by Hilary Green
‘Come on, Meg.’
The girl raised her head. ‘How much further?’
‘We’ve got a bit more climbing to do,’ Leo told her briskly. ‘Then, once we’re over the other side, we’ll look for somewhere warm to hide up for the night.’
‘Over where?’ Margaret asked, her eyes wandering across the hillside. The she saw the saddle. ‘Dear God! We’re never going right up there!’
‘Come on,’ repeated Leo, beginning to move away. ‘It’s not as far as it looks.’
It was – and further! For two hours they toiled upwards, scarcely speaking, the rough ground unbalancing them and preventing them from settling into a steady stride. Twice they took cover under the shadow of rocks as a helicopter flew backwards and forwards along the hillside. It was a police helicopter, but, as Leo had guessed, it was obviously concentrating on the lower slopes. By the time they reached the steep escarpment of rock and scree immediately below the saddle Margaret was giving a low, moaning sob on every outward breath and Leo could see that she was almost at the end of her strength. She undid the scarf which she had knotted around her neck as a sign to Stone, folded it into a strip and gave one end to the other girl.
‘Hang on. I’ll help you up.’
Step by step, Leo worked her way up the slope, picking out each ledge of rock to stand on and each tuft of grass to cling to, and then half dragging the exhausted Margaret after her. Long before they reached the top Leo, too, was at the end of her strength and only the knowledge that to stop now would mean almost certain death from exposure for them both kept her going. Finally, every muscle in her body shuddering under the strain, she hauled herself onto the level turf of the saddle and lay gasping, aware only of the blood thundering in her ears.
The chill of the evening breeze roused her to the awareness that they were far from safe yet. She struggled to her knees and looked down the valley before her. The slope on this side, thank God, was easier and a hundred feet or so below was a wooded gully with what looked like a path leading into it; and further down still there were the roofs of some buildings. Leo turned and put her hand on Margaret’s shoulder.
‘Just a short walk down hill, Meg. Then we’ll find somewhere to shelter.’
Margaret lifted her face, streaked with mud and tears.
‘Mother of God, I can’t walk another step!’
‘Margaret,’ Leo said urgently, ‘if you stay here you will die. I’m not just saying that to get you on your feet. It’s true. You’re wet and exhausted and cold. You wouldn’t survive a night up here.’
Slowly Margaret sat up, rubbing her face on her sleeve.
‘This is a fearsome place! How is it you know so much about it? Aren’t you terrified too?’
Leo smiled at her. ‘No, not now. I know we can make it down to safety now. Just one more effort, that’s all it needs.’
‘But where did you learn to find your way around in a wilderness like this?’ the girl insisted.
‘Oh,’ Leo looked away, across the shadowy hills. ‘I’ve always liked the solitary places. But what about you? You have your own mountains in Ireland.’
‘Oh, not for me!’ Margaret shivered. ‘Give me the city streets any day.’
‘Even when there’s a sniper at every corner?’ Leo murmured. She rose to her feet. ‘Come on. This is no place to rest.’
As she strode forward down the slope it occurred to her that for the last couple of hours, she had almost forgotten that the girl following in her footsteps was a self-confessed killer who had shot a man in cold blood only a few weeks ago.
Once they reached the path the going was easier and after a mile or so they found themselves on a rough track which wound down a wooded valley. Rounding a bend they came in sight of a small, stone-built cottage standing in a neat garden. Leo stopped and moved into the shadow of the trees. The cottage had obviously been built as a farmworker’s home but now the new, oak front door and the freshly painted window-frames suggested a week-end retreat. All the windows were shut and there was no sign of light or movement behind them.
‘Empty, d’you reckon?’ Margaret asked.
‘No car,’ Leo said, ‘and no garage to hide one in. They’d need transport up here, so that suggests there’s no one at home right now. Of course, they could just have gone down to the pub…’
She paused, studying the house. It didn’t look occupied…
‘Wait here,’ she instructed Margaret. ‘I’ll check it out.’
