He was staring past her. “What’s the matter with your friend?”
Her tongue felt poisoned, swollen. Her mouth felt like a rag doll’s, sewn. Mustn’t she tell him? This might be her only chance of rescue. The taste of petrol churned in her. If she opened her mouth she might be sick.
She was struggling to force words past her panic when behind her the man said “Too much to drink. He was in a bit of bother. We’re taking him home.”
Surely the policeman wouldn’t believe that. She glanced at the mirror, and saw what he saw: two dim figures sitting in the back, one slumped against the other. Peter’s injuries were mitigated by the darkness; the razor hid behind his hair.
After a while the policeman said “Yes, he looks as if he’s had enough. You’d better take care of him.”
He stared at Cathy, then reached for her hand. Was he about to give it a secret clasp, to tell her he’d seen what was wrong? No, he’d scrutinised her only to judge whether she was sober, and now he was taking the toll from her hand to pass to the booth. The green light sprang up ringing.
“ Good night,” the policeman said and turned away. Cathy’s hands clenched on the wheel. Was she about to cry for help? Perhaps, but she subsided miserably. From beside Peter’s face the gleam had crept out, ready.
Chapter XXXIV
She drove towards Chester. Her mind felt empty as a balloon. Though the rain had slackened, few people were about in Birkenhead. Roads and pavements reflected desertion and bright windows. Other places passed beside the main road: Port Sunlight, Bromborough, Ellesmere Port. None was as present as the watchful face in the mirror. Beside the swaying razor, Peter’s eyelids twitched.
So he was alive. Or had only shadows moved? Before she could read his face, which looked like a mask in the sodium glow, the streetlamps swept behind. Night seized him. From the darkness the man’s voice murmured “Just you keep still if you know what’s good for you.”
Peter was moving, then. She was distressed by how little that heartened her: if anything, it made her more tense. Peter might begin to struggle, inadvertently or otherwise. Oncoming headlights displayed the faces in the mirror. Peter’s face was still, perhaps unconscious. The man’s eyes flickered warily.
Afterimages of headlights clung to her eyes. She felt insomniac, light-headed. Was her mind trying to comfort her with the cliche that it was all a dream? She knew that it was nothing of the sort, though her emotions had fallen into a doze. She couldn’t plan any escape, for she didn’t know how Peter might react and couldn’t communicate with him. Lights drew the tableau of faces into the mirror and let them collapse into darkness.
Abruptly the man spoke. Were the lights bothering him? He sounded dangerously irritable. “Don’t take all night. We’ve a long way to go.”
Petrol stations passed, bright as day. Occasional houses blinked between trees. Her patch of light unrolled the road. Everything outside the van seemed unreal, unattainable as a film on a screen. The van enclosed her with the nightmare, from which everything else was separate.
She bypassed Chester, and headed for North Wales. “That’s right,” the man said approvingly. Was he becoming amiable? Might he let them go? But he said “Trying to tell me you didn’t know where we were going. You won’t see me falling for that, oh no.”
She must halt at the next petrol station. She must try to escape instead of avoiding thoughts of how the drive might end. The next petrol station was dark. Her light gleamed in the extinguished faces of the pumps.
When she hesitated at a signpost he said impatiently “Go on, don’t be pretending you don’t know the way.” In the mirror his hand pointed irritably, and she turned the van in that direction. They were heading for Corwen in North Wales, it seemed.
Now there were few headlights other than hers. The blur of her light fled incessantly over the monotonous road. Hedges paled and vanished, grass blades sprouted light. Around her the huge night was empty.
How could he tell in the darkness that she was driving where he wanted to go? She dared not speak, in case he began to tell her of his plans. Apart from the creaks and jangling of the van, silence lurked behind her. Once she turned and stared into the dark, afraid of what might be happening there. His voice exulted: “No, I’m not asleep. You needn’t think I am.”
The patch of light went on, and on. The night was featureless. His voice clung to her ears. She stared dully at a glow ahead, above the hill that she was climbing. A wind blundered against the van, unnerving her.
The glow resembled the ghost of a dawn. Was it a fire? No, it was steady. As the van clambered uphill, she felt hope struggling to rise. Oh, please say that the light was – please let it be – The van plunged down the slope. The light blazed from a petrol station.
The forecourt looked deserted. Only when she was almost there did she see that one upright shape was a man, for his sleeves flapped in the wind. He stood beside a pump, which he was repairing. The petrol station wasn’t open, after all. That didn’t matter! He was someone, he was help! “I’ve got to get some petrol,” she said.
The click came at once; the razor brandished light. “Oh no you haven’t. Do you think I can’t see all these cans? You’ve got plenty here.”
“ They’re empty,” she pleaded, almost weeping.
“ They better hadn’t be, for your sake and his.”
But they were. As the van slowed, the man beside the pump waved her away. “Closed,” his lips pronounced soundlessly. Couldn’t she drive at him, infuriate him, make him board the van, enraged? The blade was still now, and looked to be touching its victim.
She drove miserably. It was impossible to tell whether she had enough petrol, since she had no idea where they were bound. Perhaps he would only strand them when the petrol ran out, so that they couldn’t call the police.
The smells of the van grew stronger, more sickening. The metallic clamour tormented her nerves. Was any of those sounds the click of the blade? Her patch of light seemed hindered by the night, and hardly moving.
The sky glowed ahead. It couldn’t be dawn yet, though she felt she’d been driving for ever. Whatever the glow was, it couldn’t help her. If only she had grabbed the policeman!
The glow hovered over Corwen. She drove across a bridge. Beneath it, unseen, the River Dee rushed darkly. Slate houses surrounded her with the colour of fog. Inns passed, striped like zebras. A clock showed that it was nearly midnight. The long street was deserted. If just one person appeared – What? What could she do?
“ My father brought me here once, in a proper van.” The man’s conversational tone was more than grotesque; it was frightening, for he sounded sure of himself, of his plan. “You thought I’d forget the way, did you? Oh no. My mind isn’t so easily snapped.”
The van echoed beneath a railway bridge. The long street led her through a market square. From the street, alleys of slate houses climbed a looming mountain. It was a small unspoilt town – the kind of place she would have liked to visit with Peter. At the back of her mind was a notion, heavy and immovable as a rock, that she would never see this place again.
She was still praying for someone to appear when Corwen and its light retreated and faded. The night led her into itself. Mouths of side roads glimmered briefly; beyond them all was darkness. She was hardly aware now of driving.
“ Oh no,” the man was muttering. “You all think you’re so clever. You didn’t think I had this place to come to, did you? You aren’t so infallible as you’d like to think.”
Something was wrong. He sounded nervous and threatening. Wind tugged at the van, almost snatching the wheel from her slippery hands. Abruptly he demanded “Where do you think you’re going?”
Panic rose in her throat, harsh and thick. He had lost his way in the dark. She swallowed, choking. At last she managed to calm her voice enough to say “Where you want to go.”