'Watch carefully,' she told him. 'They do this amazing thing. The male bird performs a sky dance and passes the food to the female in mid-air.'
Ben watched it happen, and found he was holding his breath in anticipation as he did so. The male swooped and dived and then, in one spectacular movement, they met and the food passed from one to the other. Ben couldn't help breaking into a grin as it happened. He turned to look at Annie, to see that she too was beaming with wonder.
It all happened so quickly after that.
The sound of a single gunshot echoed around the countryside. A flurry of birds rose up from the high grass of the marshland; but there was one bird that would never rise up again. The male hen harrier dropped from the air like a stone.
Annie gasped. As she did so, there was another gunshot and, with pinpoint accuracy, the female fell to earth.
The girl's binoculars remained pointed at the empty sky where the hen harriers had been flying only seconds before; but something urged Ben to scour the ground. Gunshots didn't come from nowhere, and he was determined to find out who had just shot down the birds. High grass suddenly filled his vision, and as he moved his head swiftly from side to side, flashes of sky and the distant forest replaced them momentarily, until finally he found what he was looking for.
The man must have been several hundred metres away, and as he came into Ben's field of vision he was breaking his shotgun and allowing two spent cartridges to fly out over his right shoulder. 'Look,' Ben whispered hoarsely.
'I see him,' Annie replied, and they both stared at the man as he turned and walked away. Neither of them said what was clearly obvious, but Ben knew beyond question that they were both thinking it.
The man who had just shot two rare hen harriers was wearing the distinctive khaki uniform of an RAF combat soldier.
As he walked out of sight, Ben and Annie lowered their binoculars in unison. And then, as though the sky itself was mourning the horrible sight they had just witnessed, it started to rain.
Chapter Four
It was a long walk back, not just because of the rain but also because of a frosty silence between them. Annie seemed to have taken the death of the bird as a personal insult, and Ben felt that as he was the closest person to her at the time, he was at the receiving end of her prickly reaction.
It was early evening by the time they returned, their clothes saturated by the rain. Ben felt numb, not only from the wet but also from the strain of the last few hours. Annie hadn't spoken, but he could tell she felt the same too. They changed into some dry clothes, hung their wet walking gear in the hostel's boiler room, a cavernous, musty basement thick with the aroma of drying clothes, and then headed off to the common room together.
The common room was a cosy but slightly shabby place. There were squashy old sofas that sank deep as you sat in them, and low coffee tables that had seen better days. A soft-drink vending machine hummed gently in the corner, and on one side there was a kettle and tea-making things. Ben made a cup of hot, sweet tea for them both, and they sat side by side on a sofa in a deserted corner of the room. Small groups of people sat together talking quietly; here and there was the occasional solitary guest, minding their own business. They were a mixed bunch — not many of them were particularly young, despite the fact that this was a youth hostel. Ben wasn't minded to make eye contact with many of his fellow guests — he felt subdued and not much like talking to anybody.
They were glad of the warmth of the room after the soaking they had received, but were halfway through their tea before either of them spoke. 'Pretty weird day, huh?' Ben offered. He knew it sounded stupid even as he said it.
'Weird?'
Annie spat. 'Is that all you can say? It was horrible.' She slammed her tea down on the table in front of her, causing some of it to slosh over her hand.
'All right, Annie,' Ben snapped at her, suddenly infuriated by her attitude. 'It wasn't me that killed the birds, you know.'
She wiped her tea-moistened hand against her trousers in annoyance. 'No one said you killed the birds, Ben. I'm just saying it was horrible, all right?'
He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself down. 'You're right,' he said quietly. 'It was horrible.' Annie was clearly spoiling for an argument, and there was no point getting into one with her. 'Do you think we should tell someone? I mean, surely it's illegal, what we saw.'
His cousin shrugged. 'Yes, I suppose so. We can call the RSPB when we get back: they'd definitely want to know about stuff like this going on — shooting hen harriers is illegal, and it's important to notify the authorities. I just wish we could identify the guy who did it. He shouldn't be allowed to get away with this. He should be prosecuted.'
'I could contact my mum,' Ben offered, trying to raise Annie's mood a bit. 'As she's an environmental campaigner, I bet she'd know people who would take an interest in all this.'
'Yeah, I guess,' Annie replied sullenly.
'I just—' Ben hesitated because he knew that what he was about to say would touch a nerve. 'I just don't understand why the RAF would be involved. Why are they shooting rare birds? It doesn't make any sense.'
'It's not the RAF,' Annie said through gritted teeth. 'I know it's not. They go out of their way to look after the environment up at Spadeadam.'
Ben gave her an involuntarily sceptical look. He knew what he'd seen, after all, and it had been Annie herself who had identified the guy's RAF combat dress.
'Don't look at me like that, Ben,' Annie warned him. 'I know you think I'm only saying this because of my dad, but I'm not. Think about it — there'd be an outcry if that amount of land was given over to military training without any regard for the environment whatsoever. There's some other explanation. There has to be.' She stood up, and Ben was alarmed to see tears filling her eyes. 'I'm going to bed,' she said. 'And tomorrow, we walk in a different direction. I never want to see Spadeadam again.'
As she stormed out of the room, Ben realized that the other occupants had all stopped talking and were staring at them. Slightly embarrassed, he sat down again and went back to contemplating his cup of tea. Despite the fact that half of him wanted to follow and have it out with her, he knew Annie well enough to realize that continuing the row now would be the worst thing to do, especially as he was pretty on edge himself. Stuff would be better in the morning, he hoped. Besides, he didn't blame her for being angry — he'd been as shocked as her when they saw the birds plummet to the earth, and like her he didn't feel any desire to head back towards Spadeadam.
'Spadeadam?'
Ben jumped. The voice seemed to have come out of nowhere. He looked up sharply and couldn't see anyone — for a moment he wondered if he had been imagining it.
'Been up to Spadeadam, did she say? The girl? The girl who just left?' The words seemed to tumble nervously over themselves.
Ben realized the voice was coming from behind him. When he turned to look at its owner, however, he had to catch his breath.
He recognized him at once, of course. The long floppy hair; the hook nose; the piercing green eyes; the grey overcoat that he wore despite the fact that it was quite warm in the common room. The ghostly old man from the railway bridge the previous day did not look quite so sinister close up, but that did not stop him from being spooky. He did not take his wide eyes off Ben, and the tic on his face seemed metronomic, like clockwork. Ben found the sudden shock of his presence so surprising that he was unable to answer; he just watched mutely as the old man walked round and took a seat on the sofa next to him, his wild eyes fixed on him all the time.
'I was just going to go to bed,' Ben said uncomfortably, desperate to get away but not wanting to appear rude. At these close quarters the old man was distinctly fragrant — Ben wondered what he was wearing under his overcoat, and noticed that his slip-on shoes were soiled, the bottom of his thin trousers torn.