ties, apart from her parents, and they would have to get used to life without her, give them something else to think about. She didn't have a job, had been on the dole since the trouser factory closed down. Most of the younger generation of Droy had shared the same fate. There wasn't much likelihood of finding employment so you just accepted your lot and found something to occupy your time. Now Andy didn't really have a proper job. Studying birds and animals in the hills wasn't work, it wasn't doing anything useful. It was about on a par with young Roy Bean, the Droy gamekeeper. He was worse, all he was bothered about was killing wildlife, setting traps and snares all over the place, firing his gun at anything that flew. It… damn it, it was starting to rain.
Cold rainspots gusted by the wind stung her face, had her turning up the collar of her sheepskin, wishing she had brought her umbrella. More than that, wishing that she had elected to go the short way home. It was too late now, to retrace her steps would make the journey even longer. And to make matters worse the moon was clouding over, leaving her with only a dim outline of the road ahead. So dark, in fact, that there was a possibility that she might walk right by the stile in the hedge up beyond Droy Wood and miss the short-cut across the fields to the village.
A hint of panic but she pushed it away. She wouldn't miss the stile, she had walked this way too many times, could almost tell it by the way the camber of the road sloped. A favourite stroll on a fine evening. With Andy. I wish he was here now. Liar, you don't, you never want to set eyes on him again. The bastard!
Autumn rain; sudden, heavy and cold, a hint that winter was not far away even though it was still only early October. Carol quickened her pace, felt her jeans beginning to dampen around the lower half of her legs. There was at least a mile and a half to go, she would be saturated by the time she got home. She hoped to God Mother hadn't decided to wait up for her. 'Wherever have you been to get soaked like that, Carol, and where's Andy?' Oh shut up, Mother, I'm leaving home, going to live in London and nothing you or Dad can say will stop me.
And then she heard the car approaching from behind, coming from the direction of the village. It was still some way off, half a mile perhaps, the sound of its engine a drone like an angry insect.
Carol Embleton hesitated, turned to face in the opposite direction. Now she could see its headlights, twin white beams swinging over the tops of the hedgerows like the searchlights of an anti-aircraft gun searching the night sky for an enemy aircraft. She found herself stepping back into the undergrowth, remembered those teenagers who had come into the hall after closing time at the Dun Cow. They had had too much to drink, wouldn't have passed a breathalyser test; except that in Droy you didn't get breathalysed, not unless you had driven crazily down the main street and bumped into a dozen parked cars. And even then it would depend upon PC Houliston being around. It could be those yobbos. On the other hand it did not necessarily have to be. And as if to aid her decision the rain suddenly increased almost to thunderstorm force, a blinding downpour that had her stepping back on to the edge of the road. Catchy strains of that disco music came back to her, a
'golden oldie' that the DJ had played, one that went back well before Carol Embleton's time.
'A thumb goes up, a thumb goes down., hitchin' a ride. '
The headlights dazzled her, had her averting her eyes, temporarily blinded. The tempo of the engine changed, slowing, braking, pulling up alongside her. She heard the passenger door click open. A Mini. The driver was leaning across, just an outline. Nobody else. It wasn't the yobs from the hall.
'Nasty night to be out for a stroll,' a friendly voice, an accent that she could not quite place, certainly not the Droy border twang. 'Or do you do this for exercise every night?'
'No,' She found herself stooping, sliding into the empty passenger seat, glancing in the back as though she half expected to find those village louts hiding on the floor. But there was nobody. The upholstery smelled as though it had recently been polished, the kind of smell a meticulous car-owner might take a pride in. A snug place on a wet autumn night. 'I've been to the disco in the village. When I left it was a nice dry night and I felt like a good walk home. The long way round,' she added and laughed. 'That'll teach me a lesson.'
'No boyfriend?' Joking, pushing the gear lever forward into first, gliding slowly away from the grass verge.
