Simon comes back to the car to find Sarah dozing in the passenger seat. He gets into the driver’s seat. She wakes up. Sweeping his hair back casually, and with a smile, he says, "Sorry to be so long." He’s slightly out of breath.
Simon starts up the car, puts it into gear, and wastes no time in getting moving, driving away from the pumps, over the potholed forecourt, and onto the main road. They accelerate down the road, at considerable speed. Simon has zeal in his eyes.
Back at the garage, the pump-girl is lying on the office floor, surrounded by sheets of A4 paper, lying around her body. She has been strangled to death.
"Did you get through all right?" Sarah asks him.
"After a bit, yeah" Simon replies, as he races along. She brushes some dust away from his jacket. "I had to phone my boss to tell him I’ll be in Highcliff tomorrow." He gets agitated at her brushing his jacket, pushes her hand away, and flicks the dust off himself.
"What do you sell?" she asks.
"Have a guess?" he says.
"Vacuum cleaners?" .
He has a slight smile on his face.
She thinks for a bit, then "Em… encyclopaedias?" she tries. "I know," she says, very deliberately, "Machinery and equipment."
Simon looks at her, directly, slightly perturbed. She smiles, and then gets the envelope out, from under the glove compartment. "I peeked," she says. "Who's Hartman?"
"Hartman?" he looks confused. And then he glances over at the envelope. "Oh… he's the chap that had the job… before I took it on."
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Later, they stop at a café. Simon is standing at the cigarette-machine. Having just gotten himself a packet of fags, he walks over to the counter, and waits to be served. He seems relaxed. Someone cracks an egg, and drops it into a large frying-pan, containing boiling fat, about an inch deep. Sarah is already sitting down at a long, canteen-type, table, eating breakfast.
"Two more coffees, please," Simon says, to the waiter. And then there is a deep, rumbling, sound from outside. Simon looks out of the big front window. Two bikers have just arrived, and are parking their choppers, and dismounting. Sarah screws her face up the noise of the bike engines.
