hesitation, if Ben Cooper came back alive.
The distant moors looked entirely artificial in the twilight, like mounds of polystyrene packaging, their white surfaces split by cracks. Beyond Ben Cooper’s immediate surroundings, the landscape was almost featureless. There was no horizon, just a vague softening where the low cloud lay on the tops, dropping more snow silently on the moors. The only landmark ahead of him was the outcrop of rock on Irontongue Hill, the blackest thing against a dark background.
Cooper was able to follow Lawrence Dalcy’s tracks easily. There were traces of other walkers passing here, but they were frozen into the snow, like footprints set in wet cement, and Lawrence’s were the only fresh tracks. Cooper tried to follow a line that avoided the gullies, but now and then he sank up to his knees in a drift and had to drag himself out. The snow was too cold to make his clothes wet. Instead, it stuck to his trousers, boots and gloves in small, frozen lumps. The depth of the drifts sapped the strength from his legs, and his calf muscles were soon aching.
He knew he needed to find Lawrence Daley before it became fully dark. The moor was a dangerous place to be at night in this weather. Not only dangerous but lethal, lor anyone inadequately equipped. The heavier the snow became, the more difficult it would be to see Lawrence, unless he could close the distance.
He was climbing steadily higher towards the top of Irontonguc Hill, where the wreckage of Sugar Uncle Victor lay. In the gullies, snow already lay uver a thin layer of ice that cracked and gave way under his weight. In the deeper areas of snow, his feet plunged in. But on the smoother areas he was aware only of the crackle and squeak as the snow compressed under his boots. No other route he chose would be a good one there were too many steep sided gullies and groughs to cross, too many sudden hollows hidden
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by waist deep drifts, too many icy streams and channels full of drainage water to stumble into.
Finally, there was a splash of colour in the snow, barely visible in the dusk. Cooper turned and headed towards it. Fifty yards away, he could see it was Lawrence’s blue jacket. He looked as though he had simply lain down to rest at the foot of a rock, among the first scattered fragments of aircraft wreckage. But from the distress on Lawrence’s face, Cooper could see he was exhausted and in pain.
‘I think I’ve broken my leg,’ said Lawrence. ‘And my chest hurts. Badly.’
‘Lie still. We have to wait until they come to find us.’
‘You shouldn’t have come after me, Ben.’
Cooper felt Lawrence’s check. He was very cold. ‘What on earth made you come out dressed like that?’ he said. ‘You could have died of exposure.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Lawrence. ‘So I could.’ And he coughed into the snow.
‘I’ve just been told about Marie,’ said Cooper. ‘Her grandfather was Sergeant Dick Abbott.’
‘Yes, I know. When Marie was a girl, her parents used to bring her down to Derbyshire every year to leave a poppy. Sometimes they made a holiday out of it, staying in Edcndalc for a few days. It’s very quiet in the winter — there isn’t much to do, except browse in bookshops. That’s how I met her the first time.’
Lawrence s voice faded. Cooper looked at his face. The bookseller’s eyelids were drooping, and Cooper knew he had to stop him falling asleep.
‘But Eddie Kemp came along, didn’t he?’
Lawrence didn’t reply.
‘Did you know you were the father of the baby, Lawrence?’ asked Cooper. ‘If Marie told Eddie Kemp, then she must have told jou, surely. Kemp was jealous. He beat her up when she told him the baby was yours. The pathologist said she was weakened by her injuries and too exhausted to make it back down the hill. That was after she left the poppy. She kept up the ritual. But she must have lain down to rest and gone to sleep. It’s a mistake to go to sleep, Lawrence. You can die of exposure out here.’
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Rut Lawrence seemed to have something else he wanted to talk
o
about. ‘It was nothing to (Jo with the baby. Kemp couldn’t have cared less about the baby.’
‘What? Why then?’
‘He wanted to frighten her. I don’t think he meant to hurt her so badly, but he always went too iar. He meant to warn her what would happen if she told what she knew to the police. That was my fault, of course. I let her find out what the business was. It never occurred to me how she would (eel about it.’
‘Because she was Dick Abbott’s granddaughter, of course. She must have felt about it the way Zygmunt Lukasx did. So when she found out, she threatened to give you away. Is that what happened, Lawrence? And Eddie Kemp had the job of frightening her off. Didn’t you do anything about it? For heaven’s sake she was badly injured!’
Lawrence sounded resigned. ‘You don’t understand. It was all too complicated.’
‘No, I don’t understand. And I don’t understand why Marie didn’t report that he had attacked her.’
‘Because he threatened worse than that,’ said Lawrence.
‘Worse?’
Again, Lawrence seemed to go off at a tangent. ‘Did you know
O ‘ O O v
Andrew Lukasz came to the shop?’ he said.
‘Did he?’
‘He had a cigarette case he’d bought. He rang me and said he wanted to know the names of people involved in the business. He threatened he was going to speak to that RAF policeman that night.’
o
‘When was this, LawTencc?’
‘Over a week ago. On the Sunday, the day before Marie - ‘
‘And did you tell him anything?’
