Read Online Appleby Plays Chicken by Michael Innes - Free Book Online Page B

might recur. A gaggle of old women, for instance, would have to be given the same answer. He ran on. And then he heard the car’s engine start to life behind him.
    He hadn’t thought of that. She was curious, or intrigued, or genuinely concerned. And here she was. He hadn’t covered a further fifty yards before she was slowing down just abreast of him. This time he did halt. There was nothing else to do. And the halt told him how fagged he was. He could, he supposed, tell his legs to get going again. And they’d probably obey. But they wouldn’t like it, all the same.
    ‘Are you running away from something?’ The girl looked straight at him as she asked this. Her eyes were a deep, deep blue. She seemed seriously puzzled.
    ‘Yes – I am.’
    It was a mere matter of breathing that constrained David to this brevity. He saw her look back along the road, which was still empty, before speaking again. ‘Are you a convict?’ she asked prosaically.
    He didn’t know whether to laugh, or to damn her silently for an idiot woman. And even if she was a bit dumb, she was extremely good looking. But his perception of this was for the moment entirely by the way; it had nothing to do with the urgency with which he suddenly said, ‘No, I’m not – I promise. But I’ve got to get away, all the same. Will you take me?’
    ‘Yes, certainly. Get in.’
    He was beside her in a flash. Granted that they could get away instantly he was convinced he had taken the right course. Once they were travelling, she could be in no danger at all, and no more could he himself – which, after all, remained a consideration of some moment. But to leave her in his wake, so to speak, by taking again to the moor, or to go on down the road and have her tagging along making helpful noises, was to expose her to at least some unknown degree of risk. ‘Drive straight on,’ he said. ‘And then I’ll begin explaining.’
    The girl nodded, and tugged at the starter. David was conscious of a sudden fresh anxiety. He hadn’t noticed that she’d stopped the engine. Still, it was a big modern car, and there oughtn’t to be any trouble. But, for the moment, the engine didn’t fire.
    ‘Damn.’ The girl was aware of trouble. And she wasn’t looking at the controls, although her hands were moving over them confidently. Her eyes – those really lovely eyes – were fixed on a driving mirror on the windscreen. ‘Is that them – the people who are after you?’
    David turned and looked back along the road. His pursuers were farther back than he had expected, and only just identifiable. There could be no doubt of them, all the same – and they were coming along hard. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that’s them.’ And he added: ‘Are we going to go?’
    ‘Of course we’re going to go.’ The girl spoke sharply. ‘The carburettor floods a bit, if you muck it. And I have, I’m afraid. But we’ll do it – with seconds in hand. Only we must give it a few seconds now.’
    ‘All right.’ David spoke as casually as he could. He felt that, after all, he had done quite the wrong thing. ‘But they’re not very nice people, I’m afraid. If the worst comes to the worst, will you lie down in the car when I tell you to?’
    ‘Yes – if it will ease your mind.’ The girl’s voice was cool and faintly ironical so that he guessed she’d not easily lose her head. But her body was tense, and her hand hovered over the starter. She might have been counting. ‘Now,’ she said, and pulled. ‘Damn,’ she said. ‘Damn, damn, damn!’ The engine had turned over, and again nothing had happened.
    David looked back. It wouldn’t do. The position, in fact, was desperate. He had involved this thoroughly commendable young woman in disgusting danger after all. And now she was looking at him inquiringly, so that their eyes met. And instantly he was moved by some quite inexplicable prompting – an instinct, a perception, a calculation: he didn’t know what. ‘I’ll go,’