As Luke Watchman drove across Otterbrook Bridge the setting sun shone full in his eyes. A molten flood of sunlight poured towards him through the channel of the lane and broke into sequins across Otterbrook waters. He arched his hand over his eyes and peered through the spattered dazzle of the windscreen. Somewhere about here was the turning for Ottercombe. He lowered the window and leant out.
The warmth of evening touched his face. The air smelt of briar, of fern, and more astringently of the distant sea. There, fifty yards ahead, was the finger-post with its letters almost rubbed out by rain, ‘Ottercombe, 7 miles.’
Watchman experienced the fufillment of a nostalgic longing and was content. Only now, when he was within reach of his journey’s end, did he realize how greatly he had desired this return. The car moved forward and turned from the wide lane into the narrow. The curves of hills marched down behind hedgerows. There was no more sunlight. Thorns brushed the windows on each side, so narrow was the lane. The car bumped over pot-holes. The scent of spring-watered earth rose coldly from the banks.
‘Downhill all the way now,’ Watchman murmured. His thoughts travelled ahead to Ottercombe. One should always time arrivals for this hour when labourers turned homewards, when lamps were lit, when the traveller had secret glimpses into rooms whose thresholds he would never cross. At the Plume of Feathers, Abel Pomeroy would stand out in the roadway and look for incoming guests. Watchman wondered if his two companions had got there before him. Perhaps his cousin, Sebastian Parish, had set out on his evening prowl round the village. Perhaps Norman Cubitt had already found a subject and was down on the jetty dabbing nervously at a canvas. This was the second holiday they had spent together in Ottercombe. A curious trio when you came to think of it. Like the beginning of a funny story. ‘A lawyer, an actor, and a painter once went to a fishing village in Devon.’ Well, he’d rather have Cubitt and Parish than any of his own learned brethren. The law set too dead a seal on character, the very soul of a barrister took silk. And he wondered if he had failed to escape the mannerisms of his profession, if he exuded learned counsel, even at Ottercombe in South Devon.
The lane dived abruptly downhill. Watchman remembered Decima Moore. Would she still be there? Did the Coombe Left Movement still hold its meetings on Saturday nights, and would Decima allow her arguments with himself to end as they had ended that warm night nearly a year ago? He set his thoughts on the memory of the smell of seaweed and briar, and of Decima, trapped half-way between resentment and fright, walking as if by compulsion into his arms.
The hamlet of Diddlestock, a brief interlude of whitewash and thatch, marked the last stage. Already, as he slid out of the shadow of Ottercombe Woods, he fancied that he heard the thunder of the sea.
Watchman checked his car, skidded, and changed into low gear. Somewhere about here Diddlestock Lane crossed Ottercombe Lane, and the intersection was completely masked by banks and hedgerows. A dangerous turning. Yes, there it was. He sounded his horn and the next second crammed on his brakes. The car skidded, lurched sideways, and fetched up against the bank, with its right-hand front bumpers locked in the left-hand rear bumpers of a baby two-seater.
Watchman leant out of the driving window.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he yelled.
The two-seater leapt nervously and was jerked back by the bumpers.
‘Stop that!’ roared Watchman.
He got out and stumbled along the lane to the other car.
It was so dark down there between the hedgerows that the driver’s features, shadowed both by the roof of his car and the brim of his hat, were scarcely discernible. He seemed about to open the door when Watchman, bareheaded, came up to him. Evidently he changed his mind. He leant farther back in his seat. His fingers pulled at the brim of his hat.
‘Look here,’ Watchman began, ‘you’re a hell of a fellow, aren’t you, bucketing about the countryside like a blasted tank! Why the devil can’t you sound your horn? You came out of that lane about twenty times as fast as – What?’
The man had mumbled something.
‘What?’ Watchman repeated.
‘I’m extremely sorry. Didn’t hear you until –’ The voice faded away.
‘All right. Well, we’d better do something about it. I don’t imagine much damage has been done.’ The man made no move and Watchman’s irritation revived. ‘Give me a hand, will you?’
‘Yes, certainly. Of course.’ The voice was unexpectedly courteous. ‘I’m very sorry. Really, very sorry. It was all my fault.’
This display of contrition mollified Watchman.
‘Oh well,’ he said, ‘no harm done, I dare say. Come on.’
The man got out on the far side and walked round to the back of his car. When Watchman joined him he was stooping over the locked bumpers.
‘I can heave mine up if you don’t mind backing an inch or two,’ said the man. With large calloused hands he gripped the bumpers of his own car.
‘All right,’ agreed Watchman.
They released the bumpers without much trouble. Watchman called through his driving-window: ‘All clear!’ The man lowered his car and then groped uncertainly in his pockets.
‘Cigarette?’ suggested Watchman and held out his case.
‘Very kind,’ said the man. ‘Coals of fire –’ He hesitated and then took a cigarette.
‘Light?’
‘I’ve got one, thanks.’
He turned aside and cupped his hands round the match, dipping his head with extravagant care as if a wind threatened the flame.
‘I suppose you’re going to Ottercombe?’ said Watchman.
He saw a flash of teeth.
‘Looks like it, doesn’t it? I’m sorry I can’t let you through till then.’
‘I shan’t be on your heels at the pace you travel,’ grinned Watchman.
‘No,’ agreed the man, and his voice sounded remote as he moved away. ‘I’ll keep out of your way. Good-night.’
‘Good-night.’
That ridiculous little car was as good as its driver’s word. It shot away down the lane and vanished over the brow of a steep drop. Watchman followed more cautiously and by the time he rounded the hill the other car had turned a farther corner. He caught the distant toot of a horn. It sounded derisive.
II
The lane ran out towards the coast and straight for Coombe Rock, a headland that rose sharply from the downs to thrust its nose into the channel. A patch on the hillside seemed to mark an inconsequent end to the route. It was only when he drew closer