A Thoughtful Woman

by K T Findlay

  Walkers! Walkers who couldn’t make up their bloody minds!

  ‘Come on you bastards.’ she hissed to herself. ‘Get on with it! I can’t afford to hang around.’

  Finally, at exactly noon they walked off down the zigzag and out of sight.

  Selina powered the Mini east along Wick Lane at way above legal speeds. Peregrin was likely to be bang on time for his steak and kidney pudding. It was his absolute favourite and he’d have been looking forward to it all morning. She had to be on the hill going down past his house as he was coming up the other way. She was going to be late! Bloody walkers!

  As she approached the last right hander before the road dropped down the hill past Peregrin’s place, she brought her speed back down to legal levels. Glory be, there was a God! Peregrin’s Rover drove up towards her just as she passed his driveway.

  It took every bit of her willpower not to look at him as she went past, but she’d seen him react as soon as he saw the nose of the Mini. In her rear view mirror she saw him execute the fastest three point turn she’d ever seen and accelerate after her.

  As he caught her up, he did exactly what she was expecting, pulling out to pass so he could cut her off. As he went past, he gesticulated for her to pull over.

  Selina waited until the rear of the Rover had just passed the Mini’s nose before she pulled her trick. She flicked the steering wheel to the right and yanked on the hand brake. The rear wheels locked, and as the nose of the car turned right, the rear began to pivot rapidly around it. The little car swapped lanes as it swapped ends, heading towards the hedge. When it had spun enough such that it was aligned with the road again, she released the handbrake to allow all the wheels to rotate once more. Instantly the car stopped its spin and drifted backwards down the road as if she was reversing. She squeezed the brakes to bring it to a halt, then engaged first gear and accelerated as hard as she could back up the hill.

  ‘Thank you Graham!’ she cried. He’d taught Sally well that day at Brands Hatch.

  Peregrin looked in his mirror in disbelief. The sheer size of the Rover, and the narrowness of the lane, forced him to make a seven point turn before he could chase after her. He picked up his car radio.

  ‘Peregrin here! I’m following Selina in her Mini! She’s heading west along Wick Lane. The only way out is Farthing Lane, so get a car across it now!

  Eric was sitting in the police car park, in his new Astra GTE, showing it off to Susan when they heard the despatcher’s call come through to all cars.

  ‘Excellent! Time to show you what she can do!’ he cried.

  Susan rolled her eyes and tightened her seatbelt. The Astra shot out of the back of the police station at a hell of a rate, all tyre smoke and squeals. Eric had to slow down at the intersections, but it was still less than a minute later that he was rocketing up Farthing Lane.

  ‘Slow down you mad bastard!’ shouted Susan. ‘You’ll get us both killed!’

  ‘Relax!’ Eric shouted back. ‘She’s a great wee car. Very capable!’

  ‘It’s not the car’s capabilities I’m worried about!’ snapped Susan. ‘It’s yours! And McEwan said to block Farthing. You don’t need to get to Wick! Just stop here!’

  Eric ignored her and hammered on up the hill. He got to the top just in time to see the Mini shoot in from his right, travelling at a huge speed.

  Susan had been muttering a few days earlier about how infantile Eric had been about his new acquisition, so Selina knew instantly whose it was. On instinct, instead of braking, she pressed her foot to the floor and went for it through the ever shrinking gap.

  ‘Oh Christ!’ said an appalled Eric. ‘She’s going to ram us!’

  He hit the brakes, tapping them rapidly to prevent them from locking up. The tyres chirped and squeaked, but somehow there was just enough space left for the Mini to get through.

  Well almost.

  The side of the Mini just brushed the Astra’s bumper, jolting the Vauxhall a little as it did so.

  ‘You little bitch!’ yelled Eric, furious that his pride and joy had been dinged. Savagely he yanked the wheel to the left and chased after her.

  ‘You’d never know you paid for your own tyres!’ Susan shouted, as he spun the little car’s wheels through first and second gear.

  ‘I’ll claim them back!’ he retorted. Then suddenly he started in his seat. ‘Blimey! The boss is right up our arse!’

