Chapter 5
Vincent tried not to eavesdrop but it was impossible not to, even given how quietly Elizabeth was speaking into her phone.
This was the third call she had taken from her fiancé Gregory in half an hour and he could tell she was fighting exasperation.
She’d just apologised to him for sounding terse, even though from what he could hear, it was Mr Fiancé who was the one at fault, cutting off her every sentence.
‘I don’t think you know how bad it is, Gregory,’ she was now saying. ‘I’ve tried to send a photo but it won’t let me… Sorry, what? I can’t hear you, I keep losing… Hello, hello… Gregory. Are you still there?’
Elizabeth took the phone away from her ear and dropped a heavy sigh.
‘Can you tell me where we are again, please? Sorry,’ she asked Vincent, the strain evident in her voice.
‘According to the satnav, we’re about to go onto Spaghetti Junction in Birmingham,’ he answered her.
‘I have no idea what the satellites have been drinking, but I wish I had some for later.’ He caught sight of her in the rear-view mirror and saw her worried expression.
‘Apologies, that wasn’t helpful. I wish I knew.
’ He hadn’t seen a sign for a few miles now.
He hadn’t seen anything but snowy fields flanking the road.
Surely there must be something due up ahead soon: a pub, a garage, a village.
‘I don’t think my fiancé quite believes the snow is as bad as it is,’ Elizabeth said.
‘It’s just starting to fall up there.’ She sort of hoped that it would fall with the same speed so he’d accept she wasn’t exaggerating.
He’s stressed about the party, she told herself.
He wanted everything to be right. He was used to things going his way, it was part of his make-up.
You’d have made a rubbish King Canute, she once joked to him on one of their early dates, and he’d laughed.
Vincent narrowed his eyes to take in what he thought was a shape in the distance, but he could have been hallucinating.
Snow blindness, akin to extreme thirst in the desert where people imagined oases of drinking water.
No, there was definitely a shape, a big car was up ahead.
And then he spotted a sign on a left-facing arrow denoting a train station nearby.
He seemed to be gaining distance on the car in front even though he hadn’t increased his speed any.
The car indicated and that, he thought later, maybe influenced his decision, a primal safety in numbers move.
He made a hasty alternative plan: he’d abandon the car, escort Elizabeth by rail to Durham and then figure the rest out from there.
He’d lose money on this job because he’d probably have to stay overnight in a hotel but he had nothing or no one to get back for – apart from his cat.
She could get into the kitchen via the cat flap and there was always a bowl of kibble on hand to sustain her, though she’d probably go to his neighbour and plead starvation, as she was wont to do.
He told Elizabeth what was now going to happen and she’d merely nodded, accepting he knew best. He hoped he did.
The car in front – a massive Jeep – was rolling slowly down the hill. Vincent parked nearby to it when it stopped and opened his window to call to the large bearded man who got out of it.
‘Any idea where we are, mate? My satnav thinks we’re on Spaghetti Junction.’
‘Somewhere not far from Whitby, that’s all I know, sorry,’ replied Tim, hefting two cases out of his boot before heading towards the station. He didn’t want to be sociable. He just wanted to get to Newcastle.
Not that Vincent took any offence at his curtness. It wasn’t the weather for hanging around and chatting and rogue conditions like this had a tendency to shorten tempers, as demonstrated by fiancé Gregory.
He got out of his car, a brand new solid Mercedes estate, and lifted Elizabeth’s luggage and his own bag from the boot.
He always kept an overnight ‘just in case’ holdall with a couple of changes of clothes and toiletries in there.
Plus a snow shovel, a woollen throw, a foil blanket and a pair of dependable Timberlands because his mum had told him to.
She was the most resourceful woman he’d ever met and he recalled from his childhood days that her handbag had everything in it from a screwdriver to a lollipop.
Even when she was in her later life, he’d ask her why she felt the need to carry so much around with her and she answered him with a tap on the side of the nose and a ‘Just in case’.
But her ways had rubbed off on him because he was always prepared for the unexpected just in case.
He tapped on the back window and spoke through the glass.
‘You stay here in the warm until I’ve taken these into the station.’
‘Absolutely not,’ Elizabeth replied, opening the door. ‘I’m a passenger, not a princess.’
The irony was that she sounded exactly like a princess though with her cultured voice and all her vowels rounded, unlike his that had been flattened by a steamroller.
But she wouldn’t take no for an answer, so he was forced to concede, though her cases wouldn’t roll through the thick snow so he had to lift and carry them while she followed with his lighter bag and boots.
The wind had swelled and they had to push their way through it and the spit of snowflakes.
He’d promised to get her to her party, but he was starting to wonder now if he really could.