Gunner Kelly (4 page)

“
There ain’t a hotel, no. There’s a pub
—
they might have a room, I dunno
.” The curiosity increased. “
They’re a queer lot there
.” The man spoke of the inhabitants of Duntisbury Royal, who lived no more than five miles from his petrol pumps, as though they were an alien race hidden behind barbed wire and minefields.

“
Queer
?” All the same, Benedikt rejoiced in what he guessed was the old correct meaning of the word, the use of which he had been cautioned against in modern polite speech: it was good to know that here, deep in the Wessex countryside, the natives still guarded the language of his mother, Shakespeare’s tongue.

“
Ah
…” The garage man’s face closed up suddenly, as though he had decided on second thoughts that the queerness of his neighbours was no foreigner’s business. “
That’s £16.22, sir
—
sixteen-pounds-and-twenty-two-pence
.” He adjusted the speed of his diction to that which the English reserved for the presentation of bills to foreigners, so that there could be no possible misunderstanding, let alone argument.

“
Ach
—
so
!” Benedikt played back to him deliberately. This might be the only garage for miles around, and if this man was both a gossip and the local supplier to Duntisbury Royal, then so much the better. “
I may pay by credit card, yes? Or cash
?”

The man looked doubtfully at the card, and then at Benedikt, but then finally at the gleaming Mercedes and its
CD
passport. “
Either of ‘em will do, sir
.” He bustled to find the correct form, and then squinted again at the card. “
’Weez-hoffer‘
,” he murmured unnecessarily to himself, as though to indicate to Benedikt that he would have preferred cash from a foreigner and was noting the name just in case.

“Wiesehöfer,”
said Benedikt.
“Thomas Wiesehöfer.”

The man filled in the card number painfully. But his curiosity rekindled as he did so. “
On holiday then
?”

“
On holiday
.” Benedikt nodded at the garage man and pretended to search for the right words and not find any. “
On holiday…ach so
!” It galled him when he prided himself on being able to pass almost for English … or
British
, as Mother always insisted, who had been half-Scottish herself.

He studied the water-splash out of the driver’s window, just a metre beyond his front wheels. The stream rippled across the tarmac in a patch of sunlight where the road crossed it, but it didn’t look very deep. All the country hereabouts was open and empty, and he had dropped down from the high ridge in the low gear which the garage man had advised; but now he was on the miniature flood-plain of a little valley, and at this point, where the road crossed the stream, trees and bushes grew luxuriantly, making a secret place of it.

He looked up from the sun-dappled water, and caught a glimpse of the little girl watching him from her hiding place between the telephone box and the summer tangle of leaves. Of course, she would have been told not to speak to strange men in cars, so he couldn’t rationally fault her behaviour. But he liked children, and was used to them, and prided himself on being good with them and was accustomed to their trust, so that— however irrationally—he recoiled from the role of strange-man-in-a-car and was disturbed by her fear.

Yet there was more to it than that, his momentary irrationality told him: the very young
were
innocent, and gullible and inexperienced with it, but they sometimes knew more than the very wise, picking up vibrations of danger with senses which atrophied as their experience of life increased; and now
he
was about to enter her secret little English valley—

But that was absurd fantasy! He broke contact with her and shifted the gear-lever into drive. It wasn’t her valley, and it was only secret for the lack of a proper signpost—the busy main road almost within earshot, and it was only the foreignness of this small-scale countryside which he was foolishly letting himself be upset by, as he might be upset by some unpalatable local dish or custom to which he was unused, but which was unpalatable only because it was different from what he was accustomed to.

He felt the solid force of the water resist the forward thrust of the wheels, and then the Mercedes pulled free of the stream and surged ahead effortlessly into the dark tunnel formed by the overhanging trees. Then the road curved, to follow the line of the valley, and he could see open country ahead again, with one last glimpse of the child in his rear-view mirror as she broke cover to watch him go, and then took refuge inside the telephone box.

