Patricia Wentworth - Pilgrim’s Rest

From behind her Judy heard a low rippling laugh-quite a pretty laugh.

“Well, he never knew who pushed him either. Let me see- we’re coming to the end of this common, and I must watch the road and not talk so much. There’s rather a steep lane down, and then the road forks and you go to the right. Pretty, wooded country, but the primroses will hardly be out yet, I should think. After that-let me see-”

Judy heard the rustle of paper behind her. A map was being unfolded and hung over the back of her seat. A flash reflected from the windscreen disclosed the presence of a torch. A little flicker of hope sprang up. If Lona Day had to manage a map and, a torch, would she be able to keep the pistol aimed?… The hope flickered out. She felt the pistol again, pressing steadily against her spine. The map hung over the back of the seat, and that left a hand for the torch.

They came off the heath down a short, steep lane that ran between hedges. Judy found herself wondering whether there was a ditch under the hedge. If there was-suppose she ditched the car… The answer to that one was easy, Lona would shoot her out of hand. She simply couldn’t afford to let her go-not after all the things she had said. But suppose she could back into a ditch-there might be a chance that way. If she could do it quickly enough-if she could make an excuse for reversing and do it then, Lona might be knocked off her balance and there would be just a chance of getting away. It was the only chance she could think of.

There was a click behind her and the torch went out. Lona said in a satisfied voice,

“Yes-that will be all right. I hope you see how stupid it would be to try any tricks with me-you simply wouldn’t have a chance. I have everything planned. I’ve known for three years that I might have to get away in a hurry, though I didn’t expect to be quite so rushed as this. I didn’t think that Mabel Robbins would have been in such a hurry to give her evidence. After all, she doesn’t come out of it particularly well. I meant to get away later on tonight, but as you see, I can meet an emergency, and now it is going to be quite all right. The police will never find me, because I shall just become someone else. I have my ration-book and my identity-card- and I am sure you would like to know how I got them, but I shan’t tell you. Well, perhaps it doesn’t matter if I just give you a hint, because you’ll never be able to tell anyone, will you? You see, Lona Day isn’t my real name, and there was nothing to prevent my getting my ration-book and identity-card in my own name, was there? And I banked Henry’s fifty pounds in that name too, so you see I thought of everything… Now this is where the road forks.”

Judy found herself slowing down a little, her eyes following the line where the ditch would be-if there was a ditch- she couldn’t be sure. And then all at once a rabbit came scuttering out of the shadows and across the front of the car. The fork of the road was just ahead. She thought the rabbit came out of a ditch on the right. She slowed down a little more and took the left-hand fork. At once the voice behind her said,

“Stop-stop-that’s wrong! I told you to keep to the right.”

The pistol pressed so close that it hurt.

Judy stopped dead. In spite of the cold a wave of heat went over her and her hands were sticky with sweat, because she hadn’t been sure whether Lona would shoot her when she took the wrong turn. She had to chance it, but she hadn’t been sure. She thought it would all depend upon where they were and how much farther the car was meant to go. She said,

“I’m sorry. I’ll back to the fork-it won’t take a moment.”

The last words seemed to ring a warning bell. There was only a moment now-perhaps only a moment to live. The thought was in her mind as she put the car into reverse and pushed her foot down on the accelerator. She couldn’t feel the pistol. Lona must have moved it.

The car ran back evenly, and then she jammed her foot right down. There was just time to feel a sudden exhilaration as they shot back, before the hind wheels bumped and came down hard in the ditch.

Something smashed at the impact with the bank-a bumper, glass, perhaps both, she didn’t know. High above everything Lona’s scream-a sound of rage, not fear. In the instant before the crash Judy’s hand had gone out to the catch of the door. The next thing she knew, she was slipping down over the running-board on to the road with a deafening noise in her ears and the glass of the windscreen broken. She thought there were two shots, and one of them very near. The car was all slumped and tilted up.

She ran for the ditch-any wild thing making for shelter. It must have been deeper than she thought, and there was a bank beyond it. She scrambled down one side and up the other, and heard another shot go off behind her. She didn’t know where it went but the next might find her.

There was a hedge on the top of the bank. If she had been less desperate she wouldn’t have got through-thorn, and holly, and something that smelled rank as she bruised it. Her dress tore, and her flesh, but she got clear as another shot came past her. It was so close that she felt it go by her left cheek, and with it there came the most horrible sound she had ever heard from a human being, the sound of a snarling fury which wasn’t human at all. If it had words, no sense of them reached her. And all at once she felt that it didn’t matter about being shot, but if this ravening creature were to touch her something would happen-she wouldn’t be Judy any more. She put out her hands to shield her face and ran into the wood.

There were no big trees, just light growth of hazel or alder, with a tangle of ivy under foot, and here and there a black mass which was holly. She stubbed her foot in its thin house-shoe and came down, her hands flung out-catching at last year’s leaves, wet moss, a fallen branch. She held on to this as she got up. It was short and heavy. It wouldn’t be any use at all against a pistol, but there is an old, old instinct to have something in your hand when you turn to face an enemy.

She had to stand for a moment to take her breath, to check the panic which would have sent her running wild-perhaps to fall again and be taken-helpless-

Something was coming through the hedge. The knowledge came to her through her ears and spread tingling over her whole body, every sound sharpened, every panting breath almost as close as her own. The horror came down on her again. If the hands which were forcing a way through the hedge were to touch her…

She was gripping the stick she had picked up. She flung it now as hard as she could to the left of where Lona was coming through the hedge. She could see her just clear of it, a shadow to be distinguished from the other shadows only because it moved. Quick on the sound of the thrown stick striking some bush or tree came the crack of another shot. That made five. Judy didn’t know how many more there would be.

The shadow began to move in the direction from which the noise of the falling stick had come. As it moved, Judy moved too-towards the hole in the hedge. If she could get back on to the road whilst Lona thought she was still in the wood, she would really have a chance. You can’t move amongst undergrowth without being heard. She set down each foot as if she were treading on egg-shells. A snapped stick would give her away-

Lona was calling to her now. The snarling animal sound had gone out of her voice.

“Don’t be such a fool, Judy! You might have killed us both. But perhaps it was an accident. If it was, we won’t say any more about it. Come along back and see if you can get the car out of the ditch. You’re so clever with cars-I’ve never had enough practice. You needn’t be afraid of the pistol-I’ve fired my last shot. You’re not hurt, are you? It would be rather funny if you were dead. It would be a marvellous shot if I had really hit you in the dark. I’m afraid I lost my temper, and that’s a thing I very seldom do. It doesn’t pay, you know- one must always keep control. But I’d been hung against the back window, and if the glass had broken, I might have been most seriously hurt. Now, Judy, don’t be stupid! Where are you?”