As he drew close to the hut, a sense of dread took hold of him. Down in this hollow the sky seemed darker, the wind colder. A fine rain was now dashing against his face.
He felt he was about to find something.
And he feared it would be his friend’s body.
‘Alex! Alex!’ he cried out, not knowing what reply he expected.
He certainly did not expect the shock of a gunshot, cutting through the sounds of the grass.
Nor the sharp impact of the bullet that shattered into the rock a yard in front of him.
Nor the fierce pain in the shin that took his leg from under him and sent him sprawling to the ground.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Charles felt the blood trickling down his leg into his wet sock and, still keeping low behind a rock, rolled round to look at the wound.
It was a deep graze, but nothing more. He had been hit, not by the bullet, but by a sliver of quartzy rock. He would undoubtedly survive.
He lay there and thought. If Paul Lexington were describing the situation, he would undoubtedly have said that he had some good news and some bad news. The good news was that Charles’s conjecture must have been correct: Alex must be in the hut. The bad news was that Alex had a gun and was shooting at him.
Charles raised his head above the line of the rock and looked down towards the hut. Immediately another shot cracked from the doorway and ricochetted off a rock a couple of yards to his right.
He ducked back.
But after a moment’s thought he popped his head up again. It was immediately answered by another shot, which hit a rock behind him.
He lay back down and squinted round. There weren’t that many rocks. Certainly not enough to afford shelter for him to get nearer the hut.
But he read another significance into their scarcity. Alex had fired three shots at him from about twenty yards. Each one had missed by at least a yard. But each one had actually hit one of the few rocks scattered around.
Surely that wasn’t just bad shooting. A bad shot would have sprayed bullets all over the place, hitting rocks or earth at random. Only someone who was after the maximum deterrent effect would have ensured that each shot hit a rock and caused that terrible screech of ricochet.
In other words, Alex was not shooting to hit him.
Well, it was a theory.
And Charles didn’t have many others. From where he was lying, he could neither go forwards nor backwards without exposing himself as a target. So. unless he planned to lie there until nightfall, which would rule out any possibility of his getting up to town to give his evening’s performance, he had to make a move.
Besides, his whole thesis, the whole reason why he was there was that he didn’t believe Alex Household capable of actually shooting anyone.
He stood up.
A bullet hit a rock three yards in front of him. Confirming his theory.
‘Alex, I’m coming down.’ He stepped forward.
It seemed a long, long walk.
But only one more bullet was fired.
It screamed away from a rock behind him.
When he finally reached the doorway of the hut, he could see Alex Household slumped against it, the arm holding the gun limp at his side.
Had he not known who to expect, he would not have recognised his friend. Through its beard and filth, the face was sunken and ghastly. The eyes flickered feverishly like guttering candles. From the hut came the nauseating stench of human excrement.
‘Alex.’
‘Charles, you shouldn’t have come.’ Alex Household shivered and the words tumbled out unevenly.
‘I’m your friend.’
‘J-j-j-judas was a friend,’ the filthy skeleton managed to say. ‘Why not just let me take my chance? If the police find me, that’s one thing. But for you to make the trip just to turn me in. .’
‘I haven’t come to turn you in.’
‘Of course you have. Don’t pretend. You all think I’m a murderer.’ The old light of paranoia showed in the feverish eyes.
‘No,’ said Charles. ‘I know that you didn’t shoot Michael Banks.’
‘What?’ Alex Household’s body suddenly sagged. He slipped down the door-post to the ground. When Charles knelt to support him, he saw tears in the sick man’s eyes.
‘You’re ill, Alex.’
The shaggy head nodded, and then was shaken by a burst of vomiting.
‘When did you last eat?’
‘I’d left some stuff here. From the summer. Tins and. . With the gun, too. This place was always my last line of defence, when they — when they came to get me. .’ Again the paranoia gleamed. ‘But I finished all the food. . I don’t know, two days ago, three. Of course, I still had water from the stream, and then. . the earth’s plenty. .’ He gestured feebly around at the hillside.
‘You mean grass and. .’
Alex nodded. ‘Yes, but it. .’ He made a noise that might have been a giggle in happier circumstances ‘. . made me ill. Ill.’ He retched again.
‘I must get you to a doctor. Quickly.’
Alex shook his head. ‘No, Charles, please. Just let me die here. It’s easier.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I can’t spend my life in some prison. If I’m alive, I need to be free.’
‘But you will be.’
‘No, Charles. Everyone thinks I killed Micky Banks. Go on, be truthful. They do, don’t they?’
He couldn’t help admitting it. ‘But I know you didn’t, Alex.’
‘Clever old you.’ This was accompanied by the weakest of smiles. ‘What do you think happened then?’
‘I’ll tell you. Stop me when I’m wrong.’
‘Oh, I will, Charles. I will.’
‘This is what I think happened that night. I’ll grant you were in a bad state, which was hardly surprising after all the business with losing your part and then Lesley-Jane going off with Micky — incidentally, there was less in that than you thought, but that’s by the way. O.K., so you had all the motives, you even had the gun, but you didn’t do it.
‘The gun stayed in the pocket of your jacket in the Green Room until well into the second act. It was taken from there by the murderer, while you were still in the wings, in your shirt-sleeves, feeding Micky his lines through the deaf-aid. The murderer came into the wings with the gun and with the firm intention of shooting someone.
‘But this is the bit that took me longest to work out. It’s been screaming at me for days, but I just couldn’t see it.
‘The murderer had no intention of shooting Micky Banks. You were the target.’
‘When you saw the gun pointing at you, you realised the murderer’s intention and begged for mercy.
‘I should have realised it earlier. I’ve been working with the deaf-aid for over a week, for God’s sake, and I
