Free A Bridge Of Magpies by Geoffrey Jenkins Page B

She certainly wasn't suffering from an overdose of mother-fixation. She put her hand on mine and said coolly, matter-of-factly, 'Let's go and look.'
    We left the wreck, collected her paraphernalia, and hiked away into the wind-carved sandhills, which followed the coast's indentation like a half-cupped hand. Farther inland was a plain with shifting, smaller sandhills and beyond them showed the dark line of a range of fretted-rocky outcrops. We made brand new footsteps in the wind-scoured surface. The dusty smell of the desert was still damped by a sprinkling of dew. The sun shone but the wind was cold.
    We stopped for a breather. Her gear was more cumbersome than heavy.
    'What was "the sound of guns" mentioned on the tape, Jutta?'
    I was watching her closely, waiting for the shut-down in her eyes that had followed my earlier questioning and had made them seem to be looking at me from another place. 64
    But it didn't happen this time.
    'I don't know what, you're talking about'
    Nor did she: but she was fascinated by what I had to tell her about Convoy WV.5BX and why Gousblom had broken away from it into the channel. I left the C-in-C out of it, of course.
    When I'd finished she said speculatively, 'Seems I'm not the only one who's done homework. You're pretty well informed for a headman.'
    'It was Possession's main event for a century. The story gets passed on from mouth to mouth.'
    'I wonder.'
    I kept wondering, too–about her. I decided to risk my sixtyfour dollar question.
    'I'd like to go over all this material of yours about Possession.'
    Her eyes disappeared into another time-track.
    'It's copyright. Mine.'
    'Does that mean no?'
    'I said, it's mine?
    'Let's get on,' I snapped.
    The anger lay between us and soured the rest of the hike. Her brush-off burned me up because now I reckoned she'd turned on the charm to get her way with me about the wreck and play me for a sucker. I swore to myself that once we'd seen over the graveyard I'd have an ironclad reason out of her for being on the Sperrgebiet. Or else.
    We negotiated the corner of the last dune blocking off the graveyard. I was in the lead.
    I caught sight of a cluster of mounds and some derelict crosses. 1 also spotted something else.
    I pulled Jutta back into the angle of the dune; then unslung my binoculars and brought the graves into sharp definition.
    A man was kneeling at one of them, his hands busy in the sand.
    'Was your mother's name Joyce?' I whispered.
    She nodded.
    'Then Kaptein Denny is either robbing her grave or caching something in it?
    'Is that it?'
    'The cross is pretty crude–looks like a piece of wreckage.'
    I read, ' "Joyce Walsh . . ." Come back, you little idiot!'
    She'd jumped up and sprinted towards the kneeling figure. I snicked back the rifle bolt, made sure it was loaded-and ran after her. Because of the wind, Kaptein Denny didn't hear her coming until she was very close. When he did, he threw us a startled glance, leapt up and scuffed the mound with his foot so that a scatter of things–some of them bright seashells–went flying.
    I was up to him in a moment. I slipped the rifle's safety catch. He had a knife in one hand and in the other some rings and jewellery-and what appeared to be a rather timeworn passport. Jutta was confronting him as if she couldn't believe her eyes.
    'You bastard!' I exclaimed. 'Fishing ... balls! You bloody grave-robbing bastard!'
    His face was a mask; he didn't retaliate; just came towards me holding out the battered passport. I wasn't dumb enough to fall for that one.
    I kept the gun steady on him. `The knife–drop it 1 At my feet!'
    He hesitated-unflappable and therefore dangerous. But he saw I'd blast him if he tried any tricks. He gave a slight shrug and threw it open.
    'Now the passport!'
    It joined the knife.
    'Hold out your hand!'
    There were a couple of rings and some trinkets in his palm.
    I risked a glance at the things he'd kicked away: a tiny coloured porcelain figurine and some smashed painted