The Long Kill Read online

  ‘I suppose so. I’d have to bring him, wouldn’t I?’

  He smiled ruefully.

  ‘I see that again I’m not to be flattered.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound rude …’

  Now she sounded flustered. He took a deep breath, rose, and went towards her. She pretended to think he too wanted another drink and held the decanter before her like a buttress.

  He said, ‘No, that’s not what I want. Anya, listen, I’m sorry if this is too soon but …’

  She interrupted him, saying, ‘Pappy says he thinks you’re getting interested in me.’

  He was taken aback.

  ‘You needed your father to tell you that?’ he said.

  ‘No! Of course not,’ she retorted with a flash of spirit.

  ‘Well then,’ he said. ‘Anya, I was talking to your father this afternoon and he said I sounded like a scene from a Victorian novel. I think he was right. The thing is, I’m not sure how to sound like a scene from a modern novel. Should I be flip? Or outrageously direct? Or use sign language? Or what? The trouble is that they don’t write the lines I want to use any more. Such as, I know it’s too soon, but at least tell me I can hope, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Jay, for Christ’s sake, what are you trying to say?’

  He was standing only the decanter’s width away.

  He said, ‘How about, I know it’s too soon, but at least tell me I can hope?’

  She turned away from him which seemed a perfect invitation to grasp her round the waist but she twisted out of his hold without turning to face him.

  ‘Let’s get one thing out of the way,’ she said in an unpromisingly harsh voice. ‘This “too soon” business.’

  ‘Yes?’ he prompted.

  ‘Understand me, this isn’t a promise, or a commitment, or even a postponement. It’s merely to clear up what’s becoming a tiresome assumption on your part and an oblique deception on mine. Edward died almost a year ago …’

  She paused. He didn’t speak. She turned now to face him.

  ‘But I am not still mourning his death,’ she went on. ‘In fact, I don’t think I have ever mourned it. I was glad my husband died; not wholly, and not solely, but certainly beyond all contradiction glad. And I’ve remained glad ever since, Mr Hutton. And while sometimes I can’t deny that I’ve felt very guilty at feeling so glad, what I am definitely not is a grief-stricken widow!’

  She banged the decanter down, finished her second drink and said, ‘Now I think I’ll go to bed too, if you’ll excuse me. You’ll put the lights out and see the fire’s safe, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ll see the fire’s safe.’

  As if taking her words literally, he sat for nearly two hours after she had left, watching the burning log decay through a series of slow crumbles and sudden collapses, of blue-green fire jets and chiffon-like flames which floated around the wood without seeming to touch it, until all that remained was a level bed of dark-grey embers fretted with gold.

  This he stirred once with the poker, then went to bed.

  Chapter 21

  When he awoke the next morning Jaysmith lay for a while, expecting the despairing weight of his predicament to come crashing through the flimsy barrier of residual slumber. Instead he found himself listening to the fluted dissonance of competitive birdsong outside his window and finding pleasure in separating the melodic snatches to their individual sources.

  The chook chook – that was surely a blackbird; the many-throated but still gentle twittering song must come from the family of house-martins he had noticed in the eaves; that rapid repetition of notes belonged to a song thrush, and, more distant but a constant background noise, came the unmistakable cawing of the rooks in the tall beeches near the road.

  Another sound joined them, the gentle creak of his bedroom door. Slowly it opened. There was no one there. Then with a yell which might have been learned from a raiding Apache, Jimmy erupted into the room and flung himself onto the bed.

  A mock-battle of considerable ferocity was interrupted by the appearance of Anya.

  ‘Jimmy,’ she said. ‘Out!’

  ‘No!’ he protested. ‘Me and Jay are having a game, aren’t we, Jay?’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure about you,’ said Jaysmith gingerly, feeling his nose which had received a kick from the boy’s flailing heels.

  ‘Go on, Jimmy,’ urged his mother sternly.

  The boy didn’t say anything but didn’t move either, his lower lip out-jutting stubbornly.

  Jaysmith put his hand on the mop of unruly hair and said, ‘On your way, Tarzan. I’ll be down to whup you at target practice shortly.’

