day. And then, just as the church bell had finished tolling the hour of five, David saw lights coming up the road toward him. It was now or never. As the car slowed to a stop at the junction, he walked out into the headlights and waved his uninjured arm above his head.
He was in luck. The driver wound down his window and leaned his head out.
‘What’s wrong, mate?’ The man sounded nervous, frightened even. David wasn’t surprised. He had to look like something out of a horror film, dressed in his blood-soaked, ripped-up prison clothes.
‘I’ve been in an accident,’ said David, improvising. ‘A car hit me when I was crossing the road. I need to get to a hospital. Can you take me?’
‘I don’t know about that. Why don’t you knock on one of these doors, ask someone to call you an ambulance? I’m sure they will.’
It was the answer David had anticipated. He hadn’t seriously expected that a passing motorist would give him a lift at five in the morning looking like he did, but the conversation had given him time to edge round toward the driver’s door of the car, and now he rushed forward and pulled it open, pointing the gun at the side of the man’s head.
‘Give me the keys,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘I’ll shoot you if you don’t.’
The man didn’t obey at first. He sat with his hands rigid on the steering wheel, obviously in shock, and it was only when David thrust the barrel of the gun against his right temple that he leant forward, turned off the engine, and handed David the keys with a shaking hand. On the man’s other side a young woman in a party dress sat frozen in fear, her eyes fixed on the gun.
With the keys in his pocket, David pulled the handle of the door to the back seat, but nothing happened. It was obviously locked.
‘Open it,’ he shouted. ‘Open the fucking door.’ But the man did nothing. Perhaps shock had immobilized him again, or maybe he couldn’t face the thought of having the gun pointing at the back of his head. David didn’t care. His frustration boiled over, and he wanted to hit the man, to pistol-whip him until he did what he was told. And maybe he would have done if the woman hadn’t intervened. Leaning across the back seat, she lifted the lock and David got in.
‘All right,’ he said, tossing the keys over the man’s shoulder into his lap. ‘Now drive. We’re going to Oxford.’
‘We! Why we? Why can’t you leave us here and take the car? Please, please do that.’ The man had got his voice back, but he was quite clearly terrified out of his wits. He stumbled over his words, and the woman didn’t look any better: David could see her hands shaking in her lap. But David felt no sympathy or guilt. Instead he felt a curious sense of disconnection from himself. The panic and desperation that he’d experienced earlier up on the hill had disappeared, and now it was as if he was watching himself, as if he wasn’t really here at all. And besides, there was no time to argue. That much was obvious. There would be more police cars coming this way soon, joining the manhunt down the road.
‘Do as I say,’ said David, louder this time. ‘Shut your fucking door and drive. I’ll use this thing if you don’t. I promise you I will.’
‘Do what he says, Barry. Please!’ The woman’s voice rose almost to a scream on the last word. David could clearly see that she was about to have hysterics. But the man made no move to start the car.
‘All right,’ said David, taking a deep breath and making a conscious effort to speak in a calm and measured voice. ‘I can’t take the car and leave you here because you’ll go straight into that shop over there, wake up Mr and Mrs Parsler if they’re not awake already with the noise we’re making, and get them to call the police. I need a head start, and that’s why I need you to drive. Okay? Twenty minutes: that’s all I need, and then you’ll never see me again. I promise.’
David didn’t know whether it was his words or the way he said them that had the desired effect, but the man seemed to relax. He sighed audibly and his shoulders slumped.
‘Put that thing down then,’ he said, turning his head to look at David over his shoulder. ‘I can’t drive with that pointing at me.’
Carefully, David put the gun down on the seat beside him and covered it with his hand. The man nodded, pulled his door shut, and put the keys in the ignition, and, as they pulled away, David saw that the lights had come on in several of the neighbouring houses, including above the window of the general store opposite, and inconsequentially he thought how the night’s events might at least be good for the Parslers’ business.
They drove in silence. The woman kept looking back at David and the gun on the seat beside him, but he didn’t pay her any attention. He was lost in thought, working out what to do, racing over the possibilities, calculating his chances, and all the time his shoulder hurt him more and more as he felt waves of hot and cold rush through his body. He wondered how much time he had left before he passed out.
Halfway down the Cowley Road, he told them where they were going. ‘The railway station,’ he said. ‘Take me to Oxford Station.’
It felt strange to be back in the station car park again, parked only a few yards away from where Eddie and he had arrived from the prison so elated five hours earlier. It seemed impossible that it was such a short time ago. Where was Eddie now? David wondered angrily, thinking of his cellmate driving away through the night to a new life in his red Triumph, but then he dismissed the thought from his mind. He had more important things to think about now, like laying a false trail. He needed to concentrate. Everything depended on him getting it right in the next few minutes.
‘Well, aren’t you going to go then?’ asked the man, looking back at David in the driving mirror. ‘Twenty minutes: that’s what you said. We’ve done what you asked.’
‘I need to know when the first train leaves for London. That’s when I’m going. Go and look on that board over there. It’ll say.’
‘I don’t need to look,’ said the man. ‘The first one on a Sunday’s at twenty to six.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I’ve been on it before.’
‘Well, twenty to six it is then,’ said David, settling back in his seat. And they relapsed into silence. The man, Barry, sat rigid, staring straight ahead at the big Victorian clock over the station entrance, but his companion kept looking back at David. She seemed less frightened now, as if realizing that if he was going to do anything to them he’d have done it already. She was pretty in an odd sort of way, David realized. All dressed up in her party frock with a ribbon in her hair at the end of an evening that he’d turned into a nightmare.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
‘Lucille,’ she said. ‘What’s yours?’
‘David.’ He liked the way she said her name. Not Lucy — Lucille. A bit of class. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ he added, making the words sound like a joke. And she smiled, as if appreciating his effort to lighten the tension. But Barry didn’t see it that way.
‘Shut up,’ he said, turning toward her. ‘Don’t talk to him, Luce, all right?’
But she was having none of it. ‘Shut up yourself,’ she said. ‘You don’t own me.’
David smiled. ‘So you’re not married?’ he asked.
‘No way,’ she said. David could sense Barry bristling with irritation in the seat in front, but she hadn’t finished. ‘What did you do?’ she asked. ‘We saw all those police cars back there before you…’ Her voice tailed off, but David had picked up on her greedy curiosity and felt suddenly disgusted.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter what I did.’
He looked up at the station clock. It was time.
‘Give me your jacket,’ he said, tapping Barry on the shoulder.
‘No.’ Barry sounded defiant, angry even.
‘Give me your fucking jacket,’ David shouted, losing his temper. And his anger had the desired effect. The man took off his jacket and passed it back to David, while the woman cowered in her seat, her fear returning as she saw the gun in his hand.
‘Right,’ said David. ‘I’m going. Don’t follow me and don’t call the police. Okay?’
He didn’t wait for an answer, just got out of the car and walked quickly into the station without a backward glance. He was sure they would call the police, but maybe not straight away. And probably not from the station either. He should have time.
He asked the clerk at the ticket office a whole lot of questions about train times, about the cost of first- and
