The House Swap(70)

‘You’re the boss,’ I tell him, and we’re both smiling, unable to resist these games we play. I grab the car keys from his top pocket as we walk quickly down the corridor and out into the car park.

‘You sure about this?’ he asks, as I scramble into the driving seat.

‘Yes,’ I say quickly. ‘It’s fine.’ As I start up the engine, I suddenly remember the bottle of wine I’ve drunk. I hesitate. I don’t want to tell you I’ve been drinking – don’t want you to think that anything is clouding my judgement or my decisions. My head feels completely clear; in fact, it feels like I haven’t thought this clearly in years. And the roads will be practically empty at this time of night, especially here.

Uncertainty is twitching at the back of my mind, but I push it aside. I’m filled again with that sense of power, the knowledge that everything is finally coming together and nothing can stop it. I switch the headlights on, and the road coiling ahead away from the hotel is illuminated in pale yellow. Shadows are shifting on the horizon, the blowsy branches of trees swaying darkly in the faint wind. I steer the car out on to the road, and there’s a rush of air through the open crack at the top of the window, setting the hairs on my arms on edge.

‘We’ll go to that town we passed on the way,’ I say. ‘There’s bound to be something open there. OK?’

Carl laughs, leaning his head back against the headrest. ‘I don’t have a say in this, remember?’ he says. ‘I’m putty in your hands.’ He stretches out his hand and cups my knee, pushing the fabric of my skirt up towards my thigh. ‘This is crazy,’ he says wryly. ‘Driving out into the middle of nowhere when I could be fucking your brains out right now.’

The words send another jolt of electricity through me – savage, dirty, a fierce pulse of need – and for an instant the road ahead blurs. I shake my head slightly, tighten my hands on the wheel. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the needle on the speedometer quivering, and I pull the car back. Shouldn’t go too fast. There’s a strange, itchy feeling spreading through my bones, telling me I’m not entirely in control.

‘Don’t,’ I say. I hear the breathlessness in my voice and I find myself gasping, sucking in a sharp, cold burst of air.

He’s watching me. I can feel his eyes on me, travelling over my body. ‘I love how much you like this,’ he says. ‘I don’t just mean the sex. I mean …’ He trails off, turning his face to the window, staring out into the night.

I know what he means, even if he doesn’t, and all at once I’m willing him to say it, wanting to hear him say he loves me before I have to say it first – and I’m twisting my head to try to catch his gaze, my eyes sliding away from the road ahead. And in another moment I catch a flash of something right at the corner of my vision and I realize there’s a bend looming ahead, tucked away from the streetlights.

My eyes snap back and my body floods with adrenaline. I know that I’m going to have to turn fast, and my hands tug at the wheel, swinging the car sharply to the left – calculating in a split second that I’m going to veer on to the pavement but that I’ll be able to stop before we hit the side of the road. It’s going to be OK. But Carl is sitting up in his seat and I hear him shouting something I can’t quite decipher, and as he does so I see her, walking fast along the pavement with her head ducked down and her hands in her pockets, her dark hair and her green scarf blowing together behind her in the wind, and with a sickening lurch of instinct I realize that she’s too close, that there is no way I am going to be able to get out of her way.

I’m slamming the brakes on, and the sound of my screaming is filling the car, and I hear and feel the impact in the same moment – the sudden speed and force of it, the way she smashes against the windscreen and slides down instantly, the bright spatter of red that splashes across my field of vision. The car has jerked to a halt and we’re sitting in complete silence and stillness, but it’s too late.

My hands are shaking crazily and there’s an ache shooting up the entire length of my spine. My eyes are fixed on the wheel. I can’t raise my head. ‘Jesus Christ,’ I hear myself say. ‘Fucking hell.’ It doesn’t sound like my voice at all.

‘We have to get out,’ he says, and I drag my gaze over to him and see that he’s bleeding, his hand cut sharply by glass from the fractured windscreen. ‘It might – she might—’

I’m unfastening my seatbelt, opening the door with hands still shaking so much I can barely wrap them around the handle. As soon as I see her I know there’s no hope, but I drop to my knees anyway and bend forward, forcing myself to look. Her arm is unnaturally twisted, flung across the length of her body. The right side of her face has caved into a bloody mass, lacerated almost to the bone. She’s young. Sixteen, seventeen. A dark line of mascara is pooling down the untouched side of her face and her green silk scarf is streaked with red. The impact has knocked her scarlet high-heeled shoes off her bare feet. She’s completely still. Her eyes are half open. Every detail comes in flashes – brutal snapshots, fired one after the other, then snatched away.

He’s checking her pulse, bending his head. I don’t have to ask.

For a few moments, we’re crouching there together in silence in the dark. My mind is blank and buzzing. ‘What do we do?’ I ask. ‘What the hell do we do?’