'Did I hear Kevin say you were going north tomorrow?' Wilf Fisher waylaid her half an hour later.
'You did,' she replied, and felt so extraordinarily pleased with life just then that when he asked her if she would mind dropping a parcel of wool oddments off at his mother's home-Mrs Fisher apparently knitted blankets in her spare time, and was always short of wool-Yancie was happy to oblige. `Your mother's home is quite a bit out of my way,' she qualified, `but if I'm to wait any length of time I'd be glad to drop it in for you.'
Wilf was all smiles, Yancie was all smiles; she really did like her job, she decided. To be out and about. Some people must like office work but she was glad she didn't have to do it.
That some people thrived on office work was borne out the next day when Yancie collected her passenger. A grunt for a greeting was all she got. And, once installed in the back of the Jaguar, Thomson Wakefield undid his briefcase, buried his nose in his paperwork, and Yancie didn't hear another grunt from him until she pulled up outside one of their subsidiary companies.
'I'll be finished here at six. Have a rest and something to eat,' he ordered. Yes, sir, anything you say, sir. She had something better to do! Their eyes met, and Yancie could only suppose he must have picked up a gleam of defiance in her eyes, because he questioned bossily, `Yes?'
Yancie had no idea why his manner should rattle her so, but, `Yes,' she agreed-bubbles to that-striving for a meek note.
What was it about him? she wondered as she headed out of Staffordshire and into
Derbyshire. He had managed to upset her from day one. She wouldn't have got so riled, had any other board member suggested she take a rest and have something to eat. But then, he hadn't suggested, but told. Perhaps she wasn't any good at taking orders. She really must try and get this being employed sorted out.
Wilf Fisher's mother was expecting her, and was very pleased to see her. 'You'll stay for a cup of tea and a piece of cake?' she asked as Yancie handed over the large, bulging plastic sack. To please Mrs Fisher, whom, it appeared, had made the cake especially for her, Yancie said she'd love a cup of tea and a piece of cake, and chatted to her for about half an hour.
She was on the point of leaving, however, and was in fact making her goodbyes, when Mrs Fisher suddenly asked if she was going anywhere close to the nearby supermarket.
'I'm sure I must be,' Yancie obliged.
She shouldn't, Yancie knew as she sped down the motorway to Staffordshire, have wandered around the supermarket with Mrs Fisher. But, for goodness' sake, surely she wasn't expected to leave the old dear to carry all that shopping back on her own!
The only trouble now, of course, was that there was no way that she was going to be able to pick up sir at six. He'd have her hide, she knew it. He'd be kept waiting-and she'd like to bet that no one ever kept him waiting.
It was ten past six now, and there were miles to go yet. She glanced at the petrol gauge, and found fresh cause to worry. Oh, grief, she was driving again on empty! She normally spent her waiting time filling up and checking her vehicle was ready for the return journey. Only she hadn't this time-and she dared not stop now. She remembered the last time a petrol gauge had registered empty, and how that time she'd come close to disaster. She'd been visiting Mrs Fisher that time too. Perhaps the Fisher family were a jinx on her.
She made a vow there and then to let Wilf Fisher deliver his own parcels in future. Though in fairness it wasn't anybody's fault but her own. She was late because she'd stayed for tea and cake-so all right, Thomson Wakefield had ordered her to take refreshment-he just hadn't expected she'd trip into the next county to carry out his instructions, that was all.
Thomson had been around the last time she'd been rushing back from Derbyshirehe'd been angry then; he'd be furious now. Oh, help, half past six-he'd skin her!
It was ten to seven when Yancie pulled up to collect her employer. She could see at once that he was not a happy man. She opted to stay in the driver's seat-the sooner she got started, the sooner she'd get him back to London.
Though first, as if to deliberately keep her waiting this time, Thomson Wakefield took a slow, methodical walk all around the car, every bit as though checking to see how many dents she had put in it. Sauce! Anyone would think she went around having accidents-there wasn't so much as a scratch on the Jaguar.
