And here's the text of the third chapter....
3./ "You
sure you're alright?" the man in the driving seat asks.
Mhairi, gaze searching
the mountainous darkness for any hint of Loch Lomond, is slow to turn
round.
"What?" she
asks.
"That bump I gave
you."
He looks kind enough, a
wee bit sagged and rumpled and middle-aged; maybe, she surmises, a
bit sad about something at the far back of his mind.
"It wasn't much,"
she shrugs. "I’m okay."
"The guy in that
other car, he was hasslin' you?"
She roves her stare past
the flashings-by of headlit trees.
"He gave me a lift.
Got a bit creepy."
"I bet," says
the man. "What you doing, taking lifts off creeps?"
She faces him again,
sees him show a lop-sided grin. "I exempt myself, of course,
from classification as a creep," he says.
"You sure?"
she asks.
"Absolutely. Took
the blood test for creepiness last month. Got the all clear. Want to
see my certificate?"
"I trust you."
His grin hardens past
humour. "Really?" he asks. "How come?"
She shrugs again.
"People's hearts aren't so hard to see into."
"Yeah... well...
I’d look extra close if you're going to make a habit of
hitch-hiking."
"I don't plan to."
“You know anyone in
Glasgow?"
"I’ll be okay,"
she mutters.
"It's not the best
place to be stuck without a friend."
"I know someone,"
she says. "Don't worry."
"A someone who
knows you're coming?"
"A someone I can
trust."
"Well, I hope that
someone doesn't go to bed early. It's going to be the wee small hours
by the time we hit town."
He sounds as if he
cares. A trick? The closer she lets him take her to Glasgow, the
better placed she'll be if she has to make a run for it. The hand
furthest from him checks the weapon in her fleece's pocket.
"I’m not gonna
drop in out of the blue. I’ll... I’ll sort something else out
tonight."
"Yeah. Glasgow's
full of parks. You'll find an empty bench, I’m sure."
"Maybe..." she
ventures, "...maybe you know somewhere I could...?"
His eyes fix upon her,
so tightly she fears he'll forget the road ahead and kill them both.
"What island did
you come from?" he says.
"Island - ?"
"Your accent. It's
- what? - from the Orkneys, the Hebrides, someplace like that, huh?
And your general approach to getting by in this big bad world, which
floating rock of hopeless naivety did that swim in from?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean,
sweetheart, watch what suggestions you make with that lilt and them
fluttering eyes, when you're sat in a car with a guy who could be
anyone."
"What suggestion
was I making?" she says.
"The fact you don't
know makes it makes it all the more dangerous."
"Was I making it at
all?"
"Huh?"
"Maybe it's
something you made up inside your own head."
She twitches down
the first couple of notches on the zipper of her fleece's pocket.
"Guess what,
darling," he says, "there's worse heads than mine in
Glasgow. So the point is... take care."
"You don't trust
that place, sounds like."
"Bitter
experience."
"What sort of
experience?"
"Too bitter for talking about this time of night. Listen, we... um… I do hate to think of you sleeping rough.... I, um, I live just north of the city. Got a spare room. You could kip there for the night. I could drive you into Glasgow in the morning. Strictly innocent, I assure you."
"I believe you,"
she says, staring past the shadows of the branches as they stream
across his face.
