SIR ARCHIE WATCHED from the door of the gun-room as Fergus and his party squeezed into the big black Trooper next morning, and bumped away up the glen track.
He was well aware that he had played a low trick on Inspector Robb by going over his head to the Chief Constable, but what was the old boy network for if you didn’t pull strings when you needed to? At this stage of the cull, he couldn’t afford to lose a single day’s stalking, let alone have it indefinitely suspended. Any day now the weather might turn against them: it was essential to shoot all the stags they needed before mist, gales or snow forced them on to the low ground.
On a personal and practical level, he was by no means sorry to have seen the last of Beverley. Nicky had always been easily influenced, and any determined gold-digger could make mincemeat of him. If only, thought his father longingly, he would settle for Ashy, who would give him the kick-start he needed. Then there would be no need to involve Johnny in Glen Buie affairs after all. Though he would never have admitted it to his sister Marjorie, there was something about his elder nephew that set Sir Archie’s teeth on edge.
Johnny was shooting today, with Ashy as second rifle, should a second chance present itself. Maya and young Benjamin were in support, together with Robb’s sidekick. Sir Archie would have liked to go with them himself, but the Inspector had wanted Sergeant Winter to have a first-hand look at the ground, and any more would have made the party unmanageable. Reluctantly he had stood himself down, resigned to yet another day of frustrating inactivity.
Marjorie had gone fishing, and he thought he might join her later, though after a run of fine days the water was so low that she had little chance of catching anything on a fly.
Gwennie and Lady Priscilla, escorted by Wpc Kenny, had gone to visit Everard in hospital. That’s one person I shan’t be asking here again, thought Sir Archie. If Priscilla wants to come up next year, I’ll suggest she brings her son Lucas and leaves Everard to look after her dogs.
Catching sight of the purposeful figure of Inspector Robb heading towards the house, Sir Archie locked the gun-room door and hung the key on its nail hidden between two beams. Then he walked briskly out of the back door and down the path towards the river.
*****
‘Cheer up, laddie! It may never happen,’ said Donny with a wink as they jolted together in the back seat of the Trooper.
‘What may never happen?’
‘Whatever’s bugging you.’
Ben hunched his head into his shoulders and didn’t answer. He wasn’t in the mood for Donny’s banter, nor would he have come out today if his mother had not insisted. She had opened the door of his top-floor bedroom only minutes after he’d switched on his ghetto-blaster.
‘Turn that off at once. I didn’t bring you here to skulk in your room listening to that mindless rubbish.’
With a sulky glare, he had obeyed.
‘Go downstairs and get your boots on. Quick! The stalkers are leaving in five minutes.’
‘But, Mum – !’
‘Do as you’re told and don’t argue.’
He knew she would watch to make sure he obeyed. She had been looking for a way to get at him ever since she found Elspeth lying on the floor with him yesterday evening, giggling over Phat!
‘What are you doing up here?’ she had demanded then, while Elspeth pretended she didn’t exist.
‘She was lending me some tapes.’
‘I should have thought you had enough of your own without scrounging from the servants,’ his mother had said in the way that made him cringe. ‘Every drawer in your room is stuffed with the wretched things.’
He would have liked to tell her to keep her snoopy nose out of his drawers, but didn’t quite dare.
‘Demo tapes, Mum. Not the kind you buy. I need them for my Band.’
But she had allowed him no time to play through Elspeth’s tapes, let alone work on them last night; and this morning Elspeth had caught him in the serving-room during breakfast, and demanded them back.
‘What’s the rush? I haven’t nearly finished with them.’
‘I want them back. I’m leaving this afternon,’ she had said jerkily, and he noticed that her eyes were puffy and pink.
‘Leaving? Why?’
‘Never mind why,’ snapped Elspeth. ‘Kirsty’s giving me a lift to the ferry, and I want those tapes before I go.’ She had turned to carry out a stack of plates, but he caught her shoulder.
‘Wait! You’ve got to tell me why you’re going, and where I can get hold of you.’
‘The old cow has sacked me, that’s why,’ said Elspeth bitterly. ‘She’s had her knife into me ever since I was late back that night.’
‘Did Ishy tell on you?’ He lowered his voice, conscious that Maya was filling her coffee-cup on the other side of the serving-hatch, while Nicky piled his plate with sausages.
