The Long Kill

by Reginald Hill

  Even the fox in a snare had the alternative of gnawing off his own foot to escape. The nearest he could get to such amputation might be complete confession to Bryant and Anya, but what would that change? Very little, it seemed to him; but as he drove back to Naddle Foot, his mind dark with these heavy thoughts, it began to feel like the only way out.

  He arrived at the house just as Jimmy got back from school. The boy was delighted to see him and when he heard that Jaysmith was staying for a few days, he said with the uncomplicated approval of the young, ‘Smashing! You’ll be here for my birthday!’ and dragged him off to play table tennis in the stone-flagged basement.

  Anya rescued him half an hour later so that he could go up to his room and unpack.

  ‘We eat early in the evening, six at the latest. That way we can all sit down together at table and have a bit of evening left over before Jimmy goes off to bed. It’s a child-centred house, and that includes pappy!’

  It was forecastable that the boy would use Jaysmith’s presence to delay his bedtime and it was after nine before he found himself sitting in front of a gently crackling and sighing log fire with Bryant and his daughter. Here at last was the opportunity for confession. But he knew without debate that tonight at least this was an impossible option. What would it change? he asked himself that afternoon. Then the self-questioning had felt like an evasion. Now he knew at least part of the answer. It would change this evening with its atmosphere of quiet content. Seated at the table, enjoying a plain meal washed down with a jug of beer, listening to Jimmy’s chatter of school life and the amiable bickering between father and daughter about whether Bryant needed help to cut up his meat, Jaysmith had felt himself seduced by happiness. And now, deep in an old armchair, with Anya straining her eyes to read the local newspaper by the fire’s glow and Bryant half-asleep, listening to the record of Ashkenazy playing Chopin waltzes which had been his choice, Jaysmith felt … he did not know what. Definitions might seem sentimental. Or clichéd. Or pretentious. A half-remembered and never understood phrase from his sixth-form days came to him … the holiness of the heart’s affections … here for a while, for these moments at least, it made sense. Tomorrow was soon enough for death and danger. Tomorrow.

  Chapter 16

  He awoke the next morning feeling more rested than he’d done in years. His bedroom was small and simple with white painted walls and pine furniture. The morning sun was pouring through the thin cotton curtains and bursting against the white emulsion and pale wood in a haze of warm gold. He stretched and yawned and smiled and for a moment it felt good to be alive.

  Then he remembered.

  He got out of bed and went to the window. It overlooked the terraced garden to the front of the house. He had slept well. The sun had already cleared the ridge of the eastern fells and was drawing smoky curls of mist through the bracken and up the gullies. There were still plenty of clouds in the sky but now they ranged over broad acres of blue. The improvement in the weather was continuing; and with it, the improvement of conditions for a marksman.

  He got out his binoculars and began to scan the distant fellside. There, not much over a fortnight ago, he had sat and plotted death for the man who now lay under his protection only a few yards away. He thought he glimpsed a movement on the fell and slowly quartered the area with his glasses. There it was again. A grazing sheep. He watched it for a while. It showed no sign of alarm or disturbance and he moved on.

  ‘What is it? A hawk?’

  Startled, he spun round. Anya was in the doorway with a cup and saucer in her hand. She smiled at his alarm.

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought you were the nervous type,’ she said.

  ‘You move very quietly,’ he said. ‘Like a fox.’

  ‘What does that make you?’ she mocked. ‘A chicken?’

  She was in an ebullient mood this morning. The weather was not the only area where an improvement had been maintained. She was wearing blue jeans and a blue-checked shirt, and she looked about eighteen.

  She said, ‘I took pappy his breakfast and I thought you might like a cup of tea also, particularly as Jimmy is threatening to pay a call before he goes off to school.’

  ‘We’re always at home to a friend,’ he said.

  She put the cup of tea on the bedside table and he sat down on the bed to drink it. A minute or two later the door was opened cautiously and Jimmy’s uncertain face peered round the jamb.

  ‘Hello,’ he said.

  ‘Hello. Are you going to bring the rest of you in, or did your head just come up by itself?’

