The local police told Troy that the quickest way to get him back to London was for them to drive him south to Exeter, where he could board an express to Paddington.
Anna wanted to come with him but Troy kept saying no until she gave in.
“Finish your holiday,” he said.
“It’ll be no fun.”
“It’ll be less fun. You were planning to do the walks alone anyway—and I’ve done half with you. It’s only a couple of days. Finish your holiday. Pick up the car and I’ll see you back in London on Wednesday night.”
She had been tearful. Not for the first time he wondered what it was she wasn’t saying. But on the train, in a deeply sprung and ancient ex-GWR first-class compartment, hauled by a somewhat newer ex–Southern Railway Bulleid Pacific locomotive at one hundred miles per hour, he gave in to the diddley-da, diddley-dum, sat back, and slept. Only when he woke to find the train rattling across Salisbury Plain did a vision of Anna at the wheel of his mother’s car, foot on the floor at one hundred and ten miles per hour, come to him.