Margaret slumped down on the grass with her back against a tree trunk, while Leo stepped out onto the track and plodded towards the cottage, as unconcerned as any weary hiker at the end of a long walk. When she reached the gate she paused, looking up the path. There was still no sign of life from inside. Without any attempt at concealment she walked up the path and knocked at the front door. When she had knocked three times without any response she wandered casually around to the back of the house. All the ground-floor rooms were unoccupied and in the lounge the chair cushions were uncreased and the ashtrays empty.
Having finished her inspection Leo looked around the garden. In a shed she found exactly what she wanted – a small spade. Armed with this she returned to the kitchen window and after a couple of minutes judicious manipulation succeeded in joggling the catch of the small top window off its pin. From there it was simple to reach in and open the larger window and within seconds she was standing in the kitchen. Another brief search produced a pair of rubber gloves from the drawer under the draining-board and, once she had put these on, she turned her attention to wiping her fingerprints off the handle of the spade, the window catch and anything else she might have touched, reflecting grimly as she did so that having acquired a police record had disadvantages which had not previously struck her. Finally, she made a rapid tour of the house. There was no milk in the fridge, no clothes in the cupboards, the beds were not made up. Unless they were very unlucky and the owners were planning to arrive that night, they were safe – at least for the time being.
Leo opened the front door and called softly to Margaret and a few seconds later the other girl stumbled through the hallway and threw herself onto the settee in the living-room. Leo, who had taken her boots off in the kitchen, regarded the trail of muddy footprints and the damp, dirty figure at the end of it grimly for a moment; then drew a long breath and padded upstairs in search of blankets.
*
Stone called up Kappa One and Two from the helicopter and arranged a rendezvous where a minor road crossed a remote upland pasture a couple of valleys away. When the helicopter had dropped him and sped on its way to get the injured crewman into hospital, he crouched down in the shelter of a stone sheep-fold and took out the direction-finder which was tuned to the transmitters Leo had been given. There was no signal from either of the two bugs and he swore under his breath at the implications.
Barney and Viv Vivian arrived ten minutes later and Stone’s first words as he climbed into the back of the Capri were,
‘Have you still got a trace on Omega?’
‘’Fraid not,’ said Viv. ‘One’s gone out of range, the other one stopped transmitting soon after you called up the chopper.’
‘Hell!’ said Stone. ‘That’s the one she was carrying.’
‘What’s been going on, anyway?’ Barney asked. ‘You seem to have started your own private war.’
Stone told them briefly what had happened in the quarry.
‘You say the bug in the car’s gone out of range?’ he added. ‘They got away, then?’
Barney nodded. ‘Don’s gone after them. They took off even before we lost the other trace. Looks like they didn’t even wait to see if the girls made it.’
‘That figures,’ Stone said grimly. ‘I reckon Reilly set the whole thing up, anyway.’
‘What the hell for?’ Viv asked.
‘To get rid of Leo. He tried to shoot her twice. The first time I thought I could be mistaken, but the second there was no question about. My guess is he tipped off the p
olice, then planned to start the shooting as soon as they arrived, knowing they would respond, and make it look as though Leo had been caught in the cross-fire.’
‘And killed by a police bullet?’ Barney suggested.
Stone looked at the Armalite beside him on the seat. ‘That’s what he was using. Same type as the standard police issue. Forensic would have shown that the bullet hadn’t come from one of the police weapons, of course, but I doubt if Reilly’s people would have believed that.’
‘I don’t get it,’ objected Viv. ‘What about the other girl?’
‘Presumably, he would have let the police retake her.’
‘One of his own people?’ Viv was scandalized.
Stone shrugged. ‘Looked at from his point of view he was perfectly right, of course. Donelly had endangered his whole operation by taking Leo to the house. He had to get rid of Leo, and he had to make sure she didn’t have a chance to talk. He could have shot her in cold blood and dumped her body in the canal, of course, but my guess is the rest of the group wouldn’t go along with that, so he had to make it look as if the police had shot her. If that meant shopping Donelly too, well, as commander of a unit in the field, he had to sacrifice one person for the good of the group.’
