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leaned forward slightly and mouthed, ‘Communication.’
    â€˜Communication,’ I repeated imbecilically.
    â€˜Want to see?’
    â€˜No, I’ll take your word for it.’ The less I knew about this, the better. Still, it wasn’t every day that one met a terrorist.
    Also I was intrigued to learn what these ‘closely-guarded secrets’ were that ‘the man-in-the-street’ knew nothing about. Myself I had often suspected that certain facts were being withheld from the population at large: we were continually being reminded by TV, radio and newspapers that we had a free press, one of the cornerstones of democracy, and yet when you read the ‘free’ press you found that it contained nothing more revelatory than women with their legs spread wide and endless columns of bingo numbers. – Suppose lots of things went on that were either completely suppressed or distorted to give the exact reverse of the truth? If all the media were in collusion (it was possible), there would be no means of ascertaining the real truth except by rumour, hearsay, word-of-mouth, etc.
    I stoppered the bottle and took him back to the van. On the wayhe told me his name, but I decided to introduce him to Mira simply as ‘Brown’ and omit the ‘Urban’, reasoning that it might be safer in the long run. Perfect name for a terrorist, I remember thinking, – Urban Brown, – ordinary, commonplace, yet at the same time unsettling, disquieting, allusive.
    Mira was none too pleased. She became monosyllabic and kept catching my eye furiously. I didn’t care. I was in her bad books to begin with, so had nothing to lose. If I hadn’t been drunk I don’t think I would have taken the risk of transporting a known terrorist under the noses of the police, but disposition, curiosity and intoxication had conspired that July day in a sort of giddy recklessness, and here we were, the four of us, heading south down the hot black snake of the M6 in sweltering sunshine. Yipee!!
    The Knutsford (Rank) service station I decided to give a miss because we still had a quarter tank of petrol and the next service stat, Sandbach (Road Chef), wasn’t all that far and I judged we’d make it before running out of fuel.
    It was round about four o’clock now, still hot, which wasn’t good for the engine. Constantly pressing the accelerator to the floor had left me with a numb right leg up to the thigh.
    Another fear, or worry, made me sweat as much as the heat. Was there a curfew on this section of motorway, and, if so, what was the deadline? To be caught breaking curfew was bad enough, but to be stopped and searched whilst harbouring a fugitive … !
    Not clever; definitely dumb.
    There was a conversation going on in the back that I couldn’t hear. Brown was asking questions and Mira was answering him quite animatedly. He said something and I heard her snort with laughter. In the mirror I could see his narrow dark face with its prominent bones and starved eyes brightly illuminated by the golden light slanting through the side windows. He said he had killed people
en masse
and I could believe it. No, not an evil face, I would have said, but fixed, purposive, callous; in a word, ruthless.
I wouldn’t like to run into him on a dark night
, I remember thinking.
    I moved my head to look at Mira in the mirror but the angle was wrong and all I could see was a shoulder and broken white lines converging sharply to a focal point in the distance behind us. Mira snorted again. What the hell was he saying to make her laugh?
    I knew I would have to pull the same stunt for petrol at Sandbach that I had employed at Holmes Chapel. Brown would have to stay out of sight. I couldn’t risk anyone spotting him. Service stats were crawling with strays and fringers, so his unkempt appearance wouldn’t excite comment, but there would be police and possibly the odd
gwich
floating around.