‘I don’t know. It was all your fault, but I’m the one gets the blame.’ She sniffed and said spitefully, ‘And you’re going to catch it when Sir Archibald hears what Angus Buchan’s got to say.’
‘Who’s Angus Buchan?’
‘One of the crofters. Those were his sheep that you –’
‘Oh, God!’ said Ben, paling visibly.
‘He wants compensation.’
‘But can he – does he know it was me?’
‘You’ll find out when he comes again tonight, won’t you? I wouldn’t be in your shoes then.’
He had looked at her with a spasm of dislike. Had he been crazy to ask her to sing with his group? She had talent, OK, but those tapes of hers needed a lot of work. Cut out the crummy tracks, sharpen up the backing. It would take him all morning...
He had said, ‘What’s your dad going to say?’
Elspeth shrugged. ‘I don’t care. Look, do I get my tapes back or not?’
‘Give me a chance. I haven’t played them through yet. I’ll give them back before you leave, honest.’
She had given him her insolent, upward-slanting look through her fringe, and he thought she was going to be difficult, but she said, ‘Meet you at the larder, then, but don’t be late. The ferry goes at three, and Kirsty won’t wait.’
She had hurried out of the serving-room, and Ben had gone through to the dining-room and wolfed his breakfast, eager to get up to his room and start work, but his mother’s intervention had ruined his plan.
You’d think Mum would be glad to see me doing something worthwhile, he thought morosely as the vehicle lurched and jolted. All she cares about is showing Uncle Archie what brilliant sporting sons she has. What’s so special about stalking, anyway? Any fool with a rifle can shoot a stag. Even that pompous fart Mr Cooper managed it in the end. I hope to God Mum gives up this grisly idea of making me work here during my gap year. I couldn’t bear that.
‘I’m sure your uncle can find a use for you,’ Marjorie had said, staring at him as if he was some botanical specimen she was planning to re-pot. ‘Nicky spent six months here, and it did him the world of good.’
‘He loathed every minute of it,’ said Ben, much alarmed. ‘He nearly died of boredom.’
‘Only boring people get bored,’ she had said maddeningly. ‘You spend far too much time indoors. It’s high time you got out to see the real world.’
If the group could see me now, they’d say this is unreal, thought Ben rebelliously. Five of us squashed into this rotting tin can, and Fergus driving like a maniac.
Silently Donny offered roll-ups. Maya shook her head, but Ben’s hand shot out.
‘Thanks.’
He glanced defiantly at his brother as he lit up, but Johnny was too busy gawping at Maya to notice. Wedged between the two boys, back against the rear door-handle and long legs stretched out, she looked elegant and at ease, but as she mulled over the conversation between Ben and Elspeth that she had overheard through the serving-hatch, she remembered the evening Elspeth had been late back on duty: the day Everard Cooper had shot his Royal... the day Beverley had been murdered.
It had also been Mary Grant’s day off. Coming wearily into the kitchen in search of a cup of tea, Maya had found Ishy alone there, flurried and furious, trying to do Elspeth’s work as well as her own.
‘She’s awa’ tae Tounie, leaving me single-handed,’ Ishy had said, tight-lipped. ‘She swore she’d be back by six at the latest, but that’s Elspeth all over. Give her an inch, and she takes an ell.’
‘Let me help,’ Maya had offered; and together they had managed to lay the table and dish up before the sacred eight-thirty deadline. Elspeth had not appeared until nearly ten, scuttling in through the boot-room to face the lash of Ishy’s tongue as well as the washing-up.
Where had she been all that time? Maya wondered, and why did she blame Ben? He had been back in good time himself, emerging pink and scrubbed from the bath as Maya hurried to her own bedroom to change.
Impossible to ask him now, with his brother listening. She glanced up, caught Johnny’s stare, and wished he would stop giving her soulful smiles.
On the bench seat in front, Ashy was talking softly to Fergus, who stared straight ahead, the knuckles of his muscular hands showing white as they gripped the wheel.
‘After you’d gone last night, that horrid old schoolmaster tried to chat me up. You know the one I mean.’
‘Hector Logie.’
‘That’s him. He showed me a whole heap of photographs, then told me he’d given better ones to the police. Fergus! You’re not listening.’
‘It’s nothing to me,’ he muttered without turning his head.
‘But it is!’
‘Keep your bloody voice down,’ he said, low and harsh, glancing in the mirror.
‘Fergus, darling, why won’t you listen?’
‘Because ye’re blethering.’
