Authors: Colin Bateman
'Effing
brilliant,' I said as we drove. I had already taken the SIM card out and rubbed
it like an expert, and replaced it to absolutely no effect. 'What are we
supposed to do now? How're we meant to find Jeff? What if he's been trying to
call us and ...'
Alison's
hand snaked into her handbag. Thankfully her lesson was learned and her eyes
did not once deviate from the road ahead. She still managed to produce her own
phone and hand it to me with a theatrical
'Duh!'
I
examined it. 'There are no messages from Jeff,' I said, 'but there are dozens
of texts from Brian.'
Her
face coloured slightly. 'Why don't you mind your own beeswax and just call
him?'
'Brian?'
'Jeff!
Honest to God . . .'
I
called him. There was no response. It gave me the option of leaving a message.
I chose not to, in case his phone now lay in enemy hands.
'What
do we do now?' Alison asked. 'Drive around Tollymore looking for him? It's
huge, and he was supposed to be hiding, and it'll be getting dark soon.'
'I
don't see what else we can do.'
So
that's what we did. It wasn't much of a plan.
We
drove for the next ten minutes in silence. Then I asked Alison how come all the
texts from Brian.
'He's
my ex, and we're not enemies, and he has issues.'
'What
kind of issues?'
'Hating
you issues.'
'He
can't handle that you chose the better man.'
'I
didn't choose the better man. I chose a different man.'
'Same
difference,' I said.
'I
can easily change my mind,' she said.
I
snorted. 'Yeah, right.'
She
looked at me. I looked back.
I
said, 'When I was unconscious, I dreamt that I was trapped on the golf driving
range at Blackheath, and Dr Yes was firing giant balls at me, and they were exploding,
and getting closer and closer, and he kept shouting
four!
and
four!
and
four!
until the very last one came right at me and it was about to
blow me into little pieces, and he shouted
five!
What do you think that
means?'
'Baby's
fine,' said Alison.
We
stopped at the gate leading into Tollymore. It was a National Trust forest
park. I didn't trust them. They were do-gooders and jobsworths and
holier-than-thousers. Places should be allowed to fall into disrepair. Forests
should burn. God created woodworm and arsonists. The man in the yellow jacket
said, 'It's a fiver and we're closing in half an hour.'
That's
fine,' Alison said, handing over the money out of her window.
We
drove the official roads within the park until we came to the end of them.
There were locked gates, supposedly to stop you going further, but you could
drive around them. So we did. The fiver also gave us a map, and the tracks,
ostensibly for walking, were clearly marked upon them. I had it open on my lap.
I told Alison there were dozens of tracks covering hundreds of miles, if you
added them all up. She asked where we should start. I said at the very
beginning. She said that was a very good place to start. By the end of the
first stretch we were well into
The Sound of Music
soundtrack. She had a
voice that could pickle eggs. But together we sounded like Sonny and Cher, if
someone had taken a mallet to Cher. We were looking for killers, and our silent
friend, in hostile country full of moss and twigs. The singing was a way to
mask our fear. We knew that. And sang louder.
The
tracks were rough and strewn with boulders, and the VW rattled and clanked. We
crissed and we crossed. The trees were dense and the sun was blocked out by the
mountains, so it was dark and getting darker. The last few walkers were making
their way back to the entrance; any we saw we stopped and asked if they'd seen
the Mystery Machine, but no luck, at least until some superannuated Scout, all
kitted out for an assault on Everest, appeared suddenly out of the murk and
nearly paid for it with his life. As he dragged himself out of the brambles,
Alison repeated the question, prefacing it with a lazy 'sorry', and he
surprised us by saying yes, he had seen it, parked about half a mile further
up, partially hidden amongst the trees. We asked if there'd been any signs of
life about it and he said he had been reluctant to approach in case the
occupants were, you know . ..
'Screwing,'
said Alison.
'Making
love,' said the Scout.
'That's
what I said,' said Alison.
We
drove on. After
exactly
half a mile, we stopped. I'm good with
distances. It comes with thirty years of counting footsteps, and recording them
in my ledger. The problem was that the Scout didn't have my talent for it, so
his observation was just a guesstimate. It was now pitch black. We couldn't see
the van. We couldn't see
anything.
'What
now?' I said.
'Spare
keys for the Mystery Machine?'
'Don't
call it that,' I said, though I did myself, in secret. 'And of course.'
I had
three spare sets about my person, because you can't be too careful. I gave her
a set, and she got out, and I got out and stood beside her, and she pointed
them into the trees and moved them across 180 degrees, pushing the unlock
button repeatedly.
Nothing.
I
said, 'Give them here.'
'I've
already . . . please don't click your fingers at me.'
'Then
hand them over.'
Alison
did her eye-rolling thing before dumping them into the palm of my hand. I
selected the right key before raising it and pointing it at my head. I pushed
the button, and two hundred yards away the lights of the Mystery Machine
automatically switched on as it unlocked itself.
Alison's
mouth dropped open. 'How
the fuck
did you do that?'
I smiled.
'It's quite simple, on my planet.'
