by Chris Ryan
But Dr Hopkinson didn't seem so convinced. 'Inspector Matthews,' he said politely, 'I hope you don't think I'm trying to tell you your job, but—' He hesitated.
'Go on, Doctor,' the policeman encouraged.
'Don't underestimate Joseph Sinclair. He's old, and his mental health is frail. But he's not stupid – I've had enough conversations with him to establish that. He has a scientific mind, he's a voracious reader and he's no fool.'
'What are you trying to tell me, Doctor?'
Dr Hopkinson looked away for a moment. 'I don't know,' he replied. 'Just don't expect to find him sitting in a field somewhere talking to the daisies. Just because he suffers from psychosis, it doesn't mean he can't merge into society perfectly easily.'
The policeman nodded. 'Point taken,' he said. 'In the meantime, you'd better hope the press don't get hold of this – they'd have a field day.'
Dr Hopkinson smiled. 'I'm concerned about my patients,' he said honestly. 'Not chattering journalists.'
He watched as the policeman closed his notebook, put it away and stood up to leave. 'Thank you, Doctor Hopkinson,' he said. 'I'll be in touch.' Inspector Matthews made to leave, but before he reached the door he stopped and turned to look back at the doctor. 'Just one other thing,' he said, a certain hesitation in his voice.
'Of course,' the doctor replied.
'If this guy is as sharp as you say, all the stuff about government conspiracies and the like – has anyone actually checked that it isn't true?' He seemed a bit embarrassed to be asking the question.
Dr Hopkinson stood up. 'Officer!' he exclaimed. 'I didn't have you down as a conspiracy theorist.' Suddenly his face became more serious as he stared directly at the policeman. 'Believe me,' he said clearly, 'we don't lightly section people. I've been in this job for twenty years now. If I had a pound for every time I heard a paranoid schizophrenic tell me there was a government conspiracy to silence them, I promise you, I'd be a rich man. Joseph Sinclair is smart, but he's delusional. He needs to be back here, where we can look after him.'
The policeman appeared chastened, even slightly embarrassed to have asked the question. 'Of course, Doctor,' he said politely, then left the room, closing the door firmly behind him.
Chapter Three
Haltwhistle Station was like a ghost town when they arrived.
It had been a five-hour train journey from Macclesfield to the sleepy rural village that claimed to be the exact geographical centre of the country but which seemed to Ben to be the end of the earth. Ben had spent some of the time being instructed in ornithological matters by Annie. She made, he thought, a strange sight, dressed in army surplus combat trousers and boots as she pored over pictures of obscure British birds, but that was her through and through. Ben was also dressed in sturdy outdoor gear, and was glad of it: the rain had let up, but each time they changed train, first at Manchester, then Lancaster and finally onto an elderly, two-carriage boneshaker at Carlisle, the air seemed to grow damper. He could hardly believe it was late summer.
On the last train they fell into a comfortable silence. Ben picked up a newspaper that somebody had left lying around and flicked through it. One of the main stories grabbed his interest. NORTH KOREA AGREES NUCLEAR STEPDOWN said the headline. He read further: North Korea has agreed to disable its principal nuclear reactor, and to submit details to the West of its nuclear programme in a move that is widely seen as a peace overture from the totalitarian regime of this stricken country. He handed the newspaper to Annie and tapped the article. 'Looks like your dad might be out of a job if peace keeps breaking out everywhere,' he said archly.
Annie glanced at the article. 'Hardly,' she said. 'There's always some regime out there that thinks it's OK to start killing people. If it's not the North Koreans, it'll only be someone else.'
'I suppose you're right,' Ben agreed glumly, taking the paper back and continuing to flick through it.
When the time finally came to disembark for the last time, they lugged their rucksacks off the train with only a handful of other passengers, and then found the bus stop, a little way from the slate-roofed ticket office, where they waited for their bus to the youth hostel. Evening was drawing in now, and the place where they stood was practically deserted. It had already been a long day, and Ben and Annie stood in silence as they waited for the bus that didn't seem to want to come.
