He didn’t reply, and I walked—scurried—back into the white shards of the headlights. The Beast’s engine was no longer running, its final mission accomplished. Under the hedgerow, I found the remaining fuel canisters. I needed to top up Joni’s car, but darkness slithered out from between the trees, so after spilling more fuel than I got in the tank, I gave up and hauled the cans into the trunk. I’d have enough to get me where I needed to go and back to the mine.
I drove up the path toward the ford, turning off to the hermit’s shed. This time I killed the lights. In the glove compartment, the heavy Maglite. From the back seat, a plastic carrier bag. I started into the trees. Almost immediately, my torchlight picked out the dark form of Horatio. I angled it away; I didn’t want to see him, not now. Not when I wanted to be in and out, no messing around. No Horatio, no William Moton; that was the plan. Just the radio. I kept to the edge of the path, one foot skidding on blood, iron tang in the air, then three quiet, scuffing Lonely Steps, and I was in the moonlit clearing, everything silvered and flattened like a stage set. I couldn’t resist darting the torch across to the hermit’s body, checking it was still slumped by the shed, just picking out his sprawled feet. Fear galloped into my stomach, and I pushed myself to go quicker before it bolted and took me with it. I lunged into the dark shed—somehow even darker than the dark outside, ever increasing depths of darkness—and clawed at the radio receiver. The wires tangled round the bed posts, and I whimpered as I tried to pull them free; the sprinting panic wanted me to rip them out, but I fought to keep thinking: I mustn’t break them or leave vital parts behind. I slid the machine into the bag, folding the wires and cables on top. I felt all around the bottom bunk; nothing left. I had it. When I picked up the plastic bag by the handles, one snapped and the set clattered to the floor with a crash that made me yelp like the fox in the field. I gathered it all up, pushing wires back inside, and cradled it in my arms. Back out of the shed and down the steps in one leap, but the Maglite flew from my hand and landed ahead of me in the grass, pointing straight at Horatio, lighting him up. His eyes still open, his teeth showing, his stomach eviscerated to the white ribs. I grabbed the torch and ran past him to the car, throwing the radio set into the passenger seat, hauling the wheel round to get away. I screamed down the track to the camp, back into the acrid fox musk. Stinking animals. Fucking scavengers. Pounded through the trees to the grave. But Woody wasn’t there.
Back by the car, his bike was already gone. I set off toward the mine. Reckless little—I squeezed my eyes closed for a second. What did I expect? Teenagers think they’re invincible. I raced along the road with my lights dimmed, more from an instinctive urge to hide than a belief that it would let me go undetected by the helicopter. I only realized I had missed the turn to the railway when the dark bulk of the Bury Ditches rose up ahead of me. My wing mirror clipped the gatepost as I skidded into the car park, grinding to a halt on the scree. I dropped my forehead onto my fists that gripped the wheel. I could still smell Horatio’s blood on my shoes. Peter was inside that tree, totally exposed. What did it matter, I tried to console myself, there were bodies everywhere. In the road, in cars, in homes. Nature would take its course. What difference did it make if nature took its course with one more boy?
The difference, I thought as I got out of the car and lifted the boot, is that I promised his mother I’d look after him. I gathered all the bags of charcoal and a half-full petrol can. After seeing what became of Horatio—no, I had to do it properly. This was how we did things. With dignity.
Chapter Nineteen
Back at the mine, the truffling noises of sleeping children echoed down the tunnel from the main chamber. I stayed close to the entrance to unpack the shortwave radio. Willing it to work, to find a signal, scrabbling around to turn down the volume when it crackled into life, then feeding the antenna out through the bars of the locked portcullis gate.
My hand fluttered around the tuner like it was the knob of a closed door, and I wasn’t sure what was on the other side. I closed my eyes and tried to remember the most populated frequencies, though it had been years since I’d tuned in regularly. I started somewhere in the middle. Static. Whistling. Wailing. I had to be patient. I let the sounds squall around me as I started a fingertip search, seeking contact in empty space. Maybe William Moton had been lying—or delusional—maybe there was no one out there after all? I shrugged the negative voice off my shoulder. Fingers back on the dial. A sudden loud click, and a woman’s voice said, “BBC.” It sent a shock through me. I homed in on the signal until the interference receded and her voice came through:
“Emergency broadcast. We will shortly cross live to BBC Broadcasting House”—whiplash of the heart—“for an important announcement. Please stand by.” I stood by, dry-mouthed with hope. My hands hovered over the radio set like a medium conjuring shadows in a crystal ball.
“This is a BBC emergency broadcast. We will shortly cross live to BBC Broadcasting House for an important announcement. Please stand by.” Long empty pause. I descended into the light, a bright filament that zipped across the ether and dropped me, blinking, into a dusky studio, bunker lighting, competent Aunties bustling past in secretary skirts. “This is a BBC emergency broadcast. We will shortly cross live to BBC Broadcasting House for an important—” With a long sigh, I was dragged from this comforting place of stoic women, the dank walls of the mine came back into focus, and I realized the sound was my own breath releasing. My hands stilled as the adrenaline drained; my heart returned to downbeat. After a few seconds the message repeated. I checked my watch: just gone midnight. I listened to her voice every thirty seconds for fifteen minutes: thirty times, the same; thirty times, I stood by. Just as she asked. Of course, we never crossed to BBC Broadcasting House. But the balm of her voice, warm as mother’s milk, was intoxicating. After thirty messages I found the willpower to let her go, and she walked away like my own mother, never looking back.