The Valley of the Fox

Prologue

He’d trapped me. But had he intended to? Had he meant to drive me up against the old pumping shed by the far end of the lake? Or had I carelessly allowed him to do this, moving after him into this impasse where there was no soundless exit, either across the stream ahead or up the steep open slopes behind the ruined building. Either way I couldn’t move now. And since the laurel bush only partly hid me I knew that if he moved past the corner of the shed he must see me and I would have to kill him.

There was no doubt about that. I’d kill him just as I’d had to kill his dog. I wasn’t going to lose the safety of these huge woods, these three square miles of old oak and beech, with odd nooks and pits in the Cotswold limestone, the heavy undergrowth as well, and great drifts of leaf mould where a dead thing — beast or man — could easily disappear, or as soon decay.

I would kill him because I was angry, too — angry at my stupidity in letting him corner me thus. I thought, in the past weeks, I’d become fairly expert in living wild, in concealment and camouflage. Instead, after I’d first seen the man very early that morning, I’d lost my head and become civilised again — blind, impatient, nervous. And now I was trapped. I had a store of anger within me in any case. And I knew it wouldn’t be difficult, now that I was cornered, to let it all explode.

I notched the arrow, eased three fingers behind the cord, drawing it back slowly as I lifted the bow. There was a space of dappled shade fifteen feet from me, by the back corner of the ruined pumping shed. If Detective-Inspector Ross was doing more than just following a hunch — if he actually knew of my existence now in these woods, had seen me at some point that morning and was really following me — then he would surely move into that bright space and he would die for his mistake, not mine.

The sharpened aluminium tip came slowly back towards the knuckles of my bow hand. The long shaft trembled minutely as I made the draw. Then I held the arrow, almost at full stretch, anchored firmly against my shoulder muscles, the aim steady, all movement gone. Ross was the only one who had to move now.

I’d come down for my swim from the top of the great oak tree the usual way first thing that morning — moving across, squirrel-fashion, onto the middle branches of a neighbouring copper beech, set further back against the steep slope of the hill, where one of its great limbs, leaning right over against the bank, made a swaying gangway down to earth. From beneath, at their base, where this line of trees leant over the small lake, it would have been impossible to climb any of them. There were no footholds, no stubble on the trunk of my huge oak until a first ruff of leaves blossomed out in a crown of small branches twenty feet up — while of course the beech trunks were smooth as ice for the same distance.

The only access to my tree-house was via this errant branch. The wood was too old, the trees too high for any other ready climbing. Though there was another branch offering safety, in a tree further along, a few hundred yards away at the south end of the valley — a smaller springy beech branch, which leant across like a parallel bar straight out over the stream just before it ran out of the lake. This was how I’d hidden myself to begin with, on that first evening running from the school, finding the stream and walking down the middle of it, so that the dogs that I expected behind would have no scent to follow.

This other limb over the water had saved me then, when I’d pulled myself on to it, exhausted, barely able to lift the bow and backpack up after me, before climbing higher up, deep into its heart, hidden then by the thick canopy of leaves. For the dogs had come soon afterwards, that same night, led by police with lights, spearing the undergrowth, splashing across the stream. That night and most of the following day they’d ranged back and forth through the wood while I lay up, secure in the leafy sunshine high above them.

It was then that I’d thought of building a tree-house — of how these vast branches and impenetrable summer leaves could save me more permanently. That was almost two weeks ago, passed in growing safety. Since then only one other person had ventured into the steep dell with its small lake, hidden in the forest, which I had made my own. But now Ross had come, a first snake in this Eden.

When I swam I took only the bow with me, two arrows strapped to its belly. I left my clothes behind. It was high summer, a long spell of hot weather, and prudery had no place anyway in this great emptiness. I’d re-discovered the childhood pleasure of swimming naked, pushing gently out into the mist-topped pool just before sun up, the water with just a touch of ice in it after the night, creeping up over my skin like chilled mercury.

It was the best part of my day, this early morning or late evening swim, for I couldn’t risk it at any other time. Even though the pool was partly concealed at the bottom of the lake, overhung with willow and cornered off on one side by a fallen tree-trunk, the ripples might have eddied out into the calm central water, attracting some trespassing hiker or fisherman.

