Mitchell was saying something, behind her; and so was Audley — but she couldn't hear what they were saying. Then he was beside her — first, on his knees — on his knees, but dummy2
with the rifle carefully cradled in one hand, to keep it off the ground . . . and then easing himself carefully alongside her.
'No need to watch, Miss Fielding. In fact, I'd prefer that you didn't — you'll only distract me.' He took a khaki handkerchief from his pocket and spread it out behind the rock and put two of his spare cartridges on it. 'Nothing to see, anyway. He's just stopped to have a final look around, just in case.'
She lowered her head, keeping her eyes on him. Because there was something to see, of course — something she'd never expected to see at all, ever ... let alone like this, within touching distance: one man preparing to kill another man.
'And now there's a further delay — an unforeseen occurrence.' Mitchell was peering round the edge of the rock, keeping his own head low. 'There's a farm tractor coming behind him, towing a load of something. So he'll have to pull into the side to let it past, and wait for it to disappear. And he won't like that — not one bit.'
She could hear the tractor. 'Why not?'
'A witness.' He didn't look at her. 'Not that he plans to stay around afterwards, to be identified. And there'll be a different car waiting for him, another vehicle, anyway —
maybe a lorry, or something like . . . Goods for Portugal, maybe. We're only two or three hours from the frontier, after all.' He looked at her suddenly. '"Quickly in — quickly out": that's his usual method. You can never tell for sure, of course
— not with a wild animal. But it's always worked for him in dummy2
the past.' He returned his attention to the front again as the noise of the tractor's diesel rose. 'And he certainly doesn't want to hang about in Spain, that's for sure. He's taken one hell of a risk already, as it is ... Although his friends will have looked after him this far ... so they may have other plans for him now, at that!'
'His friends?' The sound of the tractor rose to a crescendo, but then suddenly died away as it passed the headland of the Greater Arapile and continued on towards the ridge behind them. 'His friends — ?'
'Now he's waiting again. And, if he's got any sense he'll turn round and wait for another chance . . . Go on, you bastard!
Turn round — there's a gap just ahead where you can do it easily! Don't be an idiot!' Mitchell drew a deep breath and stared fixedly into the valley, with his chin almost into the dirt. 'No ... of course you're not going to — are you! You missed out once — and the old juices are pumping now: this is what turns you on — ' He stopped suddenly 'Yes . . .
"friends", Miss Fielding. He did a difficult contract job for ETA a few years back — one the Basques didn't fancy doing themselves for domestic reasons. It was a car bomb, actually.
Although he prefers guns to bombs, himself. But it was a big bomb: it blew the damn car clear over the block ... so they owe him one.' Just as suddenly he turned to her again. 'And a penny for your thoughts now, Miss Fielding?'
There was something not right with all this. 'I'd like more than a penny's-worth, Dr Mitchell — ' She caught the edge of dummy2
her own doubt: why was he giving her so much, when he didn't need to?
He looked away again. 'Well . . . we'll see, eh? I'll ration the pennies, maybe — Ah! He's moving again . . . very slowly . . .
and now he's stopped again, at the gap . . . well, well! Does he smell a rat — does he?'
'How did he know we'd be here, Dr Mitchell.'
'Now that is asking.' Mitchell's chin was on the dirt now. 'We didn't know for sure ourselves, not at first: we did it by logic first — what we might have done, in your shoes, if we were stupid . . . before we managed to frighten one of Mr Reginald Buller's friends into confirming.' He slid the rifle forward, and applied the eye-piece of the telescopic sight to his left eye, adjusting its focus. 'It could ... just be ... that your Mr Buller isn't as clever as he thinks he is — ' With a deft little movement, quickly and yet unhurriedly, he extracted a small screwdriver from the breast-pocket of his shirt and made an adjustment to the sight ' — or ... judging by the way he got out of England with his little fat chum . . . with a certain country's CD plates on his luggage ... it could be that the devil you raised — Mr MacManus's employer, that is — is a very smart devil, as well as a very stupid one — ' He applied the eye-piece to his eye again ' — that will do.' He lowered the rifle for an instant, and looked at her squarely. 'We won't know until we ask him — will we, Miss Fielding?'
