by Garry Disher
Le Page stopped at the crossroad to catch his breath. He could see the smudge of his house on a distant ridge, the roof catching the autumn sun. Before long—within weeks—it would be dusted in snow. The snow would accumulate until the steep pitch encouraged gravity to do its job. He glanced the other way, down along the road that plunged into a little valley, with a village at the bottom that served the clusters of nearby farm buildings, where farmhands turned silage and fed stock. He had no interest in knowing them or their old ways.
He started off again, pausing to check his letterbox, which was the second on the right in a line of boxes belonging to the householders who lived along the back lanes, where the postman was not obliged to call. There was one item, a business letter. He tore it open. His services as a courier for Levine & Levine, of Geneva, London and New York, were no longer required. There had been other letters like it, from other sleek firms, and Le Page knew that word of his association with Aleksandr had got around. But he had the bonds; he didn’t need Levine & Levine. His life would move to a new phase—once he’d finished with the man named Wyatt.
It was a matter of honour. Wyatt tried to rob him. Wyatt ruined his Australian operation. Henri and Joseph were dead because of Wyatt.
Le Page was patient. He’d kept an eye on the unfolding story in the on-line editions of the Melbourne dailies, the Age and the Herald Sun: Eddie Oberin shot dead in a courthouse building, the body of a female gunshot victim found in a burnt-out car on the banks of the Yarra River, police appeals for the woman seen at Henri Furneaux’s house to come forward.
The courthouse shooter was a man, according to witnesses. No doubt Eddie Oberin had made many enemies in the course of his undistinguished life, but Le Page saw the shadowy partner, Wyatt. Wyatt had succeeded in killing a man who was in a public place and escorted by armed police.
Just then, Le Page shivered involuntarily on the side of the mountain. He folded the letter from Levine & Levine into his pocket and stepped into the road again, heading for the valley. He passed a weathered stone cross. A testament to futility and madness, the cross had been erected by a grieving and guilt-ridden eighteenth-century farmer, who had tied his small son to a cow as punishment for being naughty, only to witness the animal trample the child to death.
Le Page walked for two hours. When he returned there was a message on his answering machine. He’d been expecting it. Knowing someone would come for him one day, he’d alerted the stationmaster, ticket collectors, village gendarme, shopkeepers and restless children to keep an eye on strangers entering the valley. Now Jeanne, a waitress in the station café, had called. Would monsieur care to call her back? She saw many strangers every week, but this afternoon one man in particular had caught her attention.
Le Page did not call but slipped out his back door and began a search of the little meadows and bracken thickets below his house, and the beech forest and glades behind it. The setting sun was at a shallow angle now and therefore perfect for tracking quarry or prey. Kicked-up soil, broken twigs, bruised grass stems and bent stalks, the moist undersides of disturbed pebbles, scrape-marks in licheny rocks or tree trunks, are best viewed in slanting light. He was also looking for footprints and the circular indentation of a resting knee, and listening for the wing beats, flurries and cries of disturbed birds and animals. Le Page read the natural world and moved in it like a creature himself. But there were no signs apart from those that he himself had left: no footprints, broken twigs, bruised leaf mould, snagged clothing or foliage bent away from the sun.
Which meant that Wyatt was too good for him, or would come in darkness.
* * * *
49
Wyatt reached Le Page’s house at dusk, and saw that it would be a mistake to go in until he knew more.
The light was tricky, he didn’t know the terrain, and he’d lose if Le Page sensed him out on this mountain slope and came after him. He didn’t know the internal layout of Le Page’s house, either. He knew the position of the house in relation to the woodheap, well, generator, sheds and garden beds, but long grass and longer shadows blurred their precise configurations. A mess of shapes conspired against him. He might injure himself on a piece of machinery before reaching the house, and if he survived crossing the yard, he might set off alarms, sensor lights, guard dogs or a squad of armed muscle.
He tried to read the light again. It was throwing up stripes, tangles and dead spots as the sun settled. Then, as the moon rose, the light grew trickier.
Wyatt retreated to a shallow depression within an outcrop of rocks, where he stretched out on a mat of fallen leaves and rested, almost immobile, almost silent, as the long night passed. He’d done everything in his power to escape notice. For a start, he wasn’t easy to see. His spot was hidden, he’d blackened his face and hands against torchlight and moonlight, he wore dark clothing and he’d tucked bracken fronds into his belt, pockets and collar. There would be no moon gleam from his knife, which was in a sheath, or his pistol, which was matt black and stuck in his belt. For hydration and energy he was carrying small amounts of food and water, which he took sparingly, keeping his movements to a minimum. The water was in a non-reflective plastic bottle, and he sipped to avoid sloshing the liquid. The food was dry and odourless—raw nuts and dried fruit in a small cotton sack that emitted no sound when he rummaged around in it.
