Ellis Peters - George Felse 03 - Flight Of A Witch (13 page)

‘What you’re saying, then,’ said George intently, ‘is that Annet was there on the hill for some private and sound reason of her own, and was taken completely by surprise when she came over the crest, intending to go straight home, and ran full tilt into her father and Kenyon.’

‘Exactly. And she did the best she could with it on the spur of the moment. She’d have done better if she’d had time to think, but she didn’t, she had to act instantly. So she fell back on the old tales, not to cover her lost weekend, but to distract attention from what she was doing
there, at that moment
.’

‘Go on,’ said George, after an instant of startling silence that set them all quivering like awakening sleepers. ‘What do you think, in that case, she
was
doing there?’

‘She could,’ said Dominic, out of the long stillness and quietness he had preserved in his corner, ‘have been hiding something, for instance. Something neither of them wanted to risk taking home with them.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as two thousand pounds worth of small jewellery, and what was left of the money after they’d paid their bills.’

‘No!’ protested Tom Kenyon loudly, rigid in his chair. ‘That’s as good as saying she was a party to the crime. I don’t believe it. It’s impossible.’

‘No, sir, I didn’t mean that. She needn’t have known at all. Suppose he gave her a box, or a small case, or something, and said, here, you keep this safe, it’s all I’ve managed to save, it’s our capital. Suppose he told her: Put it somewhere where we can get at it easily when we’ve made our plans, and are ready to get out of here together.
He’d
know what was really in it, and how completely it could give him away if it was found, but
she
wouldn’t, she’d only think he was afraid of his family prying, and getting nosey about his savings, maybe even pinching from them if it happens to be that sort of family. And it easily could. He may be in lodgings, he may have a father who keeps a close watch on him, or scrounging brothers, there could be a dozen reasons why it would be safer to trust to a hiding-place in the footways of the old lead mines, or in one of the hollow trees up there, than to risk prying eyes at home.
She
wouldn’t know how urgent it really was, but it would make sense even to her. And you see the one solid advantage of putting it somewhere outside rather than having it at either home – if by bad luck it
was
found, there’d be nothing to connect it directly with him. She wouldn’t question. She’d do as he asked, and think no wrong until you sprang the murder on her, two days later.
Then
she’d understand.’

‘In that case, why didn’t he persuade her to run at once – permanently – instead of coming home at all? He had the girl, he had the money. Why not make off with them both while he had the chance?’

‘Because he was comfortably sure there was nothing in the world to connect him with the murder, and to run without reason just at that time would have been the quickest way of inviting suspicion. Wouldn’t it?’ challenged Dominic earnestly, brilliant eyes clinging to his father’s face.

‘You’re forgetting,’ said Tom, ‘the roaming Romeo who tried to pick her up.’ He caught himself up too late, and met George’s eye in embarrassed dismay. ‘I’m sorry, probably I shouldn’t have mentioned that. It hasn’t been published, has it?’

‘It hadn’t, but since we seem to have embarked on a full-scale review, it may as well be.’ He recounted the episode briefly. “There’s certainly a point there. When he heard of that incident he’d know there was a possible witness who’d be able to tie in Annet, at least, to the scene and time of the murder. It isn’t difficult to give a recognisable description of Annet. It would be impossible not to recognise any decent photograph of her, once you’d seen her at close quarters.’

‘But she wouldn’t know there was any urgent reason to warn him that a witness existed, because she knew of no crime. And without an urgent reason,’ said Miles with absolute and haughty certainty, ‘she wouldn’t say a word to him about a thing like that.’

‘Not tell him, when she’d been accosted by a street-corner lout?’

The very assumption of intimate knowledge of her, even at this extremity of her distress and need, could prick both these unguarded lovers into irritation and jealousy. Kenyon had allowed himself to slip into the indulgent schoolmaster voice that brought Miles’s hackles up, Miles was staring back at him with the aloof and supercilious face that covers the modern sixth-former’s wilder agonies. The minute action and reaction of pain quivered between them, and made them contemporaries, whether they liked it or not. Dominic’s very acute and intelligent eyes studied them both from beneath lowered lashes, and what he felt he kept to himself. But the air was charged with sympathy and antagonism in inseparable conflict, and for a moment they all flinched from the too strident discord of the clash.

