The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul

Chapter 13

With a delicious shock of rage Kate leapt, invigorated, out of her car and ran to harangue the driver of the other car who was, in turn, leaping out of his in order to harangue her.

“Why don't you look where you're going?” she yelled at him. He was a rather overweight man who had been driving wearing a long leather coat and a rather ugly red hat, despite the discomfort this obviously involved. Kate warmed to him for it.

“Why don't I look where I'm going?” he replied heatedly. “Don't you look in your rear-view mirror?”

“No,” said Kate, putting her fists on her hips.

“Oh,” said her adversary. “Why not?”

“Because it's under the seat.”

“I see,” he replied grimly. “Thank you for being so frank with me. Do you have a lawyer?”

“Yes I do, as a matter of fact,” said Kate. She said it with vim and hauteur.

“Is he any good?” said the man in the hat. “I'm going to need one. Mine's popped into prison for a while.”

“Well, you certainly can't have mine.”

“Why not?”

“Don't be absurd. It would be a clear conflict of interest.”

Her adversary folded his arms and leant back against the bonnet of his car. He took his time to survey the surroundings. The lane was growing dim as the early winter evening began to settle on the land. He then leant into his car to turn on his hazard warning indicators. The rear amber lights winked prettily on the scrubby grass of the roadside. The front lights were buried in the rear of Kate's Citron and were in no fit state to wink.

He resumed his leaning posture and looked Kate up and down appraisingly.

“You are a driver,” he said, “and I use the word in the loosest possible sense, i.e. meaning merely somebody who occupies the driving seat of what I will for the moment call — but I use the term strictly without prejudice — a car while it is proceeding along the road, of stupendous, I would even say verging on the superhuman, lack of skill. Do you catch my drift?”

“No.”

“I mean you do not drive well. Do you know you've been all over the road for the last seventeen miles?”

“Seventeen miles!” exclaimed Kate. “Have you been following me?”

“Only up to a point,” said Dirk. “I've tried to stay on this side of the road.”

“I see. Well, thank you in turn for being so frank with me. This, I need hardly tell you, is an outrage. You'd better get yourself a damn good lawyer, because mine's going to stick red-hot skewers in him.”

“Perhaps I should get myself a kebab instead.”

“You look as if you've had quite enough kebabs. May I ask you why you were following me?”

“You looked as if you knew where you were going. To begin with at least. For the first hundred yards or so.”.

“What the hell's it got to do with you where I was going?”

“Navigational technique of mine.”

Kate narrowed her eyes.

She was about to demand a full and instant explanation of this preposterous remark when a passing white Ford Sierra slowed down beside them.

The driver wound down the window and leant out. “Had a crash then?” he shouted at them.

“Yes.”

“Ha!” he said and drove on.

A second or two later a Peugeot stopped by them.

“Who was that just now?” the driver asked them, in reference to the previous driver who had just stopped.

“I don't know,” said Dirk.

“Oh,” said the driver. “You look as if you've had a crash of some sort.”

“Yes,” said Dirk.

“Thought so,” said the driver and drove on.

“You don't get the same quality of passers-by these days, do you?” said Dirk to Kate.

“You get hit by some real dogs, too,” said Kate. “I still want to know why you were following me. You realise that it's hard for me not to see you in the role of an extremely sinister sort of a person.”

“That's easily explained,” said Dirk. “Usually I am. On this occasion, however, I simply got lost. I was forced to take evasive action by a large grey oncoming van which took a proprietorial view of the road. I only avoided it by nipping down a side lane in which I was then unable to reverse. A few turnings later and I was thoroughly lost. There is a school of thought which says that you should consult a map on these occasions, but to such people I merely say, ‘Ha! What if you have no map to consult? What if you have a map but it's of the Dordogne?’ My own strategy is to find a car, or the nearest equivalent, which looks as if it knows where it's going and follow it. I rarely end up where I was intending to go, but often I end up somewhere that I needed to be. So what do you say to that?”

“Piffle.”

“A robust response. I salute you.”

“l was going to say that I do the same thing myself sometimes, but I've decided not to admit that yet.”

“Very wise,” said Dirk. “You don't want to give away too much at this point. Play it enigmatic is my advice.”

“I don't want your advice. Where were you trying to get before suddenly deciding that driving seventeen miles in the opposite direction would help you get there?”

“A place called the Woodshead.”

“Ah, the mental hospital.”

“You know it?”

“I've been driving away from it for the last seventeen miles and I wish it was further. Which ward will you be in? I need to know where to send the repair bill.”

“They don't have wards,” said Dirk. “And I think they would be distressed to hear you call it a mental hospital.”

“Anything that distresses 'em is fine by me.”

Dirk looked about him.

“A fine evening,” he said.

“No it isn't.”

“I see,” said Dirk. “You have, if I may say so, the air of one to whom her day has not been a source of joy or spiritual enrichment.”

“Too damn right, it hasn't,” said Kate. “I've had the sort of day that would make St Francis of Assisi kick babies. Particularly if you include Tuesday in with today, which is the last time I was actually conscious. And now look. My beautiful car. The only thing I can say in favour of the whole shebang is that at least I'm not in Oslo.”

“I can see how that might cheer you.”

“I didn't say it cheered me. It just about stops me killing myself. I might as well save myself the bother anyway, with people like you so keen to do it for me.”

“You were my able assistant, Miss Schechter.” “Stop doing that!” “Stop doing what?”

“My name! Suddenly every stranger I meet knows my name. Would you guys please just quit knowing my name for one second? How can a girl be enigmatic under these conditions? The only person I met who didn't seem to know my name was the only one I actually introduced myself to. All right,” she said, pointing an accusing finger at Dirk, “you're not supernatural, so just tell me how you knew my name. I'm not letting go of your tie till you tell me.”

“You haven't got hold of — ”

“I have now, buster.”

“Unhand me!”

“Why were you following me?” insisted Kate. “How do you know my name?”

“I was following you for exactly the reasons stated. As for your name, my dear lady, you practically told me yourself.”

“I did not.”

“I assure you, you did.”

“I'm still holding your tie.”

“If you are meant to be in Oslo but have been unconscious since Tuesday, then presumably you were at the incredible exploding check-in counter at Heathrow Terminal Two. It was widely reported in the press. I expect you missed it through being unconscious. I myself missed it through rampant apathy, but the events of today have rather forced it on my attention.”

Kate grudgingly let go of his tie, but continued to eye him with suspicion.

“Oh yeah?” she said. “What events?”

“Disturbing ones,” said Dirk, brushing himself down. “Even if what you had told me yourself had not been enough to identify you, then the fact of your having also been today to visit the Woodshead clinched it for me. I gather from your mood of belligerent despondency that the man you were seeking was not there.”

“What?”

“Please, have it,” said Dirk, rapidly pulling off his tie and handing it to her. “By chance I ran into a nurse from your hospital earlier today. My first encounter with her was one which, for various reasons, I was anxious to terminate abruptly. It was only while I was standing on the pavement a minute or two later, fending off the local wildlife, that one of the words I had heard her say struck me, I may say, somewhat like a thunderbolt. The idea was fantastically, wildly improbable. But like most fantastically, wildly improbable ideas it was at least as worthy of consideration as a more mundane one to which the facts had been strenuously bent to fit.

“I returned to question her further, and she confirmed that a somewhat unusual patient had, in the early hours of the morning, been transferred from the hospital, apparently to the Woodshead.

“She also confided to me that another patient had been almost indecently curious to find out what had become of him. That patient was a Miss Kate Schechter, and I think you will agree, Miss Schechter, that my methods of navigation have their advantages. I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”