  Grinning broadly, the boy entered.

  ‘Mum says if I want you at my party tomorrow, I should ask you properly.’

  ‘She’s quite right, but I was coming whether I was asked or not. Only, if I hadn’t been asked, I was going to ruin it by putting fireworks in the jelly. That way, everyone gets a bit.’

  Jimmy’s eyes opened wide in delight. Clearly he felt that, far from ruining things, such an explosion would set the seal on his celebration. One thought led to another.

  ‘Were you in the war, Mr Hutton?’ he asked.

  ‘Why do you ask?’ said Jaysmith.

  ‘That mark on your face,’ said the boy, looking in fascination at the long scar down his left cheek. ‘In one of my comics there’s a man with a scar like that and he got it from a bomb in the war.’

  ‘Sorry. With me it’s simpler. I cut myself shaving.’

  The youngster’s face registered keen disappointment. Anya’s voice called from below, ‘Jimmy! Hurry up or you’ll miss the bus!’

  ‘Better go,’ he said. ‘See you later, Mr Hutton!’

  ‘My friends call me Jay,’ said Jaysmith.

  ‘See you later, Jay!’ yelled the boy as he galloped down the stairs.

  Jaysmith got washed and dressed and descended to the kitchen. Anya was drinking coffee and reading a newspaper.

  ‘I didn’t give you any choice last time,’ she said. ‘I just assumed that big macho you must be a bacon-and-egg man. For all I know you’re really a muesli freak.’

  ‘I like the occasional fry-up,’ he said. ‘But most of the time it’s fruit juice, toast, and lots of strong coffee. How’s your father?’

  ‘Fully recovered except for my female fussiness. At least that’s the game he’s playing. He’s determined he’s not going to stay in bed.’

  ‘In that case,’ said Jaysmith, ‘I’d better start earning my keep.’

  ‘Stay where you are and have your breakfast,’ she ordered. ‘He knows it’s only a game. He’s not going to break his neck trying to get downstairs by himself, I assure you.’

  ‘If you’re sure,’ said Jaysmith. He drank some fresh orange juice. ‘How long is it since your mother died?’

  ‘Oh, a long time,’ she said vaguely. ‘I was thirteen.’

  ‘Not all that long,’ he said, smiling. ‘Did he ever think of remarrying?’

  She considered the question.

  ‘He took mum’s death hard,’ she said. ‘It was a tumour, and she was a long time dying. I blamed him in a way, I suppose. We were at loggerheads for a long time after that. I expect I was ripe for the mid-teen rebellion anyway and mum’s death just exacerbated matters. What I’m saying is that for a long time after that I’d no real idea of, or interest in, what was going on in his mind. Eventually we drifted back together. At least it was drift in my case, though I suspect in his it was a carefully charted voyage to the rescue of a vessel in distress. He’s cool, he’s patient, and he’s perceptive. He also loves me very dearly.’

  She broke off and Jaysmith glanced sharply at her, but saw that it was the silence of self-contemplation, not imminent tears.

  ‘At eighteen, my school career ended and I was waiting for the ‘A’ level results which, it was anticipated, would be good enough to let me take up my provisional university place. I was going to read law! He must have thought that he’d got me firmly in tow and that the harbour was in sight. Then one day he came home and I calmly
told him everything had changed. I was going to be married. It never crossed my mind that there could be any objection, or indeed that his feelings came into the matter in any way. It’s amazing to think what a self-centred little bitch I must have seemed. Seemed? Was!’

  She laughed, half in embarrassment.

  ‘How did I get onto this subject?’ she asked.

  ‘I asked if your father ever considered remarrying?’

