Crook's Hollow

by Rob Parker

  The reality of it hit Thor like a hammer-strike. ‘We’d be flooded out of business.’

  ‘Nine months of the year, two thirds of the farm would be underwater. We’d have to leave.’

  Thor had never thought about any such thing, that building homes could have such a disastrous impact on the outlying area. And it wasn’t as if Clyne or the Crooks would give a rat’s arse if it put the Loxley family out of business.

  Thor reached in his pocket and pulled out the cheque Clyne gave him. He held it out for Wilkes Sr. to see, but Wilkes Sr. had to put his glasses on first. Instead of opening them fully, he just held them to his eyes. His jaw lowered, as he looked at Thor.

  A million things must have been going through Wilkes Sr.’s mind, but Thor did what he least expected: he tore the cheque into small pieces, and threw the scraps to the floor.

  ‘This is family,’ Thor said. ‘My family won’t be on the street, even if we don’t agree on everything.’

  Wilkes’s eyes filled with a mixture of relief, shock, and love, as he put a hand on Thor’s shoulder. It was a look Thor would never forget.

  ‘Thank you, son,’ he said.

  ‘Crap wagon’s here!’ shouted someone from the kitchen.

  ‘Come on,’ said Thor, leading the way back into the huge indoor pond where they used to break bread.

  As they entered, his siblings were helping haul a huge hose into the kitchen, leaving the remainder snaking out of the front door. Thor finally understood why the crap wagon was here. Primarily used for emptying septic tanks, it was essentially a big water tank on wheels that could suck the contents of the kitchen into its belly, and drain the kitchen. It would take time, and leave a real mess, but after a few trips it would get it done.

  And then Thor saw the driver of the wagon. The wagon driver was Jason Dwyer, his old school friend.

  Thor had forgotten he’d taken over the business from his father last year. Jason, in his tattered grey overalls and bright yellow wellies, caught his eye, and nodded to him coldly.

  And in his left hand, held up next to his chin, rested an e-cigarette vaporiser, connected to a small bright blue cartridge—exactly like the one left in the field the night Thor had nearly been killed.

  22

  Thor stood on the step watching the water slowly inch lower. It left a mucky residue up the kitchen cabinets, and a bad smell of river water, pollution, and compost. He watched Jason, hoping that some look of uncertainty or guilt would reveal to Thor the acknowledgement of the awkwardness a would-be killer might feel when his prey just won’t die.

  But Thor could detect nothing.

  His siblings watched Thor with challenging eyes, almost daring him to stand up to them, while the flood water gurgled up the tube. Thor felt good to know that, despite their obvious animosity, on this occasion he had done the right thing. He was sure his father would fill them in at some point.

  During the stifling awkwardness in the kitchen, an arm came up behind Thor and linked through his own.

  ‘I’m so glad to see you,’ said Rue, resting her head on Thor’s shoulder. ‘When I heard what happened yesterday, after what we had just talked about, I could only assume the worst.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Thor. ‘Don’t worry. We are getting to the bottom of it.’ He couldn’t take his eyes off Jason, who sucked on that e-cigarette like it was the dregs of a ninety-nine with sprinkles.

  ‘Mum and Dad got the call from the hospital, then let us all know. They said you were fine. I’d have been there in a heartbeat if it wasn’t for the kids. Barry’s doing triple shifts on the roads, and the weather’s sent everything sideways.’

  ‘Don’t worry, sis. The police are involved now.’

  ‘I’d imagined they’d have to be, with you ending up in hospital and

  everything.’

  ‘Yeah, between them and me, we’ll get this sorted.’

  Rue squeezed his arm. ‘Leave it to them. Please, Thor. That’s twice we’ve nearly lost you. I’m worried sick.’

  Suddenly, Jason started pulling the tube back out of the water, even though there was still six inches of water on the floor. ‘I’ve got to go dump this lot,’ he said. ‘I’ll come back for the rest.’

  ‘Just not anywhere on the farm, please, Jason,’ said Wilkes Sr. ‘You don’t want me to just spray it on the field?’

  ‘Of course not, you idiot,’ said Hollis. ‘The brook over at the end of Hob Lane, you could dump it in that.’

