Free Son of Heaven by David Wingrove

haven’t got time to go back. I’ll be okay. It’s just a flesh wound. A few painkillers and I’ll be
fine.’
    Just then Frank Goodman returned. He had a sour look on his face. ‘There were three of them, further back among the trees. I got one of them, but the other two escaped.’ He looked at
Tom. ‘What’s the damage?’
    Tom grimaced. ‘It stings like fuck, but I’ll be okay. At least he missed my head.’
    Goodman nodded. ‘Well, I didn’t fucking miss his. You should have seen his eyes when I put the gun in his mouth…’
    ‘They’re just boys,’ Eddie said, coming across. ‘There’s not one of ’em over twenty.’
    ‘City boys by the look of it,’ Jake said. ‘Shanty-dwellers, I’d say. But what are they doing this far west?’
    And the girl…
    They had come to the edge of the trees, but every tiny movement was making Tom wince with pain.
    ‘Sit him down,’ Jake said, taking charge. ‘Let’s bring the wagon over.’
    They did as Jake said. Ten minutes later it was done. The wound was cleaned and bandaged, while a heavy dose of morphine had numbed Tom’s pain.
    Jake crouched beside him, watching as the others made a pile of the bodies in the clearing beside the road.
    Frank Goodman took the petrol can and poured it over them, then looked across at Jake. ‘You want to do the honours, Jake?’
    They were all here. All fourteen of the dead. And Eddie had been right. There wasn’t one of them over twenty, and most of them were younger than that. A lot younger. And then there was the
girl…
    Unsentimental, he told himself. You’ve got to be unsentimental.
    He struck the match and let it fall, standing back as the flames roared up.
    They would have killed us. They would have left our bodies to be pecked clean by the birds.
    But it didn’t matter what he told himself. They were just kids. Just fucking kids.
    Peter sat with the Hubbards, at the head of their old kitchen table, in the ‘man’s chair’ as they always called Tom’s seat. He liked being there; liked
the way they always made him welcome, as if he was their brother, not just a cousin.
    He always ate well at the Hubbards’. Much better than at home. Not that he complained. His dad did his best. But he wasn’t half the cook Mary Hub-bard was.
    The girls were messing about right now, giggling and whispering to each other. They were up to mischief, but for once Peter couldn’t be bothered to find out what was going on.
    Mary had cooked a casserole. She brought it in, wearing thick oven gloves to carry the steaming pot. It smelled delicious. Prime beef with all the trimmings. But Mary herself seemed distracted
for once. She went through the motions of being there, but her mind clearly wasn’t. Peter could tell she was thinking about something. When she looked at you, she would smile, as always, but
the smile would fade after a moment, as if it hadn’t the power to sustain itself.
    He ate, trying to enjoy the meal, slipping the odd piece of meat beneath the table for Boy. Only he was too distracted now. The more he observed Meg’s mother, the more certain he was that
something was wrong. It wasn’t just the air of distraction that surrounded her, it was something deeper. She seemed sad. Only that made no sense. He’d been with the Hubbards dozens of
times when Tom and Jake had gone to market, and she’d always treated the occasions as a kind of holiday, to be celebrated. They’d always had a lot of fun. Today, however, she seemed
positively miserable, and there seemed no reason why.
    There was no way, of course, that he could ask, but it preyed on his mind. When they went out into the garden after lunch, he didn’t join in the girls’ game, but stood there by the
end wall, looking north, Boy settled by his feet.
    They’d be a fair way along by now, he reckoned. At East Stoke, maybe, halfway to Wool. That was, if they hadn’t made it to Wool already.
    ‘Peter?’
    He turned as Meg ran up. ‘Yeah?’
    ‘We’re