Burying Saint Peter by Hamish Hudson

Author:Hamish Hudson [Hudson, Hamish]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-08-27T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Stepping onto the platform, I coughed violently. The cold air caught the back of my throat as I left the warm air-conditioned train carriage. The air was fresher and thinner out here in the countryside. Oxenholme Lake District train station was surrounded by farmland. It had three platforms, two serving the main line, and one for the branch line to Lake Windermere.

I had no phone, no internet connection, and no idea where to go next. My pursuers would find out eventually that I had left the train at Oxenholme, so I needed to get away from there quickly, leaving as faint a trail as possible.

As much as I needed help, I couldn’t ask the station staff. Keeping my head down, I took the underpass and exited the station on the main road, before turning left. The first building I came to was Oxenholme Farm, where a man with a thick tweed jacket and flat cap knelt on a waterproof mat and fastidiously repaired the hole in a dry-stone wall.

“Excuse me,” I asked. “Is Kendal down this way?”

The man had a large bushy moustache, red cheeks, and a tuft of unruly brown hair escaping from under his cap. He pulled a face, before nodding and replying in a thick local dialect. “Aye. Tis ower yonder.”

I smiled uncertainly. “I need to get back down south. Are there buses?”

He scowled, laying his hammer on the mat beside him. I was obviously interrupting a time sensitive task. “Aye. There’s yan. Where y'ofta?”

I scratched my head. He repeated his question, slower this time. “Oh, where am I off to? I need to get back south to Liverpool.”

The man pointed to the train station. “The train is gey barrie.”

“Barry?”

“Faster, ye ken.”

“Ah. No, I want to take the bus,” I persisted.

He tutted and pointed down the hill. “Bus station is in t’ town. Ye cannae miss it.” He picked up his hammer. “Tack the bus ower to Lancaster.” He turned away, and I gathered that was the end of his advice.

I thanked him and walked the way he indicated. With the right disguise, I could rejoin the train at Lancaster and be back in Liverpool late that afternoon.

It took me a full twenty minutes to walk into the town, past a field of new houses, incongruously built amongst the original limestone dwellings. Once in the centre, I followed the brown signs for the shopping centre and bus station, crossing a stone bridge over a gushing melt-water river. I passed pubs, outdoor clothing stores, and a plethora of coffee shops, with my stomach grumbling as I marched passed each one. The scent of spicy lentil soup, pastries, and fresh cakes wafted in the cold air. It was past lunchtime and, I hadn’t eaten since yesterday.

The bus station, situated at the back of Westmoreland Shopping Centre, was nothing more than a large layby with a roof overhang. According to the digital display, the Number 555 to Lancaster would depart from Stand F in twenty minutes. With my hood

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