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removed, after all. Instead, he would take that big detour, retracing his journey back along the road past The Wild Dog and swinging a right at Two Bridges. This would make his journey home at least half as long again as it should be, and he still wasn’t looking forward to negotiating the top of the moor in thick mist, but he had now got to the point where he preferred the prospect of a long and difficult drive to merely waiting around getting colder and colder in such dreadful conditions. The rain was showing no signs whatsoever of easing. A fire engine and garage emergency vehicle had arrived just after Kelly had identified the boy, but they would not be allowed to even start their tricky manoeuvre until the SOCOs had finished measuring tyre marks on the road and generally checking out the accident scene.
    Kelly started the little car’s engine and proceeded to attempt to turn round so that he would be facing in the direction from which he had originally come – a feat accomplished not without difficulty in the poor visibility on one of the narrowest sections of the road, with a ditch on one side, a stone wall on the other, and a camber in the middle that could have beencustom-built to wreck the low-slung exhaust system of an MGB.
    He succeeded ultimately in executing something going on for a six- or seven-point turn and began to make his way back towards Two Bridges at little more than a crawl, as he struggled to see ahead through the mist and rain. But as he tentatively set out on the road over the highest section of the moor he would cross on his extended journey home, Dartmoor began to play one of its many tricks. The rain started to ease and the mist suddenly lifted. It was uncanny. A minute ago Kelly had hardly been able to see ten feet ahead, and now the road was totally clear.
    Gratefully, he pressed his right foot down on the accelerator, the increased speed boosting the fairly meagre output of heat which was all the MG’s heater ever seemed able to produce. However, Kelly had only recently acquired a new soft top which fitted more snugly than any he had previously endured, and the little car was now just about warm enough to allow his body temperature to return to what he thought might be an almost normal level.
    In the much improved conditions he relaxed slightly, easing the tension from his shoulders, and began to reflect on the events of the evening. Once he was comfortable enough to think about anything other than his own sorry physical state, he found that all his journalistic antennae were waggling. He told himself he was being ridiculous, but he couldn’t help it.
    That lad in the pub had said that he was going to die. More than that. He had told Kelly he was going to be killed. And, probably only minutes later, he was dead. He had hinted at mysterious goings-on up atHangridge. He had quite obviously been most unhappy to see the arrival of the two men who had been looking for him, and Kelly would not forget in a long while the look of abject fear in his eyes as he had stood in the doorway of The Wild Dog.
    ‘Minutes later he was dead.’ This time Kelly said the words out loud, as he motored through Newton Abbot, making himself abide by the speed limit, more or less, in spite of his eagerness to get home and dry. He didn’t want any speeding points on his licence; he certainly couldn’t afford to lose it again, that was for sure.
    It was almost midnight by the time he arrived at his terraced home in St Marychurch, high above Torquay. He parked in the street outside and stepped out of the MG onto a dry pavement. The rain had obviously stopped here at least an hour or two hours earlier. He opened the little gate into his tiny front garden which – had he bothered to look he could have clearly seen, thanks to the illumination of the street lamp right outside – was almost completely overgrown by an impressive selection of weeds. Kelly did not look and, as usual, noticed nothing at all about his front