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“Ah, it’s no problem,” the guy said. He shifted down a gear and moved into the left lane, shooting me an appraising look as he did. His expression was… well, if I had to pick an adjective, I’d say concerned, and I tried to sit up straighter and make the low-level shaking a little less obvious. I had been shivering fairly consistently since I’d woken up that morning, and at first I’d thought it was just the cold—I’d slept near an air-conditioning outlet in the city, but unlike the other rough sleepers in the same alcove, I’d had no wad of cardboard to protect me from the chill concrete pavement, and any warmth from the exhaust had seemed to leach straight out of me and into the hard ground. But since then I’d been hanging around shops and libraries, all places that were usually pretty overheated, and somehow I still couldn’t get any warmth back into my bones. Now I was sweating as well as shivering, and I was forced to admit that maybe I was becoming seriously ill.
Most ominously of all, I could no longer really feel the wound in my side—but it wasn’t because it was healing. It was because my whole torso hurt now—a grinding, wrenching pain that made it impossible to eat without throwing up and kept me hunched half over in the driver’s cab of the lorry that had stopped at my outstuck thumb and makeshift sign reading M1, north.
“Look, love,” the driver said now, “I don’t want—I mean, it’s none of my business, but are you sure you’re okay?”
I closed my eyes. I knew what I should say—that I was fine, that it was none of his business. But somehow his awkward kindness, maybe combined with his age—he was probably in his sixties, about the age my dad would have been, if he’d lived—made lying feel impossible.
“I don’t feel great,” I admitted at last. “But I’ll be okay once I’ve met—” I stumbled, trying to remember what I’d told him at the start of the journey. My mind felt fogged and my head hurt. “Met my friend,” I finished at last, awkwardly.
“A friend, eh?” the driver said. We rumbled north for another mile or so, and then he clicked the indicator and said, as if making up his mind, “Look, love, I didn’t know whether to say anything but… I know who you are.”
My stomach seemed to lurch through the floor, and all of a sudden the fog was gone, replaced by a terrified spike of adrenaline. Everything seemed to slow down as I turned to stare at him.
“What did you say?”
“I said… I know who you are. Jacky or summat, isn’t it? I didn’t want to say nothing earlier in case I scared you off, but your face is all over the news. I’d show you”—he waved a hand at the phone mounted on the dashboard—“but there’s cameras everywhere, I’d probably get a ticket for texting and driving.”
My heart was pounding so hard against my ribs I thought I might pass out, and far from being cold and clammy, as it had been a moment ago, my face suddenly felt scarlet with a flaming heat. A drop of sweat trickled down my spine. Fuck. Fuck. How could I have been so stupid?
The driver was still speaking.
“I’m not going to turn you in or nothing.”
“You—you’re not?” I found I was trembling again—shakes from the infection, fear, shock, I couldn’t have said. But I could hardly believe my ears. “Why not?”
“Agh.” He waved a hand in the air, a gesture of disgust it looked like. “I can see you didn’t do whatever it was. You’re not the type. And I don’t trust them police neither. Never had any time for them since I got fitted up for a job I didn’t do when I was twenty-one. Spent six months inside and that’s how I came to be driving Black Beauty here.” He patted the steering wheel. “Wasn’t a whole lot of other places wanted a bloke with a criminal record. But it taught me one thing—they’re more interested in putting someone behind bars than making sure it’s the right bloke. So don’t worry, I won’t be saying anything. But you look… well, pardon my French, love, but you look like shit. I know going to hospital would be a risk, but…”
He trailed off, but I knew what he hadn’t wanted to say. Not going to hospital might be a bigger one.
“I will go,” I said at last. “I promise. In fact… I’m probably going to have to turn myself in, in a day or two. But I have one thing I need to try first—that’s why I’m here.”
The lorry had ground to a halt now, in the Heavy Goods parking lot, and the driver yanked on the parking brake and turned to look at me, his face serious in the light from the dash.
“You’re not doing anything stupid now, are you?”
“No,” I said, hoping it was true.
“And how are you going to get back home?”
“I…” I stopped. I honestly hadn’t thought as far as my next move. Where even was home? “I don’t know.”
“Hmm.” He folded his arms, looking at me as if sizing me up. I tried to smile, but my face felt clammy and numb, as if made from Play-Doh. “Well, if you need a ride, you go to the HGV caff and ask around the drivers if they know Bill Watts. If anyone gives you any crap, tell ’em you’re my niece, Ella. They’ll see you right.”
“Okay,” I said. I felt a rush of gratitude so intense it made my eyes prickle and my throat hurt. I thought of Lucius at the hostel, of the burger van owner, of the woman on the train, of all the people who had helped someone they didn’t know, with no prospect of anything back but thanks. Gabe’s death had brought me close to the worst of humankind—but there were still good people out there, people like Bill, making it hard to despair completely. “Bill—I don’t know how I can thank you—”
“No thanks necessary,” he said, waving his hand again as if swatting away a fly. “Just you keep yourself safe. Now, you got your bag?”
I nodded, pulling it up from the footwell, and said, “Thank you again, Bill, seriously. And… goodbye.”
“Bye, Jacky,” Bill said a little sadly. He watched as I climbed carefully down from the rig, trying not to make any sudden moves that would wake the roaring pain in my side, and then I walked off across the car park, into the dark.
* * *
IT HAD BEGUN TO RAIN as I made my way to the spot I had arranged with Madrox, away from the main entrance. “By the fire exit, next to the KFC concession” the message had said. As I crossed the car park I could smell the familiar nauseating tang of frying chicken and see someone huddling under the canopy of the service station, looking down at their phone. At this range I couldn’t see if it was a man or a woman—let alone if whoever it was looked suspicious.
I swallowed, hard.
What I was about to do was insanely risky—the equivalent of walking up to a complete stranger with twenty thousand pounds in untraceable banknotes. Madrox could be a cop. He could be someone who just fancied twenty grand without earning it. If he pulled a gun on me—or let’s be honest, just punched me anywhere in the vicinity of the weeping wound under my clothes—that would be it. I would have to hand over the private key, and with it any chance of getting into Gabe’s backup drive.
