A thin, fine layer of ancient dust suspended in the air.
The cottage buzzed again, discreet but insistent, calling their attention. “I know you’re there. Why don’t you answer me?” it seemed to be saying. The hairs on Daly’s neck stood on end.
“Do you believe in ghosts?” asked Irwin from behind.
“There are nights when I don’t even believe in myself,” replied Daly. “However, there must be a rational explanation for this. Perhaps Devine has some sort of alarm that keeps being tripped.”
He checked the phone and put it back on the receiver. The line was dead.
They walked up a narrow set of stairs to an attic bedroom. There was a sheaf of papers on a chest of drawers. It consisted of bills and brochures on duck decoys and other hunting paraphernalia. The two of them went through the drawers, searching in the pockets of trousers and shirts. At the bottom of one of the drawers was an envelope, already opened. Daly took out a photograph and a handwritten invitation card. It was for a duck-hunting club reunion that had taken place a year previously. After lunch and music there will be a lecture given by our president, David Hughes , it said. The photograph showed a group of old men posing in front of a duck hide with a collection of dead ducks. Daly, who had already examined Devine’s passport and driving license, spotted the deceased in the front row of the photo, his unsmiling face, wary and sad, like that of a man kneeling at his own grave.
Daly had just time enough to register that the postmark on the envelope was local when the buzzing sounded from downstairs again, as though something deep inside the walls of the cottage was vibrating.
“It’s coming every ten minutes,” he said.
Daly opened the hot press and tapped the water pipes. In the kitchen, he checked the small refrigerator and the immersion heater, both switched off. He positioned himself in the living room and waited. Irwin paced restlessly about the house, twitching at imaginary sounds. The house seemed to fret too, creaking and shifting on its foundations.
On the stroke of ten minutes, the picture of the pope began to vibrate, and another ripple of dust formed on the shelf. The buzzing was louder this time—remonstrating, urgent. Daly lifted the picture frame. Wedged behind it was a round black device, vibrating as it moved along the shelf. Daly scooped it up before it scuttled back into darkness. It was a pager, the ring tone switched off. Daly pressed Receive and a message flashed up: eyes on target a to c3 hedge from bld 1. talking to poss ukm. metal object in hand. It had been sent two days previously, but never answered.
Irwin looked at the message and gave Daly a searching glance. “Whose eyes are they talking about?”
“A duck hunter’s? I don’t know.”
Irwin squinted his eyes in concentration, making his face look like a schoolboy’s. “Perhaps the target was Devine. If that’s the case, the eyes got their man.”
Daly searched through the pager’s memory. There was a series of further messages, equally cryptic. Two had arrived in the past week and were written in a kind of code—one that had been carefully devised. They ostensibly referred to the movements of one man around a building, probably his home. eyes on target a from c4 static at gable end, and then a carrying papers to c3 hedge. unsighted. reappears static at c2. then back to bld 1.
Daly wondered why they had been sent. To caress Devine’s sense of paranoia, or warn him he was being watched? He stared through the small window at the fringe of trees bounding the garden, their leafless branches swaying together in the wind. He thought of Eliza Hughes and her wandering brother, shadowy movements in the night and of a pair of eyes that never seemed to rest in this mysterious landscape.
Before they left the cottage, an expensive-looking Mercedes swung into the drive and an elderly man, small and silver-haired, slipped out of the driver’s seat. He
The cottage buzzed again, discreet but insistent, calling their attention. “I know you’re there. Why don’t you answer me?” it seemed to be saying. The hairs on Daly’s neck stood on end.
“Do you believe in ghosts?” asked Irwin from behind.
“There are nights when I don’t even believe in myself,” replied Daly. “However, there must be a rational explanation for this. Perhaps Devine has some sort of alarm that keeps being tripped.”
He checked the phone and put it back on the receiver. The line was dead.
They walked up a narrow set of stairs to an attic bedroom. There was a sheaf of papers on a chest of drawers. It consisted of bills and brochures on duck decoys and other hunting paraphernalia. The two of them went through the drawers, searching in the pockets of trousers and shirts. At the bottom of one of the drawers was an envelope, already opened. Daly took out a photograph and a handwritten invitation card. It was for a duck-hunting club reunion that had taken place a year previously. After lunch and music there will be a lecture given by our president, David Hughes , it said. The photograph showed a group of old men posing in front of a duck hide with a collection of dead ducks. Daly, who had already examined Devine’s passport and driving license, spotted the deceased in the front row of the photo, his unsmiling face, wary and sad, like that of a man kneeling at his own grave.
Daly had just time enough to register that the postmark on the envelope was local when the buzzing sounded from downstairs again, as though something deep inside the walls of the cottage was vibrating.
“It’s coming every ten minutes,” he said.
Daly opened the hot press and tapped the water pipes. In the kitchen, he checked the small refrigerator and the immersion heater, both switched off. He positioned himself in the living room and waited. Irwin paced restlessly about the house, twitching at imaginary sounds. The house seemed to fret too, creaking and shifting on its foundations.
On the stroke of ten minutes, the picture of the pope began to vibrate, and another ripple of dust formed on the shelf. The buzzing was louder this time—remonstrating, urgent. Daly lifted the picture frame. Wedged behind it was a round black device, vibrating as it moved along the shelf. Daly scooped it up before it scuttled back into darkness. It was a pager, the ring tone switched off. Daly pressed Receive and a message flashed up: eyes on target a to c3 hedge from bld 1. talking to poss ukm. metal object in hand. It had been sent two days previously, but never answered.
Irwin looked at the message and gave Daly a searching glance. “Whose eyes are they talking about?”
“A duck hunter’s? I don’t know.”
Irwin squinted his eyes in concentration, making his face look like a schoolboy’s. “Perhaps the target was Devine. If that’s the case, the eyes got their man.”
Daly searched through the pager’s memory. There was a series of further messages, equally cryptic. Two had arrived in the past week and were written in a kind of code—one that had been carefully devised. They ostensibly referred to the movements of one man around a building, probably his home. eyes on target a from c4 static at gable end, and then a carrying papers to c3 hedge. unsighted. reappears static at c2. then back to bld 1.
Daly wondered why they had been sent. To caress Devine’s sense of paranoia, or warn him he was being watched? He stared through the small window at the fringe of trees bounding the garden, their leafless branches swaying together in the wind. He thought of Eliza Hughes and her wandering brother, shadowy movements in the night and of a pair of eyes that never seemed to rest in this mysterious landscape.
Before they left the cottage, an expensive-looking Mercedes swung into the drive and an elderly man, small and silver-haired, slipped out of the driver’s seat. He
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