She wanted, quite desperately, to raise her head. And . . .
how could he be so cold-blooded, damn him! 'How are we dummy2
going to do that, Dr Mitchell — if you are about to kill him?'
'Kill him?' Paul Mitchell frowned at her for only a fraction of a second, before rolling back to his rifle, and bringing it up to his shoulder, and settling himself comfortably — long legs splayed out behind him, ankles flat to the dirt (one foot gouging away a swathe of autumn crocuses regardlessly).
'What d'you think I am — a murderer ... not that it wouldn't give me the greatest of pleasures — the greatest of pleasure . . . and it'd be a bloody-sight easier, too — don't look: he may spot your little white face over the top — '
What stopped her from looking, even more than his final shout, was that he wasn't looking at her: he had known, without looking, that she couldn't resist looking at the last —
The rifle kicked, sending a tremor through him and deafening her as he fired in the very instant that his order held her motionless, so that she witnessed the unforgettable professionalism of his second shot — the practised bolt-action-empty-cartridge-flying-out-live-round-off-the-khaki-handkerchief-slid-into-the-breach — bolt-snapped — rifle-up — aim — FIRE!
And then the whole thing started again —
But then stopped.
And then Mitchell's face momentarily sank on to his rifle, his unshaven cheek distorting it, with his eyes squeezed shut.
And with that all bets — all shouted orders — were off, and Jenny was on her knees, above the rock —
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The little car was moving again: it was backing, in a cloud of dust, down the track — it was turning — swerving and skidding in its own dust into the gap in the track behind it, in a racing turn-about, to escape —
'What's happening — ?' As she spoke, Mitchell stepped up beside her. 'Did you miss?'
'Yes. I missed.' He didn't look at her. 'One does sometimes.'
The Citroen's tyres churned up the track, with its little engine screaming at them to get it moving, so violently that it rocked and bucked this way and that before engine and tyres were both fighting to obey the driver.
'My rifle fires high, and to the right,' continued Mitchell. 'But he wouldn't have missed: he had a rather special gun, I think
— a Voss Special, I think they call it.' He shook his head sadly. 'I've never seen one of them — I've only heard about them. They're like the old buffalo-hunters' long rifles, only better: on a windless day they can manage a couple of miles, supposedly . . . It's got a very long barrel and a marvellous sighting-device.'
Noise filled the valley, drowning out the rest of Mitchell's excuse: there were dust-clouds on the top of the cornfield, where she had trailed up behind Ian, with her feet hurting; and there was a dust-cloud coming up the track from the village, round the rise of the field which was deceptively dummy2
flattened by the height of the Greater Arapile above it.
And — God! — there was even movement in the railway station, in the middle of nowhere, with men fanning out of the gap between its two buildings — and from behind them, with a single concussive bang, a red-winking rocket flared up, trailing a line of bright red smoke as it curved down towards the converging dust-clouds of the retreating Citroen 2-CV and the dther dust-clouds —
'I smashed the passenger's window, in the car, with that first
shot.' Mitchell's voice came back almost to the conversational. 'I was only supposed to frighten him . . . But he didn't come up towards us — he went round to take aim over the bonnet — that's when I saw the Voss ... He was going to rest on the bonnet. So the second time I aimed for him.'
The dust-clouds still converged — even as the red smoke-trail descended, to bounce in a final red spark as it hit the field: the spark bounced brightly once, and then the smoke drifted away from the point where it vanished.
'I don't know where that second shot went.' Mitchell paused.
'I aimed . . . left . . . and slightly down ... I might have hit something — you never know ... I couldn't guarantee to hit a tyre, after that first shot, Miss Fielding — do you understand? Not at this distance — ?'
