Chapter Twenty-Four
We crossed the river to reach the cliff top, driving into a purple sunset, the same bruised color as the clouds of heather drifting over the moorland that had brought us here. It seemed that the land ran seamlessly into sky. After our long days of confinement—forest, mine, wolf enclosure—I felt like I had stepped onto a parapet, an impression that was heightened by the buffeting wind on the exposed road. The wide view offered a vertiginous freedom, as though we could drive straight over the edge and just keep going.
As we approached the Gothic face of Whitby Abbey, the sun dropped behind one ruined window socket and split into an orange frangipani flower. The glow streamed across the surrounding pastureland so that the dry grass lit up, its windblown movement swilling like the yellow hair of a drowned girl. It shifted direction to beckon us toward the cliff tops. We rolled along in silence, tires rumbling like distant thunder.
“Is this real?” asked Maggie. I assured her it was. We rumbled on until I stopped the pickup beside a tall stone cross, so weathered its ornamental top was worn down to a nub.
“I see the sea, and the sea sees me,” said Charlie. As though in response, a wave drummed on the rocks below.
I got out and walked to the stone cross, up the little steps to its base to gain extra elevation and look out over the coastline. Mercury water pooled in the sheltered river inlet down in the town. But the wide swathe of beach running up to a distant headland was batted by shallow waves, slow blinking eyelids. Lola climbed up beside me, fighting to open the map in the wind.
“There’s nothing down there,” she complained.
There was, though. Through the binoculars, I scanned past the darkening town and along the coastal path to the north, where the cliffs of a headland began and a road slid down a sharp slope into the water. It wasn’t the harbor we were expecting, but it was access to the sea, and it was certainly low profile. I pulled the binoculars away and squeezed my eyes to focus better. Looking again, I made sure of what I thought I could see: the glinting signal of the sun’s last rays on the white coat of a person walking up the slipway.
The last time I had seen a white outfit, it was marching away as Horatio buckled onto the forest floor. I squinted through the binoculars again. This was different. His movements were swift, unrestricted: no biohazard suit. Then there was a second figure, going down toward the beach and disappearing from view behind an old wooden pier. Into a boat that was moored out of sight, maybe? I scanned back up the slipway to a white tent, like a small marquee, set up on the road. There was a flag, which I couldn’t make out. Red and white. Red Cross? No, the red was in the background. I called Charlie over, passed him the binoculars.
“Your eyes are better than mine. What’s that flag?” I said. “It’s not the George Cross—”
Charlie peered down. “Norway.”
“Are you sure?”
He held the binoculars out to me. “Blue-and-white cross on red. Easy. Norway. Capital: Oslo.”
I looked again, and then I could make out the blue. Joni scrunched over the gravel to join us and took the binoculars while we studied the map.
“Looks like the place,” said Lola. “Right coordinates.”
Way below us, the sea slapped the land.
“They’re too far away,” I said at last. “I need to get closer to see if it’s safe.”
“Let’s just go,” said Joni.
“But we don’t know who they are,” I said.
She made an impatient sound and stared out over the water. I faced the other way, to check the kids in the pickup. Billy pointed two fingers to his eyes and turned them to point at me. I’m watching you. I copied the motion in response.
“What choice do we have?” Joni asked.
“I’m just saying we should check it out first,” I said. “You can stay here, under cover.” I pointed to the abbey, where a deep stone archway led to a visitor center. “I’ll run along the coastal path until I reach a vantage point.” I measured the distance on the map with my thumb. “It’s about five miles there and back; I’ll be gone less than an hour.”
“And what happens if you don’t come back?” said Lola.
“Then you revert to Plan A: hide in a cave.”
“And leave you?”
“Yes, Lola—if I get killed, you and Joni must leave me and get the children to safety.”
Lola chewed her lip. “I guess an hour might be enough time for Jack to catch up.”
“If it’s safe down there”—I nodded in the direction of the white tent—“we can keep watch until he turns up.”
“Okay.”
Joni turned to face me, her eyes slipping over my shoulder into the distance. I followed her gaze. Way beyond the yellowed grass, a flock of birds rose up as silhouetted darts against the sky, too distant to hear their cries, but their disarray clear. Something had disturbed them from their roost.
“Let’s go now,” Joni said again.
Charlie pointed a finger. “Drones.”
Two black dots, small as gnats, growing in size as they headed toward us. An unnaturally coordinated movement amid the floundering birds.
“Back in the truck,” I shouted at two boys who’d slipped out from under the tarpaulin. “Get in!” They scrambled up as though scalded by the ground. I started the engine and spun the wheels over the gravel.
