The Woodcutter

by Reginald Hill

  5

  Pudo Pudovkin had all the attributes of a fine chess player: a mind that could sum up several moves ahead, an ability to read an opponent, and the patience not to make a move until he was happy it was the right one. Everything, in fact, except the capacity to accept defeat philosophically. And while being a bad loser doesn’t necessarily make you a bad player, being the kind of bad loser who is likely to fly into a rage and attempt to make a winning opponent swallow his chessmen tends to leave you short of people willing to play with you.

  His positive qualities, plus a large infusion of the negative one, combined to make him an excellent assassin. But on this dank February morning, he found his patience was being sorely tried.

  Arriving early in the vicinity of Birkstane, he had left the anonymous grey Honda he was driving parked out of sight near the head of the lonning and made his way towards the house. He took up a position on a swell of ground about thirty yards from the building where a few scrubby gorse bushes gave him cover, and his elevation gave him a view into the yard through his compact Leika binoculars.

  As the sky grew light, there’d been signs of activity within the house, and smoke had begun to rise from the chimney. Then to his amazement, the door opened and Hadda stepped out into the cold morning air, stark naked except for a towel flung over one shoulder. He headed out of sight behind the barn buildings. The sound of running water revealed the presence of a stream somewhere close. Presumably this madman was going to bathe in it!

  Pudovkin shivered at the thought, but it made his job easy. The only fly in the ointment was the mangy dog trotting along at Hadda’s heel. It looked a vicious beast. Pudovkin did not care for dogs. He’d once been bitten by one in childhood. Later he had returned with a piece of poisoned meat and had the pleasure of watching the beast die in agony. Hadda’s dog would have a more merciful death. The first shot would take care of it. A naked cripple bathing in an icy stream would hardly be in any condition to take advantage of the brief respite offered by this diversion.

  He was just beginning to move forward from his hiding place when he heard a distant engine. A few moments later, a black woman had come down the lonning and into the yard. Who the fuck was she? he wondered. Maybe she would leave when she found the house empty.

  She opened the door and peered inside. For a moment she hesitated in the doorway. Then she turned and went in the lame man’s footsteps.

  ‘Fuck!’ he muttered. A man and a dog were do-able, but this woman complicated matters. Who was going to miss her and how soon? There might even be someone waiting for her in her car. In cleaning operations escape routes were vital, and in this fucking wilderness time was an essential part of any escape plan. Pudo wanted to be long gone before the deed was discovered. He needed at least an hour to get on the south-bound motorway. Any pursuit that started sooner than that could have him road-blocked off with the peasants.

  He settled back into his hide. After a few minutes he heard the sound of another car engine. Jesus, he thought. This is like Oxford fucking Street at Christmas!

  Shortly afterwards another woman came strolling down the lonning. This one he recognized. It was the lawyer’s wife, the good-looking blonde that Pasha Nikitin lusted after. As he’d worked on Toby Estover in the warehouse, Pudo had been satisfied the lawyer knew nothing about the newspaper article long before his boss had signalled a halt. How much, he wondered, had this had to do with the lovely Imogen? And how was Pasha going to react to the news that she was still sniffing around her ex-husband?

  With great indifference, if the said ex was dead, he guessed.

  But her presence was a further unwelcome complication.

  As she approached the gate, there was a sound of voices and the black woman came into view, heading towards the house. The blonde stepped sideways out of sight into the hedgerow that flanked the lonning. Hadda, still naked, and his dog appeared behind the black and the three of them went inside.

  The blonde woman retreated up the lonning. Pudovkin listened for the sound of a car starting up but heard nothing. Then she reappeared. This time she passed through the gate and walked into the yard. She was holding a sheet of paper in her hand as she vanished from the Russian’s line of sight into the barn, but when she reappeared a moment later, she was empty-handed.

  Once more she went up the lonning, moving with an easy grace, but purposefully. This time he did hear a car start up.

