This Way Out (29 page)

‘Is he all right?'

‘Yes, apart from his hand. Well, physically all right. But he's in a dreadfully mixed-up state, not just about really loving you, but about other problems. He's been having terrible nightmares, and I don't know how to help him – except to beg you to let him come back home.'

Christine sighed. Then she gave the girl a wry smile. ‘I think you'd better come in and tell me about it.'

Derek could find no way out of his problems. Every stratagem he tried resulted in different worries, fresh complications.

Persuading Belinda to remove her father from Winter Paddocks had seemed to free him from carrying out Packer's plan to murder the old man. But then he'd realized that Belinda would insist on telling the police of her husband's intentions, innocently informing them that Hugh had tried to involve Derek Cartwright of Anchor Life.

He had done his best to get out of that one by helping her take her father, on Thursday, to stay with their Ely relatives. While Belinda settled her father in, Derek pretended that he was going to the police station to tell them what he knew about Hugh.

Afterwards, when they met at the Lamb for a drink before returning to Newmarket, Belinda had wanted to know exactly what he had said to the police, and what they had said to him. Fortunately he was getting better at constructive lying. He told her that he had given the police a full statement, and convinced her that everything was now under control and there was nothing she needed to do.

At least he hoped he'd convinced her. But how could he be sure? He knew that he'd been over-elaborating, and that Belinda had looked at him several times with concern. Did she guess that he was lying? And if so, would she get in touch with the police herself as soon as he'd left her?

It was this fear that had made him suggest that they should still spend Thursday night together at Winter Paddocks. It would give Belinda a break from her father, he said, and it would be very much nicer for him than going back to his Cambridge hotel. No complications this time, he promised; just friendship.

And that had worked, on one level, staving off at least some of his worries for a few hours. Belinda had been very sweet to him. But when she announced that she would of course tell her solicitor about Hugh, Derek knew that his chances of going unmentioned were lessening.

He'd begged her not to involve him – for fear, he said, of disrupting his chances of a reconciliation with his wife. But although Belinda sympathized and agreed, he felt that it was unrealistic to expect her to be more concerned about him than about her husband's threats. It could only be a matter of time before the police were alerted, and began to connect his name with Hugh Packer's.

Even if Belinda did her best to shield him, there was still Packer himself to be feared. What would the man do when he returned to Winter Paddocks and found his father-in-law gone? He couldn't blame Derek for it, or for the fact that the original plan for murdering the old man on Sunday was now off. But Hugh Packer wouldn't just give up. He wouldn't abandon his plan because his father-in-law wasn't at home on one particular day, he'd simply switch it to a later date.

Packer wouldn't consider using any other accomplice, either. Why should he, when he'd already got Derek Cartwright stitched up? No, it would be a repeat of the same old situation, with the evil bastard following him wherever he went and hounding him until he did the job. There would be no release from Packer, Derek knew that now, until he had committed the murder.

On Friday morning, after the inevitably dream-tormented night – spent this time in Belinda's spare room – Derek parted from her with some relief. She was a splendid, generous girl, and he knew he'd done the honourable thing by warning her against her husband; but he wished to God he hadn't jeopardized his own security in the process.

Now, though, all the thoughts and emotions he could detach from his private problems centred on Christine. He loved her. He needed her. He wanted to go home.

But did she love and need him? And anyway, where was home? For him, it would always be with her, wherever she was. But supposing she wouldn't allow that? Suppposing she still rejected him – what was he to do?

All that he knew for sure was that he had to go to Christine, as soon as possible, and attempt a reconciliation.

He gave Belinda a hasty, absent-minded farewell hug. Then he opened the double gates, watched her drive Sidney's Rolls through (with a moment's regret that yesterday, when he'd driven the powerful car for her and her father, he'd been too fraught to enjoy the experience) and waved her away to Ely. He had already moved his Sierra out of the garage block, locked the doors and given Belinda the keys. Now, returning to his car, he discovered that he had a flat tyre.