  ‘That’s right. And I was trying to explain that, in those first five years, he devoted himself to me, though I didn’t really notice it. And when I told him I was getting married, I suspect he came near to exploding. At the time I think that could have destroyed everything between us. So in the end he shut up and paid up. I got married. And he really got down to researching his book. He spent a lot of time away, in Poland in particular. Edward, my husband, and I had a house in Borrowdale, so it was easy enough to see him when he was home. We came much closer together after I was married, particularly after Jimmy was born; and I got the feeling that he’d met someone over there he’d grown very fond of. We’ve never spoken directly of it, but I have an impression that she won’t leave Poland and he finds it hard to contemplate going back there to live. He really hates the communists, you know. And his home is here, his life …’

  ‘And you. And Jimmy,’ suggested Jaysmith. ‘Does he still see her?’

  ‘No. What I mean is, he hasn’t been back to Poland, not since … since Edward died, and Jimmy and I came back here to live. I asked him about it. I was worried in case it had something to do with our being here but he said it hadn’t and he’d be going back as soon as his book research needed it.’

  She sounded doubtful as well she might. A man did not give up seeing his lover just because his daughter and grandson were living with him. What he might give up was danger; what he might want to avoid was piling another tragedy onto his already battered and bleeding child.

  He finished his breakfast and went up to Bryant’s bedroom, where he found his host fully dressed.

  ‘Morning,’ said Bryant. ‘How did you sleep?’

  ‘Loggedly. And you?’

  ‘I would have liked to toss and turn but when that proved impossible, I went to sleep instead. Is your strong right shoulder available?’

  ‘Yours to command.’

  He helped the injured man downstairs and into the lounge. Anya appeared and looked critically at her father.

  ‘You look awful,’ she said.

  ‘A breath of fresh air will soon put the roses back in my cheeks,’ said Bryant. ‘I’ll take coffee outside in the sunshine.’

  Jaysmith was alarmed but Anya said firmly, ‘No, you won’t. It’s still damp out there and the wind’s chilly. Dr Menzies is coming to see you this afternoon and we’ll let him decide on what you can or can’t do.’

  Bryant looked disgusted but did not object. Jaysmith said, ‘I thought I’d go into Keswick and do a bit of shopping if that’s OK.’

  They both looked surprised.

  ‘Now see what you’ve done,’ said Anya to her father. ‘Jay, you’re a guest, not a male nurse, no matter what this poseur may have said. You must feel completely free to come and go.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Jaysmith. ‘I thought, afterwards, I might go for a bit of a walk, so don’t bother about me for lunch.’

  ‘Lucky devil on a day like this,’ said Bryant. ‘Anya, why don’t you go too? I’ll promise not to do any gymnastics while you’re away.’

  Jaysmith looked at her apprehensively. Much as he desired her company, today there were several reasons against it. He did not know whether he was relieved or disappointed when she said, ‘I’d better not. I’ve got a lot of baking to do for tomorrow’s junket.’

  She added as she saw Jaysmith to his car, ‘I would have liked to come, but really, I want to be around when the doctor comes. I don’t trust pappy even to let him in!’

  He smiled and touched her arm lightly.

  ‘I’ll see you later,’ he said.

  His shopping did not take long and soon he was driving back into St-John’s-in-the-Vale. He drove slowly the whole length of the valley; there were no cars parked in view till he approached the junction with the main Keswick-Ambleside road where the great Castle Rock of Triermain lowered to the east. Here a car park with access to a picnic area was quite full. Any one of them could belong to Jacob’s man.

  He turned and drove back along the road. It was probably a useless precaution, but he wanted to leave his own car out of sight if possible. He had noticed in his earlier researches of the terrain that there were several disused quarries below the eastern line of fells. A rutted and greened-over track led obliquely off the road towards one of them. A sign, sun-peeled to illegibility, probably forbade entry, and a rusty iron pole wedged across the track between two rotting posts reinforced the prohibition. It required little effort to drop it to the ground and he sent the powerful BMW up the steeply curving track till he was hidden from the road by a long spoil-heap of loose shale.

  It was a bleak and dismal place. The shattered fellside seemed to lean out in a series of huge rectangular slabs of rock, tiered above an artificial amphitheatre of which the other walls were long steep wedges of waste. It was possible to imagine some bitter contest taking place there for the vile entertainment of some warped and troglodyte race.

