Dangerous Encounters

Chapter 19 Ruth conceives a workable plan

Ruth said as we finished the meal, "Graham, you seem worried." 

"I am. I'd formed a preliminary plan based upon what I expected to find. I was mistaken. I know why. It's going to a place by car. You get the impression of going to Northallerton which is a small but nevertheless significant town, and Railton House is just outside it. Well it's only four miles, but four miles of not very much. The nearest hamlet is only a mile from the house but stick a camper van there and you've increased the population by twenty percent. Eve would know about it in five minutes. She even gives the most common-all-garden Ford Transit van a second look." 

"I can't see how to get either one of you two into the house, or how the hell you meet the maid without sending alarm bells ringing. It will always appear too targeted. If the house were in town, fine. My perception of its situation was flawed." 

""What do we do next?" asked Pat. 

"I want to have a look through the hedge opposite the house but at night. We'll stop at the far field gate - the one we stopped at last, and Ruth and I will walk down the field towards the house." 

"So what do we do from now till then?"

"We'll be a family. We'll go to Richmond." 

We became spring tourists in the beautiful if somewhat over cosseted village which was the entry point to Swaledale. Ruth drove us around the minor roads, and we had a five mile walk. 

We drank coffee from thermos flasks by a bubbling stream in a spring leafed glade, the four of us in warm companionship, dappled by a sun that now gave real heat. 

"This is so wonderful," said Ruth, "just the four of us, and nothing disturbing our peace. Just living in this fragment of time. Remember this kind of tranquility you two," she looked at the girls, "these moments are rare and precious." 

Amanda said, "But it's not real, is it, Ruth? This is an interlude between. Not life. You couldn't spend hour upon hour being cuddled by your lover with your adopted daughters by your side. There has to be getting things to eat and all the rest of it." 

I said, "I think what Ruth is saying, Mandy, is that you fail to register a hold on moments like these at your peril. This is what marks us as human, and not a unit of consumerism." 

We had a light meal in a pub, and in the dark made our way back to the field. 

Ruth and I reached the gloom of the tall hedge. We had followed the right hand boundary of the field, which too was hedged with the road beyond. Walking now roughly westward, we reached a point opposite the gate to Railton House. The car park was illuminated by two halide flood-lights. Two of the director's Jaguars were there. I poked the telescope through the bottom of the hedge and crouched down. In the car park also was a large, shiny, black, brand-new Rover. I read the registration number to Ruth. 

A Panda car passed, at a patrol speed of about twenty miles an hour. We noted the time. 

The car park lights went off, leaving a light in the portico illuminating the front door. 

The third Jaguar arrived. As it reached about half way up the drive the car park lights came on. I saw John Herrigan, the MD get out of the car, with a youngish blonde-haired woman in a long evening dress topped with a shawl. They were let in by the maid. I read out the Jaguar's number and said who it belonged to. 

The Panda car reappeared, backed into the gateway and returned the way it had come. 

"The Panda's been away fifteen minutes. Wasn't Eve's circuit five miles?" asked Ruth. 

"Yes. You're thinking what I'm thinking. That Panda's orbiting Eve's little world. We'll know in fifteen minutes or so." 

A light came on in one of the dormer windows in the top floor. I focused on it. Eve's silhouette in evening dress showed briefly before she pulled the curtains to.