by Peter James
There was a grinding, grating roar, and a terrible screeching of rubber and metal, and then she was outside, standing at the roadside in the lay-by, she realised, puzzled, watching as the juggernaut careered on wildly down the road with the Mercedes jammed under its cab, like a beetle with a fly in its mouth. It slewed out towards the edge, the rear of the Mercedes smashing through the low wall, then they both plunged over, still locked together, tearing through the trees, banging like huge dustbins, crashing. Then there was silence as they fell, a long silence, and the light was fading around her, everything was going dim, until it became completely dark and she could see nothing.
Death.
This is death. Silence. Trapped in a dark void.
For ever.
The void.
For a moment, she felt sick. Sick and angry. Then she began to shudder. Help me someone. ‘Richard!’ she called out. ‘Richard?’
Nothing.
There should have been sirens. Police. Ambulance. Fire engines. ‘Help me someone!’ She felt herself floating, suspended in something that did not feel like water or air. Void, she thought. This is the void.
‘It’s OK!’
A single whisper.
‘It’s OK, Sam!’
A figure glided towards her out of the darkness. Another figure in the void with her. Coming closer. Closer. She saw a glint of light on the metallic green racing suit, then his head.
No. Please God, no.
The head coming closer. The black hood. The livid red eyeless socket coming closer, closer, so close it was going to touch her cheek.
‘No!’
‘Bugs?’
‘Help me. Oh God help me.’
‘Bugs?’
Different voice.
Then the single bong of a church bell, and something stirred in the darkness beside her.
‘Bugs? It’s OK. You’re OK.’
‘Richard?’ she said.
The room was cold, icy cold. Cold as hell. Her face was numb. There was a rustle, then the clank of a spring.
‘OK, Bugs?’ said Richard’s voice sleepily. She heard another grunt then a louder rustle, and felt herself move slightly.
Gingerly she slid her right hand across and touched him, in disbelief. Warm flesh. Breathing. She touched him again and let her hand stay on him, squeezing the flesh, and he grunted again. Then she rolled over towards him, put out her other arm, and touched his shoulder with her hand. She held him tightly, trembling with fear, with relief, and kissed his back.
He stirred again.
‘Make love to me,’ she said.
40
She stood at the window and stared out at the lake, waiting for the porter to collect their suitcases.
A powerboat sped across the water, a long way out, so far she could scarcely hear its engine. She wondered if it was the one that had come out of the mist and nearly killed them.
There was a rap on the door, and she called out, ‘Entrez!’
The porter came in and picked up the cases and she followed him down the corridor to the elevator. The lobby was gloomy, chilly, with the same unruffled, faintly expectant air that the lobbies of grand hotels always seemed to have. A phone rang, muted, and was immediately answered. The hall porter stood at his station, eyeing his domain. A short neat man in thick glasses sat behind the cashier’s desk, writing in a huge ledger. Behind the reception desk, one clerk was talking on the telephone and another was flicking idly through a brochure.
A young man in a sharp suit waited just inside the entrance, his shiny leather briefcase on the floor beside him, glaring impatiently at his watch. Near him a well-dressed elderly couple were sitting on a sofa, the man reading a newspaper, the woman working on a small tapestry. Sam sat down opposite them, and pulled her book out of her bag.
A tall elegant woman strode in through the revolving doors in a full-length fox coat with a string of pekinese dogs tangled around her feet. The hall porter stiffened deferentially, and addressed her in German. Sam wondered whether she was some actress she should have recognised, or the bored wife of a rich businessman. She watched her chat for a moment with the clerk who had been reading the brochure, then take her key and tow her train of dogs towards the elevators.
They’d made love last night for the first time since – since it had happened. Back to normal; it felt strange; everything had changed and yet nothing had. If he’d learned anything new from his office tart, he’d been careful not to show it. Same position, same technique, same dead weight. Same romantic words.
Shit, that was great Bugs.
Then asleep.
