So what would they do tonight? Would they break the padlock and drive up? Or come on foot?
Whichever way they chose, they were bound to use the track, which followed the glen and the racing river for miles, up through the forest to the high moorlands. It wouldn’t be a good idea for him to be spotted dawdling along the middle of the road. On the other hand, he wasn’t too sure he could manage the full commando approach, crawling through the undergrowth with a mud-daubed face.
Taking a final look both ways, he crossed the stony surface of the track and entered the woods on the far side. Here the ground fell steeply away to the river. Clambering down through the undergrowth, he made for the narrow path that ran close beside the rushing water, and began to follow it up the glen. Now and again, when the moon slipped behind the clouds, he had to reach a hand out in front of him to feel his way forward. Once he stumbled, jarring his shoulder against a rock and the shotgun barrel struck the surface with a loud crack. The sound was quickly swallowed up by the thundering water, but he paused, sweating coldly, before pressing on. Finally Macinley’s Rock came into view, a massive outcrop that obtruded into the river, deflecting the flow against the far bank and squeezing the water into a thundering cataract. Above the rock was the Great Pool. According to Duncan, this was where the vermin, as he called them, were to be found. Twice since April Duncan had found evidence of their visits in the form of trampled ground, cigarette butts and peg holes.
It took some time for Nick to find a suitable spot for his watch. Finally he picked a rocky ledge a few yards up the sloping bank, opposite the widest section of the pool. It was rather open, but if he’d gone higher the trees would have obscured his view of the approaches.
He lay on his stomach on the damp grassy earth, and peered over the edge. The Ashard was by no means a broad river – for much of its ten-mile length it was only a few yards wide – but after heavy rain the Great Pool flooded into a wide basin some fifteen yards across. After the commotion of the lower reaches, the pool was quiet, its surface satin-smooth in the moonlight, only the occasional ripple hinting at movement and eddies beneath.
A mournful bird-cry made him start slightly. It sounded again, a cross between a moan and a hoot. A tawny owl – well, an owl anyway. He wasn’t quite up to positive identifications;
The Oxford Book of Birds
wasn’t something one got to grips with overnight.
He rolled onto his side and felt something sharp dig into his hip: the shotgun cartridges in his jacket pocket. He pulled one out and fingered it. An unpleasant thought came to him. Might they be carrying a shotgun too? As he understood it, there was a sort of unwritten code in these parts, the sporting men’s version of the Queensberry Rules, which said that gamekeepers waved shotguns and sometimes even fired them in anger, but that poachers remained unarmed and bolted when caught. He hoped the rules would be in full operation tonight.
If they weren’t carrying anything, would they turn and fight? He nursed the idea with a mixture of fear and unexpected excitement. He’d been no hero in the early days. Once, years and years ago, after a gig in Sunderland, a group of the local lads had decided to exhibit their particular brand of machismo by lying in wait for him at the stage door and beating him up. He’d put up the best fight he could muster, which wasn’t saying a great deal, but all that his meagre bravery had got him was a broken jaw and the lost earnings from five cancelled gigs. Not long after, he’d sworn a personal non-aggression pact with the world. It had lasted a long time – something like fifteen years – until six years ago and the incident in the Fifth Avenue apartment.
After that, all sorts of things had developed the power to make him angry. Most of all anybody or anything that threatened Alusha. Then, as a close second, anything that threatened this fabulous patch of earth that had somehow become his own. Yet it wasn’t because Glen Ashard belonged to him that he was up here playing games in the middle of the night – though that would have been enough for most landowners hereabouts – it wasn’t even the idea of all his and Duncan’s painstaking work being ruined; it was the thought of having his space and peace invaded by money-grubbing oiks that he really couldn’t stomach.
He never admitted as much of course; he talked about responsibility, a word he used to avoid like the plague but which he now said quite often, along with other words like obligation and conservation, which in these feudal parts were usually bandied about by tweedy aristos and retired army officers. According to Alusha, it was all to do with middle age. She said he was finally growing up.
He put the cartridges back in his pocket. There didn’t seem much point in keeping them out, when he had no intention of loading them.