As it was, even first or last thing in the day, I had to be careful. There were colonies of moorhen and at least a pair of mallard who had their homes along the margins of the water, in the reeds and by the water-lilies. And careful though I was they never failed to make a fuss when I came down to swim. There were a few deer as well — down to drink now and then, very early or late, strayed from the herd that roamed the great parkland of the estate above the valley. I’d surprised a big antlered buck on my path down to the water two mornings before: it had crashed away through the undergrowth like a lorry. There were pheasants too, much more common in the surrounding bushes: wily, richly coloured old birds who never seemed to fly, patrolling secret pathways instead, beaks to the ground — who, unless you nearly stepped on them, said nothing.

It was one of these splendid cocks who probably saved me that morning. The moorhens had batted away as usual on my arrival, skating nervously across the water, while the mallard, getting used to me I suppose, had swum with more dignity up to the north end of the lake. But everything was finally still as I lolled in the water then, just out of my depth, treading ground, the liquid swirling in chilly spirals round my legs. The early mist smoked about my face as I swam out towards the fallen trunk. But I could see upwards into the morning now, through the ring of great trees that circled the lake — see the growing shafts of gold pushing the night away and the blue that was coming, pale blue now with last stars in it, that would soon form a leaden dome over the hot day. I rested against the moist trunk, digging my fingers deep into the thick moss. There was a sudden damp smell of old ruined gardens as I scratched at it, some memory of contentment.

Then the pheasant sang out, a shriek of outrage across the water, its surprise filling the air with danger in an instant. At first — dead still, with my nose just above the tree-trunk — I heard nothing more and thought it a false alarm. But when the bird cried again and got up in a great flurry of wingbeats and headed out over the lake towards me, I knew someone must have driven it from cover.

Then I saw the man, a hundred yards away, emerging from the undergrowth just above my oak tree. He stood for a moment at the edge of the water by the old boathouse, a big Alsatian dog inquisitively beside him, a shotgun loosely crooked in his arm, looking straight at me it seemed as he followed the bird’s path right over my head. At that distance I didn’t know it was Ross; the man was dressed like a caricature of an old-fashioned gamekeeper, in plus fours, tweed jacket and cap. He took up the shotgun then, making a pass with it in the air before levelling it straight in my direction.

I saw the brief flash of light, a shaft of crystal morning sun on the barrel, before I ducked behind the fallen trunk, the water suddenly cold all over my body. But when I looked up again after half a minute the man was gone and I glided quickly back under the willow trees and onto the shore. I had my bow and two sharp arrows. But I couldn’t get home. The keeper was obviously coming down the lake shore towards me, was already between me and my tree-house. I couldn’t get back to the beech branch that leant over the hill halfway up the valley — nor could I risk making for the other smaller branch that would lift me to safety, thirty yards to my left above the stream, for to get over there would be to risk crossing right in his path.

The only escape was off round through the wood on the other side of the lake, making for the old pumping shed — an area which had as much intermittent cover as my own side of the water but where the trees, I knew, had no saving lower branches at all. In any case trees were no real use to me now. There was the dog, who might very soon pick up my scent and then track me to any hidden cover. I had to keep moving and hope to drop the tail somehow as I went along.

For the first ten minutes after I’d made off round the other side of the lake, I thought I’d lost them. The woods were calm behind me, a vast summer-morning calm. The sun had risen in a great arc of gold high above me, the top leaves of the great copper beeches already a deep bronze colour. But among the rabbit paths and undergrowth right at the bottom of the valley, which I kept to, there were still odd patches of mist in dank places. I moved forward, in and out of these swirling blobs of cotton wool very carefully, my skin almost the same colour as the air, a naked ghost.

