Tom Savage - Mrs. John Doe

Nora didn’t even think; she merely acted. She spun the wheel to the left and mashed her boot down on the accelerator. The Focus slued sideways, the tires sliding in the rain as she made the turn before the light had changed. The whine of the engine and the screech of the tires filled her ears, but they weren’t as deafening to her as the pounding in her chest. She struggled to draw breath. Go, go, go, go . Her mind repeated the word over and over as the car shot forward and flew off down the quiet side street.

And there was Craig, caught in the headlights, standing on the sidewalk in front of the pub, staring as she bore down on him. She shuddered to a stop beside him, stalling the engine in the process. She managed to slide the gearshift into neutral before throwing herself over into the passenger seat, sobbing, feeling blindly for the seatbelt. By the time she’d strapped herself in, he was in the driver’s seat and maneuvering the car forward toward the next intersection.

“What is it?” he asked, glancing over at her. “What’s wrong?”

It took her a few moments of hyperventilated gasping before she could draw enough breath to speak. “I-I think I killed him.”

“What?” he cried. “Who?”

Another gasp, another hiccup. She fought for control, but panic was setting in. “Gil-Gilbert. Andy Gilbert. I hit him with-with the car.”

Now it was Craig’s turn to gasp, and he muttered a word she’d once berated Dana for using. Then he said, “Where was Andy Gilbert when you first saw him?”

“In front of your building,” she said, breathing more deeply now. “He was waiting there for you. He must have killed Bill and Viv, and your friend Wendy. He saw me when I got in the car, and he-he ran right out in front of me. I knocked him down, and the man in the car behind me started to-”

As if on cue, a loud honking began behind them. Nora turned in her seat and peered through the rain at two bright headlights. Her eyes adjusted to the glare, and she saw a red car, just like…

“Oh God, that’s him!” she cried. “That’s the man who was behind me! He’s following us!”

Craig glanced briefly in the rearview mirror. Very briefly.

“Hang on,” he said, and they sped through an intersection just as the lights changed. A late pedestrian, a tall young man, cried out and leaped for the curb as they flew past him. The squeal of tires behind them told her that the red car had been caught by the light, and the civic-minded busybody-unlike Craig-was obeying the traffic laws.

Craig turned the car into another wide street, then another. She had no idea where they were; they might be heading north now, but she wasn’t sure. No, there was Hyde Park again. East-they were traveling east. She fell back against the seat and shut her eyes, content to let him steer them out of this, and concentrated on breathing evenly once more. Bright lights in the rain: Piccadilly? Oxford? One of the circuses flew by, then more side streets. She knew the East End of London even less than the western sections they’d just fled. She had vague memories of docks and Whitechapel and long lines of seedy rowhouses and very little else.

“Where are we going?” she finally ventured.

Craig didn’t remove his gaze from the rainy road ahead. “Somewhere safe,” he said and left it at that.

She nodded, saying nothing, and leaned back again. The night was catching up with her: the shocks, the heartbreak, the near-constant running. And now she’d killed a man-a murderer, perhaps, but nevertheless, another human being. The enormity of it pressed in on her, shutting down her senses. Despite her best efforts to remain alert, she drifted away, out of the rain and the death and the horror into soothing oblivion.

She woke in darkness, and her first instinct was to panic. She sat up in the car seat, blinking around, aware that they were stopped and the driver’s seat beside her was empty. She was alone in the car. Beyond the windshield and side windows, she could see nothing: It was pitch black, everywhere.

A thrill of terror rose up in her, only to be quelled a moment later. She heard a rhythmic scraping sound from behind the car, and she felt a slight vibration. She twisted around in the seat to see a small light bobbing up and down just behind the rear window, and she could just make out the dim glow of Craig’s face. He was holding a penlight in his mouth while he did something with his hands.

Nora yanked off her seatbelt and got out of the car, nearly colliding with the side of another vehicle parked beside it, a low-slung sports car. She blinked in the gloom, taking in the dark shapes of other cars in a line beyond the one in front of her. They were parked in a garage, the sort she’d seen on plenty of London side streets: long, low buildings that accommodated anywhere from three to ten cars in a row, each with its own door. Perhaps they were in a mews or a gated, private street. Wherever they were, it was very quiet. She couldn’t hear a sound of traffic or people, any life at all, beyond the walls and doors that surrounded them.

Craig took the penlight out of his mouth. “Sorry if I woke you,” he said, rising from his kneeling position behind the car. He switched the light off, plunging them into total darkness.

Nora blinked. “Where are we?”

“Just a stop,” he said, joining her at the side of the car. “A necessary pit stop. This Nissan”-he gestured at the sports car-“belongs to someone I know. I’m borrowing her number plates for a bit. She’s in Australia at the moment; she won’t miss them. But that man back there probably wrote down our number, so…”

Nora’s eyes were adjusting to the dark, and now she saw the flat metal objects in his hands. He’d switched the Focus’s license plates for the ones from the Nissan.

“She,” Nora said. “Let me guess: You mentioned two girlfriends, and this is the other one, right?”

He went over and crouched down, grasping the handle to raise the garage door behind the Focus. “Aye, Sandra. She’s a flight attendant, and she’s off in Sydney today. I sometimes use this parking space next to hers when I’m, um, visiting her. I wish we could stay here-her place is just nearby-but her flatmate is home, far as I know, and she’s probably heard the news by now. It wouldn’t do. We’d best get out of town.”

He slid the door up and headed for the car. Nora waited while he backed out onto the lane and then followed him outside, pulling down the door before rejoining him in the car. She brushed the raindrops from her hair and face as they drove out of the lane onto a tree-lined city street.

The clock on the dash read 11:03. She’d only slept for a few minutes, and now she realized how weary she was. Her anxiety, her constant need to find Jeff as the hours ticked down, had totally worn her out, and she hadn’t eaten since-when? She couldn’t remember. Oh yes, breakfast at the Byron Hotel. Coffee and a cookie at Jeff’s place. Then she’d had those gin martinis at Vivian’s and thrown up everything in her stomach. A glass of brandy and half a cup of tea at the pub; the shortbread had gone untouched with the jarring news on the television and their quick getaway. She was tired and hungry, and she’d killed a man, and she was sick with worry. Three o’clock tomorrow afternoon. Sixteen hours…

As though reading her thoughts, Craig said, “We can’t do anything for Mr. Baron at the moment, and we won’t be able to do anything, period, if we don’t eat something and sleep for a while. I know a place, an inn off the motorway not far from London. It’s what you Americans would call a ‘no-tell motel,’ and thanks for not asking how I’m acquainted with it. But they take cash and ask no questions, and there’s a lay-by just down the way. We’ll get food there and take it to the room. Then you can sleep and I can make some calls.”