‘How much d’you want for it?’
‘Nothing. I just need to have it looked after.’
‘Well…’
I could practically see her squirming her neat little arse about on her chair.
‘Tell you what — I could pick you up tonight and take you out to have a look. Susan as well; you’d better both see it. It’s pretty much out in the wilds, on its own. What do you think?’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course. I wouldn’t be ringing otherwise.’
‘What time, then?’
‘Wait one. I’ll be back up from LATA about half seven. Say half-eight. What’s your address?’
She gave it, and then said, ‘There’s no strings attached to this, are there?’
‘Of course not.’
I was there five minutes early, showered and changed. Naturally I’d said nothing to the guys on the course, but all day I’d been haunted by a peculiar feeling, half guilt, half anticipation. Was I being disloyal to Kath’s memory? There was no denying that I found Tracy attractive. But then I told myself, hell — I’m just trying to fix up a business arrangement, of mutual benefit.
Or so I thought — until she came flying down the steps of the house, all legs and arms.
‘Where’s Susan?’ I asked.
‘She had a date already. But she likes the idea, and she’s given me power of attorney to do what I think fit. Anyway, her job means she is away a lot, travelling.’
‘Let’s go, then.’
She was wearing a silver-grey track suit, and had a small bag hung over one shoulder. From the scent that wafted off her in the car I didn’t think she’d been running. I had a good look at her profile for the first time, and saw that it matched her manner exactly, being rather pert and perky. On our way out she asked about Tim, and I explained he was with his Gran in Belfast.
‘Is he OK?’
I turned to look at her, and saw her looking steadily, seriously, back at me.
‘I think so. Lucky he’s so young.’
‘That’s right.’
She fell silent for a couple of minutes. But then, as I turned down the lane to the cottage, she exclaimed, ‘Gawd! You said it!’
‘What?’
‘Buried away.’
‘D’you mind that?’
‘I dunno. I’ve never lived in a place like this.’
When we got out of the car she shuddered and said in an aggrieved voice, ‘It’s dark!’
‘What did you expect? It’s night-time.’
‘I mean, there are no lights anywhere.’
‘This is the country. You don’t have lights in the country. Don’t need any. If you eat plenty of carrots, you can see in the dark.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘Honest!’
‘There could be people lurking about out here.’
‘What sort of people?’
‘Rapists. Homicidal maniacs.’
‘There are far more of them in towns. This isn’t the environment for people like that.’
For a few seconds I thought she was going to throw a wobbly, especially when an owl sounded off close by. But in fact things went the other way. Once inside, she responded strongly to the place. She was a city kid all right, but her mind was open, and she was prepared to learn and adapt. She loved the house, saw the mess, gave me a mild bollocking, said she’d take over, and set straight in to clear up the kitchen.
‘Eh,’ I said, ‘You can’t do that.’
‘Stop me.’
‘You’d better have a drink, then. Glass of wine?’
‘Thanks.’
One thing very soon led to another. She offered to cook something for supper. I suggested that we go out to the pub in the village, which served a reasonable evening meal. She said, ‘No, that would be a waste of money.’ Suddenly I heard myself say, ‘You mean the waste of an opportunity?’ The next thing I knew, we were in the bedroom, and I saw an immensely long flash of thigh as she pulled off her jogging pants.
‘Jesus!’ I cried. ‘This is crazy. I haven’t any — er…’
‘I have!’ She made a grab for the little bag she’d brought with her. ‘Isn’t that the Boy Scouts’ motto “Be prepared”?’
In the morning, as we sat having a cup of coffee in the kitchen, I said, ‘I should never have brought you here like this.’
‘I’m glad you did.’
‘I feel guilty.’
‘Why? You’re on your own. You’ve no one else.’
‘No — but it’s so soon after Kath.’
‘You never messed about when she was alive.’
‘No.’
‘I’ve been worrying about you for weeks.’
‘You didn’t show it much.’
‘How could I?’
‘I know.’
She shook her head and put her hand over mine. I looked up into her face and said, ‘Somehow, with you, I feel myself. I feel normal — comfortable, like.’
‘Same here.’ She smiled, producing tiny creases down her cheeks.
‘What will people think, though?’ I asked.
‘They won’t think anything. They needn’t know I’ve spent the night here. As long as we don’t walk into work wrapped round each other.’
‘Jesus, no! I’ll run you home round the back way, and go in on my own.’
‘And then —’ Tracy went on with her own line of thought — ‘when Susan and I move in, it’ll look like a straightforward business arrangement.’
‘What about when I come back?’
‘Tonight, you mean?’
‘No, no — from across the water.’
‘I’ll be waiting here for you.’
‘You mean that?’
‘If you want me.’
The course ended with two big exercises, one out in the country and one mainly in town. In the first, we were told that a bomb had been planted in a certain culvert, under a country lane, out in the middle of a large estate. According to the scenario, command wires had been spotted running up a hedge to a firing point in the corner of an old quarry. Good intelligence had been received to the effect that terrorists were coming back at night to detonate the bomb when a vehicle patrol went past. I was detailed to command an operation to take them out.
There was no time for an on-site recce. For an hour we pored over the 1:50,000 map, planning covert approaches to the spot marked as the target. Then, as dark was coming on, we bussed out to a drop-off point, tabbed in across country, over the back of a hill, and prepared to lie up in wait. In the last of the light we found the command wires and traced the top end of them to a drain beside a gate-post, where the fence coming up from the culvert reached one corner of the quarry.
It was a filthy night, pissing with rain. The gate-post was nearly at the summit of the hill, and from it we could look down on the lane, which ran along the contour below us, across our front. Having set the rest of the patrol to cover us, Pat and I worked our way down the command wires, to make sure they were connected to the device. Crafty bastards, the terrorists had coupled them up to the barbed wire, so that for most of the run the fence itself would act as a conductor: that way, no extra wires were needed, and there was nothing unusual to be seen. At the bottom end we picked up the special circuit again and followed it to an old milk churn under the little bridge.
That was good enough. Back near the firing-point, I deployed two pairs of guys left and right, as cut-offs, in case Pat and I — the killer group — missed the players and they tried to run out sideways. Then we settled into a small hollow thirty metres from the gate-post. There were a couple of more obvious hiding places, closer to the target; but the depression was just deep enough to cover us, especially in the dark, and it wasn’t the kind of feature that would attract anyone’s attention. I set the bipod of the G3 on the front of the dip, and wriggled around until it was at a comfortable height.
As the night wore on our hollow gradually filled with water, until we were lying in a couple of inches of liquid mud. The moon was three-quarters full, but because of the clouds its light was very faint, and I wished we’d had time to set out ambush lights. In the event, I had to keep switching on the kite-sight of my G3 to get a good view of the culvert area. In the grey-green glow of the sight the fence posts along the road showed up clearly, but when I looked with the naked eye I could scarcely make them out.