Dark Encounter

by Susanna Firth

  To add to Kate's troubles the windscreen wipers, after battling valiantly against the downpour, finally gave up the ghost. Cursing, she got out of the car to investigate, but the flurries of hail which stung her eyes and numbed her hands frustrated her efforts.

  She was unmechanical at the best of times, but finding the fault in this weather seemed even more of an impossibility than usual. She gave a last ineffectual poke at the windscreen, but the wipers remained stubbornly jammed. She gave up and got back in the car. The smart brown trouser-suit, which she had thought so suitable for the journey, was soaked and her shoes squelched dismally. She shivered and wished that she'd had the sense to have the car heater mended before she left London. Still, it couldn't be too far to travel now, if she'd followed Aunt Meg's rather involved directions correctly. If she took it slowly she should manage without any accidents even with the windscreen teeming with hailstones.

  Kate peered anxiously ahead down the country lane whose twists and turns she had been following for the last half hour, hoping desperately that she was heading in the right direction for Westford. In the half-light of the afternoon it was hard to get her bearings, although the broken-down farmhouse she had passed ten minutes ago must surely have been the one Aunt Meg had marked on the map. She supposed she should have stopped and asked for help.

  It was too late to bother about that now. If this was the right way there should be a turning to the right just round the next corner. And there it was! Kate's spirits lifted and she edged the car slowly down the narrow lane, barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other, with growing confidence. Not long to go now before Aunt Meg would be giving Kate a warm welcome and fussing round her. It would be good to end the journey, she thought, shivering as she drove cautiously on.

  As she approached the next twist in the lane she caught the hum of a car engine a little distance behind her and approaching at some speed. 'He ought to know better than to travel at that rate on roads like these,' Kate muttered to herself furiously. The words were hardly spoken before a car horn sounded harshly as a vehicle took the curve that she was rounding. It was almost upon her by the time she had wrenched frantically at the steering wheel in an attempt to get out of its path and avoid what seemed to be the inevitable collision. The other driver reacted equally quickly and, missing the Mini by inches, swerved at a crazy angle. It smashed against a tree and landed a few yards away in a ditch at the other side of the road.

  Kate stopped and was out of the car in a moment, crossing the lane to see what she could do to help. Considering the force with which the other car had avoided her its occupants would be lucky indeed to have escaped without serious injury. Her anxious glance revealed only one figure, a man, inside the car and, to judge from the way he was wrenching aside the restraining band of his seat belt, it seemed that he was not badly hurt. She breathed a sigh of relief as she moved forward to assist him in pushing the buckled front door aside so that he could step out into the road.

  Mercifully he seemed to have survived the experience without a scratch. But it was instantly made clear to Kate that, if his person had escaped injury, his temper most certainly had not.

  'What the hell do you think you were playing at? You could have killed us both, you stupid fool!'

  Kate wasn't sure what reaction she had expected from the driver of the car that had come close to mowing her down, but the cold fury in his voice brought an instant response from her. 'What was I playing at?' she exploded. 'I think you're the one with some explaining to do. You were driving like a maniac! You should know better than to speed on roads like these.'

  'And I suppose you consider the snail's pace at which you were travelling was more suited to public safety? If crawling along at ten miles an hour is your idea of a brisk pace, woman, it's time you went back to driving school.'

  'As it happens,' Kate informed him sharply, 'my windscreen wipers aren't working and I was travelling as fast as I dared considering that I couldn't see too well in this downpour. I was in the right, and if you want my opinion—'

  'Not particularly.' He cut her short and turned abruptly to examine the damage suffered by his car, leaving Kate standing in the middle of the road, indignation robbing her of words for an adequate reply to such rudeness. His voice, coldly sarcastic, floated back to her. 'And, if you've got the safety of your fellow travellers so much at heart, it might be an idea to stop blocking the road. The next traveller to come along might not be as good at avoiding you as I was.' His tone indicated a certain hope that this might be the case. 'I think that causing one accident ought to be enough for you tonight, don't you?'

  Arrogant swine, Kate thought, nevertheless moving hastily to stand on the edge of the ditch. The driving sleet, which showed no sign of letting up, quickly soaked through her clothes, already damp from her last encounter with the elements. She shivered violently, feeling colder and more bedraggled at that moment than she had ever done in her life before.

  The stranger was bending over the front wheels of his car, which were twisted at a crazy angle and buried firmly in the mud of the ditch. Kate studied him warily. A first glance had given her only a quick impression of a giant of a man who had towered menacingly over her. Now, with the leisure to inspect him more closely, she realised that he must indeed be well over six feet tall and powerfully built. Without that disagreeable expression on his face, she mused, he'd be almost good-looking. Always supposing one's taste inclined to dark-haired men. Jeremy was fair-haired and blue-eyed, with the sort of boyish charm that had bowled over every woman he had met. If the stranger was capable of charm, thought Kate wryly, he didn't seem to think that she merited its use. He'd learn soon enough that these cave-men tactics wouldn't get him anywhere! She stamped her feet in a vain attempt to keep warm and wondered how long she would have to wait before he delivered some kind of verdict on the damage.

