For a moment, no one moved.

Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
The moor stretched out around them — dark, silent, indifferent — as if waiting to see how this old story would end.

Ernest Thompson lowered the gun fractionally, not in surrender but in appraisal, as though lining up pieces on a familiar chessboard.

“Jean,” he said mildly, “you shouldn’t be here.”

Samson’s voice was barely audible.

“You’re dead.”

“Retired,” Ernest corrected. “Not dead. Though I appreciate the enthusiasm of your assumption.”

Joan let out a small, humourless laugh.

“I told you, Jean,” she said. “Your father wasn’t the mastermind. He was a frightened man carrying other men&r...

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