Walking to village.
He put the envelope on the kitchen table. It was still early, but the text had come through half an hour ago. Judith was still asleep and he moved about quietly, without opening the shutters, anxious to be down the slope and away long before she woke.
It would be hot later but now the sky was pale with a haze on the horizon. Richard struck across the track which formed part of the Santiago di Compostela route and saw a party of pilgrims a little way ahead, backpacks, faded shorts, heavy boots, cotton hats. As he neared them, he saw the scallop shell of the pilgrim hanging from each backpack.
‘Bonjour. Bonjour. Bonjour.’
He passed them, raising his hand, then went off the track into an area of scrub and gorse and stopped beside a single tree. From here he looked out over the fields towards the village, far below. It was the nearest point for a good mobile phone signal.
The text had read: Dr Richard Serrailler, please contact Lafferton Police Station as soon as possible.
Shelley Pendleton had reported him then. It was just conceivable that the text was about Simon and his secrets but he could not risk calling in to find out.
Well, he would simply not reply. He would switch his phone off and ignore it all, though he knew this was not sensible, was the action of a man in a panic and with something to hide.
He checked the time the text had come in. Allowing for slow communications and the hour’s time difference, it was perhaps not too late to send an apparent auto-reply – though he did not know if mobiles, like computers, could be set to do such a thing.
Worth the risk.
Dr Richard Serrailler is abroad on holiday. Messages will not be picked up at this time.
He pressed ‘Send’, then stood looking down the valley. The sun was up now. The little file of pilgrims was wending its way down the track and onwards, onwards, to Santiago de Compostela. He wished he could join them.