45

‘I’ve heard that voice before,’ I said.

Miriam and Vaughn looked at each other. They tried to hide it, but they were excited.

We were back in the library. Vaughn and I had our brandy and the ladies were sipping sherry. Freddie was pacing around the room, bouncing a tennis ball on the parquet floor. He glugged wine from a bottle. The rest of the party had gone, and the servants had withdrawn.

‘Where were you?’ Miriam asked.

‘Southern edge of my land, give or take.’

‘What was the alignment of the fence?’

‘East to west.’

She rushed to a writing desk, under the window. She pulled down the writing surface and rummaged around in the exposed drawers.

‘Vaughn, where do you keep your pens?’ she snapped.

‘Top right drawer,’ he said. ‘Ink in the inkwell.’

She brought a notepad back with her, and noted down my answers.

‘How long’s the fence?’ she asked.

The field was two hectares. Roughly five acres. A rectangle, the shorter side butting up against the woods. The drainage ditch keeping the livestock from escaping, with the barbed-wire fence as an extra precaution.

‘Hundred and fifty yards, I’d say.’

She drew a rectangle, and annotated it with the numbers.

‘When did you hear it?’

‘Around the same time, give or take,’ I said. ‘Around dusk.’

‘You’re south of us?’ she asked.

‘About five miles.’

‘How loud was the signal?’

‘Similar,’ I said, ‘perhaps weaker.’

‘Show me,’ she said.