The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur - Страница 20

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heavy fog that in places reduced visibility to thirty yards, but

Georgina made no concessions to the weather, and sent the Land Rover

rattling and whining through it at the top of its speed, which Royan

reflected thankfully was on the right side of sixty miles an hour.

She glanced over her shoulder to check the road behind them, and saw

that the MAN truck was following them, Only the cab rose above the sea

of low mist that surrounded it like the conning tower of a submarine.

Even as she watched it, a bank of fog intervened and swallowed it up.

She turned back to listen to her mother.

"This government is a troop of incompetent nincompoops." Georgina

squinted her eyes against the smoke from the cigarette that dangled from

her lips. She drove singlehanded, stroking Magic's flowing silken ear

with her free hand, "I don't mind ministers boiling themselves into a

stupor, but when they start fiddling around with my pension I get really

mad." Her mother's pension from the foreign service was her sole source

of income, and it wasn't much.

"You don't truly want a Labour government, now tell the truth, Mummy,'

Royan teased her. Her mother had always been the arch Conservative.

Georgina wavered, and then avoided the choice, "All I say is, bring back

Maggie."

Royan turned slightly in her seat and glanced through the dirty rear

window again. The truck was still behind them, looming out of the fog

and the trail of blue exhaust smoke that Georgina was laying behind her

like the vapour trail of a jet aircraft. Up until now it had hung back,

but suddenly it accelerated up behind them.

"I think he wants to pass you," Royan told Georgina mildly.

The massive bonnet of the truck was only twenty feet from their rear

bumper. The radiator was emblazoned with the chrome logo "MAN' and stood

taller than the cab of the Land Rover, so that she could not see the

face of the driver from where she sat.

"Everybody wants to pass me," lamented Georgina.

"Story of my life." She held the centre of the narrow road doggedly.

Royan glanced back again, and saw that the truck was creeping still

closer. It filled the rear window completely.

The driver declutched and revved the gigantic engine menacingly.

"You' better give over. I think he means business."

"Let him wait,' Georgina grunted around her cigarette butt. "Patience is

a virtue. Anyway, can't let him through here. There is a narrow stone

bridge ahead of us. Know this stretch of road like the way to my own

bathroom."

At that moment the truck-driver sounded his klaxon so close that it was

deafening. Magic jumped up on the rear seat and barked in outrage.

"Stupid bastard," Georgina swore bitterly. "What does he think he is

playing at? Write down his number plate. I am going to report him to the

York police."

"His plates are covered with mud. Can't make it out, but it looks like a

continental registration. German, I think."

As if the driver had heard her protest he slowed slightly and fell back

until a gap of twenty yards opened between the two vehicles. Royan had

swivelled right round in the seat to watch him.

"That's better," Georgina said smugly. "Ruddy Hun learning some

manners." She peered ahead through the fog, "There is the bridge For the

first time Royan was able to see up into the driver's cab of the truck.

The driver wore a balactava helmet that covered all but his eyes and

nose with dark blue wool. It gave him a sinister and evil aspect.

"Look outV Royan screamed suddenly. "He is coming straight at us!" The

engine beat of the great truck rose to a bellow that engulfed them like

the sound of a gale-driven sea. For a moment Royan saw'nothing but

glittering steel and then the front of the truck smashed into them from

behind.

She was thrown half over the back of her seat by the impact. She dragged

herself up and saw that the truck had picked them up like a fox with a

bird in its jaws. It carried the Land Rover forward on the steel bull

bars that protected the shining chromed radiator.

Georgina wrestled with the wheel, trying to maintain control, but the

effort was futile. "Can't hold her. The bridge! Try and get clear-'

Royan hit the quick-release buckle on her safety-belt and reached for

the door handle. The stone walls of the bridge were racing towards them

at a terrifying pace. The Land Rover was slewing across the road,

completely out of control.

The door burst open in Royan's grip, but she could not push it all the

way before the Land Rover was flung into the solid stonework columns

that guarded the approaches PI to the bridge, The two women screamed in

unison as the vehicle crumpled, and the impact hurled them forward. The

windscreen shattered as they bounced off the stone columns, and the body

of the Land Rover flipped over as it went down the embankment and began

to roll.

Royan was catapulted through the open door and flung clear. The slope of

the bank broke her fall, but it knocked the wind out of her. She bounced

and rolled down the incline and then dropped into the icy waters of the

stream below the bridge.

Just before her head went under, she found herself looking up at the sky

and the bridge above her. She caught one last glimpse of the truck

before it roared away. It was towing two huge cargo trailers. The tall

bodywork of the trailers stood higher than the guard rail of the bridge.

Both of the trailers were covered by a heav green  nylon tarpaulin roped

down to the lugs on the body. She had only a subliminal glimpse of a

large red trademark and company name painted on the side of the nearest

trailer, but before she could register the name she was plunged below

the surface of the stream and the cold and the force of her fall drove

the air from her lungs.

She fought her way to the surface of the river, and found she had been

washed some way downstream.

Impeded by her sodden clothing, she floundered to the bank and used the

branch of a tree to haul herself out.

She knelt in the mud, coughing up the water she had swallowed and trying

to assess what injury she had suffered in the collision. Then her own

plight was forgotten as she heard the terrible sounds of her mother's

agony from the overturned wreck of the Land Rover.

In frantic haste she clawed herself to her feet and stumbled through the

wet and frosted grass to where the Land Rover lay on its back at the

foot of the embankment.

The bodywork was crumpled and torn, and the bright silver aluminium

metal shone through where the dark green paint had been stripped away.

The engine had stalled, and the front wheels were still spinning

aimlessly as she reached it.

"Mummy! Where are you?" she cried, and the terrible sounds never

checked. She used the metal body of the vehicle to steady herself as she

dragged herself towards the sound, dreading what she might find.

Georgina sat on the wet earth with her back against the side of the car.

Her legs were thrust out straight ahead of her. The left one was twisted

so that the toe of the booted foot was pointed down into the mud at an

unnatural angle. The leg was obviously broken at the knee or very close

to it.

This was not the cause of Georgina's distress. She held Magic in her

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