Beyond the ford the road meandered along the slope of the ridge, undulating with its gentle curves. Large single trees, which looked as though they had been planted for effect, rather than groves and plantations, obscured his view of the wider landscape. He became aware that he was in a different sort of countryside before he understood why it was different. Then he saw that there were no hedges, only a low iron railing on each side of the narrow road: it was as though he was passing through a private parkland—

Chase
—of course, that was what all this land was: Duntisbury
Chase
—which he had looked up in Mother’s massive double-volumed
Shorter Oxford English Dictionary
, ever to be relied on, and not least to be trusted as a sure reminder of their first and best owner, who had passed them on to him so long ago.

Chase—

3. A tract of unenclosed land reserved for breeding and hunting wild animals ME… ‘ME’ meaning ‘Middle English’, of the medieval variety, when, presumably, those Germanic t
ribes who had spoken ‘Old English’—‘OE’—had settled their conquests well enough to start breeding and hunting for enjoyment—

4. That which is hunted ME …

And 5. Those who hunt (1811) …

That certainly covered everything he needed now (the
Shorter
could always be relied on): here he was, Benedikt Schneider,
alias
Thomas Wiesehöfer, in the chase, after the chase, and one of the chase, 3., 4., and 5., with all options catered for between the iron railings this fine English summer’s midday—

But … no further along the chase at the moment, for the road was blocked ahead, with a tractor trying to manoeuvre a trailer loaded with hay bales almost broadside across it.

As Benedikt halted the car a heavily-built farm labourer appeared from behind the trailer, eyed the gap between the side of the vehicle and the gatepost critically, and shook his head in despair.

The tractor juddered forward slowly.

“Whoa!” roared the labourer to the youth at the wheel of the tractor. “You’ll ‘ave the bloody post an’ all! You just back up an‘ straighten ’er now, an‘ come out proper, like I told you.”

The youth looked from side to side uneasily—as well he might, thought Benedikt sympathetically, for both the road and the entrance to the field were narrow.

“Just take ‘er easy now—like I told you,” shouted the labourer. Then he seemed to see Benedikt for the first time. “Right ’and
down
—that’s it!” He climbed the iron fence clumsily and came towards the car. “Sorry, mister. Won’t be long, though.”

“Please—it is no matter.” Benedikt peered at him, conscious again of his thick spectacles, and smiled as he adjusted his voice to the noise of the tractor’s engine. “I am in no hurry.”

“Ah …” The labourer nodded, studying the trailer’s painful progress. “Get on with it then, Bobby! We ain’t got all day.”

Benedikt wasn’t so sure that at the youth’s present rate of manoeuvre all day might not be what they would need. But there was nothing he could do about it now, for there was already a muddy farm Land Rover and a couple of boys on bicycles stacked up behind him—he could see them in his rear-view mirror—and peasants were the same the whole world over; whatever they said they liked nothing better than not to give way for men in suits driving gleaming cars.

Resigning himself to delay he started to settle back more comfortably into his seat, looking round casually into the field beside him—

It took every bit of his accumulated experience not to jerk upright again, but instead rather to hold the casual glance just long enough for ordinary unconcern, and then to continue slumping down as he would have done if he had never before seen the man striding across the field towards him.

There was no mistake—

He returned his gaze to the youth on the tractor for a moment, and then tipped back his head against the head-rest to study the roof of the car, as though surrendering to boredom.

In fact, he never had seen the man before, not in the flesh. But there was no mistake from the photographs, close-up front full-faced, side and quarter-face, and long-shots snapped craftily to set him in the context of ordinary men—no mistake, even though he was here before he had been anticipated, dressed like any labourer too … creased open-necked shirt, stained khaki trousers stuffed into rubber boots—English ‘Wellingtons’, although the great aristocratic Iron Duke with whom mad old Blücher had kept faith at Waterloo had surely never worn anything so bucolic—

No mistake
—the face and the size of the man, even the solid, inexorable stride of the man across the rough pasture of the field—
like a tank
, thought Benedikt subjectively, out of the printed record—
tank-commander, Normandy 1944 …
and that had been before he had ever been born, before Mother had met Papa even … even—unthinkably—when Mother and Father had been enemies, before they had been victor and vanquished—

He felt something touch the car, and twisted sideways towards the sound.

