Crook's Hollow

by Rob Parker

‘Jesus wept, I’d say. I’ve been thinking why ever since I heard, and I think it’s because they look the same. It’s like watching yourself getting off, while getting off yourself. Kinky buggers. Amazing really.’

  The constable was clearly enjoying his thought process.

  Thor breathed out. That could throw a huge problem into his conclusions, unless the strippers were paid to provide the alibi. But like Chesters said, why would you admit to that stuff? Something was wrong. Everything was wrong.

  ‘I wonder what Okpara makes of it?’

  ‘Okpara? Man’s a beast.’ Chesters laughed but there was a very serious edge to it.

  Thor continued treading gently. ‘Yeah, of course, but, you know, what does he think of it? The alibi?’

  ‘I dunno. Quiet man, but I don’t second-guess him. One solid, solid bastard.’

  That wasn’t the picture that Thor had formed of the detective. Yes, he commanded respect, but that didn’t quite fit.

  ‘How’d you mean?’ Thor asked.

  ‘Well, look at him for a start,’ Chesters said, betraying the deep- rooted little-Englishness that Thor was familiar with. In quiet places like this, where the wheels turn very slowly, he could imagine the more bigoted corners of Crook’s Hollow and Windle Heath had very specific ideas about a black man holding such an important role in the region. ‘Plus, he’s a Masai, isn’t he?’

  ‘Is he?’

  ‘Yeah, story goes he came over here right after he’d done his initiations into manhood, whatever they call that. Came over here looking for money for his family and ended up a cabbie.’

  It was a hell of a story, and Thor couldn’t help respect it. The adversity he must have faced to get to where he was… But that didn’t stop him thinking that Okpara was wrong not to pursue Roisin’s disappearance.

  ‘What about Roisin?’ he asked. ‘Has she been found yet?’

  ‘Oh yeah… Well, she’s not turned up, but her parents aren’t worried. They say this is standard behaviour for her. I wouldn’t worry yourself either. By all accounts, she’ll be home before dinner. Their words, not mine.’

  Thor felt helpless, and his anger swelled again.

  ‘Why is nobody taking my story seriously? Do you think all this just happened to me?’ Thor gestured at his face.

  ‘You fell out of a third-story window didn’t you, mate? I’d say it matches up. If anything you should be a hell of a lot worse.’

  ‘We were attacked, the pair of us. They tried to kill me and make it look like a suicide, and all you lot want to do is swap the lurid stories and the choicer details.’

  Chesters said nothing.

  ‘I know. Do you want a real bit of juice, a real piece of the action? You want to see the noose? You want me to show you where it happened? I bet Okpara saw it, but I bet you didn’t, did you? Not allowed at the big boys’ table yet, are you?’

  Chesters bristled visibly, the flags of his pride dancing to attention in the stiff breeze of Thor’s words.

  ‘You want the story for once, not the third-hand scraps? You like a bit of gossip, don’t you? Well, you can dine out on this one for months. Come on, take the next right. Don’t you want it?’

  Chesters’ cheeks burnt crimson, and thirteen minutes later they were marching through the young trees at the base of the Hollow, now both in high-visibility police all-weather jackets since Chesters had a spare in the boot of his patrol car.

  They marched through the never-ending rain, now flush in their faces, as if it was spitting up windswept from a vast lake in front of them. As Thor led the way, they could both see that the terrain was more river than lake. The flood water was back, but now heavier, roiling with a dark, swirling intent. It was six inches deep, and their feet were soaked.

  Thor used the tree line, and its growing scarcity, to navigate to the spot he was nearly killed, and as he got closer, his pace slowed.

  ‘Where is it then?’ asked Chesters, looking thoroughly nonplussed at the journey and the reality they had found, or rather not found: the noose was gone. Chesters laughed with bleak satisfaction, while Thor knew the truth.

  Someone had cleaned the scene up.

  They’d come back and erased it from ever happening, ably helped by nature. If this were summer, or any normal day, there’d be prints galore, crisp and clear.

