The Family Man: An edge-of-your-seat read that you won’t be able to put down. T.J. Lebbon
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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.
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.
Then he remembered the day before and wished he could fall back asleep. He groaned again, this one more like a deep sigh. What have I done?
Daisy screamed.
Dom sprang upright, sitting in bed swaying