Sixteen Horses

by Greg Buchanan

  Before they left, Alec asked her if the horses had been alive when it all happened.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He asked her if their heads had been taken after death or during.

  If they’d felt pain.

  Cooper said she didn’t know.

  But that wasn’t true.

  There were traces of tyre tracks through the field from the road. Alec showed her photos. A large van. They didn’t know the make or model, not yet.

  ‘CCTV?’

  He shook his head.

  Further on, within sight of the horses, there lay a small stone ruin. Their witness had slept there, had reported seeing two people burying the heads, one of them crying. The land was littered with these lost structures.

  Standing there in the clear light of day, they had an uninterrupted view of the rest. Of the silhouettes of abandoned tractors and cars. Green, seething, desolate. Sheep cried somewhere behind them, bleating for food.

  The sun had come out a little more. The air started to get warmer.

  ‘You know . . .’

  ‘What?’ He turned his head to her.

  ‘You asked me if I’d seen anything like this before.’ She hesitated. Sheep grazed in the field over the road, one of them staring at her. She turned ahead. ‘There was this man once . . . it was a big case down south. It started in Croydon but spread all around the M25.’

  Animals bleated. An unseen dog barked far away.

  ‘This man . . .’ Cooper continued. ‘He’d lure cats away from their homes, he’d bludgeon them, he’d cut them and he’d leave them on owners’ cars and in their front gardens, all laid out to see. The tails, the limbs, the heads, all spaced out.’

  ‘That’s horrible,’ Alec said, his lip twisted.

  Cooper nodded. ‘The investigators thought it wasn’t about the animal. It was about the owner discovering it. It was about the absolute power the killer had in that moment, the triumph over the owner’s relationship with something they loved. It was thought that he waited around to watch the owners wake up and go outside. It was about the finding, not about the dead.’

  Alec sighed. The farmhouse was in sight.

  ‘Who did it?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s too early to say.’

  ‘The cats, I mean. Who killed the cats?’

  Cooper was silent for a moment.

  ‘Did you catch him?’

  ‘The police closed the investigation. They decided that it was just foxes. That all the clean cuts, all the staging, all the arranging of limbs about car roofs, even the flesh found in plastic knotted bags . . . all of it was just a coincidence.’

  ‘How many were killed?’

  ‘Four hundred,’ Cooper said. ‘There were four hundred cats.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Cooper ate her lunch near her car, sitting by the side of the road. Beef coated in a thin anonymous red sauce, the bread white and tasteless.

  Meat – mourning the meat of another.

  She smiled to herself, faintly. Then she grimaced as she swallowed another bite, before downing some coffee from her flask, still hot from a few hours ago.

  There were thin fences all around her. Holes in everything. The subsidies, they were mostly gone now. She wondered how much of a loss Well Farm had made these past few years. If they had thought of selling up, if there had even been anyone out there willing to buy. Parts of the world grew worthless, abandoned. Here this father and daughter continued on, alone.

  The mother had fled. The girl had been pulled out of school around the same time, taught only by her father. Alec had told Cooper all about it.

  They’d had a look in the house, the different officers, nosing around where they could. The mother had taken warfarin for a clotting disorder, GRACE COLE on the label.

  Elsewhere, clothes, jewellery, all left behind. Recent letters still sent here in her name, unanswered. This Grace had wanted absolutely nothing to do with her own flesh and blood. She had abandoned them a year ago. No contact since.

  The sun fell through the sky.

  Cooper finished her sandwich and stood up, stretching. The heads were almost all loaded up.

  Soon, dissection would begin.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Later that day, Michael Stafford sat up in bed and stared out of his window. The carriage driver had told the police all he knew. But they kept asking him questions all the same. They wanted to know where he lived. What he’d been doing. Why was he being treated like this?

  There were no bingo calls that morning, no snatches of music through the walls of his caravan. He’d slept badly through the rain of the night before.