  Susan twisted round to see. ‘It looks like he’d like you to go a bit faster Eric.’ she said laconically.

  Eric scowled, and put his foot down even harder, but his ham-fisted approach was costing him time in the bends. The Mini had opened out a six car length lead when Selina used a Scandinavian flick to turn into her own field.

  Trying to show off, Eric took a more classic line through the gate. Unfortunately for him, a combination of the slippery surface and a bit too much accelerator on his part, saw his nose skid out across the track. He gently tapped the brakes, allowing the front wheels to bite and turn the nose of the car, just as it hit the grass.

  Peregrin watched the little red car pirouette gracefully down the field towards the hedge at the bottom. ‘What was that term again, the one that meant you could hold two conflicting views at once?’ he thought to himself as his own car turned more carefully onto the track. ‘Oh yes. Cognitive dissonance. That was it!’

  On the one hand he was hugely amused at the young Eric cocking it up, especially when Susan was in the car with him, but on the other, he really didn’t want Selina getting away.

  He carried on down the twisting track after the Mini as fast as he could, but still managed to find the time to give a royal wave to Eric and Susan as he passed the Astra, stuck in the hedge at the bottom.

  Susan unfolded her hands from where they’d been resting on her lap, and turned to face Eric. ‘I suppose young man, you’d like to know if you’ve passed your test?’ she said.

  ‘Get stuffed.’ he growled.

  Selina closed her eyes and prayed as she shot across the road and into The Narrows without looking. By the time Peregrin had followed in a more intelligent fashion, she had a good ten car lengths lead.

  She knew that Peregrin would be giving a constant update about her position over the radio, so she headed for the flying fox via the quickest possible route.

  Sure enough, two intersections further on, she met another police car coming towards her at high speed. As she sailed across his bows, the police driver spun his steering wheel and hit the brakes. Too hard. With its wheels locked solid, the car slid straight on, demolishing a beautiful piece of dry stone walling. It was sitting there, surrounded by debris, steam pouring from its crumpled bonnet when Peregrin’s Rover swept majestically past.

  ‘We’re going to have to give remedial driver training to the lot of them!’ he swore down the radio. ‘Suspect now heading north along Sky Point Road!’

  The road’s tight twists gave the Mini the edge again, and slowly Selina extended her lead, but Peregrin wasn’t pressing too hard. Calmly he ordered the other cars to strategic places to make sure all her exits were blocked. There was no need to rush. She couldn’t get away.

  He watched the Mini flick into a right hander bounded by dry stone walls on both sides, but as he came around the following left, he saw her do another hand brake turn and scoot through a narrow gap in the wall, into a field between the road and the river.

  He could see that the gate was so narrow the Rover wouldn’t be able to follow her, so he parked across it and hopped out to see what she was doing.

  Selina slid to a controlled halt next to the flying fox platform, and picked up a large plastic bottle as she exited the car. ‘I am so, so sorry about this!’ she said softly to the Mini. ‘After all you’ve done for me, you don’t deserve this, but I have no choice.’

  She slopped the petrol liberally over the seats, the dashboard, and the rear, then threw in the half empty bottle to rest on the driver’s seat. She pulled a wadded up ball of paper from her left pocket,
and lit it with a lighter from her right. She could see Peregrin running across the field towards her as she tossed the burning paper into the car.

  A fireball burst through the driver’s window as the whole interior erupted into flames. An instant later the whole door was flung wide, directing some of the blast to the rear of the car where she was standing. Fortunately for Selina, the flash fire was both brief and slightly off target, leaving her shocked but unscathed.

  It gave the pursuing policeman a chance to further close the gap, but he was still two hundred yards away when she reached the top of the platform. She retrieved the key from the fine chain around her neck, undid the padlock to the flying fox and slipped it back down her top. The whole platform shook as Peregrin threw himself up the stairs but she was already hanging from the pulley, rolling slowly towards the edge of the platform. She wasn’t quite clear of it when she heard him reach the top and leap towards her.

  ‘‘Got you!’ he cried and she cringed, expecting his hand on her coat at any moment, but unbelievably she drifted free, his fingers missing her by inches.

