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He heard the rattle of keys, the creak of an un-oiled door. Movement as Andy crossed to the post office area. Dom glanced at his friend’s back. Beyond, behind the glass screen, the woman was opening the safe. Andy had the carrier bag containing his lump of wood resting on the shop counter, angled through the doorway into the post office area.
One Direction started harmonising from elsewhere in the building. A young girl’s voice joined in, unaware that anyone other than her grandmother was listening. Dom smiled, but the smile fell into a frown.
‘Hurry!’ he said. It would be bad enough knowing what her grandmother had been through. Last thing he wanted was the girl coming down and seeing it. There was no knowing how she’d react. If she ran screaming into the street …
Then they’d have to flee. That was all. No one was getting hurt.
‘Pile it into the post bag,’ he heard Andy say. ‘Yeah, coins too.’
Across the square, Sue had emerged from the Blue Door cafe, carrying a tray of cups and food. She deposited it on the paper-reading man’s table, then chatted to him for a while. She even laughed at something he said. Dom felt offended. She was always so brusque with him and Andy. Maybe she really did hate cyclists.
He laughed, short and loud.
‘What?’ Andy snapped.
‘Nothing, nothing. It’s just Sue—’
‘Hulk, shut the fuck up!’ It was like a slap. His eyes stung like a berated child’s. Then he realised what he’d said, and why Andy’s reaction had been so harsh. ‘Out of there, now,’ Andy said to the postmistress.
Across the square, Sue went back into the cafe. The man stirred his coffee and picked up a sandwich, studying it before taking a bite. Dom wished he was sitting there now with Andy, talking bullshit and anticipating their ride back home. Not here. Robbing a fucking post office.
‘Okay, Hulk, we’re good.’
Dom pocketed the bagged chunk of wood and drew a pair of wire snippers from his other pocket. He had to stretch to reach the fuse board. One snip cut the phone line. It was probably pointless in this age of mobiles, especially with a teenaged girl in the house who was probably glued to hers. But for the sake of a second it was worth it. Then he opened the misted cover to the fuse board, flipped the switch that cut power to the building, and dug beneath the switch and snipped the wires within.
One Direction fell silent.
‘Nan!’ a girl called.
‘Okay,’ Dom said. The post office probably had a direct panic line to the local police station, but that was five miles away in the nearest small town. At least the postmistress now wouldn’t be able to activate the local alarm the second they left.
Andy shoved gently at his back and they exited into the blinding sunlight. Dom walked quickly around the front of the car. He had never felt so exposed, so scrutinised.
A Range Rover turned into the square and came towards them. Sunlight reflected from the windscreen, hiding whoever was inside. It slowed as it approached, then accelerated quickly away, swerving across the road and striking the kerb. It made a sudden left turn around the square and stopped outside the Blue Door.
‘Don’t worry, get in!’ Andy said. He was already opening the rear door, dropping the heavy bag onto the back seat. Dom opened the passenger door, glancing back over his shoulder.
The Range Rover’s door was open and a tall, grey-haired man stood beside it, shielding his eyes as he looked across the square at them. He was only thirty yards away, and Dom could hear the deep timbre of his voice as he shouted at Sue and the patrons of the Blue Door. The young mother was standing also, holding her toddler, half-turned as if to shield him or her from danger. The breakfasting man stood and dashed into the cafe so quickly that he knocked over a chair and spilled his coffee pot. It hit the ground with a loud metallic clang.
‘Hulk!’ Andy said.
Dom laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. ‘Don’t make me angry!’ he shouted across the square, almost hysterical.
‘Mate,’ Andy said, surprised. ‘Come on.’
Dom dropped into the car and slammed the door, panting, hands sweaty as they clasped for the seatbelt. ‘We did it?’
‘Yeah,’ Andy said. He sat motionless for a beat, then ripped off his Iron Man mask. That wasn’t part of the plan.
‘Andy?’
No response. No movement.
‘Andy, what’s—’
‘Yeah, we did it,’ Andy said. He started the engine, slipped into gear and pulled away.
A white transit van entered the square ahead of them, screeching around the corner and veering across the road. Two figures sat in the front.
Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck.
‘Oh, fuck,’ Andy said. His voice sounded flat.
What? Dom thought. Maybe he even spoke it. He wasn’t sure.
Dom braced himself against the dashboard as Andy turned to the left, hitting the kerb so that one front wheel mounted the square’s small lawned area. The van nudged the car’s rear wing on the driver’s side, a glancing blow.
Another vehicle had skidded around the corner, close behind the transit van. A silver BMW. It passed so close to them that wing mirrors kissed.
Andy pressed on the gas. The Focus bounced down onto the road again and accelerated towards the corner around which the van and BMW had appeared.
‘What the hell?’ Dom shouted. ‘Andy, what the fuck?’ He twisted and looked through the rear window.
The van had halted in front of the post office, slewed across the road. The passenger door opened and Bugs Bunny jumped out. He held a gun. Dom had no idea what kind, but it was big and ugly, and looked very real.
‘Andy …’ he said.
‘I know.’
The BMW had stopped behind the van. Its driver’s window was down, and Roadrunner stared after them.
‘Andy, what’s happening?’
Andy stared back at the car and van. Then he said, ‘We’re getting out of here.’
Daffy Duck jumped from the van’s driver’s side and stood watching them go. Bugs Bunny was already through the doorway and into the post office. The van’s rear door opened and Jerry the cat appeared, also staring after the car. Jerry gestured, shouting, and Roadrunner’s head turned.
