her. 'I was just lying back enjoying it.'
'The ride? You can drive if you like.' (On the other hand, it would be better if he didn't. They were travelling north and it was past noon. If she let him drive, she would be uncomfortable in the warm sunlight coming through his window).
He shook his head, elevated his seat a little, sat up and glanced out of the window. Almost unnoticed, summer had slipped quietly away and made room for autumn. The trees were beginning to shed their leaves: red, gold, and umber, slipping by outside the car, and the occasional glossy blur of an evergreen. 'Where are we?'
'I chose a different route ... er, from my usual one,' she began to explain, then realized there was no need; Harry hadn't been out this way before. Anywhere north of the Firth of Forth would be new to him. 'I just thought - I don't know - a change of scenery?' She fiddled with her sunglasses, adjusting them on the bridge of her nose. The real reason she was taking a different route was to break the routine and confuse anyone, such as the watcher, who might try to follow her. Also, since she had rarely if ever sensed an intrusion during daylight hours, it had seemed a good idea to make the trip in daylight.
'A change of scenery?' he said. 'Well, that's why we're here. But I asked where.'
'We're through Blairgowrie, heading for Pitlochry,' she told him. 'Does that help?'
'Shouldn't have asked,' he shrugged. And, showing a rare flash of humour: 'It's all Irish to me!'
'Scottish!' she admonished. But the smile as quickly fell from her face, too. And she wondered what he was really thinking, the man inside this man. For the man inside knew why they were here, where they were going, and who he would be meeting. But the man inside was a prisoner in his own mind-cell, and he couldn't be set free - couldn't think his real thoughts - except by special command.
To Bonnie Jean ... suddenly Harry seemed much less than a whole man. He felt like some kind of zombie sitting here beside her - or a puppet waiting to jerk into life the moment she puled his strings - and she felt guilty; she didn't like it. But the fact of the mater was he would only become a zombie, or a puppet, if and when she commanded it. Then he would know, would remember, everything she had told him ... and not be able to do a damned thing about it! He was so much under her control that she felt sorry for him.
But at the same time ... maybe something of understanding had surfaced at that. The atmosphere between them felt unusual, uneasy, unnatural. And now and then, if she looked at him suddenly out of the corner of her eye -
- Was that an accusing look on Harry's face? If she were a faithless wife, it might be just exactly the sort of curious, vaguely doubting look she would expect from a husband who half-suspected. Or was she just imagining it?
'Oh?' Harry raised an eyebrow. He'd caught her giving him just such a look as she'd imagined!
'Just wondering,' she said. And before he could ask what: 'After Pitlochry, within the hour, we should be back on my usual route and into the Forest of Athol. Plenty of places along the way to stop and picnic, if you like? Or maybe a little cafe in the woods, for tea?' It al sounded so weak, so ... treacherous?
Even to her own ears, yes. Or especialy so, 'Whatever you say,' he said - which for some reason irritated her out of her mind. Bad enough that it was "whatever she said" when he was totally under her influence. But here he was like ... like a lamb on his way to the slaughter! And maybe not now, not this time, but soon, too soon, he realy would be!
'Do you put that much bloody faith in me, then?' she blurted, glaring at him. 'Whatever I fucking say?'
He was taken by surprise. 'Why, yes. Why not?'
Oh, mah wee man! B.J. cried out... to herself, yet stil managing to surprise herself. If only it were possible to break the chains on his mind and set it free - set him free - to fly, fly like a smal frightened bird! It would be worth ... almost anything! She thought it, and at once denied