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Suddenly, something distracted him. It sounded like a window slamming, but he was sure he'd closed them all properly. Next, the sound of glass shattering.
He leapt out of his armchair and gripped the beer bottle tightly around the neck, brandishing it like a weapon. Anthony Perkins and Vera Miles continued their dialogue, but now his attention was elsewhere. Someone was messing about with some kind of metallic implement outside the house.
He made his way to where the living room met the large entrance hall and flicked the light switch.
Voices.
Footsteps moving away into the distance.
He approached the window and tentatively pulled the curtain. A gust of wind blew in through the hole in the centre of the pane. Alfredo looked down at the floor and saw shards of glass scattered everywhere. It took him a few seconds to realise what had happened. He thrust the window open wide and looked out, his fist clenched tightly around the neck of the bottle. What looked like two human figures were walking off into the distance, leaving him stood there, powerless, a cry caught in his throat.
Alfredo felt just like he had that evening. He cursed those sons of bitches who would occasionally come round. They would play all sorts of pranks on him because someone, God only knows who, had been spreading vicious rumours about the B&B.
He took another step towards the twin olive trees, the axe still tightly in his grasp.
He reached one of the trees and turned to lean his back against its considerable trunk. He was panting heavily now.
Frrrrsscch…
There it was again.
He spun around the trunk and raised the axe above his head, ready to bring it crashing down onto....oh.
Alfredo looked down and saw a pair of defiant eyes. They were black as tar and staring right at him.
The stone marten eventually broke away from the staring contest, spun around and scuttled off a few yards.
Alfredo looked up to the sky and burst out laughing. Then he turned back towards the animal, which had itself turned back and was staring right at him again. He lifted a foot and stamped hard on the ground.
The marten jumped and disappeared into the long grass.
CHAPTER 12
She'd cheated death.
It had been a real stroke of luck - a miracle, in fact. She was still sat securely in the driver's seat of her C2; her mother must have had a word with Almighty God, that was the only explanation.
Dead because of a blown-out tyre...
She felt sick at the thought of it. The car had slammed into the crash barrier and she had come away without a scratch. Just a bruised wrist and an almighty scare.
Someone was banging furiously on the window. Chantal turned to look and unlocked the door from the inside so the concerned-looking man could open it.
"Are you OK?"
"Yeah, thanks...just a bit shaken up, that's all."
Two other cars had stopped, their occupants keen to check on her well-being, but Chantal just wanted them to leave her alone.
In the end, she felt bad for thinking that because they removed her lacerated tyre and replaced it with the spare, allowing her to resume her journey.
She was running two hours late now and would have to let Alfredo know. She would call him, but only once she'd listened to the old Guns N' Roses song that had started to play over the speakers...she adored this track.
… and it's hard to hold a candle
In the cold November rain…
OK, so it wasn't November, but it was certainly raining. Better to let the candle go out and then light a new one once the rain stops or you've found some shelter.
Sometimes I need some time... on my own
Sometimes I need some time... all alone
Everybody needs some time... on their own
Don't you know you need some time... all alone…
She definitely needed some time all alone.
The brake lights of the car in front came on, warning her to slow down.
She was stationary in seconds. A traffic jam.
What the hell...?
Luckily, there was a sign informing her that there was an Autogrill a few hundred yards up the road.
Stopping at the services would be infinitely preferable to sitting in the jam like a lemon.
“Twin Olive Trees B&B, Alfredo speaking. How can I help you?"
"Hi Alfredo, it's Chantal."
"Chantal?" He sounded confused, as if it were a name he'd never heard before. "Why are you calli..."
She butted in because she knew what he was about to ask.
"I tried you on your mobile a couple of times but you didn't pick up, so I thought I'd ring you on this number."
Silence for a few seconds, then the hesitant voice of Alfredo.
"Oh, right, the mobile...I must have left it charging somewhere. What's going on? Is there some kind of problem?"
Chantal sighed.
"Actually, there is. It's more than just traffic; I think there must be an accident or roadworks. I haven't moved for about 20 minutes. Well, I have moved, but only a hundred yards or so."
She paused, wondering whether to tell him about the puncture, but decided against it for now. She didn't want him to worry.
"It's no problem if you get here a little later than advertised," he reassured her.
"I've even thought about staying over somewhere and setting off again tomorrow morning. I mean, I could be stuck in this for hours. Luckily, there's some services a few hundred yards ahead. I'll stop there and..."
"Staying over somewhere?" he repeated incredulously. "You've got to be kidding, right? You're my guest tonight. Why on earth would you pay for a room somewhere else?"
"I might not be with you till gone midnight. I don't want you having to stay up late."
"Right, good one..."
"What do you mean?"
There was a pause, and when Alfredo replied, his tone was severe.