Cursing, and hampered by his still-aching hand, he pulled off his jacket and got down to the job of changing the tyre. It would have been just his luck to have had to do it in the rain, but in fact it was a very warm morning for mid-April. The sun on his back as he worked, jacking up the car and prizing off the hub cap, gave promise of as much heat as there had been on the day when he'd met Hugh Packer in the traffic jam, and by an idle comment started the process that was inexorably ruining his life.

But none of it was his fault, it was Packer's. No decent man would take a stranger up on a casual remark and twist it into a conspiracy to murder. Hugh Packer was evil. For a moment, imagining that he saw the man's wolfish face reflected in the hub cap, Derek remembered the satisfaction he had once gained from lashing out at him and knocking him down.

He picked up the wrench, and rested for a moment on his haunches before tackling the wheel nuts. How much more satisfactory it would be, it occurred to him, as he hefted the wrench in his good hand, to clobber Packer with a weapon like that! To kill him, even –

Well, yes. And perhaps he could do it, as long as he struck the man in hot blood. But he couldn't do it with premeditation. As he applied the wrench to its proper purpose, grunting with the effort of loosening the wheel nuts, Derek knew that he could never bring himself to use premeditated violence against anyone. He simply wasn't that kind of man. Besides, his dreams were terrible enough already.

Finishing the job, he packed away his tools and wiped the dirt from his good hand with the rag he kept for the purpose. There was nothing he could do about his soiled bandages – but come to think of it, if today was Friday, and he thought it was, then he was due to go to the health centre to have the stitches out.

He would have to go through Breckham Market on the way to Wyveling, so he might as well have his hand done before seeing Christine. No – on second thoughts, he couldn't bear to waste time. He wanted to talk to her as soon as possible. And anyway, if she saw how neglected he looked, she might be more favourably disposed towards him.

He drove out through the gates, stopped the car, and went back to close them. He was just driving off when he saw that another car was approaching down the narrow tree-lined road, and so he pulled back in front of the gates to give it room to pass. But as the car neared, it slowed.

He didn't recognize the vehicle, and when it rolled to a stop beside him he knew why. The man behind the wheel was Hugh Packer, his darkly handsome face distorted by a scowl. As Packer got out of the car and slammed the door, Derek felt his stomach dip.

‘What the hell are you doing here?' Packer demanded.

Derek wound down his window. With anxious inspiration rather than presence of mind, he heard himself reply, ‘I came to look the place over, so that I'd know my way round on Sunday.'

‘You bloody fool! Now you've ruined my plan – Belinda's probably seen you.'

‘No, she hasn't. And the plan's off. I saw her take her father away in the Rolls about twenty minutes ago.'

‘How do you know the plan's off? They may be back by lunch-time.'

‘I don't think so. When I first drove past, I saw her loading suitcases into the car.'

Packer swore, and strutted rapidly up and down in thought. Derek had forgotten – he always forgot, because in his mind the man assumed the proportions of a monster – how small he was in reality.

‘Belinda will have left a note for me in the house,' decided Packer, returning to the window. ‘I expect she's taken Sidney to Ely – I was supposed to be going there with her on Sunday, so she'll want me to join them. All right, then: this Sunday's off. But I know she won't stay away for more than a few days, because the old man's difficult to cope with away from home.'

He took a pocket diary from his blazer and riffled it through. ‘The following Sunday will suit me almost as well. I'll book a table for lunch somewhere for Belinda and myself, and arrange for the untrained help to sit with the old man.' He bent towards Derek, displaying his canine tooth in a narrow smile. ‘Right, so we'll make it Sunday week.'

Derek swallowed. Here they were, arranging the date of an old man's death, and Packer was treating it with no more emotion than he would a game of golf. ‘I'm not sure –' he began, trying to invent a previous engagement; but Packer shot out his hand and grabbed him by the knot of his tie, threatening to choke him.

‘Then you'd bloody better
make
sure, Derek,' he said. A bead of spittle gleamed on his tooh. ‘I want this over and done with, understand?'

