Molly was immediately and suitably appreciative. The boy relaxed.

“I hope you don’t mind my asking, but at Trekewick you said that you’d like to see my notes on the bimaculated lark. If you’re free one night next week, perhaps I could bring them round to show you,” he mumbled shyly.

George felt touched and guilty. At Trekewick he had made a vague, off-hand invitation. Adam had been looking forward to the visit, had been waiting for a definite invitation which had never arrived.

“I do want to see those notes very much,” he said with some sincerity. “ Come tomorrow evening for supper, at about seven. That’s convenient for you, Molly, isn’t it?”

Molly nodded. She found Adam an interesting young man, and she was curious to see if he would mention Tina.

An enthusiastic discussion between George and Adam followed about the diagnostic features of penduline tit. By the end of the evening George was playing darts for the twitchers’ B team, and all thought of retirement was forgotten.

Chapter Seven

Terry could not settle to work after talking to Molly. He felt restless and uncomfortable. She was a nice lady and he had upset her. She would have been his friend. Now she would not like him. He brushed his hair back from his face and rubbed his eyes with the back of a red, wet hand. In the sink the water was cold and the pan was still dirty. Then he remembered the cigarettes and immediately all thoughts of Molly disappeared. But he was not allowed to smoke in the kitchen. It was better to leave work early than to smoke in the kitchen. He filled the pan with clean water and started to scrape the remnants of burnt food from the sides, but the thought of the cigarettes distracted him. He left the pan in the sink, wiped his hands on a greasy tea towel, and went out of the hotel quietly, by his own secret way, so that no one would see him.

He did not go home. Blackie would be cross because he had left work early, and she did not like him to smoke. It was very hot, very sunny, and he walked through the village feeling brave because he ought to be at work.

Then he decided to run away. Dennis did not make him decide. Dennis shouted a lot, but he was used to Dennis. He was walking past the bookshop, staring in at the window at the posters and shiny covers on the books. Inside there was a birdwatcher, elderly and innocent, browsing, binoculars around his neck. Terry had never seen him before. But it was then that he decided to run away, because there were always birdwatchers in Rushy. The binoculars reminded him of the person he had seen on the marsh track with Tom. Sooner or later that person would come to Rushy again, and would see Terry and would kill him too.

Terry had run away before. Not from Blackie. He liked her and would be sad to leave her. He had run away from children’s homes when he was a boy, and once from the hospital. He had been good at it and it always took them a long time to catch him.