  Next Hadda, now fully dressed, came out of the house. He looked around carefully. Something must have alerted him, probably that fucking dog. Now he crossed the yard and went into the barn. The black woman stood in the doorway watching him for a moment before going back inside. Hadda followed shortly, in his hand a sheet of paper, presumably that left by his ex-wife, which he crumpled up as he passed through the door.

  Now what was that all about? wondered Pudo. Not that he really gave a damn. His only concern was that he was freezing his nuts off stuck in this gorse bush with no way of working out how long it was going to be before he could have the pleasure of blowing Hadda’s fucking head off!

  Much longer and he would be too cold to pull a trigger. He was sorely tempted just to head down to the house, burst into the kitchen and blast away at everything that moved. But that was just the chill entering his brain. Time to head back to his nice warm car and review the situation.

  He was almost at the head of the lonning when he heard the roar of an engine starting up somewhere behind him. He scuttled sideways through the hedgerow and was able to see the Land Rover Defender bumping over the rutted surface of the lane. He hurried after it, keeping on the blind side of the hedge. Where the lonning met the narrow road, if the vehicle turned west then it was heading towards what passed for the main road in this third world county and pursuit would be futile.

  But if it turned east . . .

  And east it had turned.

  Pudo had studied his map before venturing into this wasteland and he knew that eastward, not far past the head of the long dark lake with the suggestive name of Wastwater, the road came to a dead end. Here stood a scatter of dwellings and an inn. A man wanting to go further than these would have to go on foot.

  He sent the Honda hurtling along the narrow road till he could see the Defender up ahead, then slowed to its pace. Hadda kept going all the way to the inn and parked before it. Pudovkin brought the Honda to a halt with a light blue Merc coupé between it and the Defender. There weren’t many other cars here. Big surprise. Who in his right senses would want to come here at this time of year?

  If Hadda went into the inn, then he might be in for a long wait. But the big man was shrugging on a cagoule and slinging his fucking axe over his back. Pudo’s jaw, still wired, ached at the sight of it. Even if Pasha hadn’t sent commands, he’d have wanted to sort this bastard out on his own behalf.

  Now Hadda was ready. He slammed the tailgate shut and set out past the inn.

  A glance at his map confirmed to the Russian that there was nowhere to go except wilderness. This was excellent. One thing you could say for this benighted landscape was it offered the careful killer any number of good ambush positions, plus a superfluity of sites where a body could be dumped and not be found for days if not weeks.

  He gave his prey a couple of minutes’ start which he used to slip into a pair of trekking shoes and a fur-lined parka, congratulating himself on his foresight in coming prepared. Then he set out in pursuit.

  He didn’t anticipate any problem keeping pace with a lame man, and felt confident he’d have enough in reserve to overtake him when the moment and location seemed ripe to conclude the business. In his work, keeping fit was a condition of service. It could mean the difference between life and death. So he worked out daily at the activity centre when he was in London, with separate regimes for strength, for endurance, for agility. He could run for an hour, snatch a hundred and sixty kilos, and go up the climbing wall at a speed that made some of the serious mountaineering boys open their eyes. When, as occasionally happ
ened, one of them suggested he might like to join them on a real rock face, he said, ‘You must be fucking joking! I don’t do this for pleasure.’

  Hadda had vanished towards the rear of the inn. There was a broad stream here spanned by an ancient footbridge. Pudovkin started to cross it but paused when he could see no sign of Hadda on the open ground ahead. He glanced to his right, and there he was, still on the same side of the water.

  Pudo followed. The path bore left, climbing above the stream. He lost sight of his prey but a solid stone wall to one side and a wire fence to the other cut down the chance of diversion. There were several gates to pass through. He didn’t waste time by closing them behind him. The final one took him out into open countryside with the path descending into a broad valley. Now once more he could see Hadda. Despite his lameness, he was setting a spanking pace and the Russian soon had to revise his notion of being able to overtake the man at his ease.

