Free Blighted Land: Book two of the Northumbrian Western Series (Northumbrian Westerns 2) by Ian Chapman Page A

this. Watching out for Casper.’
    ‘Let’s see what happens.’ I walked back to the building. She walked along side me. I stopped at the doorway. ‘I’ll come find you. Once I’ve talked to him.’
    ‘Thanks.’
    As I pulled the door open I motioned for her to go first. She stepped through but stopped and turned, so that I walked into her. Our bodies were pushed together, face to face, my chest shoved up against hers. She gripped me and held me there.
    ‘If you want to make sure it's him,’ she said, ‘ask him about this.’ She pulled her top down a little to show a mole on her left breast. ‘Think you'll remember?’ her voice was low, her breath on my face, warm, gin and lemon scented. She stepped away, smiled. ‘See you soon.’
    ‘Yeah.’ I made my way across the bar and carried on out, away from the hotel. I walked back fast, thinking about Round Up and things I needed to do to the bike.
    Thinking about anything but Becky.  

CHAPTER NINE
Casper

    T HE NEXT MORNING I took a walk on the beach. It was one of the things that had first attracted me to the town, reminding me of long gone holidays. Jamie, my old partner — he’d had a thing for beaches. That was the last thing we’d done together, sit on a beach further down the Northumbrian coast, me and him chatting. Shortly before I dissolved our partnership.
    Not that the beach at Faeston was much to look at. It was gouged and holed where sand has been removed for building work, conditioning soil, anything. Rubbish lay strewn about: busted devices with no use — computers, phones and TV sets. Relics from a different time. And of course there was the sewerage. Turds washed up that hadn’t caught the tide.  
    Despite all the crap and junk, it felt good to walk along it, below the cliffs that protected High Town, the entrance to the bay just ahead. The stonework appeared out of the late summer fret as the sun burnt down through it. I was thinking, weighing up where this was all going. Whether I was right to tag along with Becky. Get involved with her brother.
    It wasn’t like I wanted to stick with Round Up. I wasn’t even keen on the town anymore. This was where I’d ended up not somewhere I’d chosen. It had been easy to pick up work but I’d never planned to stay forever. I’d been drawn into the place; found a decent flat. Fixed the Triumph up and gone to the races. Sophie had latched onto me and made us into a couple. I’d got used to living in Faeston.
    If living was the word.
    I stopped by a rock pool and sat on a busted TV set. It was a really old one, a great box of cracked plastic. The tube had gone but the rest of it lay cock-eyed in the sand. I picked up a handful of stones and threw them into the water. Something brown floated around in the pool.
    I was bored. Sick of the routine of Round Up. It was all about controlling and playing power games. There was no one with any sense of the outside. Their world was the town. They didn’t want to know about other places or how people did things elsewhere.
    Becky wasn’t like that. She was a real outsider. Full of ideas and energy. She wasn’t someone to hang around in one place. Make a home and pretend the old-world still existed. She was more interested in being on the move and free to go where there were opportunities.  
    More like me.
    But she was an odd one. There was lots she wasn’t telling me. Too much. And her brother was an unknown.  
    Jamie used to always go on about having a plan. And Gary. Now it was time for me to have one.  
    I’d got stuck in Faeston. Stuck in a rut. It had been fine for a while but it was time to go.  
    I walked off the beach and into town.
    When I got to Round Up Central Nico wasn't there. But Will was, sitting up in the control room that had once been the security office. He grunted at me when I told him about the interrogation, that I’d been picked to do it. Before he led me off I grabbed a pencil and piece of paper.
    Our footsteps echoed off the