Chain of Vengeance: Chapter Three - Part Three

3

SOMERSET

“You looking for a lift?”

Jack looked up startled. There was a van parked in the lay-by, not far from the phone booth. It was a home-painted monstrosity with designs all over it: standard hippy emblems for the most part along with a few more obscure sigils. It was as endearing as it was gaudy. Dominic’s wife, Auntie Gill would have loved it if she’d still been alive. In her words, it would have been “too bleeding gaudy to resist.” A wiry middle-aged man with long grey hair and rainbow-coloured clothes was leaning against the back doors, smoking a joint.

“Sorry, what?” said Jack.

“You a hitcher?” he gestured down the lay-by. “You don’t seem to have a car. I’m only asking because I don’t mind dropping you somewhere. I’m kind of bored. I could use the company.” He twisted his spliff so he could see the end and blew on it. “Long as you don’t mind me finishing this first.”

Jack looked back at the call box, along the empty road then to the hippy with the van. “Sure. I guess. That’d be great. I didn’t see you drive up.”

“Must have been using silent engine mode.”

“You have silent running? That thing looks a hundred years old.”

“Just kidding.” He rapped the painted side. “This beauty drives like I sound when I get up in the morning.” He gave a fake cough to illustrate what he meant and batted his eyebrows. “Where you headed?”

Jack hesitated. He thought about Lucy lying dead in the grate then about the conversation he had just had with Dominic. “Which direction are you going?”

“Up onto the M4 at Bristol then down to the capital.”

Bristol or London. To turn himself in or to go back home and find out who was trying to track him down.

“I’m going to London,” he said.

“Fantastic. Here let me put this out. I’m not sure I fancy it after all. Get in.”

Jack walked round to the passenger door. The man got in, reached across and unlocked it. There were signs that the van had been on the road even longer than the great man himself. The inside was matted with stickers and badges, keepsakes from towns all over Europe stuck wherever there was a free surface. A pair of children’s-size clogs had been nailed to the ceiling over the passenger seat. There was a beret hanging from the rear-view mirror along with a little plastic map of Germany.

“Friends call me Crazy Geoff,” said the man, offering his hand.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Jack.”

“You ready for the ride of your life?”

Jack laughed. “As long as you get me there in one piece.”

“I’m not making any promises,” said Geoff.  He started up the engine. It sounded exactly as he’d described. It was amazing Jack hadn’t heard it pull up. He revved, brought her up to power then started off with a lurch. He stuck his hand out as an indicator and pulled onto the road.

Jack thought briefly about the man Dominic had said had been trying to track him down since before Lucy was killed and tried to conjure a reason Dominic might have for not explaining over the phone. Then he thought about Lucy, and just briefly, about her brother.