Travellers

We had hoped to reach London before nightfall but the potholes on the M6 were much worse than I remembered from the year before. We had barely made it to the outskirts of Birmingham and the sun was already dipping down to the horizon. Elizabeth said we should look for somewhere safe to pitch up for the night. Reluctantly I agreed, even though we both knew that nowhere was really safe anymore.

The temperature gauge on the dash said it was thirty-seven degrees outside, cool for the time of year. Inside the cab, the air was heavy with sweat and the smell of diesel. We still had eight cans in the back; more than enough to get us to where we wanted to go. I took the next exit, hoping the road would at least be passable enough to find somewhere suitable to stop while there was still some daylight. My hope for an easy road was in vain.

A succession of baking hot summers and arctic winters had broken up the metalled surface so that it was even more potholed than the motorway we had just left. We weaved and jolted drunkenly along, hoping conditions would improve. Instead they got worse. Thick vegetation began encroaching from both sides, narrowing the road surface until we could hear shrubs and branches rubbing noisily against the vehicle’s sides. Then, after we had managed maybe a hundred metres or so, we found our way blocked by a fallen tree. Elizabeth and I looked briefly at each other.

‘Probably brought down by a storm,’ I said reassuringly, but there was no hiding the doubt in Elizabeth’s eyes.

‘We can’t be certain of that,’ she replied. ‘We should go back the way.’

I looked at the tree and tried to assess the situation. The side of the road on which it had once stood was thick with tangled undergrowth and there was no telling what the ground would be like underneath it. The last thing we needed was a puncture or for a wheels to drop into a hidden ditch. The winch on the front of the Defender was broken and we would have no way of extracting themselves. On the other side of the road, things looked more promising. The tree had crashed through an old fence and beyond that there was a small clearing where the ground looked stony but firm and level. It might have been possible to get around on that side but Elizabeth expressed some some doubt.

‘You don’t know that for sure,’ she said. ‘And anybody could be waiting in that undergrowth.’ She was right of course but there was no room to turn around and reversing back along the road would have been just as risky as trying to go forward; more so, I thought, when I considered it would mean one of us having to remain outside the relative safety of the vehicle as they called out directions to
whoever was driving.

‘At least let me check.’ I said. I retrieved the hand gun from the door pocket and was out of the vehicle before Elizabeth had a chance to change my mind. I headed straight for the clear ground. There was no point in caution. If this was a set up, it was far too late to do anything it. The ground was exactly as I had expected, easily firm enough to take the Defender’s weight. The only question was what the way was like on the other side of the tree. Its branches were still thick with foliage making it impossible to see from the side I was on. I moved up and around the crown of the tree to were I had a better viewpoint. From there I could see the way forward seemed to improve. The vegetation moved back from the road surface and the potholes seemed smaller and fewer in number than we had so far experienced. More importantly, there was no sign of any recent
activity. No unexplained breaks in the greenery, no discoloured patches of recently disturbed earth. It was fairly obvious no one had passed by this way for months I heard Elizabeth’s door open and
close. She was never one for patience. I turned around and retraced my tracks around the tree. I was about to call out that everything looked fine. Instead I froze in my tracks.

Elizabeth was indeed out of the vehicle but she was not alone. She was kneeling on the ground with a rough gag tied around her mouth. Behind her, three figures stood, one with a gun pressed against the back of her head. All four faces were looking directly at me.