Keith would have liked to phone Kirsten this morning. Just to put his mind at rest. Or otherwise. He could have gone into the house to make the call, there was a key kept just inside the garage, but he would have to think about it. It was something that would require a certain amount of courage. Kirsten worked at the drapery shop in town and Mrs Holloway, the proprietor, was a peculiar old bird. 'I don't like my staff having private calls during working hours,' Keith decided he would leave it a bit, think about it some more. In the end he would probably wait until tonight, meet Kirsten down by the church, if she came. Lately there were too many bloody ifs to everything.
He attacked the weeds, a legacy from old Fred's days. A marvellous tool the hoe, cutting them all out. You either left them to wither and die in the sun or else you raked them up and carted them away in the barrow. Keith did the latter.
Ten o'clock was 'bait-time'. Bait was a cup of tea out of a flask and a sandwich. Keith ate the rest of his sandwiches at half past twelve, and by six he was ravenous for the cooked meal which his mother had on the table on his return home. He had lived with his mother in Stainforth ever since his schooldays; his father had run off with a young village girl when Keith was ten and they had not heard from Peter Doyle since.
Keith was sweating profusely as he sat on the edge of the lawn sipping his tea. He looked up at the sky, a gun-blue universe with not so much as a wisp of white cloud in sight. The farming weather forecast on Sunday lunchtime had predicted dry and hot for the whole week.
Time to get going again. He peeled off his shirt, dropped it down on the grass. He did not have the inclination to walk back to the van. Just take your time, you've got all day and it's going to get hotter.
The ground was hard-baked, every weed required a good pull to free it, toss it clear of the soil. He wondered again about Kirsten. A lot of girls had had their futures ruined by this kind of class consciousness, sheer bloody snobbery. He would fight for her every inch of the way. Sod it, she was twenty, old enough to please herself, an adult. But when you were brainwashed, indoctrinated, age didn't matter. Some people got into the habit of doing whatever anybody told them throughout their entire lives.
He wondered what would happen if she was pregnant. Her old man would go up the wall but that wouldn't remove the baby from inside her. Unless ... God, he wouldn't make her have an abortion, would he? Legalised murder. The bastard would, Keith knew he would, and it made him angry, had him chopping viciously at a clump of chickweed.
He'd like a baby, a son or a daughter, he didn't care which. One day he would have one. In the meantime he needed the flat hoe on this chickweed. He dropped the one he was using, heard it rattle on the hard ground, picked up the other. The hoe rattled again.
It was some seconds before he looked round, before he realised that the hoe should not have rattled a second time, could not possibly have rolled and clanked again. Even then he did not spot the lurking creature right away and when he made it out amongst a thick growth of weed he could not be absolutely sure what it was. Unsuspecting, he stood there just staring at it.
At first he thought it was a frog or a toad; light coloured with dark markings, giving it a kind of slimy slippery look in the bright sunshine. He peered closer, noticed that it tailed off back into the undergrowth, that what he had mistaken for a frog was only its head, that it had a body attached to it, a long thick one that went on and on, partially screened from his vision so that he could only hazard a guess at its length; several feet for sure!
Keith's mouth went dry and there seemed to be a constriction in his throat. He met those eyes, felt an inexplicable force boring into him, numbing him. A slight shifting of that lengthy body as it began to uncoil, a noise that reminded him of a football rattle on the terraces when he went along to watch United play at home. The sound broke the spell, brought him back to reality, a jumble of warnings. PC Aylott's curt sarcastic tones,' The snakes could be anywhere.''
He leapt backwards, landed on the lawn, caught his feet in the shirt which he had thrown carelessly down; fell, extricated himself, burst into headlong flight.
And behind him he heard that rattling, angrier and faster now like far-off bursts of machine-gun fire trying to gun him down. Running blindly, anywhere, his panic like a coronary attack thudding in his chest. He heard his heartbeat (or was it that snake rattling with a deeper tone?), his pulses thudding, a roaring in his ears, sweat lathering his naked torso.
He did not look back, dared not waste a second; off the lawn and on to the drive. The van was too far away, it would have to be the garage; pull the shutter down as you go through. Oh Jesus Christ, I hope it's flush with the floor because if there's a gap then I'm trapped!
The reptile was close behind him. He didn't look, he knew. He felt its vibrations like a sack of loose beads, its malevolence and determination to overtake him. An anticipation of pain as it struck, an agony that would have him writhing and screaming on the tarmac drive, helpless as it struck again and again, its vile body close to his own, those evil eyes watching his death throes.