'Not tonight. We've had a tiff but I expect everything will be OK tomorrow.'
Now why the hell did I say that? It won't be OK tomorrow because I'm getting out of this place before I get involved again. Bye, Andy, your ring's in the post. Your ring, not mine.
Carol glanced at her companion, saw the profile of a man who was surely not much older than. Jeez, does Andy have to come into everything? He appeared to be wearing a suit but no tie, the wings of his shirt collar neatly turned over on to his lapels. A short, weft-trimmed beard. No, not thinning at the crown, that would have been just too much to accept. He's not a bit like Andy and I don't want him to be. She almost said 'No, that's not quite right, everything won't be OK tomorrow because I don't ever want to see him again', but it would have sounded silly. You don't go around spilling out the intimate details of your love-life to some stranger who comes driving along in the night.
'There's a stile in the roadside hedge about a mile further on up the road,' she said. 'If you drop me off there it's only a few minutes walk to my home.'
'Fine.' She thought he smiled at her but his features were bathed in shadow.
'What's your name?'
'Carol. Carol Embleton.'
'Mine's Jim. I'm heading north, I'll probably drive all through the night. It's nice to pick somebody up for a few minutes chat, breaks the monotony.' He was dawdling at 25 mph, seemed reluctant to increase his speed. Carol put it down to him being grateful for a brief companionship. Even at 25 mph she was going to get home an awful lot quicker than walking. On their right she saw the start of Droy Wood in the glare of the headlights; twisted, stunted trees that seemed to reach out into the road with their gnarled boughs as though trying to halt lone travellers. She shuddered; that was one place she'd never been in, never wanted to go in. She could not ever remember Andy telling her that he had been in there. It was one of those damp depressing places you didn't go and not just because of the local legends.
'I was thinking of stopping for a few minutes just to smoke a cigarette.' The speedometer needle had dropped to just below 20 mph now. 'If you've got a minute or two to spare I'd be grateful for your company. It's going to be a long lonely night for me. I envy you your nice warm bed.'
The hairs on the back of Carol Embleton's neck pricked and her stomach muscles seemed to contract. She caught her breath and when she spoke there was a slight quaver in her voice. 'I… I'd rather not, if you don't mind. My folks will be sitting up waiting for me and my boyfriend could be round at our house waiting to try and. and make things up. (Liar.) Last time I went off on my own. he'd rung the police before midnight. It caused a lot of bother.'
'We'll only be five minutes.' He swung the wheel hard over, drove on to a kind of lay-by bordering the wood, a patch of rutted mud, chewed up by the tyres of parked heavy vehicles where passing long-distance lorry drivers had been forced by their tachometers to take a break. A few courting couples perhaps from the village on occasions. But tonight it was empty.
'No., please. '
'We won't be a minute or two.'
'I can walk from here, the stile's only a couple of hundred yards up the road.' Carol fumbled for the door handle, felt a surge of panic, and then strong fingers closed over her wrist. Cold fear, she could not even manage a scream and she had not located the door release.
'I only want to talk,' The stranger's soft tones would have been reassuring in any other place, any other situation, if his grip had not been twisting the flesh of her wrist with the ferocity of a Chinese burn. 'You see, I don't get a chance to chat much, and when you're on the road most of the time, often driving by night and sleeping by day, you get lonely. You need to talk to somebody. else you'd go mad.'
'Yes, I. suppose you would. 'She was pressing herself back against the door, wishing it would suddenly fly open and catapult her outside. Then she would run, and run. And run.
'How old are you?' He leaned closer to her and she smelled his breath, a sweet peppermint flavour as though he had been chewing gum recently.
'Twenty.'
'And I'll bet you're not a virgin, eh?' A loaded, insistent question that anywhere else would have brought an angry retort from her lips. But not here.
'No. I'm not. But I'm not a sleeparound either.'
This boyfriend you've had a tiff with… he fucks you regularly?'
