by Rob Parker
There was a fireplace, long since filled in, but the mantel above it carried a couple of photographs. A girl, seventeen or so. Her dyed black hair streaked back from her head and tinged with a fiery red at the tips. She wore a long-sleeved black jumper and a broad but less than happy smile.
Thor took a step back, looking at the mantelpiece as a whole. The old room, untouched, the placement of the photo frames…
The is no ordinary room, thought Thor. This is a shrine.
The identity of the girl was a mystery. Logic dictated it had to be Roisin’s room, but the girl in the photographs, despite similarities, wasn’t her. He thought immediately that it must a cousin, or relative. But that wouldn’t tally with the room as it presently stood. The eyes and cheeks were familiar, it looked like they carried history in them.
The girl was a Crook. She looked like Ward, Wendell, and Roisin, especially Roisin, in small, almost indefinable, but definite ways.
A sibling that they had lost? Why did he not know about this? Had he somehow missed this?
Roisin had an older sister?
What this meant, if true, was unclear, but if nothing else it added a distinctly complicated layer to the complexion of the Crooks.
He left the room as he had found it, taking with him only the haunting mental picture of the girl in the pictures.
The snoring was still thundering from the room at the end of the hall. He opened the door with care.
It was a huge bedroom, very tidy, and rich: cream carpets, more high beams, a standing mirror by an ornate wooden dresser, with simple dark wood wardrobes on either side of a grand, high brass- framed bed.
Thor crept closer. On the left side of the bed lay an old man with his head back and his mouth so wide Thor thought he could throw an 8-ball straight down the man’s throat without touching his teeth.
He had never seen Mason Crook this close before, having only
seen him at a distance just a few times in his youth, and now his former apprehensions of the man bloomed in his chest. The stories he had heard were those of a formidable taskmaster, monstrous worker, and epic drinker, none of which tallied with the snoring old geezer in the bed. And just to dent the image that bit further, there was an oxygen tank behind the bed, a face mask dangling from the pressure valve.
‘What do you want?’ a frail female voice said. ‘Take what you want and get out.’
The voice didn’t wake Mason, and Thor, remembering why he was there, raised the kettle high over the bed.
‘Answer my questions, and I won’t pour this all over you both,’ he said, trying to add a lower octave to his voice, to make himself seem imposing.
‘Is that boiling water?’ asked Tilly Crook, the matriarch of the Crook family. In her late seventies, she lay beneath the white quilt in an equally white nightgown, her silver hair up on rollers on the pillow. Her face was drawn tight at the chin by the gaunting of time. There was a tone of sorrow and sadness in her voice, the unyielding stoicism of a farm woman of her generation.
‘Yep, and I’ll start chucking it about if you don’t tell me what I need to know.’ He was glad for the scarf covering his face, because at the very least it masked the tremor on his cheeks.
Get Roisin back. Get Roisin back.
‘OK,’ said Tilly, placatingly. Mason still shuddered the walls with his snoring.
‘Where is Roisin?’
Tilly’s eyes opened wide. ‘Roisin? Why, what’s happened?’ ‘You tell me. Now.’
‘I don’t know. I mean it. I assume she’s in her caravan, have you checked there?’
‘Ward and Wendell have taken her. Where have they taken her to?
You know what I’m taking about, so don’t make me explain it again.’ ‘I’m afraid I really don’t.’
Thor flicked water from the kettle at the dresser, steam drifting out, the boiling liquid hissing as it hit the wood.
‘The land deal with Clyne. You’re accepting it, aren’t you?’
Tilly didn’t hesitate. ‘Wouldn’t anybody? We are too old for this farm. The offer gives our family security for the rest of our lives.’
‘But you need Thornton Loxley dead, don’t you? Is that why you’ve been trying to kill him?’
‘I don’t know who’s been trying kill who, but none of that has been coming from us. None of it. And as for Roisin, she’s a big enough girl to look after herself, don’t you think?’
‘Give me Roisin. Last chance.’ Thor raised the kettle again, and Tilly watched, again with an expression of resignation. Thor was faced with the moment of truth: whether to douse the old woman in boiling water, and become everything he hated.
The decision was made for him. Beyond the curtained windows, the security light on the front drive came on, heralded by a spray of gravel and the gargle of an old motor.
Someone was home.
Suddenly a huge blast threw Thor backwards in shock. It was as if a mortar or a bomb had gone off in the bedroom. Feathers were raining from the ceiling. Mason scrambled to his feet in shock and confusion, and Tilly sat up from under the now-shredded quilt—and pulled a shotgun out of the bedclothes.
She had had it trained on him the whole time, beneath the covers, between her and Mason.
‘Thor’s in here,’ she shouted. ‘Up here, boys, Mummy’s bedroom!’
Thor, deafened by the blast, had barely registered her words when to his horror the barrel came up and she fired again.
Thor flung himself aside in time, stumbled, and fell to his knees. He scrambled for the door. He heard Tilly clicking two more shells into the shotgun’s chambers.
Thor was down the hall in a couple of seconds, but his escape was cut off: two men were running up the stairs towards him. He threw the kettle down at the figures, which sprayed hopeless drops as it fell, but they were wrapped in coats and winter clothes. They navigated the stairs with ease, as if they had done it a thousand times before.
