Hell Hath No Fury (22 page)

Ruth shook her head. ‘I don't know about that. I don't pretend to understand what the real motive is behind these killings, but I am sure it relates to something that happened between her and those boys.'

‘Hmm!' Paddy rubbed a hand over his chin thoughtfully. ‘In that case we'd better locate Simon Gould and warn him that he may be in danger, don't you?'

I
gnoring the darkness closing in around her, Maureen Flynn instinctively drove north-west without stopping, until the petrol gauge on her Ford Escort registered NIL. Even then she kept on going, the engine spluttering, choked by dirt from the bottom of the sump.

She knew that unless she pulled in for petrol within the next few minutes she would find herself stranded by the roadside, and she hadn't the slightest idea where she was.

Knowing she had bungled the last killing clouded her brain. Whoever it was that had been driving the red Mini she'd almost collided with in Englefield Drive, and who had turned into the Willows, couldn't have helped but find Dennis Jackson's body – and by now they must have informed the police.

She was surprised that she had not encountered any road blocks. She'd been expecting at any minute to hear the wail of police sirens and find a panda car alongside her, signalling her to pull over.

The fear of this happening was why she was so intent on putting as many miles as possible between herself and Benbury.

Yet she needed to stop, and not only for petrol. She was ravenously hungry, and her throat so dry that it was painful to breathe.

Normally, food didn't bother her a great deal. She ate sparingly, but now she had an overwhelming yearning for fish and chips. Fish and chips wrapped up in paper! The chips soaked in vinegar. Eating them with her fingers.

There was one other compelling reason why she must stop, and that was to get rid of the bulky black bin bag stowed in the boot of her car.

A council refuse tip was the only safe place to dispose of that! There she could throw it into one of the huge skips where, in next to no time, it would be buried under garden refuse and other rubbish. That was what she had done with all the others. No one would ever find any of them. The skips would be emptied straight on to the burning grounds, and, once the contents were incinerated the evidence would be gone forever without trace.

She'd feel so much calmer once the bag was out of her car. Then she'd be safe! Even if she was intercepted by the police there would be no evidence to connect her with the murder. It was madness not to have stopped before this and got rid of it, she told herself. Probably all the tips would be closed at this time of night, but even if the gates were locked she might be able to toss the bag over them into the nearest skip.

Frantically, she checked the fuel gauge. The needle had slipped down below the red warning panel. Unless she filled up with petrol soon she'd never reach a council tip.

Petrol. PETROL. PETROL! The word hammered on her brain.

She wondered what time it was. The clock in the car showed it was almost eight o'clock, but she couldn't believe it was that late. She tried to see the time by her watch, but it was too dark inside the car to do so.

She should have stuck to the main road – used the motorway, even. Then she would have found plenty of service stations where she could have filled up, and she would also have been able to get a drink and some food.

It was no good thinking about that now, Maureen told herself. She had no idea where she was except that it was a minor road somewhere in remote countryside. There was bound to be a road sign soon, at the next crossroads, or the next junction with a main road, she thought. When she did find one, however, the names on it meant nothing to her. She had twisted and turned so much that she was obviously in some very minor country road, and the roads off it were tracks to outlying cottages or houses.

A feeling of panic surged through her. The mountainous clouds in the darkening sky took on terrifying shapes. She could hear her own harsh breathing as the hedgerows seemed to close in on her. When she suddenly came to another road junction, and turned out on to what was obviously a main road, her relief was intense, and when she spotted the illuminated sign of a petrol station a few hundred yards down the road she wondered if it was real or a figment of her tormented mind.

As she pulled on to the forecourt the engine gave one final splutter and died. Maureen didn't know whether to laugh with relief because a fill-up was so close, or cry with despair because it was obvious the hose from the petrol pump wasn't going to reach the filler on her car.

A man with a heavy dark beard appeared from the workshop that stood at one side and as he came towards her she noticed he had a pronounced limp.