Then they were around the corner and the square was out of sight, and Andy accelerated away from the small village, heading towards the climb into the hills that Dom was so nervous of descending on his bike.
Dom shook. He needed to piss. He tried to take his mask off but his fingers felt numb, he couldn’t get them beneath the damp, stinking latex. He was suffocating.
‘Deep breaths,’ Andy said.
‘Deep fucking breaths?’ he shouted, voice muffled in the green mask. He worked his thumbs beneath the edge at last and tugged it from his head, edges pulling his hair and raking against his skin. ‘What was that?’
‘Trouble,’ Andy said.
‘They had guns, they were there to—’
‘Trouble coming our way.’ Andy was glancing back and forth between road and rear-view mirror, and Dom twisted in his seat.
The silver BMW was tearing along the road towards them.
‘Oh, shit,’ Dom said.
‘You need to work with me, Dom. Got it?’
‘Work with you?’
‘You saw the guns. Whoever they are, they’re serious. You’ve lived here all your life, you know these roads better than me, so think how we can lose him.’
Andy knocked down a gear and pressed on the gas. The road was narrow and twisting.
‘Andy, maybe we should stop.’
‘Seriously?’ his friend said, risking a glance across at Dom. ‘You’re serious?’
Dom shook his head. He didn’t know. He couldn’t quite fathom what was happening, his brain could make no sense of things.
‘Dom! Nothing changes. We lose him then we’re away, we’re good, and we’ve got a bag full of money. We follow the plan. Understand?’
‘How can we?’
‘How can we not?’ Andy said. ‘It’s done, mate. We’ve done it. No going back.’ He grimaced as he slammed on the brakes. Tyres screamed as they took a bend too fast.
Dom held his breath. Nothing was coming the other way.
The road started to rise into the hills.
‘Closer,’ Andy muttered.
Dom looked back. The BMW was so close that he could no longer see its number plate and grille. They must have been doing sixty, and the silver car was just feet from their rear.
Roadrunner’s madcap smile was fixed on him. The driver held up a phone, camera pointed their way.
I took my mask off, Dom thought. But it was too late now.
‘Dom, we’ve got two or three miles to lose him or stop him. After that we’re over the hill, out of the woods and we hit the main road. Once that happens, we’re screwed. Law will be coming. Helicopter pursuit, the works. What do you think, the tight bend at the top?’
‘What do you mean?’ Dom asked. He didn’t recognise this Andy, but he shouldn’t have been surprised. They were in a car chase. His friend was keeping it together.
‘This is our future,’ Andy said.
‘Yeah,’ Dom said, and he thought of Emma and Daisy. His future.
‘So, that bend? We know it, he doesn’t. Maybe if I take it fast enough he’ll lose control?’
‘Better idea,’ Dom said. ‘Just after that there’s a turn right, hundred metres before the pink house, narrow lane, looks more like a field gateway. It heads up into the woods. I used to mountain bike up there before I started on the roads.’
‘You’re sure?’ Andy asked. He dropped down a gear again as the slope increased, then swept around the bend that opened onto the long, straight climb. He pressed on the gas and edged into the middle of the road.
Dom looked back. The BMW was so close that he expected an impact at any minute. He wasn’t sure what model it was, didn’t know enough about cars to know whether his Focus could outrun it, or at least stay ahead.
‘Dom, hundred metres before the house? More? Less?’
‘Bit more,’ he said.
‘Right. Bend’s coming up in a minute. When I say, goad the hell out of him.’
‘This is crazy,’ Dom said.
‘It’s happening,’ Andy said.
The engines roared. The BMW pressed in closer, surging forward. Andy drifted the Focus to the right, blocking the road.
‘Okay,’ Andy said.
Dom froze for a moment, feeling the unreality of things pressing in close. Then he gave Roadrunner the finger.
Andy swerved them around the bend, wheel juddering in his hand. Dom turned forward again and pressed back into his seat, holding onto the seatbelt.
‘There, see it?’
Andy didn’t reply. He was concentrating. He slammed on the brakes, and the BMW hit their rear end, shoving them forward. Tyres screamed. The BMW fell back a little, and Andy flipped the steering wheel to the right.
The Focus’s nose drifted perfectly into the narrow lane’s mouth, and Andy immediately dropped two gears and floored it. Unable to make the turn, the BMW slammed into the raised bank behind them, missing them by inches. As they powered away, Dom saw steam burst from the silver car’s front end, its wing crumpled, windscreen hazed.
They soon rounded a bend and the pursuing car was lost from sight.
Andy let out a held breath, gasping a few times. ‘Result,’ he whispered. ‘You okay?’
Dom could not speak. He turned away, watching the hedgerows passing by. With a sick feeling in his stomach he realised that he’d have to go straight to Monmouth now, to work, chatting with Davey and talking about how best to get these wires here, those there, lifting floorboards and drinking tea and eating biscuits.
‘My car’s bumped,’ he said.
‘We’ll sort that. Leave it to me. You okay, Dom?’
‘Yeah. No. Who were they?’
‘Looney Tunes.’ Andy laughed. Dom joined in, high and hysterical and sounding like someone he didn’t know.
Chapter Six (#ulink_5dbfedcb-b33a-5bb5-88b3-29f2d56834d1)
Pillbox (#ulink_5dbfedcb-b33a-5bb5-88b3-29f2d56834d1)
For a moment everything was as it should have been.
Dom surfaced from dreams and dragged some of them with him, balancing them momentarily with reality. Awareness started to build – who he was, where he lived, everything that made him Dominic. The dreams withered and receded. He groaned and stretched, eyes still closed, joints clicking to remind him of his age.
