A Regimental Affair (10 page)

‘What?’

‘How about I’m a sort of fairy godmother?’

Megan gave her a puzzled stare. ‘What, glass slippers and pumpkins?’

‘No, silly. I mean nice treats on your birthday – trips to theme parks, girls’ days out together, shopping trips.’

Megan’s face was radiant. ‘Wicked, that sounds like so much fun.’ Then her face fell again. ‘But you’ll be away for my birthday.’

‘When is that?’

‘October.’

‘We can do something together when I get back. We could go up to London together in the Christmas hols. Would you like that?’

‘Lush.’

Ginny took that to mean yes. ‘I’d have to clear it with your mum.’

Megan groaned. ‘You’d be better asking Dad.’

‘Maybe, but I think this is one for your mother to OK. If I go to your dad he’s almost bound to say yes because he probably hates shopping, wouldn’t think it was any sort of big deal. But your mum … well, she might have plans of her own.’ Probably nothing that Megan would like, but that was between Alice and her daughter. ‘Right, well, if you’ve finished, we’d better get back.’

After Ginny had dropped Megan back at Montgomery House and received effusive thanks from Megan and rather more restrained ones from Alice, she returned to the mess. Richard was walking through the hall as Ginny opened the front door.

‘There you are,’ said Richard.

‘Looking for me?’

‘Yes. You’ve been out.’

‘Well done, Sherlock! Nothing gets past you, does it?’ said Ginny with a laugh. ‘I took Megan out for tea. She’s off back to boarding school on Tuesday. I thought I’d make sure she had a good feed before she gets put back in the slammer.’

‘I think most kids get more than gruel these days. Parents who are shelling out fifteen grand a year in fees expect to see their little darlings looking fit and healthy when they spring them.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. When I was at school the food was gross.’

‘Good, so you probably still need to make up the shortfall in your diet.’

‘I doubt it. I’ve just put away more scones and cream than I care to admit to.’

‘Then you’ll just have to find some more space. Debbie has sent me to find you. She’s bought a chicken the size of a small ostrich and she wants you to come over and help us out.’

Ginny gave it a couple of seconds of thought. ‘OK, but only on the condition that you let me bring the wine.’

‘And you thought I was going to argue?’

‘Nah.’

‘So what’s this with you and Megan?’ asked Debbie as she stirred the gravy.

‘I like her. Is that a crime?’ said Ginny defensively.

Debbie didn’t miss the tone. ‘And …?’

‘And what?’ Ginny’s voice rose slightly in indignation at not being completely believed.

‘I quite agree she’s a nice child, despite her mother, but there’s twenty years between you, for heaven’s sake.’

‘Honestly, it’s completely innocent. I just like her company.’

‘So your friendship with Megan isn’t designed to piss off Alice.’

A smile played across Ginny’s face. ‘Appealing though the idea is …no.’

‘Or designed to increase your standing with Colonel Bob and improve your chances of promotion?’

‘No!’ Ginny was almost offended. Did people see her as a scheming, promotion-seeking, manipulative cow? Then she realised Debbie was joking. ‘Oh well, I’d better come clean. Actually …’

‘Thought so.’ They both laughed.

‘If you really want the truth it’s because I had a fantastic day out at Alton Towers and I suddenly realised that there’s a whole heap of great things to do but that, if you don’t want to look a complete prat, you need a kid in tow.’ And it would sound so wet to say she liked to think that she was making Megan feel special the way Bob had done to her in the past, when her own life had been less than wonderful.

‘But you’ve got all those hundreds of nieces and nephews.’

‘And they live all those hundreds of miles away.’

Debbie stopped stirring and poured the gravy into a jug. ‘Point taken.’ Debbie scraped the last of the gravy out of the roasting tin and put the wooden spoon in the sink. ‘Well, there’s only one thing for it then, isn’t there?’

‘What’s that?’

‘You’ll have to produce a few of your own.’ She opened the kitchen door and yelled at Richard that she was ready to dish up and would he please come and carve.

‘Don’t
you
start. I’ve just had Megan telling me I would make a great mum.’

‘And so you would.’

‘Which is all well and good but I don’t even have a boyfriend at the moment.’

‘There must be someone you’ve got your eye on?’