Almost there. He reached up for the handle of the shutter as he ran beneath it, tugged downwards with all his strength. For one terrible moment he thought it had jammed or that perhaps for some reason Peter Eversham had fitted a locking device to stop kids from playing with it. Keith almost yelled his relief out loud as the shutter began to move almost silently on its oiled mechanism, gathering speed downwards, clattering.
Only then did Keith Doyle look back, had a momentary view of his pursuer before the shutter crashed down to the floor; saw a reptile that was close on six feet in length, light-coloured with distinctive dark diamond markings, looking like the personification of evil in serpent form. It rattled viciously, was still some yards from the garage; Keith's lead had been greater than he had dared to believe. He had won by a clear length. Temporarily, anyway.
One awful thought that the shutter might bounce back up, or not close properly. He anticipated a metallic bang as it hit the floor; instead there was a well-oiled click, a mechanical sound as though levers had slotted into place. The door locked, held, and there was not so much as a sliver of daylight showing beneath it.
He leaned back against the wall, thought that he was going to faint and buckled his knees into a crouching position in anticipation of blacking out. The feeling passed. He closed his eyes, could not shut out a mental picture of that rattlesnake, saw again its anger and its hatred for Man; heard its deathly rattle.
Sweat poured off him. The bloody thing had been lying in wait for him amongst the weeds and if he had not decided to change hoes and thrown the first one behind him, disturbing and frightening the rattlesnake as it waited to strike, then he would not have forced it to give a warning rattle. So close, but he had been given those few vital seconds' grace which was the difference between life and death. Jesus Christ Almighty!
I'll chop 'em in half with the hoe if I see 'em. Like fuck you will, you stupid bugger.
His nerves were calming; his heart was not beating nearly so fast, the roaring in his ears had lessened and he had almost stopped shaking. He began to think logically. That key, it was up on the first shelf inside that tin of nails. He stood up, lifted the tin down and had to put pressure on the lid to force it off. Good, the key was there, a front door one ... oh shitfire and Holy Moses!
Frustration, anger; he closed his hand over the Yale key, would have crushed it to a piece of twisted metal if he had had the strength. He didn't, so he flung it at the wall, watched it bounce on the floor and land in a patch of sticky oil. Far better had there been no key hidden in the garage at all than this one that built his hopes and then destroyed them a few seconds later. For this was a front door key, and to reach the front door it would be necessary to go out across the drive where undoubtedly the snake still lay waiting. The back door, which was in the patio at the rear of the garage and could be reached without going outside, was almost certainly locked. So certain that it was a waste of time even checking it.
You're a cunt, Peter Eversham. Doyle closed his eyes, clenched his fists. You might be rich and clever but you're a stupid prick!
A feeling that he might cry, that he had only to let himself go and he would burst into a flood of unstoppable tears. He nearly did but that, like that key lying in the oil-leaks from Eversham's Jag, was just another waste of time.
Stop panicking and think logically. First, you're safe, no way can that snake get to you. Second, somebody's got to come looking for you eventually. Even if the Evershams have gone to stay overnight somewhere then Mother's going to get anxious come tea-time. She'll give you half an hour then she'll phone PC Aylott. They know you're here and your van's stuck out at the front so when you hear them you've only got to give a shout. The rattlesnake will probably get bored with waiting and slither off somewhere. You just have to sit it out. And my flask and sandwiches are out there in the van.
He settled down on his haunches to wait, wished that he could doze to pass the time, but when there's one of the deadliest snakes in the world sitting guard outside your stifling prison sleep does not come easily. He looked at his watch and groaned. 11.15 a.m. Seven bloody hours before Mother starts to get worried.
It was some time before he noticed the tiny circular hole in the shuttered door, about halfway up and the size of one of those spy-holes which they manufacture for house doors so that the occupants can identify a caller before opening up. A circle of daylight, made to take the hook on the end of the rod standing in the corner, an easy means of pushing up or pulling down the shutter. And also a spy-hole.
He went over to it, put his eye to it; restricted vision, but he could see all he wanted to see, or rather everything that he did not want to. The rattlesnake had not gone away. It had retired to the small low rockery which bordered one side of the drive, and had curled itself up on a flat piece of stone. A casual observer might even have overlooked it—until it was too late! The reptile appeared to be asleep, basking in the warmth of the midday sun. Perhaps it was, but Keith had read enough about snakes to know that this one would be awake and poised to strike a lethal blow in a matter of a second. No way was he prepared to risk making a run for it.
Relax, you've got a long wait ahead of you.
