Four Warned

Four Warned.

Archer, Jeffrey.

Never Stop on the Motorway.

(from Twelve Red Herrings).

Diana had been hoping to get away by five o"clock, so she could be at the farm in time for dinner. She tried not to show her true feelings when at 4.37 p.m. her deputy, Phil Haskins, gave her a complex twelve-page doc.u.ment that needed her sign-off before it could be sent out to the client. Haskins reminded her that they had lost two similar contracts that week.

It was always the same on a Friday. The phones would go quiet in the middle of the afternoon. Then, just as she thought she could slip away, some paperwork would land on her desk. One glance at this doc.u.ment and Diana knew there would be no chance of leaving before six.

The demands of being a single parent as well as a director of a small but thriving City firm meant there were few moments left in any day to relax. So when it came to the one weekend in four that her children James and Caroline spent with her ex-husband, Diana would try to leave the office a little earlier than usual to avoid getting caught up in the weekend traffic.

She read through the first page of the contract slowly and made a couple of changes, aware that any mistake made in haste on a Friday night could be regretted in the weeks to come. She glanced at the clock on her desk as she signed the final page of the doc.u.ment. It was just flicking over to 5.51 p.m.

Diana gathered up her bag and walked purposefully towards the door, dropping the doc.u.ment on Phil"s desk without bothering to wish him a good weekend. She suspected that the paperwork had been on his desk since nine o"clock that morning, but that holding onto it until late afternoon was his only means of revenge now that she had been made head of department. Once she was safely in the lift, she pressed the b.u.t.ton for the bas.e.m.e.nt car park, working out that the delay would probably add an extra hour to her journey.

She stepped out of the lift, walked over to her Audi estate car, unlocked the door and threw her bag onto the back seat. When she drove up onto the street, the stream of twilight traffic was just about keeping pace with the pinstriped people on the pavements who, like worker ants, were hurrying towards the nearest hole in the ground.

She flicked on the radio for the six o"clock news. The chimes of Big Ben rang out, before spokesmen from each of the three main political parties gave their views on the European election results. John Major was refusing to comment on his future. The Conservative Party"s explanation for its poor showing was that only thirty-six per cent of the country had bothered to go to the polls. Diana felt guilty she was among the sixty-four per cent who had failed to vote.

The newscaster moved on to say that the situation in Bosnia was still desperate, and that the UN was threatening dire action if the Serbs and their leader, Radovan Karadzik didn"t come to an agreement with the other warring parties. Diana"s mind began to drift such a threat was hardly news any longer. She thought that if she turned on the radio in a year"s time they would probably be repeating the story word for word.

As her car crawled round Russell Square, she began to think about the weekend ahead. It had been over a year since John had told her that he had met another woman and wanted a divorce. She still wondered why, after seven years of marriage, she hadn"t been more shocked or at least angry at his betrayal. Since her appointment as a company director, she had to admit they had spent less and less time together. And perhaps she had become numbed by the fact that a third of the married couples in Britain were now divorced or separated. Her parents had been unable to hide their disappointment, but then they had been married for forty-two years.

The divorce had been friendly enough, as John, who earned less than she did one of their problems, perhaps had given in to most of her demands. She had kept the flat in south west London, the Audi estate and the children, to whom John was allowed access one weekend in four. He would have picked them up from school earlier that afternoon, and, as usual, he would return them to the flat in Putney around seven on Sunday evening.

Diana would go to almost any lengths to avoid being left on her own in the flat when they weren"t around. Although she regularly grumbled about being landed with the job of bringing up two children without a father, she missed them greatly the moment they were out of sight.

She hadn"t taken a lover and she didn"t sleep around. None of the senior staff at the office had ever gone further than asking her out to lunch. Perhaps because only three of them were unmarried and not without reason. The one person she might have considered having a relationship with had made it very clear that he only wanted to spend the night with her, not the days.

In any case, Diana had decided long ago that if she was to be taken seriously as the company"s first female director, an office affair however casual or short-lived could only end in tears. Men are so vain, she thought. A woman only had to make one mistake and she was immediately labelled as loose. Then every other man in the office either smirks behind your back, or treats your thigh like the arm of his chair.

Diana groaned as she came to a halt at yet another red light. In twenty minutes she had only covered a couple of miles. She opened the glove box on the pa.s.senger side and fumbled in the dark for a ca.s.sette. She found one and pressed it into the slot, hoping it would be Pavarotti. Instead, she was greeted by the forceful tones of Gloria Gaynor a.s.suring her "I will survive". She smiled and thought about her friend Daniel, as the light changed to green.

