Die for You

Chapter 26

Monday morning had started with a light mist and a steady drizzle. Fitting really. I'd made arrangements after dinner to borrow the Range Rover and nip off for some personal time, promising to be back for early afternoon so I could drive Becky back to London. Richie had already left earlier.

In fairness, Becky had been brilliant, insisting that she had no specific plans for the day and that she was happy to spend the morning with her mother. I hadn't told her what I was planning to do. With everything else that had gone on, I didn't feel that was appropriate. I'd dumped enough of my shit on her and her family and they'd just soaked it up like they were sponges. This time, however, I was determined to do things on my own.

That is, after extracting a final promise from Becky to stay within the boundaries of the house's security.

I was pulling on my coat in the hallway when I heard footsteps behind me and turned to see her walking along the tiled floor behind me.

"Are you ok, Freen?" she asked, "you've been twitchy all morning."

"I'm fine," I replied thinking that 'twitchy' was the last thing I had been especially given what I was about to do.

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

"No," I said, perhaps a little too firmly judging by her expression. "Just stay in the building and out of trouble, Becky. That's all you need to do to keep things off my mind."

I tried to soften my voice, tried to make sure it wasn't as hard as it had been. I even managed a fake smile to try and make her feel better. She just looked at me appraisingly.

"I can do that," she said quietly, "if it'll stop you worrying about me."

"Knowing that you're not running off around the countryside will be a great weight off my mind." I told her, avoiding the fact that I do actually worry about her safety. I'm allowed to be concerned for her safety, concern is good, concern is professional.

"I'd better be off," I told her looking at the clock on my phone again, "or I won't get back in time."

"I told you, Freen, there's no rush to get home, take all the time you need. It's not as if you've had a day off this week, right?"

"I'll be back about two," I replied, "I'll be ready to drive you back to London then."

---

I was halfway up the M5 when I started to get suspicious of a large silver BMW five series behind me. It wasn't as if it did anything special to attract my attention, quite the opposite actually. In fact, it was that apparent normalcy that made me paranoid. It matched my speed for a bit, then it sped up and caught me before easing off and dropping further behind; never quite dropping out of eyesight.

It made me paranoid because those big motorway cruisers would normally blast down the outside lane of a motorway scattering everyone in their path. It was careless of whomever was driving, very careless. Driving with consideration, signaling when necessary, none of these things are associated with the people that drove these cars and it was that simple fact that attracted my attention.

I decided that a bit of clever driving was in order and I looked at the sat-nav screen on the Rover's dash to make my plan. Gently, I backed off the accelerator and brought the BMW towards me, closer and closer it came as we approached one of the exit ramps. With a sudden braking, I forced the Beemer to overtake me and swung the wheel to the left and accelerated up the ramp and onto the side roads, driving as quickly as I could to lose the other car.