Free Gently in Trees by Alan Hunter Page B

looked like buck-bean; then, a quarter of a mile off, the russet sweep of the brecks, with a lacing of dwarf birches, and a few sad, deformed pines. No track, no passage that way – with or without a hefty gas bottle! The bracken and the brambles flourished undisturbed, and no plunging feet had printed the green mire.
    He turned back into the trees. Metfield and Larling stood where he had left them, near the beech: two figures that seemed to accentuate the secluded loneliness of the spot. About them, the wilderness of underbush and the columns of great trees, so indifferent and abstracted from this temporary restlessness of men. And into that lone place, dimmed by night, the blue caravette had found its way, to settle so certainly in its place, its driver careless of the still spirits round him. Because he was familiar with the location? No. The marked-up plan determined that. If Stoll had reconnoitred the spot previously the marking-up would not have been necessary. Stoll had been briefed, and briefed in detail, by someone who
had
made a reconnaisance: no further doubt was possible. The killing had been coldly and meticulously planned.
    About to move forward again, he hesitated, catching a movement in his peripheral vision. He kept his head steady but turned his eyes, seeking a focus in the distant underbrush. A leafed twig moved furtively, revealing a faint pallor behind: then it moved again, and the pallor became a face and intent eyes. Involuntarily, Gently turned his head: the leaves sprang back and the face vanished.
    ‘Come on!’ he shouted to Metfield and Larling, and jumped down into the dell.
    ‘But what – what—?’ Metfield gaped.
    ‘Our snooper – and this time we’re going to catch him!’
    He raced across the dell and pounded over the brackeny bank. The snooper had been lurking in the direction of the gate, and probably only a short distance inside it. The gate, left closed, now stood ajar. Gently shoved through it and stood panting. The ride stretched straight and empty on the line of the fence, in both directions. Metfield came puffing up beside him, and Larling, running easily.
    ‘Which way now?’ Metfield gasped.
    ‘Quiet!’ Gently snapped. ‘Listen!’
    In a moment they heard it: a quick, stealthy rustling, deep in the section of Douglas pine.
    ‘Spread out!’ Gently commanded.
    They charged into the section, Metfield running left, Larling right. The section, composed of mature timber, was plentifully furnished with the ubiquitous snowberry. Now their quarry had dispensed with caution. They could hear him crashing and plunging ahead of them. By luck or design he was crossing the tree-lines in a diagonal, which kept him concealed behind the shutter of the boles. Twice only Gently glimpsed him, a lithe, flying figure, bounding deer-like through the snowberry. A youngster, certainly; on the tall side; his dark shirt a bottle green.
    ‘Reckon he’s heading for Warren,’ Larling panted. ‘And I’ll tell you another thing – he’s fit!’
    ‘Can’t we head him off?’ Gently gasped.
    ‘No, we can’t. And if he’s got a car, we’ve had him!’
    It was humiliating. Three middle-aged men, slowly running themselves to a standstill: while chummie steamed busily away from them, his sounds growing ever more distant. And nothing to be done! Gently plunged on savagely, his feet dragging in bramble and snowberry. Chummie had reduced them to making motions – they couldn’t catch him, and couldn’t not try.
    ‘There’s Warren – through there!’
    Sharp sunlight ahead, and the glowing green of deciduous leaves. Through his sweat Gently spotted the dark shirt bend low under the boughs of saplings, and vanish. He nerved himself to a last, lumbering sprint. The interval to the sunlight seemed to stretch like elastic. Then he heard the brisk clunk of a car door, followed immediately by the revving of an engine.
    ‘Something small . . . a Mini . . . an Imp!’
    He bullocked his way through