  ‘Will you? Great!’ cried Jimmy and rushed from the room with a Tarzan yodel.

  ‘Ah, the power of masculine command,’ said Anya with heavy irony.

  ‘The trick’s novelty,’ said Jaysmith. ‘When he gets used to me he’ll soon stop taking notice.’

  ‘Oh you’re planning to be around long enough to get used to?’ she said. ‘In that case, I’d better make sure breakfast is to your taste. Ten minutes?’

  ‘Nine,’ he said.

  As he hastily shaved he studied his face in the glass and with genuine bewilderment asked, ‘Who are you? What are you?’

  Yesterday he’d killed a man and yet this morning he searched himself for remorse, for grief, for pity, and he searched in vain.

  Eventually Adam would be missed. Jacob would investigate, replacements would arrive, Jaysmith’s involvement could not long remain hidden. After that, what? He had no plan; the most likely scenario would be for himself to be targeted alongside Bryant. Yet he found in himself no fear of that future, no desperate searching after an escape from it.

  The truth was, he realized with amazement, he was hooked on happiness! Anya’s words to him the previous night had given him a shot of hope which had knocked his immune system quite out of balance. Grief, remorse, pity, fear – for the moment there was no room for these. It wasn’t that they were absent, just that they were not wanted on this particular voyage.

  Soon enough they would have to be unpacked. Soon enough. He went down to breakfast.

  Halfway through the morning he drove into Keswick to pick up a selection of newspapers for the household. Jimmy went with him. Jaysmith avoided the main car park where he’d left Adam’s mini but after they had got the papers and Jimmy had been provided with a huge chocolate ice-cream cone, he felt sufficiently secure among the already considerable press of tourists to stroll within sight of the car park. The yellow mini was still there. It could mean they’d already found it but left it in situ in the hope that someone would return to it.

  As he returned to the BMW, he checked back a couple of times to see if there was any sign of a tail but spotted nothing. Not that they would need to follow him. With the boy by his side, they would know that Naddle Foot was where he’d be.

  He felt uneasy at the thought of Anya and Jimmy being exposed to whatever threat hung over Bryant, and now himself, and, though he was eager to find some time alone with Anya to press on down the avenues she had opened up the previous night, he was as much relieved as disappointed when after lunch she told Jimmy to get ready for their Sunday visit to Great-Aunt Muriel in Grasmere.

  ‘Do we have to go?’ protested Jimmy. ‘I only saw her yesterday.’

  ‘That was special,’ said Anya firmly. ‘We always go to Grasmere on Sundays.’

  ‘And the old girl expects her pound of familial flesh,’ interposed Bryant sardonically.

  Anya shot him a reproving glare and ushered Jimmy out of the room.

  ‘What about you?’ said Bryant. ‘Are you joining this dutiful expedition to Rigg Cottage?’

  ‘Hardly,’ said Jaysmith, surprised. ‘I’m not invited, for a start.’

  ‘No. But the place is almost yours, isn’t it?’ said Bryant, surprisingly illogical for a lawyer. ‘And you seem to like the old bird.’

  ‘So I do,’ said Jaysmith. ‘Nevertheless
. You don’t seem to be all that fond of her, though, or do I misinterpret?’

  ‘You must remember I’m not English,’ said Bryant. ‘It’s only the English who find wilful and eccentric middle-class old ladies endearing. Were she a peasant, it might be different. A Pole can like an old peasant. But there are no peasants in England which is why your class system is so divisive. True equality and real democracy are only possible when you have a firm peasant base. Failing that, as they worked out in modern America and ancient Greece, slaves will do at a pinch.’

  ‘Is that why, after the Russians had freed their serfs, they took over the Poles to fill the gap?’ suggested Jaysmith, smiling.

  Bryant responded with a glare.

  ‘If I didn’t need a helping hand to come downstairs, I’d throw you out of my house,’ he said. ‘What are you going to do this afternoon?’

  ‘Keep you company, if you like.’

  ‘I don’t like,’ said Bryant firmly. ‘I shall read myself to sleep with the papers and I do not want to be disturbed by any more of your witty conversation.’

