‘No, we haven’t quarrelled. It just is … well…’ Smiler didn’t like telling a lie to Joe, but for safety’s sake he had to.

  ‘Well, she’s gone away. This morning. And she won’t be back for a month. More maybe. And she thought it would be better if I found lodgings near the job. I could pay about two pounds a week. And if wanted give a hand around the place. And then –’

  ‘Whoa!’ cried Joe. ‘Rein her in a bit! Your auntie’s gone off this morning?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Why, me lad?’

  ‘Her sister’s very sick. Down in … in Bristol.’

  Joe considered this and said slyly, ‘You sure it’s Bristol and not, say, Yarmouth?’

  ‘It’s Bristol. She’s very old and very sick, this sister. She’s my auntie, too.’ Smiler was rather pleased with this last touch.

  ‘Naturally;’ said Joe. ‘And your aunt only heard about this this morning and had to pack her gear and hump it away to Bristol?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Short notice, eh? But then sisters is always inconsiderate to one another – they tell me. Who’s going to look after Hillside Bungalow?’

  ‘The woman next door.’

  ‘As a good neighbour should. You’ll go there now and then to run an eye over it, like?’

  ‘Most week-ends, yes.’

  Joe finished his mug of cider and refilled it. He sat considering Smiler very closely, his face, brown as polished oak, half-thoughtful, half-smiling.

  Then he said, ‘You want to give me a straight answer to a straight question, Johnny?’

  ‘Of course, Mr Ring – … I mean, Joe.’

  ‘Well, then Johnny, me lad, you listen carefully. I’m a man as likes to keep his own business to hisself. I make a living and the ways I do it ain’t always by the book. But I haven’t never done anything really bad. You know what I mean by that?’

  ‘I think so, Joe.’

  ‘You’d better know so, Johnny. By really bad I means something you wake up and think about in the night – and you know it was really bad and you wish you’d never done it. You get what I mean, Johnny?’

  ‘I think so, Joe.’

  ‘I mean like I wouldn’t want to help anyone to find lodgings that had, say, pinched money out of the church box, or knocked off the till in a shop, or had been some kind of tearaway who’d think nothing, say, of bundling a poor old lady off a pavement and pinching her handbag. Them’s the kind I wouldn’t help. So give me a straight answer, Johnny. You ever done anything like that?’

  Smiler hesitated. He liked Joe and he wasn’t going to lie to him over this – not even to get a good lodgings.

  He said, ‘I pinched a few comic books sometimes. And, maybe, nicked a bottle of milk or a bar of chocolate that just happened to be there. But I didn’t ever do anything bad like you said. Not ever. Cross me throat and hope to die!’ He pulled the edge of his hand across his neck.

  Joe nodded. ‘Just like I thought.’ He stood up. ‘Well then, about these lodgings. I got to admit that they’re hard to come by. Specially at the price you’re offerin’. But it just so happens that I like a bit of young company about the place. And, it just so happens that there’s two bedrooms here and I only uses one. And, it just so happens, Johnny me lad, that not bein’ hard up for an odd penny I ain’t out to make a profit from a friend – so you can have the room for a quid a week. Make your own bed, keep your room tidy, help in the house – and the yard! And neither of us ask awkward questions of the other when we can see as how they ain’t in place. Suit you?’

  Delighted, Smiler cried, ‘Oh, thank you, Mr Ringer!’

  Joe frowned. ‘’Nother thing. Every time you call me Mr Ringer you muck out the pig pen. Joe it is.’

  ‘I won’t forget, Joe.’

  ‘Don’t mind if you do now and then – that pig pen’s an awful chore. Now then, pop out and get your bike and your stuff. I seed you comin’ along the lane humped up like a bloomin’ camel. And Johnny, another thing.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I don’t think as I would mention your change of address to Mrs Lakey and Miss Milly. They mightn’t think I was a fit and proper person for you to lodge with.’

  ‘Of course they would. You’re super.’

  ‘All the same. Don’t let on. What women don’t know won’t worry ’ em. Though I must say, they usually finds out in the end. Bring your stuff in, and then we’ll go get ourselves a couple of fat trout for supper.’

