‘All depends on how quickly they get a car round to this side. If we can reach that track you told me about leading across to Elterwater and get off the main road, we might surprise them yet.’
He drove very fast, his foot hard against the boards and the jeep responded magnificently. Five minutes later, they turned up through a clump of fir trees and reached the main road.
Rogan barely paused, swung the wheel to the right and
drove along the road towards Rydal. ‘How far?’ he shouted above the roaring of the engine.
‘Half a mile, no more.’
Rain hammered against the windscreen so hard that the wipers had difficulty in coping. He leaned forwaid anxiously as a truck passed them going the opposite way and then Hannah was tugging at his arm.
He saw the gate in a clump of fir tiees in the same moment and braked, skidding a little. As he swung the wheel and stopped, the girl jumped down and opened the gate. Rogan drove through and waited for her to close it again. A moment later, they were moving on through the trees and when he looked in the mirror, he could no longer see the road.
His throat was dry and there was sweat on his forehead. His hand trembled slightly when he raised it to brush away the sweat.
‘Would you look at that, now? I’ve got the shakes.’ He gave her a quick grin. ‘Maybe I’m getting too old for this sort of caper.’
‘That’ll be the day.’
She produced matches and cigarettes from one of her pockets, lit one and put it in his mouth. Rogan inhaled deeply and sighed. ‘I needed that.’
‘First hurdle over safely,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘That’s about the size of it. How do you feel?’
‘As if I’m really crashing out of something for the first time in my life.’
‘Keep on believing that and it’ll come true.’
Thev crossed the bridge and he changed down and drove along the narrow track between the trees. It took them no more than three or four minutes to reach the Elterwater road, another five to reach the village itself. The streets were deserted in the heavy rain and he drove quietly through, following Hannah’s directions until, at Eltermere, he turned into a side road that skirted Little Langdale village. A quarter of an hour after leaving the
Ambleside road, they were moving alongside Little Langdale Tarn and starting the long climb up to Wrynose.
The road lifted steeply before them, mist crowding in across the mountains, and the jeep climbed steadily, its engine deepening to a full-throated roar as he changed down through the gears.
Gradually, the mist enfolded them, and when they reached the top of the pass visibility was down to twenty or thirty yards. Rogan stayed in a low gear on the way down the steep hill to Wrynose Bottom and they followed the course of the Duddon River. Ten minutes later, they came to the place where the road forked, one arm climbing to Hard Knott, the other following the valley to Seathwaite and Ulpha.
‘Give me another cigarette,’ he said.
The girl lit one and put it in his mouth and Brendan leaned over the back of the bench seat. ‘H-how are we doing, Mr. Rogan?’
‘So far, so good, son.’ Rogan pulled in at the side of the road. ‘Let’s have another look at that map.’
He examined it quickly, a slight frown on his face. ‘No way round Seathwaite and Ulpha from the looks of things.’
‘Are you expecting trouble?’ Hannah said.
‘It’s possible. They’ve had plenty of time to pass the word around by now.’
She had another look at the map and traced a line across the fells. ‘There’s an unfenced road here. It won’t be very good but it runs across Thwaites Fell to the coast. We’d still have to go through Ulpha, but it would cut out the other places.’
‘Where does it start?’
‘Beckfoot, a couple of miles on the far side of Ulpha.’
‘Good enough.’
He drove away quickly, and as they passed through the little village of Seathwaite the mist seemed to be thinning a little, but the rain continued to fall relentlessly as