  He was clearly determined not to be nurse-maided, and it occurred to Jaysmith that any nurse-maiding might well be best done from a distance. The problem of what to do in the long term had still to be faced. It had been his firm intention immediately before Adam’s death to arrange an interview with Jacob, but now the young man’s body lay between them, rendering any deal much more difficult, if not impossible. But something had to be done. Meanwhile the short-term essential was to keep Bryant alive.

  ‘In that case, I think I’ll go for a walk,’ said Jaysmith. ‘A few hours on the fells will do me a world of good.’

  He asked Anya to give him a lift along the road as far as the King’s Head at Thirlspot.

  ‘I thought I might take a look at Helvellyn,’ he said.

  Anya was surprised.

  ‘It’ll be like Blackpool up there on a fine Sunday,’ she said. ‘Much better to go mid-week a bit later on. And I can show you a more interesting route. Helvellyn ought to be special.’

  He smiled to himself at her underlying possessiveness both of the mountain and, he hoped, himself.

  ‘All right,’ he said, glancing at his map. ‘I’ll content myself with Raise and walk north via all these Dodds – Stybarrow, Watson’s and Great – and come down into the Vale off Clough Head. How does that sound?’

  ‘Lonely,’ she said with genuine envy.

  In fact he had just as little intention of following this route as he’d had of climbing Helvellyn. Leaving the house with Anya and Jimmy in the car might lull any watcher and it was his intention to check the vantage points overlooking Naddle Foot once more. Curiously, lying to Anya about her precious mountains distressed him more than anything else had done that day.

  He kissed her on the cheek as he got out of the car and ruffled a rebellious Jimmy’s hair.

  ‘Please, mum!’ pleaded the boy. ‘Can’t we go with Jay just a little way?’

  For answer Anya rolled her eyes, and accelerated away into the main road traffic.

  Jaysmith watched the car out of sight and then turned and started walking back along the road. A mile on, the minor road leading back into St-John’s-in-the-Vale forked off to the right, but he kept on going a little way till he had crossed Smaithwaite Bridge where he left the road and began to climb the wooded slope of the southern shoulder of High Rigg. He saw no one at this end of the fell but as he came in view of the summit, he glimpsed several figures. A quick glance through his field glasses reassured him that they were merely a group of tourists, ill-equipped by the look of them for any real walking, but attracted by the prospect of a good if lowly viewpoint after an easy scramble up from the Church of St-John’s-in-the-Vale. He settled down and began to scan the fells on the other side of the valley. Satisfied finally that, unless someone had camouflage skills better even than his own, they were clear, he dropped his sights to the valley, looking for parked cars as much as for movement. There was nothing suspicious. The old barn appeared empty, the stand of trees where he had had his fateful meeting with Adam showed no glint of any foreign colour through their sun-ochred foliage.

  Turning his attention to Naddle Foot itself, his view of the rear and side showed no sign of life. There was always a chance that Bryant had decided to do his snoozing in a deck chair in the front garden, of course, and Jaysmith began to drop down the eastern slopes so that he could check. He followed a winding sheep trod, enjoying the walk and the air like any rambler. But when he finally glanced towards Naddle Foot again, his pleasure died in his heart.

  He could not see the facade of the house yet, but he could see the driveway in front of it, and parked there was a strange car, a dark-blue Escort.

  It might mean nothing. There must be many local people who were likely to drop in at Naddle Foot on social calls.

  Yet the thought that his own obsession with the long kill had made him leave Bryant alone and unguarded against anyone who cared to walk into the house filled Jaysmith with such guilt at his own stupidity that already as he began to scramble down the fellside he was more than half convinced he was too late. The direct descent was surprisingly steep and several times he stumbled and almost fell till he took a grip of himself and slowed to a pace commensurate with safety.

  At last he reached the road and could break into a steady jog. As he turned into the gate of the house he removed the small rucksack from his shoulders, placed the field glasses in it and took out the only other object it contained, the HK P9 he had taken from Adam the previous day.

  This he tucked into his waist band under his sweater. The rucksack he tossed under a decaying hydrangea bush.