  ‘Blast it!’ he swore. ‘You can’t get away Selina! We’ll have you sealed off!’ he shouted after her now rapidly accelerating back. Then Peregrin noticed a trail of smoke coming from the bottom right hand corner of her coat as it flapped in the wind. Something from the Mini must have blown onto it when she’d set it alight. As he watched, a lick of flame appeared amidst the smoke, growing larger as she picked up speed.

  Selina felt the heat of the flame intensify, but needing both hands to cling to the handset, it was a stark choice of riding it out or falling fifty feet to the rocks below. As she picked up speed, she brought her legs together and tucked them up towards her chest, trying to minimise the wind resistance to go faster. She dropped as soon as she was able to, hitting the ground running and smacking out the blaze as she headed out of Peregrin’s sight and into the trees.

  ◆◆◆

  Freddy and James had both seen the beginnings of the chase and knew instantly that whatever Sally had had planned today, an attack on Dick Harland was now out of the question. Freddy shared James’s profound admiration of Sally’s driving skills as he watched her flying down her field and through the lanes, but he alone could see her in action at the flying fox.

  ‘We need to employ this woman!’ he said to himself.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ asked a man in his thirties, with a pair of binoculars around his neck. Then he spotted that Freddy was riveted through a pair of his own. ‘Twitcher or birdwatcher?’ he demanded.

  ‘Neither!’ snapped Freddy. ‘Police watcher at the moment!’

  Feathers glanced into the valley and his face turned puce with rage. ‘There are kingfishers getting ready to breed down there! Have they no respect at all? I’m going down there to sort them out!’

  Freddy watched astonished as Feathers stalked to his car and raced off towards the flying fox, only to be stopped by a policeman blocking one of the lanes. Laughing softly to himself, he pointed his binoculars back towards the wood on the western end of the flying fox.

  ◆◆◆

  ‘Here I am Selina!’ hissed Emma. ‘Here! I’ve got you a thermos of hot water.’

  ‘What the hell for you silly cow?’ asked Selina crossly, as she stepped carefully from rock to rock to where Emma was sat on her bike.

  Emma winked. ‘You’ll get Selina’s make up off a hell of a lot easier with warm water than cold!’

  Selina’s eyebrows rose. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. Good girl! Give us it and get the hell out of here!’

  Emma, dressed identically to Selina, stood on her pedals and headed south.

  Peregrin snarled in satisfaction as he saw what he thought was Selina, heading south down the riverbank towards Little Throcking. He waited until he was sure she wasn’t going to turn back, then ran to his car, where he radioed in what had happened. A marked car arrived next to him just as he was pulling away.

  ‘Don’t touch the Mini! And unless the platform catches fire, don’t go near it either. Leave it for the forensics team!’ he yelled as he left.

  Selina dragged her bike free from its hiding place, popped the thermos into the bag, then crept to the edge of the trees to see if Peregrin was still there. Seeing nobody, she ran back to her bike and pedalled off upstream as hard as she could.

  She flicked left into the Widow Maker, and cleared her mind of all doubts. This was a oncer. She thought this was possible, but she wasn’t sure. Well, she had to think it was sure before she started. One twinge of doubt and it would be all over.

  She stopped a few yards before the right hand bend that led into the start of the curving bluff, and marked out the line she was going to take. She steadied her breathing, visualised what she was about to do, and went for it.

  The bike was travelling about fifteen miles per hour when she reached the point of no return. She banked it ever so slightly over to the right to enter the beginning of the left hand horseshoe curve, but pulled the wheel around a bit more than it would have done naturally. It bit, stuttered and complained in the soft earth, but it held.

  Then gently, she did the same thing in reverse, until her tyres were skating on the inside edge of the curve, her body hanging out above the vertical drop. The rear pinged a large rock away and the jolt made her think she was gone, but the bike held true to its course. With infinite care, she brought it back to the vertical again, and shot through the exit of the curve, the end of her right hand pedal grazing a line into the soft earth above the track.

