He looked shell-shocked, caught between dazed and mesmerised.
“Constable,” Lynley said sharply. “I asked you what’s ahead.”
Shepherd roused himself. He removed his spectacles and wiped them on his sleeve. It was a useless activity. The moment he replaced them, the lenses were respeckled with snow.
“Moors,” he said. “The closest town’s High Bentham. To the northwest.”
“On this road?”
“No. This cuts over to the A65.”
Leading to Kirby Lonsdale, Lynley thought, and beyond it the M6, the Lakes, and Scotland. Or south to Lancaster, Manchester, Liverpool. The possibilities were endless. Had she been able to make it that far, she would have bought herself time and perhaps an escape route to the Irish Republic. As it was, she played the part of fox in a winter landscape where either the police or the unforgiving weather ultimately was going to run her to ground.
“Is High Bentham closer than the A65?”
“On this road, no.”
“But off the road? Cutting across country? For Christ’s sake, man, they won’t be walking along the verge, waiting for us to come by and give them a lift.”
Shepherd’s eyes darted inside the car and then, with what seemed like an effort, to Constable Garrity, as if he were anxious to make sure they all heard his words and knew, at this point, that he’d made the decision to cooperate fully. He said, “If they’re headed due east across the moors from here, the A65’s about four and a half miles. High Bentham’s double that.”
“They’d be able to get a ride on the A65, sir,” Constable Garrity pointed out. “It might not be closed yet.”
“God knows they’d never be able to make a nine-mile hike northwest in this weather,” St. James said. “But they’ve got the wind directly in their faces going east. There’s no bet they could even make the four and a half.”
Lynley turned from his examination of the darkness. He shone his torchlight beyond the car. Constable Garrity followed his lead and did the same, heading a few yards in the opposite direction. But snow obscured whatever footprints Juliet Spence and Maggie might have left behind them.
Lynley said to Shepherd, “Does she know the land? Has she been out here before? Is there shelter anywhere?” He saw the fl icker cross Shepherd’s face. He said, “Where?”
“It’s too far.”
“Where?”
“Even if she started before dark, before the snowfall got bad—”
“Damn it all, I don’t want your analysis, Shepherd. Where?”
Shepherd’s arm extended more west than north. He said, “Back End Barn. It’s four miles south of High Bentham.”
“And from here?”
“Directly across the moors? Perhaps three miles.”
“Would she know that? Trapped here, in the car? Would she know?”
Lynley saw Shepherd swallow. He saw the betrayal bleed out of his features and settle them into the mask of a man without hope or future. “We hiked it from the reservoir four or five times. She knows,” he said.
“And that’s the only shelter?”
“That’s it.” She’d have to find the track that led from Fork Reservoir to Knottend Well, he told them, a spring that was the midway point between the reservoir and Back End Barn. It was marked well enough when the ground was clear, but a wrong turn in the dark and the snow could take them in circles. Still, if she found the track they could follow it to Raven’s Castle, a five-stone marker that joined the tracks to the Cross of Greet and the East Cat Stones.
“Where’s the barn from there?” Lynley asked.
It was a mile and a half north from the Cross of Greet. It sat not far off the road that ran north and south between High Bentham and Winslough.
“I can’t think why she didn’t head there in the car in the first place,” Shepherd said in conclusion, “instead of coming out this way.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s a train station in High Bentham.”
St. James got out of the car and slammed the door home. “It could be a blind, Tommy.”
“In this weather?” Lynley asked. “I doubt it. She’d have needed an accomplice. Another vehicle.”
“Drive this far, fake an accident, drive on with someone else,” St. James said. “It’s not that far removed from the suicide game, is it?”
“Who’d have helped her?”
All of them looked at Shepherd. He said, “I last saw her at noon. She said Maggie was ill. That was it. As God is my witness, Inspector.”
“You’ve lied before.”
“I’m not lying now. She didn’t expect this to happen.” He flicked his thumb at the car. “She didn’t plan an accident. She didn’t plan anything but getting away. Look at it straight. She knows where you’ve been. If Sage discovered the truth in London, you did as well. She’s running. She’s panicked. She’s not being as careful as she ought to be. The car skids on the ice and puts her in a ditch. She tries to get out. She can’t. She stands here on the road, just where we are. She knows she could try for the A65 across the moors, but it’s snowing and she’s afraid she’ll get lost because she’s never made the hike before and she can’t risk it in the cold. She looks the other direction and remembers the barn. She can’t make it to High Bentham. But she thinks she and Maggie can make it there. She’s been there before. She sets off.”
“All of which could be what we’re intended to think.”
“No! Bloody Christ, it’s what happened, Lynley. It’s the only reason why—” He stopped. He looked over the moors.
“The reason why…?” Lynley prompted.
Shepherd’s answer was nearly taken by the wind. “Why she took the gun with her.”
It was the open glove box, he said. It was the towelling and the twine on the fl oor.
How did he know?
He’d seen the gun. He’d seen her use it. She’d taken it from a drawer in the sitting room one day. She’d unwrapped it. She’d shot at a chimney pot on the Hall. She’d—
“God damn it, Shepherd, you
It wasn’t.
“Jesus Christ!”
He didn’t think…It didn’t seem at the time…He knew he should have taken it from her. But he didn’t. That was all.
Shepherd’s voice was low. He was identifying one more crook to the rules and procedures he’d bent for Juliet Spence from the fi rst, and he knew what the outcome of the revelation would be.
Lynley jammed his hand against the gear shift and cursed again. They shot forward, north. They had virtually no choice in the matter of pursuit. Providing she had found the track from the reservoir, she had the advantage of darkness and snow. If she was still on the moors and they tried to follow her across by torchlight, she could pick them off when they got within range by simply aiming at the torches’ beams. Their only hope was to drive on to High Bentham and then head south down the road that led to Back End Barn. If she hadn’t reached it, they couldn’t risk waiting for her and taking the chance she’d got lost in the storm. They’d have to set across the moors, back towards the reservoir. They’d have to make an attempt to fi nd her and hope for the best.
Lynley tried not to think about Maggie, confused and frightened, travelling in Juliet Spence’s furious wake. He had no way of knowing what time they’d left the cottage. He had no idea of the clothes they wore. When St. James said something about having to take hypothermia into consideration, Lynley shoved his way into the Range Rover and slammed his fist against the horn. Not like that, he thought. God damn it to hell. However it ended, it wouldn’t be like that.
