Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (Dirk Gently Book 2) by Adams Douglas

Author:Adams, Douglas [Adams, Douglas]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2013-02-25T16:00:00+00:00

13

With a delicious shock of rage Kate leaped, invigorated, out of her car and ran to harangue the driver of the other car, who was, in turn, leaping out of his in order to harangue her.

“Why don’t you look where you’re going?” she yelled at him. He was a rather overweight man who had been driving wearing a long leather coat and a rather ugly red hat, despite the discomfort this obviously involved. Kate warmed to him for it.

“Why don’t I look where I’m going?” he replied heatedly. “Don’t you look in your rearview mirror?”

“No,” said Kate, putting her fists on her hips.

“Oh,” said her adversary. “Why not?”

“Because it’s under the seat.”

“I see,” he replied grimly. “Thank you for being so frank with me. Do you have a lawyer?”

“Yes, I do, as a matter of fact,” said Kate. She said it with vim and hauteur.

“Is he any good?” said the man in the hat. “I’m going to need one. Mine’s popped into prison for a while.”

“Well, you certainly can’t have mine.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t be absurd. It would be a clear conflict of interest.”

Her adversary folded his arms and leaned back against the bonnet of his car. He took his time to survey the surroundings. The lane was growing dim as the early winter evening began to settle on the land. He then leaned into his car to turn on his hazard-warning indicators. The rear amber lights winked prettily on the scrubby grass of the roadside. The front lights were buried in the rear of Kate’s Citroën and were in no fit state to wink.

He resumed his leaning posture and looked Kate up and down appraisingly.

“You are a driver,” he said, “and I use the word in the loosest possible sense, i.e., meaning merely somebody who occupies the driving seat of what I will for the moment call—but I use the term strictly without prejudice—a car while it is proceeding along the road, of stupendous, I would even say verging on the superhuman, lack of skill. Do you catch my drift?”

“No.”

“I mean you do not drive well. Do you know you’ve been all over the road for the last seventeen miles?”

“Seventeen miles!” exclaimed Kate. “Have you been following me?”

“Only up to a point,” said Dirk. “I’ve tried to stay on this side of the road.”

“I see. Well, thank you, in turn, for being so frank with me. This, I need hardly tell you, is an outrage. You’d better get yourself a damn good lawyer, because mine’s going to stick red-hot skewers in him.”

“Perhaps I should get myself a kebab instead.”

“You look as if you’ve had quite enough kebabs. May I ask you why you were following me?”

“You looked as if you knew where you were going. To begin with, at least. For the first hundred yards or so.”

“What the hell’s it got to do with you where I was going?”

“Navigational technique of mine.”

Kate narrowed her eyes.

She was about to demand a full and instant explanation of this preposterous remark when a passing white Ford Sierra slowed down beside them.

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