Neil White 3 Book Bundle

‘Save your working class guilt, Charlie, because none of them give a damn about you. They would drop you in it quicker than they’d have your wallet.’

‘You’re all heart,’ he said. ‘You better get your sympathetic face ready though. You became Billy’s spokeswoman once he came into the money, and the press are outside.’

‘What, now?’

Charlie nodded. ‘Come on, take a deep breath and think like a real life person. Use words like “regret” and “sorrow”. Good soundbites.’

She scowled. ‘You know I can’t say anything, not without Billy’s consent.’

‘I don’t think he’ll complain too much,’ Charlie said. ‘Billy was good for you, although there is some irony in that someone involved in a high-profile death should end up dying prematurely.’

‘What, like karma?’ Amelia said, and then shook her head. ‘There are things you don’t know. He died an innocent man, you need to remember that.’

‘I’m a lawyer. You don’t need to feed me the line. Not being guilty is a long way from being innocent. A young woman died and he stayed quiet. He could have said something to help the police, even if he had no part in her death. His silence just made him look guilty.’

A look of irritation flashed across her face, but it was fleeting.

‘I’ll say it again,’ she said. ‘He died an innocent man.’

‘If that is going to be his epitaph, they need to hear it,’ and Charlie pointed towards her doorway, meaning the people on the street. He started to walk back to his own room, and Amelia followed him. He could hear the sway of her hips in the way her heels made loud taps on the hardwood floor. The scent of perfume drifted towards him as she got close, soft musk, delicate and expensive. When they both got into Charlie’s room, he pointed to the van that had pulled over at the side of the road. There was someone on the pavement with a boom microphone in one hand, talking to a cameraman and looking around. Charlie raised an eyebrow at Amelia as the cameraman pointed up at the window.

‘Oh shit,’ she said, although it seemed like a whisper to herself, rather than any comment Charlie was meant to hear.

Then he saw someone just further along the street, a face he recognised. Amelia hadn’t spotted him.

‘Got to go,’ he said to her, and as Amelia shot him a frosty look, he added, ‘Cheer up. You’ll look great on the news.’ Charlie went towards the door, leaving Amelia gazing out of the window, one hand just flicking at her hair.

Chapter Eleven

John stepped out of the door that led into a stone courtyard, Dawn next to him. They were going to find food, on Arni’s order.

He hadn’t gone more than two paces before Gemma fell into step alongside him, heavy black boots on her feet. John looked down, and for a moment he wanted to put his arm around Gemma, to enjoy the walk in the countryside, but Dawn was with them. Instead he said, ‘How far is it?’

‘A couple of miles.’ Gemma smiled. ‘How does it feel, to be leaving the farm?’

He thought about that for a moment. ‘Strange,’ he said eventually.

‘It’s all still out there, babe, just remember that,’ she said. ‘That’s why it’s been so long, to let you shake off your old life, but it’s still there somewhere, ready to suck you back.’

‘I think I can fight it,’ he said. ‘I’ve listened to Henry. I understand his message now.’

‘We’re creating our own world here, where none of all that crap matters. We’re free people, but it isn’t easy, because people are weak. That’s right, isn’t it, Dawn?’

Dawn looked like she was going to stay silent again, but then she looked at Gemma, then at John, and nodded. ‘We have to stay together, to avoid temptation.’

John watched Dawn look away. He leaned into Gemma. ‘Is Dawn weak?’ he whispered.

‘From time to time, we all are,’ she said, and then Gemma let go of him and skipped ahead, her long skirt swirling around her ankles, along the muddy path at the side of the house, past the outbuilding that housed two quad bikes and the barrel that Arni had brought in earlier. There was a small square enclosure against the wall, fashioned out of chicken wire, with wooden shelters at one end, housing the hens that provided them with eggs. The peace was broken by the hum of a generator that powered the lights in one of the barns, where they grew cannabis.

As they emerged from the shadows they started to cross a field, the ground bumpy and pitted from tractor tracks and the root clumps of meadow grasses. In the middle were the Seven Sisters, the stone circle, although it was just a crescent really, some stones taller than others, with one slab in the middle.

Dawn waited for John to catch up, Gemma running ahead. When he reached her, he said, ‘I didn’t know there was a stone circle near Oulton before I joined the group.’

Dawn looked at it, and then down again. John thought he saw a tear run down her cheek.

‘Dawn?’

She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand and then tried out a watery smile. ‘It’s our legacy, so that it will be there long after we’re gone and people will know that we were here. And why.’

He was surprised. ‘I didn’t know it was a new thing, that we had put the rocks there.’

‘You haven’t been here long enough. You’ll find out soon enough.’

John nodded to himself, curious, and then said, ‘You can trust me, Dawn.’

She shook her head. ‘No, I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

Dawn looked towards Gemma, who was heading for a tumbledown part of the drystone wall and to a path that cut through the northerly woods opposite, which kept the coldest winds away from the house.

‘Things are not what they seem,’ she said. ‘You need to get out.’

‘What do you mean?’

Dawn wiped her eyes and then said, ‘Tell me what you think of Henry.’

John thought about what to say. ‘He’s a strong leader, delivers a good message, and I believe it, like we all do.’

Dawn laughed, but it was bitter and hollow. ‘So we’ve no need to talk.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I thought we weren’t about leaders.’

‘We always need leaders.’

‘I thought we were about freedom,’ she said and then walked quickly ahead, to catch up with Gemma.

John followed them, curious, wanting to find out more, but Dawn was with Gemma now, and he knew the moment had gone.

He looked around as he walked, at the roll of the fields and clusters of trees that dotted the green hills. He stepped over the fallen down rocks by the wall and into the shadows of trees, where the soft swish of the grass was replaced by the echo and snap of the woodland path. Patches of bluebells glimmered in the shafts of sun and he caught the scratches of grey squirrels clambering up the bark. The path would take them lower down the hill, to the stream that trickled and gathered pace until it ran between the stone sides of the Oulton buildings.

As he emerged back into the daylight, Dawn and Gemma were ahead, but apart from each other, Gemma turning as she walked, playful, young. Dawn looked down, her step leaden.

‘How far now?’ he shouted.

‘Not far,’ Gemma yelled back. ‘More of the men should do this. If it wasn’t for the women, you’d all starve.’