Take it slowly. At a sedate speed in low gear she flicked the headlights to full beam. Maybe more power in the electrics would cure the taillight problem.
It didn’t. The malfunction notice hadn’t gone away.
Again she checked the rearview mirror for headlights. She was alone, thank God.
Not quite.
Ahead, on a stretch with tall trees on either side, her headlights on full beam picked out a figure at the side of the road with one hand raised, maybe to shield his eyes from the glare.
Some optical illusion? A tree stripped of its bark can stand out from the rest and look amazingly lifelike. But she thought she’d seen it move and there wasn’t much breeze tonight. It was possible someone was trying to wave her down.
She couldn’t stop for anyone.
Anyone.
She dipped her lights.
You never offer a lift at night, she thought. I must drive by.
The few seconds this troubling image had been caught in the glare of the lights had given the impression of a sizeable male with dark, shoulder-length hair. His clothes were strange. The word that popped into Georgina’s head was eccentric. Some kind of white jacket or coat and a large white hat. He was either bare-legged or wearing tights.
Come on, be sensible, she told herself. It was only some large item of rubbish caught on a bush and looking lifelike. Paper or plastic sheeting that had fallen off a passing vehicle.
She was tempted to flick to full beam again for a longer look, but she didn’t. She drove on until the dipped lights briefly caught the figure again.
Definitely a man. He was standing at the end of a driveway to some private house. And definitely waving.
She raced past.
The real shock was the clothes. He’d been dressed in a tricorne hat and frock coat, breeches and buckled shoes. The long hair must have been a wig. It was as if he’d stepped out of the eighteenth century. Or Georgina had travelled back there.
A ghost?
I know who he was, she thought.
The gin has gone to my head and I’m hallucinating. Beau Nash was in my thoughts and my intoxicated brain created this image. He can’t have been real.
Whatever the explanation, in this state of panic she wasn’t fit to be at the wheel of a car. Half a mile further on she flicked the main beam on again and looked for somewhere to stop. No laybys on this narrow road. But a short way on was a verge wide enough to take most of the car. She slowed, edged the front wheels on to the grass, braked and switched off. A pulse was thumping in her head.
‘Please, God,’ she said. ‘Please, God, help me.’
She’d got the shakes.
DTs?
Surely not.
For some minutes she did nothing. Couldn’t even think straight.
Finally she got a measure of control and succeeded in putting some sensible thoughts together. She would drive no more tonight. She’d phone for a taxi, leave the car here at the side of the road and collect it tomorrow when she was sober.
The decision came as a massive relief.
She took out her phone and got through straight away. And what a comfort it was to hear a human voice. It was difficult explaining the section of road where she was, but the woman at the taxi office said they’d find her if she waited by her car with the hazard lights on. ‘Have you broken down, dear?’
Comprehensively.
‘Yes,’ Georgina said.
‘Don’t worry. Your driver will be on his way directly.’
Profoundly thankful, she sat in the car and for the next few minutes waited for her jangled nerves to calm. Hearing those few words of reassurance had been a comfort and now she needed to restore her equilibrium. She didn’t want the driver to see her in the state she was in. She closed her eyes and took some deep breaths. The shaking had almost stopped.
It would take the taxi ten to fifteen minutes.
The pulsing of her hazard lights was making the nearest bushes flash pink. Thinking more like the high-ranking police officer she was, she picked her bag off the passenger seat, stepped out and checked that nothing of value was in the back. Abandoned cars were an easy target for thieves. Then she locked up and stood in a safe position on the verge a short distance away from the car.
The cool night air was helping. She checked her watch a couple of times, but stayed calm. A couple of cars went past. It was too soon for the taxi.
When the arc of light high above the road told her another car was approaching, she didn’t get excited. The vehicle was coming from the wrong direction, the way she herself had travelled. She was expecting her taxi to come up from Bath.
The twin beams were too dazzling to stare at, but as they approached, she had the thought that this could, after all, be the taxi. The nearest cab might have been north of the city on another call and got a radio message to pick up a stranded passenger on Bannerdown. It seemed to be slowing. The lights dipped. But it wasn’t a taxi.
Or it didn’t look like a taxi. You can’t always be certain.
It was a four-by-four and it pulled up beside the winking Mercedes.
The nearest window slid down and a woman’s voice called out, ‘Need a lift?’
‘Thank you, but I’ve called a taxi,’ Georgina said.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Only into Bath.’
‘Jump in. I’ll take you. You can phone and cancel the taxi.’
‘I’d better not.’
But this was a persuasive lady. ‘Listen, my darling. They’re really busy at this time, after the pubs and clubs close. They tell you they’ll take ten minutes and they could be an hour. You never know who’s going to drive up and mug you while you’re standing here in the open with your handbag.’
Put like that, it was a winning argument. Georgina didn’t want to be kept waiting and mugged. ‘Well, thank you.’
‘Not a problem. I’d never forgive myself if I drove past and read about you in the paper tomorrow.’
Georgina opened the door and got into the passenger seat.
‘Makes sense.’ In the darkness of the car the woman was difficult to see apart from a severe blonde fringe, but the voice was friendly and hearty in the way well-heeled Bathonians often are. ‘I’m Sally Paris.’
‘Georgina Dallymore.’
‘Call the taxi people, Georgie, and we’ll have you home in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.’
No one ever called her Georgie, but she was in no position to complain. She made the call and they were okay about it.
‘Puncture, was it?’ Sally Paris asked as she started up and got the Range Rover in motion.
Georgina didn’t want to tell a lie, but neither did she want to admit she was over the limit. ‘Actually my vision started playing tricks. I knew I shouldn’t be driving.’
‘Responsible of you. I hope I’d do the same.’ Sally then added in the same amiable tone, ‘Had a few drinks, have you? I thought I smelt gin on your breath. Where exactly do you live?’
‘Bennett Street, if it isn’t too far out of your way.’
‘Top of the town. I know it. Lovely area.’
Sociable conversations among people like this well-bred lady tend to follow a script. Any moment it would be ‘Tell me about yourself. Are you in business?’ unless the lines were rewritten, so Georgina asked, ‘Have you driven far tonight?’
‘No distance at all. I was collecting my husband. The chauffeur’s night off.’
‘Oh yes?’ Georgina tried to sound as if she, too, had given her chauffeur the evening off.
Sally raised her voice. ‘Are you awake, Ed?’
There was a grunt from the back, no more.
Georgina hadn’t realised there was another passenger.
‘Out to the world,’ Sally said. ‘One of his cronies invites them to an “at home” and they all get plastered and the wives and significant others pick up the pieces at the end of the evening.’