Warhol's Prophecy (35 page)

He threw open the door and hit the light switch.

The fluorescents in the ceiling sputtered into life, for fleeting seconds their cold stroboscopic glare faltering.

Rob gripped the bat tightly and advanced into the room.

Empty, too.

That only left the dining room.

‘All right, you cunt,’ he said at the top of his voice, one hand on the door.

He shoved it open.

Slapped the lights on.

Nothing.

Rob swallowed hard and lowered the bat, then he wandered slowly back across the hall, past the open doors of rooms now bathed in light.

From upstairs he heard Hailey call his name.

‘It’s clear,’ he told her, wiping perspiration from his brow with a trembling hand. He was no hero – he would be the first to admit it.

‘The alarm must be faulty,’ Hailey heard him say.

Like it was the other day?

‘Who was Dad shouting at?’ Becky wanted to know.

‘Just the alarm,’ Hailey said, smiling. ‘You know how he gets sometimes. It’s OK now.’

She herself closed her eyes tightly as she heard doors downstairs being shut.

‘Did you check the downstairs bathroom?’ Hailey called.

She heard him open a door.

Then she heard his grunt of pain.

‘Rob,’ Hailey shouted.

Silence.

‘Rob!’ she yelled again, her eyes bulging wildly.

She got to her feet and moved towards the landing.

‘Mum.’

Becky was climbing out of bed, following her.

‘No, stay there, babe,’ Hailey said, her mouth dry, her voice cracking.

‘Rob,’ she shouted again, moving towards the doorway of Becky’s room.

She heard another groan of pain. Louder this time.

Then she heard footsteps on the stairs.

Uncontrollable panic seized Hailey, and for brief seconds she considered slamming Becky’s door and trying to haul the chest of drawers across to block the path of any intruder.

She daren’t even think about what had been done to Rob down there.

What had . . .?

Rob appeared halfway up the stairs, his face creased with pain, his eyes narrowed.

‘Stubbed my bloody toe on the bathroom door,’ he said.

Hailey wanted to laugh with relief. Wanted to shriek hysterically that it didn’t matter. So what if he’d stubbed his toe? At least he was all right. Their house hadn’t been broken into.

‘The alarm must be playing up,’ Rob said. ‘Or a spider crawled across one of the sensors, or something. That would set it off. They’re pretty sensitive those things.’ He was still holding the baseball bat. ‘I’ve reset it anyway.’

‘Can we go back to sleep now, Mum?’ Becky wanted to know.

‘Yes,’ Hailey said, stroking her daughter’s hair. ‘Yes, we can.’

S
HE REPLACED THE
mobile phone and sat staring at it for a moment.

Hailey rubbed her eyes. She’d felt tired all day. A combination of precious little sleep the night before and a steadily growing feeling of something akin to depression.

Time for a wallow in self-pity?

She felt as if she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders – a weight that was growing by the day. Hailey hadn’t felt this down since she’d first discovered Rob’s affair.

Rob’s affair?

Pressures of work?

Fear?

Was that the newest burden she carried?

Did fear feel like a crushing weight on your mind and soul?

She had received no phone calls from Adam Walker for more than a week now. But the knowledge that he was responsible for slashing the tyres of Rob’s car, for the dog excrement . . .

The knowledge that he’d broken into their house.

It was an assumption, nothing more. There was no proof that was Walker.

She started the car.

The trip to his house the previous day had done little to allay her

(
fear. It seemed to be the most apt description
)

concerns about the man.

Why had he lied to her about his family?

If the sister and brother were inventions, then how much more of what he’d told her was fantasy?

The abuse?

Thoughts whirled around inside her head as shedrove.

It should take less than fifteen minutes to reach Becky’s school. She had phoned Caroline Hacket earlier in the day and told her she’d do the run herself.

Caroline?

As long as
she
was involved with Walker, it kept him in the picture.

Kept him around.

Hailey exhaled wearily.

And now Rob’s phone call . . .

There were problems at work that he had to sort out immediately. One of their biggest customers hadn’t received a delivery he needed, blah, blah, blah.

He wouldn’t be home until late tonight.

When he’d told her this, for fleeting seconds she’d almost asked if that was the
real
reason he would be late.

A totally unwanted image of Rob with Sandy Bennett slipped into her mind, and she pushed it aside with difficulty.

But she
hadn’t
asked him that. She would keep her fears to herself this time.

So many things to think about.

She switched on a cassette, hoping the music would divert her attention from the thoughts and worries that closed around her so tightly.

When she finally pulled up outside the school, there were already several cars parked there. Some of the women she recognized, and she waved greetings to a number of them. Hailey slid out from behind the steering wheel, leant against the Astra and lit a cigarette, drawing deeply on it.

She heard the school bell sound, and looked across to the main entrance, awaiting the tide of excited children that would stream forth at any moment.

She took a couple more drags on the Silk Cut and then ground it out beneath her foot.

The Ford Scorpio cruised slowly past the main gates.

Hailey was sure she recognized this car, and she took a couple of steps forward.

