A little over a mile away, eye hovering behind the Unertl sight, Patrick Bardwell tracked the young policeman’s progress until he disappeared from view.
He lay behind the long gun in a hollowed-out hide that veed into the hillside above Bowderdale. A latticework of spindly branches holding up a roof made from turf cut from beneath him. In front was a partial curtain of nettles. From above, even close to, he blended into the terrain almost perfectly. Just a narrow pocket, like he’d opened up a piece of the earth and slipped inside, safe as the womb. Did it all before the sun came up. They’d have to be almost on top of him before they realised he was there.
Not that anyone was looking.
With the benefit of the hide, Bardwell had abandoned his ghillie suit. Good job, the way he was sweating. Instead, he wore nondescript hiking clothes, same as a thousand others out on the Lakeland fells on a Saturday in June when the weather hung slumberous and heavy.
Three water canteens were stacked by his right hand; two full and one sacrificed onto the hard-packed ground just in front of the muzzle to damp the telltale dust from the flare. The canteen had a wide mouth, too, just in case the need arose. Not that Bardwell expected he’d have to use it. Wouldn’t be there long enough. But if so, a full bladder was a distraction he could do without.
He had the familiar feeling of slipping outside his skin, acutely aware of the atmosphere around him, of each lazy breath of wind that ruffled the grass between his position and the killing ground beyond. Everything else narrowed down, filtered out like distant background chatter as other senses came to prominence. It always happened, the outside world softening down until the only thing he could see clearly was the target, and even the beat of his own heart matched the trance-like pace he’d set. They’d tried to explain it to him as a form of self-protection, so he could make each kill without the reality of it troubling his conscience.
He’d nodded, impatient to be done with them, but in truth, he’d never had any trouble in that regard.
Even so, he recognised that this one was different. This was not the result of orders passed down, of tactical objectives decided further up the chain, of risks evaluated by some nerdy little analyst crouched safe in a bunker, miles from the fight.
This was his choice. He was here because he wanted to be. Because he’d promised. Because it needed to be done. And the only unexpected factor, the only thing that might possibly have compromised him, he’d dealt with.
“Well?” he demanded, gruff. “What can you see?”
Cramped alongside him, Edith Airey lifted her eyes away from the spotter’s scope, blinked a few times as her sight adjusted to the dim closeness. She was wearing old jeans and the camouflage jacket she used for hunting rabbits, a pair of ear defenders bunched awkwardly on top of her head.
In the confined space he could almost smell her excitement.
“Everything.” Her voice was filled with a fierce wonder. “I can see everything.”