Chapter 8

Claire was nearly at the junction of the A369, so she flicked open her phone's screen and opened the 'find my friends' app again. She left the screen on and put it on her knees so she could glance down at it frequently. As the blue dot representing her own less-than-accurate location settled into place, she carefully pulled across the junction onto the pothole-filled A road.

Just two minutes along the narrow country road, her Ka passed through a narrow section of road on a blind bend. As she pulled out of the curve she saw a huge puddle on her half of the carriageway. She was glad to have been going slowly as, lacking visibility, she would have gone careening through it if she was moving at any sort of speed. She took her foot off the accelerator and rolled over it at a turtle's pace, using the inertia of the vehicle. It was deeper than it looked and her poor little car groaned with the suspension's effort. Once through this dastardly trap, Claire looked aheadas much as the rain allowedand saw that there was a black vehicle at a standstill not too far ahead. She drove up to it and pulled in behind. The number plate confirmed what she almost did not want to find. It was definitely Jim's car, and this was still the last location of his mobile phone. She squinted through the windscreen, and with each passing swipe of her wipers had a split-second of visibility. She used each of these moments to examine the car in front, looking for any telltale sign that Jim was sitting inside. His lights were off, and it seemed that his engine was too. The windows were closed and no one was sitting upright in the seats. Maybe, she wondered, he's sleeping in the back. Maybe he got sick or the car broke down and he decided to have a little power nap? Weird, but possible, and if true she would most certainly give him a piece of her mind about it. Picking her phone back up, she decided to call him and see if he was actually in the car. She brought his contact up on the screen and pressed the green call button. No signal. She felt both relieved and annoyed. Relieved because that answered the question about Jim's lack of contact, but annoyed because she could still not contact him. She had very little choice left but to get out of the car and have a look.

Claire pulled her jacket from the back seat, awkwardly pulling it on whilst wedged between the seat and steering wheel. She zipped it up, checked the road again for any other signs of life, saw there were none and opened the door. She got out fast and slammed the door shut. Gracelessly running the five steps required, she peered into the windows on the driver's side. No one was sleeping in the back seat, and there was no one hiding in the front either. Dismayed, she ran back to her car and got in.

It had only taken about fifteen seconds of exposure to become thoroughly soaked. Her jeans were now a much darker shade of blue, and her jacketwhich had been so comfortably dry a moment agomay as well have come out of a washing machine. She looked along the road for some cover. There was a tree on the other side, which although bare of leaves, was still full of enough branches to give a little respite if she really needed to stand outside. What were her options? Option one: go home. That was pretty appealing right now, despite her growing concern. Option two: look for Jim, despite not having a clue where he might be. Option three: wait, and hope he came back. Option four: drive to a police station and report him missing.

She decided on option three. It required the least effort and was the only one that seemed to make sense. She turned off the engine and tried to settle back into the seat. Her mind was racing with possibilities. Where the bloody hell was he? It's quite literally the arse-end of nowhere. No shops. No houses. No streetlights. No pay phones. No Pub. A nice, warm, old-fashioned pub. That would be wonderful, Claire thought to herself, subconsciously avoiding the reality of the moment.

There were a number of fields that she could see and not much else. Her windscreen now made the outside world look as though it had melted. The rain continued to batter the glass, but had settled itself into a greasy, jelly-like coating through which the world took an unrealistic shine. A car approached, and its headlights refracted through the rain covered glass temporarily blinding her. She heard the splash of muddy water strike her doors as the offending vehicle speeded past. Far too quick for this road, she thought. They could kill someone going into a blind corner at that speed. Claire was a bit of a rule follower.

Since turning the engine off, the car windows had become foggy as well as visually impenetrable. Claire played noughts and crosses against herself, drawing childish lines with her finger on the misted glass. She then started doing her signature with her fingernail until there was no longer enough space. It was starting to get gloomy.

The afternoon sky began to get very dark, very quickly, as it transformed into evening. Claire looked at her watch, and saw that she had been sitting there for almost two hours. A grand total of four cars had driven past, all going too quickly, but none contained her boyfriend. It seemed to her that, if Jim had been at this location hours ago and not yet returned, it was unlikely that he was about to appear any time soon. With that, she went back to her options list and picked door number four: the police.