Fell of Dark

by Reginald Hill

  ‘And if he sticks to two p.m.?’

  ‘Then get a description, find out exactly what he saw, try to see if any pressure has been brought to bear on him by the police.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. If he does say two then it wasn’t me and Peter. That’s all. There were five of those boys altogether, weren’t there?’

  ‘Six.’

  ‘Six. Right. And they all looked through the binoculars, so Melton said anyway. But he could have been lying. But if he wasn’t, then surely six of them couldn’t mistake someone else for us. There must have been some difference of clothing or something.’

  I must have been talking rather loudly for Jan put a restraining hand on my arm.

  ‘Take it easy, Harry. That, to me, just makes it more likely that there’s been a mistake about the time.’

  I nodded reluctantly.

  ‘Yes. I suppose so.’

  There came another knock on the door and our breakfast was brought in. It lived up to the standard of service which had produced it and I felt quite bloated by the time I had finished. I lounged on the bed and sent Jan out to do some shopping. Forecastably I was asleep when she returned an hour later.

  She had brought me a casual sweater and a pair of slacks.

  ‘Marks and Sparks,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to risk getting a jacket, it might have looked odd. I hope these fit. You look as if you’ve lost a bit of weight.’

  ‘Ah, it’s this athletic life I’ve been leading,’ I said. ‘Let’s see.’

  The slacks did in fact need tightening to the last notch despite the huge breakfast I had just eaten. I looked at myself in the mirror and was quite content with the lack of resemblance to any photograph of myself I had ever seen. The last touch was a straw Panama which Jan set on the back of my head.

  ‘How do I look?’ I asked, preening myself. ‘Like the major on leave?’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘more like a used car salesman trying to look like the major on leave. Here, I got something else.’

  She produced one of those little leather holders with plastic tops in which people keep season tickets and the like. Out of her handbag she took a piece of white card and a black felt-tip pen. Her tongue curled round her teeth in concentration, she worked on the card for a few moments then, satisfied at last, showed it to me. It said in large bold capitals PRESS, then in smaller letters underneath, The Observer, and underneath this in blue ink she had signed her maiden name.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s my press card,’ she said, slipping it into the holder.

  ‘Is that what they look like?’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve never seen one. Have you?’

  ‘Not till this very minute.’

  ‘Come on then,’ she said. ‘We can’t hang around here all morning or they’ll wonder about us.’

  ‘We could have pretended we were on our honeymoon.’

  ‘Then we’d have skipped breakfast. I wouldn’t have missed that.’

  We went out into the town like any holiday couple. I had only passed through the place before, both by rail and road, and I was pleased to find it so much more pleasant than such experiences had indicated. Jan knew it quite well. It had been the great metropolis to her when a child. Old Will had thought it was pretty near hell, so full it was of people and cars and noise, so Jan’s visits had not been all that frequent.

  Neither of us wanted any lunch. We had both breakfasted well, of course, but it was also a nervousness in the gut which kept hunger from us. It was a kind of nervousness I had not yet felt, though I had felt fear often enough of late. But this was the feeling which came from our awareness that if nothing came from our trip to Wyrton (and what could come of it? I asked myself agonizedly for the hundredth time) then all we could do was to head for some larger city and hide and hope that something would turn up which would prove my innocence. I could always take a chance with a jury, I thought, but discarded the idea immediately. I would rather keep this restricted freedom I had than risk losing it also. Jan, of course, could show herself when she wanted. But it was certain once she did so that Melton would not let her out of his sight again.

  The joy of the morning went with these thoughts and the afternoon found us driving north out of the city in solemn mood.

  On the northern outskirts where the road forked left to Glasgow, right to Edinburgh, we took the left-hand fork and kept on the main road for about a mile and a half before turning off. A few minutes later we stopped. Ahead of us lay signs of habitation, a couple of farmhouses, and the roofs of more just a little behind them.

  ‘What’s it to be this time?’ asked Jan. ‘Are you going up a tree again?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ll just take a little stroll up through that wood. Come and look for me if you can’t see me.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Good luck, Jan,’ I said, and kissed her.

  The wood was not very extensive; obviously a triangular survival from the distant days when all that area had been heavily wooded. But it was deep enough for me. The trees were mainly beech with a few birch bright as candles among them. The ground was firm underfoot, though springy with moss. I saw a grey squirrel hop lethargically up a tree. A cabbage-white made its erratic way between the branches which moved with the slowness of the green weed on the bed of a lake.

  I sat down on an old log and tried to submerge myself in the moment, in the single place I was. But the moment and the place were not deep enough to cover my restless mind.

  Then Jan came up behind me. I did not notice her, so concerned with my thoughts was I, and started when she spoke.

  ‘Nothing yet. He’s not in. His mother says he’ll be back at tea-time, and I’ve sweet-talked her into letting me see him.’

  I was ill with disappointment. But at least this last puny little card was still mine to play.

  Jan sat down beside me and gave me a cigarette. I realized with surprise that I had been smoking considerably less lately and wondered if I could give them up altogether.