My plan was to move north up the valley, to the head of the lake and then, to kill my trail, walk down the middle of the stream which ran into it, before doubling back to my tree-house on the far side. The beech forest ran in a thick line here, for nearly a mile along and above the valley, the trees and undergrowth hugging the steep slopes and giving adequate cover before the land opened out at the end of the defile, into rough pasture, dotted with clumps of bramble and gorse. Two or three miles away, beyond these scrubby edges to the manor’s home farm lay the northern boundary to the estate, a small by-road that led to the local market town five miles away. But even though there were no farm buildings up there — just a flock of rarely tended sheep — all this open space was out of bounds in daylight to me. The woods I’d come to know intimately; I felt I controlled them. Beyond was the world, a place I’d loved, but a plague-land to me now.

I’d stopped and was crouching right down, my ear almost to the ground, in the middle of a thick clump of old elder bushes. I’d learnt to walk the leaf mould, along hidden paths, almost soundlessly in my bare feet 1uring the past weeks. Surely the man, in his heavy boots, would be unable to move as quietly? I listened to all the natural sounds of early morning that I’d become accustomed to: a blackbird chirruped suddenly and ran away somewhere behind me. Something else moved high above me, scratching the bark of a tree in a small flurry: a squirrel was going up into the light. But the rest was silence.

I was just turning, about to move away, when I saw him. He was standing, absolutely still, hardly more than twenty yards away, just his head visible, as if disembodied, poking out above a patch of mist. He stared at me — straight at me, it seemed — with his deep-set eyes like holes in a Halloween turnip. He must have seen me, I thought. Or had he? He had the air of a dreamer, of something malign and unreal just emerged from the dying mist. It was Ross, I saw then — the grave-faced dirty tricks man from the Special Branch, sometimes attached to our section: doubtful-eyed, the lids rarely blinking, someone I’d known vaguely in London years before, when I was in Mid-East Intelligence and he’d looked at me over a desk, as he seemed to do now out of the white air, with the same fathomless expression, waiting for you to make the error: the slight lantern jaw, swarthy, the permanent five o’clock shadow: it was certainly Ross, like some more skilled animal, who had caught up with me — Ross, playing the countryman, the man who never gave up. Ross, the hit-man now, who must have been the immediate cause of all my anguish a fortnight before. I’d have tried to kill him there and then except that I’d more to do before I left these woods, a lot more. Besides it was Marcus — his and my old boss — that I really wanted: it was Marcus, after all, who must have sent Ross out into my life to ruin it.

But where was his stupid dog — a police dog, obviously? It must have lagged somewhere behind him for Ross turned and called softly, disappearing back into the cotton wool. I took the chance of moving off as quickly as I could in the opposite direction.

For quite a few minutes then I thought I’d lost him again. I heard the dog whimper, but its excited cries seemed to be disappearing in the distance behind me. What on earth was it doing? My scent must have been clear enough on the ground. I didn’t wait to find out, moving onwards, skirting a clearing, making for the end of the lake.

It was on the far side of this open glade, when I’d gone back into the undergrowth of fern and bramble and thought myself safe, that I heard the sounds of some mild stampede on the still air behind me: bushes crackled, dry sticks broke. The Alsatian was whimpering as it ran, and the hungry sounds were coming towards me this time. The dog had found my trail securely at last and was closing on me quickly.

I ran through the bushes now, my skin thorned as I ran fleetfoot, regardless of noise, intent only on putting as much distance as possible between us. But it would never be enough. The dog had four legs and, despite its earlier tracking errors, its training would tell in the end, I knew.

It gained on me as I ran headlong up the valley. And I thought — it must soon be over: the beast will leap on my back in a moment, or tear at my arm, its dark jaws sinking deep into my flesh.

And it was imagining this bloody hurt, and my subsequent death (for that, of course, had been their intention from the start) that made a charge of anger flood up in me, a tingling, like an electric current that brought the muscles tight together, all over my body in a sense of wild supremacy.

A hunted animal, yes, I’d become just that: naked, earth-grimed, bleeding. But such an animal, at the last, can turn and kill too. There was an arrow for both of them, after all, a chance, at least, before they got me.

I ran up the side of the valley, unstrapping the two arrow shafts as I went, and when I thought I was high enough to command the ground beneath, I turned, stringing the first arrow and waited for the dog.

As soon as it saw me, emerging from some laurel at the bottom of the dell, it left the scent and bounded straight up the slope towards me, head high, going very fast, without any whimpering. Now that it was finally confirmed in its purpose, the animal was like a guided missile that would explode viciously in my face within moments. Ross was nowhere to be seen: the dog had run well ahead of him.

