“Do you want to ask them?”
I didn’t really, but I turned to approach the nearest couple. James grabbed my arm.
“Don’t,” he said. “We’re not begging for lifts in the middle of the night because my wife can’t stay away from the bottle. You can walk straight, you’re talking normally, just be careful.”
The fresh air did me good, and I felt clearheaded by the time we reached the car. I had a bit of a wobble at the end of the drive, but that was because my stiletto heels were unbalancing me. I was especially glad now that I hadn’t parked in the tiny space James wanted me to maneuver into when we arrived.
As I started the car, the radio blasted out. James had ignored it on the way there, but now, as we pulled away from the curb with the sound of KC and the Sunshine Band filling the air, he leaned forward and switched it off.
“I was listening to that,” I said, turning it back on. I hate to drive in silence.
He turned it off. “No, you weren’t.”
I turned it back on. “It helps me concentrate.”
He turned it off again.
I turned it on.
Off. On. Off. On. Off.
I gave up and began to drive, at a funereally slow pace, away from the house.
“Pick up the speed,” James said. “Nothing looks more suspicious than driving like a learner.”
So I drove slightly faster and we got out of town with no incidents. I began to feel happier; I was on the way to my bed and in the morning, my freedom.
Annoyingly, there were overnight roadworks blocking our route home, so we had to take a detour through Great Beadington, our neighboring village, but eventually we came to the other side of that wretched backwater and were heading toward Upper Iffley. I felt relief flooding through me, just a few more minutes and we’d be safe. There was just one final obstacle: This road was haunted.
“If you pull the visor down and look in the mirror, you’ll see the ghost of a monk in the back seat,” I said. “Half the village has seen it.” I do love a ghost story.
“There’s no such thing as ghosts, Daisy. Half the village hasn’t seen it.”
“Have a look if you’re so sure. There used to be a small monastery here. It was closed down by King Henry VIII and his crew.” That much was true. “The monk tried to stop them taking all the gold and silver and was hacked to death in front of the altar. Now he appears to travelers on this road, haunting the back of their cars, wanting their jewelry and watches. The more expensive the better.”
I saw James glance surreptitiously down at his watch. I looked up to the rearview mirror and gasped.
James’s head twitched toward the back seat, but he remembered himself in time. “Stop messing about,” he said.
“Have a look then. Do it and prove me a fool if you’re sure.”
“For god’s sake.”
He pulled the visor down and yelled as something small and hairy, with many legs, fell out into his lap. The shout made me jump; I turned my head and accidentally accelerated when I should have watched where I was going and braked.
There was a heavy thud, and we lost some velocity. The steering was wrenched out of my control, and the car started to slide this way and that. I had a glimpse of something flying up into the windshield as the airbag blew up in my face.
Chapter Four
The car juddered and slowed before it stopped completely.
I held my hands up in front of me; they were shaking. I stared at them, half expecting to see blood.
“Clutch,” James said, pulling the handbrake up.
“What?”
“Put the clutch down.”