She and Daniel had read Economics together at Bristol University in the early 1980s. They had been friends but never lovers. Then Daniel met Rachael, who was a year below them, and from that moment he had never looked at another woman. They married the day he graduated, and after they returned from their honeymoon Daniel took over the management of his father"s farm in Bedfordshire.

Three children had followed soon after each other, and Diana had been proud when she was asked to be G.o.dmother to Sophie, the eldest. Daniel and Rachael had now been married for twelve years, and Diana felt confident that they wouldn"t be disappointing their parents with any suggestion of a divorce. Although they thought she led an exciting and fulfilling life in the City, Diana often envied their gentle and uncomplicated lives.

She was often asked to spend the weekend with them in the country. But for every two or three invitations Daniel gave, she only accepted one not because she wouldn"t have liked to join them more, but because since her divorce she had no desire to take advantage of their kindness.

Although she enjoyed her work, it had been a b.l.o.o.d.y week. Two contracts had fallen through, her son James had been dropped from the school football team, and Caroline had never stopped telling her that her father didn"t mind her watching television when she ought to be doing her homework.

Another traffic light changed to red.

It took Diana nearly an hour to travel the seven miles out of the city, and when she reached the first dual carriageway, she glanced up at the A1 sign. It was more out of habit than to seek guidance, because she knew every yard of the road from her office to the farm. She tried to increase her speed, but it was quite impossible, as both lanes stayed stubbornly crowded.

"d.a.m.n." She had forgotten to get them a present, even a decent bottle of claret. "d.a.m.n," she said again. Daniel and Rachael always did the giving. She began to wonder if she could pick something up on the way, then remembered there was nothing but service stations between here and the farm. She couldn"t turn up with yet another box of chocolates they"d never eat. When she reached the roundabout that led onto the A1, she managed to push the car over fifty for the first time. She began to relax, letting her mind drift with the music.

There was no warning. Although she quickly slammed her foot on the brakes, it was already too late. There was a dull thump from the front b.u.mper, and a slight shudder rocked the car.

A small black creature had shot across her path, and despite her quick reactions, she hadn"t been able to avoid hitting it. Diana swung onto the hard shoulder and screeched to a halt, wondering if the animal could still be alive. She reversed slowly back to the spot where she thought she had hit it as the traffic roared past her.

And then she saw it, lying on the gra.s.s verge a cat that had crossed the road for the tenth time. She stepped out of the car, and walked towards the lifeless body. Suddenly Diana felt sick. She had two cats of her own, and she knew she would never be able to tell the children what she had done. She picked up the dead animal and laid it gently in the ditch by the side of the road.

"I"m so sorry," she said, feeling a little silly. She gave it one last look before walking back to her car. Ironically, she had chosen the Audi for its safety features.

She climbed back into the car and switched on the ignition to find Gloria Gaynor was still belting out her opinion of men. She turned her off, and tried to stop thinking about the cat as she waited for a gap in the traffic large enough to allow her to ease her way back into the slow lane. She eventually succeeded, but was still unable to erase the dead cat from her mind.

Diana had sped up to fifty again when she suddenly became aware of a pair of headlights shining through her rear windscreen. She put up her arm and waved in her rear-view mirror, but the lights continued to dazzle her. She slowed down to allow the vehicle to pa.s.s, but the driver showed no sign of doing so. Diana began to wonder if there was something wrong with her car. Was one of her lights not working? Was the exhaust smoking? Was . . .

She decided to speed up and put some distance between herself and the vehicle behind, but it stayed within a few yards of her b.u.mper. She tried to s.n.a.t.c.h a look at the driver in her rearview mirror, but it was hard to see much in the harshness of the lights. As her eyes became more used to the glare, she could just see the outline of a large black van bearing down on her, and what looked like a young man behind the wheel. He seemed to be waving at her.

Diana slowed down again as she approached the next roundabout, giving him every chance to overtake her on the outside lane, but once again he didn"t take the opportunity. He just sat on her b.u.mper, his headlights still bright. She waited for a small gap in the traffic coming from her right. When one appeared she slammed her foot on the accelerator, shot across the roundabout and sped on up the A1.

She was rid of him at last. She was just beginning to relax and to think about her G.o.ddaughter Sophie, who always waited up so that Diana could read to her, when suddenly those high-beam headlights were glaring through her rear windscreen and blinding her again. If anything, they were even closer to her than before.