It was well after one when the moon dimmed for the last time, lost behind the rim of the hills. The darkness wouldn’t last – the midsummer night up here was barely three hours long – but would they have the gall to come in the light? He resigned himself to the possibility that, if they were coming at all, they’d have shown by now. Yet he wouldn’t leave, not while there was still the slightest chance. He rested his head on the crook of his arm, pulled his jacket higher round his neck and, ignoring the damp chill of the earth, tried to doze.
He woke after what seemed a very short time. Shifting his body a little, he tried to settle again but was seized by a tickle in the back of his nose. He drew breath, waiting for the itch to trigger the satisfaction of a good sneeze, and it was then that he heard it. A sharp sound. His mouth still poised for the sneeze, his lungs full, he jerked his head up. The sneeze hovered, refusing to die. He clamped his fingers over his nose and squeezed viciously until his eyes watered. Finally, reluctantly, the sneeze faded and died.
Another sound. A scrape, like metal against stone. Then the murmur of a human voice some way off. A second later, a second voice, much closer. Slowly Nick rolled onto his stomach and peered over the edge. At first he could see nothing. Then he spotted a movement – a black shadow against the gleaming surface – and heard the sloshing sound of someone wading into the water.
For a while he was frozen by indecision. He hadn’t thought this bit through. Should he stand up and yell? Should he creep up on them and give them a fright? Though it was questionable as to who would be getting the bigger fright. He decided it was worth the risk of heart failure for the satisfaction of seeing them jump.
Taking the shotgun, he rose into a crouch and began to creep slowly down the bank, testing each footstep for loose ground, reaching a steadying hand out to the slope above him, all the time keeping his eye on the man in the water. It wasn’t hard to follow him: he was splashing a good deal and leaving a long trail of ripples. There was one nasty moment when a voice called out, but it was only to say: ‘Loose off.’ A moment later a reply came floating on the air, but the words were muffled by the water.
A filigree of shimmering light rose above the pool as a thin line broke the surface: that would be the net. The excitement rose in Nick as he realized he was going to catch them right in the act.
They appeared to be dragging the deepest part of the pool immediately behind Macinley’s Rock. But where would they pull in the catch?
Nick decided on the likeliest spot and, keeping in a deep crouch, worked his way round to a point nearby and waited.
But they weren’t bringing in the net, not yet. There was a tapping, like a mallet on wood, and he realized they were pegging the net to the ground, leaving the current to do some of their work for them. If he stayed where he was, it was likely to be a long wait.
He crept closer. He saw the shape of a man’s head against the night sky. A moment later he heard a sloshing sound as a second man emerged from the water. Were there more than two? He couldn’t be sure.
There was the flicker of a match and the glow of a cigarette, and the low murmur of voices.
It was now or never. Gripping the shotgun, aware of a quite ridiculous fear which had somehow turned to elation, with his heart exploding against his ribs, Nick stood upright and walked steadily towards them. He felt amazingly conspicuous: they must see him, must hear him at any moment, but by some miracle no shout came, no challenge; there was only the glowing cigarette end and the suggestion of two shadows in the darkness. With only a few steps left, he was overcome by a bizarre sense of unreality – was he really going through with this?
Suddenly they saw him. There was a sharp exclamation, a loud oath, and the two men jumped apart. One of them dropped into a crouch, as if to make a run for it.
‘Stop or I shoot!’ Nick heard his voice come out of the distance, as if it belonged to someone else. Had he really said that? It sounded like something out of a B-Western. They made no move. Then the one who’d been crouching straightened up slowly. There was a long electric pause. Nick tried to make out their faces, but it was too dark. What did one say next?
He began: ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
One of them, the much taller of the two, relaxed his stance. There was something insolent in the gesture, as if he no longer considered himself at risk. That was it, of course: the fellow had realized that, far from facing the dreaded Duncan, who never had any compunction about peppering poachers’ backsides with shot, he was dealing with an altogether softer opponent.
Nick held the gun higher to be sure the tall man could see it. ‘Who are you?’
The man gave a grunt which was almost a laugh. ‘I’d say that’s for me to know an’ you to find out.’
Nick’s anger rose over him like a hot sea. ‘I wouldn’t take that attitude, if I were you.’
