Dead Men's s Boots

‘Myriam Kale’s father. Her brothers. Paul Sumner. Everyone who knew her first-hand, and could have told us anything about her.’

‘Not everyone,’ I pointed out. ‘There’s still Ruth.’

Juliet nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes,’ she allowed. ‘There’s still Ruth. Perhaps we ought to be asking why—’

Whatever the next word was going to be, it was lost as something rammed us hard from behind. The Cobalt bucked and bounced like a startled horse, and metal ground loudly against metal.

‘Shit!’ I exploded, fighting the car back under control as the back end tried to slew off the road.

My eyes flicked to the rear-view mirror. The grey van filled it, which meant it was already accelerating towards us for a second pass. There was no room on this narrow track to swerve aside, and no way we’d hold together if we left the road and tried our luck among the trees: too many rope-thick roots, too many leaf-camouflaged pits and troughs.

I did the only thing I could do, flooring the accelerator and jumping away from the van as we put on speed.

But they were already closing the distance again, and there wasn’t a scratch on those black bull-bars from where they’d rammed us the first time. Mass and momentum and position were all on their side: they could run us off the road and not feel it. The van’s tinted windows didn¦s t217;t allow me to see who was driving, but whoever he was I cursed his name and his Ray-bans.

Juliet was looking over her shoulder too.

‘We should stop and deal with them,’ she said, with an amazing degree of calm.

‘Great,’ I growled, weaving from side to side on the road in the hope of presenting a slightly less easy target. ‘The only problem with that idea is that if we stop now they’ll ram us into the side of a tree and we’ll fold like a concertina.’

Juliet gave me a slightly puzzled look. ‘Like a what?’ she said.

‘A concertina. Musical instrument. Makes sound by drawing air in through a bellows and then pumping it out through a – shit, can I explain later?’

‘Yes,’ said Juliet, just as the van caught up with us again.

There was another shuddering impact and our back end actually left the road for a couple of moments, then smacked down again hard enough to rattle my teeth inside my skull. I rode it out, slightly better this time because I’d seen it coming, but a stench of burning rubber reached my nostrils.