  At the time when Smiler was taking his belongings into Joe’s cottage Yarra was coming out of her den on the hillside. Imber village had been full of training soldiers all day and they had stayed rather later than they usually did. Yarra, too wise now to risk showing herself when there were human beings about, had kept in the den or at its mouth all day. When the cubs were full of milk and sleeping, she had lain half in and half out of the entrance watching the valley and the village below. All day there had been a movement of tanks and trucks through the place, the crackle of blank ammunition being fired and, now and again, a green or red flare would burst in the bright air and drift earthwards with a plume of tawny smoke rising from it. Higher up the combe a squad of soldiers had been firing two-inch mortar bombs over the ridge at an unseen target. Once a badly aimed mortar bomb had exploded on the ridge thirty yards behind the cave. It had shaken loose chalk and small stones from the roof. Yarra, touchy now that she had young to protect, had grown angry and hungry. But she would not leave the den until the men had gone from the village.

  When at last the valley and the village were peaceful, Yarra left the cave. She moved swiftly up on to the ridge and then passed along it just below the skyline. The dry, tawny grasses of winter were marked now with new growths. Trefoils and small harebells showed their blossoms on the rabbit-bitten bare patches. Hungry, Yarra’s keen eyes marked every movement around her: the flight of an early bee; the dance of a small hatch of flies above a rain pool; the flirt of wing and the scut of a rabbit’s tail. But she wasn’t interested in a rabbit. She wanted more substantial game.

  High above Yarra three pairs of eyes watched her. The two circling buzzards, lazing aloft on a rising thermal current, saw her and drifted in her wake. While they mostly hunted for themselves, taking small birds, rodents and young rabbits, they were not too proud to feast at the remains of another animal’s table. In the past Yarra had provided them with free hare and deer leftovers. So they followed her, spiralling round and round, waiting for her to make a kill.

  The carrion crow, an ancient, weathered bird of the plains, watched Yarra too. Sliding across wind above her, but far below the buzzards, he turned a neat somersault and came down under the stiff breeze to perch on a solitary thorn that marked the valley ridge a few hundred yards from the cave. The crow knew the buzzards were watching Yarra’s movements. He knew that if she made a kill they would give him no peace to take a supper from the leavings. It was not that he was afraid of them; but they were big, flappy-winged birds. They would – as they had often done – come sailing down above him, rolling and mewing a few feet above his head and upsetting him. This evening the crow felt in the mood for a more peaceful meal. And at this time of the year he knew where to find one. This was the time of the year when Nature began to spread her banquet for the predators. Nests were filling with young birds. The rabbit holes and warrens held young. The hare forms in the young bracken and tall grasses sheltered leverets, and almost every dead mole hill held a mouse’s nest that could be dug out. The carrion crow knew that any hole or cranny was likely to hold something good to eat.

  For many days now he had seen Yarra coming out of her cave entrance and he was curious. He watched her move away into the distant folds of the plain and then he flapped slowly down to settle on an ash outside the entrance.

  He cocked his head and listened for any sound from the cave. He could hear nothing because the cubs were deep in milk-gorged sleep. He sat there for ten minutes and considered the entrance. It was bigger than most he knew. He was a wise old bird and realized that once inside a rabbit hole there was little chance of using wings for flight. All he would have was his great black beak and claws to defend himself. He considered the cave entrance for a while, the westering sun striking turquoise and purple sheens from the long feathers of his great square tail. He uttered a bad-tempered kwaarp, and then flew down to the cave entrance. Slowly he began to stalk inside, jerking his great head about, on the alert for the slightest sound or movement. He turned the corner of the small tunnel run and was faced with the gloom of the cave itself. Although a fair amount of light seeped through into the cave, the crow stood there for a while until his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom. After a moment or two, the crow saw a slight movement at the back of the cave as one of the cubs stirred in its sleep. The crow moved forward, deliberately, cautiously, step by step, his great black beak held ready to thrust. One blow with his beak would break and pierce the skull of a young rabbit or kitten.

