Breaking East by Bob Summer Page A

moved my hand and rubbed my palm on my thigh. The silence and the way he pursed his lips and stared at the floor, told me loud and clear I’d stepped over a line.
    ‘Whatever, Atty.’ He looked up, straight into my eyes. ‘Whatever. I’m not going to argue with you.’
    I hated reasonable people. They got right into my orifices.
    It’s very hard not to touch the driver when riding on the back of a bike. I sat as far back as I could, my legs spread wide, and my hands on my knees.
    Stuart sighed. ‘Hold on, Atty.’
    ‘I’m okay.’
    He let go of the handlebars. ‘Just hold on. I’ve already scraped you up off the floor once. I don’t want to have to do it again.’
    He was such a nob. I grabbed his tee shirt but stayed well back on the seat. ‘Happy?’
    He drove off without a word.
    We left the bike in an old stable block at the top of a hill overlooking Craffid. I’d never been to a city before and my stomach bounced around in excitement. I forgot I wasn’t supposed to be talking to Stuart and asked him if he knew where to go for the train station.
    ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But we can go to the shops first. Then maybe a hotel. We both need to freshen up.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We might be better off getting a train in the morning. The station is a proper doss house at night so best avoid it if we can.’ He didn’t sound sulky, simply cold and detached. And he avoided my eye. Fair enough. Better to keep a professional relationship anyway. All that frolicking good fun at the beach had been nonsense.
    I set off ahead of him. ‘Okay, your call.’ He could take this one, the next, if important, would be mine.
    When we walked around the shopping centres it soon became apparent who had all the money. The cities, or rather those places that received overseas dignitaries, boasted fully funded teams of specialist security officers rather than the useless rabble of wannabes that made up the Law at home. No wonder they didn’t allow the likes of us to move in. Our money might be good enough, but once we spent it they wanted us to sod off home to our hovels. It almost made me keep Stuart’s money in my pocket. Almost.
    I picked various items of clothing off a rail in a small select store. The girl behind the counter glowed bleach-clean pretty and showed off the same blonde, sun-kissed hair as Stuart. He smiled at her and she cutesy smiled back.
    I waved the clothes in front of her face. ‘Can I try these on, love?’
    ‘Course.’ She indicated a curtain in the corner and fiddled with something on a shelf under the till.
    Stuart hovered nearby, his hands in his pockets. ‘I’ll wait here.’
    Yeah. Course he would, being male and therefore so, so predictable. I refused to look at either of them. She was likely skin shallow and brain dense. Good luck to him.
    In the changing rooms I took the first good look at my face. My eye, although beginning to open, had no white to it. The pupil was pin-tiny, the usually ice-blue iris had a dark bottle-blue glassy look to it and the rest glowed a vivid red. My upper lip was so swollen it blocked my left nostril and I couldn’t close my mouth over my teeth without wincing. Where Stuart had pulled the muck out of my cheek, a blue-purple bruise surrounded a thick black line. What part of my clothes didn’t have blood stains, had sand or dust or some other muck stuck to it. I looked like a walking, or rather a hobbling, bomb victim. I held the new clothes up against me, still on their hangers. Yep, they’d do.
    ‘That was quick.’ Stuart looked up from the magazine article that bleach-features was showing him.
    ‘Yep. No point in hanging around.’ I tried a pointed smile. Sheesh it hurt. ‘I’m not one for tarting myself up. How much?’ I shoved all the clothes onto the counter.
    The girl slapped the magazine closed and took the money with a pout to put a trout to shame.
    I smiled more easily. ‘Thanks. You’ve been too, too kind.’
    Stuart half-waved to her from