The Marriage by K.L. Slater (any book recommendations TXT) 📕

Tom held his breath for as long as possible. He was going to throw up, he knew it. He hadn’t even got his phone with him – he’d left it on his bedside table because it was out of charge.

He watched the two police officers in the vehicle. The blue light flashed silently on the roof, casting its reflection onto the windows of the old factory and skimming the bushes where he had concealed himself. For a couple of minutes, the officers stared at the building and didn’t move at all. To a clueless passer-by, the place would have looked completely empty. There were no signs at all that anyone was inside. Tom reckoned if the police had taken the trouble to come down here, they must have had a tip-off.

One of the officers began speaking on a phone or walkie-talkie. He nodded, never taking his eyes off the building.

Don’t come out now, Tom screamed silently in his head in the vain hope that Jesse would receive the message telepathically, like in that Buffy episode he’d secretly watched in his bedroom last week because everyone knew Buffy was for girls. But Jesse had definitely said he’d only be in there for five minutes, and he’d been gone for at least ten.

Tom was quite close to the vehicle, although thanks to his dark clothing, he was completely camouflaged amongst the bushes. His cover would easily be blown if they came looking, though, particularly if they spotted the bikes glinting nearby.

Tom knew there was no way to make a run for it, the officers would see him immediately. Besides, he couldn’t abandon his bike, because his dad would kill him. It had been his main birthday a few months ago when he’d turned fourteen. His dad hadn’t wanted to fork out that much money, but his mum had managed to convince him.

He caught his breath again as both doors opened at once on the police car. The officers got out, fixing their hats, and in their thick-soled shoes moved stealthily towards the same boarded-up entrance Jesse had used to enter the building.

Tom grimaced as his left leg spasmed with pins and needles. He adjusted his posture slightly, and as he pulled his lower leg out from under his right thigh, a branch beneath him snapped, a loud noise in the otherwise unbroken silence.

Both officers turned and scanned the bushes and sparse trees.

‘Hello?’ the shorter one called, his hand hovering over his equipment belt. ‘Who’s there?’

Tom opened his mouth to make his breathing as quiet as possible. It felt as if his heartbeat had relocated into his throat. This was it. He was going to be arrested and his parents would be devastated. His mother would have a breakdown and his dad would take pleasure in grounding him for months.

At that moment he heard the far-off party sounds again, though this time the voices sounded urgent. Someone in the basement must have seen the blue lights flashing outside.

The police instantly lost interest in the area where he was hiding and began pushing at the boards on the ground-floor doors and windows. Within seconds they were inside.

Tom stood up, stretching his legs but careful to stay in the shadows. The blue lights were still flashing, but fortunately they didn’t quite reach his hiding place. He tried to decide whether to grab his cycle and just make a run for it when he saw movement at the far left of the building. As the solitary figure darted forward, he saw the familiar light-grey sweatshirt with the Simpsons appliqué on the front … Jesse!

He hurried to the gorse bushes and grabbed Jesse’s bike.

‘Quick,’ he said breathlessly, pushing it towards his friend. ‘Go! Go now.’

Jesse didn’t speak, he grabbed the bike and jumped on it, pedalling for his life. Tom’s bike had got tangled in long weeds, and he wrenched it out, jarring his shoulder in the process. Voices shouted and there were suddenly figures outside the building.

‘Backup is on its way!’ he heard one of the officers call out.

At last Tom managed to pull his bike free of the foliage. He jumped into the saddle, scooting towards the bend and then onto the straight part of the lane. He saw Jesse’s rear reflector disc shimmering in the distance, and he kept his head down and his feet pumping the pedals.

A few minutes later, he emerged onto Sherwood Hall Road. Jesse was sitting outside the Ravensdale pub, still in the saddle but bent over his handlebars, wheezing. When Tom got close, he realised he was laughing deliriously.

‘Oh man,’ Jesse spluttered, clapping a hand on Tom’s back. ‘Now that’s what I call a close shave.’

‘Yeah. One I don’t ever want to have again,’ Tom said breathlessly. ‘Let’s get going.’

‘It’s fine, man.’ Jesse laughed, pulling out a crumpled packet of cigarettes and lighting up. ‘Just chill.’

If they’d kept pedalling, manoeuvred their bikes into the quieter side streets, they’d have probably been OK. But five minutes later the police car pulled up at the side of them and before they registered what was happening, an officer jumped out.

Jesse gave his address and phone number and said that Tom was his brother. The officer looked doubtfully from one boy to the other but he wrote down the details anyway. Then he rang Bridget in front of them.

Five minutes later, Bridget pulled up in her little battered Fiat. Tom knew if it was his mum the police had rung, she’d have gone absolutely mental. But Bridget was supercool and didn’t even direct a threatening glare in Jesse’s direction.

The police radio burst into life in the car and, whilst the officers briefly conferred about something, Bridget grabbed Tom’s arm.

‘I need you to take the rap for this, Tom,’ she hissed. ‘Jesse’s already got two cautions, he can’t afford any more trouble. Say it was you who wanted to go to the old factory, that you forced Jesse to go with you, yeah?’

Tom looked wildly at