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The further of the two dust-clouds stopped suddenly, the two vehicles which had caused it slewing to the left and right so as to block the passage of the approaching Citroen. One of them was large and black and civilian, the other drab and military-looking: their doors opened even before they had halted, and their occupants tumbled out — Spanish Civil Guards from the military vehicle, in their distinctive black tricornes, and bare-headed civilians from the black car —
Mitchell was still speaking. But she had been so intent on watching the drama in the valley, trying to imprint every detail on her memory — this is something else I never thought I'd see!— that she hadn't taken it in. 'What?'
'I said . . . they took their bloody time.'
The Citroen had also stopped now, but well short of the road block — a hundred yards or more away from the Spanish Police.
'You knew they were coming?' It was a foolish question.
'Too-bloody-right!' He stared at the scene, frowning. 'You don't think we play silly games on our own in other people's countries? Not this sort of game, anyway — Ahh! He's thought better of it, by God!'
'What — ?' Something in his expression chilled her, in spite of the heat. But his words turned her away from him, back to the valley.
The Citroen was moving again, very slowly.
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'His moment-of-truth.' Mitchell murmured the words. 'Just like O'Leary ... it comes to them all sooner or later . . . later or sooner . . . But he's being — no! By God —
As he spoke the sound of the little car's engine changed, suddenly roaring in the great stillness of the yellow-and-red fields as the Citroen accelerated — with a new cloud of red dust, which had settled behind it, swirling up again as its tyres churned the track —
'He's making a run for it — that's my man!' breathed Mitchell.
The Spaniards at the road block were scattering — taking cover behind their vehicles.
'He'll never get through — '
In a tank maybe, thought Jenny. But a 2-CV was too little, too light —
Then the Citroen braked — its little red brake-lights were invisible in the dust and the sunlight, but it bucked and slewed sideways, until it was broadside in the track.
'He's turning round — '
'No he isn't — ' Paul Mitchell cut her off as the distant sound of the revving engine reached them again as the little car threw itself into the wire fence beside the road —
The fence bowed and shivered, and stretched on each side of the car for a moment, before the posts snapped and were pulled away as the car broke through into the corn stubble, throwing up an even greater dust-cloud as it started to climb dummy2
the slope — the same slope down which she'd walked, thought Jenny, suddenly torn between what she knew, and the old instinctive sympathy for any hunted animal with the pack in full-cry behind it — the fox breaking cover out of the spinney into open country, knowing that it had been cornered, but going for its own run-for-freedom nevertheless
—
The burst of gunfire, sharp and reverberating, with the echoes ringing across the valley from the Greater Arapile towards the opposing rocky plateau, changed the image: this was sun-baked Beirut again, with that same knock-knock-knocking —
But the dust-cloud was still moving. 'He's going to get away
— '
'No, he isn't.' Mitchell's voice was matter-of-fact, quite unemotional. 'See there — ?'
Up over the top of the cornfield, out of the dead ground from which the Redcoats had once marched towards the French, another of those malevolent army vehicles loomed up, trailing its own dust-cloud. And this one had its own little turret, like a miniature tank: it stopped suddenly as she watched it, and the turret began to traverse.
The Citroen changed direction, no longer trying to breast the rise, aiming now to escape beween two fires, along the curve of the field —
'Don't look — ' Mitchell caught her arm ' — Miss Fielding — '
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She pulled away from him — pulled away just as the long slender gun in the turret banged three times — a different sound from the preceding small-arms knocking . . . deeper and louder — and probably the loudest noise this peaceful valley had known since —
The Citroen was bowled over like a rabbit, rolling and exploding in the same instant, its four little tyres and underside visible for a last fraction-of-a-second before it became an incandescent ball of fire, shooting out flame and black smoke as it became unrecognizable.
'Don't look!' This time Mitchell's grip was irresistible: he swung her round to face him. 'He's dead now. He's no problem now — it's called "Shot while resisting arrest", Miss Fielding. So ... he's got no problems now, either: no one forced him to run, Miss Fielding ... do you see?'
