Henry Morgan - The drivers

When the fork lift reached the wagon Lincoln released the girl and laughed as he chased her around the waggon. She soon stumbled and fell to the ground in a pathetic heap, struggling franticly to get to her feet, squirming away from him like a snake, but Lincoln swept her up into his arms and kissed her piggishly on the lips, a hand active at her crotch, totally ignoring her struggles. She was crying, thin wailing noises that went straight to the heart, but there was nobody else around to hear and Lincoln knew it.

At the wagon, he pushed her up none too gently and as intrusively as he could. It was like a sacrifice entering the mouth of a distant monster. Unlike fair Andromeda however, there was to be no Perseus with gleaming sword, and no Pegasus upon which her escape could be made.

Peter was distraught. He wanted to save the girl, but he knew he was no match for Lincoln in a one-to-one encounter. He set off for his vehicle as the hiss of released air brakes was followed by the low growl of a large lorry pulling away.

Peter swung open the driver's door of his car and fired up the engine. Around the corner the gleaming DAF was making its way through the gates of the Felix freight yard, the driver's only concern the strict timetable he had agreed for the trip.

And that his stamina would allow him to make full use of the tight young Chink he'd caught specially for this job!

The moment he saw her in that sports gear, taut thighs glowing with the sheen of perspiration as she jogged along, he had known he just had to have her. Orientals turned him on, brought out the beast in him, and this one was perfectly formed, a right little gem.

It was her misfortune.

On a new refinement behind him, she was suspended from a pole attached to either side of the cab wall, like the prized bag of a big game hunter on its way to the trophy room, swaying gently back and forth in time with the movements of the truck.

Melanie heard the growing rumble of the DAF's engine then saw the black cab and long articulated load travel out from behind a warehouse and pull up at the junction. Between her and the lorry was Peter in his own vehicle, a man dispossessed of his wife, angry and bemused and determined to mete out justice.

She held her breath as Lincoln's wagon turned on to the road and Peter's car crossed the central line to meet it.

The two vehicles were on a collision course. Only one man, Peter Warburton, knew why. He was going to stop that wagon no matter what the cost. He was going to prevent another woman falling into the hands of the Drivers. There would be no more Susans, no more Melanies.

In the wagon Lincoln's senses were slow to respond. He had seen the estate lurch into his path and was angry when the driver hadn't corrected his mistake, but the DAF was so much bigger the idiot would surely get out of his way.

But the estate kept coming, just a hundred, perhaps a hundred and fifty yards away.

Less than three hundred feet separated the two vehicles.

Two hundred feet. The wagon sounded its horn.

One hundred feet.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" Lincoln pulled violently on the steering wheel in a desperate attempt to miss the speeding car while the watching Melanie could only scream. Her voice was drowned by the sound of steel scraping steel, flying sparks reflected orange and yellow and were hot in her eyes, forcing her to turn her head away, while the crash of exploding, splintering glass resounded in her ears.

At the sound of the wagon's horn she turned as the careering lorry bore down on her, its load seemingly detached from the engine, juggling this way and that behind, as if trying to get past and speed off from the scene.

There seemed no escape from the lurching mass of steel and canvas bearing through the smoke of a dozen screeching tyres, but miraculously the machine slowed and came to an even keel.

However, it did not stop. It could not stop, for the driver could not explain away his human cargo. He could only slow down to survey the devastation left in his wake and as he passed by Melanie's stomach lurched groundwards as the cold, knowing glare of Lincoln fell upon her for an instant.

With a roar of horse power the engine sped away, leaving her numbed and dazed at the roadside, unable to turn and look for fear of what she might see.

The trailer disappeared from sight, seemingly undamaged. All the glass and flying metal must have come from Peter's car. She was sick and weak at the knees, feeling only the need to sit at the kerb side and vomit. But there was to be no time for that because Peter's car came to a squealing halt at the end of four black lines of molten rubber.

"Get in!" he shouted. "In!"

Melanie ran round to the passenger seat, passing the caved in driver's side. Even before her door shut, Peter pulled off in pursuit, sending tiny squares of broken glass spilling from the dashboard to land on his shattered camera in the footwell. Some glass fell onto his lap and made their way beneath his legs but Peter chose to ignore the pain. At least until he made the corner and saw the DAF was nowhere to be seen.

At that point the road hit a roundabout and the lorry could have chosen any of the several routes. He tried the first turn off, but it was soon clear that he'd made a bad choice. All he could do now was make his way back to Melanie's flat and hope that the police might take an interest. Everything seemed lost until suddenly the CB barked,

"One four for a copy. Felix the Cat calling Shaggy. You out there Shag?"

Melanie reached out for the volume control. "That's Lincoln calling his brother!"

"Felix calling Shaggy. Come back little brother." A moment later the radio crackled with the voice of Lincoln's brother.

"What's up? You only just started and you're already calling me up. Don't you know what to do with a Chinky slit?"

Melanie couldn't help but shudder at the sound of their voices, especially Colin's, who was always sarcastic and smug.

When they had had her in their clutches, he was the one who liked to tie her up in the back of the container and hang her from the roof. Colin got his kicks from sheer cruelty. He would whip her bottom with the canvas straps or use his thick leather belt to raise burning welts upon her skin. Very often he would leave her up there and they would carry on their journey with her dangling in the back of the lorry, passing cars and vans whose drivers had no inkling of the tortured cargo.

Now his mocking voice crackled out again.

"Remember to have a sixty nine for me. And I don't mean a crispy duck with noodles. Perhaps a Chinky fuck, hey!"

His brother was not amused. "Shut up man, for fuck's sake. Something weird just happened. Some twat in a car tried to hit me off the road outside the yard, and there's something else -

"Do you want me to come out?" Colin cut in impatiently.

Lincoln gave a thoughtful sigh. "I'm alright," he replied. "But I'd better get rid of Suzy Wong. Just in case."

"What you going to do?" Colin asked. "You can't just dump her."

"I've got a few drops to make then I'm off up to Wettle. The Paddies are over for the horse fair so I'll flog her off then. Keep your eyes open. I think someone's onto us."

"Give her one for me before she goes," said Colin, then as an after thought added. "You know, I knew it was bad luck when you had that married bint off the Candy Man. Bad news, she was. Even Bingo had to dump her, up in Whitby. He only had her a couple of weeks and the law were after him for nicking some gear."

"Well she's long gone now," Lincoln put in. "See you at the horse fair."

With a pleasant 'plink', another shard of glass was added to the small pile of blood spattered slivers in the ash tray.

"You know?" said Melanie, pulling another piece from Peter's backside. "You were lucky none of this went in your face, you could have been blinded." She took the remnants of the car window to the dustbin and returned with a bottle of antiseptic while Peter remained half bent across the chair, his backside looking like an explosion in a butchers shop.