  'Have you no sense at all?' The stranger's tall figure loomed in front of her again. Apparently his inspection of his battered car was now completed and his irritable voice roused Kate from her stupor of cold. 'Why the hell didn't you get back in your car and wait for me out of the rain?'

  It would serve you right if I got in the car and drove off, she thought viciously. I wonder how you'd have managed. Instead she told him, making a valiant effort to keep her temper, 'I thought there might be something I could do.'

  'Did you?' His contempt stung her. 'I think you've done a little too much already, so you'll understand if I don't take you up on your kind offer of help.' And, as she opened her mouth to reply, he said impatiently, 'For God's sake, stop arguing and let's get out of the cold.'

  His words made some sense, Kate admitted, and she submitted to being bustled across the road and into the shelter of her own car. Safely ensconced on the front seat beside her, he stripped off his expensive-looking driving gloves, which, Kate noted with some satisfaction, were covered with dirt and mud, and ordered her briskly, 'Get the heater on, will you, or would you like to try and kill me of cold now?'

  'I've told you that it wasn't my fault—'

  'All right, forget it,' he said wearily. 'I've enough problems without arguing the toss with you all night over who was to blame. Just put the heater on before we both freeze.'

  It gave Kate no small pleasure to tell him, 'It doesn't work.'

  He swore under his breath and when he spoke again she could tell it was costing him an effort not to lose his temper. 'You'd better get me to a phone as quickly as possible so that I can contact a garage and get a breakdown truck here.'

  'I keep a tow-rope in the boot for emergencies,' Kate suggested, glad at last to have a chance to prove herself other than the fool he so obviously considered her. 'Couldn't we try using that?'

  'My dear Miss—Mrs—?'

  'Miss. Sherwood. Kate Sherwood.'

  'My dear Miss Sherwood,' he spoke as if addressing a not very bright five-year-old, 'it will take a heavy truck to drag my car out of' that mud, and then it's a write-off until the steering column's
fixed. What I require, as I believe I've already told you once, is a local garage with a decent breakdown service. Do you think it's within your limited powers to get me to one?'

  'Yes, of course. I see what you mean. But there's really no need to speak to me as if I'm an idiot or something.'

  'I generally speak as I find,' he commented nastily.

  'I was only trying to help.'

  'Heaven preserve us,' he muttered, and turned to free the buckle of his seat belt which was caught up in the door.

  Presented with the back of his arrogant head, Kate fought the temptation to throw something at him. The sooner she drove this boorish stranger to the nearest phone and deposited him there to make his own arrangements, the better it would be for both of them. He obviously didn't consider her any use at all to him. Well, that was all right by her! she decided. She forced herself to enquire in a reasonably neutral tone where he would like to be driven.

  'How should I know?' was the irritable response. 'I'm a stranger here.'

  Definitely not the moment to try his temper by admitting that she had only the vaguest idea where she might be at this precise point. Kate thought swiftly. Should she reverse and try to find that broken-down place she had passed some time before? perhaps there wouldn't be a phone there and she might miss the house in the dark. She could think of few more unattractive fates than getting lost in the wilderness of narrow lanes which she had so recently negotiated. Better to travel on and look for a farm or a cottage somewhere off the road ahead. At least they would be driving in what she hoped was the direction of Westford.

  It took three attempts to start the car and, although the stranger forbore to comment, she was aware of his impatience. Silence yawned between them. Hardly an occasion for making small talk. Kate couldn't help smiling at the thought of exchanging platitudes about the weather with the arrogant man by her side.

  'I'd hardly have thought the mess we're in is a laughing matter.' His disagreeable tones cut in on her reflections. 'Or are you given to smiling vacantly instead of concentrating on your driving?'

  She ignored that sally and he lapsed into silence again. The next few minutes passed in comparative peace, although Kate was all too conscious of the critical figure beside her, causing her to make mistakes, do silly things that she would normally never have done. By way of excuse she told him, 'I'm really quite a good driver. I don't know what's got into me tonight.'

  'Indeed?'

  She fumed inwardly. Let him make just one more crack like that, just one more sarcastic comment and—

  'Stop a few yards ahead on the right. There's a light shining. It looks as if it might be a farm or something.' His eyes, keener than hers, had spotted a building some distance away. 'Wait here,' he ordered her. 'I'll go and investigate.'

  'I'll come too!'

  'No point two of us getting drenched,' he said firmly, ignoring the fact that Kate was already soaked to the skin. 'I'll be back.' The door slammed and he was gone, swallowed up in the darkness before she could argue further.

  'Arrogant, domineering swine!' she shouted after him. Although the object of the insult was already too far away to hear it, it gave her a certain amount of relief from the pent-up tension which had gripped her throughout her encounter with the stranger. Of course it wouldn't occur to him that she might have better things to do than meekly await his bidding. Overbearing brute! It would serve him right if she decided to drive off into the darkness and leave him. She wondered how he would react if he came back and found her gone. It was a tempting idea, but she abandoned it reluctantly. If there wasn't a phone at this house, she supposed it was her duty to drive him on until he found somewhere he could summon help. And, her conscience told her, although it hadn't been her fault that the accident had happened, perhaps she was slightly in the wrong…

  The rain seemed to be slackening at last, although she could still feel the wind buffeting the car from all sides. A trickle of water ran down her neck and she wriggled uncomfortably. God knows what he would say if he found that the roof of the car leaked as well as all its other defects. At least Aunt Meg wouldn't be worrying over her non-appearance. Kate had made it clear that she would be taking the journey in easy stages. 'I'm not out to break any records,' she had written to her, 'so expect me when you see me.' The thought of Aunt Meg's loving welcome and with it the prospect of food, a hot bath and a bed for the night was absolute bliss.

