They passed through tiny Mortsett, which didn’t even have a pub or a general store, and Annie got stuck when the delivery van stopped to make a call at one of the cottages. The road wasn’t wide enough for her to pass.

She got out and prepared to show her warrant card and ask the driver to get out of the way—there was a passing area about twenty yards farther along—when she noticed Armitage pull over and stop about half a mile beyond the village. She had a clear view of the open road, so she brought out the binoculars she kept in her glove compartment and watched him.

Armitage got out of the car with his briefcase, looked around and started walking over the grass toward a squat stone shepherd’s shelter about eighty yards off the road, up the daleside, and she didn’t think he was nervous because he was breaking the government foot-and-mouth regulations.

When he got there, he ducked inside the shelter, and when he came out he wasn’t carrying his briefcase. Annie watched him walk back to his car. He stumbled once over the uneven ground, then glanced around again and drove off in the direction of Gratly.

“Birds, is it?” a voice asked, disturbing Annie’s concentration.

“What?” She turned to face the deliveryman, a brash gelhaired youngster with bad teeth.

“The binoculars,” he said. “Bird-watching. Can’t understand it, myself. Boring. Now, when it comes to the other sort of birds—”

Annie flipped him her warrant card and said, “Move your van out of the way and let me pass.”

“All right, all right,” he said. “No need to get shirty. There’s no one home, anyway. Never is in this bloody godforsaken hole.”

He drove off and Annie got back in her car. Armitage was long gone by the time she reached the spot where he had stopped, and there were no other cars in sight, save the delivery van, fast disappearing ahead.

Annie was the one who felt nervous now. Was someone watching her with binoculars the way she had watched Armitage? She hoped not. If this was what she thought it was, it wouldn’t do to reveal police interest. The air was still and mild, and Annie could smell warm grass after rain. Somewhere in the distance, a tractor chugged across a field, and sheep baaed from the daleside as she ignored the posted warnings and made her way to the shelter. The place smelled musty and acrid inside. Enough light spilled through the gaps in the drystone for her to see the used condom on the dirt, empty cigarette packet and crushed lager cans. A local lad’s idea of showing his girlfriend a good time, no doubt. She could also see the briefcase, the inexpensive nylon kind.

Annie picked it up. It felt heavy. She opened the Velcro strips and inside, as she had expected, found stacks of money, mostly ten- and twenty-pound notes. She had no idea exactly how much there was, but guessed it must be somewhere in the region of ten or fifteen thousand pounds.