The Dragon Man

Prologue

Sometimes it felt as if he were prowling the roof of heaven, riding high through the night, the stars close above him, nobody about, the teeming masses with their petty concerns tucked safely into their beds. He was as restless as a fox. He seemed to have a channel through life at times like this, a path through the broad darkness that was the Old Peninsula Highway, nothing and nobody to beset him. Down he went, the whole length of the slumbering hook of land, to where it reached the ocean, and then back again, to the far easterly tip of the city, where there were lights again, and the stench of humankind, and where he lived in a loveless house. He turned at a roundabout, headed on down toward the ocean again.

He came upon her about halfway along the highway. Other cars at night were almost an affront to him, but they were always gone in a flash, just a pair of headlamps, scarcely registering. This car had stopped, parked on the gravel forecourt of a roadside fruit and vegetable outlet, a massive barn-like shape in the night. He slowed to no more than a walking pace as he passed. The car looked forlorn, its bonnet up and steam rising from the radiator. A solitary bulb high on a nearby pole cast a weak cone of grey-yellow light over a telephone box and the young woman inside it. She was speaking urgently, gesturing, but seemed to freeze when she saw him passing, and stepped out to get a better look at him. He accelerated away. The image he had of her was of the loneliest figure at the loneliest spot on earth. World’s end. Amen.

He turned around at the next intersection, and when he reached her again he turned in off the road, steering close to her poor, hangdog car. Good. She was alone. He drove past her car until he was adjacent to the phone box, then wound down his window. He didn’t want to alarm her by opening his door and getting out.

She was hovering in the phone box. He called across to her: ‘Everything okay? Phone working? Sometimes it’s been vandalised.’

He sounded like a local. That would help. He saw her wrap her arms about herself. ‘Fine, thanks. I rang a breakdown service. They’re on their way.’

He happened to glance away from her and at her car. He stiffened, looking back at her in alarm: ‘Did you have someone with you?’

She froze, began to tremble, and her voice when it came was no more than a squeak. ‘What do you mean?’

‘There’s someone in the back of your car, behind the seat.’

She edged toward him. ‘Who? I didn’t see anyone.’

He opened his door, put one foot on the ground. ‘I don’t like it. Did you leave the car unattended at any time?’

‘The station car park. It’s been there all day.’

‘There have been cases…’ he said.

He got out then, keeping his door open. They were both eyeing her car, ready to flee. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘you’d better hop in with me, slide across to the passenger side.’

She weighed it up. He was careful not to look at her but to let her see the anxiety on his face. Then, as she came toward him, he moved away, edging around his own car and toward hers.

Her hand went to her mouth. ‘What are you doing? Come back, please come back.’

‘I want to get a closer look at him. For the police.’

‘No!’

Her fear seemed to communicate itself to him. ‘I guess you’re right.’

‘Just get me away from here!’

‘Okay.’

It was as easy as that. Inspired, really. That first one, last week, she hadn’t been a challenge at all. Drunk, half-drugged, hitchhiking, she’d been too easy. At least he’d got to use his head a little tonight. His headlights probed the darkness as he carried her away, high above the rottenness that was always there under the light of the sun.