Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [94]
The farmer said, “Newby Bridge, is it?” and pulled back onto the road. He said he could take him as far as Winster, and after that he did the usual thing, which was to ask why Tim wasn’t at school. He said, “School day, innit? You doing a bunk?”
Tim was used to the maddening habit adults had of asking questions that were none of their business. It always made him want to dig his thumbs into their eyeballs. It wasn’t as if they’d ask a question like that of another adult— like “Why aren’t you at work today like the rest of the world?”— but they seemed to think it was open season on firing just about any question at a kid. He’d been prepared for this, though, so he said, “Check the time. Half day.”
The farmer said, “Not for my three, it’s not. Where d’you go to school?”
Jesus, Tim thought. Where he went to school was the farmer’s business like it was his business asking Tim when his last shit had occurred. He said, “Not round here. Margaret Fox. Near Ulverston,” reasonably sure that the man wouldn’t have heard of the place and its reason for being. He added, “Independent school. It’s boarding but I don’t board.”
“What’s happened to your hands, then?” the farmer asked. “You don’t want them to stay like that.”
Tim gritted his teeth. He said, “Cut myself. Got to be more careful.”
“Cut? Those don’t look like you cut— ”
“Look, pull over,” Tim said. “You c’n let me out here.”
“This’s nowheres near Winster, boy.” True enough. They’d gone barely a mile.
“Just let me out, okay?” Tim’s voice was controlled. He didn’t want it to go fierce with all that fierceness revealed, but he knew that if he didn’t get out of the Land Rover now, he would do something and it wouldn’t be pleasant.
The farmer shrugged. He pulled over. He looked long and hard at Tim as he braked, and Tim knew that the man was memorising his face. No doubt he’d be listening to the radio news next time it came on, waiting to hear about a local burglary or a spate of malicious mischief that he could pin on Tim. Well, that was the risk he’d have to take. Better that than riding farther with the bloke.
“You take care, son,” the farmer said just before Tim slammed the door, hard.
“Whatever,” Tim replied as the Land Rover moved on. He tore at the back of his hand with his teeth.
His next ride was better. A German couple took him as far as the road to Crook, where they turned off in search of some posh country house hotel. They spoke good English, but all they wanted to talk about to him was “ach, such rain you have in Cumbria,” and when they spoke to each other— which was most of the time anyway— they spoke in German, rapid sentences about someone called Heidi.
Tim managed to get a final lift from a lorry driver just north of the Crook Road. This bloke was heading all the way to Keswick, so Windermere would be no problem, he said.
What was a problem was the driver’s intention of using their limited time together to lecture Tim on the dangers of hitchhiking and to quiz him about his parents and did they know he was out on the roads taking lifts from strangers? You don’t even know who I am, he announced. I could be Sutcliffe. I could be Brady. I could be some child molester. You understand that?
Tim bore all this without kicking the bloke in the face, which was what he badly wanted to do. He nodded, said, “Yeah,” said, “Whatever,” and when they finally reached Windermere, said, “Drop me off over there by the library.” This the lorry driver did, although not without saying it was lucky for Tim that he had no interest in twelve-year-old boys. Because this was truly and absolutely too much, Tim said that he was fourteen, not twelve. The lorry driver hawked a laugh and said, “You aren’t ever. And what’re you hiding under them baggy clothes? I reckon truth is you’re a girl, you are,” in response to which