Reginald Hill - The Long Kill

Plus of course an order for twenty-five thousand pounds paid into his Zurich account.

That would have to be returned. A pity; but there was plenty left for his retirement.

Retirement! At forty-three. Statistically he had just become another unit in the unemployment figures.

The thought amused him and he let out a snort of spontaneous laughter that would have surprised the few people who knew him at the middle distance which was as close as he ever permitted. But there was no one here to take notice except the grazing sheep and the indifferent raven.

His long economical stride took him swiftly across the sun-blanched grass of the shallow saddle between Clough Head and Calfhow Pike. Now he followed the tumbling path of a long beck, a strange exhilaration making him take the descent faster than was really safe, and by the time he reached the old coach road which runs from St-John’s-in-the-Vale across to the next valley of Matterdale, he was panting as much from this inexplicable excitement as the exertion. Slowing to a more sedate but still deceptively fast pace, he moved eastwards along the old coach road to where he’d left his BMW parked outside the village of Dockray.

Even at his rapid pace, and mostly downhill, it was still over an hour since he had aborted the target. Normally he preferred more rapid access to his car, but in this case his best protection after the event had been to blend into the landscape as an ordinary walker. Now there was no event to be after. For all that it was still with some relief that he dropped the rucksack into the hidden compartment beneath a false panel in the BMW’S boot. An identical rucksack containing conventional walking gear lay in the boot. These isolated country areas were full of sharp eyes. And ears too.

He had a phone call to make and he decided to make it from the nearby village instead of waiting till he got back to his hotel. Security apart, he felt eager to get it over with. It was the first admission of failure he had ever made. The best that could be said for him was that he had made his error with time to spare and he had not alerted the target. But it was not just his sense of responsibility which urged him to haste. He was suddenly afraid that if he waited till he got back to the hotel, he might put off the moment even further. And that after a bottle of wine and a good meal, he might persuade himself it had been a trick of the wind after all.

He went into the public phone box and dialled a London number. A woman’s voice answered, bright and breezy.

‘Hello there! Enid here. Jacob and I are out just now but we’ll be back soon. Leave your message after the tone and we’ll be in touch as soon as ever we can. ’Bye!’

He waited then said, ‘Jaysmith. Tell Jacob I can’t make the deal. There’ll be a refund, of course.’

He contemplated adding, ‘Less expenses,’ but dismissed the idea as a small, unnecessary meanness. Let the parting be complete and painless.

Gently he replaced the receiver and stepped out into the golden September air. He drew in a long deep breath and let it out slowly. It tasted marvellous. For the first time in twenty years he felt totally relaxed and free.

The dangers of Jaysmith’s new sense of relaxation became apparent when he entered the hotel bar for a pre-dinner drink that evening.

‘Evening, Mr Hutton. Any luck today?’ called Philip Parker, the Crag Hotel’s owner-manager, and it took Jaysmith a moment that could have been significant to a practised observer to react to the name.

Pseudonyms and cover stories might now be totally irrelevant but they could not just be shed at will. At the Crag he was William Hutton, businessman; and in conversation with Parker he had let it slip that, as well as the fellwalking, he was on the lookout for a house or cottage to purchase. It was those sharp country eyes again; he wanted an excuse to be seen anywhere, walking or driving, during his stay.

‘No,’ he said, slipping onto a bar stool and accepting the dry sherry which Parker poured him. ‘No luck at all. But I enjoyed my walk.’

‘Oh good. The weather’s marvellous, isn’t it? Excuse me.’

Parker went off to the side hatch of the bar where one of the girls from the dining room was waiting with a drinks order. Parker’s quietly efficient wife, Doris, looked after the kitchen and dining room, while he exuded bonhomie in the bar and at reception. He was a rotund, breezy man in his early fifties, a redundant sales executive who’d sunk his severance money into the small hotel five years earlier and, as he was willing to explain to anyone willing to listen, had not yet seen any cause to regret it. In fact his enthusiasm for the Lake District was so evangelical that Jaysmith had soon regretted the intended subtlety of his cover story. From the start, Parker had taken an embarrassingly close interest in his alleged house-hunting and now, the dining room order dealt with, he returned to the topic.

‘So no luck then,’ he said.

‘No,’ said Jaysmith. ‘The market seems pretty dead. In fact, with the weekend coming up, I think I’ve exhausted all the possibilities, so I’ll check out tomorrow.’

Parker looked so taken aback that Jaysmith felt constrained to add, ‘I’ll pay for tomorrow night, of course.’

He had booked in till Saturday. If he’d made his target he’d have stayed the full week in order not to excite comment, but now there was no point.

‘Oh no, it’s not that,’ said Parker, slightly indignant. ‘It’s just that I heard today that there’s likely to be just the house you’re looking for coming on the market in the next couple of days. It’s called Rigg Cottage and it’s just outside the village, up the bank on the road towards Loughrigg. It belongs to an old lady called Miss Wilson who’s finding the long haul up the hill more and more difficult. Also it’s really too big for her with the garden and all. So she’s thinking of moving down into the village. There’s an old cottage become vacant. Semi-detached and her best friend occupies the next-door cottage. Actually the vacant one belonged to Miss Craik, another old friend, who died a couple of weeks back and the family had always promised to give Miss Wilson first refusal.’

He paused for breath and Jaysmith regarded him quizzically.

‘Your channels of information must be first-rate, Mr Parker,’ he said with hint of mockery.

Parker grinned and glanced conspiratorially towards the dining room. Lowering his voice he said, ‘To tell the truth, it’s Doris who told me all this. She’s quite chummy with Mrs Blacklock, the old lady in the other semi, and she passed it on, in strict confidence, of course. Like I’m doing to you.’

‘Of course,’ said Jaysmith.

‘Which is why there’s nothing to be done till Miss Wilson makes up her mind. But when she does, if I know her, she’ll want everything settled in five minutes which is why it’s a pity you’ll not be on the spot.’

‘Yes, isn’t it?’ said Jaysmith, exuding regret as he moved fully into his William Hutton role. ‘A real pity.’

At dinner, he ordered a full bottle of Chablis instead of his usual half and settled to a mellow contemplation of the limitless joys of retirement.

O what a world of profit and delight … the words drifted into his mind and he sought their source. It wasn’t altogether apt. They were from Marlow’s Dr Faustus whose world of profit and delight had been purchased by selling his soul. Or perhaps the words were too apt. He pushed that thought away and concentrated on working out why he should know the quotation. Oriental Languages had been his subject, not English literature, but now he recalled that he’d once acted in the play at university; or rather not himself, but that incredibly, hazily distant young man whose name was now as vague as all those he had since inscribed on hotel registers in his career as Jaysmith. And he hadn’t been Faustus either. An ostler, that’s what he’d been. A grasping gull made a fool of by magic.