‘No,’ said Ginny, thinking it was no good having your eye on someone if that someone wasn’t available.

Richard came into the kitchen and began to carve the chicken. Debbie went into the dining room to put Danielle into her high chair and there was a fluster and a flurry of activity that didn’t involve Ginny. She stared out of the kitchen window and thought about the one man who made her feel good and warm and happy every time she saw him. The man against whom she had compared every other suitor who had come into her life, and against whom they had been found wanting. They had all been too immature, too skinny, too fat, too timid, too macho, too bumptious … no one ever came close. She thought about the absent-minded kiss he had given her and she wondered if he ever thought about it too. She wondered what a proper kiss would be like. She wondered what it would be like to be seduced by him. God, Alice didn’t deserve him.

‘Ginny!’ Debbie was staring at her, looking puzzled.

‘Sorry – I was miles away.’

‘You certainly were. I said, would you make yourself useful with the corkscrew?’

‘Oh, of course.’

‘So, what
were
you thinking about? It was obviously something rather nice, judging by the stupid smile on your face.’

Ginny felt herself blush. She certainly wasn’t going to tell her best friend that she had been having a private fantasy about her boss. How weird would that make her look? She sighed.

‘The wine,’ said Debbie, handing her a bottle of white and giving her another hard stare. ‘And could you uncork it today?’

Chapter Seven

‘I’ve got to go up to London this afternoon,’ said Bob as he got in at lunchtime.

‘London? Really! When was this decided?’ said Alice, cross that Bob was asked to pack yet more into his frantic schedule.

‘I had a phone call this morning. I’ve got to go up for an intelligence briefing. It’s not something that can be done over the phone.’

‘No, I suppose not.’ But Alice still sounded huffy. ‘I suppose this means you’ll be late back.’

‘Probably. You know what the traffic is like on the motorway.’

‘I barely see enough of you as it is.’

‘I can’t help the traffic, can I?’

Alice smiled sheepishly. ‘I’m being unreasonable aren’t I? I’m sorry.’

‘I’ll give you a call if I’m going to be later than about six. How’s that?’

‘Fine. Right, well, I’d better get on with lunch.’

Bob’s driver pulled up at the door to Montgomery House just as Bob finished his soup.

‘You’re early,’ said Bob.

I’ve been listening to the traffic reports, sir. The motorway’s a nightmare; there’s been a pile-up, so I thought we’d better get going as soon as possible, if that’s OK with you.’

Bob grabbed his briefcase, kissed Alice and left.

‘Have they cleared the accident yet?’ he asked as they left the barracks.

‘They didn’t say. They should’ve done. It happened a while ago, but you know what these things are like.’

Bob certainly did. They drove on in silence as Bob, in the back of the car, studied some papers and Corporal Finnegan concentrated on driving. It was an honour to be the CO’s driver and Finnegan prided himself on the smoothness of the ride he tried to give his boss. After about twenty minutes or so they slid up the slip road and onto the motorway. The traffic seemed to be moving normally enough and they sped along at a steady seventy. Bob returned to his papers and Finnegan switched on the radio and tuned it to the local station for the traffic reports. Between the records the announcer began the list of hold-ups on the routes into London.

‘Did you hear that, sir?’ Bob shook his head. ‘It’s still slow moving,’ he said over his shoulder.

‘Good thing you took the initiative and made me leave early. How are we doing for time?’

‘Not too bad if things keep moving. We should get to the MoD with about twenty minutes to spare at this rate.’

‘Good.’

They barrelled along for another ten minutes or so and Bob was beginning to think the radio reports had got it wrong when he saw brake lights start to come on ahead. A couple of cars put their four-way flashers on to make sure that the unwary or inattentive didn’t drive into their boots and Finnegan sighed. ‘Seems like this is it, sir.’

‘At least it looks as if it’s still moving,’ said Bob, hopefully. ‘Even if it is a bit slow.’

Bob glanced over Finnegan’s shoulder and saw they were doing thirty. On the wide road it seemed as though they were crawling along at barely more than walking pace, though. He sighed. He really didn’t want to be late. The meeting was important and there were going to be lots of top brass there. It would be humiliating if he were the one to keep everyone waiting.

‘Do you think the fast lane might be a better bet?’ he asked Finnegan.