  ‘I think I’ll give up,’ I said. Jan looked at me anxiously and I realized she thought I was referring to our plans. Or to myself.

  ‘Smoking. But you’ll have to give it up too.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I can’t bear women whose breath tastes of tobacco.’

  She laughed.

  ‘Harry. Seriously, what’s going to happen to us when this is over? Have you thought? I mean, since last night, it’s been good to be with you. But what are we now, Harry? What’s really left to us when this is done?’

  Her words so closely echoed my thoughts that at first I gave her the reply of silence which was all I had been able to give myself.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said finally. ‘I can’t imagine myself ever being the same again. Not now. Not after this.’

  ‘It’s me as well,’ she said. ‘I have to change too.’

  She looked at me seriously as she spoke. It was no mere gesture of concession.

  ‘The trouble is,’ I replied, ‘all this, it’s so impermanent. The situation, I mean. Perhaps what we feel too. I wish there were some way of knowing. The truth, I mean, about oneself, and telling someone else. Perhaps your dad’s got the right idea. Sit down with pen and paper and write it all down till you see what you’re getting at.’

  ‘Perhaps he has,’ said Jan. ‘You try it. But writing’s a lonely business. You’re not alone now. There are other ways of trying to tell.’

  I reached over and took her in my arms and we said very little for the next half hour. I could have rested like that much longer, but finally Jan disengaged herself and looked at her watch.

  ‘I’d better go and try young Alan again. Won’t be long.’

  ‘Don’t,’ I said, ‘somehow it doesn’t seem quite so important now.’

  ‘No.’ She started to walk away, then stopped and turned. ‘Harry.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve got to
ask. This girl, Annie Ferguson. Is she competition?’

  ‘Not really. I don’t know. She might have been. But she’s got a father. Strong, attractive, bearded.’

  ‘She told you to shave.’

  ‘A condemnation.’

  ‘Or an invitation. Perhaps she’s turning over a new leaf.’

  ‘It will have to be in someone else’s book.’

  She smiled and made to turn again, but I stopped her.

  ‘Now you tell me. Why did you visit your parents?’

  ‘Now, where else should an affected, insecure, guilt-ridden, snobbish, pretentious, unique daughter go but to her parents? I was lonely. I wanted to find someone who loved me.’

  She went away swiftly then and I cursed myself for the damage I had done to her without my knowledge.

  This time she was away much longer and evening was drawing on when she returned. I leapt up at her approach.

  ‘Anything?’ I asked eagerly.

  She sank down beside me.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I can’t make it out. But there does seem to be something a bit odd. I talked to the boy and he seemed quite willing to talk to me. I asked him about various things, then finally I asked him about the time when he used his binoculars, and he said two o’clock. No hesitation, right out, absolutely precise. I sort of laughed and asked how he could be so sure of the time and he said he looked at his watch. He had it on, a good solid, reliable, boy’s watch it looked. Then I asked what he saw. He demurred a bit here, saying the police had told him to be careful of what he said, but I explained that my editor couldn’t print anything the police wouldn’t like anyway. His mother, who was obviously relishing her own vicarious fame no end, urged him on, and he then gave a most graphic description of you and Peter.’

  I sighed in disappointment.

  ‘Well, that’s that. It must have been his watch.’

  ‘No, hang on a minute. I came back to this business about the time when I realized how exactly his description tallied with your clothes and features. And he insisted it was two. Now there was another boy there for tea, Colin something who’d been one of the party, and he supported Alan vehemently, saying he’d looked at his watch as well and it was dead on two. I asked him if he’d looked through the glasses and he said he had. Then he described you and Peter as well.’

  I shrugged.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said helplessly. ‘Perhaps I was mistaken. Perhaps my watch was wrong, though I never noticed any discrepancy later.’

  ‘I’m not finished yet, Harry. I noticed something rather odd. Or at least it seemed a bit odd when I thought about it. This was the precise way in which they both described you and Peter.’

  ‘Well, they had seen us in the bar the previous night and on the fells only a couple of hours earlier that day.’

  ‘I know. I thought of that. But it was more than that. There were distinct verbal echoes between them. And the order in which they mentioned things was almost exactly the same in both cases.’

  I sat up at this.

  ‘You mean you think they’d been rehearsed?’

  ‘I don’t know. How does it sound to you?’ I sat in thought, running over in my mind all I could recollect of my few hours’ acquaintance with Melton.

  ‘Melton, no, I don’t think so,’ I said finally. ‘In fact, I’d say not, surely. But there was this other chap, this Inspector Copley, you’ll remember I mentioned him last night. Now he was a very different proposition, I think. Or at least he was made out to be so. I’m not sure how much of it was a double act. But it could be. It could be. Yet it still doesn’t explain the time. Copley might have reinforced their memory of what they saw at a great distance, but why this time factor? Could he have convinced them that they saw us when it was really someone else? Where’s that newspaper cutting?’

  She dug around in her bag and finally produced it. I scanned through it quickly, stopping when I came to a sentence which referred to ‘the leader of the party, eighteen-year-old Sam Cooper.’ The open face and blond hair rose into my mind’s eye.