It was only gradually that the feeling came over Ben. It was a curious sensation, a bit like pins and needles but not so acute. The feeling of being watched. He looked around him, and at first could see nobody. But then he looked back towards the train station. An arched bridge connected the two platforms, and standing on top of it, silhouetted ghost-like against the dusk sky, was a figure. Something about him chilled Ben's blood.
The figure stood perfectly motionless, and Ben found himself squinting his eyes to try and make out his features more clearly. He was too far away, though, and the light was not good enough. Gently he nudged Annie.
'What?' she asked, tiredness showing in her voice.
Ben didn't say anything – he just nodded in the direction of the figure. Normally he would have expected a sarcastic comment from his cousin, but not tonight. She too fell silent as she watched the silhouette, clearly as unnerved by it as Ben was, though neither was able to pinpoint quite why.
Ben bent down to his rucksack, opened it up and pulled out the pair of binoculars that Annie had lent him. He knew how rude it would be to use them to stare at somebody so close, but he couldn't stop himself: he just wanted to be able to look at the guy clearly, to dispel some of the uneasiness he was feeling. He put the binoculars to his eyes and adjusted the focus. Gradually the man came into view.
He was elderly, tall and thin and wore a shabby grey overcoat. His nose was hooked and his floppy hair seemed to fall over his face, though he made no attempt to brush it off. His left cheek occasionally twitched nervously, but it was the eyes that alarmed Ben most of all. They seemed constantly to flick off in different directions, nervously – panicked, even – and they gave the man's face a scary, disturbed demeanour. It did nothing to ease Ben's mind. What was he doing there, all alone? What was he searching for? Ben felt scared of him, yet transfixed. For a moment he wondered if the man intended to throw himself in front of the next train.
Suddenly, Ben felt a shock of ice run through him. The man was staring at him – staring straight at him – and his eyes had stopped darting around, though his face still twitched. How long they remained like that, Ben couldn't have said. Seconds probably, although it seemed like an age, and he watched in horror as the man's lip curled into what could only be described as a smile – but a smile with no humour.
Ben found himself almost hypnotized by the man's eyes, and it was only the sudden sound of the bus pulling up that made him lower the binoculars. Again the man appeared to him as no more than a silhouette in the distance.
The two cousins shuffled their rucksacks onto the bus, a rickety old thing that was empty apart from the driver, who silently took their fares, then they grabbed seats together at the back of the vehicle. As the bus pulled out, Ben glanced out of the window in the direction of the railway bridge. The old man was no longer there.
It was Annie who finally broke the silence. 'Why d'you look at him through the binoculars?' she asked.
Ben shrugged. 'Don't know,' he replied a bit defensively. 'I just had a weird feeling, that's all. Like he was watching us.'
'It's all right,' Annie replied. 'He gave me the spooks too.' She looked out of the window herself. 'It's pretty remote up here,' she observed. 'That's why it's good for bird-watching. Not too many people. If I was a bird, that's definitely what I'd want. People aren't good for wildlife – they always seem to manage to mess it up somehow.'
And with that melancholy observation, they both fell quiet again.
It was nearly an hour's bus ride, and for all that time Ben could not get the image of the old man out of his head. For some reason the hooked nose and the way those bead
y eyes had stared directly at him put him in mind of the picture of the female hen harrier from Annie's RSPB magazine – a ridiculous notion, he knew, but sometimes when you're scared you look for associations that aren't really there. He was glad when they arrived at the youth hostel as it meant he could focus his mind on something else.
The hostel was a large, grey-stone building, stark and imposing against the twilight sky. It was the only building for as far as the eye could see, which gave it a sinister look; yet it seemed at the same time to welcome them, with the lights beaming out of all the windows. As they lugged their heavy bags through the front door, a young man who seemed nice enough to Ben, if a bit overfriendly, directed them to their respective dormitories – sparse rooms with four sets of bunk beds each and only a couple of other guests occupying them. A quick snack from some of the food they had brought with them, and before long they were asleep in bed.
