I crept along the corridor and listened at each door in turn for Rufus Connabear’s breathing or perhaps a helpful little snuffle. Not a sound behind any of them. It suddenly struck me that I hadn’t bothered to check whether his car was sheltering in the port, so for all I knew Connabear and his Jag might be miles away, heading for France on a cross-Channel ferry, let’s say. Dream on.
There was no easy solution, I simply had to open one of the doors and see what I’d find. Obviously I had a one in four chance of getting it right first time, though, not being a betting man, how the odds changed after that was a bit hazy in my mind. Anyway, I told myself as I turned the first brass door knob, my chances sounded pretty good to my non-mathematical brain. Pointing the torch down the hall so that only reflected light would fall into the room I opened the door very slowly. I could make out a kind of padded seat and then the bottom of a bed. Was the bed occupied? I strained my hearing but couldn’t be sure. I stuck my head through the gap. The bed was empty and I remembered to breathe again. Widening the crack I padded inside to have a look around. I could use the torch quite freely now. There were no signs of recent occupation but for a spare room it had some character, with more books on shelves and tiny framed watercolours on the walls, and the ill-judged addition of a rabbit ornament here and there. I went through the chest of drawers to the left of the window — it was full of linen. Under the bed were lengths of curved tubular aluminium, perhaps part of an exercise machine, and fluff. The place smelled unused and dusty. Not bothering to close the door I moved to the next. Even putting my ear right against it I heard nothing above the rain that the wind flung against the blind window in the corridor. It suddenly occurred to me that now I had a one in three chance of opening the wrong door. How had that happened? How had the odds turned so dramatically against me? Perhaps it was simply a ‘glass half-full/half-empty’ situation? Or should that be quarter-empty, I really wasn’t sure. .
Telling myself to get a grip I turned the brass knob and opened the door a fraction. All I could make out was an ornate secretaire and chair by the uncurtained window but my nose told me that this room had to be occupied. The moist and stale fug of sleep hung unmistakably in the air, together with the sound of my hammering heart. Connabear’s bedroom. With him in it. Was the Penny Black there too? I didn’t want to admit to that possibility yet. Creeping about in his bedroom while the man was asleep had to be the absolute last resort. Needing hearing aids to communicate easily with people was different from being profoundly deaf. I was sure sooner or later he’d hear me rummaging so close to him. Anyway, it was pitch dark, I’d have to use my torch and if nothing else surely that would wake him. If he woke up the shock of finding me there might give him a heart attack. Or me.
The next door seemed different. There was just not enough wall space on either side for it to be anything but a walk-in cupboard or another bathroom perhaps. I moved on to the last door. To make sure, I listened again, in case I had been wrong about the man living by himself. This was it. This just had to be the room where he kept his pet cobras and poisonous jumping spiders. I took even longer turning the knob and easing the door open since I’d been too scared to close the bedroom door again and I felt sure the tiniest squeak might wake him. As soon as the gap was wide enough I squeezed through and gratefully closed the door behind me. I found the light switch and flicked it on. After creeping around by torchlight it seemed insanely bright and scary but would speed up my search. It would probably show under the door so I had to be quick; didn’t old people get up to go to the loo a lot at night?
I was standing in a fair-sized study, the main feature of which was a mahogany desk and dark leather chair. On the tidy desk sat phone, blotter, brass lamp and leather picture frame holding a small black and white photo. Either side of the window stood wooden filing cabinets that matched the wood of the desk, and two bookshelves to my right completed the furnishings. They were stuffed with what looked like reference books and at least one complete encyclopedia. On the wall behind the desk hung a framed landscape painting, done with more enthusiasm than skill in oily impasto. I made straight for it as the likeliest place to hide a safe and lifted it off the wall. No wall safe, I was glad to see. I hadn’t really meant to lift the picture completely off the hook and now I found it hard to marry the hook and nail again. I rested it on the floor, rolled the chair closer to the wall, then picked up the painting again and climbed gingerly up. Then I stopped. What was I doing? I was a burglar, there was no need to clear up after myself, the main thing was to find the daft stamp and get the hell out again. But since I was already up there. . Before I managed to get the framed horror back on the nail the door flew open, making me scream with surprise and nearly lose my balance.
‘Don’t move, you bastard! Put that down!’ Even in his black pyjamas Connabear looked wide awake. He was wearing both his hearing aids and pointing both barrels of his shotgun at me. And he looked furious. As for his contradictory demands I chose not moving as the safer option. ‘It’s you,’ he said next. The disappointment in his croaky voice was obvious but he seemed to shrug it off quickly. ‘Put that painting back on the wall.’
‘Okay, just don’t do anything rash with that gun.’ I fumbled some more with the hook and at last caught the nail.
‘Now put your hands up and get your filthy boots off my chair.’
I stepped down with my hands up. Something in the way he held the gun convinced me that it was loaded and that old Rufus had experience in handling it.
He nodded his head up at the daub. ‘You weren’t really going to steal that, were you? My wife painted that.’
Now I noticed the initials in the bottom-right corner, P.C. ‘Well, ehm, it’s rather nice,’ I lied. ‘I’m a painter myself, so I have an eye for these things.’
‘Oh yeah? No wonder you have to resort to robbing people if you think that’s a nice painting. It’s a horrible mess, my wife had no talent for art whatsoever. I’m keeping it for my daughter’s sake who is similarly afflicted, though I always make sure I’m sitting with my back to it. Right, move around to the window, but slowly, and keep your hands up. You scum, you thought I was just a doddery old codger. You thought you could turn the place over and probably just clout me one if I woke up. .’
‘No, of course not,’ I protested.
‘I thought you were a nice young man yesterday. Really did. Nicely spoken, too. And to think I even let you in the house. You make one false move and I’ll happily shoot you.’
‘You can’t mean that,’ I suggested, lowering my hands.
He tightened his grip on the weapon. ‘Oh yeah? You just try it.’
‘Make an awful mess,’ I suggested.
‘I look forward to it,’ he said and looked like he meant it.
‘The last guy who shot a burglar with a shotgun, you know, that farmer, he spent years in prison.’