“Which way?” I said to Lola.
“There’s only one road. Back the way we came.”
If we followed that road, it would take us in a wide loop to the south before we reached the route that led north toward the headland. We would have to pass right beneath the drones, which were approaching now in a kind of pincer movement.
“What about this path down toward the town?” I pointed to a wide avenue of stone steps ahead of us.
“It goes straight down the cliff.”
“They’re coming, Mummy,” hissed Charlie. Maggie broke out into a high-pitched keening.
I edged the pickup forward to the top of the steps, which curved round the escarpment between black iron railings. Once committed, there would be no stopping.
“What do you think?”
“It’s too steep,” said Lola.
“How far does it go?”
“There’s one hundred and ninety-nine steps. It says on the map. We can’t even see right to the bottom.”
“Mummy, they’re coming!” Charlie said. Maggie gave a loud yelp and clamped her hands over her ears, the keening louder.
I teetered on the top. These were not the undulating hills of Shropshire. If I rolled it down this cliff, it would leave us with more than a busted headlight and a few dents. If I lost control on the steps, it would kill the boys in the back. Little buggers wouldn’t stand a chance.
Maggie was thrashing her legs now, lashing out a hailstorm that pelted everyone around her.
“Quiet, Maggie!”
“It’s too steep.” Lola.
“Let’s just go.” Joni.
Billy sobbing.
Maggie keening.
The boys in the back under the tarpaulin, waiting.
In the rearview mirror, one black fly came into view. Still too distant to hear, I nevertheless felt its buzz. All the voices receded, and I was left with a weightlessness, like I’d had for one calm second when I’d rolled the Beast, as land turned into sky. A moment when the worst had already happened, so there was nothing left to worry about. I wanted to stop forever in that pause between cause and effect. A place where I didn’t have to be responsible for everybody all of the time. I blinked and the drone was still coming at me, bigger, faster. I hauled the pickup into reverse, and we shot back from the precipice, over the gravel, and straight under the cover of the stone cloister.
“Get out,” I said. “Joni, take all the kids and get out.”
“Mummy!” Three voices in unison from the back.
“You have to hide.” I turned to face Joni and Lola, appealing to them. “Take the kids under cover and when it’s clear, start down the steps. I don’t have time to explain. Just do it.” Nothing moved except the wind through the dry grass and the drones in the sky. “Ah, Jesus!” I flung open my door and jumped out to wrench off the tarpaulin. While the boys clambered out like clockwork robots, the others emerged from the cab, and Joni rounded them up into a darkened corner.
“Where are you going, Mummy?” Charlie clutched at my hands while I struggled to clear everything from the cab, making me drop the petrol canisters, which I scrambled up off the floor and dropped into the open back of the pickup.
“It’s okay. Just go with Joni and Lola, right? Down the steps. I’m right behind you.” I squeezed Maggie’s chin as I passed her. She held hands with Billy and the Lost Boy. “Look after them.”
“Yes, Mummy.”
I turned the wheel and sped away, just as the two drones skimmed over the blank face of the abbey.
The pickup flew through the long grass with a sound like the wind in my hair. Faster. The speed gauge went into the red. I steered straight toward the cliff edge, all the while checking the sky behind me. It was hard to judge the distance of the drones. They seemed to move closer together and apart again. With a small gasp, I realized they had turned and were following me.
I let them grow larger in the rearview mirror, and when I was sure they were flanking me, I braked hard, the truck stopping abruptly in the dry grass. Out of the cab and into the bed, I unscrewed the tops of the petrol canisters and laid them down. Fuel sopped round my feet. I vaulted over the side, back behind the wheel, jerking away across the field again, veering in a wide arc toward the cliff. In the wing mirror: two drones, up high, eyes in the sky. The petrol sprayed up in a wake behind me. I held the wheel steady with my knees and started scrabbling in the center console. The driver was a smoker, that much was obvious from the smell. There must be a lighter, matches. I scooped the detritus onto the seat. Nothing. “Fuck’s sake!” The truck swerved as I leaned to reach the glove compartment. I pulled the satnav cable out of the socket and fumbled the cigarette lighter into place instead. Ahead, the cliff edge approaching. Behind, the drones approaching. My thumb found the small knob and pressed it down. Come on, come on. I opened my door wide, the hinges screaming, the truck filling with the roar of wind buffeting, grass thrashing. Come on. The cliff was just yards away now, my body’s cells straining to keep me away from the edge. Click. I pulled the red-hot lighter from the socket and gripped it tight in my fist as I rolled out the open door, through the soft cushion of long grass, and onto the ice-hard ground that lay beneath.
