BooksBarbecue
Back A Change of Circumstance Save as PDF
Chapters (67)
  1. Cover
  2. One
  3. Two
  4. Three
  5. Four
  6. Five
  7. Six
  8. Seven
  9. Eight
  10. Nine
  11. Ten
  12. Eleven
  13. Twelve
  14. Thirteen
  15. Fourteen
  16. Fifteen
  17. Sixteen
  18. Seventeen
  19. Eighteen
  20. Nineteen
  21. Twenty
  22. Twenty-One
  23. Twenty-Two
  24. Twenty-Three
  25. Twenty-Four
  26. Twenty-Five
  27. Twenty-Six
  28. Twenty-Seven
  29. Twenty-Eight
  30. Twenty-Nine
  31. Thirty
  32. Thirty-One
  33. Thirty-Two
  34. Thirty-Three
  35. Thirty-Four
  36. Thirty-Five
  37. Thirty-Six
  38. Thirty-Seven
  39. Thirty-Eight
  40. Thirty-Nine
  41. Forty
  42. Forty-One
  43. Forty-Two
  44. Forty-Three
  45. Forty-Four
  46. Forty-Five
  47. Forty-Six
  48. Forty-Seven
  49. Forty-Eight
  50. Forty-Nine
  51. Fifty
  52. Fifty-One
  53. Fifty-Two
  54. Fifty-Three
  55. Fifty-Four
  56. Fifty-Five
  57. Fifty-Six
  58. Fifty-Seven
  59. Fifty-Eight
  60. Fifty-Nine
  61. Sixty
  62. Sixty-One
  63. Sixty-Two
  64. Sixty-Three
  65. Sixty-Four
  66. Sixty-Five
  67. Sixty-Six

‘It’s going to be fine,’ Wang said, putting his hand over his wife’s inert one. ‘You like my family, your own aren’t so far away.’

She shrugged.

‘We’ll be back.’ Would they? He had no idea but she would want to and he needed to keep her spirits up, she was too easily cast into a depressed, passive mood in which she barely spoke, even to the children.

‘It’s safest for now.’

‘You seem to know.’

‘I do.’

‘Not to know is hard, but then, I never do know.’

‘Because I don’t want you to be worried.’

‘You think I’m not worried now? You think we can just run away in the middle of the night like refugees without me worrying at all? I like my home. I like where we live.’

‘It’s a break,’ Wang said. ‘Just a holiday and time with our families. Think of it like that.’

‘But it isn’t,’ she said, as the children came racing back, hands full of comics with plastic toys taped to them. ‘More rubbish.’

‘Leave them. I said they could get what they wanted except sweets. Come on.’

The blue car was still hemming them in, but as they tried to edge the doors open, a woman came across the walkway, unlocked it and reversed just enough for them to get in. After that she did not move so he had to edge out slowly.

‘Some people have no manners, no thought for anyone else. Look at this, and if I touch her wing mirror she’ll be out screaming at me.’

‘She’s waiting for someone.’

‘Makes no difference.’

He made for the exit road and joined the line of other cars, the blue one behind. In the back, the toys were being peeled off the comics. It was still raining, and as Wang reached the slip road, spray was arcing up from the fast-moving traffic, wind-screen wipers could not cope with the deluge, some drivers had fog lights on. In such blinding conditions, everyone’s focus was on the road ahead. Only on the road.

The blue car pulled out and came close alongside Wang, so that he had to steer left towards the narrow strip of verge. He swore and wound the window down, turned towards them.

They were experts. It was over in seconds, bullets fired into the car, front seat, rear seat, and even before it began to slip and lurch, with no one controlling it, they were onto the motorway, moving from slow to middle to fast lane, in and out of vehicles, through rain and spray, ignoring the blaring horns and squealing tyres, moving fast up the gears and out of sight, off at the next exit and gone.

The road from the service station was a chaos of stalled cars, opening doors, shouts, desperate phone calls while the Wangs’ car was at standstill against the boundary hedge, the engine ticking, and inside, silence.

Fifty-Six