'Mostly around the cities.' Calvert shook his head slowly; he was a countryman himself and the answer had to lie in the field he knew best. 'I'd say it was poachers, Mr Fogg. Rabbits fetch one-fifty a couple in the market, and anybody who knows what he's about with a lamp and a lurcher can bag forty or fifty in a night. I don't reckon there's any link between last night and those phone calls, maybe not even the animal killings either. I reckon you've stirred up a mixture of poachers, Welsh nationalists, and hooligans. Anyway we'll patrol the lanes up by you for a week or so . . . '
Which you've already bloody well promised to do and haven't, Peter thought.
I'll give you a lift back up to Hodre.' Calvert rose to his feet and picked up his cap. 'I've got to go and call on a farmer over the other side who's had some sheep savaged by dogs, and I can make a detour to drop you off. In all probability Barratts will be up there by now with four new tyres for your car, and the telephone company doesn't waste time fixing telephones in this part of the world; they know only too well how folks living in remote areas might need 'em in an emergency.'
A little shiver ran up Peter's spine. He just hoped that both Barratts Garage and British Telecom were as efficient as PC Calvert claimed. Emergencies were becoming all too frequent.
As the police panda van slowed alongside Hodre, Peter saw that the Saab was still squatting awkwardly on its rims. Neither was there any sign of the familiar bright yellow van that heralded the arrival of the telephone engineer. Peter groaned inwardly, consoling himself with the thought that in rural areas services were that much slower, but they got there in the end.
'I expect they will be along soon.' Calvert seemed to read the other's impatience. 'Looks like it's going to snow before long.'
This time Peter groaned audibly. Away to the west, above the most distant beacons, leaden cloud formations were building up. He flipped the catch and swung the door open. 'Maybe it won't come to anything much.'
'Maybe and maybe not,' PC Calvert muttered, but his expression said that it probably would. 'Anyway, I must get a move on. And don't forget, Mr Fogg, don't get going outside if you see any lamps again. I'll probably have a run up this way later tonight anyway.'
'Probably' being the operative word, Peter thought as he watched the constable drive away. Something soft and feathery brushed against his cheek and lodged on the lapel of his duffle coat. Snowflakes! The wind was icy, strengthening, and the far-off clouds seemed nearer than he had at first thought, lighter fore-runners stretching almost to the edge of the big wood, the tentacles of a giant snow-laden monster.
Peter went inside and picked up the phone, but he knew it was a waste of time. There was not so much as a crackle, even when he rattled the cradle. The Rayburn had gone out. He'd light it later, and in the meantime he'd keep his coat on. Hell, he couldn't stop indoors; he'd go mad and his head needed some fresh air to clear it. He had meant to buy a bottle of aspirin in the village but somehow it had slipped his mind—which wasn't surprising; it seemed to take him all his time to keep sane these days.
He went outside again. It was snowing properly now; fine flakes, which the wind was beginning to drive horizontally. By the time he reached the garden gate there was a white film building up on his navy blue coat, and the sky was the colour of good old Tipton black-pudding.
He had to stop himself from pacing up and down the road outside. Where the hell were Barratts Garage and the telephone engineer? He checked his watch: three pm. Another hour and it would be dark. Calvert had been a bit vague in his instructions over the phone to the garage. But surely they knew where Hodre was, even if they did have to come from ten miles away. And British Telecom would surely be able to locate every phone by its number. Maybe one or both of them had broken down on the way. Christ, anything and everything was a possibility these days.
Peter mounted the steps leading up to the granary. It was snowing too hard to stand about in the lane and anyway there was a better vantage point from the elevated doorway. At least he thought so until he got up there and saw how the snow was reducing visibility. It was barely possible to see as far as the first bend less than a hundred yards away. The hedges were white all over, and if he stared for too long the gnawing pain at the back of his eyes began again and started off shooting lights. Perhaps he ought to have consulted a doctor; perhaps he had concussion after the blow on his head. Well, it was too late now. With neither telephone nor car he wasn't going anywhere at all.
He lifted the catch on the granary door and stepped inside. At least here he would be out of the cold and the driving snowflakes, and if anyone should arrive he would hear them.
The gloomy interior of the musty-smelling building was somehow soothing. Peaceful, Like a church that shuts out the presence of everyday life and allows one time to relax.
Peter's eyes adjusted to the gloom and he found his gaze wandering over the piles of useless junk. That was when he saw the gun.