  As the path became steeper he revised it even more, discovering the considerable difference between gym fitness and the demands on your muscles made by hill climbing. He made up a bit of ground when his prey came to a halt beside a tumultuous stream and stooped to gather water in his hands and take a drink. He didn’t look back. No need to worry if he had. At this distance recognition wasn’t likely and the presence of another walker on the same well-trodden path was hardly going to be suspicious.

  When Pudovkin reached the stream, he too paused to drink and briefly consult his map. The path crossed the stream (fittingly, in view of its spate, called Gatherstone Beck) and then bore right above it to the depression of Black Sail Pass between the mountain whose side he’d been traversing, Kirk Fell, and an even higher one ahead, named Pillar, though it didn’t look to have much that was pillar-like about it.

  Having no idea which of the routes on offer Hadda was planning to take when he reached the pass, the Russian forced himself to speed up. But despite his best efforts, the man had vanished by the time he got there.

  Furious that all this expenditure of energy might have been in vain, Pudovkin checked out the options. To his right the track rose to what looked like a steep and rocky ascent of Kirk Fell. There was no one climbing it.

  He went forward till he could see down into the next valley. He recalled its name: Ennerdale. If anything it looked even more godforsaken than the valley he had just climbed out of.

  He scanned the possible lines of descent from the pass, but again spotted no movement.

  He returned to the main cross path and started along it towards Pillar. Now once more he spotted his man, not on the main path but on a lower branch that skirted beneath the craggy north face of Pillar overlooking Ennerdale.

  The short descent to this lower path was steep and slippery and he did most of it on his backside. His earlier notion of somehow overtaking and lying in ambush was now completely abandoned. Apart from the surprising speed at which the lame man was moving, this was a track that followed the best, indeed for most of the time the only possible line, and getting ahead of his prey was virtually impossible. So now all he could hope for was to get close enough for a clear shot.

  His weapon was a Makarov PM, similar to the one that Hadda had ruined on the beach. He’d really loved that gun. It had belonged to the first man he’d killed, and he felt a sentimental attachment towards it. So though there were more efficient modern weapons available, he’d chosen to replace it with the same.

  Its drawback was that to guarantee deadliness of both aim and impact he needed to be within a range of no more than twenty metres and preferably nearer half of that. In his usual urban environment, this was fine. Out in this fucking wilderness, something with a long-range capability would have come in useful. On the other hand, closeness might bring the pleasure of being recognized. He was more than happy to shoot Hadda in the back, but the buzz of letting him know who was pulling the trigger would be a definite bonus.

  The weather was changing. Clouds were gobbing up the clear blue sky, sinking low enough to obscure the mountain crests and send questing swirls of mist down the rocky slopes. Not normally a fanciful man, Pudovkin was surprised by the thought that it might be Hadda who was summoning these vapours to help conceal him, and when a huge raven swooped out of the crags and croaked mockingly just above his head, it felt like a visitation from an enemy spy.

  He waved away these superstitious fancies, but they came flocking back a few minutes later when the track climbed to a prominent shoulder on which stood an imposing cairn.

  Straight ahead of him, towering from the mountainside like the ruin of some ancient troll-king’s stronghold was a huge jagged rock, dark and menacing, its front plunging precipitously to the valley below.

  Here was an explanation of the name Pillar. The fell was named not for its height or bulk but for this single dominant feature. And it was toward this terrifying excrescence that the track was leading.

  He could see Hadda clearly, striding onward at the same unrelenting pace. For the first time, doubt seeped into the Russian’s mind. This creature he was pursuing was in its own hunting grounds. He was the intruder here.

  Then he reminded himself that his quarry was a one-eyed cripple with a maimed hand and no weapon but a long axe. He felt the comforting weight of the Makarov in its shoulder holster and, leaving the cairn behind, he resumed his progress along the path.