  On reaching the house, he ignored the front door but made his way along the side by the garage and round the back. Here he could see that the french window opening into the lounge stood open. Crouching below the level of the kitchen windowsill, he headed for the open door, his hand on the butt of his gun. When he reached it he halted, pressed close against the old red bricks of the wall which still retained the warmth of the morning sun. Inside the room he heard a movement. And now there was a noise, a man groaning, a long-drawn shuddering cry of scarcely conscious pain.

  Jaysmith brought out the pistol, checked the safety was off, and stepped into the doorway.

  Bryant was lying back in a deep armchair, his head thrown back, his eyes closed. His plastered leg rested on a foot stool, the other was splayed wide from it. Between his knees knelt a woman. She was naked to the waist and the fall of her shining blonde hair screened her face and her activity, but another long bubbling sigh, not of pain but of pleasure, from Bryant’s lips left no doubt as to what it was.

  Jaysmith stood petrified for a moment, his mind playing with the absurd thought that perhaps this was Jacob’s new method of execution. After the long kill, the little death.

  Then Bryant stiffened and convulsed, crying out loud in his native Polish, and his eyes opened wide.

  Jaysmith stepped back quickly, uncertain if he’d been seen, if indeed the ecstasy of his orgasm permitted Bryant to see. He went back down the drive and recovered his rucksack and put the gun away. Then he walked along the road a little way and sat by the beck and let himself think about Anya.

  There was no denying that what he had just seen had roused his desire, that desire which had been there since the first moment he laid eyes on the girl. It was a desire which had rapidly and irresistibly developed in the direction of obsession. But what he had felt this morning had moved beyond the obsessive, had somehow been purged of all the darkness and heaviness associated with that dead-ended and despairing intensity of feeling. Happiness and lightness had been there, the kind of hope, almost expectation of joy that he had not known since he was a young man. Since Saigon.

  But desire was still part of it, with all its dark undertows. To have her as his love-partner in the widest terms of space and time and activity was what he longed for, somehow to claw out of this mess a future for himself with Any
a and Jimmy and, God willing, Bryant.

  But the purely physical imperative was still there, in his veins, urging him beyond consequence or despair simply to have her, and to let one mindless moment of white-out ecstasy pay for all the empty blackness beyond.

  He stood up, suddenly as weary as if he had just passed a night of demanding passion, and glanced at his watch.

  An hour had passed. Time enough, he told himself cynically, and returned to the house. The car was still there.

  Anya had supplied him with a front door key and he entered noisily, calling out, ‘Hello the house! I’m back!’

  ‘In here,’ Bryant called from the lounge.

  He went in. Bryant was still in the same chair, looking very relaxed and smoking the inevitable Caporal. The woman, middle-aged, handsome in a heavy Germanic kind of way, was sitting on the sofa, fully clothed, sipping a glass of sherry.

  ‘Hello, Hutton,’ growled Bryant. ‘Maggie, this is Jay Hutton, our house-guest. Mrs Orbison, an old friend, come to visit the sick.’

  ‘How do you do?’ said Jaysmith.

  The woman smiled up at him, finished her drink and rose.

  ‘I must be off, Steve,’ she said. ‘It’s good to see you recovering so quickly. But take care. Don’t overtire yourself. Give me a ring if you’d like a little company any time. Bye.’

  She kissed Bryant briefly on the cheek, said, ‘Nice to have met you, Mr Hutton,’ and left.

  ‘I hope I haven’t driven your friend away,’ said Jaysmith, dropping onto the sofa.

  ‘Cut the small talk, Hutton,’ said Bryant curtly. ‘I saw you at the lounge window an hour ago.’ ‘Ah.’

  ‘Maggie Orbison and I have known each other a long time. She’s a nice woman. She was a client of mine years ago.’

  ‘And now you’re a client of hers.’

  ‘Don’t be smart,’ said Bryant wearily. ‘We are mutually helpful, that’s all. I usually see her on Sunday afternoons…’

  ‘In Patterdale?’ guessed Jaysmith.

  Bryant looked surprised then nodded. ‘You’re right. That’s where I’d been last week when this happened. I go most Sundays when Anya takes Jimmy off to Muriel’s for tea. Maggie was worried when she heard about the accident. She just called round to check on me.’