CHLOE

Harry is manic. His eyes are wide, wild and wet. His mouth is open, his teeth bared, and his hands grip the steering wheel of the car as it screams up the road towards the junction. He slams on the brakes to bring the car to a stop, panting as he looks left and then right, unable to move due to the traffic on the main road. I clutch the dashboard with sweaty hands, stunned into silence by this unexpected turn of events. My stomach churns sickeningly at the unruly motion of the car.

"Which way?" he gasps.

"What? I - I don't know."

"Which WAY?!" he bellows, making me jerk sharply in fear and cower for the first time in weeks. "Which fucking way? You're the one with the fucking atlas for fuck's sake!"

"The atlas is in the boot," I squeak. "We were going to get on the train, weren't we? I - I don't know how to get anywhere by car."

"Fucking hell!" he growls, banging his palm against the steering wheel in fury.

"Left," I suggest. "Go left. Right takes us into town, so left must take us...anywhere else."

He snaps the indicator sharply and as soon as there is a gap in the flow of traffic he pulls out with a screech of tyres and a smell of burning rubber. Amidst my own panic is a voice of reason that tells me I know how to handle him, if only I can find the courage. I have become so used to gentle Harry that I feel winded by the sudden appearance of angry Harry. 

"Harry," I almost whisper, "aren't we playing right into the hands of the police by travelling in a stolen car? The second it's reported missing we'll be traceable via number plate recognition on the Police National Computer."

"It won't be reported missing for ages," he snaps immediately. "The family who own it went into the station in a hurry. It looked like they were going somewhere for a day trip."

I know Harry is in no fit state to be questioned further on this so I must assume that the owners' itinerary is just a guess on his part, therefore I take no comfort in what he has just said. We travel along the main road a little too close to the car in front and approach a roundabout. Immediately Harry throws his hands up in the air in exasperation. 

"Go straight over," I tell him as calmly as I can, while my insides squirm nervously for fear of invoking his wrath.

He says nothing but follows my instructions, his eyes darting left and right, his chest rising and falling with rapid breaths. I give him a minute to adjust to being forced to drive along in a line of cars at a reasonable speed and use the time to think about how best to get out of Dumfries and as far away as possible without being detected. Too many thoughts are crowding my mind, tripping over each other and making no sense. I need to focus and I need Harry to be calm and rational.

"Harry," I begin, softly and slowly. "When you're ready, I  need you to tell me what just happened when you called home. Take your time, and tell me as much detail as you can remember."

There is a pause of a few seconds while Harry chews on his lip, clearly agitated. "Sofía was acting weird. She kept hesitating before she spoke. I heard a police radio in the background and I asked her if the police were there. She said yes. I hung up and ran." 

"Shit," I breathe. "So you didn't speak to them? How long were you on the phone?"

"I don't fucking know," he replies miserably. "Not long."

"Long enough to trace the call?"

"I said I don't know!" he shouts, and immediately wipes his face with his right hand, his left still clenched around the steering wheel, his knuckles white. He wipes his hand on his shorts before gripping the wheel with both hands, arms locked straight, and takes a couple of deep breaths.

"Did you speak to Dylan?"

He nods, and I notice his eyes are looking distinctly red and glassy. 

"Do you want to talk about it?" I am tentative, expecting him to shut down and retreat into himself but he surprises me yet again.

"Dylan said... he said he loves me. Just hearing his voice was..." he trails off and swallows hard. 

"And Sofía?" I ask timidly. 

Harry lets out a shaky breath, his lips pressed hard together. "She knows about us."

My stomach somersaults as the use of the word 'us'. "What does she know about us?"

"She knows I'm with you. She asked who you were. She asked who I'm with. She knows."

He is rambling, running one hand through his hair, beads of sweat gathering on his top lip. I feel a lump forming in my throat at his distress.

"And... what did you tell her?" I am afraid of the answer, of what he might have said to his girlfriend about me, but in order to keep us both safe I need to know exactly what the police know.

"I didn't tell her anything. I just ignored the question. I thought she'd be angry when I called, I thought she'd yell at me, but she didn't. She was really calm. I could tell she was pissed off, but she just asked me to come home. She said -" his voice breaks here, and I grit my teeth in my attempt to keep my own tears at bay. "She said she misses me. Fuck."

I know I must keep a level head if I'm going to get us away from here without being caught, but I'm finding it really hard not to give in to my own emotions while Harry is silently crumbling next to me. I want nothing more than to tell him to pull over so I can put my arms around him and comfort him, and also selfishly seek some sort of reassurance from him that his conversation with his girlfriend isn't going to change whatever feelings he might have developed for me over the past month that we have spent together. But I know I must put aside my own needs right now and concentrate on getting us to safety.

"OK," I declare, loading my voice with courage and confidence, "OK here's what we're going to do. We're just going to keep driving. How much fuel do we have?"

Harry glances at the fuel indicator in front of him. "Like, just over half a tank."