And there were no telltale odours to betray him. He’d washed without soap or shampoo and wore no deodorant or aftershave. He’d thrown away his travelling clothes, for they’d become impregnated with cigarette smoke, exhaust gases and urban toxins, and he wore new clothing that he’d laundered in plain water.
Finally, Wyatt shut down his thoughts and feelings. No matter how well a man conceals his physical presence, he’s also a mental presence. If Wyatt waited the night away in a state of heightened nerves or anticipation, Le Page’s antennae would pick up the signals, for surely Le Page was a receptive man. There was a downside, however. If Le Page was as silent, odourless and barely human as Wyatt, then Wyatt wouldn’t know he was there until the last second.
And so Wyatt rested. It was not sleep, exactly—twice he stiffened when foxes, somehow sharper-looking than Australian foxes, trotted past—but a kind of alert relaxation. And these hours until dawn were like a gift, allowing him to reflect. Curiously, the foxes reminded him of Lydia Stark: their russet coats, lean shapes and intent faces. He could have been looking for her right now, but moving against Le Page mattered more. Retrieving the bonds, or the money Le Page had realised on them. Then the sun crept between the mountains, lighting the meadows and trees, and he was ready.
The temperature was low; his breath fogged the air, a dead giveaway. Tying a scarf around his mouth and nose, Wyatt left his nest of leaves and headed towards the rim of the bank behind Le Page’s house. He had two hundred metres of sloping land to cover, heavily treed, with many intervening traps: massive fallen trunks, rocks, animal burrows, open ground and the remains of a wire fence. He could not be completely silent, not when the autumn leaves swished around his boots and low branches brushed his head and shoulders. And the sounds of his progress would obscure the sounds of any potential pursuer. So Wyatt used an old technique: he took three slow steps, then stopped to listen, five quick steps, stop and listen. In this way he covered ground while giving himself a chance to hear Le Page or the man’s dogs or hired guns. He decided that if more than one gun was after him, he’d shoot to wound rather than kill. A wounded man’s cries of pain might unsettle the others’ resolve and oblige Le Page to remove the victim, split up the team, restructure and re-plan.
By now Wyatt was halfway there, moving down-slope in a skirting, zigzag pattern that used up time but gave him a chance to learn the lie of the land and spot mantraps and ambush sites. He scanned constantly, not letting his gaze settle for too long or he’d miss the movement, object or person that might bring death. He was also listening, and whenever a sound troubled him he swung his whole body around, tracked with his whole being: ey
es, ears, nose, gun hand. He knew that the one-second delay between finding his target and bringing his gun to bear on it could be the one second that killed him.
Even so, Le Page had most of the advantages. By moving, Wyatt was breaking cover, when his rule of thumb was to let the enemy make the first move, the first mistake. If he remained in hiding there was a chance that Le Page would feel the pressure, break cover and approach across ground that offered little or no protection, but what if Le Page was a man like himself, prepared to wait forever? Wyatt saw that it was better to go on the offensive this time. It was better to flush Le Page out than wait or go in so cautiously that Le Page had time to anticipate, outflank, backtrack or come in from behind.
The pistol was in Wyatt’s hand, the knife strapped above his ankle. Twenty metres short of the bank above Le Page’s house he saw a natural track. It took the path of least resistance between rocks and trees and disappeared down towards the house and sheds. The track was inviting: an innocent person would take it without a second thought. Wyatt didn’t. He began to skirt around it and everything happened at once, good and bad.
Something, a shift in the atmosphere, made him twist and duck. That saved his life, for the lightweight crossbow bolt plucked through his shirt sleeve, through his sinewy upper arm, instead of his chest. He lost balance and toppled to the ground, involuntarily firing the pistol. The pain was acute and, stunned, he found his arm pinned by Le Page’s boot.
Le Page said nothing but wrenched the pistol from Wyatt’s grasp and took several steps back. He cocked his head at Wyatt, amused, the crossbow in one hand, the pistol in the other. ‘I shall use your own weapon on you, I think.’
He pointed and fired.
All he got was trigger movement.
Wyatt had already fired the only bullet. The others were in a spare clip in his pocket. He’d been working on the principle that he’d only need one kill shot. If that failed, and his weapon was seized, then it couldn’t be used against him, yet if he walked into a firefight then it was either too late or he’d have a couple of seconds in which to substitute the empty clip for the full.
Le Page blinked. That was a mistake, for it cost him a moment of time. He even turned the gun toward himself and examined it, and that cost him another moment of time.
Time for Wyatt to unsheathe and throw his knife.