“Look at him, fat old fart,” Edith muttered under her breath. In the circle of the spotter’s scope, her father loomed large as life and twice as ugly. “Parking cars. About all he’s good for.”
She was tucked in alongside Bardwell in the back of the Land Rover. The space between the wheel arches was narrow and, of the two, he was the one who needed comfort, position, so Edith was curled awkwardly around him. She was on her side, half-twisted so she could use the scope, with the ridged metal floor painful beneath her ribs.
By necessity in the confined bed, her pelvis was wedged against Bardwell’s hip, her sternum pressing into his elbow. The enforced intimacy brought a flustered warmth to her cheeks, a quiver to her breath.
As soon as Bardwell had fired his first shot, they’d collapsed the hide and withdrawn, back to where the Land Rover was parked, hidden from the show field. It had only taken a moment to clip the gun into its hiding place underneath, Edith keeping watch. Then they pulled out sedately onto the road heading for Raisbeck.
It was only a short drive to the north. The ground sloped up towards Raisbeck Wood, with High Pike behind. Bardwell backed the Land Rover onto a grass verge at an angle, swinging open the rear door to obscure the outline of the Barrett, its bipod feet resting securely on top of the dry stone wall.
Now, he lifted his head a fraction from the gun, enough to meet her eyes. His were grey, nondescript, and he never seemed to blink.
“Want me to take him out?”
For a moment Edith’s breath stopped. “You’re not serious?” she gasped, her heart restarting with a jerk. “I mean, you’d really do that? For me?”
He twitched one shoulder, dropped his eye back to the sight.
Edith lay silent for a moment. Did she really want to be rid of her father? She’d wished it occasionally, but suddenly she was faced with it as a real prospect.
An image jumped into her head of the Colosseum in Rome. They’d done it in history at school, and everybody had seen the movies. She imagined herself sitting high above the bloodshed with the emperor, in the finest silks, waving a languid arm towards the carnage acted out for her entertainment below.
Her father’s plump figure inserted itself into the fantasy, standing fearfully in the bloodied sand, still in his police uniform. A half-naked gladiator, agleam with the blood of his victories, stood over him with sword raised. The warrior lifted his eyes to meet hers, enraptured, asking.
Edith saw herself, a pale slender beauty surrounded by slaves, holding out a fist with her thumb concealed, teasing. Slowly, she rotated her arm so the thumb pointed upwards, which did not indicate mercy, the teacher had explained, but was an affirmation of the kill. The crowd swelled and shrieked, the sword flashed. And the last thing Edith saw was her father’s disbelieving gaze…
“No,” she said, unable to suppress a shiver. What good is it if he doesn’t know whose hand’s behind it? “Not yet.”
“Who then?”
“You mean…I get to choose this time?” Edith squirmed, then froze, but he never gave any indication he’d felt her move against him, never mind been affected. She remembered his passion that day at the byre. Wanted me then, didn’t he?
“You’ve already done who I wanted.”
“So? Pick another.” And there was something intense about him now. “Clock’s ticking.”
She felt her throat tighten at his disappointment, pressed her eye to the spotting scope again, scanning desperately. And then, amid the sea of white-clad figures, one leapt out at her. There!
“Got it.”
“Sure?”
“Yes,” Edith said, emphatic. “Final answer.”