Rendezvous With Danger

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• Margaret Pemberton
  
• For my husband, Michael
  
• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• Chapter Nine
  
• Chapter Ten
  
• Chapter Eleven
  
• Chapter Twelve
  
• Chapter Thirteen
  
• Chapter Fourteen
  
• Chapter Fifteen
  
• Chapter Sixteen
  
• Chapter Seventeen
  
• Chapter Eighteen
  
• Chapter Nineteen
  

Margaret Pemberton is the bestselling author of over thirty novels in many different genres, some of which are contemporary in setting and some historical.

She has served as Chairman of the Romantic Novelists' Association and has three times served as a committee member of the Crime Writers' Association. Born in Bradford, she is married to a Londoner, has five children and two dogs and lives in Whitstable, Kent. Apart from writing, her passions are tango, travel, English history and the English countryside.

I kicked off my sandals and sat down on the grassy hillside. Far below me the river wound in giant curves through the valley, the narrow road I had just travelled skirting its banks. On either side were green meadows kneedeep in summer flowers, rising gently into slopes of fir and pine. There wasn't a sound except for a bee lazily circling above my head.

I rolled over on to my stomach and reached idly for the binoculars. In the distance was a cluster of houses, the sun glinting on the shingled roofs and on the gilded spire of a tiny church. The surrounding fields were neatly tilled, and above them were orchards of apple trees, their boughs heavy with summer fruit. As I lowered my glasses I could see my parked car at the foot of the hill, almost hidden by the trees.

Niedernhall, the village where I was staying, lay some ten miles to the east, cupped in the sheltered fold of a small valley. It was encircled by crumbling walls, with each corner turreted and battlemented and a gable-ended watch-tower guarding the approach over the village bridge. The road across it was Niedernhall's only main street. It wound its way irregularly through the centre of the village, curving up the hill on the far side for three hundred yards or so, to die into a country path, amid fields thick with poppies and cornflowers. From here I intended lazily exploring a wild and lovely area, not often visited. Tourists either go south at Heidelberg to the castles of southern Bavaria, or continue on the autobahn to the more spectacular scenery of Austria.

I lay back, savouring the peace and tranquillity, happily unaware of the large car speeding down the road from Mannheim, its occupants as unaware of my presence high up on that deserted hillside as I was of theirs. Their arrival, when they rounded the bend in the road far below, would shatter my relaxed, restful holiday, and alter completely all my carefully arranged plans. But at that moment in time there was no sense of impending disaster, no intuition of what was to come.

A year ago I had stayed overnight in Niedernhall with a girl friend, en route for a fortnight in Innsbruck. Our holiday had been very successful, especially so for Charlotte, as it was while we were there that she met John Mammers whose wife she now was. However, his gain had been my loss, at least where holidays were concerned, and my bosom friend since schooldays had disappeared beneath a shower of confetti and good wishes to the north of England, leaving me without a companion. There was one compensation. It meant I was entirely free as to the choice of destination. Lazing in the country, doing nothing more exciting than exploring the medieval churches in the area, would not have pleased Charlotte. Her voice on the telephone had been incredulous.

‘Susan, you can't be serious! That submerged hamlet, buried miles away in the depths of ancient Franconia?'

‘Swabia.'

‘Don't split hairs, it's all the same. You surely can't have forgotten the plumbing—it was straight from the Middle Ages. What on earth do you intend
doing
there, for heaven's sake?' Then, not waiting for a reply: ‘ I had a letter from Liza saying she'd wanted you to go with her to Spain, Sitges I believe, a little further south than Barcelona. Now wouldn't that be better? Plenty of sun and swimming instead of mouldering in the countryside.'

‘I can assure you, Lottie, I shall be quite happy, and not mouldering as you so charmingly put it. I have the car and there are lots of places round about worth visiting.'

‘You're not doing a retreat, are you?' Charlotte's voice was both suspicious and accusing. ‘I thought you hadn't minded when Heathcliff returned to the States. If that's the cause of this “ I want to be alone” kick …'

‘If you are referring to Ian Davies,' I replied warmly,
‘no,
I am not doing a retreat and
yes,
I wasn't bothered when he returned to the States.'

‘Your grammar is slipping,' she said complacently. ‘ Now I know I'm right. It's typical of you, going all nunlike and introspective. Now Spain would offer just the right diversion, take your mind off things.'

I laughed. ‘No good, Lottie. You're way off beam. A lazy holiday without crowds of tourists swarming everywhere, doing what I want, when I want, will suit me fine. I'll send you a postcard.'

‘Of a monastery?' I thought I heard her say, before replacing the receiver.

