The Border Reiver Read Free Page B

Nat’s until the very last moment, and then he picked up his friend with the third boy.
    They didn’t waste any time getting out the door. Nat snatched the shotgun from his daughter's hand. With an angry look at her, he followed the men out of the house and stood on the gravelled drive as they got into the estate car.
    The two men who had remained in the vehicle turned to look at him and then he saw the men talking, probably arguing whether to come back for a shot at him. But they decided against it as the engine fired up and the car skidded off the gravel firing stones behind it as it went. The soft footsteps of his daughter on the gravel ran up next to his shoulder.
    Amber looked at her father, “We better work out what we’re gonna do when they come back, Da.”
    Nat turned to her, his grimace sent from Hell.
    “What did you think you were doing, Amber?”
    “I…”
    “What if they had guns?” He turned away, deep in thought. His heart was beating trying to think, to plan what to do; he was sure that his home and land were lost to these people. It was true there was nothing stopping this new regime. His immediate conclusion was to get his wife and daughter north of the border into Scotland.
    As he stood with his daughter, a mere child with the independence of a woman twice her age, he thought of his old friend in Melrose and his mind was made. If he could get his wife and daughter to Stuart, he could breathe easier and come back to protect his livelihood, or at least make sure no one else could steal it from him. As he watched the black car disappear down the narrow winding country road, his eyes raised and he looked out over the Tyne Valley. Dusk was falling, it was ten to four in the afternoon and the light would fail in twenty minutes. He kissed his daughter's head once again, and the two of them walked back into the house.
     
    *    *    *    *    *
     
    As the car motored towards Hexham, Davey passed Roland a piece of cloth from the boot. Blood was streaming from his broken nose and a gash where his cheekbone had hit the table. A bulbous purple swelling grew on his face and he spluttered with pain. Conor was shouting from the back of the car
    “You ok, Roland?” Roland raised a bloody hand in acknowledgement and Conor continued, “We can't let him get away with that, we should have given him some payback and taken him in.”
    “We'll come back,” answered Gerry. “We need to report it to Truter, and let him decide what we do next.”
    Conor looked across at Steve, who gave his friend a knowing look and said,
    “If you treat the locals with kid gloves, they'll learn to fuck you right up. I know it’s not your call, but if we keep letting these bastards go about their shit the way they want to, we will be chasing shadows. And dying doing it; trust me, we've learnt that lesson in every shithole we've toured. Next time we get up there we need to sort him out.”
    “That might be, but I'm not doing anything without Truter's say so...that’s not worth doing either.”
    “He's right. We wait and return once we have reported to the boss,” mumbled Roland through a swollen bloody mouth. Conor stretched forward and rested a hand on Roland’s shoulder.
    “Don't worry mate, he'll get his,” he said, giving the shoulder a reassuring squeeze. The car fell silent as it sped back to the police station in Hexham.

THREE
     
    The office was draped in shadow from the ceiling to head height. He didn’t like the strip beam lights, or the incessant hum they emitted. At first, he was embarrassed by the finery of the antique furniture and fittings in the room. He felt it mocked his beliefs and portrayed him as the type of person he had dedicated his life’s work against. The green glass shades of the lamps, the walnut desk that stood like a rhino in the room, the leather Chesterfields, the regency mahogany sideboard and the wood panelled walls: all these items falsely portrayed him as one familiar to the