scouted the area some months before and marked the spot where he meant to dig. After that he had left it untouched while other matters occupied his attention.
The task he was engaged on took considerable time, but rather than becoming impatient he found his satisfaction — or, rather, his sense of imminent satisfaction — growing almost daily. He felt like a vessel waiting to be filled. Soon he would overflow…
He had discovered this deliberate approach after his attack on the farmhouse at Bentham, which had proved to be a disappointment. He had observed the house and the woman for only a few hours before racing down the slope in a frenzy of excitement. His relief then had been fleeting.
At Highfield he had spent five weekends spread over three months preparing himself. He had observed his prey for many hours. The long period of waiting had given him pleasure of a kind he had never known before. A sense of expectation, slowly ripening, yet indefinitely postponed. Up till the very last moment he had been undecided, and although his physical relief and satisfaction at the climax had been intense, he still felt a sweet regret when he thought of those days.
Having made a complete circuit of the bushes surrounding the dugout to ensure it was not visible from any quarter, he struck out in a north-westerly direction, walking for more than two miles through a mixture of woodland and open pasture. His goal was a low hill planted with oak and beech, which he climbed on reaching it.
Searching for a vantage-point, he spent some time moving from one spot to another before settling on a leaf-strewn bank hard by the exposed roots of a giant beech. Beneath him, at the foot of the hill, a water meadow stretched for a hundred yards to a moss covered wall. On the other side of the wall lay a handsome stone-built manor house and garden.
From where he sat Pike could trace the outline of a path that crossed the water-meadow, bending in a semi- circle to accommodate the margins of a pond, and then straightening until it reached the house where it met another path running along the outside of the wall. This second footway led to a wrought-iron gate, which opened on to the garden.
Pike's cold eye picked out a route from the gate through a shrubbery to an alleyway that ran between high yew hedges and ended at a lawn in front of the house. A pair of tall glassed doors, similar to the ones at Melling Lodge, gave access to the house. Pike saw himself running up the yew alley at dusk. As he played and replayed the scene in his mind he began to get an erection.
On his only previous visit he had watched the family who lived in the house eating Sunday lunch at a table, shaded by a trellised vine, that stood on a stone-paved patio at the side of the lawn. The leisurely meal had taken nearly two hours to complete, and Pike had sat motionless throughout, tantalized by the flickering cinematographic quality of the scene as sunlight and shadow played on the figures seated beneath the vine. The children had been allowed down from the table before the end of the meal and run shrieking into the yew alley, one chasing the other.
Pike had ignored them. He had eyes only for the woman.
He sat for an hour, smoking four cigarettes, without seeing any sign of life. Then one of the glassed doors opened and a maid appeared carrying a heavily laden tray. She began to lay the table. Pike glanced at the sky. Sunset wasn't far off. He wondered how the woman's hair would look by candlelight.
His attention was momentarily distracted by two boys wearing shorts who appeared below him walking barefoot along the path through the water-meadow.
They carried rods and lines and they paused for several minutes beside the pond as though debating the merits of fishing it. Eventually they continued on their way and vanished from sight around the corner of the garden wall. Pike knew there was a village less than a mile away. He had driven through it once.
When he looked at the house again he became aware of fresh activity. The door opened and a grey haired woman in a long skirt stood on the threshold looking out into the garden. A spaniel put its head out of the door beside her knee. Pike frowned. Dogs were troublesome, an unwanted distraction. The woman remained in the doorway for only a few moments, then went back inside the house. The sound of a motor-car engine reached him faintly. The garage and main gate lay on the other side of the house, out of sight.
Pike extinguished his cigarette. Reaching into the deep pocket of his leather jacket he took out a pair of binoculars.
The door opened for a third time. A younger woman wearing a light cotton dress trimmed with red braid stepped out on to the lawn. Pike caught his breath. She was carrying a broad-brimmed straw hat with a trail of red ribbons. He put the field-glasses to his eyes and watched as she shook her head, freeing the hair that clung to her neck.
His mouth had gone dry.
The woman looked up at the sky. Then she glanced over her shoulder and spoke to someone inside the house. Her skin was very fair and Pike imagined it might carry a light dusting of freckles.
A man came out of the house on to the lawn. He said something to the woman and she smiled and moved closer to him. He put his arm around her waist.
The sight brought a low growl from Pike's lips. She belonged to him now.
Several hours later he retraced his steps to the hole he had dug and collected his canvas bag. He had already removed some of its contents, including tinned food and a Primus stove. On his next visit he planned to complete the dugout and make it habitable. Then it would be a matter of waiting until the moment was ripe.
It was unlikely he would ever be asked to explain why he had built the dugouts, and in any case would have found it impossible to give a coherent reply.
Originally, in the woods above Highfield, he had set out simply to construct some kind of shelter for himself. The dugout had taken shape almost without conscious intention on his part. Once it was completed, however, he saw that it was right. Sitting in the womb-like darkness he had experienced moments of peace and contentment so foreign to his nature he had wondered at first if they were signs of illness.
Thereafter, he had allowed instinct to guide his actions, and it was just such an unconsidered impulse that had taken him back to Highfield only a fortnight after he had broken into Melling Lodge. He had felt a strong need to return and had hesitated only to the extent of remaining close to his motorcycle throughout the night, waiting until dawn came to assure himself that the police were no longer searching the woods.
His subsequent discovery that two men were tracking him — one he had recognized as the village constable — had caused him to react in momentary panic. Up till then he had felt himself to be invulnerable, almost invisible as he went about his business unseen and unsuspected. Now he knew better.
Even so, it never occurred to him to stop. It was beyond his power to do so. The need released in him had come to govern his life, filling his thoughts and forming the sole purpose of his existence. It would die when he did, not before.
But his experience in the woods had induced him to be more cautious. He had altered his appearance by shaving off his moustache and repainted the bodywork of the sidecar. The changes made him feel more secure.
He also believed that his decision to travel late at night, and by little-used roads, was a wise one, and was not unduly alarmed when, sometime after midnight, having crossed the main road to Hastings, he was waved down by a helmeted policeman on a narrow country lane bordered by hedgerows.
The constable was carrying a lamp, which he swung from side to side as he stood planted in the middle of the road. Pike, who was travelling at less than twenty miles an hour, pulled up on the verge. The policeman ordered him to switch off his engine. Pike obeyed.
The lamp's beam was bright in his eyes.
'Where might you be heading, sir?' The voice was a young man's. Pike couldn't see his face against the light.
'Folkestone,' he replied.
'Would you give me your name, please?'
'Carver,' Pike said. 'George Carver.'
'Occupation?'
'Gardener.'
'And what would a gardener be doing riding around this time of night?'
'I was spending the weekend with my sister in Tunbridge Wells. My bike broke down and I couldn't get it fixed till late. I've got to get back before tomorrow morning.' The man was beginning to irritate Pike with his