At first he thought it was a length of rusty iron piping but as his eyes followed it down he saw the battered stock bound together with wire to repair a crack in the grip. He moved across and extricated it from amidst some loosely coiled rusty barbed wire, almost refusing to believe what his eyes told him.
It was a gun all right, and he knew enough about shotguns to identify it as a 12-bore. Double-barrelled, the twin steel tubes a brown colour that was a mixture of rust and Damascus steel, its hammers shaped like carvings of the devil's ears, an under-lever that needed brute force to open the breech.
He blew down the barrels, then coughed at the cloud of dust which rose up. Sound enough, a credit to the makers, whose name on the centre rib had become obliterated.
The feel of this ancient shotgun in his hands gave Peter a sudden sense of power even though it was empty and useless. Something he'd once read in a cheap western novel had stuck in his memory ever since—'God created men, Sam Colt made them equal'. It applied to shotguns as well as pistols.
It was totally unbelievable that in a space of five minutes not only should Peter discover a gun in apparent working order but that he should also find some cartridges—four unopened canons of them packed into a small wooden crate as though at some time they had been transported from the vendors by rail.
He opened a carton, took one out and examined it closely: a crimson cardboard cylinder with a shiny brass head, a crest on the case—EBL—and the words Maximum. Long Range. Heavy Load. It sounded impressive, powerful! Some traces of damp clung to the outer casings—though the granary itself was dry and the shells felt dry enough. Maybe an hour or two in front of the Rayburn to dry them off...
Peter stepped back outside, the gun cradled under one arm, the case of ammunition in the other. It was snowing hard now, large flakes whipping horizontally from the west, coating the hedges, forming a white layer across the road. There was no break in the heavy clouds, no sign of it easing up. The telephone man wouldn't come today, neither would Barratts. But he didn't bloody well care. If anybody was looking for trouble tonight then they were going to get it!
It was strange how the incentive to work had disappeared, Peter reflected. He felt that if he could have made the effort everything would have come relatively easily. But there was plenty of tune. Christ, he had a year in which to deliver the finished manuscript and a day, even a week, wasn't going to make any difference. There were more important matters to attend to.
Darkness was coming early and the snow had not relented. The kitchen window was gathering a white coating on the outside, so Peter drew the curtains to shut it out. He could just hear the—faint pitter-pattering of flakes against the cushioned glass and the wind howling ceaselessly in the Rayburn chimney.
In a way it was easy, Peter decided. He didn't have to go anywhere, he had plenty of food in the larder—enough to last him a couple of weeks at least. And, most important of all, he had a gun.
After he had eaten he began to clean it up. Some oil on the barrels showed that they were not as rusty as he had at first supposed, and the Damascus steel showed a beautiful grain. The hammers cocked and uncocked with smooth precision, and when he tried one of the cartridges for size it only needed a slight pressure to slide it right into the breach. The ammunition was drying off well on the shelf over the Rayburn.
He re-lit the Rayburn, made himself another cup of coffee and contemplated the weapon on the table. It had changed his whole outlook; the feeling of futility and helplessness had evaporated almost immediately upon discovering the 12-bore in the granary. Suddenly he had become the hunter instead of the hunted. If the lurkers did not come with their flashing lights tonight he was going to feel decidedly cheated.
Eleven-thirty. He went to the window and pulled back the curtains. The glass was plastered with snow and it was impossible to see out. Upstairs, the bedroom window was just as bad, but with some difficulty he prised it open.
Peter's first reaction upon looking outside was one of sheer amazement. The snow had stopped and the skies were clear, with a myriad of twinkling stars that shone down on a pure white landscape. So still and silent—even the wind had dropped—that the whiteness of the snow and the starlight showed up every detail as clearly as though it were bright moonlight, A sparkling arctic panorama.
The raging blizzard had spent itself but in its wake it had left deep drifts. The tops of the hedges which bordered the lane were only just visible above exotic miniature white mountains where the snow had driven through gateways and gaps in the hawthorn. He tried to make out where the Saab was and thought he vaguely recognised its shape beneath the largest drift. Even the dark forbidding mass of forest on the skyline had been transformed into a white ridge that was totally unrecognisable,
'Jesus Christ, what a blizzard!' He spoke aloud, deliberately breaking the silence. Otherwise he might have convinced himself that this was a dead world, that he was dead too, in the frozen hereafter as opposed to the eternal fires.
Beautiful but sinister. It wasn't just the cold that sent a shiver up his back. This was how Janie had felt, that out there somebody was lurking, waiting. He couldn't see them but he knew they were there. He just sensed them.