‘We could give it a go.’ Finnegan indicated and managed to slide out into the line of traffic moving past on the outside. A couple of vehicles ahead of them, in the middle lane, was a heavily laden lorry. ‘That doesn’t look too safe, does it, sir?’

‘Lord, no,’ said the colonel realising instantly what Finnegan was talking about. The stacks of pallets on the flatbed of the lorry had either been badly loaded or they had slipped backwards and the ones at the back were hanging over the rear end. From their perspective they could see that there was apparently nothing – no rope, no straps – securing them. They seemed stable enough at the moment but should the lorry have to brake suddenly it was almost a racing certainty that they would go flying backwards. But from directly behind the lorry the danger was not so obvious. The colonel tried gesticulating at the driver of the car next to them and in the same lane as the lorry to warn him but he stared steadfastly ahead. The line of traffic they were in was moving slightly faster, and slowly they overtook that driver, who still refused to look in Bob’s direction, and drew level with the next – the one directly behind the truck, a little Volkswagen.

It was a woman behind the wheel. Bob waved urgently. She looked at him for a second, then frowned and fixed her eyes ahead again. Bob wound down the window and tried again. ‘Drop back,’ he yelled. She looked at him again, waved two fingers at him and mouthed a word. Bob thought she’d said ‘pervert’.

‘I’ll ring the police on the mobile,’ he said. ‘Perhaps they can pull this lorry over before the worst happens.’ The traffic in their lane began to speed up as the cars got past the slow lorry and now Bob’s staff car was almost alongside the cab of the truck. Bob rummaged in his case for his mobile. He switched it on. Ahead they could see the reason why the traffic was moving like treacle. On the hard shoulder were the battered and bent remains of several trucks that had been involved in the earlier crash – the one that had caused the initial problems on the motorway.

‘Just look at all those bloody motorists rubbernecking,’ muttered Finnegan. Bob was about to ring the police but was also distracted by the sight of the aftermath of a serious pile-up. In the slow lane, a transit van braked suddenly for no apparent reason. The car behind it nearly ran into it and swerved into the middle lane. Beside them the lorry driver hit the brakes instinctively. Bob whipped round in his seat and saw the pallets fly, almost in graceful slow motion, off the back of the flatbed and descend on the traffic following.

‘Bloody hell!’ he said in horror. Over the sound of the radio and the engine they could hear the tortured shriek of metal, the squeal of brakes, the smash and crash of vehicles impacting and the scream of tyres on the tarmac. The lorry stopped – the driver had obviously realised what he had done. The slow lane was suddenly empty as the traffic ahead of them disappeared into the distance, but nothing else came through.

‘Pull over,’ he ordered Finnegan. The driver cut across to the hard shoulder as Bob called the police. Succinctly he gave the details, asked for all three services and said he thought it was a major incident. By the time he had finished his staff car was at a standstill.

‘Let’s see if they need any help.’ He and Finnegan ran back the thirty or so yards to the chaos. The driver of the lorry was out of his cab, crouching down in front of it, as white as a sheet, motionless. Obviously shocked by what he had done, but otherwise unharmed. Bob ran round the back of the truck. The Volkswagen was under a pile of broken, splintered wood. The bonnet of the car behind that was deformed into a ridge, the windscreen shattered and the driver had blood oozing from a cut on his forehead, but he was dabbing it with a hanky. He was OK. He could wait.

On the other side of the motorway, traffic roared past but as far as Bob could see on his side was a stationary sea of metal. Bob turned his attention to the Volkswagen. It was almost completely submerged under a mountain of pallets. The windscreen was smashed and the roof had been stove in. He peered through the window but the crazed glass and the covering of shattered wood meant that the interior of the car was oddly dark and he couldn’t see much detail, but the woman – the one who had called him a pervert – was lying sideways across the passenger seat. Her face was a mess, covered in blood, but he couldn’t tell how seriously hurt she was. He tried to pull open the driver’s door but it was completely jammed. He’d have to try and get to her through the windscreen. He wanted to know if she was still alive. The way she looked, it was possible she was dead.

It was then that he became aware of the smell of petrol. He pulled at one of the broken and smashed pallets lying on the bonnet. A splinter from the rough wood ran into his hand. He ignored the pain and threw the heavy pallet down beside the car.