* * *
James dropped Stephanie back at Wakefield House around five-thirty pm. A helicopter was parked in the field behind the house and the lights were all on in the guest house conference room. She slipped up to her bedroom to get changed and find her car keys. She wasn’t sure what her father would say about her still being in the village, but she really didn’t want to know, so she left the house quickly and quietly, without seeing anyone.
Stephanie drove down the long driveway and turned right onto the lane leading down into the village, and adjusted the volume on her car stereo. She began to sing along with it, not noticing the car behind her until it sped up.
Hey, she thought, disbelievingly looking in her rear vision mirror. Back off. You’re driving way too close. She glanced at the headlights shining strongly behind her. She suddenly had a flashback to the car outside the club in London. In the dusk the one behind her now looked similar. She gasped, feeling frightened. God – was this what happened to Michael? Was she about to be run off the road too? She sped up and reached into the pocket of her jacket, retrieving her mobile phone. She rounded the bend on the narrow country lane, coming onto a straight section and slowed her car as she tried to retrieve James’s number from her call list. The car behind her suddenly accelerated past her and pulled into a stop at an angle directly in front of her.
Stephanie jammed on the brakes and spun the steering wheel sharply sideways to avoid impact. Her mobile went flying out of her hands into the passenger foot well. The force of the sudden stop threw her head forward. She hit it on the steering wheel, before being thrown back in her seat. Momentarily dazed, she was aware of her door being wrenched open and a strong hand being clamped across her nose and mouth.
And then nothing.