‘I’m trying to warn you. It’s no use saying you never went near the trout-loch last Tuesday if Logie has a photograph of you there. And Ian McNeil saw you come down to the track looking for Everard’s stag.’
‘Bloody man! Always where he’s least wanted.’
‘The police were talking to him last night in Jock Taggart’s parlour.’ Ashy stole a glance behind her, but the dog-guard and rifle-rack made an effective barrier between front and back seats. ‘Will you meet me at the pub tonight?’
‘I will not.’
‘Because of what I told you? Don’t be angry, my angel. I was only trying to help you.’
‘A nice mess you’ve made of it,’ said Fergus savagely. ‘Ye’d have done better to mind your own business. And don’t call me that.’
Ashy’s eyes crinkled. She began to sing softly, watching him sideways.
‘Tell me he’s lazy, tell me he’s slow,
Tell me I’m crazy, maybe I know,
Can’t help loving that man of mine!’
Fergus said harshly, ‘I thought you’d your sights set on Mr Nicky. Two for the price of one, is it, you’re wanting?’
The tune changed to Greensleeves: ‘Alas, my love, you do me wrong,’ sang Ashy, stepping up the volume.
‘Will you hold your wheesht?’
‘Not unless you meet me tonight. If you’re good, I’ll buy you a dram.’
‘I’ll buy my own bloody dram!’ exploded Fergus. ‘And for Christ’s sake take your hands off me. Do you want us in the bloody ditch?’
‘Goodness, you are in a bate,’ said Ashy, withdrawing her fingers from his pocket. ‘Better not let Johnny hear you. Did you know that Archie’s thinking of putting him in charge here next season?’
‘If he does, he’ll do it without me,’ said Fergus grimly, and slammed on his brakes.
The others crawled stiffly out of the back. Fergus conferred with Donny, who heaved the massive deer saddle from under the trailer’s tarpaulin and went whistling off towards the five-acre horse park where two shaggy ponies were grazing.
‘Right, sir,’ said Fergus briskly to Johnny. ‘We’ll take a spy up the face of Sgurr Connuil. If there’s nothing there, we’ll have a look into Corrie na Fearn. That way the sergeant will see where we were stalking last week, and get the lie of the land.’
‘Fine by me,’ said Winter. He looked assessingly but without apprehension at the rocky ramparts towering two thousand feet-odd above them. He belonged to a cross-country running club, and thought it unlikely that keeping pace with today’s company would give him any problem. The big girl, Ashy, was built for strength rather than speed, and Miss Ethnic Minority looked as if she would feel more at home on a catwalk than a mountain. John Forbes was slope-shouldered and gangling, and his young brother’s pinched white face and dark-rimmed eyes might have belonged to any inner-city hophead. If the party’s rate of ascent was determined by its slowest member, Winter thought the climb would be a doddle.
Steady rain was falling, but just below the line of cloud that blurred the skyline, half a dozen deer were scattered among the rocks, flecks of brown warmth against chilly grey. Fergus and Johnny studied them carefully through binoculars; then Fergus moved to sit with his back against a boulder, steadying the telescope between knee and stick.
‘Aye,’ he said at length, clicking the sections shut. ‘There’s some good beasts there, right enough. We’ll go on up the burn and take a look from the head of the corrie. All set?’
‘Half a tick,’ said Ashy. She took off her waterproof and tied it round her waist by the sleeves. After a momentary hesitation Maya did the same. In single file, with Fergus leading and Benjamin bringing up the rear, they splashed across the pebbly mouth of the burn and begun to climb the dark, narrow gully down which it flowed.
*****
Everard Cooper had activated his medical insurance, and had himself moved to a private room where he lay propped on pillows, looking pink and sleek and remarkably healthy in his blue silk pyjamas with a monogram on the pocket.
‘You can’t stay holed up here much longer,’ said his wife, looking down on him without sympathy. ‘There’s nothing wrong with you and no doubt they need the bed.’
‘Damn it, I’m paying, aren’t I?’
‘BUPA’s paying.’
‘Same thing. Look, Priss. I didn’t ask you to come and badger me. I’ve had about as much as I can take from the police. Was it you who sicced them on to Mona Peat?’
‘You’re paranoid about Mona Peat!’ She was puzzled as well as indignant. ‘Why should the police be interested in that?’
‘Because that bloody little slut Beverley was trying to blackmail me! You were the only person I told, so how else would the police hear of it?’
