Page 48 of 59 Minutes

MRS DABB

She’s back in the driver’s seat, gunning the engine.

She can’t remember opening the door, climbing in or starting it.

She races straight back up the hill, surging out of this dark valley.

Now that she knows Bunny is not at the Curtiss place, she wants to get away as fast as she can.

The little woman will tell the matriarch, of course she will, but will she then tell the others?

And if she does, when and how will they come for her? Because they will come for her.

And did she risk all that for no reason?

Maybe Bunny really did have a doctor’s appointment, missed the bus and made her slow way back?

Maybe she wanted contraception, a sickening thought but not …

not impossible. She would do that in secret, wouldn’t she?

And the phone … maybe it was from a boyfriend and she gave Jasmine a made-up story.

Or Jasmine was covering for her. That is what friends do.

These lanes were not designed for driving fast but she stamps on the accelerator anyway, flying through sharp turns, to hell with the risk.

This economy car was not built for speed either, and it slides and rattles in protest. Forty miles an hour, forty-five, fifty.

It whines and whines. The car tries to take control, to slow itself down, so she turns off all automation.

It instantly feels more chaotic, but at least she can go faster.

The fog has totally gone, the air crisp and clear.

She presses the accelerator again, chewing the road up underneath the narrow tyres and pulling herself forward, nose closer to the screen.

As she reaches the top of the hill – Chagford fizzing with light ahead of her – the car judders into a pot hole and bounces back out.

She doesn’t slow down. If the tyres are damaged, she’ll drive on the bare metal rims if that’s what it takes. She has to get home.