‘—Siegfried Eins.’
I waited for the next transmission. As soon as it started,
I put my hand on the wire, and the sound stopped. I took it off, and the sound returned.
*
Two shots echoed across the Forest, in quick succession. I winced, and listened for any sign of the bullet hitting near me. But there was nothing, just the echoing retort of the shot.
Something was wrong. The gun was wrong.
A double-barrelled shotgun, twin triggers, designed to let the sportsman get off two shots while tracking a flying bird.
Nobody sends an advance scout with a shotgun. They’d give him a rifle for this kind of thing. A pistol or a revolver for close-up work.
I thought of the Leckies’ house. Stan, sitting in his chair, shotgun by his side, ready to defend his home. Mrs Leckie, on her knees in the grass, keeping an eye on the road.
23
I ran. Chest-height gorse tore at my arms, thick, inch-long spines shredding my shirtsleeves and drawing blood. Clumps of heather threatened to trip me at every step.
Another shot. Closer this time. No second shot. None needed, presumably. The silence in its place as worrying as the gunshot.
I left the trees behind and came out onto the open heath where I’d seen the artist, the Leckies’ house a distant shape on the horizon, right at the top of the hill. The artist was gone.
I ran, even though running wasn’t going to make a difference.
I hurdled the back gate, into the Leckies’ back garden. Rows of vegetable beds. Raspberry canes in a netted enclosure. Curls of metal made from cut-up tin cans dangled from the trees – rudimentary bird scarers. Unnecessary at that moment. The birds had all been scared off by the shots.
Around the front, the house was as picturesque as the first time I’d seen it, a rural idyll, here at the top of the hill, an island in a sea of heathland, under the huge sky.
The front door was open. A rectangle of darkness.
The smell inside told the story. Cordite, blood, and the other smells you get when a human body is ripped apart by gunfire.
The door to the kitchen was ajar. I used my boot to nudge it open. Mrs Leckie was on the floor. The first shot had hit her in the sternum. It had taken her down, but hadn’t finished her. She had a knife in her right hand. Fighting to the end. The second shot had finished her off.
Stan was in the snug. He’d died in his chair.
24
Two miles to Kate’s house. Thirty-five minutes at a fast walk.
Last time I’d visited, full of righteous anger at the way her sons were mistreating the Leckies, Kate had handled me expertly. Sat me down. Offered me tea. Took the momentum away from me. Let the old study with its shelves of dusty books and slowly ticking clock lull me into a place where civilised discussion was seemingly the only option.
Not this time.
Assuming one of her sons had fired the gun, their hands would smell of gunpowder. They’d be flushed with the excitement of the mission, the exhilaration that comes from breaking that biggest taboo – thou shalt not kill. Men react differently to breaking that law. They’d either be sick with worry, or giddy with power. Either way, the story would be written on their faces.
I pounded on the front door, liking the sound it made. Here I am, it said, defender of the innocent, righter of wrongs. Give up your murderers and let them face the light.
No answer. No Kate. No timid maid. No young man, face flushed with victory. Crows squawked above nearby fields, and in the distance a tractor rumbled, old Beecham, getting an early start on the harvest. His fields all sloped southwards, putting him a few days ahead of the rest of us.
I looked up at the house and breathed deeply, willing the rushing blood to subside. Time for thought, not for action.
I walked around to the back, where her sons had parked their car last time I’d been here. An old farmyard, ancient barns succumbing to rot. No animals. No cars. The house was locked up, and every room was dark.
My conversation with Kate and her sons would have to wait, but not for long. The Leckies’ deaths would not go unanswered.
