The Runaways (8 page)

He took the letter to a corner wall cupboard which he had previously looked into. It held bottles of drink and glasses and also a half-empty box of cigars. Smiler reckoned that Mrs Bagnall was not likely to open the cigar box, but the Major would when he returned… perhaps the first evening. He put the letter in the box.

A few minutes later, the cottage locked, Smiler was back in the barn. He stowed all his loose stuff away out of sight under a hay bale. Dressed in a clean shirt and socks, his own jeans, the grey pullover and the anorak and the Wellington boots, he was ready to tackle Warminster.

Shutting the barn door after him, he wheeled the bicycle from the car bay around the back of the barn. A small path led around it and out through a field gate a little above the main gate entrance to the cottage courtyard.

Smiler freewheeled down past the cottage over the greystoned river bridge and began to pedal up the slope to the main road. He had already memorized his route from the map which he carried in his anorak pocket along with the handkerchief full of fivepenny pieces.

The side road met the main road just above the village of Crockerton – which Smiler later found out was little more than a handful of houses with a post office and general store. He turned right on the main road and twenty minutes later was in Warminster. He had already given himself a lecture on how he was to behave once he had left his shelter. The thing to do was to act naturally and as though you had a perfect right to be doing whatever you were doing. People only noticed you if you let your worry about being noticed show. So Smiler rode into Warminster whistling to himself. He parked his bike against a wall in the High Street and went into a newsagent and bought a copy of the local newspaper. It was called
The Warminster Journal and Wilts County Advertiser
, and it cost him fivepence. He was rather pleased with himself that he had already taken out a few fivepenny pieces from his handkerchief, so that he didn't have to haul his bundle out in the shop to get at his money. He put the newspaper in his pocket and then cycled around the town a bit to get the lie of the land. Although he was acting naturally, he knew that any moment something could go wrong. That being so, he knew it was wise to have some idea of his bearings and possible escape routes.

He ended up in the free car park near the railway station, rested his bike against a wall and went into the cafeteria. Once inside, the warmth and smell of food made him realize that he was very hungry. He got himself a plate of sausage rolls, two slabs of fruit cake and a cup of coffee and then sat in the window where he could keep an eye on his parked bicycle.

He drank and ate with relish. He decided that it might be going to turn out his lucky day. He'd got fresh clothes, a fresh appearance, a bike to get about on, and money in his pocket. So far, no one had so much as given him a curious glance, not even a policeman who had walked past him on the pavement as he came out from buying the newspaper.

On the inside of the very first page of the newspaper, under the
Situations Vacant
column – sandwiched between
Experienced Sales Woman wanted to take charge of boutique (outer wear and underwear departments)
and (believe it or not and Smiler had to chuckle)
Male Cleaner, full or part-time, required at Warminster Police Station
– was a job going that sounded right up his street. It read:

STRONG LAD wanted, kennel work, experience not necessary, good wages, free lunch. – Mrs Angela Lakey, Danebury Kennels, Heytesbury.

Well, Samuel M., he thought, that sounded all right, particularly the free lunch. For a moment he remembered longingly Sister Ethel's Irish stews. Whatever else she was not, she was a jolly good cook. Kennels, eh? Well, he liked dogs and he supposed he could be called strong. But where was Heytesbury? He didn't want to be too far from his barn if he could help it. Always supposing he got the job, of course. He took out his map and consulted it. It didn't take him long to find Heytesbury, which was just inside the right-hand edge of the map. It was about three miles south-east of Warminster. He saw that he could take a back road from Heytesbury, through a place called Sutton Veny, and, by another side road, come down to the river below Crockerton without having to go into Warminster at all. He worked out that by this route – if he got the job – he would only have about three or four miles to go.

A few minutes later Smiler was cycling east from Warminster towards Heytesbury along the main road, wondering what Mrs Angela Lakey would be like.

Yarra, when she left the barn that morning, followed her usual route up the river, keeping just inside the fringe of the woods, but she was unlucky with her hunting. Half a mile from the cottage she put up a drake mallard from the edge of a swampy hollow just inside the wood. The drake went up like a rocket and with him, unexpected by Yarra, went his mate. For a moment the choice of two targets made Yarra hesitate. When she leapt for the female mallard she missed it by a foot. Farther on in the woods she put up a wily old buck hare.