  ‘That’s the one I want to see,’ I said. ‘He’s the one I’d like to talk to. He’ll sort things out.’

  ‘How do we get to him?’

  I smiled at her.

  ‘The same as before to start with. His address isn’t in the report, so you’ll have to use your journalistic skill and ferret it out.’

  ‘And what do I do when I find him? He’ll just repeat the same story as the youngsters, that is if he talks to me at all.’

  ‘Well, just see how much the same it is. See if there’s any really indicative similarity of phrasing or anything else. It’s very likely if the other two are close friends that their descriptions sound the same purely because they’ve been over it all so many times in each others’ company We need a third witness just for comparison.’

  ‘And if you think that Copley has got at them. What then?’

  ‘I don’t know. See if you can get a hint of this lad’s movements tonight. I’d like a word with him myself.’

  Jan looked worried.

  ‘Wouldn’t that be foolish? It would really pinpoint your position.’

  ‘They don’t know I’ve got transport. Or you.’

  But she still wasn’t happy.

  ‘It’ll only take a couple of questions for the police to connect a bogus female reporter with you.’

  ‘They don’t know you’re bogus.’

  ‘A couple of telephone calls to check will soon reveal that. Your lad is bound to mention me.’

  I could see the complete validity of all her arguments, but I was like a terrier now with his prey between his teeth. I wasn’t going to stop worrying it till it was dead.

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll think about it. But there’s no harm in you going and chatting him up if you can find him. At least that will give us a bit more to go on.’

  ‘Right,’ she replied, and rose once more. ‘Here we go again.’

  She set off through the trees and I settled down for another long wait. But within minutes Jan was back by my side.

  ‘Harry,’ she panted, ‘there’s a policeman at my car.’

  I leapt to my feet and smoothly swept her behind a tree, where I crouched down and peered toward the edge of the wood. I was hardly conscious of doing this, so used does the human mind become even to being hunted, but there must have been something ludicrously efficient about my movement for Jan giggled and murmured, ‘Shades of Fenimore Cooper!’

  I deliberately did not share her amusement, but asked, ‘What’s he doing?’

  ‘He was peering into the thing and I think he had his note-book out. It must have been very lucky that he even saw it. I’d parked it well off the road behind a couple of bushes.’

  ‘Lucky? Not for us. What kind of policeman is he?’

  ‘What kind? I don’t know. He might be the big, fat, red-faced jolly kind always ready to help …’

  ‘Is he the local constable with tall hat and pushbike. Or is he a flat-hatted Z-car copper?’

  ‘Oh, I see. Oh, the first, definitely. He looks very slow and very thorough. Will it matter, do you think? I mean, he’s probably been dying to get something down in his book all week and an empty car is the only event of interest which he’s come across. And can we get up from here? This tree is very abrasive and I’m getting cramp.’

  ‘Stay here,’ I ordered, and set off, crouched low, through the trees, dropping on to all fours as the wood began to thin out.

  I looked across to the road but I could not even see the car let alone the policeman. There was no sign of any kind of life. I returned to Jan with the same care. She was leaning up against the tree with a newly-lit cigarette in her mouth. I took it from her, took a long draw and stubbed it out.

  ‘Damn,’ I said. ‘This makes things difficult.’

  ‘Why? There must be any number of unattended cars left parked in odd places all over the country.’

  ‘I know. It might mea
n nothing. It depends what he does now. Suppose he keeps an eye on it? Suppose he checks the licence number and thinks it interesting that it belongs to a Mrs Janet Bentink? Suppose that policeman who stopped us this morning has done the same?’

  ‘You can suppose every disaster under the sun, if you like. What’s important is what do we do now? Do we wait till the coast is clear, get back into the car and head out of here, hell for leather? Or do we carry on with our original plan?’

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  ‘There’s little choice. If he is going to check up on the car, then we’d be stopped in a short while anyway. So we might as well proceed with the plan. But make sure he’s well out of the way. He’d probably want a very much closer look at that Press card than the local yokels.’

  ‘Your wish is my command,’ said Janet, and set off once again, this time crouched ludicrously low and moving with exaggerated stealth. I laughed to myself as I watched. She turned and waved with absurd caution then disappeared.

  It was full dark when she returned. I heard her stumbling through the undergrowth and whispering my name.

  ‘Here!’ I hissed in reply. She fell into my arms.

  ‘I thought I was never going to find you. Come on, darling. We’ve got to go. You were right.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  She was tugging me towards the edge of the wood as she spoke.

  ‘They must have checked the car or something, I don’t know. But a couple of police cars pulled up in front of the village station as I was coming out. Something’s up and it’s probably us.’

  ‘Did they see you?’ I asked urgently.

  ‘Of course not!’ She sounded indignant.

  ‘And where’s the car? Not in the same place as before, I hope!’

  She punched me in the ribs.

  ‘Do you think I’m stupid? Come on. I’ve got it parked much further along this time and really well hidden. Let’s MOVE!’

  ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘You haven’t told me about Sam Cooper.’