street, my footsteps brittle in the empty air. After a while I realised I could no longer hear him. I did a quick check, but there was no sign of him. He must have lost interest. My chest heaving, I slowed my pace to a walk.
I reached my car, got inside and locked the doors, but within seconds he’d reappeared from nowhere and began banging on my windscreen, swearing and jeering.
I fumbled with the key, trying to get it in the ignition, but I lost my grip and it fell into the footwell. The man’s screaming and banging was getting louder.
Rummaging in the gloom, finally, my fingers came upon the key. I started the engine and was about to pull away when I realised there was a car parked directly in front of mine. I was blocked in. I turned around. There was nothing behind me. Pushing the gear-stick into reverse, I sped away, my engine wailing. Undeterred, he started running after me.
I pressed harder on the accelerator and he slowed to a jog.
Checking the road behind, I saw that I was fast approaching the crossroads that marked the end of the high street. I would either have to stop or fly out blind, backwards into any oncoming traffic. I released my foot off the pedal while I tried to figure out what to do. But within seconds it was clear I’d made a mistake. The man had not, as I thought, tired of me and had decided to use my new, much slower speed to his advantage. He raced towards me, getting closer and closer. I saw that he had picked up a brick from somewhere. I looked around for help, but the street was empty. There was nothing for it. I closed my eyes, slammed my foot on the accelerator and flew across the different lanes, red lights, beeps, screeches and skids roiling in my wake.
Somehow, I reached the other side unscathed. I checked back on the man. Hampered by the now chaotic crossroads traffic, he’d stopped. He stood looking at me, weighing the brick in his hand, as though trying to work out how far he could throw it.
I turned the car around, put it into first gear and sped off down the street. I wasn’t sure which way I was going. I didn’t care.
Chapter Twenty
As I put more and more distance between the man and me, I started to calm down. And, as I calmed down, I realised how stupid I had been. What would he have done if I hadn’t managed to get away?
Too wired to go straight home, I decided to drive around for a bit while I tried to make sense of it all. I thought about the brick in the man’s hand, held ready to throw through my windscreen, and shuddered. No wonder his wife didn’t want to be found. Had she left him for another? Keith?
I braked at a set of traffic lights and my ankle screamed in protest. I drove on, paying no real attention to where I was going, and wondered what I’d seen tonight meant for the boy. The man had mentioned wanting to see his kids. Was one of those kids the boy in the shop?
Keith had seemed odd to me right from the off, secretive. I’d thought it was because he had Barney captive, because he had a child that wasn’t his, but maybe his behaviour was off because he had something else to hide. Keith had told me Mikey was his nephew. Maybe he’d been telling the truth. Maybe he was harbouring his sister and her children from an abusive ex-husband. Maybe it was her and her children that he had to protect?
Taking the next turning on my left, I swung round the corner and found myself on a familiar street. Carla’s new street. It seemed I’d driven here on autopilot.
As I approached the outside of her building, I slowed the car and tried to see if there were any lights on. It was almost 3 a.m. Unsurprisingly, all the windows in her flat were dark.
I pulled over and switched off the engine. Despite her numerous attempts to get in touch, we hadn’t spoken since that night at the barbecue. Mark had stitched her up just as badly, if not worse, than me and Jason. Still scared of what I might say, I’d avoided her until now.
I rang her doorbell three times. The hall light switched on and Carla appeared in the gap between the