Berserk

And Steven was the only good that could come out of this mess. His son. Tom would take him away and make him well again, guide him through the process of finding home, love him just as much as he had loved his memory for the last decade. They would be a family again.

"My family," Tom whispered, awed. The idea was amazing.

The baby would not stop crying.

For a few seconds after first hearing it Cole had almost stopped the car. He would exit the motorway, return to the petrol station, give the kid back to its father and then leave again. Except it would not happen like that and he knew it. There would be complications. Nothing could ever be that simple. Oh, here you are, I stole your car and kidnapped your baby but please take the kid back now … er, but I still need your car, and you'll recall I have a pistol in the waistband of my jeans? The police would have been called, the father would be frantic, the mechanic would no longer consider it someone else's problem, and apart from the time he would waste Cole had no wish to become embroiled in some messy forecourt brawl.

And there's the woman I shot, he thought, her blood all over the MX5. They'd have noticed that by now as well. He tried not to think of how frantic the father of the baby would be. I'm doing this for you and your kid, he thought. But no good intentions or moral justification would stop the brat from screaming.

"Shut up!" Cole shouted. It worked for a minute and then the crying started again. He frowned, bit his lip and concentrated on driving.

That was when the dead brunette with the pale thighs and black underwear came into his mind.

Cole shouted and let go of the steering wheel, and bad tracking swerved the car over toward the hard shoulder. He grabbed the wheel and brought it back under control, panting, trying to calm his racing heart and wishing he could close himself off to what he had just felt. Because she had been there. That dead woman, brains blasted out by a shot he had not intended for her, had appeared in his mind unbidden, uninvited, and he knew it was more than his imagination because he could smell her, taste her. It was more than just a memory. She had risen briefly from the underground—shifting aside a manhole cover and rising from the darkness, a ghost he had never intended creating—and he had dwelled on her parted legs and skimpy black underwear, hating himself but unable to shake the image.

The baby cried.

"Leave me alone!" Cole said, not exactly sure to whom he was speaking. The smell of the woman was still there, a mixture of obsession and the decay already creeping into her cooling flesh. Her body must have been found by now, but her mind, her soul, surprised by an unexpected death, had become lost in the darkness of his subconscious. He was sure it would rise again.

She shouldn't be dead, he thought. I shouldn't have loosed off that shot.

The baby gurgled in agreement, then started crying again. Cole twisted the rearview mirror so that he could glance at the kid. She was bundled up in pink, and her face had coloured to match her coat. Tears streamed down her face.

"I'll stop soon," he said, "don't worry, there, shhh, shhh." He had no idea how to handle children other than what he had seen on TV. And now he was a kidnapper as well as a murderer. It's all for them, he thought, all for the sheep.

The woman rose in his mind once more, drifting up out of the dark and revealing herself fully to his scrutiny, and her name was Lucy-A

The baby cried on. Cole drove. Lucy-A

"I'm sorry," he whispered, "I'm so sorry." The baby cried, and so did Cole. He had never been haunted before.

Tom drove on, observing the speed limit. He breathed shallow, expecting any deep breaths to burst his wound and set the blood flowing again. He felt so delicate.

Natasha was away. She had been gone for ten minutes, and he hoped she was talking with the other berserkers, finding out where they would be. Tom did not think he could go on for much longer. He drove toward the light of Steven's life, leaving behind the darkness of Jo's death. That darkness would fall again, and when it came it would be hard and heavy and difficult to accept. But for now Jo was somewhere away from here, a loving memory that he was reserving for later when things were better. Natasha had done something to help him with this; that made him uncomfortable, yet he accepted it. For now.

The present pulled him on and he went with the flow. Beside him, like a bag of shells being shaken, Natasha giggled.

Lucy-A

The baby was still screaming, and Cole knew he had to stop. He could not go on like this; guilt would not let him, and neither would the pulsing headache the kid's screaming was giving him. The question was, what could he do? He could not just pull over and leave the baby by the side of the motorway, and to exit would lose him precious time. He was still only assuming that Roberts had driven north with Natasha, and now that Major Higgins seemed to have abandoned him, he could think of no real way to trace them. Higgins would likely have the police at his disposal; road cameras, patrol cars, aerial surveillance. Cole could rely on nothing more than Natasha's occasional mockery to locate her.

He needed her to come to him again, let him know how far and fast they had moved. As ever the idea of inviting her into his mind was ghastly, yet he could think of no other way. Besides, she would have good company in there.

The ghost of Lucy-A