Paterson trained the gun firmly on her as she did as she was told. She tied her husband's wrists behind his back, then bound his ankles together, then knotted the two ropes together, leaving him virtually immobile on the bed in his striped pyjamas. Paterson had a minor twinge of conscience - after all, he must be nearer seventy than sixty, and lame, to boot - but, he had been a soldier all his life and, even in the British Army, you don't make brigadier just by going to the right school or joining the right clubs.
Paterson also noted that his wife, Anthea, had been so anxious to avoid enraging Paterson that she had tied the twine too tight and, already, the bound man's hands and feet were turning white from loss of blood flow.
Paterson motioned to the wife to sit down on a cane chair on the other side of the bed. Then keeping an eye on her, he laid the Mauser down within easy reach, and loosened the bonds slightly. Her hand flew to her mouth when she realised what she had done, and tears sparked her eyelids.
Paterson carried out a final check on the knots, and on the gag, then turned to the woman and said - "Right! Get dressed and come downstairs and make me some breakfast!"
She stood up, then hesitated, looking at Paterson, clearly waiting for him to leave the room. "Oh, come on!" he sneered, casting a totally jaundiced eye at her grey hair and shapeless nightdress. "I'm not leaving you to cut the old guy free - even at the price of your modesty!"
She looked him straight in the eye, then, gathering a few clothes from the wardrobe and a bedside table, marched defiantly into the ensuite bathroom, shutting the door firmly behind her.
Paterson shrugged and sat heavily on the bed. Suddenly, the adrenalin of the last forty-eight hours just drained away, and all he wanted to do was sleep. But he had to stay alert until the car arrived at four o'clock. Perhaps he could tie the wife up later, as well, once she had fielded any phone calls and visitors to the remote cottage, and get a couple of hours sleep.
Meanwhile, he kept an eye on the frosted glass door of the bathroom, through which he could make out the vague shape of the woman as she washed hastily and struggled into a jersey and slacks. Nevertheless, his eyes were heavy when she emerged in less than five minutes, and he heaved himself off the bed and followed her downstairs...
The clock was striking half-past one as Paterson pushed away his empty coffee-cup. Anthea jumped to her feet and, putting it in the dishwasher along with the rest of the breakfast and lunch dishes, switched the machine on.
Paterson had to admit that, although she clearly wasn't doing it out of love, she couldn't have looked after him better if he'd been an honoured guest. From the bacon and eggs for breakfast to the delicious steak for lunch, Paterson had eaten better, almost, than he could ever remember. She had dealt with three telephone calls about the previous night's dinner party, as well as the postman, and a passing hiker, who was lost.
Paterson hadn't let her visit her husband, upstairs in the bedroom, but had gone up twice, himself - on the clear understanding that any foolishness from the woman would visit its consequences on the helpless bound figure on the bed.
He chuckled to himself at the obvious effectiveness of this threat. She was really anxious to please. Hell, if she was a bit younger, and he wasn't so shagged out, who knows....?
He stood up and looked across at her. She met his gaze, coolly but not defiantly. He jerked his head ceilingwards and raised a warning eyebrow. She nodded, saying nothing, and he left the kitchen and climbed the stairs. The old man was sleeping, and Paterson, in a rare moment of generosity, drew a loose cover over his bound form.
A photograph on the bedside table caught his eye. It was clearly their wedding picture - he in dress uniform; she in startling white. He leaned over to read the date inscribed on the bottom - almost thirty years ago.
He looked at the picture again. Maynard was obviously well into his thirties, but his wife looked barely out of her teens. Paterson felt a twinge of illogical envy, which he dismissed with irritation. Well, he wasn't enjoying a teenage bedmate now, Paterson thought, almost savagely, aware that his annoyance was caused by his own chronic failure to maintain two marriages and at least half a dozen promising relationships.
Maybe, at getting on for seventy, Maynard still saw his fifty-year old wife as a piece of young meat, thought Paterson as he descended the stairs. He pretended to try to remember the last time he had had a woman, but he was only too well aware that it was all of three months - a Filipino nightclub hostess; a lithe light-brown girl who had given him precisely one hour for his thirty dollars - and a week of worry and incessant self-checks after he had sobered up...
He re-entered the kitchen. The woman hadn't moved. She looked up at him enquiringly, and he nodded, curtly. "He's O.K.," he said. "Asleep. I want a decent chair - an armchair."
Wordlessly, she rose and led the way through the hall to a comfortable room at the front. A coal fire burned between two deep armchairs and Paterson sank into one, motioning her to sit opposite.
"I saw your wedding picture upstairs," he said, after a few minutes' silence. "Your husband's older than you."
"Yes," she replied. "Almost sixteen years."
"Oh?" said Paterson. "And how old is he now?"
A ghost of a smile flitted over her face, and disappeared. "Sixty-eight", she answered, curtly. Silence fell again.
Paterson stared into the fire. That made her fifty-two, he thought, absently. He thought she probably didn't look it but, since he'd never had a woman older than thirty, he wouldn't know. Anyway, the jersey and slacks she was wearing gave no clue to what her figure was like, except that she clearly wasn't fat.
The realisation that he was becoming curious about what she looked like out of her clothes grew very slowly on Paterson and, when it did impinge, at last, at the front of his mind, he immediately picked up a day-old copy of the Times and started leafing through it.
Anthea relaxed, just a little. For a moment, she had been just a little worried. The intruder had seemed to be glancing at her a little speculatively, and she had become very sensitive to such signals after thirty years as an Army wife - and a faithful one. She let her head fall back against a cushion and closed her eyes.
For the third time, Paterson tried to digest the political leader in the newspaper, but his eyes continually flickered over the top of the broadsheet towards the woman.
Jesus H Christ, he thought to himself, you've committed four killings in three days, one act of arson, plus whatever what you're doing in this cottage is called in English law. You're waiting for an aeroplane to arrive to help you make a bolt for it, and here you are, wondering if you can get laid by some fifty-year old dame!
Then his mouth dried as he realised there was really no 'if' about it. He was in complete control here - she would do as he said. All he had to do was threaten her husband. His testicles tightened and the paper shook a little in his tightened fingers. The novelty of the idea astonished him - surely he had been in this situation before?