  ‘You think?’ Jason didn’t look too thrilled with that idea, nor having just been called an idiot.

  ‘I’ll go with you,’ said Thor, before he even knew he was planning on saying anything at all. Jason looked at him with arched eyebrows. ‘I’ll give you a hand, then you can drop me off in the Hollow.’

  He actually wanted a ride to Crook’s Farm, but there was no way he was going to say that in front of this lot.

  ‘Sounds a great idea,’ said Mercy, as she stepped up into the hall. Thor knew exactly which bit of the idea she thought was great—the bit with him leaving.

  ‘Alright,’ said Jason begrudgingly. ‘I’ll just load up the hose, then we can get going’.

  ‘I’ll wait in the cab,’ Thor said. He gave Rue a goodbye hug, and a goodbye nod to his father. He didn’t know what else to do, but he certainly saw his dad in a different light now. Maybe Rue was right after all, he thought. Loyalty did seem to count for something.

  As Thor walked across the kitchen, getting his shoes sodden all over again, he was forced to acknowledge that, through all that had happened, neither himself nor his father had covered themselves in glory. Wilkes Sr. should have been gentler with his son regarding his wishes, and more understanding of the situation. Thor himself perhaps should have been less reactionary and petulant. Either way, Thor felt for the first time that things might just be saved between himself and his family.

  He ran across the yard to the crap wagon, the rain driving harder than ever. It was getting to feel like an eerie precursor to the apocalypse, with the moody gloom so thick you couldn’t even glance up to get a look at it.

  He jumped up into the cab, scooting Lucozade bottles and copies of The Daily Star off the seat and into the muddy footwell. In the wing mirror, he could see Jason attaching the hose to the back of the truck, and he tried to get his line of questioning in order. He had to make it look innocent, but that was hard when he thought of what he was now contemplating: that Jason Dwyer had been cajoled by Clyne and the Crooks to kill him, and given Thor and Jason’s up-and-down past, Jason had been only too happy to do it for them.

  With a burst of crashing water, Jason opened the door and was in the cab with him.

  ‘What a fucking day,’ he said, partly to Thor but mainly to whatever god he might believe in.

  ‘Never seen anything like it,’ conceded Thor.

  ‘I tell you what, Thor, you’ve got some big bollocks asking for a ride into the Hollow from me,’ said Jason, as he started the truck and flicked the wipers on. They made little difference, just moved sheets of water from one side to the other.

  ‘You didn’t expect me to walk in this, did you?’ Thor attempted to joke, but it fell flat. There was too much history between them and too much at stake. He decided to play it softly. ‘Look, I’m sorry for coming to see you at home like that yesterday.’

  Jason didn’t say anything as he carefully pushed through the mud of the driveway, guiding his wagon through the bog. Thor pressed on.

  ‘I was scared. It was a bad one. Whoever did it tried to run me over with a combine harvester.’ If Thor was expecting some kind of reveal from Jason, he wasn’t getting one; his features were a mask of passive concentration. ‘Either way, I shouldn’t have come to your house like that, pointing fingers. For that I’m sorry.’

  ‘Do you know where this brook is?’ Jason said, his eyes glued to the road ahead.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Then you can direct me. I’ll head to Hob, and you can tell me where.’

/>   By glossing over Thor’s attempt at opening up a line of communication, Jason had taken the wind out of Thor’s sails. They sat in silence for a moment, as Jason wound the truck off the smaller country lanes onto the main road leading to Crook’s Hollow.

  Thor remembered where he wanted to go, and who he thought Jason’s co-conspirators were. ‘After we’ve dumped the load, can you drop me off at Crook’s Farm instead? Actually at the end of Crook’s Hollow itself?’

  Jason turned and glanced at Thor—a look that broke into a very small smile.

  ‘What?’ Thor asked, feeling the hairs on his neck rise arrow- straight.

  ‘So it’s true,’ said Jason, his eyes back on the rain-spattered windshield.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘You and the youngest Crook girl,’ he said. ‘What’s her name again?’ ‘Roisin.’

  ‘I’d never’ve thought it possible. A Loxley and a Crook.’

