in the door frame. The room had no other occupant and the only sound was made by the kitten. He looked through the window into the cavity. There was nobody in the cavity. He looked along the wall towards the road, along the strip of ground between the wall and the fence. It was a part of the property not often trodden and was dripped on from the eaves and had a sandy surface. He trod on the surface. It gave a print. There were no other prints towards the road. He moved along it very quietly, came to the end of the short stroke where the gable faced the road. He looked up the road. Wanda was staring at him. There was now no traffic on the road. He picked up a stone, smashed the parlour window, ran quickly into the park, stood listening near the door. No sound. No movement. The kitten ran to meet him. He bent to stroke the kitten. He went in through the door.
Empty. Silent. The man had never entered the building. Gently checked through it quickly, no longer cautious. Since the shooting ten or twelve minutes had passed. The man had retreated through the fields after the shooting. The man wasn’t obsessed by his intention to kill Gently. The man was acting intelligently to retrieve his rashness. His retreat had perhaps taken him clear of the cordon which would be a local one concentrated on The Raven. Gently went to the phone, dialled, waited.
‘Superintendent Gently. Is the cordon in position?’
‘Yes sir,’ the station sergeant replied. ‘They should’ve set it up by now, sir.’
‘Are you in contact?’
‘Yes sir.’
‘I want the cordon set wider. The chummie has taken off from The Raven and is somewhere in the area north of it. He’s been gone over ten minutes. I want a cordon with a radius of two miles.’
‘Yes sir. I’ve got that, sir. But I don’t know if we’ve got the men, sir.’
‘Get on to the next county. We’re after a killer. Contact the army if that’ll be quicker.’
He put down the phone, turning suddenly. A man was standing in the kitchen doorway. The man had a gun pointed at Gently. The man was Felling. His eyes were squinting.
‘All right,’ Gently snapped. ‘Drop the gun. Our man has gone.’
Felling swayed a little. He was trembling. Then he relaxed. He lowered the gun.
Whitaker came in with Rice and Freeman. The two detective constables were carrying guns.
‘We’ve just caught your message on the radio,’ Whitaker said. ‘What’s been going on out here?’
Gently hunched. ‘It’s the way you heard it. The chummie has legged it across the fields. He came out of his hole to take a pot at me and I managed to get between him and the hole. He did some more shooting and I had to draw off. He didn’t wait. That’s the story.’
‘Who is it — Sawney?’ Whitaker asked.
‘No, not Sawney,’ Gently said.
‘Not Sawney?’
Gently shook his head. ‘A stranger. A Pole, I think he is.’
‘Did you get a look at him?’
‘In a sort of way.’ Gently’s eyebrows lifted, slanted. ‘He showed his face at a window for a moment, then he started shooting. I had to leave.’
‘So what’s he like?’ Whitaker said.
‘About fifty, tallish,’ Gently said. ‘High cheekbones, big chin, mid-brown hair, flattish nose, eyes paleish, deep lines. He can use a Sten but he isn’t an expert.’
‘He was using a Sten?’
‘He was using a Sten.’
‘You’ve got a guardian angel,’ Whitaker said. ‘I’d still have been running if he’d fired at me. Even one bullet makes me nervous. But this is a turn-up,’ he said. ‘If he isn’t Sawney, who the devil is he?’
‘Mrs Lane knows,’ Gently said. ‘But Mrs Lane isn’t telling.’
‘And he was hiding here?’
‘Under her bedroom. And the hideout wasn’t thought up in a hurry. I think there was a good deal of planning in this, I think it dates back further than Saturday.’
‘Hah,’ Whitaker said. ‘Sounds like Empton.’
‘No,’ Gently said. ‘Non-political. This is the crime of an individual. A crime of revenge. But not Sawney’s. Perhaps if we get those Polish records from Huxford we’ll be able to spot what’s happened. Or maybe it’s a job for Interpol, perhaps they can tell us more about Teodowicz.’
‘Or perhaps chummie will talk,’ Whitaker said. ‘He won’t get far. I’ve got the dogs coming.’
‘He’s got the gun,’ Gently said.
‘Yes,’ Whitaker said. ‘But he’s one man.’
The dogs arrived in a van. Two Alsatians with bloody eyes. They yelped and whined and heaved on their leads as they dragged their handlers into Wanda’s bedroom. Wanda was sitting in the parlour under the supervision of Rice. Her small mouth was very small, she didn’t have any smile in her eyes. The dogs yelped around the cavity. Freeman got in, handed up the mattress. The dogs fell on the mattress, tread on it, snuffing it, dragging out the smell of the man who had the gun. Their tails swept busily, they quivered, trembled. Their black muzzles poked everywhere. They stood off, gave voice.
One of the handlers said: ‘Where shall we start them, sir?’
‘Bring them round to the back,’ Gently said.
The dogs were brought there. They whined and snuffled, followed trails and cross-trails in and out of the yard. Then one of them lifted its wedge-shaped head and bayed wolf-like from the depth of its throat. It started forward: it went straight down the garden. The second dog yelped and struggled after it. Beyond the gap they were baffled temporarily, but then picked up the fresher scent and pointed out over the field. Gently, Whitaker, Felling followed after the handlers. Freeman came last, wearing a walkie-talkie set. The field was a stubble field about two hundred yards deep. The trail led towards a gate beside which was a stile.
Whitaker said: ‘These dogs will sort him out. I’d sooner have a dog than a gun any day. How far are we behind?’
‘Half an hour,’ Gently said.
‘But there’s the cordon,’ Whitaker said. ‘He’s got to beat that, don’t forget.’
Gently didn’t say anything.
‘Don’t you think the cordon will hold him?’ Whitaker said.
Gently hunched. ‘This fellow is a planner.’
‘But he didn’t plan for this kind of thing,’ Whitaker said. ‘Not being hunted by dogs across open country. He couldn’t have seen that coming off.’
‘He was planning to leave somehow,’ Gently said.
‘No,’ Whitaker said. ‘We’ve busted his plan for him.’
Felling was walking along silently. He had his gun holster unbuttoned.
They came to the field gate. The dogs barked at it. The gate was opened for them. They went ahead. Snuffling, gasping, heaving, whimpering, they dragged across a plot on which kale had been grown. Part of the kale crop was uncut and stood on the right in a green reef. The trail passed close along the line of the standing kale, turned round the far side of it, entered a spinney of tall elms.
‘Spread out here,’ Whitaker ordered. ‘We don’t want to run into him in a bunch.’
The men spread out among the elms. They trampled the underbrush noisily. Felling stayed on the track hard behind the two handlers. The trail followed the track. The track had been rutted by cartwheels. It bore left, passed an empty cart lodge, ran out of the trees, became a lane. In the lane a uniformed man was standing. He wore a gun. He had his hand on the gun.
‘Anderson!’ Whitaker bawled. ‘Seen any signs of him yet?’
Anderson’s hand went to his helmet. ‘No sir,’ he said. ‘Haven’t seen a soul, sir.’
‘What are you doing this way, man?’
‘I thought I’d close up, sir,’ Anderson said. ‘The army are putting down a cordon behind us. Thought I’d close up towards The Raven.’
‘Well, you can drop that idea, man,’ Whitaker said. ‘Tag along with the dogs, we can probably use you.’
They followed the lane. It ran between high hedges on which bunches of green berries had begun to redden. The dogs were never in any doubt, bullocked and snorted their way along it. Some distance ahead, beyond a screen of trees, one heard the occasional buzz of a vehicle. When he heard this noise Whitaker frowned. The noises