The hare raced away down the wooded slope, twisting and turning. Yarra went after him, but his twists and turns in and out of the trees balked her of a clear, fast run. At the bottom of the slope Yarra expected the hare to turn up or down the river bank. The hare, however, which had lived a long time and knew when something faster than he was on his tail, took off from the bank in a long leap. He splashed into the water and swam across. Yarra pulled up on her haunches and watched him go. Only if she were absolutely forced to it would she take to the water. She watched the hare go caterwise down the river with the strong current and then pull himself out on the other side and disappear. She wrinkled her mask in disgust. She was hungry now and even more restless than she had been on any other day. Because of this she was in a bad temper. She raked the ground with her back legs, her talons sending a shower of dead leaves and twigs and earth flying. An hour later, she was almost at the end of the wooded valley slope where the trees gave way to rough pasture. Fifty yards ahead she saw a lean grey shape at the edge of the water. Yarra froze and watched.

It was a heron standing in two inches of water where the flooded river lapped just over the bank. Below the heron a back eddy had cut a deep pool close in under the bank. It was a favourite fishing place of the heron. When the water was high he knew that the trout and grayling liked to get out of the main current and seek the shelter of the slower pools and back eddies near the bank. Here, too, in winter there was more food than in mid-stream for often the floods washed fat worms, grubs, and insects out of the eroding banks and floated them down for the taking.

Yarra watched the heron for a while and then lowered her body close to the ground and began to stalk him. She kept close to the cover of the winter dry clumps of flags and reeds and the high tufts of dead nettle stems. She had never seen a heron before. The bird moved once, sliding its head an inch lower, dagger-like beak a foot from the stream.

The heron, the wisest and most cautious of birds and possessed of infinite patience, was well aware of Yarra. When she was thirty yards away he had caught, from the corner of his eye, the slight sideways flick of her tufted tail. There were times in Yarra's mounting excitement when she could not stop that momentary flick. But the heron – hungry like Yarra, hungry as all wild birds and beasts are during the lean months of winter – meant to have his meal. He had fished all morning without success. Now, riding in the back eddy, not three feet below him was a good-sized grayling, moving up and down on the alert for food, but so far not rising high enough for the heron to risk a thrust of his beak.

Yarra worked her way forward five yards more and knew that she needed another two yards before she could risk her forward spring and leap. Some instinct in the old heron, who still held Yarra in the corner of his eye as he watched the grayling, told him exactly when he could risk himself no more. Flat to the ground Yarra inched herself forward. She was bunching her muscles for her leap when the grayling below the heron came surfacewards like a slim airship rising. The heron's beak rapiered downwards and took the fish. With the movement Yarra sprang and the heron rose, great grey-pearl wings spreading wide, his long legs tucking up behind him. He planed away and flipped the grayling round in his beak to hold it sideways across the body. Behind him there was a splash. He drifted down river and climbed leisurely into the wind.

Yarra's slashing right forepaw had missed the heron by a foot. Unable to stop her forward progress entirely the front part of her long body came down in the water. For a moment, until her strong haunches could hold and then haul her back, her forepaws and head and shoulders went under.

She pulled herself back on to the bank and shook her head to free her eyes of water. More bad-tempered than ever, she sat on her haunches and licked at her shoulders and neck mantle, grumbling angrily to herself. It was at this moment that she heard down river the sound of men's voices and the bang and rattle of sticks against the trees.

Yarra, disturbed by the noise, headed away up river at a lope. At the edge of the wood she turned uphill, making for the high ground and the wide stretches of pasture, downland and young plantations which she had visited on previous days.

Behind her moved the hunt. It had been well organized by the Cheetah Warden. Making up the hunt were local farmers, gamekeepers and other volunteers. There were also several policemen on foot with walkie-talkie sets to keep in touch with four patrol cars. These cars were set out along the main roads that, with Warminster as its apex, formed a triangle marked at the extremities of its base by Longbridge Deverill (a mile on from Crockerton) to the south and Heytesbury to the south-east. In the middle of the base road joining Longbridge Deverill and Heytesbury was the village of Sutton Veny.