It is
good to keep some mystery. It literally isn't rocket science. The key fob is
basically a low-power transmitter that functions on a line-of-sight basis. As
with any transmitter, the higher the antenna is, the further the signal
travels. Thus pointing it at my head might have seemed like I had a mechanical
brain capable of amazing technological feats, but I was just using common
sense.
Alison
said, 'Yeah, right.'
She
went to her boot and rummaged around before producing a flashlight. She locked
the car and started walking towards the Mystery Machine. I followed, but stayed
well behind. If there was going to be any shooting, they would go for the light
first.
With
the lights of the van on, we could tell from some distance that it was empty.
When we got there, we checked the back just in case Jeff had taken refuge there
or his body had been dumped inside.
Nothing.
'Now
what?' Alison asked. 'It's not like there's even trampled grass or anything to
follow his tracks.'
No
tracks, but ample moss. I had already sneezed a dozen times. The moss was soft
but spongy. You would make an impression if you stepped on it, but it would
quickly spring back into shape, like a community of travellers ejecting a
truancy officer.
I
clicked my fingers again. She gave me the torch, and another warning. I did a
360-degree sweep. Jeff was my assistant, my helper, he was the sorcerer's
apprentice; he would know better than to desert the Mystery Machine in the
middle of nowhere without leaving some kind of message. Quite possibly he
had
left one, on my dead phone. But equally, when he couldn't get through
to speak to me, he should have surmised that something untoward had happened,
and therefore sought another means to convey his intentions. That is, if they
were
his
intentions, and he hadn't been forced away.
Alison
was just saying, 'There's no point, we'll never . . .' when my third sweep
found it, and I signalled for her to follow. It was sitting roughly eleven
point seven metres into the trees, at thirty-eight degrees from the
manufacturer's trademark in the centre of the MM bonnet. Alison stared down at
it. 'It's just a sweetie paper.' 'No, it's an Opal Fruit wrapper ... an orange
one 'You mean Star—' 'And if I'm not mistaken . ..' The flashlight beam picked
up a second, a lime- green one, twenty metres further into the trees. 'This
way,' I said.
There
was a third and a fourth, and before very long we'd left the track and the MM
far behind. The paper trail was smart thinking on Jeff's part, thinking no
doubt enabled by the sweets themselves, a splendid source of vitamin C.
Alison
caught up with me where I'd stopped, and asked why I had.
'This
is the last one.' It was another orange paper.
'How
do you . . . ? Oh - I get it, six, that's all there is in the packet? I thought
there was more ...?’
'There's
nine. But I make him take the blackcurrant ones out and throw them away; they're
not one of the original flavours and I won't have them in the shop.'
'Because
. . . ? Oh, bugger
because.
Whatever you say. So what do we do now that
we're in the middle of . . . what's that smell?'
I
normally have a very acute sense of smell. I have to, with my allergies. But
repeated bashings of my nose, with the resultant swelling and bleeding, had
impaired my smellbuds. Alison was getting something I wasn't.
'Smoke,'
she said, answering her own question. She knocked off the flashlight and we
both peered ahead. There was a wavering pinprick of light just visible through
the trees.
'Keep
it off,' I said.
We
advanced. The only way I could avoid sneezing was by holding my nose. My nose hurt.
I was a martyr to the cause. We drew closer. Spring had not yet advanced
sufficiently towards summer to render the
twigs
dry enough to snap underfoot, while the moss acted as an efficient muffler. We
got close enough to establish that there was a bonfire, and that there was a
figure sitting on a log beside it. As we drew further in, we realised that that
figure was Jeff.
We
stopped.
Alison
whispered, 'What if it's a trap?'
Jeff
laughed abruptly. 'I can hear you!'
It
might have been the cool, crisp mountain air carrying Alison's words to him
with such clarity. Most likely, though, it was the higher state of
enlightenment that came with the huge joint he was smoking.
I
called: 'Is it safe?'
'Is
what safe?'
'To
approach!'
'Yes!'
'You're
sure?'
'Yes!'
'If
it was a trap, you would say that!'
'Good
point!'
If it
was a trap, they would have us anyway. I couldn't run for toffee, and gasping
for air would only lead to me inhaling even more moss molecules, which would
cause me to expand to the size of a Zeppelin.
Alison
went forward first. When she failed to be shot, stabbed or pounced upon, I
emerged into the firelight.
Jeff
waved us closer. 'Pull up a log,' he said.
We
stood, warily. He was very relaxed. We were not. We peered into the darkness.
'Jeff,'
said Alison, 'what's going on? Where are they?'
'They?
Oh, here, there, everywhere. They buzz, but they're not mosquitoes.'
I
took a step towards him. 'Jeff . . .'
Jeff
suddenly pulled his hands up to guard his face. 'Don't hit me!' he cried.
'You're always hitting me!'
'Jeff,
for goodness' . . .'
Alison
swept past me and put a protective arm around him. When he had settled
sufficiently, she gently peeled his fingers back. 'Jeff, baby,' she purred,
'he's not going to hit you.' And then she snapped the joint out of his hand and
tossed it into the fire. 'But I fucking will if you don't wise up. Do you
hear?'