'Lampers, I'd say.' Calvert stroked his chin thoughtfully.
'Lampers?'
'Poachers who work with high-powered battery lamps and lurchers after rabbits and hares. I reckon the lads were giving Hodre the once-over last night and you were foolish enough to go out there.'
'You mean Peters and Bostock Peter tensed. That pair who poach at night and have already done time for beating up a gamekeeper? Just like they did me!'
'No-o-o.' Calvert pursed his lips thoughtfully. 'Not them, but I'll definitely check on them. Lamping isn't their style. They use long-nets: nets about fifty yards long, which they stake out, and then use the dogs to drive the rabbits and hares into the net. The only light they ever use is the moon. Occasionally they use ferrets in the warrens, sometimes snares. But never guns or lamps, take it from me.'
'Just suppose'Peter leaned forward'that these chaps last night weren't poachers at all. There have been two atrocious animal killings, like sacrifices. Black magic covens are springing up all over the place.'
'Mostly around the cities.' Calvert shook his head slowly; he was a countryman himself and the answer had to lie in the field he knew best. 'I'd say it was poachers, Mr Fogg. Rabbits fetch one-fifty a couple in the market, and anybody who knows what he's about with a lamp and a lurcher can bag forty or fifty in a night. I don't reckon there's any link between last night and those phone calls, maybe not even the animal killings either. I reckon you've stirred up a mixture of poachers, Welsh nationalists, and hooligans. Anyway we'll patrol the lanes up by you for a week or so . . . '
Which you've already bloody well promised to do and haven't, Peter thought.
I'll give you a lift back up to Hodre.' Calvert rose to his feet and picked up his cap. 'I've got to go and call on a farmer over the other side who's had some sheep savaged by dogs, and I can make a detour to drop you off. In all probability Barratts will be up there by now with four new tyres for your car, and the telephone company doesn't waste time fixing telephones in this part of the world; they know only too well how folks living in remote areas might need 'em in an emergency.'
A little shiver ran up Peter's spine. He just hoped that both Barratts Garage and British Telecom were as efficient as PC Calvert claimed. Emergencies were becoming all too frequent.
As the police panda van slowed alongside Hodre, Peter saw that the Saab was still squatting awkwardly on its rims. Neither was there any sign of the familiar bright yellow van that heralded the arrival of the telephone engineer. Peter groaned inwardly, consoling himself with the thought that in rural areas services were that much slower, but they got there in the end.
'I expect they will be along soon.' Calvert seemed to read the other's impatience. 'Looks like it's going to snow before long.'
This time Peter groaned audibly. Away to the west, above the most distant beacons, leaden cloud formations were building up. He flipped the catch and swung the door open. 'Maybe it won't come to anything much.'
'Maybe and maybe not,' PC Calvert muttered, but his expression said that it probably would. 'Anyway, I must get a move on. And don't forget, Mr Fogg, don't get going outside if you see any lamps again. I'll probably have a run up this way later tonight anyway.'
'Probably' being the operative word, Peter thought as he watched the constable drive away. Something soft and feathery brushed against his cheek and lodged on the lapel of his duffle coat. Snowflakes! The wind was icy, strengthening, and the far-off clouds seemed nearer than he had at first thought, lighter fore-runners stretching almost to the edge of the big wood, the tentacles of a giant snow-laden monster.
Peter went inside and picked up the phone, but he knew it was a waste of time. There was not so much as a crackle, even when he rattled the cradle. The Rayburn had gone out. He'd light it later, and in the meantime he'd keep his coat on. Hell, he couldn't stop indoors; he'd go mad and his head needed some fresh air to clear it. He had meant to buy a bottle of aspirin in the village but somehow it had slipped his mindwhich wasn't surprising; it seemed to take him all his time to keep sane these days.
He went outside again. It was snowing properly now; fine flakes, which the wind was beginning to drive horizontally. By the time he reached the garden gate there was a white film building up on his navy blue coat, and the sky was the colour of good old Tipton black-pudding.
He had to stop himself from pacing up and down the road outside. Where the hell were Barratts Garage and the telephone engineer? He checked his watch: three pm. Another hour and it would be dark. Calvert had been a bit vague in his instructions over the phone to the garage. But surely they knew where Hodre was, even if they did have to come from ten miles away. And British Telecom would surely be able to locate every phone by its number. Maybe one or both of them had broken down on the way. Christ, anything and everything was a possibility these days.
Peter mounted the steps leading up to the granary. It was snowing too hard to stand about in the lane and anyway there was a better vantage point from the elevated doorway. At least he thought so until he got up there and saw how the snow was reducing visibility. It was barely possible to see as far as the first bend less than a hundred yards away. The hedges were white all over, and if he stared for too long the gnawing pain at the back of his eyes began again and started off shooting lights. Perhaps he ought to have consulted a doctor; perhaps he had concussion after the blow on his head. Well, it was too late now. With neither telephone nor car he wasn't going anywhere at all.
He lifted the catch on the granary door and stepped inside. At least here he would be out of the cold and the driving snowflakes, and if anyone should arrive he would hear them.
The gloomy interior of the musty-smelling building was somehow soothing. Peaceful, Like a church that shuts out the presence of everyday life and allows one time to relax.
Peter's eyes adjusted to the gloom and he found his gaze wandering over the piles of useless junk. That was when he saw the gun.
At first he thought it was a length of rusty iron piping but as his eyes followed it down he saw the battered stock bound together with wire to repair a crack in the grip. He moved across and extricated it from amidst some loosely coiled rusty barbed wire, almost refusing to believe what his eyes told him.
It was a gun all right, and he knew enough about shotguns to identify it as a 12-bore. Double-barrelled, the twin steel tubes a brown colour that was a mixture of rust and Damascus steel, its hammers shaped like carvings of the devil's ears, an under-lever that needed brute force to open the breech.
He blew down the barrels, then coughed at the cloud of dust which rose up. Sound enough, a credit to the makers, whose name on the centre rib had become obliterated.
The feel of this ancient shotgun in his hands gave Peter a sudden sense of power even though it was empty and useless. Something he'd once read in a cheap western novel had stuck in his memory ever since'God created men, Sam Colt made them equal'. It applied to shotguns as well as pistols.
It was totally unbelievable that in a space of five minutes not only should Peter discover a gun in apparent working order but that he should also find some cartridgesfour unopened canons of them packed into a small wooden crate as though at some time they had been transported from the vendors by rail.
He opened a carton, took one out and examined it closely: a crimson cardboard cylinder with a shiny brass head, a crest on the caseEBLand the words Maximum. Long Range. Heavy Load. It sounded impressive, powerful! Some traces of damp clung to the outer casingsthough the granary itself was dry and the shells felt dry enough. Maybe an hour or two in front of the Rayburn to dry them off...
Peter stepped back outside, the gun cradled under one arm, the case of ammunition in the other. It was snowing hard now, large flakes whipping horizontally from the west, coating the hedges, forming a white layer across the road. There was no break in the heavy clouds, no sign of it easing up. The telephone man wouldn't come today, neither would Barratts. But he didn't bloody well care. If anybody was looking for trouble tonight then they were going to get it!