Once again we had a car on our tail, and I was pretty sure it was Maggie and Tom Edison. I wasn’t sure either of them would be armed – though they spent special times together in the company stationery cupboard – maybe one of them would pull out a staple gun or something.
Though what if it wasn’t Tom and Maggie, maybe they too were on this mission to wherever, and someone were following the four of us? Maybe that was the armed car Helen was referring to? How did Helen know where we were? Did she have some sort of tracking device set up? Was it on me – had it been planted in my car? And when had she had access to my car? It was locked when in the car park at work. Or I was in it either getting to or leaving from work..
A cold draught shook me violently from my thought train – no sorry it was just Lorraine, telling me yet another car had joined the race and from what she could tell, this one meant business. But the cold draught did not go away, and I told her to shut the window, especially after what we had been told. Snow Patrol were now playing and the sound was increasing. This was not on the the car cd player, but was in fact my own mobile. I asked Lorraine to flip it and speak for me. It was my little boy asking when I was coming home. She relayed my reply to him that Mummy would be back as soon as she could, and I would ring when I next stopped the car. As she closed off the call, I asked her why she had done this and she said that she needed me to know that yet another car was now bringing up the rear and she had seen the junction sign for the B359.
Thanking her, I pulled into the slow lane and got ready to leave the carriageway. Knowing that this was the last stretch of the journey, I should have been relieved but instead could feel a tension headache mounting, along with a fear of the unknown. What lay in wait with Helen at the Lodge?
We continued on the B route for the prescribed time and glancing at the dashboard clock I saw the time was now nearly ten o’clock. Up ahead I saw a figure in the road, waving at us to stop the car. Was that Helen Bright?
I slowed to a stop, and kept my window shut just for an instant to make sure it was her. She confirmed her identity and pointed towards the now open gate up a long drive, telling us to park there but remain there until she got up to us. She had to wait for the others, she said. Blimey was she having a party or something? Being sure she had not mentioned any others joining us, in fact, she had implied that we should make sure no others had joined us on our route.
Still, I drove through the darkness up the winding driveway, then suddenly before me a large house.
Hard to actually see any detail in the dark, for the inky blue of earlier had become the blackest of black, to the point of being reminiscent of the reapers’ cloak itself. The house was forboding in it’s very own grandeur, and I was pleased that we had been told to wait here and not enter it. I turned the car away from it and parked facing down the drive from whence we had just arrived
There were a couple of lights on in the house, I could see the reflection on the pond to my left, and the sound of a dog’s bark made myself and Lorraine jump. Insomuch as we had not noticed advancing headlights of another vehicle to join us on the allotted parking area. It was the green saloon that we thought we had lost some fair few miles back. It too parked, and like us the inhabitants remained in the car. I was aware of a distant whoosh sound, and was wondering what on earth it could be, when a third car parked to our right. But this time Helen got out. Holding high a set of large keys, she beckoned us all to join her.
Now I got out and waited as Lorraine followed suit and I could then lock my vehicle, before we both went and stood next to Helen. To wait for the occupants of the green car to do the same. As they did so, it was a surprise to see Deano emerge from the car, and his co-driver? Well there was no co-driver – sorry, kept doing that, slipping into police drama mode. Deano was alone. I felt rather than saw Lorraine’s blush. But Deano calmly walked over to Helen and gave her a quick hug.
She turned toward the house and instead of going to the large front door, took a little path to the left and walked us around the building and after a while we saw that we had come to a little side wing of the house, whereupon Helen held up her keys and studied them in the light given off by a large-ish window. She asked us all to be quiet for a few minutes. Even though her Grandad owned this place – there were a lot of people asleep and it would not be nice would it to wake them up
I asked her what the whoosh was and it was Deano who replied to me that the whoosh was the sound of the sea – at the end of the garden. I was not sure if he had seen Lorraine by my side. I turned and to bring her forward, but she had left my side and was now next to Deano.
