Bones in High Places by Suzette Hill Read Free Book Online

to the names of Merde and Méchant.
    Thus with so brief a memory and experience, it was pleasant to sit back and absorb the wide rolling countryside with its fluttering poplars, grazing dun-coloured cows, lime-washed farmhouses and ubiquitous grey church steeples. Now and again we would pass a wagon of turnips or be waved at by children in navy smocks and ankle boots. At one point I even saw a gaggle of geese being herded by a small girl as if she had stepped straight out of an Impressionist painting … Yes, I reflected, this was surely better than Mavis Briggs and her elevating Gems . I stretched, opened a fresh packet of humbugs and wondered if I might now be permitted to remove my collar.
    After a while the paysage became more hilly and wooded, with a proliferation of narrow lanes and thick hedges, and I realized we were already immersed in the famed bocage. Fleetingly I thought of those lumbering Shermans and the skulking German Panzers … But before my imagination could take a firmer grip Nicholas exclaimed, ‘Oh hell, I’ve left the maps in my case. Not quite sure about the next bit, I’d better check.’
    ‘Good,’ said Primrose, ‘I could do with stretching my legs.’ He stopped the car and she got out, while he wandered around to the back.
    I also got out, released the dog, and leaning against the bonnet lit a cigarette and watched a couple of thrushes as they fought over a worm. I was just taking my second puff when there was an anguished yell from the rear – ‘Christ almighty, I don’t believe it!’ I spun round just in time to see a dark shape streak from the open boot into the roadside undergrowth.
    ‘That’s your bloody cat!’ he cried. ‘Are you mad! What the hell did you bring that for?’ I stared dumbfounded at the tussocks of scrub where I knew Maurice to be lurking. There was a suspicious stillness: neither sound nor sign. But he was there all right, watching us, weighing things up, planning his next move.
    ‘I did not bring him,’ I hissed. ‘He must have jumped in somehow at the last moment.’ And turning back to the undergrowth, said in wheedling supplication, ‘It’s all right, old man, you can come out now. We’ll find you some nice haddock.’
    Naturally there was no response, and apart from Ingaza’s imprecations there continued a fraught silence. I tried further coaxings but to no effect.
    ‘Well, if the little perisher won’t come out we’ll just have to go without him,’ grumbled Nicholas. ‘We haven’t all day to waste on your peculiar creatures – I suppose that damned wolfhound will appear next.’ I cast a nervous glance into the open boot, half expecting to see Florence’s shaggy hide, but mercifully it contained only suitcases and the surpliced whisky.
    ‘I think,’ I said, ‘that if we get back into the car and start the engine he may emerge – you know, sort of pretend we couldn’t care less.’
    ‘Some of us don’t,’ replied Nicholas grimly.
    At that moment there was an anguished shriek from behind a tree where Primrose had repaired to answer a call of nature. ‘Christ, what’s that bloody creature!’ She emerged, straightening her skirt and looking distinctly flustered.
    ‘It’s all right, Primrose,’ I replied soothingly, ‘I think it’s Maurice.’
    ‘Maurice? You mean your cat? What’s he doing here – my God, that’s all we need!’
    ‘Precisely,’ I said drily. ‘Now be quiet and we may be able to catch him.’ I dropped to my hands and knees and started to croon his name enticingly.
    ‘Not that way,’ Primrose said irritably in a loud stage whisper, ‘he was behind that tree.’ She stooped down and started to peer into the bushes.
    After a few minutes of fruitless searching, there was a call from Nicholas by the roadside. ‘Come on. Don’t hang about.’
    ‘But we haven’t found the cat –’ began Primrose.
    ‘You don’t need to, the bugger’s here.’
    We scrambled towards the car. And there he was, sitting