Read Online The Empty House by Michael Gilbert - Free Book Online

times it would have been visited by fire from heaven. I don’t suppose they let you look at any of whatever it is they’re doing, did they?”
    “Certainly not. I had a chat with the boss, and was told a few things about Dr. Wolfe, most of which I knew already. I got the impression that he was a very private sort of person.”
    Anna considered the point, sitting up in her chair and straightening her back as she did so. The movement brought her breasts very slightly forward inside the thin shirt she was wearing that morning. Peter lowered his eyes and became engrossed in filleting the grilled trout on his plate.
    “He wasn’t private in the sense of being stuffy,” said Anna. “He was easy to talk to, and interesting. He knew about a lot of different things. Music – I suppose from his sister. He talked a lot about her. And rock climbing and sailing, and the connection between music and chess and mathematics. He was fun to talk to. But when it was all over, you did realise that you hadn’t got one inch past his outer defences.”
    “Do you mean that he was hiding something?”
    “Not exactly. I mean one got the impression that he was leading two quite different lives, or maybe even three. And he could switch from one to the other whenever he wanted. No, Dave, I simply couldn’t. Treacle pudding, in this weather? I’ll just have some cheese.”
    “Cheese for me, too,” said Peter.
    “What are you going to do with yourself this afternoon?”
    “I thought of exploring the country behind Rackthorn Point.”
    “Work or pleasure?”
    “A bit of both.”
    “Can I join in the pleasure part?”
    “By all means,” said Peter. “We’ll take my car to the caravan site and do the rest on foot.”
     
    “Is this where it happened?” said Anna.”I think it must be. And that’s the place where the fence was broken. For God’s sake, watch it.”
    Anna had walked to the extreme edge of the cliffs and was bending forward, looking down. “It’s quite a drop,” she said. “Do you think anyone could have gone over it with his eyes open?”
    “No,” said Peter, with a shudder. “I don’t. Please come away from the edge. You’re making me feel wobbly inside.”
    Anna came back and sat down beside him. She said, “Different things frighten different people. I’ve never minded about heights, even when I was quite small. What I can’t stand is squishy places. Bubbling marshes and bogs and quicksands. I used to have a regular nightmare about being sucked down, very slowly, into a marsh. First my mouth went under, then my nose. I can remember saying, ‘If you try hard enough, you can breathe through your ears.’”
    “What happened then?”
    “It seemed such a funny idea it made me giggle, and I woke up. Where do we go from here?”
    “Straight down towards the wood. There must be some way through it. You can see the path going up on the other side.”
    There was no difficulty about it. The wood was unfenced, and was not particularly thick. They pushed their way through and climbed the knoll beyond. Standing on it, they could see across the valley, from the line of the Cryde-Huntercombe road to the levels of Exmoor running away, fold behind green and purple fold, into the distance.
    “That’s where you think he went, isn’t it?” said Anna.
    “It’s possible,” said Peter, considerably startled.
    “First having pushed his car over the cliff. Could he have done that?”
    “I think so. He’d drive it off the path, leaving it pointing downhill. It’s a fairly steep slope. The turf was wet, but it wasn’t soggy. In fact, it was probably rather slippery. One good push and I think the car would have gone over, all right. Particularly if he’d broken the fence first. After that, he’d just have to walk down the way we came. It was already getting dark. There was the whole night ahead of him.”
    “How are you going to prove it? Always supposing you’re right.”
    “The only way of proving it would be