Primogeniture (The Firstborn)

18: The Realization.

Alison stood stock still, a vague smile permeating her countenance, watching the red rear lights of Felix’s Porsche turn out of the car park and merge into the traffic flow and off into the rapidly vanishing visibility of half snow and half freezing rain.

Zipping up her leather jacket as far as it would go she walked with head bowed against the sleet; back to her own car parked at the other end of the car park. Taking her phone from her inside pocket, she tapped out a text, ‘Successful, on no account discuss till I arrive,’ and with no apparent sense of urgency, drove out of the car park.

The journey back to London was slow and the poor visibility meant keeping alert and peering out through the slush accumulating on the windscreen between the rasping and scraping of the elderly wipers doing their best in conditions that would have been challenging even for a new vehicle.

However, she was a confident, some might say fearless, driver and had a tendency to drive too fast for the conditions.

The traffic was snagging up all the way down the M1 and Alison, impatient as ever, decided to get off the motorway at Toddington and work her way over to West London using a network of A and B roads that few people would have been familiar with.

It was on just such a B road that she saw headlights approaching at speed. Slowing down to let it pass she eased off the accelerator and gently pushed her foot down on the brake as the car passed her and sped off into the distance.

About what happened next she was uncertain. Having let the car pass, she took her foot off the brake and pushed down on the accelerator. Moments later rounding a curving bend in the road she seemed to be approaching the rear of the speeding car which must have braked at the same time that she had accelerated. Hitting the brake pedal she slowed enough to avoid a major impact but not enough to avoid hitting the rear of the car in front with a resounding jolt and crunch. Still moving forward at some speed the driver of the car in front put his arm out of the window pointing to a lay-by just ahead. Both cars pulled in.

Alison, furious at the driver of the car for having braked so suddenly and so hard, left the engine running with headlights on and got out in a fury, despite the freezing sleet, even more annoyed in the knowledge that under law she would probably be held responsible.

The driver in front made no move either to get out of his car or open the door and as she approached the driver door, the window wound down no more than an inch.

“Why in hell’s name did you brake like that? I didn’t stand a chance on that bend.”

The window remained as it was, just an inch of the dark interior showing with a slight whiff of cigar smoke seen visibly curling from the aperture.

“Okay, well let’s just get this sorted out,” Alison said more softly, beginning to feel uncomfortable as well as cold and wet, at which the door suddenly flung open smashing into both her shins. With a shudder of pain she collapsed on the ground screaming in agony. Seconds later, a man wearing dark clothing was standing over her, grabbing her by the zip of her bomber jacket and dragging her across the rough stony ground as she fought and screamed. As her assailant pushed her down onto the sodden grassy embankment screened by the stopped cars, there was no possibility of being seen by any passing motorist.

With the excruciating intensity of the pain in her legs starting to subside a little, Alison attempted to collect her thoughts. She realised that she was in deep trouble. The throbbing pain in her legs along with the stabbing points of icy rain and sleet falling now directly onto her face, mingled with sheer screaming panic. She felt a vice like pressure pushing down on her windpipe as the full weight of the assailants body clenched her firmly with right forearm pressed down against her throat.