Автостопщик

THE HITCH HIKER

BY TIM VICARY

CHAPTER ONE

The stranger

I don't usually pick up hitch-hikers, but this one was different. He wasn't young, like the others, and he didn't have a bag, or a girlfriend, or a sign with 'London' or 'Lancaster' on it. He just stood there, beside the road, with his hand out, waiting. He was a man about forty years old, in a grey suit and red tie. He was just watching the cars and waiting.

He was watching me while I slowed down. I remember his eyes. Very pale blue eyes, staring at me through thin gold glasses. They looked surprised. Perhaps I was something strange, something not quite real to him. Or perhaps he just had bad eyes. Perhaps he couldn't see very well.

I stopped the car and opened the window. 'Where are you going?' I asked.

'I'm going into town,' he said. 'Into Lancaster. Could you give me a lift, please?'

'Yes, OK,' I said. 'I'm going that way. Jump in.'

He got in and sat down beside me. 'Thank you very much,' he said. 'It's very kind of you.'

'That's all right,' I said. 'It's my pleasure.'

I started the car and thought about the words he had used. There was something strange about them. Hitchhikers don't usually speak like that. They usually say something like 'Are you going to Lancaster? Oh good, thanks a lot'. He spoke politely, like an older man. But this man wasn't very old. 'Perhaps he's foreign,' I thought.

I looked at him, and noticed something else.

'Could you put your seat-belt on, please?' I said.

He looked at me. 'I'm all right,' he said. 'I don't like seat-belts very much. I feel like a prisoner in the car.'

'It's the law, you know. And I'm a police sergeant, so I think you should wear one in my car.'

'Oh, yes. I'm so sorry. The law. Yes... yes, I forgot.' He looked around him, but for a moment he couldn't find the seat-belt.

'It's there, behind you,' I said. 'You do it like this.' I helped him to put on the seat-belt.

'Yes, thank you,' he said. 'I'm terribly sorry. I never remember these things.'