Tomorrow would be an early start.
Ben was awoken by the gentle vibration of his mobile – Annie, giving him their arranged alarm call. It was still dark outside and it seemed an effort for him to shake off the blanket of sleep, but they had arranged to leave the youth hostel before dawn in order to be out and about when the sun rose, and in a few minutes they were standing outside the hostel warmly dressed against the night-time cold in their outdoor gear. Each of them carried their rucksack on their back, but they were lighter today, filled only with the equipment that would be useful to them on their day's trek.
It felt good to be out of doors as dawn crept across the sky. Here, among the lanes and the fields, Ben felt miles from anywhere and anyone, and as the sky lit up, it made them all the more aware of the vastness of the landscape around them. It seemed impossible that only yesterday they had been in grey, suburban Macclesfield.
As they tramped through the fields, there were few sounds around them other than the noise of their walking boots squelching in the marshy ground. Annie held the ordnance survey map in a protective plastic covering and directed them confidently to the north-west with the aid of a small orienteering compass. 'There's an RAF base in this direction,' she explained quietly to Ben – something about the early-morning light encouraged them to speak in hushed whispers. 'It's called Spadeadam, and it's massive – over nine thousand acres. We can't cross over the boundary, but we can skirt around it. It's a good place for bird-watching.'
Ben raised an eyebrow. 'Really?' he asked mildly. 'I'd have thought it was the last place you'd see them – noisy planes flying overhead and everything.'
Annie shook her head. 'Spadeadam covers huge areas of marshland,' she explained. 'The RAF have to make sure they protect the wildlife around here, so loads of it has been left untouched as a perfect natural habitat. My dad was posted here once, years ago. He told me all about it.'
As they had been speaking, the air had gradually started to become filled with the throng of bird song, as though somebody had slowly been turning the volume up. Ben and Annie stopped still and looked in wonder around them as the empty canopy of air became flecked with the black silhouettes of myriad birds rising up from the marshy land. All their senses seemed to be filled with the sights and sounds of nature, and Ben quickly fumbled in his rucksack for his binoculars while Annie took out a waterproof blanket and spread it on the ground in front of them. They lay down on their fronts like snipers, and feasted their eyes on the display that was acting itself out before them.
Annie was an informative guide, seeming to see things Ben would never have noticed, and able to identify birds by the idiosyncratic swoop of their wings or their distinctive cries. She pointed out peregrine falcons, kestrels, skylarks and various small songbirds, all the while talking in a low, monotone voice that did little to hide her thrill at what she saw. It didn't take long for Ben to become infected with her enthusiasm, and after a while he started recognizing the birds for himself. He could have lain there all day watching them.
As the morning grew brighter, however, the initial frenzy of activity started to subdue and Annie suggested that they start walking, both to warm up a bit, and to continue their hunt for the elusive hen harrier. They packed up their things and moved on.
They hiked towards an area of woodland and skirted around the edge of it for an hour or so. They talked only infrequently, Annie occasionally pointing out something of interest, but otherwise both of them enjoying the peace and the solitude. Eventually, though, they found their path blocked by a fence made from evil-looking barbed wire.
'This must be the boundary to Spadeadam,' Annie observed, looking slightly wistfully over it and into the land beyond. 'We'd better not cross it.'
Ben followed her gaze. 'It just looks like open countryside,' he said. 'If you think we've got a better chance of spotting our bird there I expect there's some way we could get through the fence – if not here then somewhere else.'
Annie gave him a withering look. 'My dad's an air commodore,' she reminded him. 'Bit embarrassing if I'm caught trespassing round here, don't you think?'
'Oh, yeah.' Ben grinned at her. 'I guess you're right. Fancy some breakfast?' He pulled a couple of chocolate bars out of his rucksack and they ate them in silence before continuing their trek by following the perimeter fence westwards.