The dacron cord came quickly taut against my cheek. I steadied the sharpened arrow-tip on the animal’s chest. And since it was coming straight up the slope towards me, without any lateral movement, the dog formed an ever-larger target on the same axis. I thought I could make it.

I let it get to within about twenty feet of me — and just before the arrow sang, cutting the air like a whip for an instant, I knew it was going to strike home. There was that sixth sense that sometimes comes in any physical skill when you know you’ve got it right just before you do it, when there is a magic certainty of success.

The arrow, without barbs, drove deep into the dog’s chest, partly transfixing it like a spit through a pig. It came on another yard or so up the hill. But it was only momentum. It wasn’t dead when I picked it up, but there was no bite in it, nor any sound. Only its eyes remained angry. The arrow must have pierced its windpipe or found its heart. I got it out of the open in a moment, cradling it in my arms towards some cover higher up, and when I laid the animal down on the leaf mould, all my shoulder, where the dog’s muzzle had been, ran with foaming blood.

Of course Ross would miss the dog, I knew that. He would look high and low for it now and would surely come back later, with fresh help, to continue the search. But I knew already where I could dispose of the animal, when I had the chance, where it would not betray my presence in the wood and would appear simply to have met with a natural accident. There was a covered well I’d discovered a week before among some bushes, just behind the old pumping shed, with two metal shutters at ground level which opened up, displaying dark water six feet beneath. I would dump the animal there, leaving one of the covers off, so that, if discovered at all, it would be seen as a bloated victim of some woodland error, a town dog fatally unused to country matters.

But I wondered then why Ross hadn’t kept the animal on a lead in the first place? Surely that was how they tracked murderers on the nine o’clock news? Perhaps it was his own dog, a pet, not police trained at all? Ross was just the kind to keep such a dog in London. There was a lot of cruelty in him, in his face at the very least; something of the frustrated hunter there, of someone who’d keep just such a big killer dog in his flat or suburban semi, as a constant reminder of vicious life. Or perhaps, simply, no one else had agreed with him at HQ that I could possibly be anywhere in these woods, which they had so thoroughly combed two weeks before, and he’d had to come down from London on his own, unaided, so that with his shotgun to carry, the dog had to be let run free. But whatever the reason, Ross himself was still there to contend with.

He came into the glade beneath me a moment later, his shotgun at the ready now, perplexed but wary. He called for the dog, a soft call on the morning air that I barely heard.

‘Karen?’ I thought he said. Then he whistled. But only a bird answered in the distance. The sun was rising higher now, beginning to cast long shafts of gold through the cathedral of beech trees round the clearing. The mist had gone. Ross turned apprehensively, as though he felt suddenly exposed in all this brilliant light, and looked up the steep bank towards where I was hidden. I thought — if he comes up I’ll shoot him too. But he didn’t. He moved straight on, following the path he thought the dog had taken, up towards the head of the lake. And so it was the more careless of me to allow myself to be trapped by him ten minutes later behind the ruined pumping shed. For the shed was in the same direction that he had taken, by the northern end of the lake: if I’d stayed put by the dead beast for a little longer, Ross would probably have left the wood altogether.

Instead, after some while crouching uncomfortably on the slope, I became impatient. I was anxious to get rid of the dog and get back to my crow’s nest. So I picked it up again after settling the dead leaves so that no blood was visible, and set off along almost the same path that Ross had taken.

It was when I’d got behind the shed, leaving myself without an exit, and had started to prise up one of the metal shutters with a stick, that I heard something move on the other side of the old brickwork, the faintest sound — but a footfall, I thought, for it was followed almost immediately by another noise, a twig cracking. Peering round the back corner of the building, I saw Ross coming towards me, moving through some saplings, this time with a look of certainty in his eyes, his gun raised.

There was no way out then. The dog was lying in the open, next the well. If Ross came round the corner and saw it, and especially if it had been his dog, I knew he’d shoot me straight away if he got the chance. It was then that I notched the second arrow, drew the bow and waited for him.