Orkney Twilight Read Free

her, raised her hand, ducked too late, felt the sting on the side of her face, half screamed, curtailed her yelp and smiled when she recognized the gross mandibles of a concussed stag beetle lying at her feet. Everything appeared to be targeting her tonight. The humidity must have brought it out from the wood. She hadn’t seen one in years. She squatted down on the pavement to admire its branching black antlers, its copper armour plating, its lumbering crawl as it blundered back towards the shadow line of the trees. She was so engrossed in its strange beauty that she almost failed to hear the crescendo crack-crack until the bike was almost on top of her again. Adrenalin hitting, heart racing, she straightened, just had time to tense her muscles for flight before clocking that the beam had swept past her and the bike had swerved off the road into the pub’s car park. So he had just been looking for an out-of-town bar after all. He wasn’t after her. Stupid. She bit her bottom lip and surreptitiously watched the bike manoeuvre into a space between two cars, caught sight of its black hornet-shaped thorax; off-road night-rider.
    He huffed with the effort of hauling his heavy machine on to its stand, sauntered in her direction, leather-clad, helmet on, visor up, the scent of oil greeting her before he was halfway across the car park.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ he said as he drew near. Muffled voice. ‘I must have scared you just now. I thought I ought to apologize.’
    She shrugged, made as if she didn’t know what he was talking about, hadn’t been scared at all. He removed his helmet, thick black greasy locks plastered against his dirt-streaked face. Mid-twenties she reckoned.
    ‘I was out for a bit of a ride. Not really sure where I was going, just looking for somewhere to have a drink. I saw you standing there, on the kerb.’
    A twang was audible now, a lift at the end of his sentences leaving a trail of unanswered questions. Australian possibly.
    ‘I thought you were someone I knew. You look like an ex-girlfriend of mine. She’s Dutch. She came to England to train as a nurse. It threw me a bit. The likeness. Are you Dutch?’
    ‘No,’ she said. Course she wasn’t Dutch; first he nearly runs her over with his mad bike-riding and then he tries to chat her up with some lame bollocks about looking Dutch. She turned and stared down the road pointedly, hoped he would get the message and piss off.
    ‘Well, I’m sorry if I scared you.’
    She folded her arms, glanced back at him out of the corner of her eye, caught sight of a hand disappearing inside his leather jacket, a flash, a compact, metallic object in his palm, raised arm. Shoot position. She blinked. It was just a gold box of Benson and Hedges.
    ‘Are you sure I didn’t scare you?’ he asked. ‘You look a little jumpy.’ He held the open packet out for her. ‘Want one?’
    ‘No thanks.’
    He pat-patted his jacket with his spare hand, searching his pockets. ‘Do you have a light? I usually have my Zippo on me, but I can’t find it. I must have left it somewhere.’
    ‘I might have a box of matches.’ She rummaged in her coat pocket, felt the rough edge of a Swan Vesta box, was about to hand it over, remembered she had stashed her hash inside, retracted her offer and instead grasped a single matchstick, pushing its red head against the sandpaper strike. The match flared, licked the thickening dusk air, illuminating the man’s hands cupped to shield the flame, revealing the un-etched skin on his fingers. Not a mechanic, then, or a courier like most of her sister’s chopper-owning biker mates. He held the fag between his index finger and his thumb, took deep drags, cracked his jaw and sent a trail of smoke rings wobbling skyward. Not impressed. She scanned the road, slowly, deliberately.
    ‘What are you doing out here on your own anyway?’ the rider persisted.
    It wasn’t an Australian accent. Kiwi perhaps.
    ‘I’m waiting for a friend.’
    ‘Are you