They spotted the occasional interesting bird throughout the morning, but nothing more than they had seen at dawn, and no sight of the hen harrier. By early afternoon, their feet were getting sore and the rucksacks heavy, so they agreed to turn round and head back to the hostel. On the way, they found themselves chatting to pass the time. 'You've got a real thing about the RAF, haven't you?' Ben asked Annie as he caught her looking over the Spadeadam perimeter yet again.
She smiled. 'You could say that. When I'm old enough, I'm going to join up.'
'Why? I mean, I know because of your dad and everything, but you're the first girl I've met who wants to be in the military.'
Annie didn't answer for a moment, but walked thoughtfully by Ben's side. 'People think being in the army is all guns and fighting, but it's not,' she said finally. 'You get to help people – people who really need it. When my dad was in the Gulf, he found two Iraqi children whose parents had both been put in prison. They were living on the streets. He was able to do something for them, make sure they got a roof over their heads and something to eat.' She flashed a quick grin at him. 'Plus you get all the guns and fighting on top of that.'
Ben laughed, but as he did so Annie suddenly interrupted him. 'Shhh,' she hissed, grabbing him firmly by his arm and using her other hand to point in the air. 'Look!'
Ben followed the direction of her finger. Two birds were flying over Spadeadam in the distance, performing an intricate aerial dance. 'Hen harrier,' Annie whispered; they both fell instinctively to their knees and put the binoculars that had been hanging round their necks up to their eyes. In rapt attention, they watched the birds somersault in the air.
'Look at the male,' Annie whispered. 'He's got something in his talons. Do you see?'
Ben strained his eyes and thought he could just make out what Annie was talking about.
'Yeah,' he said. 'I can.'
'Watch carefully,' she told him. 'They do this amazing thing. The male bird performs a sky dance and passes the food to the female in mid-air.'
Ben watched it happen, and found he was holding his breath in anticipation as he did so. The male swooped and dived and then, in one spectacular movement, they met and the food passed from one to the other. Ben couldn't help breaking into a grin as it happened. He turned to look at Annie, to see that she too was beaming with wonder.
It all happened so quickly after that.
The sound of a single gunshot echoed around the countryside. A flurry of birds rose up from the high grass of the marshland; but there was one bird that would never rise up again. The male hen harrier dropped from the air like a stone.
Annie gasped. As she did so, there was another gunshot and, with pinpoint accuracy, the female fell to earth.
The girl's b
inoculars remained pointed at the empty sky where the hen harriers had been flying only seconds before; but something urged Ben to scour the ground. Gunshots didn't come from nowhere, and he was determined to find out who had just shot down the birds. High grass suddenly filled his vision, and as he moved his head swiftly from side to side, flashes of sky and the distant forest replaced them momentarily, until finally he found what he was looking for.
The man must have been several hundred metres away, and as he came into Ben's field of vision he was breaking his shotgun and allowing two spent cartridges to fly out over his right shoulder. 'Look,' Ben whispered hoarsely.
'I see him,' Annie replied, and they both stared at the man as he turned and walked away. Neither of them said what was clearly obvious, but Ben knew beyond question that they were both thinking it.
The man who had just shot two rare hen harriers was wearing the distinctive khaki uniform of an RAF combat soldier.
As he walked out of sight, Ben and Annie lowered their binoculars in unison. And then, as though the sky itself was mourning the horrible sight they had just witnessed, it started to rain.
Chapter Four
It was a long walk back, not just because of the rain but also because of a frosty silence between them. Annie seemed to have taken the death of the bird as a personal insult, and Ben felt that as he was the closest person to her at the time, he was at the receiving end of her prickly reaction.
It was early evening by the time they returned, their clothes saturated by the rain. Ben felt numb, not only from the wet but also from the strain of the last few hours. Annie hadn't spoken, but he could tell she felt the same too. They changed into some dry clothes, hung their wet walking gear in the hostel's boiler room, a cavernous, musty basement thick with the aroma of drying clothes, and then headed off to the common room together.