I needed to take Holly and Miranda back to the house first, though. I wouldn’t have to see Zack. I could drop them at the end of the drive then go to the visitors’ centre and hand myself in.
I explained my plan to Holly.
‘Will you call a lawyer for me?’ I asked, after I’d made it clear I wasn’t going to change my mind.
‘I can ask Dad.’
‘Holly, your dad will take Zack’s side. He’s far more important to him than I am. He’s only known me for a few days.’
I don’t think I had ever seen her look so sad and worried. Surprisingly, Miranda stayed quiet. She seemed to be deep in thought.
I started the engine and, after making a three-point turn in the road, headed back down the hill towards the coast road.There were no signs the snow was going to return, but it was still foggy by the water, mist hanging in patches with no wind to disperse it. I turned on the fog lights and drove slowly, taking it easy around the bends and curves.
The sea, and beyond it the looming shapes of Raasay and Skye, was to our left. To our right, a wall of rock, rising steeply towards the black sky, stretching towards the moon. A few feet beyond the left-hand edge of the road, the side I was driving on, there was a sheer drop to the beach below and the fog made visibility on this winding road so poor that I had to sit forward in my seat, squinting at the bends ahead of me. To make it even trickier, this road was only wide enough for a single car. Every now and then we would see one of the ‘Passing Place’ signs with a small area where you could pull in to let another car past.
And then the lights of another car appeared in the rear-view mirror. I was still driving cautiously, doing thirty miles per hour. The other car’s headlights pierced the fog, turning the air behind our car a shining white.
They were gaining quickly.
‘What the fuck?’ I said.
‘Do you think it’s Susan?’ Holly asked, looking back. The bright headlights made it impossible to see clearly, but it looked like a large vehicle to me, probably a four-by-four.
‘It’s not her. They must be doing fifty. Sixty,’ I said.
But as they reached us they were forced to slow to the same speed as us, thirty.
They sounded their horn.
‘Why don’t they go past?’ Miranda asked.
‘There’s no room.’
I had to assume it must be a local, someone who was accustomed to tearing along these roads at high speed.Someone who had been out drinking, or was trying to get somewhere to toast the arrival of the new year. It was eleven now, and I had a vague recollection that there would be a firework display at the village hall at midnight. They sounded their horn again, leaning on it, a long, offensivehoooooonk.
‘Arseholes,’ Holly said. ‘Maybe you should speed up.’
‘I’m not speeding up. You want me to kill us?’
The driver behind leaned on their horn again– and accelerated, swinging to the far right of the road and moving closer, like they were trying to overtake us.
‘What the fuck? There’s no room.’
My hands were frozen on the wheel. I was convinced they were going to ram the rear corner of our car, on the driver’s side, but I was stuck. There was a metal barrier to my left which we were already only inches away from. All I could do was speed up, try to get away from them, get to the next passing place before they did. Forty, fifty, sixty miles an hour– but they sped up, too, until we were both doing seventy. They still had their fogs on, the light filling our car, shining in our mirror. Beside me, Holly gripped the sides of her seat.
We were going too fast now to pull over. We would have skidded into the barrier or the car behind would have rammed into us. All I could do was keep going.
‘I’m going to be sick,’ Holly said.
The other vehicle had fallen back a few yards, but they were still going fast. My body was flooded with cortisol, my stomach cold, heart banging. How far was it to the turning? I couldn’t think straight.
‘Hold on,’ I said as I saw the bends ahead. The road was even narrower here. To the left, the barrier, with a sheer drop towards the beach beyond it. To the right, a wall of rock, withwater streaming down it. I was desperate to slow down, to navigate the bends carefully, but the other car was inches behind us, forcing me to keep going at this insane speed.
‘There,’ Holly said, grabbing my arm.
The right-hand turning was ahead, just beyond this curving stretch.
I was gripping the wheel so hard that the palms of my hands hurt. The car behind was right on our bumper, almost touching it.