I didn’t see the pickup go over the edge. I may have heard an explosion, but my head was ringing from the fall. I pulled my limbs back into their rightful places and got up. There would be pain later. But the smell of petrol was all around me, scattered wide from the back of the vehicle. I ran a little way along the path that the car had scythed through the grass, and held the lighter to a clump of sodden stalks. A flame caught right away, and I started to run, fast. A loud slap—like someone shaking out a bedsheet—and I knew the wind had taken control of the fire. It skirted away from me, racing with ruthless energy along the line of fuel toward the abbey. I ran counterclockwise to the galloping flame, praying that the kids had already started down the steps. I risked a look back at the drones, couldn’t see anything beyond the reams of smoke, my hot shield. I ran on, hiding in plain sight, until I reached the stone steps.
A dozen small figures straggled down the hill ahead of me. Joni brought up the rear, slowed down by Billy in her arms. Thank you, thank you. I took the steps two at a time, a shooting pain through my right shoulder telling me it had taken the brunt of the landing.
“Mum-may!” Billy called out as I caught up on the steep incline. Joni stopped and turned to grin at me. But I shooed her on; the whole hillside was covered with dry grass, the landscape volatile. Already, smoke poured over the cliff edge, the abbey face lost to us.
“We have to get across the river,” I told her.
“Carry me, Mum-may,” cried Billy.
With the elbow of my right arm swaddled in my left hand, the pain was bearable.
“I’m sorry, Billy, I can’t. Joni’s got you.”
She caught my eye and nodded once, noting my discomfort. “I got you, Billy. Let’s get out of here.”
We reached the final curve, stepping onto cobblestones just as a roar of flame came tearing down the hillside. The narrow streets quickly clogged with smoke, blowing all ways in the wind, and as the waiting children started scrubbing at their stinging eyes, I urged them down a side street that seemed to descend toward the sea. A spike of panic at a dead end. My shouts lost amid coughing as the smoke came after us like a monster I’d created. But then: “This way,” shouted Lola, and we plunged into an alley that brought us onto a larger road beside the river inlet. Outside the labyrinth of cobbled streets, the smoke cleared, and we stopped running, caught our breath. A quick head count, and we were all there. I gathered Billy into an awkward, one-armed squeeze. Over the ragged rooftops, smoke blossomed. The fire must have been huge, but it wouldn’t conceal us forever. I turned back to the coastline. The headland was a dark shape beyond the town, which was itself beyond the river.
“Why’s there no fricking bridge?” said Joni. The wide river inlet was flanked by storm barriers—a concrete cervix—that protected the harbor. But we couldn’t cross it. A stone wharf that jutted out into the water led only to an ornamental anchor.
“It’s further up.” I herded the kids onto the reeking mudflat left behind by the receding tide, and we staggered upriver to the same bridge we’d crossed not half an hour before. A tattered line of Union Jack bunting struggled against the wind. The children pattered across the span of the bridge, silent and watchful. A flag rope dinged against its pole. Boats nodded in the water. Charlie tugged at my arm.
“Couldn’t we—?”
“I don’t know how to sail a boat, Charlie.”
Gray swells of the river beneath our feet. The sound of water smacking every surface: keel, pillar, rock. Maybe on a calm day, it might have seemed possible. Maybe if I had the time to work out how to start a boat, the sea would be the most direct route to the white tent with the red flag, which was still probably three miles up the coast. But without that option we had to keep moving north as best we could.
I directed the kids along the coast road that bent around steep curves until we mounted the cliff top opposite the abbey. I scanned the sky for drones, but it was marbled with smoke, fire raging across the grassland and also, it seemed, through several buildings on the edge of the town. The heat must surely be a distraction—cover—but the smoke meant we wouldn’t see approaching drones until they were on top of us. In the other direction, looking north, the headland beneath which the Norwegian tent was hunkered was still in the distance. We had to move faster. Going straight along the beach would take too long, and that option would leave us totally exposed with nowhere to hide if the drones came. We stayed on the cliff top, the grand Victorian hotels as blank-eyed as the long-ruined abbey. We kept moving along the promenade, past endless memorial benches, all facing out to sea, as though that were the rightful place for grief. Billy whined, and I scooped him up with my left arm, wincing at the pain. A shout on the wind; ahead of us, Lola was pointing over the grass to a weatherboard shed, which advertised rental bikes. “Pier-to-Pier Cycling.” By the time I reached her, she had smashed the lock off with a rock and was hauling open the doors. We wheeled out the bikes—one boy asking, robotically, for a helmet—and straggled onto the coastal path, dipping below the promenade, which meant we wouldn’t be seen from the land.