Well, it was three in the morning. Could you put back romance once it had gone? Romance, she thought, feeling a twist of sadness. She opened her book and turned to her place.
‘We will meet again soon?’ he asked, and she was quick to notice the question in his voice and could not resist the opportunity to tease him.
‘Perhaps,’ she said languidly, and was enormously pleased to see the frown that sprang across his forehead.
‘Perhaps?’ he said brusquely. ‘Only perhaps?’
For her answer, she reached for his hand and kissed his fingers one by one.
‘Hi, sorry about that,’ said Richard breathlessly. She looked up and saw him hurrying across the lobby towards her, looking harassed. He kissed her on the cheek. ‘What are you reading?’
She held up the cover. ‘Daughters of the Storm by Elizabeth Buchan. It’s good. I’m enjoying it.’
‘Are we packed?’
‘Yes. You’ve been longer than you thought.’
‘The car’s broken down.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘I got to the bank all right, then it wouldn’t start when I left.’
‘Is it OK now?’
‘No. Something’s wrong with the electrics, I think the computer’s gone on the blink.’
‘I’ve just checked out,’ she said. ‘Shall we check back in again?’
‘’S OK. Andreas has lent us his car.’
‘Andreas?’
‘Yah. He’s going to come up and join us in Zermatt for a couple of days – says he knows some great off-piste runs. He’ll bring the BMW if it’s fixed, otherwise we’ll pick it up on the way back.’
‘That’s very decent of him,’ she said hesitantly.
‘Yah’s a good bloke. I told you.’ He looked down. ‘This all the luggage?’
‘Yes. How did it go?’
‘Fine.’ He sniffed. ‘No problems. As far as the Swiss banking system is concerned, Richard Curtis no longer exists.’ He stooped to pick up the bags, and the porter sprinted across, snatching them away, then beamed triumphantly.
‘Outside? Your car?’
They followed him out into the brilliant sunlight, and Richard pointed across the driveway to the car that was parked awkwardly with two wheels on the kerb; a shiny green Mercedes.
41
She turned and walked back into the lobby, sat down on the sofa and stared ahead, stared at nothing.
Richard followed her in. ‘Bugs? What’s the matter, Bugs?’ He sat down beside her. ‘What’s up?’
‘I – don’t want to go in that car.’
‘What do you mean?’
She continued staring ahead numbly.
‘Why not Bugs? It’s almost brand new.’
‘The colour,’ she said.
‘The colour? Do you think I had a choice? It was fucking decent of Andreas to lend us it – his own car. It’s only about a month old.’
‘I had another dream!’ she screamed at him, so loudly that everyone in the lobby heard. And she didn’t care, thought they probably hadn’t understood what she said and that it was just another couple having a row.
‘Great. Another fucking dream!’ He leaned over towards her, and put his hands on the arm of the sofa. ‘What did you dream, Bugs?’
‘A – green Mercedes.’
‘What do you want me to do? Go back to Andreas, tell him “thanks a lot fo
r the car, but my wife doesn’t like the colour”?’
She smiled. She wasn’t quite sure whether it was because she thought it was funny or it was nerves, but she looked up at him and smiled again.
‘Pull yourself together, Bugs. You didn’t want to fly out here because you thought the plane would crash. Now you don’t want to drive because . . . what do you want to do? Stay here for the rest of your life?’
She followed him back out to the car, and he held up the keys.
‘Would you feel better if you drove?’
‘No.’ She climbed in and he slammed her door shut for her.
Neither of them spoke for a long time as they headed out of Montreux following the lake around, and then down into the Rhône valley. Everything that had happened in the past weeks churned over in Sam’s mind, the advice she had been given, the explanations.
It’s important for you to try to work things out. To try to find the meanings.
Green Mercedes. Disappearing into the mouth of the juggernaut.
Very Freudian.
You think so?
Bound to be.
Think it could symbolise a desire to rebirth?
