I shook off all my film thoughts and tried to think straight. To put myself inside Martin’s head. If I had been married to a man for thirty years, surely I ought to be able to work out what password he would use to prevent anybody from penetrating his secrets?
When I formulated that question I tried to convince myself that it was rhetorical. That of course it could be answered with ‘yes’, certainly: a gifted hacker wife ought to be able to sort that out, and it was only a matter of time before I gained access to the document. I started writing down possibilities in my notebook, and by the time the clock said it was the twelfth of December I had decided on three.
Emmanuel. His second name.
Maria. His wife.
Bessie. For obvious reasons.
I opened the folder and clicked on the document for the third time. I expected the little light-blue window to appear, but instead I was confronted by the same message as last time. You have given an incorrect password. Try again tomorrow.
But it is tomorrow, you stupid berk, I hissed at the computer — shut down and opened up once again. It’s turned midnight, for Christ’s sake.
I was surprised to find myself sitting here like this, talking to Martin’s computer: Castor raised his head from the fleece rug and looked enquiringly at me. He’s usually the one I talk to, at least since we’ve been living here in Darne Lodge.
I explained the situation to him, and assured him there was nothing he needed to worry about.
Then I noticed the little indication of the time up in the top right-hand corner of the computer screen. Wed 01.06. And various seconds ticking away.
Swedish time, in other words. 01.06 there would be 12.06 in England. What did that mean? Unfortunately it was not difficult to work it out: I had wasted my first three attempts during the first hour of the new day, not during the last hour of the previous one as I had at first assumed. I would have to wait. . for twenty-three hours. Until eleven o’clock the next evening.
Emmanuel. Maria. Bessie.
Unless I hit upon something better in the meantime.
I swore at the computer and switched it off.
Took Castor with me and went to bed.
Irritation — wasn’t that supposed to be an indication that you were healthy? I seemed to remember that it was, as I switched off the light. That had been the thought that struck me some days ago — and just now I can’t remember when I had last been as irritated as I am now.
Not since I came here, in any case.
Not since I closed that heavy iron door on the beach in Poland and thought I had become somebody else.
So I’m still alive?
I decided on that interpretation.
33
I think I realize it’s a mistake the moment I turn off onto the road leading to Hawkridge.
We’ve been shopping in Dulverton. Had lunch at The Bridge Inn and visited the second-hand bookshop. There was no book by Bessie Hyatt on the shelves, but the obliging owner, who reminds me of a dying dandelion every time I see her, has promised to have acquired both of them if I call in on Monday or Tuesday next week.
‘They’re quite good, actually. I read them thirty years ago — then things didn’t go so well for her, poor girl. But I’ve never come to grips with that Tom Herold character, I’m afraid. . Is there anything else I can tempt you with?’
I explain that I’m only halfway through Lorna Doone, but thank her for being so helpful.
In fact it’s Lorna Doone who makes me want to take a look at Hawkridge: the place is mentioned in the book, and we pass the worn-looking signpost every time we drive between Winsford and Dulverton. If nothing else, we could do with a walk, both Castor and I: that’s the real reason, and there are a couple of hours of the day left.
Not much in the way of daylight, however, but at least the rain that fell all morning has now stopped, and no doubt we shall find some public footpath or bridleway. But even after a few hundred metres I realize that I must tone down my expectations.
The road to Hawkridge is gloomy and full of bends. It’s also sunk down several metres below the surrounding countryside, and I have no idea where we are as I’ve left the map behind at Darne Lodge. We are like two blind rabbits in a deep ditch, and we edge our way forward with extreme care — but that is a poor image: Castor would never agree that he is a rabbit. We are a half-blind beetle — or rather, two of them of course — that’s better, on our way under the earth, on our way to. . No, enough of all these silly images that flicker away unbidden inside my head, I think: to hell with you, for this is serious.
And fear is sitting beside me in the passenger seat: I don’t know how to cope with this, it’s new to me.
New dirty signposts pointing along even narrower roads to even more dreary places. Ashwick. Venford Moor. West Anstey. I don’t recall any of the names from the map, and we don’t meet any other vehicles at all. That’s just as well, bearing in mind that the road is at no point wider than three metres. Blackmore writes that the wheel didn’t reach Exmoor until the end of the seventeenth century: people moved around on horseback without carts, and it is evidently those bridle paths and winding tracks between ancient villages and dwellings that were eventually tarmacked over several centuries later to create what are now called roads. That must surely be what happened: these lanes have been trodden down by the hooves of weary horses over thousands of years.
We eventually get to Hawkridge. There is no sign of any people in the village, which seems to comprise about ten houses and a dark grey church on a hill. At the only crossroads is a red letter box and an equally red telephone kiosk. And a tiny little parking area where we stop alongside a deserted tractor. We get out of the car and look round. It’s not only the tractor that looks deserted.
I catch sight of a sign pointing down to Tarr Steps. I gather the path must lead to Barle from the opposite direction to ours, and that it’s not possible to get there by car. I recall John Ridd’s comment to the effect that as everybody knows, the big block of stone in the merrily flowing river was placed there by the Devil himself, and that it is somewhere to avoid unless you have urgent business to do there.
Despite the fact that we don’t really have any urgent business to do there, we start walking down the steeply sloping road. Car drivers are warned that the slope is one in three, and that there are no possible turning places for a mile and a half. But it strikes me that a woman walking with her dog must be able to turn round whenever they feel like it, and so we head down the slope in determined fashion. There is no direction to look in apart from downwards, as the embankment on both sides of the road is more than two metres high. I assume there are muddy fields on either side of the road, but it’s simply not possible to leave it.
All of a sudden Castor decides that he has no yearning to go any further. He sits down in the middle of the road and looks at me with an expression that makes it clear he’s had enough. I explain to him that we’ve only been walking for ten minutes, and we’d agreed to walk for twenty minutes before turning back
But it doesn’t help. I argue with him for a while, but he refuses to budge. I take a couple of liver treats out of my pocket, but he’s not interested. He merely turns his head and looks back up the hill towards Hawkridge. The sky is low up there, leaden-coloured and heavy. I think things over for a while, and decide that there really are places that God seems to have abandoned. It must have been this very road that the Devil walked along when he carried the stones down to Tarr Steps in order to cross over the river to the brighter side — there seems no doubt about it.