Warhol's Prophecy

72

ROB GIBSON FLICKED the windscreen wipers of the Audi on to double speed.

It did little to help.

The hammering rain was striking the car with such ferocity that visibility was almost non-existent. The combination of driving rain and badly lit roads had forced Rob to slow his speed.

He glanced at the dashboard clock and saw that it was already approaching 10 p.m.

Most of the work problems had been sorted out. Deliveries that had been promised but had not arrived had been rescheduled. Customers had been pacified where possible. Frank Burnside had left an hour earlier, on Rob’s prompting. Rob was beginning to wish that he too had begun the journey home when his partner did. At least then he might have avoided this downpour.

A brilliant white flash of lightning lit the sky. It illuminated the heavens for fleeting seconds, then blackness returned again, like a wet cloak.

Inside the car, the rain sounded like a hundred angry woodpeckers slamming against the bodywork. Rob reached forward and wiped condensation from the windscreen, cursing when he almost lost control of the wheel as the car passed through some water lying on the road. It sprayed up on either side of the Audi like a miniature tidal wave.

Thunderclaps like cannon fire filled the sodden air, and Rob was sure he felt the Audi vibrate as one particularly savage rumble swept across the sky – followed immediately by a blinding explosion of lightning.

He slowed to forty, then thirty, the wipers still swiping frenziedly back and forth across the windscreen, but still making little impression on the downpour.

A car passed him going in the other direction, its driver also moving slowly as he negotiated the elements.

Rob reached for the mobile phone, anxious to tell Hailey that the weather would delay him even further.

He dialled, careful to keep one eye on the road.

There was a high-pitched beep and the legend NO SIGNAL appeared on the handset.

Rob muttered something under his breath, realizing that the storm had destroyed the reception.

He replaced the phone and gripped the wheel with both hands again.

The other car came out of nowhere.

All Rob saw was the sudden glare of its headlights in his rear-view mirror.

It was as if it had appeared out of the umbra, and now it was sitting on his tail, no more than ten or twelve feet behind him.

He wondered briefly which of the small side roads the car had emerged from. There were a number of narrow thoroughfares leading off this main artery into the town, but most were little more than dirt tracks. Wherever this particular vehicle had come from, its driver seemed determined to stay as close to Rob as possible.

He pumped his brakes once or twice, hoping that his flaring tail-lights would cause the other driver to pull back.

They didn’t.

Rob pressed his foot down with a little more force on the accelerator, not wanting to go too fast in the downpour, but anxious to deter the vehicle following.

It too speeded up.

Rob shook his head.

The lights that filled his rear-view mirror were dazzling. So bright he was forced to narrow his eyes as he attempted to get a proper look at the make of car that was behind him. It was impossible to tell.

In the driving rain and the darkness, it was difficult to see further than ten yards, and the blazing headlights behind gave him no chance at all of identifying the other vehicle.

He tried a different tactic. Rob allowed his speed to drop to twenty-five.

He was hoping that the driver behind him would tire of this snail’s pace and overtake him.

But the vehicle behind also slowed down.

Rob winced as he looked into the rear-view mirror again, and now he had to lean forward to prevent himself being dazzled by the beams. The bloody idiot was driving with headlights full on.

The two cars rounded a corner, still no more than three yards apart.

Rob raised a hand to wave the car past.

‘Go on, then,’ he muttered irritably.

The car behind slammed into him.