There was no mistaking the partially incinerated animal corpse, the blackened smouldering flesh and bared bone, the patches of hair that had somehow only been singed in the inferno. Ash spilled from an open gut, like a taxidermist's burst specimen. Janie tried to tell herself that it was that rabbit or hare which she'd seen hopping about the fields, that it had somehow been trapped by the blaze and burned alive. Or a fox. But in the end every avenue was a dead-end, every alternative an excuse, a lie. There was only one feasible explanation, only one possible answer.
'It's—it's Snowy Only when she made this final analysis from the volume of ridiculous possibilities which she tried to force her brain to accept without success, was she able to turn her head away. 'Oh, how terrible!'
'Yes, it's Snowy.' Peter jabbed his stick into the embers. 'No doubt about that. I guess I didn't look very hard for him yesterday. The rope must have snapped under the weight of his body and it's only coincidence that his corpse got burned. At least he was dead, he didn't suffer—not in the flames, anyway.'
'You're lying!' Her accusation was bordering on hysteria again, her features deathly white, her usually immaculate denim suit crumpled and smeared with ash. 'You know damned well you didn't find the cat here yesterday, Peter, because it had disappeared. There's not enough undergrowth beneath these trees to conceal a mouse. Whoever committed this terrible atrocity took the mutilated cat and then brought it back here to burn it when they started the fire. Can't you see that, or are you going to offer some other feeble excuse to try and blind me from the truth? D'you think anything human could have done this? Well I don't; it was some kind of blood sacrifice by whatever still exists in this stone circle!' Her voice trailed off. She was breathless and shaking, wide-eyed, glancing about her as though she expected some evil entity to rise like a phoenix out of the ashes and claim her.
'Druids don't go about in Land Rovers.' He tried to laugh, but it was a pathetic attempt, a smoke-dried cackle that sounded eerie in the early morning stillness. 'And whoever is responsible for this outrage used a Land Rover. Unfortunately the ground is too hard to leave tracks, but at least we've got something to go on. Let's get back. The sooner I speak to our friendly local bobby, the better.'
Gavin insisted on going to school. White-faced, with deep lines gouged beneath his eyes, he had the appearance of one who was either ill or suffering from lack of sleep. Yet he was adamant about attending school, and was already dressed when Peter and Janie got back to the cottage.
'Where've you been, Mum?'
'Nothing to worry about, Gavin.' Janie busied herself tipping cornflakes into cereal bowls; she spilled some because her hand was shaking. 'There was a heath fire up on the hill last night. Fortunately it didn't get very far because the ground was too wet.'
He sat there in silence. Maybe he detected the lie and didn't want to embarrass his parents by forcing them to lie again.
Tm going to Gran's today.' Peter started visibly at Janie's unexpected announcement. 'Don't worry, I'll be back at teatime. I could do with a break.'
Peter's brow furrowed. Janie's visits to her parents were infrequent. She had been threatening to move there with Gavin these past few days. Was this the beginning, a talk-it-over-with-Mum-and-Dad visit? Well, she'd come back tonight, for Gavin if for no other reason. That in itself was small consolation.
Weak sunlight was beginning to spread across the distant beacons as Peter drove in the direction of Woodside. Gavin was silent, staring out of the window, seeing but not comprehending, buried in his own dismal thoughts. Peter accelerated and the Saab picked up speed. The atmosphere was embarrassing; there were things they both ought to be saying but neither would break the silence. The lane dipped, narrowed, then levelled out on an acute left-hand bend that was partly screened by an overhanging larch tree. Peter had just made up his mind and found the courage to say something that was non-committaclass="underline" the rabbit, was it OK by Gavin if they brought it indoors because Janie thought it would be better than—
In an instinctive reflex action, Peter's foot came off the accelerator and slammed down on the brake pedal. Wheels locked and tyres screeched their protest as they skidded on loose chippings. The front of the car slewed, headed towards the opposite hedgerow, then stopped with only inches to spare between the—Saab's bumper and the heavy steel girder-like fender of a Land Rover. It was all over before Peter's nerves had time to absorb the sudden shock; the seat-belts bounced him and Gavin forward, then hurled them back into their seats.
'Christ alive!' Peter bent forward and looked up at the windscreen of the vehicle which had almost crushed them back into the ditch. 'What the devil does that bloke think he's doing driving round these lanes at that speed?'
The other driver stared back, a hostile expression on his face. Aristocratic features, handsome in a wild son of way: silver-grey hair that flopped over his wide brow, a hooked nose that reminded Peter of a huge bird of prey that hunted in wild terrain, a regal flowing beard set against a background of skin tanned the colour of mahogany, eyes that bored into him and had him wanting to look away in case their owner read the darkest secrets of his mind. Dominant, physically powerful, arrogant.
Only after he had noted all these details did Peter find himself looking at the vehicle. A Land Rover. There were hundreds of them in this pan of the country. Even humble smallholders seemed to be able to afford to run one. Four colours to choose from—green, blue, white or grey. This one was blue, a short wheelbase with a ragged canvas top, battered and muddy. Well-used over rugged land. Like going up that steep hillside to the stone circle in the blackness of night, thick fog throuring back the headlight beams so that the driver was unable to see more than a few yards ahead of him. A task that required nerves of steel—the kind of nerves a man like this would have!
You're jumping to conclusions again, Fogg, he told himself. Now that the Wilsons and Bostock and Peters have been ruled out, you're looking for another scapegoat. He looked up again, met those steely eyes, and almost winced. Arrogance and a lot more besides—contempt.
Peter had already reversed and got the Saab's nearside wheels right up on the verge until he felt the hedge scraping the paintwork. What the hell am I doing? It's that bugger who should be backing up!
But the Land Rover was already forcing its way through, the rugged squat vehicle taking on the personality of its driver, eager to ride roughshod over anything that stood in its way. Then it was clear, picking up speed, its rear wheels spraying a parting shower of mud over the Saab: a final insult that might have been deliberate.
'He was in a hurry, wasn't he, Dad?' Gavin was visibly shaken. 'He'd got more room than us to reverse. Couldn't wait a second.'
'He just bulldozed us out of the way.' Peter was angry now, more at the way he had conceded ground than at the unknown driver's rudeness. But he couldn't get that Land Rover out of his mind. He saw it again, silhouetted against an orange smoky background, slinking away, its evil deed completed. Anonymous malevolence, a thing of the dark hours that came and went whilst others slept. The ultimate in cruelty, transporting men who knew no mercy, who disembowelled cats whilst they still lived, removed the corpses, then brought them back to burn in a nocturnal fire. Madness. But sane or mad, they lurked out there. Waiting. But for what?
Peter shuddered. He understood how Janie felt. Last night it was a cat. Tonight it might be a human blood victim. Janie. Gavin. Himself. There was no reason, no way of knowing until it happened.