  On the plain Yarra put up a hare from a small hollow filled with dead bracken drift. One of the buzzards high above saw the movement of the hare and the fast take-off of Yarra as she went after it. The buzzard mewed loudly, calling to its mate. The other buzzard swung downwind to close formation. The buzzards hung together, swinging round in a tight circle, watching the hunt.

  Yarra closed rapidly with the hare, which was one she had chased before. It was a big, well-fleshed animal that knew its way around the plains. Before, it had escaped from Yarra by diving under a derelict tank where she could not reach it. But this time there was no such refuge in sight. The hare raced away with ears and eyes laid back. He could see Yarra following and gaining on him, no matter how much he swerved and switched, side-jumped and doubled and twisted. Yarra overhauled him fast. When she was three feet from him she went into her killing leap. The hare saw Yarra spring from the ground behind him. Desperate, he produced the only trick he had to offer. As Yarra took off – the hare stopped dead in his tracks. One moment he was going at top speed and the next he was crouched motionless in the grass. Yarra sailed right over the top of him, overshooting him by a yard.

  The hare flashed round and was away. Yarra, angry and hungry, screwed sideways as she landed, her talons tearing up grass and soil. In fifty yards she was on his tail again – and this time she did not miss.

  The buzzards above saw her make her kill, mewed excitedly to one another, and began to drift lower on the evening wind.

  In the cave on the hillside the carrion crow was now standing two feet from the cubs. He could see them clearly. Although he had never seen anything like Yarra before, the cubs were no surprise to him. He had killed many litters of wild-cat kittens. These were kittens, young and tender.

  He waddled forward, beak poised for the kill. As he did so, a stone in the roof, loosened by the mortar bomb during the day, dropped from its place and thudded to the ground behind him. The crow turned with a jump and a flap of his wings. He faced the cave entrance warily. After a while his tenseness faded. He turned and moved again towards the cubs. They were lying a little separated and the crow instinctively chose the larger for his kill.

  He stood a foot from it, lowered his head and sharp beak and prepared to jump in and thrust with all his power. At that instant a shadow passed over the back wall of the cave.

  The crow swung round to face Yarra as she came quickly into the cave, carrying a large hare in her mouth.

  It was the last thing the carrion crow ever saw. Yarra dropped the hare and leapt for him. Her jaws took him under the neck as he tried to fly up. Holding him, she killed him and then, still gripping him in her teeth, shook and swung him about so that long black primary and small breast feathers floated about the cave. Then she dropped him and went to the cubs, waking them as she nosed and muzzled and licked them. They had been saved because, as Yarra had settled on the grass to eat her kill, a new instinct in her had suddenly been born, an instinct which was soon to become a maternal habit – the instinct to take food back to her lair for the cubs. She had brought the hare back to share with her young, though it was going to be many days yet before they would be ready for solid food.

  At Ford Cottage Major Collingwood came into the kitchen. He had been pottering around the garden and barn. It was now time for him to tidy himself up before having dinner. He was a kind, pleasant-looking man, his dark hair well streaked with grey over the ears.

  He said to his wife, who was mixing up eggs to make an omelette, ‘You know, love – some blighter’s pinched that old bike from the barn.’

  Mrs Collingwood smiled and said, ‘Then you should be glad. It was just a load of old junk. And you’d better get cleaned up. Omelettes won’t wait for anyone – not even retired Army majors.’

  ‘It’s funny,’ said the Major. ‘Not just about the bike. But I got a funny feeling in the barn.’

  ‘Indigestion?’ Mrs Collingwood smiled and cocked an eyebrow at him.

  ‘No, my dear. But I’m pleased to see that you are now back in all your former rude health.’

  ‘What kind of feeling then?’

  ‘As though something’s been about.’

  ‘You mean a ghost?’

  ‘No. Somebody. I just got that feeling.’

  ‘Well, then, perhaps it’s the one who had the sardines because I’m quite sure Mrs Bagnall would never have taken them.’

  ‘You mean you’ve missed sardines? From in here?’

  ‘Either that. Or I miscounted before we went away. Six tins, I thought. Now there’s only three.’

  ‘How could you possibly remember?’