  There was a bite in Jason’s words, an ill-disguised tone of distaste. ‘You know them, don’t you?’ Thor said, trying to take back control

  of the conversation. ‘The Crooks?’

  ‘Only in the way everyone knows them. Distant big-wigs who don’t mix with the small and less important. They think they know everything.’

  Again, there was the bite that Thor couldn’t decipher. Jason obviously had his own thoughts, his own feelings, his own concerns and judgements.

  As the wagon entered onto the main street of Crook’s Hollow, imaginatively called Main Street, they passed the village primary school. A low, grey-brick building that was built in the late sixties to accommodate the rush of kids being born on the then-new estate.

  ‘Do you ever wish we were still there?’ Jason asked, nodding towards the school. In the grey murk of the day, all the lights were on inside.

  ‘Always. Happiest times of my life,’ Thor replied. ‘And the simplest.’

  They left the school behind and drove past the post office.

  ‘How is it up there?’ asked Jason. He seemed to have lost a little of the bile that had flavoured his earlier words.

  ‘It’s not the Savoy or anything, but it works. Nice to have my own space. It was madness growing up on the farm. That place is the first thing I ever had that wasn’t a hand-me-down.’

  Jason laughed. ‘Yeah, I remember you in your sister’s jeans. One pair even had stitched fairy wings around the pockets—didn’t we colour them in with a marker pen to look like Batman?’

  Thor could only smile at this very fond memory.

  ‘I got in so much trouble, but those pants went from the worst jeans I’d ever had to my favourite.’

  ‘Simpler times,’ Jason said again.

  Thor felt a pang of empathy for his old friend. A gulf of different lifestyle choices and family circumstances separated them, but deep down there was a lot that bonded them, and with every passing moment Thor found it harder to believe his old friend would try to kill him.

  ‘Take this left,’ Thor said. As Jason turned the wheel, Thor said, ‘So how long have you been vaping?’ He tried to make it sound casual.

  ‘A couple of weeks. Trying to kick the main habit, you know. And those other ones you don’t approve of, believe it or not.’

  ‘The cartridges expensive?’ Thor thought of the one in his pocket. ‘Nah, not really. A few quid here and there. Better than cigs either

  way.’

  ‘You ever lose one?’

  The oddness of the question wasn’t lost on Jason. He glanced over at Thor. ‘What do you mean, lose one?’

  ‘I found one—oh shit, stop here.’

  As they came to the end of Hob Lane, the brook rose before them. Usually no more than a small creek running down a shallow embankment, it was now spurting white water up onto the road. As Jason pulled the wagon up, Thor could see the brook had completely overflowed its banks and was running wildly. His father had been right about the fragility of the water table here—the weather was wreaking havoc with it.

  ‘I’ve never seen that before,’ Thor said.

  ‘What do you mean you found one?’ pressed Jason, clearly not having forgotten Thor’s change of direction moments earlier.

  ‘I have it here,’ Thor said, pulling out the cartridge. He held it next to the e-cig that Jason had put on the dashboard. The cartridges were identical.

  ‘What do you know—a match.’

  Thor looked at Jason, who looked back. ‘What the fuck do you mean, Thor?’

  ‘Want to guess where I got this one?’ ‘Not really, no.’

  ‘Whoever tried to kill me on Saturday night dropped it. I got it from the field.’

  Jason sat gaping. Then he laughed, a dark, cruel cackle. ‘You pathetic little shit. Get out.’

  Thor sat solid where he was. ‘Was it you?’ ‘You stupid fucking moron, look around you.’

  ‘I’m just asking you, tell me straight—was it you?’

  ‘I tell you what, Thor,’ Jason said, and he jumped out of the cab. He walked round the front to the passenger side and pulled the door open. ‘Get the fuck out.’

  Jason grabbed Thor by the jacket and yanked him bodily out of the wagon.

  Thor fought back, scrambled for his balance, and pushed Jason off him.

  ‘Fuck off,’ Jason shouted. ‘I mean it, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll fuck off right now.’

  ‘Did you do it, Jason?’ Thor shouted over the deluge, but Jason was walking to the rear of the wagon. ‘Did you do it?’