‘Cut it a bit fine, didn't you? I heard you spluttering down the road, and I wondered if you'd make it.'

‘Thank heaven I found you open! Do you think you could give me a push?'

‘You sit tight and steer,' he told her.

‘Thanks!'

By the time he'd filled the tank up Maureen was feeling more in control of herself. ‘Can you tell me what the nearest town is?' she asked as she paid for the petrol.

‘Depends which way you're going!' He guffawed at his own joke. ‘This is Pontydaren. Builth Wells is that way, and Brecon is that way. You're about halfway between the two.'

She looked startled. ‘You mean I'm in Wales?'

He laughed. ‘Where did you think you were?'

‘I . . . I wasn't sure.'

‘Where've you come from then?'

‘South . . . London way . . .' she murmured vaguely.

‘You should have taken the M4 or M40.'

‘I . . . I don't like motorways.'

‘So where in Wales are you heading then?'

‘West . . . near Aberystwyth.'

He let out a low whistle. ‘Come out of your way a bit, haven't you? Best thing you can do is go back to Brecon, and then take the A40 through Sennybridge to Llandovery, pick up the A482 to Lampeter, and then—'

‘It's all right. I know my way from there.'

‘Live that way, do you?'

‘My parents do . . . I'm on my way to see them.'

She slid behind the wheel, slammed her car door, and raised a hand in farewell as she drove off the forecourt.

As she turned right he came limping after her, waving his arms, shouting, ‘That's the wrong way! You're going towards Builth Wells!'

Now that she had a tank full of petrol, Maureen Flynn's confidence returned. She smiled to herself as she saw the garage man standing in the road waving his arms. She wasn't heading for Aberystwyth, but if he wanted to think she was then that was all to the good.

She didn't know why she had said she was visiting her parents. That hadn't been her intention, but since she was in Wales she might as well head north and do exactly that.

It was only about a hundred miles from Builth Wells to Llangollen, and the roads were quiet at this time of the year, especially at night. She'd be there in a couple of hours or so, but she must stop first and get rid of the black plastic bag, she reminded herself. She grimaced as she thought of the shock her father would get if he came out to the car to help carry in her cases and picked that up by mistake.

But she didn't have any luggage! How on earth was she going to explain that to them?

She blanked it from her mind. She'd think of something. They'd probably be so surprised to see her that they'd swallow any story, she told herself. The important thing now was to get rid of the black bin bag.

As she drove along the almost deserted roads, with their wide verges, clumps of trees and dense hedges, she was very tempted to toss it down into one of the deep ditches. That would get rid of it, but it might be risky. Storing up trouble for later on if someone came along and found it and opened it up. Not that they would be able to link it to her, of course! She'd been far too clever to leave any clues.

Even so, she decided, she'd stick to her original plan. She'd dispose of it in a household rubbish tip. That had proved a very successful way of doing things all along, so why change the routine now? She'd drive round the next town she came to until she found one. They were usually on the outskirts and clearly signposted.

She drew a blank a both Newton and Welshpool, and as she circled the periphery of each of the towns she found she was losing her sense of direction.

A sense of bewilderment clouded her mind. It was now quite dark so she could hardly stop and ask directions to the local household waste tip without attracting attention. Another thirty miles and she'd be in Llangollen. She had to find somewhere to get rid of the bag before then, and the only large town was Oswestry.

She felt desperately hungry, so she consoled herself with the promise that she'd definitely stop at Oswestry for food and a drink. A place that size
must
have a household waste depot of some kind she told herself, trying to quell the panic rising inside her.

Perhaps she wouldn't bother about a drink or anything to eat. Disposing of the black plastic bag before she started on the final leg of her journey to Llangollen was the top priority. Her mother would give her all the food and drink she wanted once she reached there.