It was strange how quiet it was. There had been the loudest bang! of all as the Citroen had exploded. But now she couldn't hear anything as she stared accusingly at Mitchell.
'You knew that was going to happen.'
'No. That is to say ... no ... I didn't know for sure.' He was stone-faced. 'But you don't need to waste any sympathy for him, Miss Fielding. He'd never met your nice Mr Robinson, who goes to church on Sundays. But he'd been paid to kill nice Mr Robinson, so that was what he was going to do — at maybe two thousand yards, and with a soft-nosed bullet. And that was what he was going to do ... and it frightened the shit out of me when he got out of his car, and the Spaniards dummy2
hadn't turned up, I can tell you.' His jaw tightened. 'Because then I had to decide whether I was going to shoot-to-kill, or not . . . And this contraption — ' He lifted the rifle ' — this was just supposed to be insurance. They said it wasn't really necessary, because they'd be here once he showed up. And then they offered me a hand-gun . . . But I didn't want to let him get that close. Because he's an expert, and I'm not—'
'No — ?' She remembered what Reg Buller had said. And what, from her own observation of only a few minutes ago (so little time?) . . . she also remembered.
'No — damn it — no!' He showed his teeth. 'You don't know what you're talking about, Miss Fielding. Whatever you think you know . . . you-don't-know — ' He let go of her arm, and straightened up. 'But I'm not about to tell you.'
What she knew was that she mustn't let him confuse her with either sincerity or very good acting: for some reason he had given her too much, up to now, but she didn't know why. And that was no reason to trust him now.
He looked away from her, dismissing her.
The unrecognizable wreck of the Citroen continued to blaze fiercely, with its black smoke rising up in a mini-mushroom-cloud in the still air. And the uniformed men were converging on it ... But the civilians were getting into their car — even as she watched the doors closed one by one, and then the car turned on to the track and moved slowly towards them.
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Then she realized that she was alone: Paul Mitchell was retracing his steps, back to the monument, walking across the autumn crocuses as though they didn't exist — as though she didn't exist —
'Dr Mitchell!'
He stopped, and turned. 'Whatever you want to know — you ask Dr Audley now, Miss Fielding. And I wish you joy of it.'
There was a knot in her stomach. Just as Audley had so strangely reminded her of Philly, now Paul Mitchell recalled Ian — the new Ian, for whom she also didn't really exist as she had formerly done.
He looked past her for an instant, then at her, very coldly. 'I must go and make our peace with the Spaniards. Not that it'll be too difficult, I suspect.' His mouth twisted. 'Don't worry —
they won't ask you any questions. Just so long as you go straight home now, and forget what you've seen.'
Her mouth opened.
'Oh yes — forget, Miss Fielding.' The twist became a travesty of a smile. 'A wanted man — a known foreign terrorist who has worked for ETA in the past? And I wouldn't like to guess what's happened to his little fat chum, either. So two known terrorists, believed to be working for ETA, have been shot by security forces, while resisting arrest. And that has nothing to do with any British tourists who may have been passing through, on their holidays: that wouldn't be good for the tourist industry, would it?' He flicked a glance past her for an dummy2
instant. The Spaniards have waited a long time to close the MacManus file, and balance their books. So this way there are no complications — no messy trial, or anything like that.
But next time ETA may not find it so easy to hire outside talent.'
Jenny watched him bend down, to disassemble the rifle and replace each bit of it in its place in the case — right down to retrieving a final round from his back pocket, and putting it too in its box, with the two empty cases of the bullets he'd fired. Then he looked up again. 'Of course, you may not want to forget — not after you've witnessed such a saleable event, eh? Pity you didn't have a camera!' He snapped the case shut and stood up. 'And the Spanish won't touch you, either.
Because, apart from being your father's daughter, you haven't done anything — have you?' He stared at her. 'Which is funny really, when you think about it. Because that's all your own work — ' He pointed into the valley ' — that, and what happened to John Tully.'
'John — ?'
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