Читать книгу Night Angels - Danuta Reah - Страница 15

As Sunday dawned over the Pennines, it became a fine winter’s day. The sky was cloudless blue and the air was still. The temperature had dropped, and the ground glittered with frost. It was a day to bring the walkers out, and Keith Strong had decided to get ahead of the rush and make an early start. He knew the Peak well – he worked as a part-time ranger, keeping an eye on visitors to the park, offering a helping hand, getting walkers out of difficulty, taking part in rescues when things went drastically wrong. In the Peak, rescues usually meant someone had been stupid – tried to walk the path up Mam Tor, the shivering mountain, in high-heeled sandals (really, he’d seen it), gone on the tops in bad weather without the right equipment, gone climbing on the edges without safety gear. Today, he wasn’t working; he was out just to enjoy the countryside. His mate, Tony, was driving over to Manchester first thing, and Keith had persuaded him to go via the Snake and drop Keith off at Doctor’s Gate. He planned to take the path up Devil’s Dyke, following the route of the Pennine Way, and walk across to the Flouch Inn. It was a long walk and a hard one, but the weather was right, and he needed a day out. It would do Candy good as well.

Tony dropped him on the straight stretch of road before Doctor’s Gate. ‘I’m not stopping on that bend,’ he said. Keith raised his hand in thanks as Tony drove off, shouldered his rucksack and set off up the hill towards the culvert. He kept Candy on the lead for the road bit. She was obedient – all his dogs were well trained – but she was young, and she was excited and full of energy. It wasn’t worth the risk. She pulled at the lead and he spoke firmly to her, but he let her pull again as the hill got steeper. It made carrying his rucksack up that incline just a bit easier. As soon as they reached the culvert and crossed the road, he let Candy off the lead and she ran ahead up the dyke, sniffing eagerly, dancing with enjoyment. Keith reflected, not for the first time, that it was much easier to make a dog happy than a woman.

He let Candy explore. There were sheep, and at this time of year they could be in lamb, but Candy knew better than to chase them. He sat down on a rock to tighten the laces on his boots and put on his gaiters. Frost or not, it could be muddy up on the tops. He noticed the car with the half awareness of distraction – he was planning his route – and then with annoyance. Its red intruded on the landscape, and, anyway, it shouldn’t have been there. He thought that people who couldn’t manage to make their way here without a car should walk somewhere else. He knew he was being inconsistent, and that irritated him more.

He thought that the car was parked a bit oddly. He called Candy back, and she came bounding down the path with a piece of heather root in her mouth which she laid at his feet, looking at him expectantly. ‘Leave!’ he said, as he walked towards the car. It was pulled right in, close to the rocks. Getting it in there must have damaged it – Keith couldn’t see any way that careless parking would have brought it so far in. He checked the front and back. The number plates had been removed. Right. It was probably stolen, then. Joyriders? It seemed unlikely they’d go to the trouble of half hiding a car up here. Maybe it had been used in a burglary, a get-away car or something. The idea quite appealed to him.

Candy was exploring, her heather root forgotten. She was round the passenger side, sniffing at the wheel, her tail up and her ears perked with interest. Then she froze, her ears forward, her eyes intent. Her tail was down now, cautious, as she lowered herself in stalking mode and peered under the car. She was making little whining noises in her throat. Keith got hold of her collar and hauled her back. ‘Daft dog. You’ll get covered in oil under there.’ Candy looked up at him, and moved round to the other side of the car, still low to the ground, still cautious. Keith followed her, interested now. She moved slowly up to the driver’s door, her nose testing the air, the whines turning to low growls. She pressed her nose against dark stains that had splashed the sill. She scratched at the door, whimpering.

The driver’s door was hard to reach because the car was parked up against the rock. Keith tried the handle, and the door opened a short way. A smell like – he couldn’t quite find the comparison – like a city alleyway, like a…It was the smell of sweat and the geriatric ward, the ward where his mother had died, the smell of ammonia and decay. The smell made him step back and Candy jumped straight in, and began burrowing in the foot-well. Keith grabbed the thick hair on her hindquarters and hauled her out. She squealed. There were dark stains round her muzzle. It was hard to see the inside of the car, but they looked like the same dark stains that were on the dashboard and on the steering wheel, with smudges on the seat and, now he came to look, on the windows. It reminded him of the thick, black mud from the bogs and stagnant pools of Cold-harbour Moor up on the tops. Had someone fallen in, come back to the car to clean up and change?

He went back round to the passenger side and tried that door. It opened. He snapped a command at Candy who was trying to get past him again into the car, and looked round the interior. The glove compartment was hanging open and empty. There was nothing in the car itself. He touched the driver’s seat. It was damp. He checked the boot. It was locked. He shut the car door and scratched his head. He’d better call in, report this to someone. But the hills on either side were blocking the signal to his phone. He’d need to walk right up the path before he was high enough above the rock faces and the steep sides of the dyke, and the signal came back. He set off, whistling for Candy to follow. She raced past him, leaping over the rocks, stopping to look back at him, her mouth open and her tongue hanging out. It was half an hour before he reached the top, breathing hard after the steep climb, feeling his boots heavy with the dark peaty mud that clung to them. Candy was worrying a stick now, her energy undiminished.

He checked his map and took a compass bearing, more to keep his hand in than because he needed to. A kestrel circled in the sky above him. Then he headed off across the hills with Candy bounding ahead, detouring off the path into the heather, disappearing from view and waiting for him to catch up. It was a beautiful day for a walk.