"OK, so we keep going for at least an hour, along quiet roads if we can. Then once we're far enough away we're going to pull over and I'm going to get the map out of the boot and we're going to work out a plan for where we're going to go, how we're going to get there and how we're going to dump this car. In the meantime, we just need to drive calmly and safely, and not draw any attention to ourselves. We need to keep our eyes peeled for any sign of the police or any sign of trouble." 

Harry lets out a ragged breath and nods once. His eyes continue to flick between each of the car's mirrors and the road ahead while I crane my neck to peer up every side street we pass for any sign of a lurking panda car. We pass through a built up area, across a couple of roundabouts and eventually the buildings and traffic fall away, leaving us driving steadily along a single, straight road with trees to our left and open fields to our right. I keep one eye on the road signs so that I have at least a vague idea of where we are, and the other on Harry to make sure that he is OK and keeping his own emotions in check. 

The steady pace of our journey and the beautiful scenery around us definitely has a calming effect. Neither of us speaks, but Harry's driving becomes less erratic the longer we are on the road and the frequency of his deep breaths in and out is slowing. We pass through Lochmaben, Lockerbie and a small village called Bankshill that comprises of quaint white cottages and dry stone walls. Once out the other side we continue for another twenty minutes or so until we reach a village called Langholm, where Harry makes an unexpected left turn into a tiny car park adjacent to a pretty little river, kills the engine and leans his head back against the rest.

"Are you alright?" I ask warily, and he gives a single nod without opening his eyes. "I'll get the atlas," I tell him, and without waiting for a response I open the car door and scurry to the boot, fumbling in my rucksack for my beloved map that has so many times been our only lifeline. I grab a bottle water each and a packet of cereal bars and bring everything back to the front seat, devouring two in a row while I locate the correct page in an attempt to rid myself of the nervous, sickly feeling in the pit of my stomach. 

"We need to find a way to dump this car somewhere that isn't covered by CCTV," I muse. "The number plate will give our location away eventually. The further we can get without being traceable the better, until we can work out a way to get out of this mess." I fold the map over and turn to scrutinise him but his eyes remain closed. "Because you know we can't run forever, don't you Harry? You know they'll catch up with us eventually. So we need to work out what we're going to do before they do."

He must have heard me but his expression doesn't change, nor do his eyes open. I stare at him  few seconds longer, before letting out a sigh of frustration at his lack of acknowledgement and opening the map again, my eyes raking up and down the pages for inspiration. I am concentrating so hard that his voice, when it comes, makes me jump. "We could switch the number plate."

I look up sharply at him, my heart pounding and my mind racing. It is a testament to the desperation of our fugitive lifestyle that I haven't even batted an eyelid at the illegality of the idea - immediately I am scrambling to find a way to make it work.

"We would need to switch it with the same make, model and colour," I ponder. "And even if we found one the same and switched them, or stole the new plates, as soon as the other car was reported to the police we would be back to square one again. We would need to be sure that our theft would go unreported for long enough for us to get a decent headstart."

Harry stares thoughtfully into the distance and after about twenty seconds of silence I resume my examination of the atlas. 

"What about a car garage or something?" he suggests. "Cars sometimes go in for a few days. That would give us enough time to get a couple of hundred miles away on stolen plates." 

 I shake my head. "A mechanic would notice immediately that the car he was working on had incorrect or missing plates."

He curses under his breath and chews his lip impatiently. "We need someone going on holiday or something, who wouldn't notice missing number plates for a week."

My stomach gives another lurch as my eyes pass over a small aeroplane symbol just north west of Newcastle on my map page. "You mean like... a long stay car park," I breathe. "At an airport."

He snaps his head up and stares at me, his eyes wide. "Is there an airport near here?"

I look back down at the map, mentally calculating the route to the airport from here, avoiding as many major roads as possible. "I reckon we could make it to Newcastle in a couple of hours."

"The fuck are we waiting for then?" he demands, starting the engine with a roar.

"Wait!" I cry, yanking open the door and jumping out on to the gravel path, ignoring his shouts. I run across the car park, down the grassy bank to the edge of the little river and plunge my fingers into the silt just below the water level. It is thick and slimy, and with dripping hands I hurry back to the car and flick enough mud onto the front and rear number plates to disguise the letters without obliterating them completely, or looking like they have deliberately been sabotaged. I hurry back to the water again to rinse the remainder from my fingers, and on my return I make a note of the car make, model, year and colour before diving back into the passenger seat and fumbling with my seatbelt as Harry performs a three point turn and exits onto the road again.

He has come alive, and while I navigate our route east along the quiet country lanes in the direction of Newcastle airport we thrash out the details of how on earth we are going to find a car the same as this one (a grey 2016 Ford Focus), let alone remove its number plate and fix it to ours. We decide on removing only one of the new plates, as taking both is likely to attract attention to the vandalised car sooner than necessary.  "It might not be a bad thing if we're spotted on CCTV at the airport," Harry points out when I share my concerns about turning up somewhere so public only hours after being traced to a specific location. "The police might just think we've jetted off out the country. It'll completely fuck them up!"

