تصادف

CHAPTER NINE

An accident

A few days later, Susie looked at the sitting-room window where the rain water was still running down the glass. They’d been nowhere since that first day. She hadn’t wanted to do anything much. She just felt like sitting and reading. Or looking at the fire, putting on the wood, and thinking.

‘Charlie, let’s go out tonight,’ Susie said suddenly. ‘Let’s go to the pub, shall we?’

‘OK, if you want. The Black Dog’ he said. ‘We’d better go soon. There’s going to be snow later.’

‘How do you know that’ Susie asked.

‘Heard it on the car radio just now. I was mending that light. You know, that light on the front of the car.’

It was already dark by the time they started out for the pub. Susie watched her husband as he drove down the little road through the woods. In the yellow of the car lights, she could see he looked serious. He was thinking about something. What was it? Then she thought about who would be in the pub tonight. The farmer, perhaps? Or the man called Richard?

‘Oh no. Look. It’s starting to snow already’ Charlie said.

‘Oh, so it is.’ Susie could see little bits of snow caught in the lights of the car. The snow came flying towards them as they drove along. ‘It’s not very heavy,’ she said.

They turned onto the main road into Llandafydd. Now they were driving into the wind and here the snow was falling fast.

‘Perhaps we should go back,’ Charlie said. ‘It’s getting quite thick.’

‘It’s only a little way now,’ Susie said. ‘We’re nearly there. We could just have a quick drink and then go home.’

‘Well, all right, but it’s getting difficult to see.’ Charlie sounded worried. The snow was coming towards the car in thick straight lines. He moved forward to look through the hole in the snow on the car window.

Just then, Susie saw something. ‘Watch out’ she screamed. Something large and dark was moving towards them in the falling snow. It looked like a person, walking along the white line in the middle of the road.

Then the car lights went out.

‘What the’ Charlie said. He tried to stop the car but on the snow it just went faster. There was a crashing, screaming sound of metal as they hit something.

A little while later, Susie opened her eyes. At first everything was black. Her head hurt a little. Then she saw that their car was no longer on the road. They’d hit a tree. The tree seemed to be half inside the car, on Charlie’s side. In the darkness, she couldn’t see what was Charlie and what was tree. The only sound was the wind in the trees. There was no-one else around.

‘Charlie?’ Susie touched his arm. There was no answer. ‘Charlie?’ Was he dead? What should she do? Should she try to get him out of the car? Was the car going to catch fire? Just then a soft noise, almost like a voice, came from the other side of the road and she looked across. A dark thing moved between the trees. She couldn’t see if it was a person or an animal. It disappeared quickly.

A small sound came from Charlie. Thank God, he wasn’t dead after all. At the same time, car lights appeared along the road. She must get out and get help.

Outside on the road, her legs shook and she couldn’t stand. She sat down suddenly in the snow. A Land Rover stopped and a voice said, ‘Are you all right?’

‘No,’ Susie said. ‘We need a doctor. My husband’s hurt, Badly, I think.’ She found that she was crying.

The man got out and helped Susie to stand up.

‘Now then, I’m sure he’s all right, my dear.’ Susie saw that the farmer from the pub was looking worriedly at her. She remembered that his name was Tom.

‘I’ve got a mobile phone in my car’ Susie began.

‘That’s OK, You come and sit in my Land Rover where it’s warm, now,’ Tom said. ‘I’ll go and have a look at your husband. And I’ll get your phone.’

Tom took a blanket from the back of his car and went across the road. ‘What terrible luck,’ Susie thought. ‘Why does Charlie always try to mend things himself?’ She was always telling him to take the car to a garage and not to do it himself. ‘He probably did something stupid,’ she thought, ‘to the lights in the car, so they went out.’

Had there been a person on the road? It wasn’t possible, she thought. Perhaps it had been an animal. Or nothing at all. Just the way the light fell.

From her seat inside the Land Rover, Susie could hear low voices. Charlie must be awake, then. Tom returned after a while and said to Susie, ‘It’s OK, my dear. Your husband says his arm and leg hurt. But he’s not too bad. He’s probably just broken something. I’m afraid I don’t know how to use these things.’ He gave Susie her phone.

‘You call 999 and then we can get your husband to a hospital.’

Her hands shaking, Susie pushed the numbers. ‘Could you talk, please’ she asked Tom. ‘I can’t explain where we are.’

Tom spoke into the phone and then turned to Susie. ‘Not long to wait,’ he said. ‘They’ll be here soon. No, my dear, you stay here now,’ he said as Susie started to get out of the Land Rover. ‘I’ll go and see if your husband’s OK.’

Tom went back to the crashed car. It seemed a long time before he returned.

Susie was cold and afraid. How badly hurt was Charlie? She started to think about the worst things possible. Perhaps he would die? ‘This is terrible,’ she thought. ‘I must go and see him.’ She got out and stood by the Land Rover in the falling snow. Starting to walk across the road, she suddenly felt sick and her legs shook. She wasn’t hurt but she felt so weak after the crash. She couldn’t walk any further. She went slowly back to the Land Rover.

Then after a time the farmer came back and started to talk to her.

‘On holiday, then, are you’ Tom asked.

‘Yes,’ Susie began. It was difficult to talk but she tried to be friendly. ‘We’re staying up in Cynghordy House. We were on our way to the Black Dog for a drink.’

‘Oh yes,’ Tom said. ‘I remember now. You came into the pub a few days ago, didn’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Susie said. ‘We’d just arrived. I’m Susie Blackmore.’

The farmer smiled. ‘Tom Lloyd, Pleased to meet you,’ he replied.

Just then another car arrived and a man’s voice asked if he could help. No, Tom told him, everything was all right. They had phoned and help was on the way. The car drove off again.

‘Going to the pub, he is, I expect,’ Tom said. ‘He’s new around here, Richard is. But he seems nice enough. You know, quite friendly. He’s bought an old house which he’s working on, so he says.’

Feeling a little better now, Susie asked, ‘Was he in the pub the other day? You know, when Charlie and I were there?’

‘Ah, yes. I believe he was,’ Tom said.

They didn’t speak for a bit. Then Susie saw, with some surprise, that there was a gun on the seat next to her.

‘Do you shoot for sport, then’ she asked Tom.

‘No,’ he replied. ‘I only shoot animals when I need to. Foxes, birds, and so on. And dogs, too, if they go after my sheep.’

‘We found a dead sheep outside our front door a few days ago,’ Susie said, remembering suddenly. ‘It was very strange. We think something put it there. And ate bits of it too. Perhaps it was one of yours?’

‘Maybe. I’ve lost five sheep now. There’s something out there, I’m sure. Something that’s very hungry and very large,’ Tom said in a low voice. ‘But I’m going to find it and kill it.’ Susie could hear that he was very angry.

He looked at Susie for a moment and then took something from his pocket. He gave it to Susie. It was small and made of metal and lay heavily on her hand. It was a bullet.

‘It’s silver,’ Tom said softly.