I was safe there as the hedge was high, and I straightened up. I had trouble in finding a gap in the hedge, but after moving some yards to my right I found one that gave
me a good view of the side and front of the house.
I sat down, close to the hedge and surveyed the house. I
remained there for over half an hour without seeing any sign of
life, and I began to wonder if Berry had lied to me.
They might have changed their minds about coming to
this farmhouse, although to the right of the paddock in which I
was sitting, I could see a big field that would be suitable for a helicopter landing.
Suppose the helicopter had already picked them up? I
thought this unlikely. It would be too risky to make such a
landing in daylight.
The local police all over the country must have been
warned to look out for an unauthorized aircraft making a
landing. Escape by air was the most obvious way out for Dix,
and the police must have realized it.
I wondered if I should take a chance and go up to the
house. I was pretty sure I could approach within yards of it without being seen. I might get an opportunity to see into
some of the rooms if I got closer.
I was about to get to my feet when the front door opened
and Joe came out.
The sight of him sent a tingle down my spine.
He was wearing a short-sleeved sports shirt and grey
flannel trousers. Over his shoulder he carried a leather holster from which protruded the butt of a heavy automatic. He moved slowly down the drive to the farm gate and looked down the lane. Then he glanced at his wrist-watch, scowled, and again looked down the lane. It was, pretty obvious he was expecting someone who was late, and I wondered who it could be.
After a few minutes, he turned and walked back to the
house. As he reached the front door, Louis appeared. He was
in a baggy flannel fit, and I could tell by the bulge under his coat that he too was carrying a gun.
“No sign of them yet?” he asked, stepping out into the
bright sunlight.
“No. What the hell can have happened to them?” Joe
said uneasily.
In the quiet of their surroundings their voices came
clearly to me.
“Think anything’s wrong?” Louis asked. His thin
effeminate face was pale and there were dark circles around
his eyes.
“How the h*ell do I know?” Joe snarled. He looked at his
watch. “They should have been here an hour ago.”
“Well, come on in and eat. The stuffs getting cold.”
They went into the house and shut the door.
I got quickly to my feet.
Were they waiting for Dix and Berry? I wondered as I
crawled through the gap in the hedge. Were they the only two
in the house?
I decided to take a chance and get into the house to
overhear more of their conversation.
There was plenty of cover up to four or five yards of the
house, and I crawled forward silently without the slightest
misgivings of being seen.
The window of one of the rooms at the back of the house
was open. I would have to cross a path to reach it, and the
path offered no cover.
I had no intention of being spotted so early in the game,
so I changed direction and began to crawl towards the front of the house.
I kept on until I had a good view of the front windows, I
spotted Joe and Louis in the room by the front door. They
were sitting at a table, eating lunch. Satisfied that I stood little chance of being seen, I
retraced my steps to the back of the house, crossed the path
to the open window and peered in.
The room was small and empty of furniture, and dust lay
thickly on the floor-boards. I swung my leg over the sill and
climbed quietly into the room. Crossing over to the door, I
turned the handle and very carefully eased the door open. I looked into a long passage that connected the front door with the back door.
From the front room I heard a murmur of voices, but the
door was closed and I couldn’t hear what was being said. I
moved out into the passage. To my left was a flight of stairs
that led to the upper rooms. I decided it would be safer to be
upstairs than down. I moved swiftly to the stairs and began to mount them. Halfway up I trod on a loose board that let out a squeaking creak that jerked my heart into my mouth.
I took the rest of the stairs two at a time on tip-toe, and had just reached the landing, out of sight of the hall, when I heard the front room door jerk open.
“Didn’t you hear something?” Louis asked, a quaver in
his voice. “It sounded as if someone was in the house.”
“For the love of Mike, pipe down,” Joe growled. “You’re
as jumpy as a kangaroo. This damned house is full of rats. I
saw one as big as a cat in the kitchen.”
“A rat wouldn’t make that noise. It sounded. . . .”
“Aw, shut up! Go and have a look if you’re that scared.”
“I keep thinking of Berry.”
“Think his ghost is here?” Joe sneered and laughed.
“You don’t have to worry about him. He’s dead by now.”
“We shouldn’t have left him, Joe. That was a hell of a
thing to do.”
“I didn’t stop you. You could have stayed and held his
hand if you wanted to. Why didn’t you? You were the first out of his place. You couldn’t get out fast enough.”
“We should have brought him here.”
“Don’t talk wet. His back was broken. We couldn’t have
brought him all this way. He would have screamed his head
off. We were crazy to have taken him back to his fiat. We
should have put a bullet through his head and left him in the street.”
I heard Louis walk back into the room.
“I wouldn’t have stood for that Joe.”
“It’s because you’ve been so damned chicken-hearted
about Berry we’re in this mess now. When a guy breaks his
back, he’s had it. Ed would have shot him, but no, you
wouldn’t wear it. Okay, now we wonder where Ed is. If we had
stuck together instead of rushing off to Queen’s Avenue, he would have been with us now.”
“What are we going to do if he doesn’t show up?”
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