Lady Priscilla laughed scornfully. ‘My dear old numbskull, since you were the one who pulled her out of the river, it’s hardly likely that you would have put her in it. The police aren’t that thick.’
For once he was too worried to resent being patronised. ‘The theory is that I shot her, and someone else dumped her in the river.’
‘Absurd!’ She stared at him for a moment, then added with less certainty, ‘Isn’t it?’
‘It’s preposterous. That’s what I’ve told them, again and again. I might as well talk to a brick wall.’
‘All right,’ she challenged. ‘Tell me your story. See if I believe it.’
He looked down at the hospital blanket, lower lip thrust forward, and began plucking at a loose thread. ‘There’d have been none of this hassle if Archie had allowed me to shoot a decent head,’ he muttered.
‘What d’you mean?’ she said incredulously. ‘You had umpteen chances and missed the lot.’
‘Only because they all had such miserable little antlers.’
His wife said slowly, ‘Are you telling me you’ve been missing on purpose?’
‘Of course. I came up here hoping to bag a couple of good heads for the boardroom. You know we’ve just had it done up?’
Wordlessly she shook her head, and he said, ‘Of course not. You’re never interested in how money is made, only in spending it. Well, a couple of sets of good-looking antlers are just what it needs, and I told Archie so when we arrived, but you know what he’s like. ‘Sorry, old boy. No trophy-hunting here.” So I thought, Right, I’ll see if a few quid make Sandy and Fergus a bit more co-operative.’
‘Did it?’ Her face betrayed nothing but polite interest.
Everard said disgustedly, ‘I honestly believe they went out of their way to make sure I didn’t get what I wanted. There’s no shortage of good beasts, but they made damned sure they didn’t give me a chance at one. However!’ He brightened up and began to speak more quickly, his fingers steadily unravelling the loose thread.
‘At about four last Tuesday, I spotted this beautiful Royal lying a little way beyond the hummel which Fergus wanted me to shoot, and I thought, Right, mate: this is for you. I had him in my sights just nicely, and was waiting for him to stand, when suddenly he jumped up and was away almost before I could get off the safety. I had to take a snap shot, and knew I’d hit him, although he kept going. Fergus thought I’d missed, and told me to fire again, but of course he was looking at the wrong stag. I saw my Royal swing downhill, then stop, so I fired again; and blow me if that infernal woman didn’t pop up from behind a rock, staring round like a startled rabbit, and then duck back out of sight.’
‘You’re sure it was Beverley?’
‘No question.’
Lady Priscilla sat for a moment in silence, nibbling her lower lip. ‘Did Fergus see her?’ she said at last.
‘I can’t tell.’ He shook his big head like a baffled and dangerous bull. ‘He didn’t say anything, but then, of course, he wouldn’t.’
‘He must have said something.’
‘Well, yes. Obviously at that point he still thought I was trying to shoot his wretched hummel, and supposed I’d missed again, but I knew bloody well that I’d hit the Royal. I wasn’t going to let on until I was sure it was dead, though, so I played dumb, and just said, ‘Hang on, Fergus. I think that beast was hit. We’d better go and have a look.” He argued, of course, but I insisted, and eventually he told me to stay where I was, while he went on with the rifle. The minute he was out of sight, I slid down to where I’d last seen the Royal, and there he was, dead as a doornail.’
He grinned at the memory, but Lady Priscilla was in no mood to applaud. ‘Where was Beverley?’ she said sharply.
‘No sign of her.’
‘You’re quite sure you didn’t hit her with your second shot?’
‘Positive,’ he said a shade too quickly. ‘By then it was pissing with rain and blowing half a gale, and I was worried that Maya would be frozen stiff where we’d left her. So I shouted for Fergus, and waved him up; and as soon as he came back to where the Royal was lying, I went to collect Maya.’
So that she would act as a curb on Fergus’s tongue, thought Lady Priscilla with contempt. ‘Did you tell Fergus about seeing Beverley?’
‘No.’
He hesitated. ‘But while I was waiting for Fergus to come up to me and the stag, I’m almost sure I heard a shot. I did ask him if he’d heard it too, but he said it must have been the other party on Carn Mhor.’
‘But that’s miles away.’
‘Exactly.’
‘How much of this have you told the police?’
‘Everything, apart from seeing Beverley practically under the feet of my Royal. Why put ideas into their heads?’