She
did
recognize it.

She could see Adam Walker quite clearly behind the wheel.

The Scorpio headed for the end of the road and disappeared around a corner.

Hailey watched it go.

A moment later it returned.

Moving at that same deliberately slow speed. And now she could see that Walker was looking over towards the school.

What the hell was he doing here?

She hurried to the roadside, watching as the Scorpio vanished once again, this time into a side street.

Hailey crossed to the school gates, eyes fixed on the turning in the road that had swallowed up the Scorpio.

She heard voices around her as the first of the children began to flood out. But her attention was still fixed on the end of the road.

The Scorpio was heading back the way it had come.

Walker gazing over at the school.

He looked straight into her face, his expression blank.

But
this
time he speeded up.

He must have seen her. So why didn’t he stop?

‘Adam,’ she called after the car, oblivious to the bemused stares she was getting from the other mothers waiting to pick up their kids.

The Scorpio was gone.

R
OB
G
IBSON FLICKED
the windscreen wipers of the Audi on to double speed.

It did little to help.

The hammering rain was striking the car with such ferocity that visibility was almost non-existent. The combination of driving rain and badly lit roads had forced Rob to slow his speed.

He glanced at the dashboard clock and saw that it was already approaching 10 p.m.

Most of the work problems had been sorted out. Deliveries that had been promised but had not arrived had been rescheduled. Customers had been pacified where possible. Frank Burnside had left an hour earlier, on Rob’s prompting. Rob was beginning to wish that he too had begun the journey home when his partner did. At least then he might have avoided this downpour.

A brilliant white flash of lightning lit the sky. It illuminated the heavens for fleeting seconds, then blackness returned again, like a wet cloak.

Inside the car, the rain sounded like a hundred angry woodpeckers slamming against the bodywork. Rob reached forward and wiped condensation from the windscreen, cursing when he almost lost control of the wheel as the car passed through some water lying on the road. It sprayed up on either side of the Audi like a miniature tidal wave.

Thunderclaps like cannon fire filled the sodden air, and Rob was sure he felt the Audi vibrate as one particularly savage rumble swept across the sky – followed immediately by a blinding explosion of lightning.

He slowed to forty, then thirty, the wipers still swiping frenziedly back and forth across the windscreen, but still making little impression on the downpour.

A car passed him going in the other direction, its driver also moving slowly as he negotiated the elements.

Rob reached for the mobile phone, anxious to tell Hailey that the weather would delay him even further.

He dialled, careful to keep one eye on the road.

There was a high-pitched beep and the legend
NO SIGNAL
appeared on the handset.

Rob muttered something under his breath, realizing that the storm had destroyed the reception.

He replaced the phone and gripped the wheel with both hands again.

The other car came out of nowhere.

All Rob saw was the sudden glare of its headlights in his rear-view mirror.

It was as if it had appeared out of the umbra, and now it was sitting on his tail, no more than ten or twelve feet behind him.

He wondered briefly which of the small side roads the car had emerged from. There were a number of narrow thoroughfares leading off this main artery into the town, but most were little more than dirt tracks. Wherever this particular vehicle had come from, its driver seemed determined to stay as close to Rob as possible.

He pumped his brakes once or twice, hoping that his flaring tail-lights would cause the other driver to pull back.

They didn’t.

Rob pressed his foot down with a little more force on the accelerator, not wanting to go too fast in the downpour, but anxious to deter the vehicle following.

It too speeded up.

Rob shook his head.

The lights that filled his rear-view mirror were dazzling. So bright he was forced to narrow his eyes as he attempted to get a proper look at the make of car that was behind him. It was impossible to tell.

In the driving rain and the darkness, it was difficult to see further than ten yards, and the blazing headlights behind gave him no chance at all of identifying the other vehicle.

He tried a different tactic. Rob allowed his speed to drop to twenty-five.

He was hoping that the driver behind him would tire of this snail’s pace and overtake him.

But the vehicle behind also slowed down.

Rob winced as he looked into the rear-view mirror again, and now he had to lean forward to prevent himself being dazzled by the beams. The bloody idiot was driving with headlights full on.

The two cars rounded a corner, still no more than three yards apart.

Rob raised a hand to wave the car past.

‘Go on, then,’ he muttered irritably.

The car behind slammed into him.

T
HE IMPACT JOLTED
him forward in his seat.

For long seconds Rob thought that the other car had skidded on the wet surface. Maybe the driver had panicked, hit the brakes hard and been unable to stop.

Perhaps that would teach the silly bastard not to get so close in future.

Rob accelerated away.

The other car followed.

Seconds later, Rob felt another shuddering impact. Even more powerful than the first.

‘Fucking idiot,’ roared Rob, looking again at the rear-view mirror, but still seeing only glaring headlights.

The rain continued to pelt down. Above him the heavens were illuminated by another searing white flash, and soon thunder rumbled loudly.

The car behind rammed him again.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Rob shouted angrily.

He stepped on the accelerator, sending a curtain of spray up behind him.