  Most of the snow had vanished from the track up to Black Sail but here on the north-facing flank of the fell, many of the cracks between the dark crags were still packed white, creating a savage pied beauty that might have appealed to a mind less focused than the Russian’s. All he noticed was that the wind here was much stronger than it had been in Mosedale, blowing in gusts that rattled among the crags and bounced back with a resonance almost metallic. He drew his fur-lined hood up around his head. The din of the wind would conceal the sound of his approach and, even if Hadda did look round, the hood would delay recognition till it was too late.

  Ahead the man was following the track up a steep slope across loose stones that scrunched and tinkled beneath his boots. Pudovkin lost sight of him in a swirl of mist. He expected to glimpse him again higher up the track but he didn’t appear. Perhaps he was taking a rest. Surely there was nowhere to divert to in this rocky wilderness? This could be it, he thought, picturing coming upon his prey lying at his ease to catch what he didn’t realize was his last breath.

  He pressed on, but as he approached the spot where he’d last seen Hadda, there was no sign of the man. Indeed, it wasn’t the kind of place anyone in their right senses would have paused to seek rest. At least while you were moving you didn’t have too much time to take in the horror of your surroundings.

  Above him, the track steepened up a scree slope. Up there, Hadda would surely have been in clear view. He looked for alternatives and spotted a tiny cairn. It seemed to indicate the start of a side path, not the kind of path anything but a demented sheep would follow, but he followed it anyway. It led down and round till at a bend he found himself gazing over a desolate gully that made the terrain he’d just crossed seem an oasis of calm and security.

  On the far side of the gully, close now but diminished by the scale of the surrounding crags, he saw his prey again. He was picking his way gingerly up a great slab of rock that seemed to lead nowhere but the sheer face of the towering pillar above. The slowness of his movement encouraged Pudovkin to consider the possibility of a shot.

  He pulled out his gun and took aim. Even as he did so, his mind was calculating the distance, and the wind, and coming almost instantaneously to the conclusion he’d be mad to take the risk. At the moment, if Hadda spotted him, he was just another idiot whose idea of fun was to risk life and limb crawling around this inhospitable place in the middle of winter. But a bullet bouncing off the rock he was clinging to would be a strong hint that there was trouble around!

  He reholstered the gun. He had to get close enough to ensure his first shot at least disabled the guy.

  Hadda had reached t
he top of the slab. He seemed to take a step down, moved a little to his right, and then began climbing straight up.

  Now this was much more promising, thought Pudovkin. Get below him and he would present a perfect target with no scope for evasion.

  As quickly as he could, he crossed the gully and pulled himself up on to the slab. Its angle wasn’t so steep as to be much of an obstacle in itself and there were cracks and indentations that provided good footholds. But there was also a lot of ice and Pudovkin now appreciated why Hadda had been taking this so carefully.

  His foot slipped and he went down heavily on his right knee.

  He swore violently in Russian. His friends would have taken this as a signal to stand clear. He had a full range of English oaths at his disposal for everyday use, but at moments of extreme anger, he always reverted to his native language.

  He was beginning to wish he’d just shot Hadda as he bathed in the stream behind his house, and the black woman too. And the dog as well, of course. Not so easy getting off three accurate shots at different targets, but if he’d known where his pursuit of Hadda was going to bring him, he might have taken the chance.

  On the other hand, as he headed back to his car, he’d probably have met Estover’s wife, and she’d have had to go too. That wouldn’t have pleased Nikitin. OK, he might have accepted the argument of necessity, but resentment has a longer shelflife than gratitude, and in some dark recess of the future, when all the many services Pudovkin had done for him had faded from his memory, he would still recall that his faithful servant had killed the woman he loved.

  So he bottled his anger. Here was where he was, and he did not intend to leave without accomplishing what he’d set out to do.

  But his heart sank when he stepped off the end of the slab and moved along a narrow ledge to the right. He’d been hoping when he looked up to see his quarry exposed on the rock face above him. Instead he was just in time to see him moving out of sight to commence the next section of the ascent.