Wendell and Ward.
Thor took the stairs leading up, and bounded two at a time. The voices behind were animatedly out instructions.
‘The Remington and the Philadelphia Fox—get them now, I’ve got your mother’s Birmingham Box.’
It was Mason Crook, coordinating the action. ‘He can’t go nowhere from here. Only way down is the stairs. It’ll be no more complicated than ratting.’
The brothers retreated down the stairs as Thor got to the top. He noticed that Mason had used the guns’ names. Like his eldest brother, Wilkes VIII, the Crooks were fans of vintage shotguns.
So there were three guns out for him, versus his none.
The top of the stairs terminated in a small landing with just two doors to pick from, and Thor knew from experience that they must be old grain stores. In more primitive farming times, grain was kept up high, out of reach of the vermin at ground level. Thor took the left door and hoped there would be something in there that at least he could hide behind.
Opening it, he encountered a cave. A stage was set up, ready for a metal band to drop in and shake the building to its ancient foundations. There were huge Marshall amps looming up at the far end of the room, either side of a full drum kit, a couple of fearsome looking guitars, and a keyboard and a couple of microphones. The situation had taken another weird tilt, but Thor had no time to consider it. He ran for the amps.
As he came deeper into the room he saw that to the right of the door was a bar, set up and ready to host, optics lining the back wall and a couple of ale pumps facing forward. Couches separated the two ends of the room. Apparently the Crook brothers, despite being in their forties and living at home with their parents, still harboured dreams of being rock stars, and lived accordingly—in their grain loft.
Thor hid behind the stack of amps on the right. There was a window behind him where he crouched, but all it led to was three stories of cold air. He was trapped.
He settled as quietly as he could behind the amp, looking for something, anything, that could be used as a weapon. The only thing he could
see was one of the guitars, a ‘flying V’ model with a two- pronged lower body. He grabbed it by the neck and pulled it behind the amp with him.
The door creaked open. Thor instinctively held his breath.
‘This one,’ he heard someone whisper. Thor guessed it was Mason, given the authoritative tone.
‘You’re sure it’s Loxley?’ the other asked quietly. ‘That’s who your mother said it was,’ replied Mason. ‘Shit. How?’
This was it. He was cornered, and they’d have no qualms about killing him now.
‘… I don’t know,’ Mason continued, ‘but he’s trespassing. And the law’s in our hands now. Extra bowl of porridge for whoever takes him out.’
Thor watched in the reflection of the window as the door opened fully, and three long shotgun barrels poked in, catching shards of moonlight as they swung. He struggled to keep his breathing in check. He was truly fucked. Gunned down in the Crooks’ loft. With sick humour he marveled at what a great chapter this would be in the fabled history of the two families and their problems—he just wished he wasn’t the main character.
The awful possibility was dawning on him that Roisin was now dead, and he had to push the dreaded thought aside. If Roisin had been killed by her two brothers, there was precious little else for Thor to live for—abut still the very thought made hum angry. He watched as the guns in the reflection came steadily into the room.
A kernel of pride popped in his chest. He wasn’t going down here—not to this lot. He was a Loxley, and if there was any true Loxley left in him, he’d do anything to avoid being beaten by the Crooks. Anything at all.
He leaned against the amp, trying to think, and pulled the scarf from his head. The reflection still painted a bleak picture.
The reflection: the glass. The weak, thin single-glazed pane, just like everywhere else in the house.
The amp behind him was solid against his spine, and he looked down. The thick power cable was lying by his left heel, wound tight, and snaked to a socket in the wall. He crouched, put both hands on the socket, and took a deep breath.
Stupid, he thought, and in one motion he ripped the plug out of the wall, wrapped the cable twice round his wrist, and threw himself at the window.
Three things happened almost at once: Thor impacted the window, which shattered; there was a deafening blast; and glass and plaster bits and wood splinters filled the air.
Thor quickly twisted the cable more tightly around his wrist as he fell, barely aware of the glass in his hair, feeling only the cold air whistling around his body as he fell straight down. In no time at all, his right arm suddenly snapped back up to the sky, as the cable went tight on the weight of the amp. The cable juddered out of Thor’s grip, and then there was quick agony as the cable was yanked tight against his bare skin. He screamed, something seemed to pop in his arm, and he fell the last ten feet into a setup of patio furniture.
Pieces of white plastic furniture seemed to explode in every direction. The flying V guitar landed with a clatter of cracking wood. A security light flashed on, blinding him, but he knew he had no time—none. Not now he had resolved to live through it. He rolled in agony, putting weight on his right hand but wishing he hadn’t.
He scrambled to his feet and ran as buckshot rained down from above, each blast lighting up the night for a moment. He looked for the nearest patch of darkness, and ran to it, hobbling and gasping. The patch of trees he found were thick enough to mask him, but he knew he couldn’t stop.
If his bearings were right, pressing though the trees would take him in the general direction of Crook’s Hollow, and a slight course change to his left would bring him out, three miles later, at Loxley Farm. The only sanctuary he could imagine was at his father’s side, so busted, broken, and God knows what else, he got to marching.