A movement out of the shadow of a dead elm tree had him tensing and starting to reach for the gun which lay loaded on the old chest below the window. Then he relaxed and almost gave a little laugh of relief. It was only a deer, or to be more precise that magnificent buck which led the herd. Only somehow it wasn't quite so majestic as the last time he had seen it. No longer did it walk proud and erect, head held aloft as it sniffed the air for the slightest sign of danger. Now it had an almost bedraggled, pitiful look about it, a furtive creature that seemed to haul itself through the snow. He watched the way it laboured up the steep slope, dragging a back leg which appeared to be useless except for maintaining its balance. Once it almost fell. It did not stop to scent the atmosphere but was apparently intent on gaining the shelter of the big forest as quickly as possible, as though it was fleeing from—something.
'The poor bugger's hurt.' Subconsciously Peter understood why people living alone developed the habit of talking to themselves, needing to hear the sound of a human voice and their own the only choice they had.
It was unlikely that the animal's leg was broken, otherwise it wouldn't have been able to use it for support when it reached a flat piece of ground. Most likely it had gashed itself on a strand of barbed wire hidden beneath the snow, or trodden on some broken glass. Whatever its injury, it had transformed the beast into a pathetic creature, a deposed leader who had become an outcast, a loner. Probably another buck had sensed its weakness, fought it and driven it off from the main herd. Now it was fighting to survive against the rigours of a winter which had begun with a vengeance.
Peter felt a sadness as he stood watching it until it was lost to sight. There was no sign of the other deer; presumably they were sheltering in the forest, huddled together for warmth. There were times when nature could be very cruel.
Suddenly Peter realised how cold he was. He tugged at the window sash; the frame shuddered with the sudden impact but he could not make it close. 'Sod it, it's frozen.' He was afraid to slam it again in case the glass shattered. 'Jesus Christ, now I can't shut the bloody window properly!'
He wedged it, hoping that tomorrow, if the sun shone, the ice would melt. Lesson number one, don't open the windows when there's a hard frost, he told himself.
It was too cold to undress properly so he took off his denim jacket and jeans and crawled in between the blankets. The white reflections of the snow outside meant that the room wouldn't get properly dark, and the frosty starlight would be cosy once the bed was warm, he thought; if only Janie had been here life would have been very pleasant.
But then he was dozing; listening; almost afraid of sleep. Which was silly, he told himself, because they wouldn't come tonight. The lanes were blocked, the snow on the fields was too deep to walk through. It had taken the wounded buck all its time to reach beyond the stone circle. Even black magicians were incapable of melting snow to enable them to hold outdoor rites. They'd have to make do with some weird circles and chalk marks on the floor of the living room at home. What the hell did they call it? A pentagram, that was it. Well, they were bloody lucky, because the next time they came back here there was a charge of birdshot waiting for them.
He drifted into an uneasy, unwilling sleep. Fragments of unrelated dreams disturbed him without waking him.
But throughout his subconscious he was listening, picking up faint sounds which were recognisable and could be dismissed: a fragment of ice falling from the partly closed window where it had been dislodged; an owl hooting dismally because there were no small rodents about; the vixen screaming in the distance because her mate had not showed up. Then something heavier, a crunching noise as though heavy booted feet were treading on scattered breakfast cereal.
That was when Peter was jerked awake and knew instantly that there was someone outside. The blizzard had not deterred those who roamed Hodre by night!
Peter had to force the window hard to open it, with a sound of crunching and splitting ice that surely would be heard for hundreds of yards around Hodre. He picked up the shotgun and cocked it even as he looked out.
At first he could see nothing except a barren white landscape where nothing moved. Not even a deer this time, nothing dark that stood out starkly against the virgin white background except shadows. And more shadows.
Yet something was moving, something he saw and yet didn't, like ripples in water that disappeared even as one watched them. His eyes narrowed, his flesh goosepimpled. Not even a shape, nothing. It was as though the snow had shifted, but that was impossible because it was frozen solid and there was no wind.
Then he saw it, like a patch of white suddenly puncturing the massive shadow cast by the dead elm at the bottom of the steep slope; not snow, because it moved and it wasn't white enough, more a kind of grey, but it was only visible against a black background. It seemed to glide silently across the frozen surface.
His nerves reacted like taut steel rope under pressure. His whole body went rigid, the shotgun paused half way to his shoulder, his thumb in a cocking action. It was like stepping into a cold store; an icy chill threatened to freeze him into permanent immobility. His brain slowed with confusion, the computer rejecting data because it was impossible to process it, fighting for an explanation where there was no logic.