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Steph smiled. Now the image was in her head, it did seem rather appealing.

“How can you two just stand there and let this happen!” Martina spat, looking from one person to the other. “How could you just let him take me away like this!”

Steph ignored her. However, Davey, to Steph’s surprise, said, “Probably the same way you were happy to let that other guy kill Steph.”

Martina’s face, somehow, soured further.

“Ashley threatened to kill you?” Roger asked, his voice mild with interest.

“He did,” Steph replied.

Roger chuckled.

“I doubt he’d have actually gone through with it. Always liked Baz to do the dirty work if he could help it. He had more of a moral compass than was probably apparent, more of one than was probably useful in his line of work.

“A compass that pointed south when it came to Kelvin!” Martina snarled.

Roger raised his eyebrows.

“Yes… he really did hate him.”

Martina was about to say more when all four became aware of a Ford Galaxy indicating to park alongside them. It stopped and a window wound down. A middle-aged man in a simple jumper looked out smiling.

“You guys all need a lift?” he asked.

“Just the two of us,” Roger replied, opening the door to the backseats and forcing Martina in with a bag thrown over her shoulder.

Roger was about to follow her in when he noticed the look on Steph’s face. She could not help looking at the driver and then at the car.

“Were you expecting some Cadillac with blacked-out windows?” he laughed. “Helps not to draw attention to oneself at times. Look at what happened to Ashley’s truck…”

With that, he ducked his head in, shut the door and the car pulled off.

Steph watched it drive up the road and slowly round the gradual bend that took it out of sight behind the treeline.

FIFTY

Steph walked with Davey up the side of the road. For a while neither said anything; they were tired both mentally and physically.

Eventually, Steph asked, “So what happened with the bear?”

Davey smiled.

“Nothing too spectacular, I’m afraid to say.”

“What then?”

“Well, after I’d run into it – like running into a wall of concrete wearing fur, by the way – and I tumbled down the slope, I sort of just lost it.”

“Lost it? But I saw it go after you!”

“Yeah, it went after me all right,” Davey chuckled. “Although, I crashed into a rather thorny bush and the stupid thing bowled right on past me. Scratched myself up pretty badly, but in the circumstances, I’d say things could have worked out worse.”

Steph nodded to herself as they walked. A small silence descended once more.

Then Steph broke it by saying, “Thank you, by the way.”

Steph could sense Davey turn his head towards her as they walked but he said nothing. She was sure, although she didn’t look, that he was still smiling.