Simon Gould checked the time on his wrist watch and saw that it had turned eight o'clock. He might as well close up for the night, he decided. Maggie would have his supper ready by now. Anyway, he felt too tired to work on the Citroën that had come in for repairs. He'd start on it first thing in the morning.

As he kicked off his boots by the back door, and washed his hands at the kitchen sink, he wondered how far his last customer had got before she realized she was going in the wrong direction and turned back.

It wasn't until he and Maggie had eaten the cottage pie followed by apple tart and custard that she'd cooked for their evening meal, and they were sitting over a pot of tea, that he told her about it.

‘The funny thing is,' he mused, ‘I thought I knew her. I'm sure I've seen her somewhere before, but I can't quite place her.'

‘If she wasn't one of the locals then she might be one of them townies that have the summer cottages and only comes here once or twice a year,' Maggie suggested.

He shook his head. ‘I don't think so.'

‘It does happen,' she persisted. ‘I've met one of them before now down at the shop, and for the life of me I can't put a name to the face. Then it comes back to me. One of them summer cottage people.'

‘She sounded as though she'd come from London way . . .'

‘There you are then!' Maggie smiled triumphantly. ‘Like I said. One of the summer people.' She frowned. ‘Rotten lot they are. Coming here, and buying up the cottages that the young couples should be making their homes in.'

Simon laughed. ‘Cut it out! You know full well that the youngsters round here can't wait to get away from the place. Down to Cardiff, or Bristol, the moment they leave school.'

‘Not all of them. Look at Betti Jenkins . . .'

‘She only stayed on here because she'd got a baby to bring up.'

‘Yeah! And I wouldn't mind betting that the father of that child was one of these summer people!' Maggie added darkly.

‘You and your summer people! We'd have no trade if it wasn't for them. Look how slack things are at the moment.'

She looked at him balefully. ‘They're strangers. They don't belong around here.'

‘Neither do I,' he teased. ‘D'ye want me to up and leave?'

‘Oh, go on with you. You know what I mean. Anyway, you were the one who started all this talk about strangers.'

‘I only said that I thought I knew this woman from somewhere. She seemed to be in a right dream,' he went on. ‘She asked where the nearest town was, and when I told her Brecon was in one direction, and Builth Wells in the other, she seemed surprised to learn she was in Wales.'

‘Then she wouldn't be one of the summer people if she'd never been here before.'

‘No, I agree with that. But she had been to Wales before. She said her folks lived Aberystwyth way.'

‘Then you couldn't have met her before, because neither of us knows anyone who lives at Aberystwyth, now do we?'

‘Maybe I knew her when I lived down near London.'

Maggie gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘You do say some daft things. I sometimes think that bang on the head you got left you puddled.'

‘You never know, she might have been an old flame come looking for me,' he joked.

‘And when she found you she didn't like the look of you, and so she drove off in such a hurry that she went the wrong way,' chortled Maggie.

‘Well, that's all right then, isn't it?' He laughed and pulled her into his arms. ‘You wouldn't want some other woman coming along and taking me away from you, now, would you?'

‘Chance would be a find thing,' she bantered, but her response to his embrace left him in no doubt about her feelings.

He sighed as he buried his face in her curly dark hair. He'd been lucky finding someone like Maggie. Not many girls would have wanted to be seen with him after his car crash, he'd ended up so crippled and disfigured.

Maggie had been the nurse assigned to sit by his bed all through the long hours when he'd been in a critical condition in intensive care. She'd help him pull through, and when he'd been moved off the danger list, and into an ordinary ward, she'd visited him daily, often in her off-duty hours.

If it hadn't been for her gentle banter and fierce insistence on him getting better, he'd never have survived the painful skin grafts or the months of physiotherapy before he could walk again. She'd been nurse, mother, teacher and then, after he'd been discharged from hospital, his lover.

The weeks of sheer bliss became mental anguish when he knew that he couldn't live without her. It had taken tremendous courage to propose because he'd been afraid that asking her to marry him might break the spell.