The String Diaries Part 5

Nicole switched her focus back to him. 'You just wanted to see me again.'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'I don't know, really. I just-'

'You just felt compelled.'

Charles gambled that she was not going to strike him with the rock unless he did something particularly reckless, and climbed to his feet. She moved backwards, granting him s.p.a.ce.

'Idiotically compelled,' he said.

'Instinct.' She was searching his eyes.

'Something like that.'

'And what does your instinct tell you now?'

He fished a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at the blood pooling on his upper lip. 'That you're a couple of lunatics.'

'Charles. Look at me. I am deadly serious.' She stole a glance at the lorry. 'What does your instinct tell you now? About me?'

'I don't know you.'

'That doesn't matter. Forget for one moment what just happened. If you can. When you first met me, and this very moment as we stand here do you think you can trust me?'

She was speaking faster, looking more anxious.

'I don't know.' He paused, shrugged. 'Perhaps.'

'Then listen to what I have to say, Charles. We have to get away from here right now.'

'Why?'

'I don't have time to explain. I need you to make a leap of faith. I'm asking for help. It doesn't happen often and I'll only ask once. If you want to help us you need to get us away from here.'

This was crazy.

'OK. Just . . .' He nodded. 'OK. I will. I'll help. But what about your car? We can't just walk away.'

'Charles-'

He blew out a breath. And accepted a step into the unknown. 'Fine. Come on. Let's get out of here.'

Nicole turned to the woman. She spoke rapidly, pointing first at Charles and then at the road. The woman protested, but she seemed to have lost the argument.

'Pa.s.sports.' Nicole ran to the rear of the Hillman, twisted the boot lock and cursed when it would not move. She banged on the crumpled lid, jiggling the lock in frustration.

'What's wrong?'

'It's jammed. Our bags are inside.'

'Let me try it.'

'There's no time. It's stuck fast.' She went to the driver's side, reached through a broken window and pulled out a large bundle tied up with string. It looked like a collection of old leather-bound books. 'Come on. We need to go.'

'You can't leave your pa.s.sports here.'

'Let's go.'

Nicole crossed the field, slipped down the slope of the ditch and pushed her way through the brambles, pulling the woman behind her. Charles found himself following.

The lorry, an old Bedford with a red bonnet and black wheel arches, had pulled up twenty yards behind the Stag. A man appeared from the far side. Pot-bellied, green vest, lank hair. He cupped a cigarette in his hand. ''S'why we have speed limits, son. Everyone still got their arms and legs?'

Charles ignored him. He followed the two women to his Stag, opened the pa.s.senger door and loaded them in. Jumping behind the wheel, he started the car and accelerated away from the verge.

In his rear-view mirror, he watched the receding figure by the lorry. The man stared after them. After a moment he flicked his cigarette into the bushes and turned away.

They swept through Oxfords.h.i.+re countryside. Charles rolled down the windows, grateful for the purifying rush of air. The fields they pa.s.sed were mostly empty, the harvesters having stripped them of their grain. The heat of the sun had scorched the earth that remained. It had been a hot month, although nothing like the summer of '76 three years earlier, when the government had introduced the Drought Act.

Where they pa.s.sed dairy farms, cows grazed on pasture right up to the fences bordering the road. The animals raised solemn faces as the Stag sped past. Nicole turned often in her seat to scan the road behind them. Charles wondered if she was searching for something in particular, or if her habit was so ingrained she found it impossible to stop.

Either way, he resolved to say nothing for a while. He needed to give himself a chance to think about what had happened. His nose ached like h.e.l.l, and a headache was pinching and p.r.i.c.king behind his eyes. Again, he asked himself what he was doing, why he had felt such a compulsion to get involved, to follow this girl.

He cast glances at her as she fidgeted in her seat. On her lap lay the bundle of books tied with string. Some of them were so old they were falling apart, the leather of their bindings cracked and dusty, the pages clumped and brown. Nicole rested her hands on top of the pile, her fingers fiddling with the knotted string. Her face remained impa.s.sive as she studied the road ahead, eyes narrowed against the wind and the glare. She looked strong, determined, yet at the crash site he had seen a fear in her as fleeting as it was unsettling. He knew she had been telling the truth when she told him she seldom asked for help. It was clear in her every interaction with him in her speech, even in the way she held herself that she was used to standing alone. He wondered what events, what life blows or choices, had chiselled her that way. He wondered if he would find out.

The London Road out of Oxford led to the motorway, and rather than following it south he chose the northern branch. He took the exit near Wendlebury and circled Bicester before taking country roads back west towards Woodstock. It was a circuitous route, but he sensed that Nicole needed time to gather her thoughts. By the time he was on the homeward stretch, she had ceased checking the road behind them and had fallen into a daze.