“We can do this!” I shouted to Joni, who weaved unsteadily in front of me. Ahead of her, the younger kids hunkered over their handlebars, stabilizers taking the brunt of their lurches. Maggie and the Lost Boy wobbled away. Billy was perched on my crossbar, his shaggy hair blown back from his face. Despite the pain throbbing through my shoulder—it was my collarbone, I could feel it—I arched forward and kissed him on his soft spot.
The hard-earth path swooped downhill toward the headland. I could make out the dark shape of the slipway and the incongruous white gleam of the tent, though it was still too far off to see any detail. Billy shouted “whee” as we started to freewheel. My chest jumped with giddy relief, and I could have thrown my head back and laughed, larking along in the salt spray like it was a bank holiday. But then the bikes that had been streaming ahead of me clogged into a messy jam, and the expectant faces turned to me again. As I approached, I saw that the coastal path turned away from our destination. I swore into my teeth. A development of holiday cottages interrupted the path and forced it inland. The headland retreated behind the houses. I braked hard and had to grab Billy round the middle with my sore arm. My head swam with pain.
It was too steep to go down to the beach. And in any case, we couldn’t cycle on the sand. Better to move quickly on the road. I glanced back. The pall of smoke had consolidated into a column over the town. Charlie backed up until he was next to me.
“Looks like a volcano,” he said.
“Can you manage to cycle a bit further?” I asked him.
He nodded, still looking back: “You burnt down the town, Mummy.”
“Not all of it, love. Come on.” I cycled past the waiting children and round the dogleg that took us inland, thighs burning up the long slope, until it came out onto a road beside a windswept golf course. Once again, I could see the headland, which pointed out to sea like a long black finger. It was hard to tell in the darkening light, but it seemed far away again. Like a dream, where it slid off every time I got close. The drones could be on us in minutes, and what would we do—a dozen kids on bicycles? Inside me, contractions of panic multiplied in my gut.
Huge white shapes in the field opposite reflected the last of the daylight. I squinted down the road and read “Edge of the World Caravan Park.” I lifted Billy over to Joni and let my bike fall onto the grass verge.
“Wait here,” I said. “Whistle if you spot drones.”
I ran across the road and straddled the rickety wire fence. The dry grass was thigh-length, but I waded through it, past the static caravans to a row of motor homes that were lined up beside electrical boxes. Needs must. I hesitated by the driver’s door. I put a foot on the step and held the handle, then swung myself up to look inside. Four bodies, thick with flies. I jumped back. Too much buzz. I pressed my lips together to keep the nausea inside. The next motor home: a face slumped against the front window. I walked right past it to the third, put my foot on the step to look in, but when I heard Joni’s whistle I swung myself up onto the bonnet to see back to the road.
“Drones?” I shouted.
Charlie stood on the road, holding binoculars to his eyes. He lowered them as the other boys started running their bikes down the road, hopping on after a few steps and streaming away.
“Is it drones, Charlie?” I shouted again.
He lowered the binoculars and shook his head. “Helicopter,” he shouted. “There’s a helicopter coming.”
Of course there was. The drones were only trackers. The helicopter would have to make the kill.
I jumped down from the bonnet and hauled open the driver’s door. A body tumbled past me in an explosion of flies—the smell slamming me in the face—to land in a heap between me and the cab. I darted to the side door. Inside, another body. Needs must. You must. I pulled my sleeves over my hands, gulped down a breath, and went in, flailing my arms at the flies, grabbing the two feet, and using all my strength to pull the body out through the door. I fell backward down the steps, leaving the body slumped in the doorway. I went back, grabbed the back of the old woman’s jeans, and dragged her clear. In the door, through the hatch, into the cab. Retching from the smell. The engine shuddered to life. I pushed the gear stick into drive and the vehicle shot forward, ripping the campervan’s cables from the power supply and crunching over the grass, picking up speed as I approached the fence, opening the windows to let the sterile salt air blow through.
The motor home burst through the wire and bounced onto the road. I braked and jumped out. Joni was already running down the road, carrying Billy. Lola followed, herding Maggie and the Lost Boy ahead of her. I screamed at Charlie who was still staring through the binoculars. He scampered over.
“How far away is the helicopter?” I asked him, as he went in through the side door.
“Them,” he said. “There’s two of them.”
