Max loved driving across the Peak District. It was a beautiful part of the English countryside, with magnificent views across the plateau. Hills, valleys, forests and farmland. But, most of all, Max loved the roads. The roads across the Peak District were what Max liked to think of as "drivers' roads". There were long, straight sections that followed the lines of the old Roman highways. There were routes that followed the contours of the land and the ancient tracks of the ancient Britons.
In theory the roads in the Peak District were all subject to a speed limit of fifty miles per hour. However, Max had never seen the police enforce the limits outside the town and villages that dotted the landscape. So he drove at whatever speed he thought the roads could sustain.
Speed and skill. The combination was irresistible to Max.
His favourite road was the A5004 between Buxton and Whaley Bridge. The nearby A6 may have been faster, but it was built for speed and not a fit test for drivers of Max's calibre. The road clung to the steep-sided valley, above a long drop to the reservoir below. The twists and turns meant that he had to maintain an exacting control over his vehicle, otherwise - ! There were many scars along the roadside: evidence of where vehicles and their drivers had not been up to the challenge.
Today, however, was not a good day for Max. His journey across the Peak District had been a slow and frustrating one. First he had found himself behind a queue of slow lorries, struggling up the hills. Then he had been held up by farm traffic, dragging equipment between the fields. Now - on his favourite road, no less! - Max found himself stuck behind a car that was wending its unhurried way down the valley.
"Grockles," Max growled. It was local slang for tourists, rubberneckers and out-of-towners. This grockle was driving at a leisurely thirty five miles per hour, the driver displaying an annoying lack of familiarity with the road. Oncoming traffic had prevented Max overtaking the grockle, and he was in a foul mood. In frustration he had flashed his lights, sounded his horn and revved his engine in an effort to hurry along the driver in front of him. Nothing had worked.
Finally, on a horseshoe bend at the head of the valley, Max's patience had evaporated. The road cleared, and Max floored the accelerator to roar past the grockle, hooting his horn in triumph.
The grockle had enough time to slam on his brakes as he rounded the blind corner at the end of the horseshoe, avoiding a lorry with still-smoking tyres.
There was no sign of Max's car. But there was a hole in the drystone wall and a mass of bubbles in the water far below.
