MOONLIGHT – SOFT, MAGICAL – blazing a pure white trail along the drove, spotlighting the purplish smudge of Glastonbury Tor as it rose like a phallic symbol from shadowed fields, and touching the lattice-work of rhynes with silver. Nothing moved. The world was dead, enfolded in the wings of a primeval night; silent, unknowing.
Twister had reversed his old green van through an open gateway into a field and tucked it behind a hedge; close enough to the farmhouse for him to reach it quickly should anything go wrong, yet far enough away to avoid attracting any unwelcome interest. Not that there was likely to be anyone wandering around the Somerset Levels at this time of the night to be interested – unless the dead could walk, of course.
He had watched Joe Mercier being put six feet under that very afternoon and he happened to know that the old farmer’s widow had gone to stay with her son in Taunton for a while, which meant that the farm would be unoccupied, visited only once a day by the local herdsman. That was what was so brilliant about the unsavoury profession he had taken over from his late father; you got to know things – like when a house was vacant and could be screwed without fear of discovery. And the added bonus was that no one would ever suspect the local undertaker of being the culprit? It was perfect cover.
Despite his confidence, however, he approached the dilapidated farmhouse cautiously. In two years of serial burglary he had never put a foot wrong and he was not about to start now.
A marsh bird rose with panic-stricken squawks from almost under his feet as he stepped on to the heavy steel plate that had been placed over the rhyne at the entrance to the farm and his heart jumped. But otherwise the night remained perfectly still and, encouraged, he moved on, heading through the open gateway and following the concrete driveway towards the house.
He had actually made the hard-standing separating the house from a cluster of outbuildings and was almost past an open-fronted woodshed when he heard the sharp clinking sound and glimpsed the stab of a flashlight through a gap in the double doors of a large barn opposite.
Ducking into the woodshed, he crouched behind a stack of recently cut logs and froze, eyes narrowed, heart pounding. Who the hell was in the barn, and what were they doing there at this hour? It was hardly likely to be the Merciers or the wandering herdsman at just after one in the morning. So who? Then he saw the vehicle. It was a Land Rover Defender – one of the workhorses regularly used by farmers all over the Levels – and it was parked on a ragged gravel area between the barn and an adjacent cowshed. It was the only vehicle in the farmyard, but it was nothing like old man Mercier’s own run-about and it certainly couldn’t be confused with the herdsman’s distinctive yellow Toyota 4 x 4.
So someone else had decided to pay the farm a visit, had they? Someone who must also have known that it would be unoccupied after the funeral and had chosen to sneak into the place at an hour when most decent folk were tucked up in bed. Twister scowled. It seemed he had a competitor then, but if that was the case, he needed to know who that competitor was.
Leaving the woodshed, he took a chance and darted through the blaze of moonlight to the front of the Land Rover. He put his hand in front of the radiator. Still very warm, so matey hadn’t been here long then. Peering at the index plate, he made a mental note of the registration number, just in case.
More clinking from inside the barn and the strong smell of petrol. He crept up to the double doors and peered through the gap. A shadowy figure – a man without doubt, going by his heavy build – was crouching beside a tractor in the light of a powerful flash lamp set on an overturned crate. Around him bits of other machinery intruded into the circle of light – including a large sit-on mower and a digger of some sort – while bales of what looked like hay or straw were dimly visible, stacked in a solid wall behind him. It was difficult to see what the man was up to, but he appeared to be doing something to the tractor’s engine.
Could be it was all perfectly legit, of course – a mechanic working late – but somehow that seemed just a little bit too implausible. More likely that this one had come to nick parts off the tractor or lift anything else that was lying around and that posed a problem in itself. Whatever he was up to, Twister knew he would have to bide his time until the job was done; breaking into the house was much too risky with matey-boy up to his tricks just a few yards away.
Reluctantly he slipped into a narrow passageway between the barn and a ruined cowshed to wait – and he didn’t have to wait long. Just minutes later one of the barn doors opened with a shuddering scraping sound and the mystery man emerged in the full flood of moonlight. Risking a quick glance round the corner, Twister only caught the briefest glimpse of the man’s face before jerking back out of sight – but it was enough. He recognized him immediately. How could he forget a past client who had opted for such an elaborate and costly funeral for his mother? Then there was the quick rap of footsteps on the concrete, followed by the crack of door hinges. The Land Rover’s engine started up seconds before the driver’s door was slammed shut and even as Twister poked his head round the corner of the barn, there was a squeal of tyres as the vehicle pulled away under power.
For a moment Twister watched it lumber away down the driveway, its rear lights only coming on as it turned on to the drove and headed for the main road.
‘Well, now, Mr Terry Duval, you were in a bit of a hurry, weren’t you, my old son,’ he murmured to himself. ‘I wonder why.’
Slipping through the still open door of the barn, he produced a masked torch from his pocket and directed the beam round the interior. As he had suspected, the place was jam-packed with machinery of one sort or another and the stench of petrol was overpowering. Holding a handkerchief up against his nose, he focused the beam on the tractor and was surprised to see that it appeared intact. Then he noticed something else: the floor beneath his shoes seemed to be soaking wet. As the beam of his torch jerked sideways in a sudden reflexive movement, he spotted the petrol cans tied together under the tractor and the small oblong box attached to one of them that winked at him knowingly from the shadows with its tiny pulsing eye.
And it was then that he turned and ran.