To Abbot’s Bale, and from there wherever you liked, and no one in Comerford or Comerbourne any the wiser, for neither need be touched. Her everyday coat, a sensible rainscarf, no luggage: Annet had taken no chances this time. No one should suspect; no one should have any warning. Afterwards? Oh, afterwards the flood, the price, anything. What would it matter, afterwards?
He jumped the brook and made his way along the cart-track. Deep ruts on both sides of him, in places filled with the moist black mud of puddles that never dry up completely. Brown peat water deep between the tufted grasses, distant, solitary birds somewhere calling eerily. The hoof-track on which he walked had been laid with stones at some time, and stood up like a little causeway, only here and there encroached upon by the richer grass. There seemed to be no traces of a car having negotiated this road recently. Nor had he heard any sound of an engine break the silence last night, when she returned, but that great hog-back of rock had heaved solidly between, and might very well cut off all sound.
Five dry days, and a brisk wind blowing for three of them; the ground was hard and well-padded with thick, spongy turf. Only in the green places where the marsh came close would there be any traces to be found.
He came to the first of them, and the stony foundation of the track was broken there, and the ground had settled a little, subsiding into a softer green tongue of fine grass. Moisture welled up round the toe of his shoe, and he checked in mid-stride and drew his weight back carefully. The wheel-ruts still showed cushioned and smooth on both sides; no weight had crushed them last night, or for many days previously. But in the middle of the path a single indentation showed, the flattened stems silvery against the brilliant green. Too resilient to retain a pattern of the tread, the turf had not yet quite recovered from the pressure of somebody’s motor-bike tyres.
There was no doubt of it, once he had found it. He followed it along almost to the first gate, and found its tenuous line three times on the way, to reassure him that he was not imagining things. Nowhere was there a clear impression of the tread; for most of the way the path was firm and dry, and where the damp patches invaded it the thick grass swallowed all but that ribbon of paler green. But he knew now that he was not mistaken; someone had brought a motorcycle up here from the direction of Abbot’s Bale no longer ago than yesterday. A motorcycle or a scooter; he couldn’t be sure which.
The sun was well up, and he was going to be late for breakfast; they’d be wondering, next, what had happened to him! He turned back then, and scrambled up the slope towards the ring of trees.
Miles Mallindine had a Vespa. And however many young men had danced with and coveted Annet, there was no blinking the fact that Miles had already got himself firmly connected with her comings and goings once, and could hardly expect to evade notice when something similar happened for the second time. Others might be possibles, but he was an odds-on favourite.
But he’d been camping somewhere near Llyn Ogwen and climbing on Tryfan with Dominic Felse. Or had he? All the long week-end? With a Vespa he could cover that journey quite easily in a couple of hours. And would young Felse lie for him? Neither of them struck him as a probable liar, and yet he was fairly sure that for each other, where necessary, they would take the plunge without turning a hair.
If you want to know, he told himself with irritation, lunging down the westward side of the Hallowmount, there’s only one straightforward thing to do, and that’s ask. Not other nosy people who may have seen something, not his friend who’ll feel obliged to put up a front for him, but Miles himself. At least give him the chance to convince you, if there’s nothing in it, and to get it off his chest if there is.
As if that was going to be easy!
It took him all morning to make up his mind to it; but in his free period at the end of the morning school he sent for Miles Mallindine.
‘You wanted to see me, sir?’
The boy had come in, in response to his invitation, jauntily and easily, brows raised a little; unable to guess why he was wanted, you’d have said, but long past the days of instinctively supposing any summons to the staff-room to be a portent of trouble.
‘Yes, come in and close the door. I won’t keep you many minutes.’ They had the room to themselves for as long as they needed it, but the thing was to keep it brief and simple; and tell him nothing that wasn’t absolutely essential. ‘You own a Vespa, don’t you?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Miles, agile brows jumping again.
‘Did you go up to Capel Curig on it this week-end?’
‘Yes. It’s a bit of a load, with two up and the tent and kit, but we’ve got it to numbers now.’ He was filling in the gaps, kindly and graciously, to avoid leaving the bald, enquiring: ‘Yes’ lonely upon the air between them. But he was wondering what all this was about, and testing out all possible connections in his all too lively mind.
‘Spend the whole time up there? When did you leave? And when did you get back yesterday?’
‘Oh, left about half past five on Thursday, I think, sir. I called round to pick up Dom first, and we did the packing at our place. We’d been in about half an hour when you looked in at home last night – just long enough for a wash and supper.’
He didn’t ask point blank: ‘Why?’ but the slight tilt of his head, the attentive regard of his remarkably direct and disconcerting eyes, put the same question more diplomatically; and a small spark deep within the eyes supplemented without heat: ‘And what the hell’s it got to do with you, anyhow?’ ‘Sir!’ added the very brief, engaging and impudent smile he had inherited from his mother.
Tom was tempted to soften this apparently pointless and unjustifiable interrogation with a crumb of explanation, or at least apology; but the boy was too bright by far. To try to disarm him with something like: ‘I’m sorry if this makes no sense to you, but if it makes no sense you’ve got nothing to worry about!’ – no, it wouldn’t do, he’d begin tying up the ends before the words were well out. No use saying pompously: ‘I have my reasons for asking.’ He knew that already, he was only in the dark at present as to what they could be, and at the first clue he’d be off on the trail. The fewer words the better. The more abrupt the better. They took some surprising, these days, but at least he could try.
‘Did you take your Vespa out earlier on Thursday afternoon? A trial run, maybe, if you’d been working on her? Say – round through Abbot’s Bale to the track at the back of the Hallowmount?’
If Miles didn’t know what it was all about now, at least he knew the appropriate role for himself. He had drawn down over his countenance the polite, wooden, patient face of the senior schoolboy. It fitted rather tightly these days, but he could still wear it. Ours not to reason why; they’re all mad, anyhow. Ours but to come up with: ‘Yes, sir!’ or: ‘No, sir!’ as required. The mask had an additional merit, or from Tom’s point of view an additional menace; from within its bland and innocent eye-holes you could watch very narrowly indeed without yourself giving anything away.
‘No, sir, I didn’t. I had her all ready the night before, there was no need to try her out.’
‘And you weren’t round there yesterday, either? Before you got home?’