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listening to her deep, uneven breathing, which occasionally breaks into a
snore. She is often awake for a few hours. in the middle of the night, but
then sleeps deeply until well after dawn. Jasper walks across the landing and
opens the cabinet of the burglar alarm system. He disconnects the electrical
circuit that links the windows and doors together during the night. As he
eases the toggle his sweaty hands leave ample fingerprints (E 110) on the
plastic handle.
Jasper is now free to leave the house. He enters the silent kitchen, unlocks
the outer door and lets himself onto the patio behind the garages. Screened by
the roof of the swimming pool from his parents'
bedrooms, he sets off across the lawn. Behind the rose pergola he retrieves
the buried shotgun, which he carries back to the house and hides among the
golf clubs in his bedroom closet.
He then returns to the garden. Beyond the tennis courts, the rear gate opens
onto the pathway inside the perimeter fence, which Burnett will patrol in
twenty minutes. Jasper sets off along the path until he sees the gatehouse on
its grassy knoll, separated from the houses by a screen of ornamental trees.
Jasper parts the hanging curtain of a weeping willow. Squatting against the
tree trunk is Mark Sanger, the bamboo man-trap on the ground beside him.
_6:35 a.m._ Andrew Zest is moving through the trees at the bottom of The
Avenue, near the pathway at the northern perimeter of the estate. This is the
farthest point from the gatehouse, and the surveillance camera sweeps the
lonely pathway for a full hundred yards on either side. Attached to the pylon
is a telephone box and a miniaturized relay from the gatehouse of the camera
picture.
Behind the pylon is a dense mass of rhododendrons, their dark leaves shutting
out all signs of the houses. Graham crouches within the foliage and unpacks
the crossbow from his canvas satchel. Using the spanner, he cranks back the
powerful bow. His feet slip in the soft earth as he fits a steel bolt into the
runnel. He carefully rearranges the foliage, satisfied that he is only six
feet from the telephone box.
_6:48 a.m._ Mark and Jasper expose the telephone and TV cables. Over the past
week they have excavated a rectangular pit in the damp soil, cut through the
tar-paper housing and the yellow plastic
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tubing that contains the cables. Jasper lowers the steel cutters into the pit.
Beside him Mark is setting the springs of the man-trap, bending the bamboo
arms that will pinion Officer Turner and allow him to strangle himself.
_7:00 a.m._ The children's preparations are now complete. Graham Lymington
has taken the bolt-
action target rifle from beneath the floorboards in his bedroom. In the gray
light he cuts his right thumb on the loosened nails (E 42). He sits on the
bed, cleaning the weapon for the last time, then feeds the soft-
nosed cartridges into the magazine.
Annabel and Gail Reade have completed the last exchange of messages on their
computer screens.
Annabel has loaded her small Remington and left the pistol within reach in the
drawer of the bedside table. Gail has placed her weapon between the legs of
her teddy bear. Sitting on the beds in their separate bedrooms, the two girls
can see Jeremy Maxted at his window across The Avenue, reading an
American comic that he has smuggled into the estate.
Composed now, the children wait in their rooms, computer screens glowing and
blank, ready for the action to come.
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_7:05 a.m._ The first parents begin to wake. Mrs. Sanger lies in bed for a
few minutes, making notes for the day into the tape recorder of her bedside
clock radio. "The TV people will be here at three.
See the garage this morning about the spare car key. Ask Miss Neame to prepare
the lobster dressing.
Cancel riding lesson, and check with Mark about his weekend program . . ." (E
142).
_7:12 a.m._ Charles Ogilvy writes down a dream on the bedside telephone pad
(E 159). He has dreamed of sailing down the Nile, a journey he and his wife
made three years earlier, but in his dream the great temples and pyramids have
been replaced by film sets .
_7:29 a.m._ Margot Winterton plays the radio in her bathroom and records an
interesting film review on Radio 4's morning magazine program.
_7:45--8:00 a.m._ All the parents are now awake and up, with the exception of
the Sterlings, who are still drugged by the powerful sleeping draught which
Roger managed to steal during his visit to the
London Clinic. The live-in tutors, Mr. Lodge and Mr. Wentworth, and the two au
pairs, Krystal and
Olga, have also risen. Several of the parents exercise in their bedrooms
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