Appleby Plays Chicken by Michael Innes Page B

function in the fashion of a serious reading man’s. The only probability he should be concerned with at the moment was whether they were going to get him. If this second chap had a gun too, and if they were absolutely out for his life, then the prospect wasn’t too good.
    Again he made a quick swerve. He had just spotted an unhealthily green area in the moor in front of him. They order these things better in the highlands of Scotland, he thought. There you get large stretches of moor just right for this sort of thing, and very little of it boggy… He heard a shout behind him. Presumably the stranger now felt himself within hail of his assistant, and was bellowing some instruction. And it was nonsense. That was what he had been telling himself. Stumbling upon a murderer strolling away from his crime was one thing; finding that he had an accomplice lurking in the middle distance was quite another. It removed the whole affair into a realm of the wildly improbable… At this point in his reflections David allowed his flying feet to take a false step with the result that he went head over heels in heather.
    He picked himself up, uncomfortably breathless, and heard a further shout, now alarmingly close behind him. He ran on – and with surprising speed. There was no doubt about the state of the funk now. It had mounted again and he had the fear of death on him. For the moment, that seemed to help. He cleared a trickle of water, treacherous on its either side, with an ease that would have done credit to a gazelle. Still, he wasn’t sure that his knees felt too good. Perhaps that was because of the tumble he’d taken. Or perhaps it was the funk. The important thing was to realize that life was enormously desirable… He made another swerve.
    This time it had been a litter of boulders that didn’t suggest too good going. He was still managing to head for the road – if it could be called that – from which he had finally turned off to climb Knack Tor. But now there was a long tongue of soggy terrain dead in front of him. He remembered being told that in places there were patches of bog that could be really dangerous. Down you’d go. And after some weeks you’d begin to send up a bubble or two. But nobody would ever find you – unless, hundreds of years later, your body was dug up, perfectly preserved in peat.
    That – come to think of it – simplified matters for his friends behind him. If they could just pick him off with a gun – or come up with him, David grimly added to himself, and batter him efficiently to death – then they just had to find the right sort of boggy place for him, before going comfortably home to dinner. But why hadn’t they done something of the sort with the corpse they already had on their hands? Perhaps the bogs were a bit too bouncy, buoyant, sticky. Your head or your feet, say, would continue obstinately in view. An attraction for carrion crows… David found his speed increasing. He realized that there was much to be said for terror. It got you along.
    There was another shot. It was a feeble sort of pop, and he decided that the only firearm available to the enemy was still the pistol he had first seen in the dead man’s hand. That was encouraging. He took the risk of glancing over his shoulder. There was the stranger, still hanging on, and with the second man now shoulder to shoulder with him. That was encouraging too. He had entirely avoided being cut off, and two chaps dead behind him were no more dangerous than one. And the interval was still such that this second shot had been no more than a demonstration. Perhaps it could even be called an acknowledgement of defeat. For now the track was no distance off – and as soon as he reached it his footing would be secure as he fled. That had been their only chance, really – that he should take a second and disabling tumble. Once on a safe surface, he should be all right. The stranger had clearly been a climber, and his middle-age was of