She said nothing to Quadring, but went there again next day. There was no yacht and no car. The landscape was empty and silent except for the gulls. The next day it rained, and after that she was too busy with the Minister’s visit to go out at all. By tea-time on the day before the opening, she had everything fixed—drivers laid on to collect the party from the station, a landing-crew provided for the Minister’s helicopter, drinks and sandwiches in the Director’s office, a timetable of the tour agreed with Reinhart and the others. Fleming was surly and withdrawn; Judy herself had a headache.
The sun came out about four o’clock, so she put on a wind-cheater and went out. As she walked along the cliff-path the ground all round her steamed and, far below, the green waves slopped against the rocks in the freshening wind and threw up lace edges of foam that sparkled in the sunlight.
There was no yacht, and again no car where the path met the track at the cliff-top; but there were tyre-marks, recent ones made after the rain. Judy was thinking about this when she became aware of another distant noise. This time it was an outboard motor and it came from the far side of the island, a couple of miles away. Straining her eyes against the sun, she watched the tiny distant shape of a boat edge out from behind the island, making for the bay below the camp at Thorness. It was Bridger’s boat, and she could just see one person—presumably Bridger—in it.
She saw no more. There was a whistle and a crack beside her and a splinter of rock fell away from the cliff-face by her head. She did not wait to examine the bullet scar on the rock; she simply ran. Another bullet whistled close to her as she pelted headlong down the path, and then she was round the first turn of the cliff and out of range. She ran as far as she could, walked for a bit and then ran again. Long before she got back to camp the sun had set behind a bank of cloud. The wind rose and blew the day away. She shivered, and her legs were shaking.
She felt safer when she got through the main gates, but terribly lonely. Quadring’s office was closed. There was no-one else she could talk to, and she did not want to meet Bridger in the mess. Dusk was falling as she walked between the chalets in the living-quarters, and suddenly she found herself at Fleming’s. She could not bear to be outside a moment longer. She knocked once at the door and walked straight in.
Fleming was lying on his bed listening to a recording of Webern on a high-fidelity set he had rigged for himself. Looking up, he saw Judy standing in the doorway, panting, her face flushed, her hair blown about.
“Very spectacular. What’s it in aid of?” He was half way through a bottle of Scotch.
Judy shut the door behind her. “John—”
“Well, what?”
“I’ve been shot at.”
“Phui.” He put down his glass and swung his feet to the floor.
“I have! Just now, up on the moors.”
“You mean whistled at.”
“I was standing at the top of the cliff when suddenly a bullet went close past me and smacked into the rock. I jumped back and another one—”
“Some of the brown jobs at target practice. They’re all rotten shots.” Fleming walked over to the record-player and switched it off. He was quite steady, quite sober in spite of the whisky.
“There was no-one,” said Judy. “No-one at all.”
“Then they weren’t bullets. Here, have a drink and calm yourself down.” He foraged for a glass for her.
“They were bullets,” Judy insisted, sitting on the bed. “Someone with a telescopic sight.”
“You’re really in a state, aren’t you?” He found a glass, half-filled it and handed it to her. “Why should anyone want to take pot shots at you?”
“There could be reasons.”
“Such as?”
Judy looked down into her glass.
“Nothing that makes any sense.”
“What were you doing on the cliffs?”
“Just looking at the sea.”
“What was on the sea?”
“Doctor Bridger’s boat. Nothing else.”
“Why were you so interested in Dennis’s boat?”
“I wasn’t.”
“Are you suggesting that he shot at you?”
“No. It wasn’t him.” She held the footboard of the bed to stop her hand from trembling. “Can I stay here a bit? Till I get over the shakes.”
“Do what you like. And drink that up.”
She took a mouthful of the undiluted whisky and felt it stinging her mouth and throat. From the quietness outside came a long low howl, and a piece of guttering on the but shook.
“What was that?”
“The wind,” said Fleming as he stood watching her.
She could feel the spirit moving down, glowing, into her stomach. “I don’t like this place.”
“Nor do I,” he said.
They drank in the silence broken only by the wind moaning round the camp buildings. The sky outside the window was almost dark, with blacker clouds blowing raggedly in from over the sea. She lowered her glass and looked Fleming in the eyes.
“Why does Doctor Bridger go to the island?” She never felt inclined to call Bridger by his first name.
“He goes bird-watching. You know jolly well he goes bird-watching.”
“Every evening?”
“Look, when I’m flaked out at the end of the day I go sailing.” This was true. Navigating a fourteen-footer was Fleming’s one outside activity. Not that he did it very often; and he did it alone, not with the camp sailing club. “Except when I’m really flaked, like now.”
He picked up the bottle by its neck and stood frowning, thinking of Dennis Bridger. “He goes snooping on sea-birds.”
“Always on the island?”
“That’s where they are,” he said impatiently. “There’s masses of stuff out there—gannets, guillemots, fulmars... Have some more of this.”
She let him pour some more into her glass. Her head was humming a little.
“I’m sorry I burst in.”
“Don’t mind me.” He rumpled her already tangled hair in his affectionate, unpredatory way. “I can do with a bit of company in this dump. Specially when it’s a sweet, sweet girl.”
“I’m not in the least sweet.”
“Oh?”
“I don’t like what I am.” Judy looked away from him, down at her glass again. “I don’t like what I do.”
“That makes two of us.” Fleming looked over her head towards the window. “I don’t like what I do either.”
“I thought you were completely taken up in it?”
“I was, but now it’s finished I don’t know. I’ve been trying to get myself sloshed on this, but I can’t.” He looked down at her in a confused way, not at all as he had done in the computer. “Perhaps you’re what I need.”
“John—”
“What?”
“Don’t trust me too much.”
Fleming grinned. “You up to something shady?”
“Not as far as you’re concerned.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” he said, pushing up her chin with his hand. “You’ve an honest face.”
He kissed her forehead lightly, not very seriously.
“No.” She turned her head aside. He dropped his hand and turned away from her, as if his attention had moved to something else. The wind howled again.
“What are you going to do about this shooting?” he asked after a pause.
She shivered in spite of the warmth inside her, and he put a hand on her shoulder.
“Sometimes at night,” he said, “I lie and listen to the wind and think about that chap over there.”