  ‘It has to be here,’ muttered Thor. He was looking for any kind of mark in the trees, high up, where a rope would have abraded the wet bark and left a sign. But last night he was concussed, and literally being hung—the last thing he gave a shit about at that point was his precise location.

  As he looked up, his hopes of showing Chester that he was telling the truth washing away with the speeding flood, a white-hot branch of lightning fractured the sky.

  ‘We’re going,’ said Chesters, just as the thunder hit. Six seconds. Thor had counted six seconds between the lightning strike and the rumble of thunder. It was a habit forged in childhood, the rough principle being that a second equaled a mile. Therefore, if it was accurate, the storm was six miles away.

  ‘It happened,’ Thor shouted to Chesters, but his words were lost in the drum of the storm. Thor started begrudgingly to follow Chesters when the trees around them flashed so bright they turned blue. Just as Thor’s eyes readjusted, thunder crashed ear-burstingly close. One, two, three. Three miles.

  The storm was getting closer. Fast.

  For Thor, the metaphor was so strong it was almost embarrassing. The storm was upon him, after days of circling, and he knew he now had a chance to use the storm to his advantage.

  ‘Hey, Chesters,’ Thor said, turning back to the policeman.

  ‘What?’ Chesters said, spreading his arms in exasperation. He’d had enough, and now felt he’d gone too far afield in more ways than one.

  The late afternoon exploded around them in an earth-shattering jolt, a fierce bolt of lightning crashing at the exact same time as the thunder. The effect on the men was concussive and confusing—but one of them was ready for it.

  Thor dove at Chesters, shoving him hard off his feet. Chesters fell back, flailing, into the water, his fall absorbed by the soft mud floor beneath the flow. The problem wasn’t the impact though, it was the disorientation. He flailed wildly on the floor, while Thor sprinted off through the trees.

  If nobody was going after Roisin, he’d have to go after her himself, broken wrist, ribs and all—and balls to the consequences. He’d gladly do whatever time was demanded as long as she was OK, and this godawful turn of events was over.

  He tossed the jacket and ran through the rain. He knew from experience that the storm should have moved through a little by now, bustled along by the winds that landed icy punches on his soaked clothes.

  White everywhere, so sudden again. Thor shielded his eyes and kept moving. Chesters shouted his name from somewhere behind him, but it was immediately engulfed by the crash of thunder. Four. The storm was quickly moving through, and would soon be gone. Thor abruptly changed direction, dropping right and ducking between a stand of quivering spruces. Through the stand was a thick holly bush, and feeling buzzed by fear, painkillers, and cold, hard adrenaline, he pushed straight into the heart of the bush.

  The leaves nicked and jabbed at his face, poked claws into his sides, sought out any exposed slip of skin and bit hard, but he clamped his jaw tight. The deeper he pushed, the easier it became, as the bush swallowed him whole. Engulfed, he heard the urgent splashing of footsteps getting closer.

  ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck me, fuck…’ babbled Chesters as he ran past.

  He would likely be in for the biggest of rollockings for this.

  Thor waited and waited, trying not to let his fears for what could be happening to Roisin consume him and make him blow his cover. Ten minutes went by, and those same splashing footsteps returned.

  Slower. Beaten, retreating through the woods to the road and the waiting squad car. Chesters had given up.

  Thor gave it another five, then forced himself out of the needle
d clutches of the holly. He acknowledged that no amount of earnest explanation would get him out of the serious trouble he knew his actions would bring. He was a fugitive now, but somehow the thought gave him backbone. Spine. It was him against the world now—and he was damned if he was going to let it beat him.

  36

  ‘He’s escaped. The police are so shit in this village. They literally don’t know their elbow from their arse.’

  The listener took a long minute to think. The disappointments of the last few days had left them too open to exposure. They had underestimated almost every hurdle to their plans. It would be easy to back out now, despite the obviousness of the rewards.

  But this? This was a second chance. With Thor no longer in custody, the chances of his finally meeting that early grave were far higher.

  ‘Are you still there?’ asked the caller.

  ‘Yes, I just can’t talk now. How did you find out?’

