had been on my mind.
'For that.' He was laughing.
A tiny train, engine and all, was chugging uphill on our left, beside us on the road. One carriage carried the sign Groundle Glen.
Ask a silly question.
About a mile out the road ran above a small bay cleft in the rock. A cluster of newly built bungalows shone in the late sun. Ships hung about on the sea.
'This is it.'
We turned right down a sharp incline towards the sea. There were maybe thirty or forty dwellings ribbed on the hillside, mainly greys and browns. New flower-beds surmounted bank walls by the winding road.
'Do they have an office?'
'It's only one of the bungalows. A lassie sees to you, Betty Springer.'
The taxi-driver carried my suitcase to my door. I was becoming edgy with all this courtesy. He praised the view and I tried to do the same, but all you could see was the green hillside and woods on the opposite side of the valley and the blue sea rustling the shingle below. A stream in its autumn spate ran below. There was a bridge leading to the trees.
'Don't you like the view?' my driver asked happily as I paid him off. I strained to see the town we'd left down by the harbour but couldn't. It was hidden by the projecting hillside. Bloody countryside everywhere again.
'Lovely,' I said.
The girl came to see I got the gas working all right as I explored the bungalow.
'The end bungalow's a shop too,' she told me. 'Papers and groceries. Nothing out of the ordinary, but useful.'
'Great.'
'Are you a friend of the other gentleman?' she asked merrily, putting on the kettle. She showed me how to drop the ironing-board, clearly a born optimist.
'Er, who?'
'From East Anglia too,' she said. 'Mr. Throop. Just arrived this very minute.'
'What a coincidence,' I observed uneasily. My private eye?
'I put him next door. You'll have a lot to talk about.'
'How do I get a car, love?'
'Hire.' She fetched out some teabags. I’ll do it if you tell me what kind. Have some tea first. I know what the ferry's like.'
'And I need a good map.'
'In the living-room bookcase. Please don't lose any if you can help it. What are you?'
She faced me frankly.
'Eh?' I countered cunningly.
'Well, are you a walker, or an archaeologist after the Viking burials, or a tape-recorder man who wants me to speak Manx, or what? Sugar and milk?'
'I'm…' I had a brainwave and said, 'I'm an engineer. Like my old friend Bexon who used to come here.'
'You know him? How nice!' She poured for us both while I rejoiced inwardly at my opportunism. 'Such a lovely old man. He'd been to Douglas on his honeymoon years ago. How is he?'
She'd obviously taken to the old chap. I said he was fine and invented bits of news about him.
'He was so proud!' she exclaimed. 'He'd helped to build a lot of things on Man. Of course, that was years ago. Are you here to mend the railway? It seems so noisy lately.'
We chatted, me all excited and trying to look casual and tired. Betty finally departed, promising to get a car. We settled for first thing in the morning.
So I'd hit the exact place Bexon had stayed. Now, then. Businesslike, I went to suss out the scenery.
The bay window overlooked the valley. Over a row of roofs the light was beginning to fade. Something was rankling, slightly odd. If Bexon was an ailing man, why ever stay at Groundle Glen? Betty Springer had told me the little train stopped near the crossroads up on the main road, maybe four hundred yards away. And an old man walking slowly up to the tiny roadside station could get wet through if it rained. So he was here for a purpose.
The bungalows were too recently built to be of any romantic significance to the old man. There seemed to be only one reason left. I peered down towards the river.
Tally-ho?
I went out to buy some eggs, cheese and bread. They had some lovely Auckland butter which I felt like. I bought a miserable pound of margarine instead because the quacks are forever on at you these days. They had no pasties or cream sponges. I found I'd accidentally bought a cabbage when I got home. What the hell do people do with cabbage? I suppose you fry it some way. I opened the windows and looked about for some ducks but saw none. But do ducks like cabbage? I gave up and put it in a drawer.
I fried myself an omelet. That, a ton of bread and marge, a pint of tea and I was fit enough to switch on the news to see who we were at war with. Outside hillside creatures stalked and cackled. The sea shushed. The sun sank. Lights came on in the bungalows here and there. A ship's green lamp showed a mile or two off shore.