Charles examined himself in the rear-view mirror. His nose, never a graceful appendage, was swollen and purple. Blood caked the rims of his nostrils and flecked his chin. His clothes were scuffed with mud and torn from brambles. His forearms were scratched white and streaked with crimson where thorns had punctured his skin.

Strange, but despite the pain of his throbbing face, the pressure building behind his eyes, he felt exhilarated. He knew some of that was due to the adrenalin racing through his system. But there was more to the feeling than adrenalin alone. It felt as if a hidden part of him had been unlocked, and as the daylight flooded in it was beginning to rejoice.

Thinking of the woman who had so efficiently clobbered him, he angled the mirror to get another look. Nicole's mother caught his reflection and returned his stare. No warmth resided in that look, no trust. He supposed that had he not chased them down so impetuously they would never have crashed off the road. She owed him little grat.i.tude. Yet her behaviour when he had gone to help her defied understanding. She had been ready to kill him, genuinely intent on cracking open his skull and letting his brains leach into the earth. Charles recalled his conversation with her as he stood in the telephone box outside Balliol College. She had called him demon and Jakab. Clearly she believed he was someone intent on doing them harm. If it wasn't for the memory of her black eyes as she stood over him and clutched the rock above her head, he could even feel pity. But it was far too soon for that.

He angled away the mirror.

They crested a hill. An avenue of oaks flanked the road below them. Thick trunks thrust into the sky, their crowns forming an arch of foliage. As the Stag barrelled into a tunnel of green they were plunged into shadow, the sunlight flickering and dappling as it fought through the leaves.

In damp mulch at the side of the road, bloated and ripe, lay the carca.s.s of a deer. Something presumably another vehicle had shattered its jaw and twisted its head around its neck. Blood had flooded from its mouth and ears and nose, and flies crawled and danced in its fluids. Charles winced as they drove past.

'Where are you going?' The sight of the dead animal had shaken Nicole out of her reverie. She sat up in her seat, instantly alert. 'Charles, where are we?'

He heard the suspicion in her voice, and it depressed him. He knew he needed to tread carefully, needed to avoid his natural inclination to lead. It was not ground that they could occupy in harmony. 'We're north of the city,' he told her. 'We just pa.s.sed through Bunker's Hill. I have a house in Woodstock, a few more miles from here. If you want I can take you there. If not, I can drive you anywhere you want to go.' He closed his mouth, resolving to say nothing more. He could feel her considering her options.

Nicole twisted round in her seat, looked at the woman behind. 'Can we all go there? To your house?'

'You can even bring Joan of Arc, if she behaves herself.'

'Charles, watch your tongue,' Nicole snapped. 'That's my mother.'

'Yes,' he told her. 'I've noticed a charming similarity.'

Charles felt her glaring at him. He concentrated on the road ahead but when he sensed, a few moments later, that she was still examining him, he met her gaze and found that she was grinning. It transformed her face so spectacularly that he found himself grinning in return.

'What's funny?' he asked.

She laughed, quick and guilty. 'Your nose, Charles. It's like a strawberry.'

'Nice of you to mention it.'

'Does it hurt very much?'

'Yes, it b.l.o.o.d.y hurts.'

Nicole laughed again. 'I'm sorry.'

He nodded. 'How about you? Are you OK? When I saw the state of your car, I didn't think anyone could have survived.'

'I'll live. I'm sure I'll feel a lot worse tomorrow.'

'What are you going to do about the Hillman?'

'We can't go back to it now. It's rented. There'll be a-' She stopped, and he knew she had caught herself, dismayed at what she had been about to reveal.

'It's OK,' he said. 'You don't have to talk about it.'

'No, it's fine, Charles.' She seemed ready to say more, but he could feel her tensing again. She stared at the road and swept her hair away from her face. Quietly she added, 'Our pa.s.sports are gone.'

They drove through the open gate to his cottage shortly afterwards. Nicole peered out of the window as he parked next to the Jaguar, under the shade of a silver birch. 'It's beautiful, Charles.'

Cotswold stone framed tiny sash windows gleaming with pale green paint. Wisteria vines twisted about the stone, bunches of purple flowers hanging thick and heavy with pollen. Above it all a tiled roof sagged with age.

Charles climbed out of the car as Nicole helped her mother from the back seat. He led them inside the cottage and along the hallway to the kitchen. As they a.s.sembled inside the low-ceilinged room, he felt a sudden flush of awkwardness. 'I'm sorry, I've forgotten my manners. You'll have to forgive me. I don't often have guests. Please.' He indicated a rectory table in the corner and ushered them to chairs. While her mother took a seat, Nicole placed the bundle of books on the table and went to the window. She looked out at the garden.