‘No,’ said Miles, more gently but no less positively. ‘It was a thing she wouldn’t confide. Especially not to him.’

‘Well, if you’re right about that, he’d have no idea that there was going to be anyone to give a description of either of them. He knew he’d left no traces, he thought he was quite clear. Every reason why he should hope to lie low for a reasonable time, and let the robbery in Birmingham blow over. Yes, that makes sense,’ agreed George. ‘It seems possible that he may not even have known, at first, that the old man was dead. Most probably he hit and grabbed and ran, and left him, as he thought, merely knocked out.’

‘And even when he knew it was murder, there was nothing, as far as he knew, to connect him with it. The obvious thing to do was come inconspicuously home again, and go back to work, and act normally. Hide the money and the jewellery,’ pursued Dominic, returning to his trail tenaciously, ‘or get Annet to hide them, somewhere where naturally he hoped they’d stay safely hidden, but where at any rate they couldn’t incriminate him any more than anyone else if they were discovered. But now it’s gone past that. There
was
a witness he didn’t know about, and Annet
has
been identified. The case is tied firmly to Annet and the man who spent the week-end with her. And only Annet’s resistance stands between him and a murder charge. That’s the situation he finds himself in now.’

‘There’s another point.’ Miles frowned down at the hands that had tightened almost imperceptibly on each other at every repetition of her name, and carefully, painfully disengaged them. ‘Supposing this is a good guess of ours, and she was entrusted with the business of hiding the money, then of course they may have agreed on the place beforehand. It may even be a place they’ve used for other things before now. But it may not. Supposing nobody but Annet knows where the stolen jewellery and money is now? He knows his life depends on her keeping silent. If he gets to the point of being terrified into running for it, he can’t even get his loot and run without contacting Annet. And if he does—’

‘He can’t,’ George said reassuringly. ‘We’ve got a constant guard on her, inside the house and out. The degree of her danger hasn’t escaped us. And we don’t intend to take our eyes off her. You can rely on that.’

‘Yes—’ And he was grateful, a pale smile pierced the preoccupied stillness of his face for a moment. ‘But he’s got nothing to lose now unless he can get the means to make his break. And if he can find a way to her somehow, he’s liable to remember that she— that nobody else can identify him—’

Miles carefully moistened lips suddenly too dry to finish the sentence.

‘Yes, I realise all that. But I’ve got a man outside the house, Miles, and a policewoman inside with her. And however desperate he may be, we’re dealing with only one man. The essence of his situation is that he’s alone.’

‘Not quite alone,’ said Miles almost inaudibly. ‘He’s got one person who might help him to get to her, if ever you so much as turn your back for a minute.’

George stood off and looked down at him heavily, and said never a word in reply to that. It was Tom Kenyon, still fretting against the arrogance of the boy’s certainty, who demanded: ‘Who’s that?’

‘Annet,’ said Miles.

They had talked themselves into dead silence. The two boys sat with the width of the room between them, braced and still, their eyes following with unwavering attention every quiver of George’s brooding face, while he told over again within his mind the points they had made, and owned their substance. They had good need to be afraid for Annet, and very good reason to look again and again at the looming, significant shape of that long hog-back of rock and rough pasture that linked her with and divided her from her lover. Was it necessarily true that Annet had had a particular purpose in being on the Hallowmount that night of her return? Wasn’t it simply her road back? Wasn’t it natural enough that they should use the same route returning as departing? She wouldn’t be afraid of the Hallowmount in the dark. But in that case, according to Miles, she wouldn’t have troubled to cover herself and her movements with that fantastic story, even when she was taken by surprise on top of the hill. She drew her veil of deception because she had something positive and precise to hide. Who should know better than Miles?