“Sorry, Mister—” one of the boy-cyclists, a snub-nosed, cheeky-faced fourteen-year-old, alongside him now while squeezing past, addressed him briefly “—I ain’t scratched it—got rubber grips, see—?” He indicated the handle-bars of his cycle with one momentarily-free hand before pushing down on the pedals to accelerate away.

“You get on out of ‘ere, Benje, an’ get off the bloody road!” shouted the farm labourer. “An‘ you, Darren—your mum’s been lookin’ for you—”

The second cyclist whipped past Benedikt, in desperate pursuit of the departing Benje, who had swerved skilfully past the front wheels of the tractor.

“Little buggers!” The farm labourer shook his fist at them as Darren made a rude two-fingered signal backwards at him before swerving in Benje’s wake.

“Problems, Cecil?” David Audley rested for a moment, grasping the top railing at the labourer’s side, and then leaned on it, observing the road up and down.

“No problems, Doctor Audley.”

Cecil
? Benedikt’s concentration was side-tracked against his will away from David Audley by the incongruous name.
Benje
and
Darren
were bad enough—they were both English Christian names he didn’t know … But
Cecil…
that was an exclusively aristocratic English name—wasn’t there a renowned English lord, whom Mother had mentioned, who had lectured to her at Oxford—Lord David
Cecil
—

“Bobby’s never going to get that trailer out,” said Audley. “Not if you want to keep those gate-posts, anyway.” He looked straight at Benedikt, before turning back to Cecil. “I bet you a pint of best bitter.”

“Ahh … That’s where you’re wrong, Doctor.” Cecil didn’t turn round. “
Right ‘and down, lad
—
a bit mor
e
—
steady! STEADY
!” He drew a deep breath. “Bobby’s goin’ to learn—make it a pint of that Low-en-brow, right?”

“You’re on. Low-en-brow it is.” Audley came back to Benedikt. “I trust your business is not urgent, sir?”

Benedikt blinked at him through the thick lenses, playing for time. “Please?”

Audley considered him for a moment. “You … you-are-going-to-Duntisbury-Royal?” He spoke with exaggerated clarity, paused for an instant, then smiled helpfully. “That’s-all-there-is-down-this-road—” he pointed “—Duntisbury Royal?”

Benedikt nodded like a half-wit. “Duntisbury Royal … yes.” He let his attention stray away from Audley, back to Cecil, who was shouting and gesticulating at the unfortunate youth on the tractor.

“Left ‘and down—not too much—
STEADY—
”

The tractor roared and jerked.

“STOP!”

“Duntisbury Royal?” repeated Audley, catching a pause in the youth’s agony.

Benedikt came back to him. “So!” The man was some years younger than Papa, but the years had also been kinder to him, increasing the gap: he was not so much beginning to run to fat as to bulk, which his height and build minimised. When young, with those prize-fighter’s features … features contradicted by the fierce hawkish eyes … he would have been a nasty customer to meet on a dark night lurking in a side-street, with that brawn moderated by the brains behind those eyes.

“So!” He nodded again, and tried to hide his thoughts behind the thick lenses. “There is—” he gestured uncertainly, as though searching for words “—there is at Duntisbury Royal an hotel … a public house?” He blinked. “With rooms?”

“With—” Audley’s mouth opened, but the renewed roar of the tractor’s engine cut him off.

“STEADY! AHH—!” Cecil’s voice graduated from warning, through anger to despair, summoning both of them.

Benedikt watched, fascinated, as the tractor twisted the trailer out of the field. It was strange how the tractor was all noise and speed, its huge rear-wheels spinning madly, while the trailer appeared to follow more slowly in what seemed like its own silence, to catch the gate-post with the last metre of its frame. The post shuddered, then bent forwards and sideways, distorting and buckling the rails which met it, as the trailer scraped its way to freedom.

“
Jeesus-kee-rist-God-damn-and-blast-it-to-hell
—” Cecil snatched the cloth-cap from his head and slapped it against his leg in rage. For a moment Benedikt thought he was going to dash the cap to the ground and stamp on it.