I left the door pinned open, ran back to the cab, and the campervan sprang forward. We raced alongside a high grassy bank, hemmed into a rat run between moorland and sea. The other kids were ahead of me, spread out all over the road. I leaned on the horn as I approached the first group, and they automatically veered to the sides. I slowed down, still rolling, while Lola hung out of the side door, shouting at the boys to dump the bikes and get in, Joni hauling them inside. The first one vomited immediately onto the carpet. As I accelerated, I checked the wing mirror, but couldn’t see anything.
“How far away were the helicopters, Charlie?”
“Over the town.”
“Coming this way?”
“Yep.” He got up and staggered through the swaying cabin to look out the back window.
I braked for the next group of boys, who’d seen what was happening and stopped, leaving their bikes on the verge. Lola and Joni manhandled them on board. The motor home picked up speed again, lumbering along. The land dropped away and was replaced by a line of Victorian seaside villas as we raced into the next town. The final group of boys was ahead, still peddling. I sounded the horn, and they turned, swerving across my pathway. My mind flashed back to another set of bikes, a boy’s legs pumping, Woody’s brother. Lennon. But I shook it away. He is gone. We are still here. Focus. The boys ditched their bikes and were inside.
“That’s it!” yelled Joni.
There was a muted cheer. I pushed my foot down to the floor, as though I could force the motor home to go faster by sheer willpower. I swore at it, and the thing seemed to respond, building up momentum on the downward slope. Finally, the headland took on definition. It was maybe half a mile north.
“Charlie?” I shouted to him, but at that moment his face appeared next to mine.
“They’re here,” he said.
I resisted the urge to slow down as the road bent out of sight ahead of me, both arms held straight against the steering wheel as we pounded past parked cars. The road dodged over a bridge, and I was forced to brake heavily to make the turn, Charlie tumbling into the footwell, the cries from the back making me wince. The motor home was too huge, its front scraping against the stones as we ploughed across the bridge and barreled away. Charlie hauled himself into the passenger seat. As the road curved, it allowed a brief glimpse back down the coast road—the way we’d come—and we saw the intent shapes of two helicopters bearing down on us. But as the road twisted us to the north again, Charlie gave a shout, and his hand hit the dashboard. I squealed to a stop in front of a roadblock.
Solid red and white barriers prevented us from reaching the slipway. We sat in silence as the buffeting slaps of the helicopters caught up.
“Mummy!”
I switched off the engine. Rested my heavy arms against the steering wheel. Ahead, the white marquee on the road. People moving inside. Tables of equipment, food, medicine. A flag flying, a red, white, and blue standard snapping to attention in the wind. Now, a man in a white coat and hat running toward us, shouting words I couldn’t hear over the thumping of blades. His hat blew off and rolled twice before settling the right way up on the pavement. He hung over the barrier, waving his arms. His eyes bulged. I opened my mouth to reply, but my lips seemed to stick together.
“Mummy!”
The furious wind got louder, and my hair streamed in front of my eyes. I lifted an arm to hold it back. Joni and Lola had opened the side door and were on the road outside, Lola’s mouth moving as she shouted at me through the window, the sound of feet scuffling as Joni launched children toward the barrier, which the man shoved aside with his bulk to let them through. Greeting each boy with a huge hand on the shoulder, pulling them behind him, paternal.
“Mummy?”
In the rearview mirror, three sets of eyes fixed on mine. Then Charlie broke away to look out his passenger-side window and started to yell. The dark shadow of a helicopter slid down his face. A panicky whine of engines as it came in to land on the beach below.
“Mummy. Move. You have to move, Mummy.” His eyes flickered back to mine, and then he was tearing at his seat belt.
Move, I told myself. Get your children and move. Make this stop.
I scrambled my knees onto the seat and leapt into the back. I carried Billy in one hand and reached back with the other to pull Maggie through the door. Charlie hurtled straight into the arms of the man, who gathered him and the Lost Boy up and ran behind the roadblock. I covered the same few yards in what seemed like a single bound, and we hit the ground behind the barrier, where the man in the white coat had already stopped and placed Charlie onto his feet, holding his hips for a few seconds to make sure his legs were steady. The other boys tottered about, bewildered, like exhausted marathon finishers. Joni and Lola pressed against the iron railing, watching the helicopters like they were animals in a zoo.
“You’re safe now,” the man said in a heavy Scandinavian accent.
“Here? We’re safe here?” I was panting like I’d run a mile when I’d only taken a few steps.
“Behind the road break, yes.”
“Here is safe, there is not safe?” I indicated both sides of the barrier. “That’s it?”
He gave a tight smile. “That’s politics.”