Hour after hour passed. He stopped only for gas, pulling up at isolated service stations, and getting away again as soon as the tank was filled, without leaving the car.
He was beyond noticing the curious looks the service station attendants gave him. Those who were able to get a good look at him were startled by his ravaged face and sickened by the putrefying stench that came from his arm. They stared after the car, wondering if they should report what they had seen to the police, but finally deciding it wasn’t their business.
Baird had forgotten Hater. His mind was confused by his raging fever, and he couldn’t remember what he was doing on this broad highway, or even how he had injured his arm. Anita’s face floated before his eyes as he drove and sustained him, giving him the will to keep the car moving.
Seventeen hours of non-stop driving brought him to the City limits of Essex City. He was driving more slowly now, as he had difficulty in keeping his eyes properly focused.
Heavy rain clouds had brought darkness early. Although it was only just after eight o’clock, Baird had turned on his headlights. The highway seemed to him to be rising and falling in the beams of the headlights, and he had a crazy idea that the road must be floating on a rough sea. Every so often he was startled to find the car was wandering on to the wrong side of the road, and he hurriedly twisted the wheel to bring it straight. He only just averted an accident when a car overtook him and passed him with a furious blast of its horn.
He slowed down almost to a crawl. Sweat ran into his eyes, making them smart, and he was aware now of the smell from his arm, and it frightened him.
He kept going somehow. A few miles farther on, he vaguely remembered he had to turn right into the Paseo. Even at fifteen miles an hour he was having difficulty in keeping the car straight.
Behind him he suddenly heard the sharp note of a police siren. Immediately his confused and tired brain galvanised itself into life. This was the one sound that could jerk him out of his coma back to comparatively rational thinking. He looked quickly into his driving mirror. Behind him, coming up fast, was the large, glaring headlamp of a motor-cycle. A moment later a prowl cop drew level and signalled him to stop.
Baird pulled over to the grass verge. He braked, forgetting to throw out his clutch, and the car engine stalled. The car came to a wobbly stop, its off-side wheels bumping up on to the grass.
The cop pulled up beside him.