‘No?’ The man sounded unconvinced. ‘What attitude should I take with a weapon pointin’ at me? Intendin’ murder, are you?’
‘Why not – you’re murdering the river!’
‘I’ve never heard of a river bein’ murdered. It doesna’ look dead to me.’ He was sounding very sure of himself now.
‘But it soon bloody well will be. Then you’ll have a chance to see what it looks like – when it’s too bloody late!’
‘Och well. Somethin’ to see then.’
‘You don’t give a shit, do you?’
‘I wouldna’ say that,’ came the cool reply. ‘But then, why should I? An’ then again, why should
you
? They say you’re rich enough, eh?’
‘What the hell’s that got to do with it?’ Nick’s wrath wasn’t helped by the realization that the tall man knew exactly who he was.
The man pushed his head forward and spoke in fierce virtuous tones. ‘You come in here, you buy up the place an’ you think you own the entire country. You’ve no knowledge of our ways, no notion of our customs – ’
‘Your customs! You call years of wholesale poaching a custom! Christ – ’
‘No notion – ’
‘It’s you who’s got no notion, chum. The world won’t put up with your sort any longer. Perhaps you haven’t heard of conservation up here, but believe me the rest of the world has.’ Nick waved the gun in a vaguely southerly direction.
‘The rest of the world? Och, I beg your pardon.’ The voice was heavy with sarcasm. ‘It’s in the name of conservation, is it, that your friends come up from London in their grand cars an’ lord it over the place an’ boast how they caught a salmon all by theirselves, eh? It’s in the name of con-ser-vation’ – he drew out the syllables scornfully – ‘that we have to put up with your kind tellin’
us
what to do, is it?’
‘There’s been no fishing on this river for three years,’ Nick cried in exasperation. ‘And there’ll be no fishing for years to come either – not while you go on draining the bloody river dry.’
‘No fishin’, eh? Is that a fact?’ The voice was both mocking and uncompromising. ‘The folks round here will believe that when they see it. Let me tell you’ – he raised a hand and Nick took a step backwards, momentarily misreading the gesture in the darkness – ‘we’ve been comin’ to this river for longer than any of us can remember. It’s our right. We’re not about to stop, not for the wild ideas of some loony pop star.’
Trembling with rage, Nick heard himself snap hotly: ‘Songwriter.’ No sooner said than regretted: what a time for accuracy.
A bow. ‘Och, I beg your pardon.’
Nick flushed in the darkness, and let his anger carry him forward again. ‘As for wild ideas, Christ, you can talk. You can’t see any farther than the next easy buck. You don’t give a damn about what happens to the river – ’
‘That we do!’ the rough voice interjected, sounding injured. ‘We want the fish back. It’s not been good for us – ’
‘But they’re not your fish!’ Nick cried.
‘An’ what makes you think they’re yours?’
‘Damn it, they
are
mine!’
The other man didn’t reply and Nick had the impression he was pulling a contemptuous face, even a laughing one.
Nick rushed on: ‘Not good for you – God, you’ve a bloody nerve. If we’re going to talk money, how much do you make a night, eh? Three hundred, five hundred? Who’s the rich guy, then, eh?’
The comparison was a mistake, Nick knew it as soon as he said it. But the tall man wasn’t about to bother with words, not when action would do, not when Nick had forgotten all about the gun and let the barrel drop. He came for the gun with a speed and confidence that caught Nick totally offguard. Grabbing the barrel, he drove his body against Nick’s and carried him backwards until Nick staggered, fighting for balance.
Finding his feet again, Nick held grimly on to the gun. But the tall man had the better grip and the better leverage, and as they grappled Nick could feel the weapon being slowly wrenched from his grasp. In his blind determination to hold on to the weapon, it was a moment before the vital realization seeped dimly into his brain. The gun wasn’t loaded, so why the hell was he battling for it? Even then it took a conscious effort to overcome the instinctive urge to clutch on to it at all costs, and let go.
He was an instant too late. Just as he released his fingers, a powerful blow hit the back of his knees, knocking his legs from under him. He had the sensation of falling, then a jarring explosion came up and hit the side of his head and his brain was filled with flashes of brilliant light.