"I'm an insomniac. I lie wide awake every single night. Trust me, waiting up for you will not be a problem."
Feeling embarrassed at having touched a nerve, Chantal cleared her throat and sought to end the conversation.
"Great, so I'll see you later then?" Okay?”
"Fine," he replied. "OK, bye."
CHAPTER 13
The clock on the C2's dashboard told Chantal it was just after ten o'clock. She was nearly there. Another 1.5 miles according to the sat nav.
The countryside all around was enveloped in a late-winter mist. The whole setting gave Chantal the creeps. She felt as though she was in one of those horror films where a Z-list actor plays the guy who gets captured and eaten by zombies. However fleeting, the thought frightened her and sent a shiver down her spine. She flicked the car's central heating up a notch, sending a blast of hot air into the passenger compartment.
A decrepit road sign told her that some place or other (she couldn't make it out) was 9 miles away. A bit further on, a wooden sign bearing a date from a couple of years earlier declared: “Simone and Clarissa had sex here for the first time”. Slightly lower down, on the same sign, was a drawing of a cock and a pair of tits underneath some writing: WE DON'T GIVE A SHIT!
Just as she was wondering what kind of place she'd come to, Chantal noticed that the sat nav was now saying she had 2.4 miles to go.
How was that possible?
She was getting further away from her destination.
Perhaps she should turn ar...
Suddenly, there was the most horrendous noise.
Chantal instinctively slammed on the brakes.
At first, she thought maybe she'd strayed too close to the edge of the road, but it couldn't have been that because the car was fractionally over the centre line.
There it was again, that fine line...
She pulled over to the side of the road. There was no crash barrier, but there was a very steep drop as the road fell away. People round here had to be mad driving on these roads all the time.
She turned off the engine, opened the door and got out of the car. There was an icy chill in the air. Chantal looked around but there was no sign of what might have caused the noise.
She knelt down to look under the car and thought she could see something towards the rear end. She stood up, walked towards the boot and knelt down again to take a closer look. Gross! A black bin bag had got caught between the silencer and some other component that she didn't know the name of. She tried to kick the bag and gagged at the stench coming from it.
No joy, so she fetched the warning triangle from the boot and used it to unhook the bag.
Job done.
Chantal got back to her feet. Through the mist, she could just make out a shape moving close by. The triangle slipped out of her hands when she realised it was a person.
"Car trouble, young lady?"
It was an old woman whose cutting voice reminded Chantal of the witch who gives the poisoned apple to Snow White.
She took a step back, startled. The woman must have been in her eighties. She had straggly white hair and a bony face, studying Chantal with a curious and unnerving pair of eyes. One of them had no pupil, leading Chantal to suppose it was made of glass, while the other was practically transparent.
"Won't it start?" the old lady asked, pointing at the car.
"Ye...yes" Chantal struggled to get her words out. She cleared her throat. "Yes, it's fine. There's nothing wrong with the car. I just ran over..."
She paused and pointed at the bin bag.
"...that thing. It gave me a fright, but it's fine now."
"Ah, OK. In that case, I'll be on my way," the old woman replied.
Chantal stayed motionless for a few seconds, wondering what the hell an old woman was doing out in the cold on a deserted road at this time of night. Was she the local nutter?
"Excuse me?" Chantal called out.
Enshrouded in mist, the figure of the old lady stopped and turned around,
revealing her terrifying face once more.
"Can I ask you something?"
The old woman smiled thinly and inclined her head.
"I'm looking for a bed and bre..." Chantal stopped herself, unsure whether the old woman would be familiar with the English term. "I don't suppose you know of a guesthouse in these parts? It must be around here somewhere, but my car's navigation system doesn't recog..."
The old woman's smile vanished and her expression turned to one of sheer terror.
"Do you know it?" Chantal asked, persisting in spite of the additional anxiety brought on by the woman's reaction.
The old woman raised a bony arm and pointed to a dirt track Chantal hadn't noticed, before scuttling away down the road as fast as her age would allow.
Still a little spooked by the encounter, Chantal got back in the car, reversed as far as the dirt track and turned onto it. Five hairpins and a seemingly endless straight climb later, she arrived at the top of a hill. The enormous valley to her right nestled into the dark night. It must be one hell of a view in the daytime, Chantal thought to herself. By night, however, it was most disconcerting. Were someone to attack her, no one would hear her scream.
According to the sat nav, she was just 850 yards from her destination. She continued along the dirt track, which was now widening gradually. Her already scant visibility was impaired even more by the dust she disturbed as she drove along. She could just make out a light in the distance, however, and as she progressed another couple of hundred yards, the dark outline of an imposing building began to emerge. A yellow light shone through one of the windows.
The ground crunched under the weight of her car as she drove on towards the house.