  Jaysmith shuddered. The place chilled him disproportionately as though it spoke to him of something in his own existence.

  Quickly he put on his boots and anorak, raising the hood less for protection against the gusting wind than as a bar to identification. He wanted to be just another fellwalker if he came within range of a pair of field glasses.

  A fence ran at a crazy angle up the fellside along the edge of the quarry, presumably to inhibit sheep from grazing themselves into danger. He climbed alongside it. A couple of hundred feet up, a broad ledge of rock jutted out over the amphitheatre. He paused here and looked northwards up the valley. Naddle Foot was just visible at, he estimated, about fourteen hundred metres. He brought his binoculars up. It was an oblique view of the house, partially blocked by trees. The front porch was visible and the gravelled drive, but most of the garden was completely shielded. Distance, angle and screening made it a useless line of fire and he had not even considered it on the map.

  He climbed higher till finally he was on the grassy slopes of the fell top. It was a steep and unsafe scramble, not one which any ordinary fellwalker would be tempted to undertake. Now he walked along the path which took him above Wanthwaite Crags. He had amused Anya and her father the previous night by pronouncing the name as written. Wanthet, Anya had told him. Can’t have you talking like a bloody foreigner, Bryant had added. From time to time he paused and used his binoculars, trying to give the impression of a man fascinated by the flight of various birds whose identity he was generally totally ignorant of. As usual, Clough Head seemed untroubled by human company that day. He paid special attention to the gill which he had chosen for his own hide. The recent rains had increased the volume of water pouring down, but there was no other visible change, no fag ends, matchsticks or boot prints; nothing to suggest any other visitor had descended there.

  Satisfied at last he settled down on a rock near the summit and suddenly, with what was almost a shock of guilt, he became aware of the view. On his previous visits here, as on all his jobs, his sensitivity to the surrounding terrain had been purely practical. It had to conceal him, and help him make good his escape; he had to work out its likely effect on wind and atmospheric conditions; it was simply a factor in a computer program which contained as its essentials the target’s death and his own survival.

  Now for the first time he saw with an unblinkered eye. He turned his head to the north and let his gaze travel up the shattered face of Blencathra. Slowly he turned his head and there, central amid a swell of lesser peaks, was the green head of Skiddaw. Slowly he turned, till his gaze moved through the west and into the southern sector. And here what a turbulent
sea of fells met his view. Stretching into a distance of probably fifteen miles on the map, but an infinity on the mind, they crowded the skyline with a beauty at once superb and intimate. With luck he would walk on them all, yet in essence they would always remain beyond his or any man’s reach.

  With a sigh whose meaning he did not altogether comprehend, he dropped his gaze into the valley below and with his glasses brought Naddle Foot leaping into view.

  The terraced garden was empty. Either Anya’s will or the uncertain weather had kept Bryant indoors. But he would not remain indoors for ever.

  He let his glasses slide up the face of the building. The windows stared blankly back, revealing little of what was inside. Only twice had he essayed a window-shot, both times successfully; but it was not something he cared for. The window of his own bedroom was open as he had left it, and here he did glimpse a movement within. Only a narrow sector of the room was visible and he had to hold his focus there for a whole minute before he was sure. It was Anya, presumably making his bed. As if to confirm her presence, she now came to the window and stood in plain view. She was holding his pyjama jacket, he saw, and neatly folding it. As he watched she raised it to her cheek as if testing its temperature and at the same moment raised her eyes so that she seemed to be looking directly at him.

  He let the glasses fall and the house was miniaturized instantly, a token artefact to show off the surge of the fell against which it nestled. On his maps it was marked as High Rigg but locally it took its name from Naddle Beck, paralleling St John’s Beck on the western side. Hence the name of Bryant’s house, he had also learned last night, situated at the foot of Naddle Fell. It was a more appropriately homely name for the fell which, though rugged enough, at not much over a thousand feet hardly merited the epithet ‘High'. It struck him that this was not a bad place to live, this pleasant little valley with the heights in view and your own friendly fell to lift you well above the level of bustling humanity whenever you felt like a short stroll.