  Across the bay, islands sat, squat black smears across the horizon.

  He looked for a drink. He needed to open the windows, he needed to air and clean this place. There were empty bottles everywhere, vodka and rum.

  He walked out, the salt air smacking into his face. He shut and locked the door, and headed down to the Local.

  On the way he got a phone call. Joe wanted to speak to him. He wanted to say he was sorry.

  ‘For what?’

  The man croaked something inaudible. Then he told him to go to the arcade at 3 p.m.

  Michael had grown up nearby, had remained in this town by the sea while all of his friends had departed. Mistakes had forced him to leave when he hit twenty. Paying for them allowed him to return.

  He still remembered the butchers, the moustache of one, the dirty beard of another, the red faces all around, the soap-meat smell of the drains outside, the suds on the steps, the red cuts in the windows, as pleasurable and tasty-looking as good food can be in films.

  But it was not there any more.

  Now, there was a small supermarket in its place.

  The automatic doors hissed aside from his steps.

  He headed for the spirits.

  He found them near ice and frozen food. He found a great bottle of rum on offer and clutched it in his right hand as he felt around for his money, as he headed down the long aisle.

  There were other people here, though not many.

  He wondered, briefly, if he recognized one of the strangers, an older woman trying to find cereal. He did not know how he would have known her. There were children, too, on their phones near the magazines and newspapers.

  He thought maybe one of them had taken a ride with him and Annie, once. He didn’t know.

  As he went to join a short queue at the checkout, he felt fingers touch his neck.

  He spun around, the bottle slipping from his hand and shattering on the hard plastic floor, shards of glass and spirit skipping along the ground like stones upon a sea.

  There was no one behind him. At this realization, he began to feel cold. He began to shake.

  He heard the sound of amusement arcades again, the door open at the Local’s front, the horror of their music manifest once more.

  An assistant came to help. He had a roll of blue tissue paper and a dustpan. He began to gather the spilt mess.

  ‘It’s OK—’ Michael began.

  ‘I just need to clean it up.’ The man set up a yellow sign to warn of a wet slippery floor.

  ‘I only had—’ Michael looked around and stopped.

  Other people were near him now. Everyone looked back at him. As if there was something to see. The older woman from down the aisle, she was behind them both, and she looked at him with awful pity.

  He was shaking. He looked at his hands and saw he was shaking. He looked at the open door of the Local, he listened for the music, and it was louder, now.

  ‘If you see my colleague at the till, you can pay for the bottle,’ the assistant said.

  ‘I can’t buy two.’ Michael stared down at the man. ‘I can’t afford two.’

  ‘Then just pay for this one.’

  ‘But I didn’t drink it.’

  ‘You broke it.’ The assistant stood up. ‘You’re on CCTV. We’re recording you.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Michael�
��s face began to twist. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Don’t get upset. Just pay.’

  ‘I’m not getting upset! I just asked you what you mean – that you’re recording me. Why are you recording me?’

  ‘We – we record everyone.’ The assistant looked slightly nervous, now. ‘It’s what everyone does.’

  ‘Why?’ Michael felt like he might cry. He felt ashamed.

  ‘In case you do anything wrong.’

  ‘Someone touched me on the neck,’ Michael said, ‘I – I didn’t do anything wrong. They made me turn.’

  The assistant stared at him.

  ‘I just want what I paid for.’ Michael grew more agitated. ‘What is wrong with that? I just want—’

  The older woman came up behind the assistant and placed her shopping basket on the conveyor belt.

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said, nodding to herself, unloading a tin of coffee, a box of oat cereal, and a large bottle of rum. ‘I’ll pay for him. He can pay for the broken one, I can buy the new one.’

  ‘Why?’ The assistant stood, shaking his head.

  But she did not answer.

  The checkout assistant asked her the same question. He told her that she thought she was being kind, but she wasn’t. That a man like him didn’t need more of what he was having.