She slowed down, he slowed down. She accelerated, he accelerated. She tried to think what she could do next, and began waving frantically at pa.s.sing motorists as they sped by, but they were unaware of her situation. Diana tried to think of other ways she might alert someone. She suddenly recalled that when she had joined the board of the company, they had suggested she have a car phone fitted. Diana had decided it could wait until the car went in for its next service, which should have been a fortnight ago.

She brushed her hand across her forehead and wiped away a film of perspiration. She thought for a moment, then moved her car into the fast lane. The van swung across after her, and hovered so close to her b.u.mper that she became fearful that if she so much as touched her brakes she might unwittingly cause a huge pile-up.

Diana took the car up to ninety, but the van wouldn"t be shaken off. She pushed her foot further down on the accelerator and touched a hundred, but it still remained less than a car"s length behind.

She flicked her headlights onto high-beam, turned on her hazard lights and blasted her horn at anyone who dared to remain in her path. She could only hope that the police might see her, wave her onto the hard shoulder and book her for speeding. A fine would be infinitely better than a crash with a young tearaway, she thought, as the Audi estate pa.s.sed a hundred and ten for the first time in its life. But the black van couldn"t be shaken off.

Without warning, she swerved back into the middle lane and took her foot off the gas, causing the van to draw level with her, which gave her a chance to look at the driver for the first time. He was wearing a black leather jacket and pointing menacingly at her. She shook her fist at him and accelerated away, but he simply swung across behind her like an Olympic runner determined not to allow his rival to break clear.

And then she remembered something, and felt sick for a second time that night. "Oh my G.o.d," she shouted aloud in terror. In a flood, the details of the murder that had taken place on the same road a few months before came rushing back to her. A woman had been raped before having her throat cut with a knife with a serrated edge and dumped in a ditch.

For weeks there had been signs posted on the A1 appealing to pa.s.sing motorists to phone a certain number if they had any information that might a.s.sist the police with their inquiries. The signs had now gone, but the police were still searching for the killer. Diana began to tremble as she remembered their warning to all woman drivers: "Never stop on the motorway".

A few seconds later she saw a road sign she knew well. She had reached it far sooner than she had antic.i.p.ated. In three miles she would have to leave the motorway for the slip road that led to the farm. She began to pray that if she took her usual turning, the black-jacketed man would continue on up the A1 and she would finally be rid of him.

Diana decided that the time had come for her to speed him on his way. She swung back into the fast lane and once again put her foot down on the accelerator. She reached a hundred miles per hour for the second time as she sped past the two-mile sign. Her body was now covered in sweat, and the speedometer touched a hundred and ten. She checked her rear-view mirror, but he was still right behind her. She would have to pick the exact moment if she was to execute her plan successfully.

With a mile to go, she began to look to her left, to make sure her timing would be perfect. She no longer needed to check in her mirror. She knew that he would still be there.

The next signpost showed three diagonal white lines, warning her that she ought to be on the inside lane if she meant to leave the motorway at the next junction. She kept the car in the outside lane at a hundred miles per hour until she spotted a large enough gap. Two white lines appeared by the roadside. Diana knew she would have only one chance to make her escape.

As she pa.s.sed the sign with a single white line on it she suddenly swung across the road at ninety miles per hour, causing cars in the middle and inside lanes to throw on their brakes and blast out their angry opinions. But Diana didn"t care what they thought of her, because she was now travelling down the slip road to safety, and the black van was speeding on up the A1.

She laughed out loud with relief. To her right, she could see the steady flow of traffic on the motorway. But then her laugh turned to a scream as she saw the black van cut sharply across the motorway in front of a lorry, mount the gra.s.s verge and career onto the slip road, swinging from side to side. It nearly drove over the edge and into a ditch, but somehow managed to steady itself, ending up a few yards behind her, its lights once again glaring through her rear windscreen.

When she reached the top of the slip road, Diana turned left in the direction of the farm, frantically trying to work out what she should do next. The nearest town was about twelve miles away on the main road, and the farm was only seven, but five of those miles were down a winding, unlit country lane. She checked her petrol meter. It was nearing empty, but there should still be enough in the tank for her to consider either option. There was less than a mile to go before she reached the turning, so she had only a minute in which to make up her mind.

With a hundred yards to go, she settled on the farm. Despite the unlit lane, she knew every twist and turn, and she felt confident that her pursuer wouldn"t. Once she reached the farm she could be out of the car and inside the house long before he could catch her. In any case, once he saw the farmhouse, surely he would flee?

The minute was up. Diana touched the brakes and skidded into a country road lit only by the moon.