This does nothing to calm my nerves, and the more I think about what we are planning to do, the more farfetched and ridiculous it seems. 

"I think it would be better if we didn't drive into the long stay car park," I pronounce, when we are about ten miles away. "We might have to faff about with parking tickets, machines and payments. Better to let me go in on foot and try to find what we need. You just drive round a bit and once I've got something I'll come out and wait for you. If I can't find an exact match, I'll have to improvise."

"What if there's nothing?" he murmurs, pushing his bottom lip into his mouth with his thumb and forefinger. "What if all this is a waste of time? There will be police at the airport too - what if we're recognised?"

"Wherever we go we could be recognised," I remind him. "And if there are no suitable number plates to use... well then we've had a wasted journey and we'll need to ditch the car as soon as possible and head somewhere on public transport."

"You're unusually calm considering we're about to pull off a criminal masterplan," he remarks, and for the first time since he left the hotel this morning I can see a glimmer of mischievous Harry materialising through the fog.

"Obviously hanging around with you is starting to rub off on me," I retort, and he smirks at the road, sending the butterflies in my stomach into a wild dance.

I feel nothing short of nauseous as we approach the airport. I am unable to prevent my hands from shaking, and my heart beats so hard I can feel it in my throat, almost choking me as my eyes search the signs for the long stay parking. We cross a couple of roundabouts before I catch sight of a barrier up ahead, and instruct Harry to pull over at the side of the road to let me out of the car. As I leap out of the passenger side, eager not to hold up any approaching traffic behind us, he shouts my name urgently and I bend down to look at him.

He hesitates, biting his lip, and then says in a strange tone, "Just.... be careful."

I nod once, too nervous to formulate a response, and give a soft, brief smile before shutting the passenger door to allow him to drive a few feet forward and turn the car around just before another vehicle emerges from the roundabout and heads down our way. He returns my smile with a nervous one of his own, and disappears slowly up the road the way we came in. I can't procrastinate now - I have one purpose, and time is of the essence.

I take a deep breath and jog slowly towards the car park along the grass verge, crossing in front of the ticket barrier and hopping over the low railing towards an array of parked cars in search of a similar model. I jog up and down the rows, my eyes flicking left and right, searching first of all for a colour not too dissimilar to ours, and then examining the make and model. On the fourth row my heart gives a huge leap when I catch sight of one almost identical - until I get closer and realise it is a Vauxhall Astra, not a Ford Focus. After ten minutes of searching I am beginning to give up hope of finding anything suitable, until my eyes fall on a dark coloured car near the end of a row, tucked back from view. As I get nearer my heart gives another leap at the sight of the Ford badge, and my stomach rolls slowly at the 2017 number plate. I squint to read the model name, letting out a huff of satisfaction when I read the word Focus. The colour of the paintwork is more of a gunmetal colour than our grey, but it is close enough, and without doubt the best match of any I have seen in this car park.

Glancing around me to make sure no one is watching me, I pull the small wrench out of my pocket that we found in the car glove box and scurry around to the front of the car that is parked close to a wooden fence lined with some tall trees. It provides the perfect cover for what I am about to do. I kneel down before the bumper and examine the number plate. To my relief, it appears to be attached with adhesive rather than screws, which is how Harry had suggested it would be. I insert the flat handle of the wrench into the gap at the top of the plastic plate, and pull forward in a lever motion. The plate bends forward, and with some rough manoeuvring I can hear the adhesive peeling back as the plate is gradually forced away from the car. With a load snap it detaches completely, and I keep my head down as I examine the back of it to make sure I haven't completely destroyed the glue that will be needed to fix it to our car. With a quick glance around to make sure I haven't attracted attention with my noise I slip the plate under my top and jog quickly back across the car park in the direction of the road.

I hop over the railing again and wait on the grass verge where Harry dropped me off, hardly daring to blink in case I miss the sight of the car approaching. I drift casually towards the roundabout, and after about five minutes (just when I am starting to panic and imagining Harry's high profile capture by the airport police) the car appears in the distance, travelling slowly along the road towards me. I stick my hand out and as it nears me it pulls over (without indicating, obviously) and I yank the door open and slip carefully inside next to Harry.

"I got one!" I squeal triumphantly, and he gives an exclamation of excitement as he pulls away from the verge again while I buckle my seatbelt and take a deep, shaky breath. "It wasn't quite the right colour," I add as we crawl round the roundabout and towards the airport exit, "but it was close enough, and only one year out."

"Fucking brilliant, Chloe," he breathes. "All we need to do now is find somewhere quiet to fix it to this car, and we're safe. For a day or so, anyway. Hopefully," he adds.

"And then can we talk properly?" I ask him, emboldened by his pleasure at my success. "Can we talk about what the hell we are going to do, and how we're going to sort all this out?" Can we talk about US, I want to add, but my courage fails me at the last second.

His expression falters and he gives a reluctant sigh, glancing briefly at me before focussing his gaze firmly on the road ahead, his discomfort clear. "Yeah. I reckon it's time we did."