Impeccably manicured lawn stretched to a rear border of blackcurrant and raspberry bushes, with wild meadow beyond. Beds spilled over with dahlias, foxgloves, chrysanthemums, geraniums: a barrage of pink, purple, and red swaying on dark stems. Wild flowers cl.u.s.tered around the trunks of apple trees, cherry and j.a.panese maple. Bees hovered and buzzed, bodies sticky with nectar. On one side stood a shed in front of a tilled vegetable patch. A metal water b.u.t.t collected rainwater from its guttering.

Charles felt another pang of self-consciousness, uncomfortably aware of how feminine his garden looked. He moved to the sink and filled a kettle with water.

'You surprise me,' she said. 'I never would have pictured this.'

'You've caught it at the best time of the year, of course.'

She looked past him at the blossoms, smiling.

Charles made tea in a china pot and carried it to the table on a tray loaded with cups. He waited until the leaves had steeped and then he poured. 'Look,' he said. 'I don't know what you're involved with, what situation you've found yourself in. But it's clear you're worried about telling me much about it. I'm not going to pry, I promise you, but I do want to help, and it's going to be difficult to do that very well without knowing at least something about you and what you're facing. It's pretty obvious that you're running from someone. You've been concealing your ident.i.ty too. At this point I don't even know if I should call you Nicole or Amelie.'

'It was probably a stupid thing to do, but I told you the truth when we met. Like you, I just felt compelled. One of those things. I can't explain it. My name is Nicole Dubois. This is my mother, Alice. The doctor bit is also true. I earned my Ph.D at Paris-Sorbonne. My field is early medieval history, the same as you. I lecture at the university in Lille.'

Charles extended his hand in mock formality. 'Well, Doctor Nicole Dubois. It's good to meet a fellow academic.' When Nicole placed her hand in his he nearly jumped at the sensation of her fingers on his skin.

She treated him to a tired smile. 'I don't know where we go from here.'

'Catch-22.'

'What do you mean?'

'You don't feel able to confide in me, and I can't help you until you do.'

She sipped tea. 'We need to get to Paris. We'll be safe there, both of us. We have ident.i.ties we can use in France. Prefontaine, others.'

He frowned. 'OK.'

'We're not professional criminals, Charles, if that's what you're thinking. Yes, we have other ident.i.ties, doc.u.mentation, but none that would stand up to the scrutiny of an international border. When we travel it's under the names on our pa.s.sports. Coming here was a risk. We planned to visit only briefly. With the car crash, insurance report, investigation, there will be an easy trail. And without pa.s.sports to leave England . . .' She left the sentence hanging.

'What were you looking for at Balliol?'

'Charles, I can't tell you that. It's not that I don't want to. It's for your own sake. I'm not in any personal danger. Not really. But it's not the same for anyone close to me. It is better you do not know. Believe me.'

'You can't expect me to-'

Her temper flared. 'Charles, have you listened to anything I've said? I will tell you what I can, but not that. I don't even know you.'

'My exact words earlier when you asked me if I trusted you.'

'That was different.' She glanced around the kitchen, at the copper pots hanging from the ceiling rack, at the vase of lilies on the windowsill. When she looked back at him, her face had changed. Hardened. 'How do I even know you're who you say you are?'

He sat back in his seat. 'That's an odd thing to say. You met me at the university. You're in my house.'

Alice Dubois leaned forward and laid a hand on her daughter's arm. She spoke for the first time, in accented English. 'Nicole, you can find out. Validate him. If that's the only way you can trust him, then do it.'

Nicole looked at her mother, then back at Charles. 'How long have you lived here?'

'Four years. Since I-'

'Tell me something about this room. Something only you would know.'

'Like what?'

'Anything. Just something I can verify.'

He cast about. A line of cookery books stood on the work surface, squeezed between two mason jars.

'There's a small notebook bound in brown paper in that stack. My mother's old recipe book. Sellotaped towards the back is a folded recipe for pavlova taken from a magazine. There's a cross mark in pencil on it,' he told her. 'The pavlova was a disaster.'

Nicole rose from the table, found the book and riffled through the pages. She found the sc.r.a.p of paper tucked at the back, and the cross in the location he had described. She came back to the table and laid it down for her mother to see. 'Thank you. I'm sorry that I had to-'

'Don't apologise. Look; stay here, tonight. The spare room is already made up. We can talk more later if you want. And if you don't, fine. I'm afraid I don't have much in the way of supplies. So let me pop out. I have a few errands to run first, but I can pick up some food and make us dinner. Perhaps all this will become clearer after that.' He stood, hoping that by demonstrating his full trust in her she would begin to lower her defences. 'Treat the place as your own. Use anything you need. I'll be gone for a couple of hours at most.'