A long line of beaters had been formed early that morning on the southern outskirts of Warminster. Now, spread wide across the valley, the line was moving up river. Beyond Crockerton the line had swept round, formed up along the right bank of the river and was beating its way uphill through a wide stretch of trees and plantations known as Southleigh Woods. At this very moment the Cheetah Warden was standing on the river bank where the hare had leaped into the river, bending over the spoor marks Yarra had left in a soft patch of mud.

It was two o'clock in the afternoon when Smiler found his way to Danebury Kennels. At the far end of Heytesbury a small road ran off to the left, up a narrow valley that sloped down into the main valley of the River Wylye. Danebury House was a mile up this road, approached by a short drive. It was a large red-bricked house with an untidy lawn in front of it and stable and kennel blocks at the rear. A narrow strip of vegetable garden ran up the hill at the back of the house. On the far side of the house was a thick standing of beech and birch trees.

Smiler rang the front door bell and waited. Nothing happened. A cold wind was sweeping up the hillside and he was glad of his pullover and anorak. He rang the door bell again. A few minutes later he heard a soft shuffling noise inside. The door was opened. Standing before him was a very tall, very large woman of about forty. She had a big, squarish, red face and an untidy mop of short black hair. She wore a green sweater tucked into the top of riding breeches. On her feet were long, thick, red woollen stockings one of which had a hole in it through which part of a big toe showed. She was holding a leg of cold chicken in her hand. As she chewed on a mouthful she surveyed Smiler as though he were something that the dog had brought home. She finished her chewing and then said brusquely, ‘Well, boy?'

Smiler, not sure of his ground, pulled the newspaper from his pocket and said, ‘Please, Ma'am, I've come about the job.'

She eyed him for a moment, then looked at the chicken bone, which was now gnawed clean, and tossed it away out to the lawn over his head.

‘Oh, you have, have you? Well, let's have a look at you. Turn round.' Her voice was brisk, but not unkind, and there was a small twinkle in her dark eyes.

Smiler obediently turned round, facing the lawn. A small Jack Russell terrier came out of the beech coppice, trotted across the grass, picked up the chicken leg and went back into the trees with it. Somewhere at the back of the house what seemed like a pack of a hundred dogs all began to bark and howl together.

From behind him the woman – who was Mrs Angela Lakey – said briskly, ‘Right. Nothing wrong with rear view. Turn round.'

Obediently Smiler turned about. Mrs Lakey reached out and took the top of his right arm in a firm grasp and felt his muscles.

‘Strong boy wanted,' she said. ‘How strong are you, boy?'

‘I'm strong enough, I think, Ma'am.'

‘Time will show.' Mrs Lakey bent forward a little, peered at his face and said, ‘ You're very sunburnt for this time of the year, aren't you?'

Smiler said quickly, ‘My skin's always like that, Ma'am.'

‘Don't call me Ma'am – call me Mrs Lakey. What I'll call you from time to time – if you get the job – is nobody's business. All right, come in and let's have your particulars.' She turned away down the hall. As Smiler followed, she called over her shoulder, ‘Shut the door. Fresh air's for outside houses, not inside.'

She led the way down the hall and into a side room. It was a large, bright room, very lofty, and looked out over the lawn. And it was like no room Smiler had ever seen before. Around the walls were hung fox masks and brushes, glass cases with stuffed fish and birds in them, and a thick patchwork of framed photographs of horses and dogs. Over the big open fireplace, in which burnt a pile of great three-foot length logs, was a large oil painting of a fresh-faced, grey-haired man dressed in white breeches and hunting pink. He sat in a highbacked chair and held a riding crop in one hand and a large full brandy glass in the other. (Later, Smiler learnt that this was Mrs Lakey's dead father who had been a Colonel of the Hussars.) Before the fire, between two shabby leather armchairs, was a round table which held a tray of cold food and a full glass with a thick white froth on it which Smiler – because of his father – immediately recognized as a glass of stout. On the back wall of the room were rows of rod-rests with fishing rods stretched across them. Below these was a long low book-case full of volumes packed into it in an untidy jumble. There was a large rolltop desk just inside the door, open, and crammed to bursting with papers and all sorts of odds and ends, including a very old typewriter.