  ‘A woman does. Now go and get cleaned up. I told you –’

  ‘That an omelette, like Time, waits for no man.’

  Major Collingwood went upstairs looking thoughtful and a little puzzled. And Major Collingwood, since he had done all his service in the Royal Corps of Military Police, was the kind of man who rather enjoyed a puzzle or a mystery. Since his wife had now mentioned the marks on the bathroom curtain, he studied them carefully before beginning to tidy himself up.

  The cause of Major Collingwood’s puzzlement was at that moment sitting with Joe in his kitchen having supper. Each of them was enjoying a grilled brown trout from the River Wylye which ran along the end of the field below Joe’s cottage. Although it was a few days before the trout fishing season opened officially, it would have made no difference to Joe if there had been two months or more to go.

  An hour before he had given Smiler his first experience of poaching trout. They had gone down to the river at the end of the field. Here, across the stream, was a set of hatches – like large wooden doors – that could be raised or lowered to regulate the flow of water to the weir pool below.

  They sat on the hatchway run above the top of the pool and Joe tied a hook on the end of a spool of nylon line, which had a small stick through the centre of it. He showed Smiler the right knot to use. A half-blood knot, he called it. Then he threaded several worms on to the hook and clipped a heavy lead weight on to the line three feet above the hook.

  They sat on the hatchway planks and Joe dropped the hooked, baited and weighted line into the water. He paid it out very gently as the bottom current took the lead weight slowly downstream along the river bed.

  ‘You sits here like this, Johnny me lad,’ said Joe. ‘And it being still light you looks all innocent and enjoyin’ the view. Then, if ’n a river keeper shows up, or one of the gents what has fishin’ rights, you just lets go the spool gentle. The whole lot sinks and you come back next day and fish it out. Always lookin’ innocent and enjoyin’ the view is important.’

  As he spoke he paid out line slowly, keeping a slight tension on it through his fingers.

  ‘But if you is left in peace, you just pays away the line like this. Sooner or later one of them big trout below the hatch what the fishing gents can’t ever get with their little bitty flies, will go for the worms. And, Johnny me lad, let ’em go for ’em you must. Even when you feel ’em. Let ’em take it all. No striking like the fly-fisher folk do. That old trout’ll hook himself in no time. Like this one! Whoa!’

  The line in Joe’s hand suddenly streaked away and Joe let it run for a moment or two from the spool. Downstream a fish suddenly broke water in a great silvery jump. Joe held the line firm now, and the trout dived and darted all over the pool for a while. Then Joe began to haul the fish in without any finesse and lifted it up to the hatch on the end of the line.

  ‘Always use a good, strong nylon line. Six or eight pounds breaking strain. The old trout won’t worry about the thickness of the line if ’n there’s a bunch of worms on the end.’

  He smacked the head of the trout across a wooden post of the hatch opening, unhooked it, and dropped it into his pocket. He said, ‘Now then, you have a go. I’ve got my supper.’

  He made Smiler thread fresh worms on the hook. Smiler paid out the line as Joe had shown him. Within five minutes he had caught his supper. It was a beautiful brown trout, firm flanked, and flecked with lovely red and yellow spots.

  ‘Kill ’un quick. That’s a kindness some of these fancy fishers don’t always bother about. That’s a nice fish. Pound and half. It’ll eat like nothing you’ve ever tasted before. Leave it to Uncle Joe. You’ll see.’

  Later Smiler sat with Joe in his new lodgings, the both of them eating grilled trout and drinking cider (Smiler being very careful how much he took, and Joe treating it like water). As he washed up the supper things for Joe afterwards, Smiler remembered how worried he had been that morning about how it would all turn out. And it couldn’t have turned out better! It just showed that it did no good to worry too much about things that might happen. Though what he would have done without Joe, he just didn’t know. Samuel M., he said, don’t you ever forget what a good sort Joe is … and one day … Well, one day you’ve got to find some way of paying Joe back. Say, for instance, you got really rich. Rolling in it, because you invented something that was bringing in thousands … Well then, you could buy Joe a new van … Yes, that was it. A new van.