Well, it might not appeal to Charlotte, but it appealed to me, and as I had absolutely no one to consider but myself, I had returned to Niedernhall. On this, my second day there, I had as yet no cause to regret the decision.

I wasn't staying in a hotel but was bed-and-breakfasting at Frau Schmidt's, where we had stayed on our overnight stop the previous year. She lived in a small, stone-built cottage on the main street of the village. The upper walls bellied out over the cobbled pavement, covered with a thick, green creeper that spread its leafy tentacles over the mellowed stone and was probably responsible for holding the house in a vertical position. Petunias and fuchsias bloomed thickly in troughs on each window-sill and in pink and purple profusion in hanging baskets above the door. There were few concessions to the twentieth century, but the spartan interior was highly polished and the stone floors downstairs were scoured to a brilliant whiteness despite the stray hens that wandered desultorily in and out. There were two bedrooms on the second floor, each sparsely furnished with a dark wooden bed and a large chest for clothes. Handmade quilts and rugs brightened the sombre furniture, and there were jugs of summer flowers on the window-bottom.

Though I spoke hardly any German and Frau Schmidt's English was limited, she had made me feel as if my return was the highlight of her year and had fussed over me like a mother hen its chick. I had shown her a photograph of a veiled and smiling Charlotte which threw her into raptures of delight, and she had raised my ringless hand, scolding and chastizing me for still being single.

I was only paying for bed and breakfast but she had insisted I take a packed lunch of thick-cut sandwiches, various cold sausages and home-made pastries with me when I left the house for the day. It would have fed a coachload of tourists let alone myself, but the fresh, clear air had sharpened my appetite and I was already looking forward to a picnic.

I raised my hand to shield my eyes from the sun as I looked around for a suitable place. I had left behind the thickly wooded lower slopes, and was now sitting on the grassy uplands without any protection from the sun's rays. From above came the distant sound of running water. It seemed to come from the crown of the hill, where a solitary group of pines stood silhouetted against the cloudless sky. The heat was intensifying and the shadows cast by the thick branches looked coolly inviting. Hitching my bag on to my shoulder I set off, the harebells and long grasses brushing pleasantly against my legs.

Ten minutes later I reached the summit and the welcoming shade. In the shadow of the grove of trees, a spring of water burst out of the ground, its source surrounded by small summer flowers of pink and yellow, tumbling in its narrow bed down the hillside. High up above a curlew wheeled and turned, and in the distance were small figures, hard at work in the vineyards.

Frau Schmidt had certainly done me proud. For fifteen minutes or so I sat there, leisurely eating my lunch and listening to the hypnotic surge of the water as it flowed past my feet, thinking of nothing in particular.

Just as I was about to put away my things, I saw the small dot of a car some miles to the north. The road curved out of view, but in an amazingly short space of time the car appeared again. I reached for the binoculars.

Even at this distance I could see it was moving dangerously fast. Another curve of hills hid it from sight, and then, minutes later, it swept round the bend in the road directly below me. As it burst into my field of vision again, it lost control, spinning wildly across the road—one, two, three times—in complete circles. I sprang to my feet with a shout of horror, gripping the glasses. I couldn't see clearly for the thick, enveloping clouds of dust the skidding wheels had gouged from the road. With a slam I could almost hear, it rocketed into the base of the hill, shuddering from end to end, shattered glass flying in all directions. Then there was stillness, the only movement the panicstricken flight of a flock of birds.

I was on my feet, half running, binoculars still glued to my face. The clouds of dust that had engulfed the car cleared, and with overwhelming relief I saw the driver's door open slowly, and the stout figure of a middle-aged man gingerly climb out. A second or so later, the other door opened, and his companion, a bald man, equally shaken, and feeling his arms and legs as if to reassure himself of their continued attachment, joined him. He leaned, head in hands, against the concertinaed wreck. The bonnet was now embedded deeply in the soft undergrowth on the wrong side of the road, the rear wheels lifted clear, spinning slowly to a stop.

I ran back to collect my bag, hastily stuffing the remnants of my picnic inside, then hurried as fast as I dare down the steep slope towards them.

I hadn't gone very far when a movement attracted my attention again. I slowed down and raised the binoculars, then stopped to focus better, puzzled. Instead of getting their breath back and recovering from what must have been a considerable shock, they were both agitatedly looking back along the road they had travelled. The bald man seemed to be shouting at his companion and was waving his fists at him. His friend, ignoring him, had turned his attention from the empty road and was now stamping his feet on the ground and dusting down his jacket and trousers. He was much smaller, with dark red hair and a magnificent moustache, dressed as an English country gentleman might, out for a day's shooting. As he wiped his hands on his handkerchief, he saw my car parked on the verge some yards ahead.