connected with Alan's death – and that meant Hassan.
He stared back up the hillside longingly now. So near, and yet so impossibly far! Ensconced up there, on the highest point for miles around and with tracks leading away in at least three directions, the dummy2
bastard was laughing. He could see from afar who was coming, and could stay or go as he chose.
He shook his head in a mixture of resignation and frustration. It wasn't as if he could call up assistance, even if there was time to do so: the Firle trip was strictly off the record.
'You'd like to know who it is, wouldn't you, Hugh? To see whether it really is a bird-watcher?'
'I'd have to be a little bird to do it.'
'Not necessarily.'
Mary met his gaze, so she wasn't kidding him, evidently. Again he looked up towards the skyline. She could hardly envisage a breakneck cavalry charge by car; it wasn't that the MG couldn't do it – the West Firle approach was easy even for sedate family saloons, and the mile of trackway along the ridge was perfectly usable if the farm gates were unlocked. But he'd never get up close unnoticed: the watcher would have spotted the MG already.
'How, Mary?'
'Go straight up, of course – the way Alan used to.'
She swivelled the chair and propelled it into the shadow to the left of the curtains.
'Come here, Hugh, by my shoulder ... That man up there, he thinks he can see everything, but he can't – he can't see what's right in front of his nose. Look – '
Roskill followed her pointing finger. Five, six years she'd been a dummy2
prisoner of the chair, and for the years before that increasingly handicapped. But she was born and bred to this countryside, had walked and ridden it before he was born and knew every inch of it.
' – You go out of this house at the back past the stables and into the spinney. Then the hedge beyond is in full leaf now, and it hasn't been laid for years. After that there's the patch of woodland, and you come out just
'And from where he is he can't possibly see you beyond those last trees, because the slope of the hillside in front of him blocks the view. There's the little path up the side of the hill there, that Alan used – it's steep, but Alan used to lead Sammy along it, under that bit of furze. So you'll come up away on his left.'
She was right. If he followed that little worn path he'd end up on the very shoulder of the ridge, little more than a hundred yards, maybe only fifty, from the deerstalker hat.
Except that he didn't fancy even those last few yards if the watcher really wasn't watching birds. He'd be as obvious and out-of-place –
and as vulnerable – as a fox in the stubble. The very suddenness of his appearance would make his position doubly dangerous: it might panic the man into doing something frightful.
But Mary was looking at him fiercely, and he could hardly admit just how cold his feet were.
'You don't think it would work?'
'It'd work all right – up to that last hundred yards, And then he'd spot me.' He shook his head. 'I don't want to run him to earth or to scare him off – I just want to get a good look at him.'
dummy2
'And he'd recognise you?'
'I'm afraid he would.'
The truth was he was altogether too distinctive in his neat grey city suit to go tramping over the hill, apart from the damned beard.
They'd tagged him at the Ryle reception, and by now the word would be out on him for sure. Even if by any remote stroke of luck it hadn't reached the bird-watcher, those field-glasses would have caught him walking from the car to the house. He'd been in full view of the hill there – he'd even paused to look up at it: just to make the job easier.
Mary sighed, and then gave him a small understanding smile.
'You're quite right, Hugh – I'm afraid I'm just a silly old woman who watches too much television. From this chair everything always seems to look either too easy or too difficult. He's probably just a bad bird-watcher anyway.'
Her understanding only made it worse. He rubbed the beard, scowling at himself in the gilt mirror oa the wall behind her. He'd secretly been rather proud of it, at least until Penelope had found it sexy. Now, the sooner it came off, the better.
The sooner it came off!
He stared at the reflection in the mirror intently, no longer scowling. The beard and the suit were mere trappings, not integral parts.
'Mary – is there a razor in the house?'
She looked up at him in surprise. 'There's an old cut-throat of Charlie's – ?'
dummy2
'And some old clothes of Alan's? And a rucksack or something like that?'
But now she was already ahead of him. 'And Charlie's old hat and an old pair of spectacles too, with clear glass in them.' She paused for breath. 'But don't take a rucksack, Hugh – take Sammy!'
Roskill frowned at her, perplexed for a moment.