Derek nodded, with difficulty. Packer released his hold. ‘The only snag', he said as if to himself, ‘is that there'll be no Pony Club event that Sunday, and no car-park. I'll have to find somewhere for you to pull in off the road.' He stabbed a finger at Derek: ‘Wait there!'

Speechless with anger, but impotent to do anything else, Derek sat waiting. He watched Packer check that there was no traffic in sight, and then swagger briskly along the road beside the garden wall. Where the wall turned in at a right angle among the trees, Packer disappeared behind it.

Within a few seconds Derek saw him emerge, apparently satisfied that he had found a suitably hidden parking-place. Standing on the narrow grass verge, Packer beckoned imperiously. Obedient still, Derek put the car in gear and began to roll.

There was nothing premeditated about what he did then. His mind seemed to have closed down. But the mounting fear and loathing he felt for Hugh Packer released a surge of adrenalin that impelled him to attack, with whatever weapon he had available. On instinct, he shifted the engine into second gear, slammed his foot on the accelerator, turned the wheel and went straight at his tormentor.

Packer saw him coming, but didn't seem to believe what he saw. Quite clearly, from the initial look of annoyance on his face, it simply hadn't occurred to him that Derek would ever fight. Then the man's expression changed, from annoyance through perplexity to unease, and then to abject fear.

Packer turned to run. Colliding with a tree trunk, he almost bounced back into the path of the car. Still trying to run, he twisted his body round, opened his mouth in frantic appeal and flung up his hands, as if to ward off the mass of metal and glass and rubber that Derek was propelling towards him.

Outwardly calm, Derek felt a thump against the bumper and saw Packer shoot up into the air, growing a foot taller in front of his eyes. He braked, swinging the wheel to avoid the tree. Packer fell towards him, hands monstrously outstretched, momentarily filling Derek's view before he landed with a crunch, face down on the bonnet. Then, slowly, as if he were shrinking, he began to slide backwards off the nearside of the car.

Derek sat and watched as the man's hands scrabbled for a grip on the smooth metal. Then one hand caught hold of the nearside windscreen wiper, pulling the blade away from the glass but clinging to it to arrest the body's slide.

Packer lifted his black curly head to reveal a bloodied face. His eyes were staring, his nose was awry, his mouth was closing and then gaping wide. He tightened his grip on the windscreen wiper. Veins stood out on his forehead as he struggled to pull himself higher. But as he did so, the wiper bent towards him under the strain, and his head fell with a thump. Leaving a smeared trail of blood on the paintwork, he slid sideways off the bonnet and almost disappeared. Only the forearm and the hand that clutched the tip of the wiper blade remained in Derek's view.

Everything was suddenly very quiet. The engine had stalled with the impact, and the reverberations of it had died away. Derek sat rigid, still without thought, watching that hand.

Gradually, almost imperceptibly, the grip was loosening. The fingers, each with its crest of stiff black hairs, seemed to be losing their strength. But Derek kept on watching, fearing that any moment the hand would tighten and Packer's menacing face would reappear.

Instead, the hand went. One second it was there on the bonnet, weak but still flexed; the next, it had collapsed like a puppet's and gone.

Derek blinked and shook his head. He hardly dared believe it. He looked again, but there was nothing to see except the smears of blood on the bonnet of the car; and they convinced him.

Packer was dead. He didn't matter any more.

But it was too soon to feel relief. Derek looked anxiously up and down the road. Was anyone coming? Would he be seen, and his car remembered?

For once, though, luck seemed to be with him. The road was empty; his engine started sweetly. Backing away from what lay crumpled on the verge, he drove off without giving it a glance.

Three minutes later, having encountered no other vehicle, he was able to mingle his car with the traffic on a busy road. Within ten minutes he was at a service station on the Newmarket by-pass, putting the Sierra through an automatic car wash. And no sooner had he watched the bloodstains on the bonnet being sudsed away, than relief came rinsing over him.

He was free. All his Packer-related problems had disappeared. He had finally found a way out.