The wheel of the taxi wobbled dramatically and she bit back a nervous protest.
With creeping alarm, Chris had noticed that he was threading his way skillfully through the city, moving with the typical panache of a taxi, one of the hundreds on the road on a busy Saturday. No one looked twice at a cab shooting down a sidestreet or driving up a buslane. It was what cabs did. They were making excellent speed, but going where? The green square of Parker ’s Piece came into view and for a hysterical moment she thought he was about to turn her in to Police HQ. She’d never live it down. But the station passed by on the right and all lights changed in their favour as they approached. Over the river and on to the common, dotted with black-and-white cows up to their udders in a froth of Queen Anne’s lace. There could be no doubt. He was heading southwest, out into the country. She thought she could guess his destination. But could he possibly have remembered-after ten years?
He broke her tense silence as they joined the Barton road. “Do you think, you little twerp, that I knocked myself out for two years getting you and those other bumpkin friends of yours through their A-levels and on to university for you to end up tarting on the street? What’s the attraction? Do tell!”
His cynical purr had always set her teeth on edge. The other girls had thought it sexy. They’d sighed when he’d recited Shakespeare to the class-and Mr. Jameson never passed up a chance to use his voice. An actor turned teacher when the roles had dried up, he’d had the looks, the glamour, and the confidence to reduce the class to a jelly. Even some of the boys had quivered. But Chris had never been taken in by the sculpted profile, the ready wit, the throbbing baritone. With Mr. Jameson, all was, she was convinced, illusion. She’d always pictured him as a mysterious box swathed in black velvet. But what was at the heart of the box? Emptiness -or a picture of himself?
“Getting much job satisfaction, are you?” He’d not lost the knack of irritating her to the point of fury.
“Plenty,” she couldn’t restrain herself from saying lightly. She decided he didn’t deserve an explanation. And he’d only laugh even more derisively if she told him she was a detective constable. He’d always affected a disdain for the conventional, the conservative, the mundane. He’d projected a bohemian image, perpetually surprised and disconcerted to find himself in a classroom. No, she’d stay in the character she’d assumed, the better to torment him. “The financial reward is much better than anything you could get from teaching. And, honestly, there’s not a lot you can do with a degree in English, is there, sir?” She regretted that the automatic “sir” had slipped out.
“Honestly?” he spoke with emphasis. “No, I suppose not. You chose the dishonest and lazy option, I see. Don’t you want to know where I’m taking you?”
She didn’t answer, but she was quite certain she knew. She would have to brace herself for an uncomfortable scene when they got there. He wasn’t taking her home. He had no way of knowing about the flat she shared in the city-he was heading out to the country to one of the villages ten miles away to the southwest. To her mother’s house at Shepton. He was going to dump her on her mother’s doorstep again just as he had ten years ago. And deliver another telling-off.
Then it had been a gentle finger-wagging: “Afraid your daughter’s had a little too much to drink at the disco, Mrs. Kenton. I’m sure you’ll find the right words to say to her… when she’s sober enough to hear them, of course. We wouldn’t want this to happen again, would we?”
And this time what would he come up with? “Found your daughter selling her body on the streets, Mrs. Kenton. I’m sure you’ll find the words to discourage further excursions into immorality.”
Chris suppressed a giggle. Her mother was smart. She’d take the situation in at once, feel embarrassed for his mistake, make all the right conversational noises, and the upshot would be the same as last time. When he’d refused her polite offer of a cup of tea and left, she and her mum would stand in the hall, eyeing each other until they heard the sound of his car moving off and they’d fall about laughing.
He enjoyed her silence and then said: “I think you’ve guessed.”
He put his foot on the accelerator, sliding neatly between lorries heading for the motorway, then, at the last moment, he nipped down a sidestreet, turned, and reentered the traffic flow in the opposite direction. “Turn on a sixpence, these cabs,” he announced cheerfully. “I shall never drive anything else. You can get them for a song, you know, at the London car auctions. Change of seating arrangements essential, of course.” He cast a satisfied glance at the passenger seat with its leather upholstery. “Rather unfriendly to carry people about in the back. And a quick change of license plates and you’re anonymous. Never get stopped by the Plod.” He cleared his throat. “Change of plan,” he added. “I’ve decided what to do with you.”
“Whatever it is, this is kidnapping. You are holding me here against my will and I have given you due warning.” She was proud of the firmness of her tone.
Her abductor was less impressed, apparently. “Who’s going to listen to the bleatings of a common prostitute? Come off it! Occupational necessity, isn’t it? Getting into cars with men? But this is your lucky day. I came along quite by chance and I may even be able to save you from a lifetime of sin. Who knows? Life’s too short and too precious to spend it in the gutter.” He flashed another cold glance. “On drugs, are you? No? Surprised but pleased to hear that. You’re not too far gone. You look as though there might still be time to save you from yourself, as they say.”
He gave a short bark of laughter. “Remember Henry IV?
“Dial? Hour? Death?” The words tolled like a funeral knell in her head and Chris felt a trickle of cold horror creep along her spine.
For the first time since he’d picked her up, it occurred to her to wonder what business he could possibly have, driving down Eastern Avenue through the red-light district. Sick in her heart, she realised that this man whom she had always mistrusted was not taking her home to her mother in Shepton as she had naively assumed. He seemed to have other plans for her.