'I don't know. Before God, I don't know,' she cried.
'You mean you don't want to know, don't you?'
She shuddered violently as if at some secret unpleasant thought and he gripped her arms above the elbows, gentling her like a fractious mare. 'All right, Molly-there's nothing to worry about. I'll handle it.'
He started to walk away, paused and turned towards her. 'Are you coming down?'
'I've the sheep to see to.' Her hands were shaking so hard that she had to clasp them together. 'Later-I'll be along later.'
He didn't bother to argue and went down the hill on the run, his face grim. The possibilities implicit in what she had said were monstrous and yet, if he was honest, some sort of suspicion had been there at the back of his mind from the moment he had met Sam Crowther and his sinister shadow. He remembered the knob on the bedroom door turning silently in the night and his flesh crawled.
He climbed the stone stile, vaulted the wall and found himself face to face with Youngblood.
'Find anything?' Chavasse said.
Youngblood shook his head. 'Not even a shotgun. I know where we are though. Found an old envelope. This is Wykehead Farm, near Settle.' He frowned suddenly. 'You look excited. Anything happen?'
'I'm not really sure,' Chavasse said. 'But I've just had a chat with Molly and I've a hunch there could be something very nasty in the woodshed.'
'What in the hell are you talking about?'
'No time to discuss it now. Ask her about Saxton and Hoffa yourself and see what you make of it. You get a clear view of the main road from the top. The moment you see Crowther's car, come down and warn me. You'll have plenty of time.'
He went down the hill quickly leaving Youngblood standing there, a frown on his face. After a while he turned, climbed the stile and went up the hill.
Although he had developed, and especially in his Navy days a genuine love of the sea, Harry Youngblood was a city animal and he paused to survey the strange twisted landscape with distaste. There was nothing here that appealed to him. Nothing at all, and he climbed on until he reached the spine of rocks on the crest of the hill and looked down to the road below. A truck moved along it, match-box size, but there was no sign of Crowther's old black Ford.
He turned and started towards the hut and suddenly realised that the girl was standing there looking at him, a lamb cradled in her arms. She disappeared inside and when he reached the doorway, he found her crouched down on the floor mixing some kind of bran with milk in a feeding bowl.
'Hello there,' Youngblood said. 'What happened to your father?'
'He went into the next village with Billy. I came up here to check the sheep.'
She had spoken without looking round and he lit a cigarette, aware of a sudden unbearable tightness in his chest that threatened to choke him. She had taken off her coat and the black woollen dress she wore was, like the cotton one of the previous night, a size too small and stretched tightly across her buttocks and thighs.
Outside, thunder echoed faintly and the rain increased with a sudden rush. She glanced briefly, almost furtively over her shoulder and again, he was conscious of that same strange trick of the light as the shadows of the hut smoothed away her plainness, softened the harshness of that strong, ugly face, making her beautiful.
She stood up, reaching to a rack on the wall and Youngblood, his throat dry, dropped his cigarette and moved close, his arms sliding around her, pulling her against him. When he turned her around, she stood there woodenly, her face expressionless, making no move to stop him as his hands crawled across her body.
It was only when he penetrated her that she came to life, her hands tightening in his hair, her mouth fastening on his with great bruising kisses that were almost frightening in the intensity of their passion.
Below in the valley, Sam Crowther's old Ford turned off the road and started along the track to the farm.
Youngblood surfaced, his face damp with sweat and stared up at the roof. There had been no finesse about what had happened, nothing gentle and now it was over. She lay beside him, eyes closed, breasts heaving, moisture beading her upper lip and he was filled with something very close to disgust. She was ugly-God dammit, everything about her was ugly from the unkempt hair and sallow face to the dowdy black dress and darned stockings.
He eased away and she turned at once, opening her eyes. He forced a smile. 'You all right, kid?'
'Oh, Harry, I love you. I love you so much.' She clutched his hand and turned her face into his shoulder.
It was a cry from the heart of someone who had never known love or kindness or any kind of affection in her life before, but Youngblood had neither the perception nor the sensitivity necessary to understand, that for her he had become the only real thing in a world of illusion.
He patted her on the shoulder awkwardly and pulled away, taking out his cigarettes and lighting one. Looking for a change of subject, he remembered what Chavasse had said.
'What went on between you and Paul? When he passed me on the way down he seemed pretty excited about something.'
She got up, took a comb from the pocket of her coat and ran it through her hair. 'He was asking me questions about the other people who came here, that's all.'
'Like George Saxton and Ben Hoffa?'
'That's right.'
'And what did he want to know?'
'If I'd seen them leave.'
Youngblood frowned. 'And did you?'
She shook her head. 'The others who came used to stay two or three days, but I never saw either of your friends again after I brought them up here.'
Youngblood stared at her in horror as the full implication sank in. 'Jesus Christ!' he whispered.
In the same moment, both barrels of a shotgun were fired in rapid succession, the sound echoing flatly through the rain as it drifted up from the valley below.
He turned to the door and the girl grabbed his arm. 'Don't go, Harry-don't go!' she screamed.
He struck her across the face with the flat of his hand, sending her backwards into the hay. 'You bitch!' he said. 'You dirty little bitch! You've sold us out!'
And then he was gone and she picked herself up and stumbled after him, crying hysterically.
When Chavasse reached the farmyard he paused, suddenly uncertain, not even sure what he was looking for. If his suspicions were correct, if Saxton and Ben Hoffa had never left this place alive, their bodies could be anywhere. Tossed into a peat bog or simply buried a foot under the surface somewhere out there on the moors, they could lie for five hundred years without being discovered.
He went inside the farmhouse and stood in the stone flagged passageway for a moment, wondering what to do next, conscious of the eerie silence. There was a door to his left and one on the right leading to the parlour and living room respectively and the kitchen was at the far end. And then he noticed another under the stairs.
When he opened it, unpleasant, dank odour drifted up to meet him from the darkness below. He fumbled for the light switch and clicked it on to disclose a flight of stone steps. He went down cautiously and found himself in a narrow whitewashed passage that turned into another, various storerooms leading off on either side.
There was the usual accumulation of rubbish that was to be found in the cellars of any old house and many of the rooms had obviously been used to store provisions in other days. He was wasting his time, so much was obvious and he turned and went back along the passage.
'Doing a bit of exploring, eh?' Sam Crowther said from the top of the stairs.
He was standing in the doorway, a double-barrelled shotgun under one arm. Chavasse paused fractionally at the bottom of the steps and kept on going.
'That's right. Hope you don't mind.'
'Not at all.' Crowther moved back into the passageway, a jovial smile on his face. 'And where's Mr. Youngblood?'
'Somewhere around.'
'And Molly?' Crowther chuckled, somehow contriving to make even that sound obscene. 'Happen they're
