Free A Thrust to the Vitals by Geraldine Evans Page A

Maybe, by then he would have come up with some believable tale?
    Fortunately, the site where the bitterly complaining at the early phone call, but eventually obliging, Algy Edwards had a caravan wasn’t one of those sites that catered for year-round caravan hire. Neither did it have any residents permanently on site. Rafferty had made sure to check on both points before settling on it.
    From what they could see of it in the gloom, the place looked deserted, desolate, even. Which was just what Rafferty had been hoping for. At last, he thought, something was going right. He immediately cursed himself for a fool and crossed his fingers for the second time since he had been brought abreast of Mickey’s situation.
    In the raw, pre-dawn hours of the December morning, there was a forlorn air about the place. It reminded Rafferty of one of those old Wild West ghost towns that featured in so many of the cowboy films of his youth. It lacked only the windblown tumbleweeds to complete the impression of a place long since abandoned by man. But what it might lack in tumbleweeds, it didn’t lack in appropriate sound effects: somewhere close, he could hear a creaking door that, presumably assisted by the rising wind, was spookily effective. It certainly sent a shiver up his spine, so he could guess what it did to his already more than spooked little brother.
    It was still too early for the sun to have struggled over the horizon. The only illumination was provided by the Renault’s headlights. Between the lights, the shifting misty miasma coming off the sea and familiar to those with a nodding acquaintance with the chill, pre-dawn hour, and the caravans themselves, which seemed like huge, crouching beasts ready to spring on the unwary, the whole scene contained an atmosphere so eerie and filled with such hidden menace, that it made the skin crawl.
    Their arrival at this quiet, bottom-clenching, sometime sanctuary — not to mention the unsettling caravan monsters that had them surrounded — not surprisingly, appeared to comfort Mickey not one jot. He hadn’t once troubled to question Rafferty about their destination during the journey, presumably having questions of even greater magnitude to occupy him.
    But now, somehow, in the Stygian gloom, light must have dawned, for Mickey spluttered, ‘B—but you can’t leave me here!’
    The horrified quiver in his voice made it all too plain that he was aghast at the prospect. As Rafferty would have been, he admitted to himself, had their positions been reversed. But it wasn’t as if either of them had a choice in the matter — time had been limited and options even more so. The dodgy Algy Edwards and his less than luxurious caravan was the best Rafferty could do in the circumstances.
    Aware that he had to be tough for both their sakes, he just said bluntly, ‘Quit moaning. At least it’s quiet and out of the way.’
    ‘So was Dracula’s castle,’ Mickey muttered, but I wouldn’t want to stay there, either.’
    Rafferty hardened his heart. ‘You’re staying. Get used to the idea. It’s this or a cell in the police station. As long as you don’t use a light or do anything else to draw attention to yourself, it’s likely that no one will notice you’re here.’
    Reminded of the police cell alternative, Mickey shut up.
    As they began hunting along the rows of caravans for the one belonging to Rafferty’s sometime friend, they left the Renault’s lights behind. Rafferty fumbled his way in the darkness, stubbed his toe on a gas canister and cursed. He finally persuaded the torch he had taken from the car to provide a half-hearted light. Flickering and inadequate as it was, with its begrudging assistance, he squinted at each of the caravans’ numbers, trying to find the one he sought so he could stash Mickey and get back to the station before someone started searching for him in earnest.
    The torch’s batteries were clearly running on empty and its light fluttered and died just as