  ‘I just listened in to the call at Crook’s Farm. Told Tilly Crook that he’d got away from the police and was most likely on his way back over there following the hunches he was hysterical about. Apparently.’

  ‘So… we’ve got another bite of the cherry?’ ‘Yes.’

  ‘You must admit this hasn’t exactly gone to plan, has it?’

  ‘The rewards will be worth it. One-point-two million pounds, split two ways. Think of that.’

  ‘You need me for that. Whatever happens now, you need me for that share. Because this is going to ignite a war, and I need to remind you which side you are on.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I know. Believe me, when I’ve got my share, you won’t be hearing from me again.’

  ‘I think that’s a good idea. You are one rare breed that I’m not sure

  is too great for my well-being.’

  Despite the depth of their desires, both of them had found that trying their hand at breaking the law had been far from simple and easy.

  ‘Is it raining your way?’ ‘What do you think?’

  37

  Thor couldn’t go to his family. The police would have them under their eye, and the same could be said for any of his acquaintances. So, alone, soaked yet driven, he continued up Hollow. The water was up to his shins now, so he walked up the bank to the drystone wall.

  Crook’s Farm was where he was going, against all semblance of sense, and as he hopped the dry wall to access the flatter fields at the top, he thought helplessly about how much had happened since he had made this walk only the previous night, or how much had happened since this time two nights ago, or even three.

  Roisin would be there, this he believed, and Thor would be proved right. He had to believe it, and he clung to that with all the boldness in his heart. He had no wallet, no keys, no phone—all had been confiscated by Okpara.

  He tried to think like a killer, to wrap his mind around the ugly parameters of a brain that was prepared to kill a person, and bend all truths to keep that killing hidden. What would this person be doing now? If the fall guy had escaped, and you knew that he knew you were guilty?

  It didn’t take Thor long to work it out: you’d move the body, and get the hell out.

  Which meant he felt little surprise to see, on his approach to Crook’s Farm, that the Crooks appeared to be moving house.

  They had pulled a huge green John Deere tractor out in front of the farmhouse, and had attached a massive roofed trailer to the back of it, which had one tarp side lashed down and the other parted just enough to allow things to be stowed by Mason and the brothers.

  Thor could only assume that this was not the behaviour of the innocent, but any confrontation with them would only delay his finding Roisin. He therefore decided to circumvent the property and take a wide arc around the zone in which he remembered the security lights fell. He’d have to be doubly careful, since Tilly Crook was riding shotgun, literally, in the cab of the tractor, peering out into the night with eagle eyes and that bloody huge twelve-gauge.

  The house wasn’t what Thor was after anyway, but the outbuildings. When he fell yesterday, as he made his way through the scrub, he had noted the buildings further back from the house. Thinking back to his hypothetical murderer’s mind, he thought that’d be a good place to house a kidnapped person. And his travels the night before had shown him a pretty good route to get to them.

  The ground around his feet was getting softer, signaling another change in the flood plain beneath his feet. The balance of the water table here was taking an almighty scrambling. His shoes were filling with water again. His progress was creating obvious splashing, so he kept his speed as tempered as he could.

  Before the outbuildings was a yard, which was struggling, just as Pat Hurst had said—it was underwater, with the drains spitting fetid water up and out in three of the four corners of the yard.

  The outbuildings comprised a group of stables and sheds bathed in darkness and the shit-smelling water. They looked so old, disused, and desperate that he couldn’t possibly imagine that they would be used for any actual purpose these days. He knew for a fact that the main yard was where all the heavy lifting was done; this area was just a forgotten feature and footnote to a chapter in the farm’s history, when livestock and horses were part of the day to day.

  As he readied himself to plough into the muck, he heard a loud plop in the water next to him. It was as if something had fallen out of the tree. He looked up.

  There was another one, distinctly. Yes, definitely.

  He shielded his eyes. The tree above him was a green conifer, slick with rain. It didn’t feel right.

  A glint caught his eye. Higher than the treetop, but not by much.

  Closer to the house, high up almost near the roof.