  A noise at the car door roused her from pleasant vision of home comforts. An icy draught blew into the car as the stranger's wet form eased itself inside.

  'They've no phone, but suggest that we drive on to the nearest village, which is called Westford, where there's a garage which may be able to help. Apparently we're only a mile or so from it, so it's hardly worth our while trying to phone from somewhere else. They offered us coffee or a hot meal, but I told them we hadn't time to stop.'

  High-handed as ever. Kate cursed him silently. 'It wouldn't occur to you to consult me about that, I suppose?' she asked coldly.

  'No, Miss Sherwood, it didn't occur to me. My time's too vital to waste at the moment. And where I'm concerned time is money. I'm due back in London for an urgent meeting tonight and the sooner I'm on my way the better.'

  'And what I think is of no account?'

  'I assumed that you would prefer to spend no more time in my company than was strictly necessary.' His tone was bland. 'Wasn't I right in doing so?'

  'Perfectly right,' said Kate, gritting her teeth and driving on.

  The short distance to the village of Westford was covered with reasonable speed and, once there, the garage, the only one which the village possessed, was easy to locate. Kate drew up outside it with a flourish. Her relief at getting rid of her unwelcome passenger was intense, but she made an effort to be pleasant as she said goodbye to him.

  'I hope everything is settled all right and you don't have to wait too long for your car to be mended,' she said brightly, holding out her hand in polite farewell.

  He ignored the gesture. 'Count yourself lucky that I've neither the time nor the inclination to pursue the matter. Otherwise you might find yourself facing a heavy bill for damage to my car. Still, I suppose you did you best to make amends, so I'm prepared to forget the matter.'

  'How dare you!' Kate finally lost the battle to keep her temper. 'So you're prepared to forget the matter. How very gracious of you. You couldn't be more eager to forget the matter than I am. I've never met such a rude, overbearing, completely selfish man. The only consolation is that I'm never likely to meet anyone worse than you however long I search!'

  'This is hardly the time for a public slanging match.'

  'I'm not likely to have another chance to tell you what I think of you. I never want to see you again—and thank God I'm not likely to!'

  It seemed that her last insult had fallen on deaf ears as he extricated himself from the front seat of the Mini and ignored her. But, once on the pavement, he held the door open and turned back to speak to her. 'It seems that at last we've found a subject on which we do agree, Miss Sherwood. I think I could live a long time without feeling any desire to see you again.'

  He slammed the door shut and walked away without a backward glance.

  CHAPTER TWO

  'He was so rude! He didn't even have the common courtesy to thank me for rescuing him and driving him to the garage. He just walked off without a word of acknowledgement as if I was beneath his notice.' Not the precise truth, but Kate had no intention of repeating the stranger's hurtful parting words to anyone, not even Aunt Meg. Safely ensconced in an armchair in Aunt Meg's comfortable sitting-room with the horrors of the journey behind her, she was still fuming over her meeting on the road.

  It had not taken her very long to find Aunt Meg's guest house in a community which seemed to consist of only a small cluster of houses and shops centred round the village square. 'You can't miss Glebe House,' Aunt Meg had written with the airy assurance of one who knew the place well. After following her aunt's involved
directions of the route to the village and being convinced that they had added miles to her journey, Kate expected a lengthy tour of the village before she found the right house. In fact, despite the gloom of the narrow turnings off the main square, she had no difficulty in locating the house with its weatherbeaten sign at the door announcing 'Bed and Breakfast'.

  It had been a relief to be greeted at last by Aunt Meg, a small, grey-haired woman, whose deceptive air of fragility concealed more energy and ability to organise than anyone Kate had ever known. She had been shocked by her guest's bedraggled appearance and, treating her much as she had done in the days when Kate had been a tomboyish eight-year-old, forever falling out of trees and into duckponds, had allowed her no time to explain what had happened to her before despatching her firmly up the stairs to take a hot bath. 'Time enough to tell me all about it later,' she told Kate. 'We don't want you going down with pneumonia or worse at the start of your holidays. Don't go bothering about unpacking your cases now. There's a clean towel on the rail in the bathroom and you can use that dressing-gown of mine that's hanging behind the door. It's old, but it's clean and it'll keep you warm enough for the moment.' And Aunt Meg had disappeared to the kitchen to arrange some supper for her.

  Kate emerged from the bathroom a little later restored from a shivering wreck to something approaching her normal self and now, with a tray of hot food on her lap, she sat relishing the warmth of the blazing log fire. As she ate she offered Aunt Meg a slightly expurgated version of her encounter with the disagreeable man who had caused her to be so late.