Suddenly realising my one chance of help is about to drive off (and probably isn’t a psychotic killer, after all), I dash towards the car. As the engine hums into life, I knock frantically on the window and he turns. For a second, our eyes lock. I can see him more clearly now, in the glow from the lights at the entrance to the park, and he doesn’t look nearly as scary as I first thought. For a moment, I think he’s going to ignore me and drive away, but then the window rolls down with an electronic whine.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi! I’m sorry to bother you. But I’ve broken down and I…well, I wondered if I could use your phone to call for help?’
He glances back at Effie for a second. Then without a word, he gets out of the car and goes to the boot. Bending inside, he emerges with what looks like a coil of wire or rope, and for a second, my murderer theory looms large again.
He keeps instruments of torture in his boot?
‘Jump leads,’ he says in a gravelly voice.
‘Gosh. Thank you.’ I feel quite faint with relief. ‘I thought I was going to be stranded here all night. I’ve already had the police onto me.’
He shoots me a puzzled look but says nothing, just gets back into the driver’s seat and quickly manoeuvres his car into position. Leaping out, he starts fiddling about under the bonnet, attaching the leads.
‘Not that I was doing anything illegal, you understand,’ I add earnestly, keen that he doesn’t think I’m some weirdo, up to no good in the park at night. (I saw a documentary the other night about people who enjoy nocturnal dogging in lay-bys and deserted parks…Oh, God, maybe he thinks…)
‘Are we doing it together?’ he asks abruptly. ‘Or are you just going to watch?’
I gawp at him, rendered speechless for a second – until I realise he’s pointing at the camper van bonnet.
‘Ah, yes. Yes, of course.’ I dive over to the van and fumble about till I find the lever.
At last, we’re all wired up and I hover there, between the two vehicles, wondering what to say to my rescuer. He doesn’t seem to be a small-talk, chit-chat sort of a man, which makes things a bit awkward. But then he solves the problem altogether by striding away, without a word to me, and talking on his phone.
I stand there, listening to the hum of his engine, feeling calmer after my initial reservations about him. He smells far too good to be a murderer. Although even serial killers probably like a dab of cologne now and again.
He’s either the strong, silent type. Or just plain rude. Actually, I don’t care which, as long as he gets Effie working again.
And now he’s coming back and getting into the camper van and turning the key, all without a single glance in my direction.
But she starts! And that’s all I’m bothered about.
‘Thank you. I’m so very grateful,’ I begin, as he retrieves his jump leads and lets the bonnet drop. ‘I don’t know what on earth I’d have done if you hadn’t been there to -’
‘No problem. Drive safely. Goodnight.’ He unhooks the leads from his own engine, lets the bonnet drop and gets back in his car.
‘Right. Well, thanks again.’ I’m feeling a little dazed by his abruptness. Waving and smiling, I murmur under my breath, ‘Make sure you don’t wear out those vocal chords, now.’
I get back in the van, which is still idling. My rescuer is still there, and when I move slowly out of the park, I notice he’s on his phone again.
A busy man.
As I drive past, he looks up and I give him an awkward little smile, expecting him to ignore me and get back to his call. But he lifts his hand and gives me a wave, and I’m so startled by this, my foot slips on the clutch. The sound of crashing gears splits the night and the van stalls.
Damn!
I flick him a glance as I hastily start it again. He’s observing me coolly, a hint of amusement evident in the slight curve of his lips.
Flustered, I shove Effie in gear and roar off, revving far too loudly in my hurry to escape the park, and my surreal meeting with Jump Lead Man.
I drive along, my heart rate gradually returning to normal.
What was he doing, lurking around the park at night?
Scenes from the dogging documentary flash into my mind, but I shake my head. He seems too reserved to engage in something like that. But you could never tell. It was often the quiet types…
CHAPTER FOUR
I motor along dark side streets, still oddly unsettled by my encounter with Jump Lead Man, looking for somewhere to stop for the night. Thankfully, the police car is nowhere to be seen, but I don’t want to draw attention to myself by parking outside someone’s house. Not that dear old Euphemia could manage to blend into the background, wherever she was parked!
I wonder what my knight in shining jump leads thought of Effie?
Or me, for that matter.
Not that I’m bothered…
At last, I find myself at the far end of a cul-de-sac, outside what looks like a derelict factory building. It’s after midnight and the curtains are drawn all along the otherwise residential street. No lamps in windows or curious, twitching curtains. Surely I’ll be okay here? As long as I’m gone first thing in the morning?
I switch off the engine and silence reigns once more.
I slide into the back, kick off my trainers and sink down on the bed again, hoping for the welcome oblivion of sleep. But my head is still buzzing from everything that’s happened. I suppose I thought that arriving here, in this pretty seaside town, I’d feel calmer. That the memory of all those happy trips with Mum would make things seem instantly brighter.
But the truth is, my life is unrecognisable from a year ago, and that won’t change just because I’ve made the journey to Cornwall. I won’t suddenly snap back to my old self. A change of scene won’t suddenly banish the sinister feeling that my mind is spinning out of control.
If anyone had told me back then that in twelve months’ time, I’d be running away from home, while grieving for my mum and also for the strong bond I once enjoyed with Dad, I would have said they were…well, mad.
But here I am…
*****
Mum was a midwife. She was diagnosed with cancer the day before her fifty-second birthday. We were told she would have weeks to live, rather than months, but I think even the medical people were shocked at the rate Mum went downhill.
After we lost her, just ten days later on the last day of August, Dad and I were both in shock. We stumbled around for a long time, feeling like we were inhabiting a different planet – a cold, harsh terrain with heart-jagging shocks lying in wait around every corner. Doing the supermarket shop and hearing Mum’s favourite song coming out of the speakers. Finding her violet hand-wash-only cardigan with the pink applique hearts at the very bottom of the washing basket. Putting the garment to my nose and realising her perfume was still clinging to it. The strangeness of having pizza and movie night, just Dad and me (we abandoned it by mutual unspoken consent after the first week).
Life was suddenly full of unexpected dangers. Comforting certainties had vanished – all except the painful certainty that Mum was gone from our lives forever.
After a month or so, the jobs in the garden dried up, and Dad started going to the golf course. He went most afternoons (being retired, his time was his own) but he spent longer at the nineteenth hole than the rest of them put together, returning quiet and sad in the early evening.