'That night I had a dream again, only in this one Christine was old - no, not just old; she was ancient, a terrible hulk of a car, something you'd expect to see in a Tarot pack: instead of the Hanged Man, the Death Car... The engine roared and missed and jetted filthy blue oilsmoke.

'It was empty. Roland D.LeBay was lolling behind the wheel. His eyes were open but they were open but they were glazed and dead. Each time the engine revved and Christine's rust-eaten body vibrated, he flopped like a ragdoll. His peeling skull nodded back and forth.'

Christine, blood-red, fat and finned, was twenty. Her promise lay all in her past. Greedy and big, she was Arnie's obsession, a '58 Plymouth Fury. Broken down but not finished. There was still power in her - a frightening power that leaked like sump oil, staining and corrupting. A malign power that corroded the mind and turned ownership into Possession.