Twelve Red Herrings (26 page)

She began to
relax, allowing her mind to drift with the music.

There was no
warning. Although she immediately slammed her foot on the brakes, it was
already too late. There was a dull thump from the front bumper, and a slight
shudder rocked the car.

A small black
creature had shot across her path, and despite her quick reactions, she hadn’t
been able to avoid hitting it. Diana swung onto the hard shoulder and screeched
to a halt, wondering if the animal could possibly have survived. She reversed
slowly back to the spot where she thought she had hit it as the traffic roared
past her.

And then she saw
it, lying on the grass verge – a cat that had crossed the road for the tenth
time. She stepped out of the car, her headlights shining on the lifeless body.
Suddenly Diana felt sick.

She had two cats
of her own, and she knew she would never be able to tell the children what she
had done. She picked up the dead animal and laid it gently in the ditch by the
roadside.

“I’m so sorry,”
she said, feeling a little silly. She gave it one last look before walking back
to her car. Ironically, she had chosen the Audi for its safety features.

She climbed back
into the car and switched on the ignition to find Gloria Gaynor was still
belting out her opinion of men. She turned her off, and tried to stop thinking
about the cat as she waited for a gap in the traffic large enough to allow her
to ease her way back into the slow lane. She eventually succeeded, but was
still unable to erase the dead cat from her mind.

Diana had
accelerated up to fifty again when she suddenly became aware of a pair of
headlights shining through her rear windscreen. She put up her arm and waved in
her rear-view mirror, but the lights continued to dazzle her. She slowed down
to allow the vehicle to pass, but the driver showed no interest in doing so.
Diana began to wonder if there was something wrong with her car. Was one of her
lights not working? Was the exhaust billowing smoke? Was...

She decided to speed
up and put some distance between herself and the vehicle behind, but it
remained within a few yards of her bumper.

She tried to
snatch a look at the driver in her rear-view mirror, but it was hard to see
much in the harshness of the lights.

As her eyes
became more accustomed to the glare, she could make out the silhouette of a
large black van bearing down on her, and what looked like a young man behind
the wheel. He seemed to be waving at her.

Diana slowed
down again as she approached the next roundabout, giving him every chance to
overtake her on the outside lane, but once again he didn’t take the
opportunity, and just sat on her bumper, his headlights still undimmed. She
waited for a small gap in the traffic coming from her right. When one appeared
she slammed her foot on the accelerator, shot across the roundabout and sped on
up the A.

She was rid of
him at last. She was just beginning to relax and to think about Sophie, who
always waited up so that she could read to her, when suddenly those high-beam
headlights were glaring through her rear windscreen and blinding her once
again.

If anything,
they were even closer to her than before.

She slowed down,
he slowed down. She accelerated, he accelerated.

She tried to
think what she could do next, and began waving frantically at passing motorists
as they sped by, but they remained oblivious to her predicament. She tried to
think of other ways she might alert someone, and suddenly recalled that when
she had joined the board of the company they had suggested she have a car phone
fitted.

Diana had
decided it could wait until the car went in for its next service, which should
have been a fortnight ago.

She brushed her
hand across her forehead and removed a film of perspiration, thought for a moment,
then manoeuvred her car into the fast lane. The van swung across after her, and
hovered
so dose to her bumper that she became fearful
that if she so much as touched her brakes she might unwittingly cause an
enormous pile-up.

Diana took the
car up to ninety, but the van wouldn’t be shaken off. She pushed her foot
further down on the accelerator and touched a hundred, but it still remained
less than a car’s length behind.

She flicked her
headlights onto high-beam, turned on her hazard lights and blasted her horn at
anyone who dared to remain in her path.

She could only
hope that the police might see her, wave her onto the hard shoulder and book
her for speeding. A fine would be infinitely preferable to a crash with a young
tearaway, she thought, as the Audi estate passed a hundred and ten for the
first time in its life. But the black van couldn’t be shaken off.

Without warning,
she swerved back into the middle lane and took her foot off the accelerator,
causing the van to draw level with her, which gave her a chance to look at the
driver for the first time. He was wearing a black leather jacket and pointing
menacingly at her. She shook her fist at him and accelerated away, but he
simply swung across behind her like an Olympic runner determined not to allow
his rival to break clear.

And then she
remembered, and felt sick for a second time that night. “Oh my God,” she
shouted aloud in terror. In a flood, the details of the murder that had taken
place on the same road a few months before came rushing back to her. A woman
had been raped before having her throat cut with a knife with a serrated edge
and dumped in a ditch. For weeks there had been signs posted on the A appealing
to passing motorists to phone a certain number if they had any information that
might assist the police with their enquiries. The signs had now disappeared,
but the police were still searching for the killer. Diana began to tremble as
she remembered their warning to all woman drivers:

A few seconds
later she saw a road sign she knew well. She had reached it far sooner than she
had anticipated. In three miles she would have to leave the motorway for the
sliproad that led to the farm.

She began to
pray that if she took her usual turning, the black-jacketed man would continue
on up the A and she would finally be rid of him.

Diana decided
that the time had come for her to speed him on his way. She swung back into the
fast lane and once again put her foot down on the accelerator. She reached a
hundred miles per hour for the second time as she sped past the two-mile sign.
Her body was now covered in sweat, and the speedometer touched a hundred and
ten. She checked her rear-view mirror, but he was still right behind her. She
would have to pick the exact moment if she was to execute her plan successfully.
With a mile to go, she began to look to her left, so as to be sure her timing
would be perfect. She no longer needed to check in her mirror to know that he
would still be there.

