Time had passed quickly for once when it should have been standing still.
'The hunt is still going on for the escaped convict from one of Britain's top-security prison hospitals. John Louvelle, serving a life sentence, who escaped early yesterday morning, is still at large and the reports that he was last seen heading through a remote Welsh mountain village have now been confirmed. Police have warned the public not to approach this man as he is known to be violent and dangerous. Drifting snow has hampered the search . . . '
Peter shivered, which reminded him that he must re-light the Rayburn. Louvelle wouldn't come to Hodre, though.
'And here is the weather forecast: snow which has affected Wales and the west country has now died away but temperatures are expected to remain below freezing for the next twenty-four hours.'
Peter switched off the transistor. He couldn't stomach a further dose of pop music on top of that. Louvelle—he remembered the case, about three years ago. The fellow had taken a young woman and two children hostage in a remote country cottage (like Hodre!) and he'd kept the police at bay for four days. No motive, just for the hell of it. In the end they'd tried to rush him but he'd been as wary and as dangerous as a treed cougar; he'd cut his victims' throats and seriously wounded two policeman before they overpowered him. The children had died. Peter didn't remember what had happened to their mother.
He found himself going back to the window and looking out again. Hodre and the surrounding hills were big and wild. Like Louvelle. He could be out there too.
Peter contemplated passing the time by trying to work on his book. After half an hour he gave it up. His concentration was shot to hell. He realised how besieged gunmen felt: after a time they didn't give a damn, went out shooting and got mown down in a hail of lead, Dillinger-style. The only way out was to sit tight—if his nerves would stick it—and wait for the weather to change.
He went back to the window and watched late afternoon slip into evening, the sun blood red as it slid behind the western mountain range. Even indoors Peter's breath was clouding on the windows. Tonight there was going to be one helluva frost.
At length he drew the curtains and Ut a stub of candle in a saucer. Its glow didn't serve much purpose except to give him a circle of flickering yellow light to sit in; primitive man again, afraid of the dark because it held unknown terrors. Little had changed over thousands of years.
He resisted the temptation to try and tune in to a news reading on one of the transistor's wavelengths. Cowardice. He couldn't face it. It was as though the media were out to get at him too; or somebody or something was using them to wear him down.
He wondered if there were any more candles anywhere. He should have searched for some during the daylight hours.
Doubtless Janie would know he was cut off here. But just being snowed up was no reason to send a helicopter to search for him. Up in these mountain regions it was a way of life; everybody accepted it.
The candle was getting low, melting its wax into the saucer, the flame larger and flickering fast. Peter estimated it might burn for another half hour. After that he might as well go upstairs to the bedroom.
Why not stay here in the kitchen? If they wanted him they had to come through the door and he had a loaded gun. He was tense, edgy at the prospect of darkness, man's oldest fear, once again. In a way the reflection of the snow made it worse because in the dim glow he thought he saw things.
He was listening to the silence again. He could hear something if he concentrated, like the wind—only it wasn't the wind. Something was moving . . .
Oh God, something really was moving1. There was a sound tike a heavy animal dragging itself along across the frozen snow, the ice cracking and giving way beneath it; perhaps the deer—limping, weakening, scraping its hooves, drawing in great gulps of frosty air, wounded; so it had to come to man, trusting him. Scratching at the door!
Peter whirled in his chair and brought the shotgun up so that the barrels were trained on the door, twin tubes of Damascus steel that wavered because the hands holding them were unsteady, the forefinger touching the front trigger lightly, poised to take a pressure.
He listened again. Laboured rasping breaths from outside, a scratching on the woodwork, then something heavy pounding so that the door vibrated .
The candle flickered and almost went out. Peter was aware of rivulets of cold sweat running down his forehead and making his eyes smart. The voice inside him, the one that always highlighted his worst fears, was screaming at him: 'That's not a deer. Deer don't come near human habitation, they can't knock on doors. It's them; they've come for you!'
He should have fired both barrels simultaneously, a double charge that would have ripped into the woodwork with the full force of the chokes, almost a lethal ball of shot shattering its way out, tearing into whatever was out there. Then reloaded and fired again and again, yelling through the thick cloud of acrid powdersmoke, 'Take that you bastards, and that. Never thought I'd have a gun, did you?'
But he didn't fire. Suddenly he didn't have that kind of courage. Murder. Manslaughter. A dozen or more reasons flitted through his frightened brain and prevented him from pressing the trigger. He remained poised. Waiting. Listening.
Then the candle went out; a final flicker of enlarged flame cast a wide circle of light that dimmed and died, leaving him in total blackness. Somehow he held the gun in one hand and groped for his torch with the other. Even as the beam of white light hit the door the pounding came again, louder this time, so that the bolt rattled.
A voice. He couldn't tell what it was saying but it was definitely a voice. A kind of desperate cry, fists pummelling the door again.
A lot of things went through Peter's fear-crazed brain: that the mad killer, Louvelle, had made it to a lone habitation, somewhere to hole up for the winter. If it was him he'd have a knife, and use it without hesitation. Or the white-cloaked figure, still dripping blood from its shotgun wound, come in search of revenge. / killed your cat and your rabbit, now I'm going to kill you \
Peter was on his feet. His legs felt weak and were trying to pull him back down into the chair. He moved forward a couple of steps and called out, 'Who's there?'
Silence for a few moments, then the scratching started again, lower down, almost at ground level. The blows were weaker than before as though the nocturnal visitor's strength was ebbing.
'I said who's there?' Peter scarcely recognised his own voice, a high-pitched shout that was almost a scream.
No answer. Just that same laboured breathing.
He reached out a hand and tugged at the bolt. He had to jerk it clear of its socket. The latch rattled, then steadied as something on the other side pushed at the door.
Peter backed away a step, and held the gun in one hand whilst with the other he leaned forward and flicked the latch with the end of the torch. The door creaked slowly inwards; he backed away another pace, his mouth so dry it was painful to swallow.
Then he saw it, clearly circled in the white beam of the torch: a figure that crawled on all fours and seemed to be caught up in the torn bedsheet, which had been fashioned into a cowled garment. The face was twisted with agony, hideously caked with dried blood.
A bloody hand was raised, pointing at him. Accusing. Words hammered into his brain: You killed me and now I've come for youl
He wanted to flee, to scream. But there was nowhere to run to and his vocal chords were paralysed. It wasn't possible, but it was happening before his eyes: the tattered, bloody corpse he'd left up in the big snowdrift was here, crawling in through his own doorway.