  Movement. He caught it, just as his eyes had almost scanned clean across. The left-hand window, next to the one he leapt from last night. It was dark but open, and in the bottom part of the open frame he could see something bobbing in and out of view erratically. He stepped closer, but because of the angle, he couldn’t see what was in the window.

  Recognition flared at the same time as euphoria.

  The bobbing object was the top of Roisin’s head, and her eyes. She was looking down at him, unable to get any higher than her eyes above the ledge, and was probably too scared to shout out to him. She must have been throwing something out to catch his attention. Thor thanked God it had worked.

  He was elated, and drowned drunk on love and purpose. She was up there. Roisin was alive. He would do anything to get to her. He quickly reviewed the obstacles separating them: the Crooks, two flights of stairs, the walls of the house itself.

  A diversion was needed—urgently.

  Thor cast about the back patio, which was beneath only three inches of water. Shattered pieces of patio furniture floated lazily on the surface, rain-drummed. The back of the house was dark, and the only visible access was a stable-style door in the centre.

  He looked through the nearest windows, into darkness. He was peering into the kitchen, he could just about tell, but it had been cleaned out, the only thing left being a vast green Aga that looked more like a tugboat engine, and some old kitchen utensils still on wall hooks.

  The Crooks were definitely leaving.

  He ran back around the house, desperate to come up with an idea. If he could distract the Crooks, he could possibly get into the house via the stable door, and up the stairs to Roisin.

  He edged around the corner of the front of the property with nothing more than an eyeball, and saw nobody. The trailer was still there, with the tarp now fully tied down. The cab of the tractor was empty. Thor looked at the cars but couldn’t remember if there were the same number as when he’d arrived. The door of the house was open, spraying light out onto the porch step, catching silver arrows of rain.

  But something was amiss. Where were the Crooks?

  An icy tremor shook Thor’s brainstem as he imagined them marching upstairs to finish off Roisin, the only piece of property that they didn’t need anymore. He co
uldn’t waste any time.

  He edged into the quiet courtyard, up onto the porch, and ran inside.

  Standing on the stairs across the hall, arranged almost as if in a team photo for a hunting squad, stood the Crook clan, rifles raised and trained on him.

  Trapped.

  Thor braced himself, waiting for the first explosion to rip through him and bring a new thunder to the night, but all he heard was the fierce slushing churn of wet gravel, the squeal of wet brakes, and the roar of an engine. Headlights threw spangles through the windows into the darkened rooms, and silhouetted Thor in the door frame. Another set of headlights followed. Thor held his breath.

  All eyes left Thor, and Tilly broke the silence: ‘Spread to the windows. It’s time.’ The Crook’s disbanded into the adjoining rooms with near military precision.

  Thor could only stand in blank confusion, but whatever threat had arrived, he didn’t want to come between it and the Crooks. If it was the police, it was about time. It had to be the police, come for the Crooks at last. As soon as the stairs were empty, Thor ran for them, and didn’t look back, taking them two at a time. He made it to the middle landing when a deep voice broke out—one that he wasn’t expecting but still recognised instantly.

  ‘You’ve ruined us, and now you are leaving,’ shouted Wilkes Loxley Sr. ‘I can do nothing about that, but if you have Thor and the young girl, now is the time to hand them over.’

  Thor could only stand on the middle landing and listen, as things went decidedly Western in Crook’s Hollow.

  A cackle rang out from the bottom floor, followed by Tilly Crook’s scratchy tones: ‘The irony. The irony. Loxleys on our property, and we hold all the cards. We’ve waited years for this. Years.’

  Thor took the next set of stairs at speed, and was faced with the same two grain loft doors as last night. He knew left was the man cave, so he chose right.

  It was a storage room, full of all sorts of garbage that had been shoved higher and higher out of sight: couches, an old table, a bird cage, some canisters, old suitcases, a fish tank, a suit of armour with several pieces missing. Must and mildew hung thick in the air, but the breeze from the window was shifting it for what must have been the first time in ages. And under the window, bound to a radiator with lengths of blue rope, sat Roisin. She gasped when she saw him, and he ran over, picking his way through the piled objects.