5 p.m. The rattler was still there on the rockery stone. Keith peeped out at it, shuddered. It seemed to see him, but that was impossible. The piercing eyes glared, met his. I'm in no hurry, man. I can wait a week if I have to. You'll either die of starvation in there or else make a run for it and take your chance with me. Why not give it a try, see if you can make it to your van?
No way. I'm OK in here and if Eversham doesn't come back soon then the police will come looking for me. They'll have guns, they'll blast you to hell. If you've any sense you'll get the fuck out of here whilst there's still time.
We'll see. The long body moved slightly, settled into a more relaxed, coiled position, an air of permanence about it. It might even have been asleep.
Keith's thoughts moved back to Kirsten. Oh Christ, he wanted to sec her tonight more than he had done any other night. And that bastard out there was stopping him. His gaze alighted on a shovel propped up in the corner and he wondered if it was any match for a western diamondback. If nobody came then he'd give it a try; use it as a shield to keep the fangs at bay, then a swift chopping movement for the kill.
He wondered what a beheaded snake looked like, did the body keep on squirming like a worm's when you cut it in half? Sever the head, then chop the rest up into little lengths, let them all wriggle together. Whatever, he had to see Kirsten tonight.
He must have slipped into an uneasy doze because suddenly he was sitting bolt upright, eyes darting about the gloom of the stifling garage. What was that, that fucking rattler hadn't managed to find a way in, for Christ's sake, had he?
Fear chilled his sweat, had him cowering back against the wall. He heard the rattle, a steady clicking like slow castanets. Menacing. No, the bugger wasn't in here but it was certainly active outside.
Even as he moved back to his spy-hole in the shutters Keith Doyle heard the sound of an approaching vehicle, the drone of a high-powered engine out on the road, slowing, almost stopping.
Turning into the wide driveway.
And suddenly he wanted to yell his jubilation aloud, they're here, you fucking snake bastard. They've arrived and you've left it too late. You'll be blasted to pulp.
A sudden cooling of Doyle's celebrations, a foreboding that sent a warning chill up and down his spine. Oh my God, they won't know the rattler's there, I've got to warn them. He watched, waited until the approaching vehicle came into his arc of vision, recognised the sleek white Jaguar, Eversham at the wheel, the blonde at his side, puzzled expressions, saying something to each other. The gardener did not need to lip-read to know what they were saying. 'Now who the bloody hell's shut the garage up, and what's Doyle's van doing here at this time of day?'
Keith thought for a moment they were going to swerve and pull up in front of the porch. Instead the car came straight on, eased up to within a foot of the garage shutter and stopped with the engine ticking over. The occupants were talking again, obviously puzzled.
Keith switched his gaze from the car to the large flat rockery stone, the one on which the rattler had lain for the past seven hours. The snake was not there any longer; there was just the lump of rough stone with creeping plants growing all around it. It might never have been, this terrible day might have been just a sweltering, feverish nightmare.
He had to force himself back to reality, thrust away the role of spectator. That Diamondback was cunning, it had slid off into the surrounding cover, was lying there waiting to strike, sensing easy prey.
The car door clicked smoothly open and Keith Doyle saw the powerful figure of Peter Eversham about to emerge.
PETER EVERSHAM was a stone overweight but disguised it with his height. Well built, the hallmark of the affluent, a slightly flushed complexion which he told everybody was due to his outdoor activities, certainly not blood pressure. Sleek dark hair brushed straight back, a neatly clipped moustache, his suits hand-tailored out of a tweedish cloth to enforce his self-styled country squire role, and strengthen his claim to chairmanship of the Stainforth Parish Council.
He rented the grouse shooting on Stainforth Moor, fished for salmon in Scotland and played golf on Wednesdays and Sundays. He was president of the Stainforth Country Club which was set in its own grounds two miles outside the village and had very little to do with Stainforth.
Eversham owned the Eversham Engineering Company Limited with its three subsidiary companies. He had made his first million in 1979 and doubled that by 1982. Whilst other businesses foundered, Eversham Engineering appeared to flourish during the recession.
Cynthia had insisted on accompanying him down to the sales conference in Sussex. She had her reasons, her suspicions about those overnight stops of her husband's in Brighton. But nothing untoward had occurred; even so Cynthia was not fully convinced. Peter needed an eye kept on him, there were too many rumours, allegations, for her liking, and if they had not been founded on truth then almost certainly Peter Eversham would have sued somebody for slander. He issued writs in the way that many people send greetings cards in the festive season. Cynthia told herself that if Peter could have an extra-marital affair with herself behind his first wife's back then he was equally capable of deceiving her.