Oh definitely.
I’m getting the sexual act very strongly, Sam. Does that resonate?
Regular ding-dong.
She watched the sunlight glinting off the three-pointed star on the Mercedes’s radiator. The car even smelled the same as the dream. Leather. Thick, rich, pungent leather. Like Ken’s Bentley. Like her uncle’s Rover.
Like the dream. Like the dream. Like the dream.
The dashboard was wood, immaculately polished, new.
Like a coffin.
Richard was on her left. The hideous green colour. The same colour. Designer puke.
He stretched out his arm and laid his hand on her thigh, patting it gently. ‘Andreas says the snow’s terrific at the moment. He was up there last weekend.’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘Good.’
The vine terraces rose steeply up from the Rhône valley to their left, and the Alps towered down on them from the right, like a fortress wall. A wooden fruit stall flashed past, then a giant furniture mart. She felt her throat tightening and a deep numb sense of dread building in the car. She wanted to stop, get out, but instead she sat silently, thinking; trying to work through everything, as Hare had told her.
Green Mercedes. Disappearing into the mouth of the juggernaut. Sure. Plenty of interpretations. Bamford O’Connell and Tanya Jacobson and everyone in the dream group could have had a field day on the dream.
Except.
Closer. All the time closer. Drawing her, reeling her in.
To meet the monster?
She opened the glove compartment and looked in, looking to see if there were any clues about Andreas. Nothing. Just an assortment of classical music tapes, an owner’s handbook and a clean, neatly folded duster. Andreas; she picked at a hangnail. Andreas who had no wife or family. Richard thought he had been married once, some time ago, and that his wife had died, but he wasn’t sure. Andreas. The enigma. Was it you peering out from the cabin of that boat? Were you trying to run us down? Ridiculous; not before the forms had been signed. So why didn’t you come out and speak to your friend? Why did you stand and smirk? If it was you?
Maybe Richard was right; maybe Andreas was a nice guy and she was maligning him. Maybe.
The road narrowed and ran along beside a shallow rocky river; she watched a man and a small boy standing on the bank with their fishing rods. A cassette was sticking out of the tape deck and she pushed it in. A Beethoven piano sonata tinkled from the speakers and made her feel sad, reminded her of autumn.
The road curved away slightly from the river, and was now lined on either side with trees bowing across towards each other in a guard-of-honour salute, and the sun, low down behind them, flashed through them like a strobe.
Like the dream.
She glanced at the road ahead. The trees ended. Different trees to the dream. They were firs in the dream. The scenery was different, too.
‘How did you meet Andreas, originally?’
‘Rang me up; said I’d been recommended – wanted me to do some dealing for his bank.’
‘Why’s he being so . . . helpful?’
He rubbed his index finger and thumb together. ‘Dinero. The Swiss will always be helpful for dinero – and he’s just a good bloke as well.’
‘You don’t think that he’s being too helpful?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You don’t think he has any – I don’t know – any other motive?’
‘Like what? Christ, you’re so fucking suspicious, aren’t you?’
‘Is he involved in this insider dealing stuff?’
He shook his head.
‘He got you dropped in it, but kept out himself?’
‘Wasn’t—’ He hesitated – ‘wasn’t just him, Bugs, you know. I suppose that’s what I get paid for doing – taking risks.’
‘You don’t get paid to break the law. Or did he pay you?’
He went bright red.
‘Is that where all the money came from? To buy the house, and everything?’
He sniffed nervously, fumbling for his cigarettes. ‘No, I told you. We – I – did rather well on a few deals.’
‘What sort of deals?’
‘Oh, you know – had a couple of good tips. Takeovers,’ he said evasively, sniffing again, then braking as they approached a hairpin bend.
