girl—she looked to be younger than I’d at first thought—had the knuckles of her right hand pressed against her mouth and merely shook her head, her eyes wide with fear.
Crash! With a lightning flick of his arm, the window exploded all over the inside of the car. What would have happened next, I dare not think, but right at that moment, a car screeching around a corner behind us seized the attention of the three villains. Glancing in the mirror, I confirmed it was the black car and groaned inwardly. I probably couldn’t handle even one of these brutes, and now there would be six.
The black car stopped quickly about five yards behind me. Its occupants got out slowly, and stepping in front of their car’s headlights, became three huge silhouettes as I looked at them through my rear view mirror.
Our attackers had stepped away from the Jag and stood tensely, the man with the pipe tapping it gently into his open palm. “Get out of it,” he hissed at the newcomers.
His two companions on my side of the Jag stiffened, and a quick glance in the mirror confirmed that behind us the middle man had pulled a gun.
I saw my only opening before bullets started flying and whispered, “Grab hold of something,” out of the corner of my mouth, then slammed the car into gear.
Driving solely on instinct, I lurched forward, yanking the wheel as hard and fast as I could to the right. As the rear end swung wildly around, the three in front ducked for cover while the three behind must have been taken by surprise, because no shots were fired.
I almost made it by the car in front, but in yanking the wheel to get around it, the back of the Jag swung wildly and caught the nearside rear wing solidly before bouncing off. Straightening the wheel, we took off, making a hard left over a canal bridge as if the very hounds of hell were after us. I suppose they were.
I have no idea whether the two groups of thugs decided to have it out on the street right there, or jumped into their respective vehicles to give chase. I drove as if traffic laws didn’t exist, going through lights and screeching around corners like some crazed Hollywood stunt man as my passenger braced herself as best she could.
I finally began recognizing landmarks, but even then I only slowed down marginally. Very few cars were about, and no police that I could see. Every block or so I checked behind us but saw no sign of pursuit. At last, up ahead I glimpsed the familiar silhouette of an official vehicle.
When I began to slow, my passenger gripped my arm for the second time. “Don’t stop, please!”
“Why not? Those bastards nearly trashed this car and were trying to kidnap you and God knows what else!”
“I know, but we mustn’t stop for the police. You have to get me away from here!”
Okay. I had time to think this one out. It wasn’t a matter of reaction only. I could have stopped. I should have stopped. A lot of things would have turned out differently if I had.
But in my mind’s eye, I can still clearly see us driving sedately past that police car as if nothing were out of the ordinary.
***
Even though I’d surprisingly decided that we weren’t going to seek official help, there was still the matter of the smashed window to be dealt with. I didn’t know of an all-night breakdown service, and I wasn’t about to head back the way we’d come to roust me old mum out of her bed to ask her. There was no one around any more who I knew well enough to call on for help at 4:38 in the morning. The over-riding factor, though, to every alternative passing through my mind, was putting as much distance as possible between myself and those two carloads of thugs. Perhaps my “flight from fight” tendency had finally asserted itself, but in a more grown-up form: I now had a car in which to run away.
So I did the only sensible thing possible: got on the Ring Road with the goal of getting to the M6 and driving north—the way I’d originally meant to travel.
At speed on the highway, the wind howled through the jagged remains of the passenger window with a vengeance only winter and seventy-miles-per-hour can produce, making it even more imperative to get the thing covered over. Miraculously, neither of us had been cut on the glass littering the interior of the car.
By the time I’d begun considering the situation, Stafford appeared to be the logical choice for what I needed: not too close to the city and of sufficient size to have a twenty-four hour service station. It also had a railway station where I could dump the girl, one with connections to other lines. As chance would have it, I’d been in the area the day before to arrange transport back to Canada for a musical instrument I’d purchased.
“Why are we getting off?” my companion asked as we exited the motorway.
“We need petrol,” I told her, “and we have to do something about that window.”
She looked over and smiled feebly. “I want to thank you for what you did...stopping for me. I’m very sorry about your nice car.”
“That’s just the problem. This isn’t my automobile. It’s borrowed.”
“Oh...”
“Oh, indeed. This Jaguar is the apple of its owner’s eye, and he is not going to be pleased with what’s happened.”
Ahead, all I could see was darkened buildings and very few cars. Finally, we rounded a curve and ahead on the right saw a brightly lit Esso station with an attached Tesco Express and cash point, just what we needed.
I pulled up to a pump and got out gingerly, carefully shaking offthe numerous little chunks of glass littering my clothes. My passenger also got out, looked around for a bit and decided the paper towelling the station provided would have to do for sweeping out the glass she’d been sitting in.
After filling the car, I checked out the damage to the body. It was as bad as I’d feared. Not something that couldn’t be put right, but it was “going to cost a mint to put this to rights!”—as I could hear Angus bellowing when he saw it. I asked the night attendant, an elderly Sikh, if he could help out with something to cover the window. I fed him a story about yabbos and a fight outside a pub. The old man sympathized and came up with a translucent plastic garbage bag which I stuck on with a roll of gaffer’s tape I found in the car’s boot. He also loaned me a dust pan and brush to help with the glass removal, but made me swear to pick up any chunks that fell on the ground.
Using the cash point, I got some extra notes to pay for the petrol, bags of crisps and peanuts along with two cans of Coke. The old gent also got a five-pound note for his trouble.
Returning to the car, the girl was already sitting inside. Not wanting to talk to her through the sheet of plastic, I went around to the driver’s side and got in. “Can I drop you at the railway station?”
She looked startled. “Drop me? Where are you going?”
I started the engine. “I’m afraid I’m off to Argyll to return this rather sad-looking automobile to its rightful owner—although I’m afraid it’s going to be a memorable homecoming.” I smiled at her. “He has a temper as red as his beard.”
“Where is Argyll?”
“Scotland. Northwest of Glasgow. You do know where Glasgow is?”
“Of course I do,” she answered sourly. “Can’t I go with you?”
Now I was startled. “Look, this whole situation is surreal enough without prolonging it. I don’t know you. I don’t want to know you. I’ll drop you at the railway station, and you can go wherever you want to go. The sooner you’re out of my life, the sooner I can start to work thinking up an explanation for poor Angus as to why his car looks the way it does. I only have a eight-hour drive in which to accomplish that feat. I wasn’t kidding about his temper. Now, where can I drop you?”
At my words, she looked even younger. It said something about her that she didn’t fall back on that age-old ploy of women: rivers of tears. I would have booted her arse out