Hanging Hill - Mo Hayder [37]
She shook her head, moved her eyes from Sally’s scrutiny and stared out of the window. ‘Please, Mum, can you just get the car?’
‘Is this about Lorne? Are you upset?’
‘No.’
‘Then is it Glastonbury? Because, Millie, I can’t change my mind, darling.’
‘No. It’s not. I just feel ill. I swear.’
Sally sighed. ‘OK. I’ll be waiting round the side in five minutes.’
She picked up the car from the street and stopped it in the courtyard that faced the modern buildings of the new sports hall. Millie came out, her school blazer draped over her shoulders, her face down, and got quickly into the car. ‘Can we go straight home?’
‘You’ll have to tell me what’s happening.’
‘Please.’ She curled into the seat and pulled her knees up. ‘Please, Mum.’
‘Either you tell me what’s going on or we’re going to the doctor’s.’
‘No, Mum, I feel better now. I just want to go home.’
Sally put the car in gear and drove to the end of the tarmac drive, stopping at the intersection. She indicated left. Millie jerked sideways in her seat, her hand shooting out to grab the steering-wheel. ‘No! Wait – wait, Mum, please wait. Don’t.’
‘What is it?’
Millie was trembling. Her face was white, but Sally knew it wasn’t pain. If she had to put a finger on it she’d have said it was fear. ‘Millie?’
‘Go right. Right.’
‘But left is the way home.’
‘We can go the back way. All my friends are out there. They’ll do the L on the forehead thing if they see me taken off by Mummy. Loser.’
‘No one’s there. They’ve gone.’
‘Can we just go the back way, Mum? Please go right.’
Sally took the car out of gear. ‘I’m sorry, Millie, but it’s left. Unless you tell me what’s going on.’
‘Oh, God!’ She screwed up her fists. ‘OK, OK. Just let me – give me a moment to …’ She shuffled down the seat so she was crushed in the footwell.
‘What are you doing?’
‘There’s someone out there. In a purple jeep. I’ve got to avoid him.’
‘Who?’
‘Just someone.’
Down on the floor Millie’s face was white, her pupils dilated, She wasn’t just afraid – she was terrified. As if there was a monster out in the street. Sally eyed the phone in its holster on the dashboard and wondered who she could call. Isabelle? Steve?
‘Please, Mum! Can we go?’
Sally swallowed and put the car in gear. She inched it out over the junction and peered up and down the street. Her palms were sweating on the vinyl steering-wheel. The street was quieter now – the schoolkids had indeed gone, but, on the far side of the road, its nose facing the school gates, was parked a strange-looking purple four-wheel drive. It had bull-bars, a snorkel, and what looked like daggers embedded in the wheels.
Sally pulled the Ka out into the road.
‘Is he there?’ Millie dragged the blazer over her head and shrank further into the footwell, her hands over her head. ‘Is he? Oh, my God, I’m so dead.’
Sally pulled up alongside the purple car. She let the car stop in the middle of the road, and turned woodenly to look at the man. He was mixed race, with a little pencil moustache and very shiny gelled hair. He wore a tight white T-shirt and a thick gold necklace. At first he didn’t notice her. He was watching the gates of the school. Then he sensed her presence. He turned, met her eyes and gave her a slow smile, revealing a single diamond mounted in one of his front teeth. ‘What?’ he mouthed. ‘What?’
She floored the accelerator and the little car shot down the hill, screeching, making pedestrians stop and stare.
‘Mum? What’s happening? Was he there?’
At the bottom of the hill she glanced into the rear-view mirror and saw that he hadn’t attempted to follow. She swung the car left past the big nineteenth-century church on the fork, then to the right, then left again, putting as much distance as she could between themselves and the man. She didn’t stop until she’d reached Peppercorn, way out in the deserted countryside. She got out and stood on the lawn, breathing the sulphury smell of