She was silent, recognising the unnaturally frank, steady-eyed gaze he adopted when bluffing. ‘It’s no good expecting me to help you unless you tell me the truth.’
‘I am,’ he insisted. ‘The trouble is, it’s Fergus’s word against mine. As far as the police are concerned, we were both in the right place at the right time, and I had a reason to want her dead, while as far as they know, he hadn’t. As far as they know,’ he repeated with emphasis. ‘What you’ve got to do, my angel, is find out why Fergus should have had it in for her. Do a bit of digging. Talk to the housemaids, or Mary Grant, or even Sandy’s old mother. She’s the biggest gossip on the place.’
‘Why the hell should I do your dirty work?’
‘Because you’re so good at chatting up the lower orders.’ His smile was malicious. ‘Your lovely daughter takes after you, doesn’t she?’
‘Meaning?’ said Lady Priscilla coldly.
‘Wasn’t there a spot of bother during her last year at school? With one of the gardeners? And that Greek waiter – I heard you had to buy him off: hardly the sort of son-in-law you’re looking for. But I can tell you this: unless she stops running after Fergus like a bitch on heat, dear Ashy is going to bugger up her chances of catching Nicky Hanbury on the rebound, that’s for sure.’
Lady Priscilla regarded her husband with distaste. How could she have left poor Mikey McLeod – so honourable and oh, so painfully dull! – for this hairy-heeled shyster?
‘Leave Ashy out of this,’ she snapped.
‘How can I, when the wretched girl has landed me in the shit?’ he responded angrily. ‘Why did she have to interfere? If she had left Beverley where she found her, instead of dumping her in the river –’
‘Ashy did? Don’t be absurd.’
Everard hitched himself higher on the pillows and spoke with new vigour. ‘Listen, Priss. Ashy was up at the trout-loch, painting, on Wednesday afternoon when Maya found the body – right?’
She nodded.
‘And when Maya didn’t come back, Ashy walked up to the head of the loch, looking for her. That’s what she told us, didn’t she?’
Lady Priscilla said slowly, ‘I suppose she could have looked under the boat, too...’
‘Could? I’m damned sure she did, because she already knew it was there. Why? Because she put it there herself the day before. Remember she was with Archie’s party on Carn Mhor, and when the stalkers crawled in for the shot, they left her looking straight across at Carn Beag. I’ll lay you any money you like that she saw Fergus run down to the track looking for my beast, which would have been his chance to take a snapshot at Beverley before coming back to me. I’ve been lying here thinking it out, and I’m sure that’s what happened.’
He paused, then said casually, ‘That Robb fellow came here with a blow-up taken by some bloody twitcher who was in his hide on that cliff above the trout-loch on Wednesday afternoon. It showed a boat just pulling away from the shore at the top. Robb asked me if I recognised who was in it.’
Lady Priscilla caught her breath sharply. ‘You didn’t say it was Ashy?’
‘Do you take me for a fool?’ He stared out of the window and said slowly, ‘There’s no doubt in my mind that Ashy found Beverley’s body on Tuesday afternoon, when she stopped for a pee on the way home. It must have been between the track and the loch. She pulled the boat over it to hide it, and reckoned she’d save Fergus a heap of grief if she dumped it in the river in the one pool where no one was likely to find it. So she went back next day, sent Nicky and Maya off in different directions, and when they were well out of sight she did exactly that.’
Lady Priscilla shook her head. ‘The Greeting Pool must be nearly a mile from the trout-loch. How could Ashy get the body down there?’
‘On the pony, of course. Remember how late Ashy got back that evening? How she said she’d had trouble with the pony? I’ll lay you any money you like that what old Rory was objecting to was having a stiff loaded on to his saddle along with the painting gear.’
‘I can’t – I simply cannot believe that Ashy –’
‘Well, I can.’ He saw her uncertainty and pressed his advantage. ‘And if you don’t want me to air that particular theory to Inspector Robb –’
‘You wouldn’t!’
‘Care to bet?’
‘All right,’ she said abruptly. ‘I’ll dig out any lowdown I can on Fergus. But don’t expect –’ she broke off as a trim blonde nurse bustled in.
‘Time for your bath, Mr Cooper.’
‘I’m just off,’ said Lady Priscilla, uncoiling herself from the low armchair. ‘I’ll look in tomorrow if there’s time.’
‘Don’t strain yourself.’ Everard winked at the nurse. ‘These lovely girls know how to make me comfortable.’
