Heather and rough grass had grown across the ride, but along the middle a narrow path had remained open, and the going was easy. About two hundred metres from the turning-place it bent to the right. As soon as I was out of sight of the car I dropped down and crawled into the wood, coming round in a half-circle under the trees and putting in a few minutes’ covert observation to make sure nobody had followed me up.
That was easier said than done. The lower branches of the trees had all died from lack of light, but they were still stiff and spiky, the lowest of them growing to within a couple of feet of the ground. Even when I tried to crawl along the smooth carpet of old pine needles; my day-sack kept catching. In most places the only remedy was to belly-crawl, right down flat. Even as I was worming my way back to the path I thought how impossible it would be to make any speed through a plantation as dense as this.
Like a snake, I wriggled carefully up to the edge of the ride, and for fifteen minutes I lay there watching the car through binoculars. Nothing moved, and gradually I relaxed. Maybe I was being excessively cautious — but you never know.
Emerging again, I shook the spruce needles out of my shirt collar and went on along the track. In a few minutes I came to the boundary fence — a two-metre — high barrier of squared wire — and looked cautiously out. Ahead was the slope of the open hill, falling from right to left: wide stretches of heather, patches of dead — looking grass, clumps of gorse. Unless there was somebody up on the hill itself, which seemed unlikely, I felt confident no one would see me, because the nearest farmland and houses were way down over the brow. In any case, I had done my best to dress up as a hiker or bird-watcher, in a dull-coloured windproof and thick grey Norwegian stockings pulled up to the knees over my jeans, like plus fours.
Take it easy, though, I told myself. Don’t rush it. I gave myself a couple of minutes inside the fence, then climbed over and took another look round. Somehow I needed to mark my entry-point, for when I came back in the dark. To have tied a handkerchief to the fence would have been too obvious. Looking back into the wood, I saw a bare dead branch, stripped of its bark and nearly white. I climbed back in, threaded it into the mesh near the top of the wire at an angle, as if it had blown there, and climbed out again.
On the move in the open, I worked my way round the contour. Only ten minutes later I stuck my head cautiously over a rise and found I could see down to the farm. A short belly-crawl brought me into a dry streambed, and that in turn led down to a clump of gorse just above the highest field. Having crept round the edge of the bushes, I cut away some of the lower branches and scraped the ground beneath them clear of prickles to make a comfortable nest. With minimum effort I’d fashioned myself a perfect OP.
The farmhouse and its outbuildings were less than 200 metres below me. The house — to the right as I looked — was long and low, and ranged with its back to the hill, which rose in a mown grass bank immediately behind, so that the top of the bank was only a few feet from the gutter of the slate roof. House and bank were separated by a path no more than a yard wide. There were only two windows in the back of the house, and both were small — lavatories or bathrooms, I guessed. The left-hand end of the house jutted forward, away from the hill, like the foot of a blunt L, and there, in the middle of the end wall, in my full view, was the front door, with a little pitched roof over a porch.
To me, the house was of secondary interest. Far more important was the high mesh fence which bounded the property and abutted the ends of the farm buildings, so that the entire establishment was enclosed by wire or stone; it took me a few moments to work out that the area surrounding the house was one huge dog-run. The drive came in through gates a couple of metres high on the side farthest from me. Any doubt about this being Farrell’s place was dispelled when a dog suddenly came into view, sniffing along the perimeter fence. The animal was a hefty-looking Rottweiler, no doubt the partner of the late and unlamented Buster.
Scanning for details, I spotted a video camera on one corner of the house, covering the approach, and what looked like a security light high on the wall. At first I imagined that the light would be activated by infra-red sensors, but then I realized that if a dog was loose in the compound outside, the system would drive people crazy by popping on and off all night.
There appeared to be nobody at home; certainly there was no car standing outside. Then, as I lay watching, I heard a cow bellow, and I realized that at least one of the barns was still in use for its original purpose. That was a surprise. From the high standard to which the outbuildings had been renovated, I’d assumed that farming had gone out of the window. Then I thought, Maybe keeping cattle is a form of cover, a pretence of normality designed to draw attention away from other activities.
The afternoon passed slowly. At about 3.30 light rain began to fall, so I pulled on my waterproof. The temptation to doze off was strong, especially after our energetic sessions during the night. To stay awake, I kept trying to work out how I would drop Farrell if or when he came home. By far the easiest would be to get him with a G3 or a hunting rifle from up the hill, above the compound and outside it. But since I couldn’t sneak a G3 out of the warehouse (or lay my hands on a hunting rifle), I was going to have to go in close and use the Luger. Because the dog was constantly on the move around its patch, that was going to be difficult. I tried to measure the distance between the porch, where Farrell would probably get out of his car, and the nearest point of the top fence from which I’d have a clear view of him: twenty-five metres at least. I’d want to be closer than that to make sure.
At least the Luger was in good shape. When I first got it, I saw that it was old but in immaculate order, as we generally found with PIRA weapons. Someone had really looked after it — but all the same I’d stripped it down, cleaned it thoroughly and given it a good oiling. One afternoon, when a gale was blowing and the noise of the wind was enough to cover the shots, I’d managed to take it out into an old gravel pit and put twenty or thirty rounds through it, so I knew it wouldn’t let me down.
Just after four o’clock there came a surprise. Up the drive wandered an old crone, a real bog peasant, with a black scarf round her head, an ancient overcoat nearly down to her ankles, buttoned-up boots, and smoking a pipe. The dog ran to meet her, and as she let herself in through the gates it jumped up with its paws on her shoulders. She gave it a kiss and slipped it some tit-bit, after which it went with her as she headed into the farmyard. Through the binoculars I watched her take the pipe from her mouth and put it down on what looked like an old stand for milk-churns. Then she disappeared into one of the sheds and came out with a bucket. A steel gate clanged as she went into the open — fronted barn, presumably feeding the cattle in there. Later she brought an armful of hay across the yard and dumped that in the same area. All the time the dog was at her heels, clearly glad of her company. Then she picked up her pipe and vanished round the far side of the house, where I guessed she was feeding the dog. Finally she went back out through the gates. This time I saw that they opened automatically, presumably worked by pressure pads under the road.
Darkness fell soon after the old girl had disappeared down the hill. I wanted to move in closer, but the wind was dangerous; I could feel what there was of it eddying past me from above — and after our experience at the transit hide, I didn’t want to blow things by stirring up the dog. So I stayed where I was and waited.