He let himself out.
There was a guesthouse by the airport where they’d booked him in, convenient for early-morning flights. Nothing was as it seemed – the spice of life. It never was, in Carlo’s experience. He’d have agreed with what she’d said. A hard place for winning. That hit the nail on the head. He walked fast towards the station. There’d be tears at the end of it. There usually were when amateurs got involved.
The beast was hurt. It was separated from the pack, frightened, and flies clustered over the wound. It was hungry, isolated and lost. The clouds had built. Evening seemed to come fast and the light failed.
A big clap of thunder.
Jago was on his stomach. He had not decided what he would do. He was uncertain about his target. He had a degree of security when he was wedged into the space under the two great boulders but had not yet summoned the strength of purpose – guts or commitment – to wriggle out of his hide, go down the slope and do something.
He was on the groundsheet, wrapped in the coat. Wind blustered through the trees, scattering leaves. The sheets behind the house had begun to flap where previously they had been limp.
The first drops fell. He was watching the back door, wondering which of them would run out to snatch the laundry off the line, throw them into a basket and rush back inside. He waited and watched and no one came.
Lights went on inside, and he saw two windows closed. Big drops of rain hit the leaves above and the stones in front of him. The first little river had begun to flow. There was more thunder, and sheet lightning. He wondered whether a shower or a storm was coming.
The rain pattered hard and Jago had nowhere to shelter.
9
When he moved, a lake of trapped water lapped round him. There was no light, only a lessening of the total blackness.
It was not the best place to be. Jago had thought himself blessed when he had found the gap under the two great stones. It gave him a matchless vantage point where he was protected and hidden. Now, the rain made rivers on the hillside. One tumbled under the twin boulders and flowed over the slab where he lay, dammed by his body. Its depth built up under his armpits and against his crotch. His clothing was inadequate and the ground sheet useless.
It had seemed to Jago that the village marked the epicentre of the storm. Thunder had crashed and flashes of lightning had lit the roof of the house . . . The cockerel had woken him, crowing for attention. There were no cockerels in Canning Town or Stresemannstrasse.
Rainwater cascaded down the slopes of the boulders to fall on his shoulders and the back of his head. It was down his neck and had puddled under his chest and waist. It dribbled across his forehead into his eyes and mouth.
The cockerel had given up. Other than the rain, Jago heard nothing. He had begun to take pride in his disciplines. He didn’t cough or sneeze, and stayed where he was – he didn’t know where the dogs slept. There was a covered box near the back door and they had hung around it during daylight, but whether they were there now asleep or awake and alert, he had no idea.
He had put off a big moment. When to eat the second half of the chocolate. Now resolve fled. Jago fished it out of his pocket. It was soaked and the chocolate was sticky as he peeled off the wrapper. There were no lights in the upper windows of the house. There was nothing there on which he should concentrate. He ate the chocolate in three mouthfuls. It was not how they ate at the bank, either in the coffee shop before the day started or when the trolley came round mid-morning. Some would already have been to the gym, then showered and headed for coffee and a biscuit – they would have taken tiny bites and made it last. When the trolley came there were fat-free meals – salads, fruit and fish. It would have been noticed halfway across Sales if he had gobbled half a bar of a chocolate in three bites.
The lake he was lying in had become a fast-flowing stream. He wanted to pee. Should he manoeuvre onto his side, put his weight on his hip, then try to direct the urine into the rainwater coming past him? The alternative was to crawl forward, drag himself upright and hope his hands weren’t too frozen to fumble with his zip. Important to check the wind direction. It would be futile to attempt to determine the value of being where he was. Better to worry about relieving himself and at what speed to eat chocolate.
A man sneezed.
There was the noise of water flowing, of the wind catching high branches, and the crisp, clear sound of a sneeze, then a choke, which was a second stifled. It had come from behind and above him. He couldn’t have estimated how close it had been because the wind was blowing from that direction. Twenty yards or fifty.
Jago lay on his stomach. He didn’t pee, just strained to hear better. The second sneeze had been fainter, more muffled. He froze, as still as stone.