Diana banged the palms of her hands on the steering wheel. Had she made the wrong decision? She glanced up at her rear-view mirror. Had he given up? Of course he hadn"t. The back of a Land Rover loomed up in front of her. Diana slowed down, waiting for a corner she knew well, where the road widened slightly. She held her breath, crashed into third gear, and overtook. Would a head-on collision be preferable to a cut throat?

She rounded the bend and saw an empty road ahead of her. Once again she pressed her foot down, this time managing to put a clear seventy, perhaps even a hundred, yards between her and her pursuer, but this only offered her a few moments" relief. Before long the familiar headlights came bearing down on her once again.

With each bend Diana was able to gain a little time as the van continued to lurch from side to side, unfamiliar with the road. But she never managed a clear break of more than a few seconds. She checked the mileometer. From the turn-off on the main road to the farm it was just over five miles, and she must have covered about two by now. She began to watch each tenth of a mile clicking up, terrified at the thought of the van overtaking her and forcing her into the ditch. She stuck firmly to the centre of the road.

Another mile pa.s.sed, and still he clung on to her. Suddenly she saw a car coming towards her. She switched her headlights to full beam and pressed on the horn. The other car retaliated by copying her actions, which caused her to slow down and brush against the hedgerow as they shot past each other. She checked the mileometer once again. Only two miles to go.

Diana would slow down and then speed up at each familiar bend in the road, making sure the van was never given enough room to pull level with her. She tried to concentrate on what she should do once the farmhouse came into sight. She reckoned that the drive leading up to the house must be about half a mile long. It was full of potholes and b.u.mps which Daniel had often explained he couldn"t afford to have repaired. But at least it was only wide enough for one car.

The gate to the driveway was usually left open for her, though on the rare occasion Daniel had forgotten, and she"d had to get out of the car and open it for herself. She couldn"t risk that tonight. If the gate was closed, she would have to travel on to the next town and stop outside the Crimson Kipper, which was always crowded at this time on a Friday night, or, if she could find it, on the steps of the local police station. She checked her petrol gauge again. It was now touching red. "Oh my G.o.d," she said, realising she might not have enough petrol to reach the town.

She could only pray that Daniel had remembered to leave the gate open.

She swerved out of the next bend and sped up, but once again she managed to gain only a few yards, and she knew that within seconds he would be back in place. He was. For the next few hundred yards they remained within feet of each other, and she felt certain he would run into the back of her. She didn"t once dare to touch her brakes if they crashed in that lane, far from any help, she would have no hope of getting away from him.

She checked her mileometer. A mile to go.

"The gate must be open. It must be open," she prayed. As she swung round the next bend, she could make out the outline of the farmhouse in the distance. She almost screamed with relief when she saw that the lights were on in the downstairs rooms.

She shouted, "Thank G.o.d!" then remembered the gate again, and changed her plea to "Dear G.o.d, let it be open." She would know what needed to be done as soon as she came round the last bend. "Let it be open, just this once," she pleaded. "I"ll never ask for anything again, ever." She swung round the final bend only inches ahead of the black van. "Please, please, please." And then she saw the gate.

It was open.

Her clothes were now drenched in sweat. She slowed down, wrenched the gearbox into second, and threw the car between the gap and into the b.u.mpy driveway, hitting the gatepost on her right-hand side as she careered on up towards the house. The van didn"t hesitate to follow her, and was still only inches behind as she straightened up. Diana kept her hand pressed down on the horn as the car bounced and lurched over the mounds and potholes.

Flocks of startled crows flapped out of overhead branches, screeching as they shot into the air. Diana began screaming, "Daniel! Daniel!" Two hundred yards ahead of her, the porch light went on.

Her headlights were now shining onto the front of the house, and her hand was still pressed on the horn. With a hundred yards to go, she spotted Daniel coming out of the front door, but she didn"t slow down, and neither did the van behind her. With fifty yards to go she began flashing her lights at Daniel. She could now make out the puzzled, anxious look on his face.

With thirty yards to go she threw on her brakes. The heavy estate car skidded across the gravel in front of the house, coming to a halt in the flower bed just below the kitchen window. She heard the screech of brakes behind her. The leather-jacketed man, unfamiliar with the terrain, had been unable to react quickly enough, and as soon as his wheels touched the gravelled area he began to skid out of control. A second later the van came crashing into the back of her car, slamming it against the wall of the house and shattering the gla.s.s in the kitchen window.

Diana leapt out of the car, screaming, "Daniel! Get a gun, get a gun!" She pointed back at the van. "That b.a.s.t.a.r.d"s been chasing me for the last twenty miles!"