‘Cold-blooded sod!’ commented Viv.
‘Maybe,’ Stone said. ‘Anyway, he didn’t succeed and now it looks as if he’s buggered off back to Brum and left them to fend for themselves. The only question now is, who finds them first – us or the police.’ He paused, then added, ‘That is, if they haven’t picked them up already.’
‘Doesn’t look like it,’ said Barney. ‘They’re setting up road-blocks. We came through one on the way up here.’
Stone’s face brightened. ‘Good. They must have got clear for the time being, at any rate.’
‘So where do we start looking?’ Viv asked, gazing out at the empty moorland around them.
‘Well, the first thing, obviously, is to get back to somewhere near the quarry where we can see what the police are up to. They’re bound to have brought in dogs by now. If they’ve picked up a trail it might give us a clue where to start. Other than that –’he compressed his lips and lifted his shoulders slightly – ‘there’s no point in us three trying to comb an area like that on spec. The best thing we can do is to try and let Leo know where we are and hope she’ll find us.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘My bet is that they’ll look for somewhere to hole up for the night and then hope to slip past the road-blocks in the morning; but sooner or later they’re going to need transport and that means coming back to the road. Leo would recognize this car, being one of the pool cars, and she knows you two. All we can do for now is patrol the roads around the area and hope she’ll spot us and make contact.’
‘What’s with all this “we” bit?’ Viv asked. ‘You’re a wanted man.’
‘Viv’s right,’ Barney said. ‘After that little run-in with the local boys you ought to be keeping your head down. Did any of them get a good look at you?’
Stone’s jaw tightened. ‘Yes, I guess the guy with the rifle must have done. But they won’t be looking for me round here.’
‘Just the same,’ Barney said, ‘trying to drive through police check-points is putting your head in the lion’s mouth. You leave this to us.’
‘What’s your cover story, anyway?’ Stone asked.
Viv grinned. ‘Oh, don’t you worry about us, man. We’re just a couple of city boys out for a weekend’s fishing.’
Stone raised his eyebrows. ‘Without rods or tackle?’
Viv looked injured. ‘You take a look in the boot sometime. You’ll find rods, lines, tackle boxes – even bait.’
‘Sorry!’ Stone smiled briefly. ‘I should have known better.’
Barney and Viv had been with Triple S almost as long as he had, and one thing all Pascoe’s agents were trained to be meticulous about was ensuring that their cover stories would stand up to close investigation.
‘So, if anyone asks, we’re off to do a bit of night fishing,’ Barney said.
‘OK,’ Stone gave way reluctantly. ‘Drop me off somewhere where I can set up base – and keep in touch.’
‘There was a pub a couple of miles back,’ Barney said, ‘this side of the road-block, advertising bed and breakfast. The Druid’s something…’
‘The Druid’s Rest,’ Viv supplied.
‘That’ll do,’ Stone said. ‘Drop me there.’
‘I still don’t like it,’ Barney protested. ‘You ought to get right out of the area.’
‘Look,’ said Stone, ‘they saw me whisked off in a helicopter, didn’t they? They’re not going to be looking for me on their own back doorstep. Anyway, I’m not going anywhere until we locate Leo, so you can forget that idea.’
‘OK,’ said Barney unwillingly. ‘The Druid’s Rest it is.’
‘Listen,’ Stone said as Barney started the engine. ‘Is this car fitted with a scrambler? I need to talk to Pascoe.’
Viv passed him the handset and punched in the number. ‘Help yourself.’
He got through to Pascoe without difficulty and told him what had happened in the quarry. When he finished Pascoe said,
‘Right. I want you to keep your head down. Let Kappa One and Two do the searching. I’ll send Marriot up to you straight away. If you succeed in locating Omega, I want him to be the one to make contact. Quite apart from the fact that if the police pick you up and identify you our whole story goes down the drain, Donelly may have seen you in Daltry Road and if you turn up there in the middle of Wales she’s bound to smell a rat. She knows Marriot as one of Omega’s people.’
