Ahead of his Time by Adrian Cousins (read novels website .TXT) 📗

He stood utterly still, concerned she could see him or his breath when she’d turned around. He held it for a few seconds as the cat rubbed around his legs, meowing. He considered kicking the cat away but was concerned it would make too much noise, so he encouraged it to go by gently lifting his boot and nudging it. He could see her silhouette only twenty feet away. Her body form became clearer as the snow lay on her head and shoulders, which formed a white glow around her like the Ready Brek adverts. ‘Central heating for kids,’ she was hot – it was now – take her.

Jess marched on, but there it was again, that scraping sound. Closer this time and too heavy for it to be that cat. She spun around again and gasped. Only a few feet away was a dark shadow, now illuminated with the white snow that lay across his head and shoulders. No facial features, just a set of teeth that appeared as he closed in towards her. She couldn’t move as her feet seemed welded to the pavement – run Jess, run—

Too late.

He grabbed her neck, spun her around, and kicked her legs away, causing her to thump down to the pavement.

“No, please no – I’m pregnant, please, please, no!”

He thrust his palm on her head, squashing it to the cold, snow-covered tarmac. She struggled, which he liked, but she was no match for his size, and she couldn’t wriggle free. She cried as her struggling abated. The cat stepped over her head and looked up at him, but he just carried on enjoying his prize.

15

A few hours earlier

Pony

I’d debated whether I would meet Jess tonight, but hey, could life get any worse? Besides, this wasn’t Jess’s fault. Although she was other Jason’s daughter, as far as she was concerned, I was other Jason, so I felt duty-bound to meet her. George had omitted Jess's existence in the story, which he relayed to Jenny last night, and I was grateful for that.

Parking up in the pub car park, I decided to wait until I could see who entered the pub. Not that I knew what she looked like, but I assumed not many twenty-year-old females would be entering a pub at six in the evening on a cold Wednesday in January. The winter had been fierce following the hot summer, and I’d seen more snow in the last month than my whole lifetime. Maybe global warming hadn’t taken effect yet. I certainly couldn’t remember a winter like this one and, sitting here in my Triumph Stag, I missed the heated seats my crushed Beemer used to offer.

Two men, I guess in their mid-fifties, parked up a Dewhurst Butchers Mini-van. Still wearing their bloodstained aprons and white hats they jumped out and marched towards the pub entrance, presumably, grabbing a swift-half before finishing up for the evening. For the next half an hour, they were the only punters to arrive.

Nothing more had come to light regarding the confiscated typewriter. After last night’s events – that problem, although huge – had sunk way down on the disastrous-issues-to-resolve list. After George had left last night, there was a slight improvement when Jenny re-appeared at the kitchen door. Of course, she wasn’t convinced of my story; I mean, what normal person would be? However, the fact she’d listened to George’s and my conversation had helped.

Jenny had demanded to see my list of Grand Prix winners, which I duly showed her after retrieving it from its hiding place from the top of the Welsh-dresser. Jenny had a perfunctory flip through the pages, keeping my book to study again later. Although it would take weeks, it would help Jenny believe every time the race winner was as I’d predicted. I was still relegated to sleep on the sofa and had a painful, stiff neck as a result.

A couple of minutes before six, a young, tall, slim woman with long blonde hair, wearing an old Afghan coat and white knee-high boots, stopped outside the pub entrance. I hadn’t seen her approach, so I assumed she must have walked from the other direction. She rummaged in her handbag and plucked out a compact, then checked her appearance in the mirror as she waved it around, inspecting her whole face. She glanced up as some tosser in a white Capri wheel spun through the traffic lights after being hooted by the driver behind. She then snapped the compact closed and marched towards the pub entrance. It was a reasonable assumption she was Jess – well, here we go, time to meet my daughter – no, his daughter.

Apart from the community centre, the Beehive Pub was the nearest drinking establishment to the Broxworth Estate, and I’d frequented it a few times in the past five months. It was a spit-and-sawdust type of establishment, and I’d wondered why Jess had chosen this place. Maybe she lived on the Broxworth? If the blonde woman was her, she was not someone I recognised, although I’d only seen her from a distance.

The pub was quiet, with only the two blood-stained butchers sitting at the bar, chatting to a woman I recognised as the landlady who was perched on a barstool. Her low-cut, skin-tight top barely held onto her ample chest. She sat with her legs crossed, causing her short skirt to ride-up, revealing the top of her stockings. The two butchers appeared to be torn between gawping at her chest and thighs as their heads rotated between the two areas. The blonde, still wearing her coat and sipping an orange juice, waved at me from where she was seated at the end of the lounge bar. I headed her way, assuming she must be Jess or, if not, a working girl looking for business as the pub was well known for that kind of transaction.

“Jess?”

“Yes, hello, are you Jason?” She offered her hand and lifted herself slightly out of her seat.

“Yes,