My Name is Eva(37)
‘Oh, I don’t do much shooting nowadays, just the odd magpie pestering the chicks, and the pheasants now and then, of course. But my father always said I was a natural shot.’
Stephen stepped towards the bird, but Evelyn said, ‘No, you can leave it there. We’ll pick it up on our way back to the house and I’ll let it hang for a few days. Or do you want to take it home with you later?’
‘Might look a bit odd on the train, don’t you think? Chap with a brace of pheasants under his arm. No, thanks, I’ll stick to the Sunday Times if it’s all the same to you.’
‘Up to you.’ She laughed. ‘Would be funny though if you hopped on the train with tail feathers hanging out of your pockets. But better to keep them here and hang them for a bit. I can’t see you doing that, up in your London flat.’
‘No, maybe not. Bit too countrified for Dolphin Court.’
They walked slowly round the grounds, then through a five-bar gate into one of the fields that faced the river. Stephen waved towards the furthest point. ‘You know, the proximity of the river has got to add enormous value to your land. I mean, the fishing rights alone are worth something, especially if we can clean the river up enough to encourage the trout. I wonder if it wouldn’t be better for us to reconsider the whole estate as a package. Why don’t I look at those figures again when we’re back indoors?’
‘That would be lovely. You can amuse yourself with some intricate calculations while I’m boiling the potatoes. You’re such a great help to me.’ Us, we; his use of those collective words indicated just how much he was beginning to feel entitled to share in her estate. The other week he had grasped her hand and said, ‘You and I could make a good team.’ It wasn’t quite a proposal of marriage, though she felt that might yet come from his thin, dry lips, but it demonstrated how secure, how unsuspecting, he now felt with her. Evelyn loathed him. She looked at him, gazing across the fields as if he already owned every single blade of grass, every tree and every acre of her land. He was so unbearably smug, so sure of himself. Today was the perfect day to do it.
‘I think if I’m going to make it a brace we need to head back towards some cover. We’re not going to find many pheasants out in the open here.’ She steered him towards the copse known as Marley’s End, where fir trees grew thick and tall amidst a fringe of hawthorn, alder and brambles. ‘These dense clumps of woodland are where the pheasants like to hide and roost at night. We should flush some more out very soon.’
He followed her obediently, this hunter of imprisoned men, not wild game, walking alongside her as she carried her gun. As they neared the woods, a small roe deer suddenly broke out of the bushes and darted away across the fields, soon merging into the brown fronds of last year’s bracken and long grass. He watched it bound away, its white tail bobbing as it leaped, and said, ‘Do you ever shoot the deer as well?’
‘Not normally. Only if the numbers increase to nuisance level,’ she said, leading him further into the wood to the thicket she had in mind. ‘Or if I have to put an injured one down. I’ve had the odd one tangle itself up in fencing before now. If they’re badly hurt, they’re unlikely to recover so that’s when I have to deal with them. I don’t like leaving an injured animal to the mercy of foxes and crows.’ And I’ll finish you off properly too, don’t you worry. Wouldn’t want you crawling away from the perfect hiding place.
He glanced around the thicket of trees. ‘And then what happens to the body? Don’t tell me you come out with your hacksaw and carve all that up for your freezer as well.’
She laughed. ‘No, I don’t have to lift a finger. That’s when the foxes are welcome to help themselves.’ My friends the foxes will come soon, don’t you worry.
He stood there in a proprietorial manner, hands in pockets, surveying the woods and the glimpses of the fields, the grounds and gardens and the old house through the trees, then said, ‘Are you sure you’re going to find another damn pheasant soon? My feet are bloody freezing in these damp boots!’
This is it. The moment has come. But first he has to know why. ‘Freezing?’ she said. ‘You don’t know what freezing is.’
‘What are you talking about?’ He turned towards her with a frown. ‘I should have worn an extra pair of socks. My feet are getting really cold.’
‘Nowhere near as cold as all the prisoners you mistreated at the interrogation centre. You really enjoyed yourself there, all those years ago, didn’t you?’
He shook his head in confusion. ‘What are you going on about?’
‘I haven’t forgotten what you did. You didn’t care whether the prisoners lived or died. There was no need to make them all suffer so harshly. And you also had no regard for my dear, brave husband’s life.’
‘Now look here…’ He took a step forward, but she took a step back and raised her gun slightly.
‘Stay right there. I’ve waited years for this. Don’t move. You don’t even remember his name, do you? My husband, my darling Hugh?’
‘Hang on a minute, Evelyn. Put that thing down.’
‘I saw how you behaved in Bad Nenndorf. You were in your element. You’ve never valued life, just the end result.’
‘This is ridiculous.’ He took another step towards her, but she raised the gun again and he put up his hands and stopped. ‘Okay, I can see you’re upset. But let’s be rational about this, shall we? It was a long time ago and we all had a very necessary and sometimes unpleasant – yes, I admit it wasn’t pleasant – job to do. I know you can see that.’