  The woman said nothing.

  Outside, she handed Michael his bottle.

  ‘Thank you,’ he mumbled, taking it, his hands still shaking. She seemed like she wanted to talk, but Michael turned away.

  ‘Don’t you want to talk?’

  He left, hurrying down the street.

  ‘I guess that’s the thanks I get,’ the woman said, but he kept going.

  He kept going.

  He tried not to have too much before the arcade. He had a coffee to wake himself up. He walked back out into the light, minutes drifting into hours. It felt like days had passed since the morning.

  The arcade was blue-carpeted, dark but for the flashing lights of machines. There was a boy playing an arcade light-gun game, firing madly at aliens rushing towards him on the screen. Old men stood by the gambling machines at the back, an area called REEL, eighteen and over only.

  It was through there Joe disappeared, week after week. He had heard a rumour once that Joe owned all of this. He had heard another rumour that the man didn’t own anything at all, that it was just in his name, that it was a scam, it was all one big scam.

  That was all. Those small plates moving back and forth, back and forth. The glittered lights and the copyrighted music. Realistic-looking ducklings moving up and down in a cabinet. An emptiness of gum and scattered coin.

  The amusement arcades were open all the time, even though no one came.

  The problem of how they possibly survived as businesses when all else failed had used to bother Michael, until he’d had a drink one day, until someone had told him the secret.

  The arcades, they weren’t what they seemed.

  ‘People put coins in them all the time. They don’t get anything back,’ the man had said. ‘Don’t you understand?’

  Michael hadn’t understood. A stranger had come up to the two of them, had begged, and his friend had told the stranger to fuck off.

  ‘The arcades clean the money. They clean everything. All the filth right off it, it’s like detergent, those games.’ The man had stubbed out his cigarette in the tray, smiling then roughly tousling Michael’s hair. Michael hadn’t liked that. ‘Where do you think the money goes, Mikey? Where do you think that fucker’s money goes?’

  So Michael sat there now, all those months later.

  He sat waiting for Joe, who might have owned this place, might have owned nothing.

  A stranger came and hovered near the chair. ‘This seat taken?’

  Michael shook his head.

  The stranger sat down, scratching his neck. It was an old guy, grey hair, thick arms. Michael thought he’d seen him around, somehow. He’d seen him driving.

  ‘You lose much?’ the man asked.

  Michael stared at him, and paused. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t gamble much myself. Not with money.’

  ‘Then this is a strange place to be,’ Michael said, looking around. Joe wasn’t there yet. ‘Unless you like the kid games.’

  ‘Heh.’ The man grinned at him. ‘Can I ask you a question?’

  Michael didn’t answer. Something about the stranger was starting to bother him. ‘Do I know you?’

  ‘Answer me first. Humour me.’ George smiled. ‘Where were you the night of the seventh?’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Clouds drifted across the fields as the moments passed. There were no towers to break them, no city to conceal the wake of the sky.

  To be accused of something you didn’t do, it might not be character-building.

  But it did something, didn’t it? It was half of Alec’s business, potentially laying blame upon innocent people. You just didn’t know who might be right or wrong at the beginning, who might be lying. You had to do your job.

  He listened to his friend, a small sheen of sweat along his dirty cheek. The phone had cut against it, resting now against his ear.

  ‘Michael claims he was at the fireworks show, the night of the killings,’ George said, his voice slightly robotic from the weak signal. ‘No names of anyone he was with, but . . . he says he was there. Claims he went alone. What can I say?’

  ‘And his heavy goods licence?’

  ‘Apparently he hasn’t driven a truck in years. Just a horse and carriage for our ex-con.’ George hesitated. ‘Had a look through his caravan windows before we spoke. He’s drinking pretty heavily, maybe some drugs too, it was hard to tell.’

  ‘How was he to speak to?’

  ‘Sad, I think. I don’t know . . . All he had was that animal. It was his business. It was his friend, I guess, his pet. I don’t buy that he’d hurt it.’