The next
signpost showed three diagonal white lines, warning her that she ought to be on
the inside lane if she intended to leave the motorway at the next junction. She
kept the car in the outside lane at a hundred miles per hour until she spotted
a large enough gap. Two white lines appeared by the roadside: Diana knew she would
have only one chance to make her escape. As she passed the sign with a single
white line on it she suddenly swung across the road at ninety miles per hour,
causing cars in the middle and inside lanes to throw on their brakes and blast
out their angry opinions. But Diana didn’t care what they thought of her,
because she was now travelling down the sliproad to safety, and the black van
was speeding on up the A.

She laughed out
loud with relief. To her right, she could see the steady flow of traffic on the
motorway. But then her laugh turned to a scream as she saw the black van cut
sharply across the motorway in front of a lorry, mount the grass verge and
career onto the sliproad, swinging from side to side. It nearly drove over the
edge and into a ditch, but somehow managed to steady itself, ending up a few
yards behind her, its lights once again glaring through her rear windscreen.

When she reached
the top of the sliproad, Diana turned left in the direction of the farm,
frantically trying to work out what she should do next. The nearest town was
about twelve miles away on the main road, and the farm was only seven, but five
of those miles were down a winding, unlit country lane. She checked her petrol
gauge. It was nearing empty, but there should still be enough in the tank for
her to consider either option. There was less than a mile to go before she
reached the turning, so she had only a minute in which to make up her mind.

With a hundred
yards to go, she settled on the farm. Despite the unlit lane, she knew every
twist and turn, and she felt confident that her pursuer wouldn’t. Once she
reached the farm she could be out of the car and inside the house long before
he could catch her.

In any case,
once he saw the farmhouse, surely he would flee.

The minute was
up. Diana touched the brakes and skidded into a country road illuminated only
by the moon.

Diana banged the
palms of her hands on the steering wheel. Had she made the wrong decision? She
glanced up at her rear-view mirror.

Had he given up?
Of course he hadn’t. The back of a Land Rover loomed up in front of her. Diana
slowed
down,
waiting for a corner she knew well, where
the road widened slightly. She held her breath, crashed into third gear, and
overtook. Would a head-on collision be preferable to a cut throat? She rounded
the bend and saw an empty road ahead of her. Once again she pressed her foot
down, this time managing to put a clear seventy, perhaps even a hundred, yards
between her and her pursuer, but this only offered her a few moments’ respite. Before
long the familiar headlights
came
bearing down on her
once again.

With each bend
Diana was able to gain a little time as the van continued to lurch from side to
side, unfamiliar with the road, but she never managed a clear break of more
than a few seconds. She checked the mileometer. From the turn-off on the main
road to the farm it was just over five miles, and she must have covered about
two by now. She began to watch each tenth of a mile clicking up, terrified at
the thought of the van overtaking her and forcing her into the ditch. She stuck
determinedly to the centre of the road.

Another mile
passed, and still he clung on to her. Suddenly she saw a car coming towards
her. She switched her headlights to full beam and pressed on the horn. The
other car retaliated by mimicking her actions, which caused her to slow down
and brush against the hedgerow as they shot past each other. She checked the
mileometer once again.
Only two miles to go.

Diana would slow
down and then speed up at each familiar bend in the road, making sure the van
was never given enough room to pull level with her. She tried to concentrate on
what she should do once the farmhouse came into sight. She reckoned that the
drive leading up to the house must be about half a mile long. It was full of
potholes and bumps which Daniel had often explained he couldn’t afford to have
repaired. But at least it was only wide enough for one car.

The gate to the
driveway was usually left open for her, though on the odd rare occasion Daniel
had forgotten, and she’d had to get out of the car and open it for herself. She
couldn’t risk that tonight.

If the gate was
closed, she would have to travel on to the next town and stop outside the
Crimson Kipper, which was always crowded at this time on a Friday night, or, if
she could find it, on the steps of the local police station. She checked her
petrol gauge again. It was now touching red. “Oh my God,” she said, realising
she might not have enough petrol to reach the town.

She could only
pray that Daniel had remembered to leave the gate open.

She swerved out
of the next bend and speeded up, but once again she managed to gain only a few
yards, and she knew that within seconds he would be back in place. He was. For
the next few hundred yards they remained within feet of each other, and she
felt certain he must run into the back of her. She didn’t once dare to touch
her brakes if they crashed in that lane, far from any help, she would have no
hope of getting away from him.

She checked her
mileometer.
A mile to go.

“The gate must
be open. It must be open,” she prayed. As she swung round the next bend, she
could make out the outline of the farmhouse in the distance. She almost
screamed with relief when she saw that the lights were on in the downstairs
rooms.

She shouted,
“Thank God!” then remembered the gate again, and changed her plea to “Dear God,
let it be open.” She would know what needed to be done as soon as she came
round the last bend. “Let it be open, just this once,” she pleaded. “I’ll never
ask for anything again, ever.” She swung round the final bend only inches ahead
of the black van. “Please, please, please.” And then she saw the gate.

It was open.

Her clothes were
now drenched in sweat. She slowed down, wrenched the gearbox into second, and threw
the car between the gap and into the bumpy driveway, hitting the gatepost on
her right hand side as she careered on up towards the house. The van didn’t
hesitate to follow her, and was still only inches behind as she straightened
up. Diana kept her hand pressed down on the horn as the car bounced and lurched
over the mounds and potholes.