The rising tower of debris blossomed and drifted, starting to fall as the shockwave pulsed at me from the dune. I was vaguely aware of a lot of small sandslips along the drying faces of the nearby dunes. The noise rolled over then, a twisting crack and belly-rumble of thunder. I watched a gradually widening circle of splashes go out from the centre of the explosion as the debris came back to earth. The pillar of gas and sand was pulled out by the wind, darkening the sand under its shadow and forming a curtain of haze under its base like you see under a heavy cloud sometimes as it starts to get rid of its rain. I could see the crater now.
I ran down. I stood about fifty metres away from the still steaming crater. I didn't look too closely at any of the bits and pieces lying around, squinting at them from the side of my eye, wanting and not wanting to see bloody meat or tattered clothing. The noise rumbled back uncertainly from the hills beyond the town. The edge of the crater was marked with huge splinters of stone torn up from the bedrock under the sands; they stood like broken teeth around the scene, pointing at the sky or fallen slanted over. I watched the distant cloud from the explosion drift away over the firth, dispersing, then I turned and ran as fast as I could for the house.
So nowadays I can say it was a German bomb of five hundred kilograms and it was dropped by a crippled He. III trying to get back to its Norwegian base after an unsuccessful attack on the flying-boat base farther down the firth. I like to think it was the gun in my bunker that hit it and forced the pilot to turn tail and dump his bombs.
The tips of some of those great splinters of igneous rock still stick above the surface of the long-returned sand, and they form the Bomb Circle, poor dead Paul's most fitting monument: a blasphemous stone circle where the shadows play.
I was lucky, again. Nobody saw anything, and nobody could believe that I had done it. I was distracted with grief this time, torn by guilt, and Eric had to look after me while I acted my part to perfection, though I say it myself. I didn't enjoy deceiving Eric, but I knew it was necessary; I couldn't tell him I'd done it because he wouldn't have understood why I'd done it. He would have been horrified, and very likely never have been my friend again. So I had to act the tortured, self-blaming child, and Eric had to comfort me while my father brooded.
Actually, I didn't like the way Diggs questioned me about what had happened, and for a few moments I thought he might have guessed, but my replies seemed to satisfy him. It didn't help that I had to call my father «uncle» and Eric and Paul "cousins'; this was my father's idea of trying to fool the policeman about my parentage in case Diggs did any asking around and discovered that I didn't exist officially. My story was that I was the orphaned son of my father's long-lost younger brother, and only staying on occasional extended holidays on the island while I was passed from relative to relative and my future was decided.
Anyway, I got through this tricky interval, and even the sea co-operated for once, coming in just after the explosion and sweeping away any tell-tale tracks I might have left an hour or more before Diggs arrived from the village to inspect the scene.
Mrs Clamp was at the house when I got back, unloading the huge wicker hopper on the front of her ancient bike which lay propped against the kitchen table. She was busy stuffing our cupboards, the fridge and the freezer with the food and supplies she had brought from the town.
"Good morning, Mrs Clamp," I said pleasantly as I entered the kitchen. She turned to look at me. Mrs Clamp is very old and extremely small. She looked me up and down and said, "Oh, it's you, is it?" and turned back to the wicker hopper on the bike, delving into its depths with both hands, surfacing with long packages wrapped in newspaper. She staggered over to the freezer, climbed on to a small stool by its side, unwrapped the packages to reveal frozen packs of my beefburgers, and placed them in the freezer, leaning over it until she was almost inside. It struck me how easy it would be to- I shook my head clear of the silly thought. I sat down at the kitchen table to watch Mrs Clamp work.
"How are you keeping these days, Mrs Clamp?" I asked.
"Oh, I'm well enough," Mrs Clamp said, shaking her head and coming down off the stool, picking up some more frozen burgers and going back to the freezer. I wondered if she might ever get frostbite; I was sure I could see little crystals of ice glinting on her faint moustache.
"My, that's a big load you've brought for us today. I'm surprised you didn't fall over on the way here."
"You won't catch me falling over, no." Mrs Clamp shook her head once more, went to the sink, reached up and over while on her tip-toes, turned on the hot water, rinsed her hands, wiped them on her blue-check, bri-nylon work-coat and took some cheese from the bike.
"Can I make you a cup of something, Mrs Clamp?"
"Not for me," Mrs Clamp said, shaking her head inside the fridge, slightly below the height of the ice-making compartment.
"Oh, well, I won't, then." I watched her wash her hands one more time. While she started sorting out the lettuce from the spinach I took my leave and went up to my room.
We ate our usual Saturday lunch: fish, with potatoes from the garden. Mrs Clamp was at the other end of the table from my father instead of me, as is traditional. I sat halfway down the table with my back to the sink, arranging fish bones in meaningful patterns on the plate while Father and Mrs Clamp exchanged very formal, almost ritualised pleasantries. I made a tiny human skeleton with the bones of the dead fish and distributed a little ketchup about it to make it more realistic.
"More tea, Mr Cauldhame?" Mrs Clamp said.
"No, thank you, Mrs Clamp," my father replied.
"Francis?" Mrs Clamp asked me.
"No, thank you," I said. A pea would do for a rather green skull for the skeleton. I placed it there. Father and Mrs Clamp droned on about this and that.
"I hear the constable was down the other day, if you don't mind me saying so," Mrs Clamp said, and coughed politely.
"Indeed," my father said, and shovelled so much food into his mouth he wouldn't be able to speak for another minute or so. Mrs Clamp nodded at her much-salted fish and sipped her tea. I hummed, and my father glared at me over jaws like heaving wrestlers.
Nothing more was said on the subject.
Saturday night at the Cauldhame Arms and there I stood as usual at the back of the packed, smoke-filled room at the rear of the hotel, a plastic pint glass in my hand full of lager, my legs braced slightly on the floor in front of me, my back against a wallpapered pillar, and Jamie the dwarf sitting on my shoulders, resting his pint of Heavy on my head now and again and engaging me in conversation.
"What you been doin', then, Frankie?"
"Not a lot. I killed a few rabbits the other day and I keep getting weird phone calls from Eric, but that's about all. What about you?"
"Nothin" much. How come Eric's calling you?"
"Didn't you know?" I said, looking up at him. He leaned over and looked down at me. Faces look funny upside down. "Oh, he's escaped."
"Escaped?"
"Sh. If people don't know, there's no need to tell them. Yeah, he got out. He's called the house a couple of times and he says he's coming this way. Diggs came and told us the day he broke out."