As they rounded it she saw a small hut with a sign advertising ice cream and Löwenbräu, then they crossed over a narrow stone bridge. A yellow PTT bus passed going the other way. Her throat tightened more. Richard accelerated hard with an angry look on his face. She felt the tyres scrabbling on loose grit, heard the squeal as they bit onto a stretch of fresh tarmac and the Mercedes yawed slightly. The engine bellowed and the car surged up the hill, past a marker post and a row of trees with white rings around them. ‘You’re being bloody stupid about this whole thing. I’m doing it for us,’ he said, picking up his cigarettes and shaking one out.
To their left was a rock face rising straight up from the edge of the road, and to their right was an unguarded drop down into the fast-flowing river that was getting smaller beneath them.
Unfolding.
The dream was unfolding now.
Exactly.
Calm. Stay calm. Stay calm.
They moved over even closer to the edge as a massive truck thundered down past them, and she felt the blast of its slipstream rock the Mercedes.
‘Richard, please drive a little slower.’
‘’S all right. I’m not going fast.’ He lit his cigarette. ‘Got a long way to go, and we’ve still got the fucking train journey up into the village.’
We’re not going to get there, she wanted to say. We’re going to get wiped out by a juggernaut. In a minute or two’s time. We’ll be dead. All over. Fini. Curtains. Snuffed out.
She felt a curious sense of euphoria suddenly. Of power.
Of freedom.
As if someone was telling her to relax, that the next few minutes did not matter, that nothing mattered any more. That the choice to live or die was hers. That dying would be nicer. So much fun. Live out the dream! Go for it! Be free!
She laughed. Silly. Stupid. To have been so worried.
‘What’s funny?’
Funny, The word echoed around. Funny. Then the shivers gripped her and she felt as if a million hoses were pumping iced water straight into the centre of her stomach. They squealed around a double hairpin, and she saw the low stone wall at the edge of the road.
I’m going to wake up in a minute, she thought. This is a lucid dream. I can control it.
She heard the faint blaring of horns, then a red Volkswagen came fast down the other way, followed by a motorbike, its engine revving with a caterwauling howl, followed by a white van.
The ones she had seen. Identical. The same colours.
She was shaking with terro
r.
Richard. She tried to speak, but nothing came out. ‘Richard!’ she shouted, but it only came out as a whisper. She heard the horns again, closer now, vicious angry blasts. She unbuckled her seat belt.
Lay-by. They were coming to the lay-by.
‘Stop!’ She threw herself at Richard, grabbing the wheel, and felt the Mercedes swerving wildly. Richard stamped on the brakes and the car squealed to a halt.
‘For Christ’s sake, have you gone fucking mad?’ he yelled.
‘Pull off the road,’ she said. ‘For God’s sake!’ Her voice was a weird, croaking whisper. ‘Quickly!’
He glared at her, then accelerated harshly, squealing the tyres again, pulled over into the lay-by and stopped, flinging her forward. ‘What the fuck are you playing at?’
‘Out! Out! Get out!’ She opened her door, flung herself out, tripped, grabbed the swinging door and stared wide-eyes down the steep wooded gorge towards the river.
In the distance she heard the roar of a juggernaut. Two juggernauts, closer, coming closer, hurtling down; any moment they would come around the corner, one overtaking the other. Coming, coming, coming. She turned and saw Richard standing beside the Mercedes, staring at her.
They’re coming. You’ll see. You’ll see that I was right.
Where are you?
The roaring continued. Closer. Getting closer.
Richard walked around the back of the car towards her. A car came around the corner, then another, a red Porsche with skis on the roof, a small Renault, a BMW, an Audi piled high with suitcases.
Come on.
Still the roaring.
Then she realised that it wasn’t the roaring of juggernauts. It wasn’t coming from the road at all.
It was the roaring of water in the gorge below.
She walked along the lay-by, listening to the loose stones scrunching under her feet. A small truck droned up the road past her followed by a line of cars, then nothing again except for the sound of the gorge. She walked to the wall and stared down the sheer rock face through the trees at the frothing white water of the river. She heard footsteps behind her, then felt his arm around her waist.