As Lady Priscilla walked away down the shiny corridor, she heard a stifled squeal followed by a slap and, a moment later, her husband’s loud chortle.
****
To his surprise, Sergeant Winter was enjoying himself. Though the climb had been stiffer than he expected, and he had soon been obliged to shed both anorak and sweater, the slow, unvarying pace set by Fergus had brought the party up to the heights with very little hardship.
Now, as the mist cleared, he saw for the first time the grand spread of peaks stretching to the limit of vision like a petrified sea of grey crests and ridges, interspersed with deep troughs: a view that car-bound visitors to the Highlands never guessed existed.
Below them, a veil of low cloud hung over the shining thread of the Buie river, with its fringes of green oak, red-berried rowan, and elegantly branched Caledonian pine. Here and there a glimpse of the river track could be seen, winding along the bank above spate-level, with wooden bridges spanning the many small burns rushing down to join the parent stream. As they climbed, the lush, coarse grass of the lower slopes had shaded into this thin, flaxen-tipped sedge and cottongrass, gradually tinting a deeper gold until the vegetation between the outcrops of rock they were now traversing was tipped with ginger and bronze.
Cloud-shadows dappled the heights, and accentuated the dark-blue hollows, while away at the far horizon, hills and sky merged in a grey-blue haze. Winter checked his compass, and noted that the wind, which in the glen had blown steadily from the north, was at this height swirling in from an easterly quarter, and this was dictating Fergus’s oblique approach to the group of stags they had seen from below, in order to keep his party constantly downwind of their quarry.
Even more to his surprise, Winter found himself very keen to come up with that quarry.
Twice they had interrupted the climb to rest for a few minutes and observe the deer. The half-dozen big stags that had been visible from the track were now revealed as part of a much larger mixed group of beasts, scattered among the boulders and overhanging cliffs a couple of hundred feet below the summit.
‘We won’t be able to get above them with the wind as it is,’ Johnny had muttered, elbows propped on knees to steady his binoculars, and Fergus grunted assent.
‘We’ll crawl up under them. There’s cover enough so long as some damned old hind doesna spot us and give the alarm. How are ye doing, Mrs Alec?’
‘Fine, thanks.’ Maya smiled at him, but Ashy’s face was turned away. Benjamin, too, stared sullenly into the glen, taking no interest in the stalk. Winter himself would have liked to ask questions, notably how Fergus planned to cross the open ground between them and the next cluster of boulders, and had to remind himself that he was only here to observe. The less attention he drew, the better.
It was cold at this height, and although he had been sweating when they halted, the wind soon began to cut through his shirt. He was glad when they set off again, but before they had climbed more than fifty feet obliquely across the steep, rock-strewn slope, Fergus suddenly froze.
A loud, indignant, sibilant sniff that was almost a bark sounded directly in front of them. Peering over Maya’s shoulder, Winter glimpsed an upflung, inquisitorial nose pointing at them, and smelt the warm, rank pungency of a stag.
Crouching, Fergus signalled them back, and the party retreated with ape-like haste, knees bent and fingers to ground, until a shoulder of hill hid them.
‘We maun get round that young bugger,’ said Fergus, taking the rifle from its sleeve.
‘One up the spout?’ said Johnny quickly.
‘Not just yet awhile, Ready, now?’
He led the way back at a cracking pace, making a big swing that would bring them above the young sentinel. Winter lost count of the times they crossed and recrossed the rocky burn, following the faintest thread of path. As it flattened out in a desolate bowl-like corrie where pools of standing water shone black between tussocks of sedge, he realised he had quite lost his sense of direction.
Before he could consult his compass, they were moving again, crawling forward with deer all about them, outlying hinds and young staggies forming a defensive barrier around the big beasts. Sometimes they hurried, sometimes they crouched or lay flat, faces pressed into the soggy, boggy ground. To his chagrin, Winter discovered that the canvas-panelled hiking-boots which he had chosen from the Tounie emporium gave him little purchase on wet vegetation and none at all on wet rock. Despite his efforts to keep pace with Maya, next up the line, the gap between them constantly widened.
Panting hard, he tumbled down an overhung peat bank into a gully, landing almost on top of Maya, who sat there alone amid a tangle of sticks and coats and haversacks.
‘They’ve gone on,’ she whispered; and a moment later, staring over his shoulder, she asked, ‘Where’s Ben?’