All through the day they had left him to his own thoughts, his own moods.

It was as if the soldiers and the policemen were nervous of him and believed they should give him room, as if they thought his building anger might explode against them.

He stood, alone, in the centre of the lane, and all the time he stared up the rising length of the potted road towards the crest of the hill. In the middle of the day, as they had the day before, they had offered him a hot mug of coffee and a sandwich wrapped in clingfilm, and both times he had declined the chance to eat or to warm himself with the drink. It had been a good morning, low dreamy winter sunshine and a sharp wind, enough to dry the heavy oiled coat closed tight across his body that had taken a drenching from the driving rain of the previous day.

The light was falling now and a rain blanket had gathered over the distant mountain summit that was beyond the horizon of the top of the lane. The cold cut through the protection of his coat, and whipped his trouser legs. He shivered. To either side of him, beyond the uncut hedgerows of thorn and holly and hazel, were the rain- soaked fields.

There were song birds in the hedgerows, feasting on berries and grubbing for worms. Away out in the fields, amongst the rushes that grew in the bog land, ignoring the sheep that had cropped the grass short, the black crows and arrogant magpies strutted in their search for carrion. Hovering above the lane, occasionally masked by the low-flying cloud, was the helicopter.

The helicopter had been up all through the day before and all of that day, and for most of the night it had pierced the darkness of the lane with the power beam of a searchlight. The noise of the helicopter's engine blasted out the sweetness of the birds' excitement in the hedgerow, killed the low voices of the soldiers and the policemen.