Hennessy speaks: Nowhere to turn. Too dangerous. Weather…
She puts the radio on. He reaches up to turn it off but she reaches too. She will switch it back on as soon as he turns it off. Some woman talking about the mid-life crisis in men. He listens to the plummy BBC voice, thinks the bitch needs a good fucking.
Flack, slack, flack, attack.
If anything the rain is getting worse. He slows a little. Ahead is a junction, an ancient white signpost, and under it a figure, standing in the rain.
Night like this, poor sod.
“You're not thinking of stopping?”
Flack, slack, flack, attack.
It's a student, looks like a student, his thumb out. He slows down.
“Don't you dare stop! He could be anyone.”
Flack, slack, flack, attack.
He's just a kid…
“You never know.”
They drive past, swishing, splashing. Hennessy can see the sag in the hitch-hiker's shoulders. He feels sorry for the kid, wants to give him a break. But soon the boy, the sign, the crossroads, are behind them.
Bugger!
“What is it now?”
“Tyres. Think, a puncture.”
He slows, judders, stops with the rain still lashing in, the night flailing. A feeble shine in some moonlit cloud, one almost lost farmhouse light miles away across the moors. Hennessy gets out, goes round to the back of the car, lifts the trunk lid, finds the jack.
It takes her five minutes. Five minutes with no movement, no noises, no lurching car before she can stand it no longer. She opens the passenger door and steps out into the rain. “Frank? Frank?”
When she steps round, just when the tiny trunk light shows him her frightened face and those piggy eyes, he hits her, square, smack across the nose, between those eyes, with the heft of the jack. The sound and feel of her face caving is quite delicious. She is still standing, somehow and he swings again, the cast iron jack thudding into the side of her head. Now she crumples. He finishes her with three more delirious, dizzy, joyous swipes. Her head looks like roadkill.
Puncture! Hennessy says and rolls her off the road, down into a small ravine where she settles between two rocks.
He has to drive another half-mile before he can turn round, then he does a U, drives quickly. After a minute or so, he shoots past the ravine without a thought. When he gets to the crossroads the boy is still there and when he swings the car round and slews to a halt in the rain, the boy comes quickly to the window.
“Saved my life,” he says and he gets in.
The kid is all right. His name is Tom. He pulls earplugs from his ears. He tells Hennessy he thought he was going to be there forever. Some lunatic has escaped from Broadmoor, supposed to be headed this way. No way was anybody going to pick him up on a night like this with news like that.
Saw you earlier, Hennessy says. But had to drop the wife off first. So where you want to go, fellah?