  The bike twitched once more on the impact, and it wobbled dangerously towards the edge of the bluff, but she managed to hold it together. Only once she’d guided her steed down the slope to the Beck’s pond did she allow herself to breathe once more.

  Shaking with fear, she opened her pack and pulled her things out, arranging them carefully to her right. She stripped off her coat, jumper and tee shirt, laying them carefully to her left. Then she lowered the bra straps off her shoulders, and set to work removing Selina’s pale makeup from her face, neck and chest.

  ‘Thank you Emma, you fabulous woman!’ she whispered, as the hot water from the thermos made light work of cleaning her skin.

  Then she rearranged her bra, and threw on the tee shirt and jumper, before applying Mia’s freckles and putting on the red wig. She decided she’d have to leave the eyebrows and lashes. She didn’t really have the time, and people would be too far away to tell anyway.

  The transition was complete. Instead of Selina the murderous blonde dressed like an Allo Allo resistance girl, here was Mia the glamorous redhead in a figure hugging white sweater designed to catch the eye. She smiled with approval into her mirror, but it wasn’t over yet. The race was still on.

  24 The run for home

  Emma pedalled as hard as she could away from the trees, standing on the pedals whenever possible. To Peregrin, it really did look like Selina going hell for leather to beat him to Little Throcking.

  Only once Emma was around the headland and out of his sight, did she stop to recover. As she lay on the ground trying to steady her breathing, she checked the camera. Five shots left, as planned.

  She got to her feet, picked up the bike and began to push it up the track, making great play of looking down the cliff to the beach, and setting up her shots with care.

  In fact she was still so far down the track when Peregrin arrived in Little Throcking, that at first he thought she must have already been and gone. However, once he’d spotted her, he sent two of the uniformed boys out over the fields above the track, one to look down on her, the other to look down into the river valley in case she made another run for it.

  He himself was waiting at the head of the track with another two uniformed officers, when Eric and Susan turned up in a very muddy Astra.

  ‘Enjoy your little spin Eric?’ laughed Peregrin.

  ‘Very funny sir.’ replied a deeply unhappy Eric.

  Susan said nothing, but stood behind him with a
wry smile.

  Emma took her time. She was still a hundred yards away when she set up for her third shot.

  ‘What the hell is she doing?’ asked Eric. ‘Why don’t we just go down and get the bitch?’

  ‘She can’t get away Eric.’ said Peregrin. ‘Perhaps she’s just relishing her final moments of freedom.’

  But there was something about the woman that was worrying him. Was that hair a different style to what he’d seen in the Mini? Was the way she carried herself quite right?

  Two cyclists stopped next to them on their way out of the village, and James ran across the road to join them. He’d walked down the hill after realising he wasn’t going to be seeing anything more from the house.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked one of the cyclists.

  ‘It’s a pursuit sir.’ replied Peregrin calmly. And then he saw it, the corner of Emma’s coat. Where was the burn? Certainty struck him. ‘It’s not her!’ he cried.

  ‘You!’ he said to the shorter of the uniform boys. ‘Get on the radio and order officers to seal off the northern ends of the tracks that come out of there!’

  He turned to the two cyclists. ‘We need to commandeer your bikes for a little while.’

  ‘But it’s brand new!’ objected the second of the riders.

  ‘Don’t worry sir.’ said Peregrin. ‘We’ll pay for any damage done.’ hoping to hell they would.

  ‘Susan, Eric, get on those bikes and come with me!’ he called back over his shoulder as he went running off down the hill.

  Emma saw them coming, and used her penultimate frame to catch them just twenty yards away.

  ‘Hello Peregrin!’ she said with a welcoming smile. ‘I didn’t know you were a runner. Not the best of clothes for it though.’ she said, looking askance at his suit and smart shoes.

  ‘Emma! What the hell are you playing at?’ he demanded.

  ‘Peregrin!’ she replied, shocked. ‘Whatever are you talking about?’

  ‘You know exactly what I’m talking about! I’ve just been chasing the woman who killed the lad who drove into your husband, and guess what? She’s dressed exactly like you! How do you account for that?’ he asked angrily.