The man jumped out of the van and began limping towards them. Diana ran into the house. Daniel followed and grabbed a shotgun, normally reserved for rabbits, that was leaning against the wall. He ran back outside to face the unwelcome visitor, who had come to a halt by the back of Diana"s Audi.

Daniel raised the shotgun to his shoulder and stared straight at him. "Don"t move or I"ll shoot," he said calmly. And then he remembered the gun wasn"t loaded. Diana ducked back out of the house, but remained several yards behind him.

"Not me! Not me!" shouted the leather-jacketed youth, as Rachael appeared in the doorway.

"What"s going on?" she asked nervously.

"Ring for the police," was all Daniel said, and his wife quickly disappeared back into the house.

Daniel advanced towards the terrified-looking young man, the gun aimed squarely at his chest.

"Not me! Not me!" he shouted again, pointing at the Audi. "He"s in the car!" He quickly turned to face Diana. "I saw him get in when you were parked on the hard shoulder. What else could I have done? You just wouldn"t pull over."

Daniel advanced cautiously towards the rear door of the car and ordered the young man to open it slowly, while he kept the gun aimed at his chest.

The youth opened the door, and quickly took a pace backwards. The three of them stared down at a man crouched on the floor of the car. In his right hand he held a long-bladed knife with a serrated edge. Daniel swung the barrel of the gun down to point at him, but said nothing.

The sound of a police siren could just be heard in the distance.

The Queen"s Birthday Telegram.

(from And Thereby Hangs a Tale).

Her Majesty the Queen sends her congratulations to Albert Webber on the occasion of his 100th birthday, and wishes him many more years of good health and happiness.

Albert was still smiling after he had read the message for the twentieth time.

"You will be next, ducks," he said as he pa.s.sed the royal message across to his wife. Betty only had to read the telegram once for a broad smile to appear on her face too.

The festivities had begun a week earlier, building up to a celebration party at the town hall. Albert"s photograph had appeared on the front page of the Somerset Gazette that morning, and he had been interviewed on BBC Points West, his wife seated proudly by his side.

His Worship the Mayor of Street, Councillor Ted Harding, and the leader of the local council, Councillor Brocklebank, were waiting on the town hall steps to greet the honoured guest.

Albert was escorted to the mayor"s parlour where he was introduced to Mr David Heathcote-Amory, the local Member of Parliament, as well as the local MEP, although when asked later he couldn"t remember her name.

After several more photographs had been taken, Albert was ushered through to a large reception room where over a hundred invited guests were waiting to greet him. As he entered the room he was welcomed by a spontaneous burst of applause, and people he"d never met before began shaking hands with him.

At 3.27 p.m., the precise minute Albert had been born in 1907, the old man, surrounded by his five children, eleven grandchildren and nineteen great-grandchildren, thrust a silver-handled knife into a three-tier cake. This simple act was greeted by another burst of applause, followed by cries of speech, speech, speech!

Albert had prepared a few words, but as quiet fell in the room, they went straight out of his head.

"Say something," said Betty, giving her husband a gentle nudge in the ribs.

He blinked, looked around at the expectant crowd, paused and said, "Thank you very much."

Once the people realised that was all he was going to say, someone began to sing "Happy Birthday", and within moments everyone was joining in. Albert managed to blow out seven of the hundred candles before the younger members of the family came to his rescue, which was greeted by even more laughter and clapping.

Once the applause had died down, the mayor rose to his feet, tugged at the lapels of his black and gold braided gown and cleared his throat, before delivering a far longer speech.

"My fellow citizens," he began, "we are gathered together today to celebrate the birthday, the one hundredth birthday, of Albert Webber, a much-loved member of our community. Albert was born in Street on the fifteenth of April 1907. He married his wife Betty at Holy Trinity Church in 1931, and spent his working life at C. and J. Clark"s, our local shoe factory.

"In fact," he continued, "Albert has spent his entire life in Street, with the notable exception of four years when he served as a private soldier in the Somerset Light Infantry. When the war ended in 1945, Albert was discharged from the army and returned to Street to take up his old job as a leather cutter at Clark"s. At the age of sixty, he retired as Deputy Floor Manager. But you can"t get rid of Albert that easily, because he then took on part-time work as a night watchman, a responsibility he carried out until his seventieth birthday."

The mayor waited for the laughter to fade before he continued. "From his early days, Albert has always been a loyal supporter of Street Football Club, rarely missing a Cobblers" home game, and indeed the club has recently made him an honorary life member. Albert also played darts for the Crown and Anchor, and was a member of that team when they were runners-up in the town"s pub championship.