Displacement

"Dave, what was all that stuff about disappearing?" said Anup after the woman had left.

"Oh. Okay, yeah, I was going to say something. I had this really weird thing happen this morning - I picked a guy up when I was driving in who said his car had broken down. I was going to give him a lift into town. Seems like quite a normal bloke. He sits down in the car, I'm just talking to him and I look round and he's vanished. The door's still closed and locked and he's nowhere in sight. I get out of the car and look for him but he's really nowhere there, you can see for miles, it's quite flat around there, you know, just north of the bridge. So this is just... I don't know, today's just been bloody strange." He sighed, took a long swig of his lager.

"Right. Right. Okay."

"Seriously, I do not know that woman."

Kathy waved her wine glass in his direction. "You didn't... I mean, she's not someone you met ages ago, you didn't take it as seriously as she did...?"

"No, I'd never been to Hopedon before I started working for Farrow. I'd remember if I'd, you know, 'met her' like that." He swallowed more lager. "I just can't work out how she knows all that stuff about me."

"Look, we can go somewhere else if you like, mate..." offered Anup. David shook his head.

"No, I'm okay. Andy's supposed to be meeting us here, right? Let's just forget it, okay?" He finished his beer. "That one went a bit fast. I think I'll get another one."

"I'll get it," said Anup.

"Oh, I see, cheap round for you right?"

While Anup was at the bar, David stole one of Diane's Marlboro Lights. He'd mostly given up but a little bug at the back of his head was telling him that a fag right now would take his mind off all this. It certainly gave him a not entirely pleasant head rush, and made him cough. Doubtless he'd have smoked a whole pack by the end of the night, and have to go through the whole process again.

He was listening to Mark talk about politics again - he was one of those people who watched CNN and all that sort of thing and complained that the BBC was biased, and David felt a little irritation rising which might emerge as a sarcastic comment after a couple more pints - when someone behind him said "Excuse me. Are you David Young?"

He looked round. There was a man standing there in an overcoat, shaved head; his hands were deep in his pockets, and behind him were two other overcoated men, one smoking a cigarette.

"Yes?" More people who think they know me? Jesus....

"CID, Mr Young. Inspector Kerry." The man pulled out a wallet, flashed an ID card at him. "Can we have a word? You're not in any trouble."

"Hold on, is this about that woman who was just talking to me?"

The man looked surprised. "Just talking to you? What was she saying?"

"Oh, she seemed to think she knew me, and she knew a lot of things about me, but I've never met her..."

"And she was just here?" David nodded. "Is she still in the pub?"

"I think she went to the loo."

The man turned and indicated with his head to the other two, who started to move towards the loos. "This is very important, Mr Young, that woman could be very dangerous. I'd like you to come with me. We'll go somewhere safe."

"What?" The two men were going into the Ladies and their hands were in their inside pockets. "Hold on, what's..."

"Mr Young, you really have to come with me now." Inspector Kerry was moving between David and the loos, glancing over his shoulder at the men going in. The door swung shut. "Please get up, sir, we have to go, it's for your own protection."

David started to get up. There was a scream from the toilets, a woman's voice, then a shout, then another scream, a man this time, a long sound that started as almost a word but then became less and less distinct until it began to bubble and wheeze and get quieter and quieter. The whole pub looked up. The door slammed open and one of the men who had gone in staggered out backwards, pointing his hand inside. As he backed out, crouched down, almost on his knees, David could see that the hand was holding a long-barelled pistol, silenced... it went "pop" twice, three times, and the man turned to Inspector Kerry with his eyes wide open and shouted "GO! GO! BREACH! GET OUT!"

Kerry grabbed David by the shoulders and pushed him towards the door of the pub. "Move!" he shouted in David's ear. Other people were starting to get up and try to leave the same way. The bald Inspector elbowed them aside and dragged David out into the drizzle by the sleeve of his shirt.

"What..."

"Get in the car," Kerry yelled, opening the passenger door of a Volvo parked outside and pushing him inside. He ran around to the driver's seat and got in. From inside the pub there was the screaming of people scared and confused and not knowing what to do. People were spilling out of the front entrance and running down the street. Then the coated man who had come out of the toilets fell out of the doorway. Just as Kerry turned the ignition, David looked at him getting up. It was dark outside and his face was in shadow, but something was wrong with it... his nose... there was something spilling down onto his coat and the pavement... the car suddenly jerked forward and David's head bounced off the back of the seat as Inspector Kerry stamped on the accelerator and the car moved off at illegal speed.

"Ow, shit," David said, and fumbled for the seatbelt. Kerry turned right at the junction with Smith Street and sped down towards the B312. David looked around the car; seemed fairly normal, but there was a cable coming out of the cigarette lighter, and when he glanced over his shoulder he saw that it was connected to a laptop mounted in the middle of the back seat, which made a whistling noise and began to beep.

"Yes, yes, fucker, I know," Kerry muttered.

"What's that?"

"It's an alarm, Mr Young. It means someone's trying to kill you. That woman you met was trying to kill you. And us. My two colleagues are probably dead right now, or will be soon."

"Ah." A speed camera flashed at them.

"Mr Young... David... there are some people trying to kill you here, and that was one of them. I don't know why she didn't kill you the first time she met you, but she didn't, and you're here now, which is the main thing. But it's very very important that you tell me what you know here."

"Uh, she just came up to me in the pub. She said she knew me, that we... that we went out years ago. She knew things about me, but I've never met her before. She was confused. She got angry, she looked like she was going to cry, she said something about other people..."

"And then?"

"Then she just walked away. She said goodbye and she went off. I don't know. She didn't seem angry at me, more at, just, everything, and scared. Scared. But shit, after this morning..."

"This morning? What happened this morning?" David told him about the hitchhiker. He listened, and nodded.

"That was another of them, Mr Young. That was definitely another of them."

"But... I've met two of them then, and..."

"Yes, you're still alive. But if you meet them again you may not be. And there are going to be others out there. It's very, very important that you do what I say now. You understand?"

"Uh, yeah. Yes."

"Yes. Do what I tell you. Oh SHIIIIIITTT" and the headlights lit up a figure standing in the middle of the road, in front of the car, and Kerry span the steering wheel and the car swung to the left and started to spin on the wet road. Kerry stomped his foot down and grabbed the handbrake and slowly, the car came to a stop. He released the handbrake and pulled a silenced pistol out from under his coat.

"Get your head down," he told David, who ducked and tried to squeeze himself into the footwell. He listened. There were some footsteps outside, then a loud "pop" sound inside, a crunching noise from behind him. A muttered "fuck". The faint smell of burning, a bit like fireworks, seeping through the car.

"Where is he?" he heard Kerry say. "Fuck it." The car suddenly lurched and turned to the right - David's shoulder banged against the door. "Keep your head down until I tell you." They started to accelerate. Apart from the noise of the engine, David could only hear breathing, his own and Inspector Kerry's.

"We're going somewhere safe."