The Shadowy Horses

The curtains twitched in a nearby window, and I caught a glimpse of Robbie's small pale face. A road accident, I thought, must surely be a spot of unexpected brightness in a sick child's boring day. And the boy was, at any rate, getting a lesson on language. The large, red-faced man—who seemed to have grown somehow larger and more florid— had used nearly every curse invented and a few I'd never heard, in explaining his side of things to the beleaguered-looking police officer. "Ah mean," he raged, in a Scots dialect so thick it sounded like a foreign tongue, "will ye just look at what the daftie's done to yon great pole! The dampt thing's cowpit ower!"

I listened with a frown, intrigued. "Daftie" was simple enough, I thought, and "dampt" was clearly "damned," but "cowpit ower?" And then I looked where he was pointing, and my frown cleared. Fallen over, I decided. That's what he must mean. The huge wooden pole had indeed split on impact and toppled into the field across the road, crushing a section of hedge in a tangle of thick black power lines.

Power lines .. .

I froze a moment, tried to think. What was it Robbie had said to David Fortune, only an hour ago? I could see his bright-eyed, freckled face, and hear the confident young voice proclaim: "The electricity's going off, anyway, sometime soon ..."

I couldn't help the chill. My head turned slowly, cautiously, as if I were compelled to look, yet didn't want to see. Beside me, the curtains at the window twitched once more and then lay still, and though I went on watching them, they didn't move again.

*-*-*-*-*

"It's quite remarkable," said Quinnell, "what the boy knows. If I weren't bothered by ethics I'd take him to Newmarket, make a small fortune." Smiling at the prospect, he leaned forward to take a chocolate digestive biscuit from the tray between us.

The electricity was on again, and he'd taken advantage of the fact to brew a pot of tea. One steaming sweet sip chased away the lingering chill of the old house and made the red-walled sitting room feel cozy in spite of the west wind that rattled the windowpanes. To one side of me the big black tomcat, Murphy, lay draped along a bookshelf, lazy-eyed, while his girlfriend Charlie slumbered on the armrest of my chair. I stroked her thick fur and she flexed one paw in what might have been a protest or a gesture of contentment. One never could tell, with cats.

I would have felt a whole lot better myself, I acknowledged, if Quinnell hadn't used that one word: ethics.

"My mother," he went on, "fancied herself a spiritualist, but then it was all the rage, in her day—seances and table-knocking, that sort of nonsense. I didn't believe in it, myself. Still don't, in many ways."

"But Robbie McMorran ..."

"Robbie is rather a special case." He took another biscuit, settled back. “For one thing, he was introduced to me by an old friend, whose opinion I very much value. And for another, he has told me things that.. . well, let's just say he's convincing." He smiled gently, watching my face. "You're not convinced, I take it."

I hesitated, searching for words that would give no offense. "I've only just met the boy, really, and we didn't talk much, what with him being poorly."

"No, no, it's quite all right," he forgave me, crossing one long leg over the other. "It is the natural response, you know. I think I'd worry about someone who simply accepted the idea, no questions asked. Ghosts and goblins, spooks and psychics—they're so far removed from science, and we are all children of the scientific age."

Again I felt a twinge of conscience, and I turned my eyes away, feigning an intense interest in the sleeping cat. "Mr. Quinnell..."

"Peter, please."

"Peter... there's something I must tell you."

"Yes?"

"About the radar survey ..."

"Yes?"

My teacup clattered in the saucer with a force I hadn't intended, and Charlie the cat half opened one eye accusingly. "I saw the results today, up at the lab, and I think that there's been a mistake. I don't think the findings are accurate." There, I thought, I'd said it. Said it, moreover, without actually coming straight out and calling Adrian a liar, without telling Quinnell his granddaughter had orchestrated the deception. I held my breath, waiting for him to ask me why I didn't trust the survey. When the question didn't come, I raised my head.

The long eyes met mine levelly, with deep approving warmth. "It is a rare commodity, these days," he told me. "Honesty."

I stared. "You knew."

"Suspected. Did he take it from another site, then? One that you and he had worked on?" The answer must have shown in my face, because he nodded, satisfied. “And you recognized it. Bit of bad luck, for Adrian, although it can't have been his idea, in the first place. I expect he was led astray by Fabia. My granddaughter has rather a knack, I fear, for leading young men astray."

So the shrewdness I had glimpsed last night had not been an illusion. Those languid eyes saw more than they revealed. Which didn't mean he wasn't mad, I told myself. It only meant that Peter Quinnell was no fool.

He smiled at me again, and said: "Of course, I shan't let on. And you mustn't tell them that I know. That would upset them terribly. I'm sure they did it with the best of intentions, after all, and it's always wise to let young people feel that little bit superior."

"But your excavation ..."