‘But how’s he supposed to know where they are?’ Stone asked.
‘There will be a report in the next radio news bulletin. I’ll see to that if the BBC’s bloodhounds haven’t picked it up already.’
‘The police may not have connected the two girls in the quarry with Donelly and “Walker”,’ Stone pointed out.
‘Well, if necessary, we shall have to make the connection for them,’ Pascoe said. ‘Now, give me the precise location of this inn where you’re going to stay. Marriot should be with you before midnight.’
*
By the time darkness came Leo and Margaret were sitting in front of an electric fire, huddled in blankets, while their damp clothes steamed gently over the backs of a couple of chairs. The kitchen cupboards had proved to be well stocked with emergency rations and with a tin of mince, another of beans, some rice and the contents of the spice rack Leo had concocted a very palatable chilli con carne. Margaret ate ravenously, but her eyes widened in disbelief when Leo insisted that they wash up afterwards.
‘Let them do it!’ she said. ‘If they’ve got nothing better to do than lounge around here at weekends, they can find time to wash up after us.’
‘Listen,’ Leo said, ‘breaking into people’s houses and stealing their food isn’t my style, believe it or not. The least we can do is leave it tidy.’
Margaret’s eyes narrowed. ‘Bloody funny revolutionary, you are!’
‘Besides which,’ Leo continued, ‘by tomorrow at the latest the police are going to be searching places like this. The best we can hope for is that I was right and they’ll start the search on the other side of the mountain, so we’ll be long gone before they get here. But there’s no point in making it obvious to anyone glancing through the window that someone had been camping out here – to say nothing of leaving our fingerprints all over everything we’ve touched.’
Margaret saw sense then, and even agreed to clean up the trail of muddy footprints across the carpet. Finally, when everything was tidy and they were settled in front of the fire, she said,
‘What now?’
‘Now,’ Leo replied, ‘we take it in turns to sleep. I’ll take first watch; but before that I’m going to make one phone call.’
Margaret’s eyelids, which had been drooping, jerked open.
‘Who to?’
‘Don’t worry,’ Leo reassured her. ‘it�
�s to the same number I called the other day. If we’re going to get out of here we need wheels. I’ll leave a message for Nick Marriot on the agency tape. If they contact him first thing in the morning, he could be here by lunch time.’
‘I don’t like it.’ Margaret frowned at her beneath the heavy fringe of dark hair. ‘I don’t like involving other people.’
‘Listen!’ Leo’s voice had an edge to it. ‘Marriot got us out of Risley. Your people are going to be no good to us. I bet Reilly and Liam are safely back in Birmingham by now.’
‘How do you know? Kevin could be out there now, looking for us.’
‘Yeah?’ Leo said sceptically.
‘Why not?’
‘Has it occurred to you to wonder how it was that the police turned up just at that precise moment?’ Leo asked.
‘Of course it has. I don’t know how they knew.’
‘There’s only one possible explanation. Someone shopped us – and only Reilly and the Connors knew about it, apart from us.’
Margaret stared at her. ‘I don’t believe it. None of them would have talked – unless … That Liam Connor likes a drink. If he’s blabbed his mouth off in a pub somewhere…’
Leo watched her with narrowed eyes. Her disbelief seemed genuine.
‘Well,’ she said eventually, ‘I think I prefer to trust my own people at the moment.’
She found the map and studied it for a few moments, then went to the telephone and dialled the number of the Cavendish Agency. When the recorded message had finished and the tone indicated that the machine was ready, she said, in a voice with just a hint of an American accent,
‘This is Elizabeth, Laura’s friend. I called the other day? I’m sorry to bother you like this, but I arranged to meet your Nick Marriot today and he hasn’t turned up. I’m stuck here in the middle of Wales and I don’t know his number. Could you please call his office, or wherever he works, for me and give him a message? Tell him I’ll be outside the pub on the outskirts of a village called Gwytherin between two-thirty and three-thirty tomorrow afternoon. I’m really sorry to be a nuisance, but I’d be very grateful if you could do that for me. Goodbye – and thank you.’