Page 98 of The Final Vow (Washington Poe #7)

Poe and Towler made their way out of Herdwick Croft and on to the cold and damp moor. Towler stamped his feet and smiled. It was clear he preferred being outside. Edgar saw a fox or a badger and tore off like Linford Christie, barking wildly.

‘He likes a scrap then?’

‘I don’t know why,’ Poe said. ‘He never wins.’

Herdwick Croft sat on the lip of a circular, crater-like basin. Towler waited for his night vision to catch up, then did a slow three-sixty as he surveyed the surrounding land.

‘You’re blessed with geography here, Poe,’ he said. ‘As long as you choose to do this on a clear night, you have a significant advantage.’

Poe, who’d been having second thoughts, breathed a sigh of relief. ‘I do?’

‘Unless he shoots you as you arrive, obviously.’

‘I’ll be coming in fast,’ Poe said. ‘I’ll have my spotlights on and I’ll be wearing a headtorch. And even if I don’t dazzle the bastard, the ground is so bumpy he won’t risk a shot. No, he’ll wait until I’m standing still. He’ll wait until the morning. Shoot me when I let Edgar out.’

Towler thought about it. He nodded. ‘You’re right. It’s too difficult a shot. He will wait until morning.’

‘What advantage of geography do I have?’

‘Your cottage is on the edge of a natural depression.’

‘I call it the Shap crater,’ Poe said. ‘It looks like a meteorite thumped into the ground a billion years ago. Wiped out the dinosaurs.’

Towler nodded. ‘The cottage will have been situated at the edge so the shepherd could watch the surrounding fell for predators, but also so he could keep an eye on his sheep as they sheltered in the natural protection the crater provides.’

That was true, Poe thought. When the wind got up, which it did most days, the sheep congregated in the depression. There was even an ancient, horseshoe-shaped sheep fold down there.

‘It means that this Ezekiel Puck wanker is going to have to get down into the crater when he takes his shot,’ Towler continued.

‘Why won’t he sit on the lip?’ Poe asked. ‘Surely, he’ll have a better shot there? He’ll be at the same height, and he can stay as far back as he likes.’

Towler shook his head. ‘He doesn’t have a shot. The lip of the crater is only five or six yards then it dips back down again. That means he’d have to be on the lip itself to have a direct line of sight. And he won’t do that.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because he’ll stand out like a racing dog’s balls,’ Towler said.

‘That’s why you have to do this on a clear night.

Moonlight will help. He’ll have no choice but to get into the crater.

That limits his range to, say, four hundred, five hundred metres.

An easy shot, but at least we’ll know where he is. ’

‘And where will he be?’

‘Let’s go and look, shall we?’

As they walked to the opposite side of the crater, Poe asked Towler how he knew so much about anti-sniper tactics.

‘You know how,’ he said. ‘I was in the Parachute Regiment.’

‘And given who you work for now, were you perhaps in something more specialised than the Paras?’

‘There is nothing more specialised than the Parachute Regiment,’ Towler said.

Poe rolled his eyes. He’d never met a Para who didn’t think that way. He was in the Black Watch, a tasty, highly skilled infantry regiment, but he’d never felt the need to make a song and dance about it. ‘You know what I mean,’ he said.

‘Can you keep a secret?’

‘Of course,’ Poe said.

‘So can I.’