight, but Louisa was saving her breath for where it would do most good, this being keeping on her feet and moving about enough that neither man could land a blow. Her main problem was that there were two of them. Neither on his own would scare her much, but one mistake on her part would leave her open to being stomped on, and worse. So when Roddy’s headlights made themselves known she felt her spirits lift; not enough to distract her from her current vigilance, but more than they would have done had she been aware they were Roddy’s.
“Company’s coming,” she said.
Eleven’s reply was another kick, which he signalled enough that she had no trouble dodging.
Green Trainers was more of an issue. Bald, bearded and sleeve-tattooed, he was less inclined to use his feet as weapons, but nimbler on them than his companion. And while he was enjoying himself just as much—his small, even teeth bared in a grin—there was calculation too. He was letting Eleven wear Louisa out. When she made a mistake, he’d drop on her like a raptor . . . But she had something this pair didn’t, she’d walked away from gunfights, and that thought sparked a gallery of images: of being shot at way above London by a Russian hood; of waging a small war underground, River at her side; of decking a mercenary with a monkey wrench on a snow-covered lane in Wales. All that and more. Others, true, had died, but Louisa was still standing. And these guys were amateurs. So when Number Eleven aimed his latest kick—yawn—instead of dancing back she moved sideways, grabbed his ankle and twisted. Threw him away. She didn’t break anything—she would if he tried it again—but he gave a satisfying yelp all the same.