Eventually he opened a rear door and got in. Yancie saw it as her cue to prostrate herself at his feet. Fat chance! But, `I'm sorry,' she began-she owed him that much. Only he didn't want to hear the rest of it.
'Save it!' he snarled.
Yancie was happy to. She had just discovered she had more of an aversion to lying to him than she'd realised. Although, in reality, she hadn't any idea what she could have added to her apology that wouldn't implicate Wilf Fisher. But in any event Wilf hadn't exactly held a gun to her head. She could have, and should have-of course-told him to post his mother the wool parcel, though it had been more of a sackful than some small, neat parcel.
Suddenly Yancie became aware that she must have missed a turn somewhere. Where had the town gone? By now she should be in a lit-up area heading towards the motorway. Instead she was in a dark, tree-lined area with no sign of a motorway. In fact, the road she was travelling on seemed to be getting narrower and narrower. And where was all the traffic? There was none. She was in the middle of nowhere with not so much as a streetlamp about, leave alone another vehicle. Oh, grief!
'You do know where you're going?' enquired a nasty, disgruntled voice from the back.
And Yancie found she could still conjure up the occasional lie-when desperate. `I know a short cut,' she answered, hoping he would think she was taking the short cut. Icy silence was her answer.
Shame about him. He who liked to work the whole of the time. It was much too dark to see to read paperwork, much less make a few pencilled notes. Though it wouldn't surprise her if any minute now he didn't get out his tape machine and start dictating letters for Veronica Taylor to type back in the morning.
Then it happened. The engine cut out. Oh, no! How could she have forgotten? The Jaguar slowed to a stop. The silence behind her was deafening. `I…' she found her voice, slightly strangulated though it sounded '…because of my rush-er-my fault,' she added hurriedly,'my fault entirely. I-um-didn't fill up with petrol.'
Silence again; she imagined her disgruntled employer was counting up to ten. She was not flavour of the month, she knew that much anyway when, his voice holding several degrees of frost, he ordered, `Then perhaps you wouldn't mind filing up with petrol now.'
Yancie was getting seriously fed up with him. `Where from?' she asked, a touch snappily, she had to own.
'You tell me-I thought you knew this ` `short cut'.'
Swine, pig, toad! He knew full well she had been lying. `There's a petrol can in the boot,' she hinted. Bubbles to it, if anybody was going for petrol, it was going to be him, not her.
'I'll see you when you get back,' he stated charmingly.
'Me? '
'It was your lot who wanted equality of the sexes,' he pointed out, quite fairly, she knewbut it didn't endear him to her any. `On your way.'
Silently calling him all the foul names she could think of, Yancie got out of the car and opened up the boot. Everything neat and tidy-car rug, first-aid kit. Ah, there it was. She took the can for petrol from the boot and, on a spirit of the moment, took the car rug as well.
She closed the boot, and went and opened the rear passenger door and tossed the car rug inside. `I may be some time,' she said in the manner of Captain Oates-who had gone and had never come back. She thought she heard a sound that might have been a smothered laugh-but she didn't believe it.
She closed the door and looked aboutthere was nothing to see! Which way? Well, she wasn't going back the way they had come. If there had been a petrol station in the last five miles she'd have noticed it, remembered it, she felt sure of it.
She liked walking, Yancie told herself as she headed in the direction the car had been facing. So, okay, she was wearing two-and-ahalf-inch heels and the road was getting more rutty than tarmacked by the minute. Where the dickens was she? Not on any main road, that was for sure. Oh, help, she'd nearly fallen over then.
Yancie concentrated on walking in a straight line-only the road wasn't straight; she went round a bend, knowing she was out of sight of the car, not that Wakefield could see her in the dark-not that he'd be watching. He'd be too busy dictating something or other into that infernal machine.
What was that? She heard a sound, and then another in the trees to her right, and swallowed down fear. Don't be a sissy; country dwellers hear those sorts of noises the whole time.
The sound came again, to her left this time. It was so dark, and she was scared, and as the sound came again
