‘I guess not,’ Linus says.
Marc nods to Kimble, who turns and runs without a word towards the end of the alley where they left the van.
‘Ok,’ Marc says to Linus. ‘When she gets back, you’re going to say all that again, exactly as you just did, for the camera.’
‘I want half the money upfront,’ Linus says.
‘Not possible,’ Marc says. ‘Payment on return. Take it or leave it. We’ll draw up a contract to make it official.’ He smiles easily intoLinus’s eyes, who smiles back in a lopsided, surprised way. Marc doesn’t often smile and people are startled by it.
Kimble comes back with the gear and sets up. Linus pulls out another cigarette then puts it away again. He’s nervous. Everyone is stiff in front of the camera at first. Then they get used to it, stop noticing it, even.
Kimble talks soothingly to Linus, makes him laugh a little, gets the mic under his collar. Over his shoulder she gives Marc a quick grin. Marc feels the spread of relief. It’s ok, he and Kimble are on the same team again.
Marc needs Kimble. She is the only person who’s ever come close to knowing who he is. It’s frightening when he suspects she doesn’t need him in the same way.
They set out before dawn the following day. The van climbs the steep roads, engine juddering, headlights faint and brave on the thin morning mist. Marc can feel Linus in the back seat – his unfamiliar weight, his foreign breath.
They climb and climb as the sun spreads red on the mountainside. The road winds up and up. Gradually the surface grows rougher, more broken, littered with debris, stones, pocked with holes.
‘Do we—’ Kimble asks.
‘Keep going,’ Linus says. Marc swerves to avoid a fallen limb of pine. The road is more craters than surface, now. His teeth click together on his tongue as the van dips and bounces. He winces and tastes the mineral tang of blood. On and on, they climb the flanks of the mountain.
Marc recognises it as they approach – the turnout.
‘That’s the place,’ Linus says briefly. ‘Where the cars all used to stall.’
‘I’m not familiar …’ says Marc.
‘Visitors to Nowhere – their cars all stalled back there,’ Linus says. ‘So he used to come and get them. It meant they couldn’t leave.’
‘We didn’t stall.’
Linus shrugs, shoulders tense.
Marc watches the turnout retreat in the rear-view mirror. For a second he swears he sees a blue Mustang convertible there. He shakes his head. It’s a glitch in his brain, a special effect produced by looking at all those photographs, before he saw the actual place. He has looked at pictures of Leahy’s turnout a hundred times. Other people’s memories are beginning to overlay reality. It happens when you get too deep into research. Staring at the past, at the faces of the dead, makes them more real than the living. Adam Leahy drove a blue Mustang.
‘Are we nearly there?’ Marc knows they’re close. ‘The gates can’t be too far away.’
‘We’re not going to the gates,’ Linus says. ‘I’ll tell you when to turn.’
At last Linus taps Marc on the shoulder. ‘Turn up there,’ he says. Marc follows his pointing finger. He doesn’t see it at first. The dirt track is almost obscured by yellow flowering broom, nodding in the breeze. Marc turns the van slowly. Pollen dusts the windscreen in the late morning light.
The track narrows and narrows. Soon it has all but disappeared, and the van bounces over turf and rock.
Marc brings the van to a halt. ‘I don’t think we can get any further.’
‘Packs on,’ Linus says. ‘We walk from here.’ He is suffused with a strange eagerness. Marc can see him now, in the lines of Linus’s sad face – the young man who tried to save Adam Leahy’s life.
‘How far is it?’ Kimble asks, shouldering her pack.
‘Half an hour maybe? If you don’t walk too slow.’ Linus grins wide, showing white tombstone teeth.
‘I’m not slow.’ Kimble gives him her most dangerous smile. Linus flinches.
They pack up and lock the van, although what’s the point, up here, really, and set off up the slope. When Marc turns back for a last look, the van is covered in pine needles, pollen and dust, tyres sunk into the leaf litter. It looks like it’s been abandoned for years.
After the rough road, the forest is still and quiet. Somewhere a cuckoo calls.