But even if she had indeed been entrusted with the hiding of the plunder on her way home, was it likely that she had put it somewhere unknown to her partner? Possible, at a stretch, but certainly not likely. What appeared to George every moment more probable was that they had some hiding-place already established between them, and frequently used, their letter-box, their private means of communication, accessible from both sides of the mountain without difficulty and without making oneself conspicuous. Given such a cache, tested and found reliable from long use, it would not even occur to them to hide their treasure anywhere else. And it would be the most natural thing in the world for Annet to undertake the job of depositing it, if the spot was directly on her way home. The boy had his motor-bike to manage, and his own family to manipulate at home; and by consent, so it seemed, they made use of the Hallowmount as the watershed of their lives, and the act of crossing it alone had become a rite. It was the barrier between their real and their ideal worlds, between the secret life they shared and the everyday life in which their paths never touched, or never as lovers. It was the hollow way into the timeless dream-place, as surely as if the earth had opened and drawn them within.

What was certain was that they had between them a treasure to hide. What was likely was that they had a place proved safe by long usage, in which to hide it. What was left to question was whether it was still there. Up to the appearance of the evening paper, probably he had no reason to see any urgency in its recovery, and every reason to avoid going near it. But now?

For some hours now he had known how closely he was hunted. Frightened, inexperienced, unable to confide in or rely on anyone but himself, how long would it take him to make up his mind? Or how long to panic? He might well have retrieved the money already. But he might not. And whether they were justified in all these deductions or not, there was nothing to be lost by keeping a watch on the Hallowmount, in case he did betray himself by making for his hoard. Heaven knew they had no other leads to him, except the mute girl in Fairford.

Price wouldn’t thank him for a chilly, solitary night patrolling the border hills, but anything was worth trying. George excused himself, and went to the telephone. When he came back into the room none of them had moved. They all looked up at him expectantly.

‘I’m putting a man on watch overnight,’ said George, ‘in case he goes to recover it during the dark hours. You may very well be right about it being hidden there, somewhere on the hill. Night’s the most likely time for him to go and fetch it, if by any chance he does know where to look, but covering the ground by daylight won’t be so easy. The last thing I want to do is put him off, and the sight of a plainclothes man parading the top of the Hallowmount would hardly be very reassuring. And man-power,’ he owned, dubiously gnawing a knuckle, ‘isn’t our long suit.’

‘We could provide you with boy-power,’ said Tom Kenyon unexpectedly. ‘Plenty of it, and it might be a pretty good substitute. Miss Darrill’s taking out the school Geographical Association on one of their occasional free-for-alls tomorrow. They were having a field-day on Cleave, but there’s no reason why they couldn’t just as well be switched to the Hallowmount. It’s geologically interesting, it would carry conviction, all right. And if we deploy about forty boys all over the hill it will make dead certain nobody can hunt for anything there without being spotted. As well as giving us three a chance to do some hunting on our own. If you gentlemen,’ said Tom, looking his two sixth-formers in the eye with respectful gravity, ‘wouldn’t mind joining in for the occasion?’

They had stiffened and brightened, and looked back at him as at a contemporary, measuring and eager, only a little wary.

‘If it would be any help?’ said Miles, casting a questioning glance at George. ‘And if you think we should involve Miss Darrill? We should have to tell her why.’

‘It would give me a day,’ said George, ‘the most important day, the day he’s likely to break. He knows now how he stands. Of course Miss Darrill must know what’s in the wind, but nobody else, mind. And if she does consent, she’s to do nothing whatever except what she was going out to do, take her members on a field expedition and keep them occupied in a perfectly normal way. All I need is that you should be there, and prevent him from getting near any possible hiding-place on the hill. If he’s collected his loot already, it can’t be helped. But if he hasn’t, that’s our only working lead to him.’

‘Jane will do it,’ said Tom positively. ‘And what if we should find the stuff ourselves? What do we do?’

‘You leave it where it is, but don’t let the spot out of your sight. I’m going to have to be in Birmingham part of the day, but before the daylight goes I’ll be ready to relieve you. Can you hold the fort until then?’

‘Yes, until you come, whenever that is.’ It was the only way he had of helping Annet. She might not be grateful, she might hate him for it, but there was no other way.