30
High above Thor, the last shot rang out. Wendell reached in his jacket for more shells, but his father stopped him with a finger on his forearm.
‘No, let him go,’ he said.
Ward was incredulous. ‘We can’t let him go, not now we’ve tried to kill him.’
‘He was trespassing, it was his own fault. He’s not going to the police, he broke in here first. The police are stupid, but they know which side their bread is buttered on around here.’
‘Do you think he’ll tell anyone?’ asked Wendell.
‘If he does, it’ll be big problems. It’s a good job we are selling up and getting out. But I don’t think it will.’
‘If it even was Thor Loxley,’ Wendell said.
‘If it even was Thor Loxley,’ repeated his father. ‘But if it really was, I wish we’d got him. One last gift for that bastard Wilkes before we go.’ They watched the figure limp through the trees, Ward raging because he felt sure he could still take the intruder out from where they stood. Loxley was becoming less of a fly in the ointment and
more like a fucking albatross.
31
As dawn began to break, while the sun edged higher to a bank of thick black cloud that was just waiting to swallow it up and send the day into torrents once again, there was a brief, beautiful window of clear sunlight.
Perfect time to discover a body.
The searcher picked Wellington boots this time, fully aware of how difficult the terrain had been the night before, but also acknowledging that the bulk of standing water would have drained off by now. The searcher’s prints were important, and it was vital that this went according to plan.
This was the last chance, and every box had to be ticked, crossed, checked, signed—whatever. It had to be perfect.
As soon as the body was seen, some ‘panicky’ footsteps were called for. Then some long strides back out of the wood, to simulate a nice sprint to call in the authorities.
Just through the first trees, that’s what the instructions were. Not far in.
The searcher took a moment to prepare, because the sight wouldn’t be a pleasant one. Hangings were always supposed to be grim: the unnatural way the body swings in space, upright but apart. And it could only be especially worse if you’d known the person.
It must be close by. But where?
The searcher suddenly worried that the body had fallen down and been dragged away by scavengers. That would be another needless spanner in the works, as if there hadn’t been enough going wrong
already.
It must be here. But where? Where—
And then the searcher did find something, but it wasn’t what was expected.
Softly swinging, framed almost artistically by the frittering boughs above, was a noose. An empty one.
There was no need to pretend to run back up the hill in a panic, because that is exactly what the owner of the Wellies did.
32
The rain had just begun to fall again, in lazy, fat drops, when Thor made it into the yard at Loxley Farm. He was exhausted but alive. Very much alive. He knocked on the front door, hoping someone was up— he was dead tired.
The door was answered by Hollis, who on seeing Thor, immediately rolled his eyes. ‘Oh shite… Dad!’ he called.
‘Don’t look so thrilled,’ Thor muttered as he pushed past him.
The kitchen had been patched up, and there was a new stone in place over the well, held down by fresh cement. They had done a great job. You’d never know there’d been a problem; the kitchen, save for the new stone, was just as it had been before. Even the traditions were back in force, as the family was eating breakfast around the table, together as always, save for Rue, Barry, and their kids, who were in their bungalow, and Wilkes Jr., Theresa and their kids, who were at their home in the village.
A collective gasp arose at the sight of Thor and his obvious injuries, with Bunny jumping up as quickly as her frame would allow. Wilkes Sr. stood immediately, genuine concern on his face.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Thornton,’ Bunny snapped with a sliver of concern embedded in her disappointment. ‘What the bloody hell have you been doing now?’
T
hor sat down gently, the pain in his ribs spiraling across his chest. ‘Pass me the phone... Hollis—the phone.’
Hollis, who had almost sat back down to his breakfast, huffed like a teenager told he was going to grandma’s for the day. From the counter, he tossed Thor the phone. Thor fumbled with his left hand and just about caught it.
‘Watch it, you fucking idiot,’ he said.
‘Thornton,’ admonished his mother, but Thor was already dialing the number on the filthy business card he had pulled from his pocket.
‘Not now,’ Thor said.
Wilkes Sr. came to his son’s side, and looked at his wounds. Thor’s face was a mess of small nicks and cuts, the odd bit of fresh purple mixing nastily with the yellow of the old bruises from a couple of nights back. Much skin was missing from the tip of his nose. There was a much darker purple on Thor’s right wrist, snaking up onto his hand. His neck most concerned Wilkes: it was shredded in more than one place, and looked like the job had been done with a cheese grater.
‘Yes, hello, Okpara?’ Thor said. ‘Yes, it’s Thor Loxley. Remember, someone was trying to kill me? I know who it is, I’ve just got away from there now. It was Ward and Wendell Crook of Crook’s Farm, and they were helped by their parents Tilly and Mason Crook.’
Every person at the table looked at Thor, dumbfounded. Thor continued.
‘They tried to hang me in the woods down in Crook’s Hollow, then when that didn’t work, they shot at me with shotguns… Yes, I think I know why now. Land. It’s about land and who has it.’
Mercy Loxley stood up, still holding a fork, while chewing fiercely on a piece of toast. Her gaze was fire.