  ‘He’s been violent before,’ Alec said.

  ‘So have I. We can all make mistakes.’ George sighed. ‘I don’t know, like I said. If we’re on this much longer, I’ll see if we can pull some CCTV from the shore. Must be a camera that points his way. Might help with the alibi, what time he got back, what time he left. I wouldn’t rule out some of his associates being involved, I suppose. But him personally? I doubt it.’

  ‘OK,’ Alec said. ‘We got all the heads to the vet surgery. The consultant is looking over them now.’

  There was a pause in the line.

  Over near the Coles’ farmhouse, he heard the noise of a rattling door.

  ‘Do you think she’ll find much?’ George’s voice was muted.

  ‘She said the heads might have been sawn off . . . Seemed to be promising.’

  ‘Strange kind of job she does,’ George said, and then, after a pause: ‘You seemed to be getting on well earlier.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just what I said. You seemed to be talking a lot.’

  ‘About four hundred cats.’ Alec scowled.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘They were – they were sliced up in people’s . . . You know what? Never mind. It’s—’

  ‘Why would people slice up cats?’ George sounded genuinely hurt, mystified, his voice grown quieter. ‘That’s horrible.’

  ‘It is horrible,’ Alec admitted. ‘Talk later, OK?’

  ‘OK. Sure.’

  Alec put the phone back in his pocket.

  He sneezed. For a moment he thought he had sneezed blood, but it was only a trick of the falling light.

  When Cooper had asked him if they’d met, Alec had lied, or he’d told a half-truth, anyway.

  The vet had looked different in the morning light, especially in the green boiler suit, the black wellingtons, the tired eyes. But it was her. The night before – the dark-haired woman in the dark red sweater, the one he had been caught smiling at in the beer garden. It had been Cooper.

  He couldn’t tell her that was their first meeting, that he was
the silent weirdo at the pub. He didn’t know what had been wrong with him, why his thoughts had been so strange. He wondered if she’d even registered it. A woman like that, she probably had guys fawning over her all the time.

  He thought about the way she had snapped the crow’s neck.

  He stared at the road. The land was so flat out here. There were no hills in sight, no escalation or fall. It was a vast blankness, punctuated only by a few barns, a few tractors, and the curve of the Earth itself hiding all else from view. Only Ilmarsh was visible to the east, its low buildings sprawling. You couldn’t even see the sea.

  There was a skip nearby, just outside the corner of the barn. Rusted farm tools and machines stuck out of the top. Alec saw something fluttering within.

  He approached the skip, the shiny plastic cluttering his eye. He did not know what it could be.

  He had to move a wheelbarrow a little, but he found the source soon enough.

  Metallic, half deflated, rising with a passing breeze, then falling once more.

  It was a balloon.

  ‘Happy 16th Birthday,’ it said.

  LOST CAT:

  PLEASE HELP US FIND OUR JAKE.

  JAKE IS A TABBY CAT.

  LAST SEEN BEFORE FIREWORKS NIGHT IN LOWER GRENWOOD, ILMARSH.

  HE HAS A RED COLLAR SAYING ‘DO NOT FEED’.

  DIABETIC.

  PLEASE HELP US FIND HIM.

  SMALL REWARD.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  There was a drain at the centre of things. It dipped in the middle of the yellow-painted concrete. There was blood within it, or there had been recently. Most large animal sheds possessed such a drain.

  The shed was cold and lonely, even with the other vets standing around outside its open entrance. It was a quality of the place, just as much a part of its existence as the great straw-lined bays that kept animals during the day, or the yellow floor. Cooper had never seen such a yellow floor. One wall was stacked with shelves and containers, rope and suturing material.

  There were no windows. There was a single red door for people to enter through, stuck right in the corner near the sink. Next to it stood a rolled-up corrugated metal shutter through which they’d brought in the animals.