  Jason reappeared with the hose, and with a flick of the valve, water sprayed forth from the hose, hitting Thor like a battering ram. He was

  swept off his feet and sent tumbling onto the asphalt. Jason kept directing the water at him, and the sheer volume of it pushed him ever closer to the raging water of the brook.

  Thor suddenly felt panic at the thought of tumbling in, being washed down and away with the torrent. He held on to the road, gripping the asphalt as best he could, digging his fingers into whatever crevices they could find, as the contents of his parents’ kitchen was emptied onto him.

  It felt like being stuck under a wave that would not stop crashing on his head, an interminable wipeout. Nor could he forget the fact that the water being dumped on him had been stored in the crap wagon, essentially a bacteria factory on wheels.

  The pressure began to dwindle ever so slightly, and the thunder across his back and shoulders began to lessen, then to level off. It took a moment of gasping for air for him to realise that what he now felt was simply rain.

  He heard the wagon shift into gear, and the engine roared as Jason drove away, leaving him on the grass verge like a drowned scuff of roadkill.

  He lay there, listening to the drum of the rain all around him, the drops peppering him. It was a bizarre sensation, one that, if it weren’t for the cold, wasn’t entirely unpleasant. But a wave of exhaustion hit him hard, in his weak and worn-out state. He had barely slept in two days, been beaten then battered, and survived death twice. So he just lay there.

  After a moment, the growl of another engine weaved through the sound of rainfall, followed by the squeak of brakes. Thor was so done in, he just lay on his back and waited for whoever it was to get on with whatever it was they intended to do.

  ‘Bloody hell, Thor,’ said a voice he recognised. ‘What are you doing out here?’

  Thor felt like laughing because it was a great question. But instead he just smiled and said: ‘Getting wet, by the looks of things.’

  ‘Oh I see,’ said Ahmed, the youngest of the brothers from the post office, not seeing at all. ‘Well, let’s get you home. You just can’t stopgetting into trouble can you?’ Ahmed linked his arms under Thor’s armpits and hoisted him up.

  ‘You heard?’ Thor replied, allowing Ahmed to help him back to Ahmed’s car, a small hatchback.

  ‘The police were round today looking for you.’ Ahmed bundled him into the passenger seat then ran around the bonnet to jump in the driver’s side. He immediately turned the fans o
n full heat, as condensation fogged the windscreen, and ran a hand through his hair, shaking off the excess water. He was in his late thirties, with a close- cropped beard and amber eyes. He looked at Thor with concern.

  ‘What did you tell them?’

  ‘What could I tell them? I didn’t know where you were! I had to let them in your flat, though. We were worried about you, especially after yesterday at the church.’

  ‘The village is going to shit, Ahmed. And those building plans will definitely make sure of it.’

  Ahmed looked troubled. He put the car in gear and they pulled away. ‘I must admit, it came as a bit of a surprise.’ His accent over the years had softened. What had once been a prim, well-spoken Indian lilt now had the odd layer of broad northern England about it.

  ‘It’ll be good for business though, won’t it?’ Thor said, suddenly utterly fed up with the whole damn affair, but immediately regretted it. Ahmed had only ever been good to Thor, and didn’t deserve such a sniping remark. Ahmed kept cool and replied with admirable frankness.

  ‘If we managed to be the only post office here, then yes, of course it would. But those people from COMUDEV don’t represent me, Thor. This community has been very good to me and my brother, even though it was hard at first. Our first position is loyalty to the Hollow, and if what those businessmen propose is bad for the Hollow, then we don’t support it. Simple as.’

  Thor admired his honesty, and respected his loyalty. Ahmed’s integrity was obviously much deeper than Thor gave him credit for.

  ‘I’m sorry Ahmed, I didn’t intend…’

  ‘It’s alright, but already a lot of people are looking at us like that.

  I’ve had to explain our position a few times, and it hasn’t even been twenty-four hours since the plans were made public.’

  Ahmed turned onto Main Street and took the left to the post office. ‘I wish people realised that not every businessman is the same as

  every other,’ Ahmed said, with obvious sadness.

  ‘I’m sorry, mate, I didn’t mean it to come out like that.’

  The car pulled in at the post office, and Ahmed swung it round the back to the car park, and the stairs to Thor’s flat.