SEVEN
The black Range Rover with smoked-out windows loomed large in Flynn’s rear view mirror. His hire car, a tiny Peugeot, had been the only vehicle on the road for the last four miles in any direction, but the big four-wheel drive had come up behind quickly and unexpectedly and almost attached itself to Flynn’s rear bumper. The road was narrow, widening very occasionally, but virtually impossible for overtaking, which is what the driver of the Range Rover obviously wanted to do.
The headlights flashed repeatedly but Flynn had nowhere to go, nowhere to pull off. On both sides of the road were either very spongy looking grass verges or deep drainage channels. Maybe if he pulled in tight and slowed right down, the Range Rover might be able to pass carefully.
Flynn’s eyes constantly checked the mirror, which was now completely filled with the front radiator grille of the following car. He gritted his teeth and began to seethe as the driver kept up the pressure on him. He had been just tootling up to that point, but the harrying from behind made him increase speed involuntarily.
And then reduce it. He wasn’t going to be intimidated by some clown in a fancy motor. If the guy wanted to pass so badly, go ahead, welcome, and don’t blame me if you end up in a field. But Flynn wasn’t going to accommodate him by sinking his own wheels into a muddy verge, or worse running into a ditch.
‘Wanker,’ he breathed.
The guy didn’t let up, kept pushing.
Flynn’s hands gripped the wheel white-knuckle tight, still nowhere to pull in and let the car pass.
And then the inevitable happened.
Coming out of a right-hand corner, Flynn saw another car coming towards him, a Jeep or something, a similar size to the one clinging to his rear end. Whatever happened, this was going to be a squeeze.
Flynn had to jam on the brakes on the narrow road, which was just about wide enough for two standard-sized cars to pass carefully. He slowed right down, as did the approaching Jeep. Two cars approaching each other on a country road, the drivers showing courtesy towards each other. And behind him the impatient Range Rover.
Flynn signalled his intention to pull in.
But then the Range Rover swerved out and accelerated past, taking off his driver’s door mirror with a loud crack. Flynn jumped.
The Range Rover powered ahead, its offside wheels leaving tracks in the opposite bank and forcing the oncoming Jeep to veer left and on to that same bank with its nearside wheels. The Range Rover sped past, this time taking the driver’s door mirror of the Jeep and avoiding a scraping collision by what seemed only millimetres to Flynn.
And then, with a gush of exhaust smoke, it was gone, leaving him and the Jeep stationary, facing each other.
Flynn could see a woman at the wheel, another in the passenger seat. Leaving his engine running, he climbed out of the Peugeot and examined the door and the remnants of the damaged mirror which had been jaggedly snapped off. Broken bits of it, including shattered glass, were scattered on the road. He picked up the biggest piece, kicked a few other scraps of plastic and metal off the road and walked to the Jeep, seeing the debris of that vehicle’s door mirror strewn down the road.
Flynn had taken off his jacket to drive and was in short sleeves. The brutally cold wind pierced his bones as he reached the Jeep. The driver’s door window opened slowly, revealing the woman at the wheel.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
‘Yeah, yeah, reckless sod. Are you?’
‘Yeah. He’d been up my chuffer for a mile or two but I couldn’t find anywhere to pull in.’ He bent his knees and looked into the Jeep across at the woman in the passenger seat. ‘Are you unhurt?’
She nodded. ‘Thanks.’
Both were very attractive and neither seemed unduly frightened by their experience. Cool women, he thought.
‘Did you get his number?’ the woman at the wheel asked.
He nodded and tapped his head. ‘Up here.’
‘Don’t suppose there’ll be much point in pursuing it,’ she said.
‘Probably not. Mine’s a hire car, so I’ll have to pass on details to the company and report it to the police. It was a hit and run after all. Anyway, if I give you my details and you give me yours, maybe we could be witnesses for each other if it comes to it? Whether you want to tell your insurance company or the cops is up to you, but I don’t want to get saddled with a bill I can’t afford to pay. What d’you say?’
‘Good idea.’ She fished out a pad and pen, handed it to Flynn. He jotted down his details and the registered number of the Range Rover. He gave Faye’s address as his own. Didn’t want to get too complicated by bringing Gran Canaria into the equation. He handed the pad back and she wrote down her name and a mobile number. Moments later both vehicles were back on the road.
Flynn discovered that Kendleton was actually not much more than a hamlet. As he drove into it he guessed there was probably no word to describe something that fell between a village and a hamlet. ‘A hamage?’ he mused. Whatever, it was a picturesque little place. To its credit, it had a nice-looking pub called the Tawny Owl which advertised en suite rooms, but as he drove past, he saw a ‘No Vacancies’ sign propped up in a window. There was a shop-cum-post office, a few houses scattered around a tiny village green and a babbling brook fed by water coming down off Great Harlow, the hill that dominated the village to the south. There was also a butcher’s shop and amazingly, a red telephone box that looked as though it had not been vandalized.
Within seconds he had driven through, then the road rose steeply again and after about half a mile, he came to the red-brick detached police house/office in which Cathy James lived and from which she performed her role as rural beat officer for the area.
Flynn remembered a conversation he’d had with Cathy years before in which she had declared her undying passion for animals and nature. Her ambition was either to be a dog handler or a member of the mounted branch, or a wildlife officer, or, failing all of them, a rural beat officer. She had become a dog handler quite early in her service but it had been her failed marriage to another dog handler that put paid to her career in that department. His mates on the branch had given her an underhanded hard time and eventually she’d had enough and managed to move on to the mounted branch, where she had a few good, enjoyable years with a massive piece of sweaty flesh trapped between her legs. Lucky horse, Flynn thought dreamily, pulling up outside the house.
Following mounted she had got the job as rural beat officer here in Kendleton, the biggest beat in Lancashire, covering a wild, sparsely populated area. Her job included a lot of wildlife conservation and enforcement. Poachers, she’d once told Flynn, were a dangerous menace.
Flynn opened the car door a crack. The harsh wind from the upper moors rushed in and almost ripped it out of his hand with its strength. There was more snow in the air now, beginning to fall thickly with the possibility of sticking. Flynn put his jacket on and was about to open the door again, but a sixth sense made him check over his shoulder just in time and slam it shut again as the same black Range Rover that had ripped off his door mirror shot past less than three feet away. It carried on up the hill and disappeared over the crest into the encroaching weather.
‘Gonna get you,’ Flynn promised grimly. This time he made sure nothing was coming before getting out and walking up the driveway, past a selection of bushes and trees, to the front door of Cathy’s house. From inside he heard the sound of a barking dog.
‘Like I said before, it’s as broad as it’s long,’ Henry apprised Donaldson. ‘Now it’ll take us just as long to get back to where we started from as it will to where we’re going.’