The Silent Forest

by Guy Sheppard

  ‘Through here,’ said John. ‘Hurry.’

  The scrapyard was as much muddle as maze. They kept going, only to find themselves at a brick wall blocked by a pile of cars at the end of a narrow, metal canyon. At the top of the heap balanced a Ford Model T with no mudguards.

  Jo ducked and dived.

  ‘So where to next, clever Dick?’

  ‘We climb,’ cried John, reaching for the spiral steps that led up the back of the Gloucester Corporation tram car.

  ‘I hardly think so.’

  ‘You got a better plan?’

  But Jo stopped dead. Something resembling disbelief filled her face in the shadows. She didn’t know what to say. What else could it be? There could be no other answer. Not that she knew of.

  ‘Something wrong?’ said John, baffled.

  ‘Like to think so.’

  ‘Say that again.’

  Jo peered into the squashed remains of a small red car that was sandwiched between the electric tram and the huge metal flywheel of a traction engine.

  ‘Sarah Smith was driving her red ACA Pearl Austin Seven Cabriolet on the night she died, was she not? This is it. I recognise the number plate COM 278. I’ll stake my life on it.’

  ‘You might have to. Now please can we go? That crane’s coming our way.’

  ‘I think we should take a look while we can.’

  ‘No time, Jo.’

  But her head was already all twists and turns as she stretched her hand carefully past crumpled bodywork. The car’s bonnet had disappeared to expose a hopelessly mangled engine, the headlights had been torn loose from their black-painted wings and one wire-spoke wheel was minus its tyre on a broken axle. The steering wheel was bent double. Both doors were also missing. Its folding, black fabric soft-top had been torn aside and its seating had been cut in half. The back of the car, however, was more or less intact.

  ‘A proper saloon might have given poor Sarah more protection – I’m guessing the folding roof sheered off and took her head with it.’

  John leaned into the wreck after her.

  ‘A friend of mine owns one of these. The visibility isn’t great when you have the hood right up.’

  ‘You mean she might have been slow to see someone overtake her fast from behind?’

  John fingered glass from the shattered windscreen that littered seats streaked black with dried blood. Suddenly the door to the boot fell open as he withdrew his arm.

  He was completely speechless.

  ‘What is it?’ said Jo.

  Immediately they both began to haul a grey suitcase from the wreckage.

  ‘We should open it at once.’

  Instead, Jo snatched the bag from his hand and made for the stair rail of the double-decker tram car as he’d first suggested. She ran all the way up to its top deck and leapt on to one of its wooden, slatted seats open to the sky. She stood there for a moment at the summit of the scrap mountain.

  The crane, all the while, rumbled closer and closer. Rattling metal chattered and churred. It shook the ground like a tank. It could have been heading straight for the Pearl Austin Seven.

  John joined Jo and looked over the wall that surrounded the yard. He could hear her lungs blowing like bellows. Or were they his own? He could see it was a bit of a drop on to someone’s allotment. They had to aim for a compost heap or nothing.

  ‘You’ll regret this,’ he said, but she was already gone.

  *

  Back at their Brough Superior Combination, Jo opened their find – she only broke off to borrow John’s handkerchief to bind a cut in her hand.

  ‘What does it look like to you?’ she asked, her hair shedding dead leaves into the suitcase.

  ‘It’s full of clothes.’

  ‘So was Sarah going on holiday, or what?’

  ‘It’s hard to say.’

  Bella sniffed the contents and whined. To have her owner back with her saw her anxiety fade to almost nothing. If she was at all worried it was because someone had yet to find out where she had stuffed the torn-up copy of ‘The Forester’ in the sidecar.

  ‘How do you mean?’ asked Jo, glancing nervously up and down the street.

  ‘There’s really not much here. Just a few clothes and what has to be a bundle of photographs.’

  ‘So why did Bruno not retrieve all this from the wreckage when he had the chance?’

  ‘He might have been too upset.’

  ‘Or he didn’t want to face what it meant?’

  ‘Hurry. Let’s get out of here.’

  With that, they strapped the suitcase to the sidecar’s metal luggage rack, ready to set off back to Gloucester.

  ‘No woman goes to all the effort of packing so little for a holiday,’ said Jo, kick-starting the Brough into action.

  ‘Looks like she grabbed what she could in an awful hurry.’

  ‘But somebody didn’t want her to reach her destination that evening.’

  ‘Violent husband? Jealous lover? Or Sarah was closing in on James Boreman. We have motive and opportunity. Simple as that.’

  Jo peered through the sidecar’s windscreen and kept an anxious eye on her mirror; she monitored the dark road behind them for signs of pursuit.

  ‘Yes, could be, but I do wonder.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘I really did expect to see scrapes of green paint on the Austin Seven, didn’t you? As it happens, there’s no hard evidence that the lorry ever actually hit it.’

  ‘Isn’t that the truth.’

  ‘I know Susie Grossman says differently, but what if Sarah was in the act of leaving her husband for good when the accident happened?’

  ‘Whatever are you implying?’

  ‘What are the odds? Somebody knew she would make a run for it that night. We need to find them and do it fast. That’s why we’re stopping in Westbury-on Severn.’

  ‘We are?’

  ‘It seems we have something to ask Bruno, after all.’

  With that, she opened the throttle wide.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Something was wrong, that much Freya knew. James was sitting stock-still at the oak table in their brand new red and black kitchen. He had not eaten his bacon and eggs that Betty had prepared for him as usual for breakfast. As a result, the maid had made herself scarce.

  A cold light blazed in his eyes; the pallor of his cheeks was no less icy. The fact of not mentioning a thing was itself an expression of greatest unpredictability. Of greatest outrage. To know a man by his silence was to know him by fear.

  That wasn’t all. A 12-gauge shotgun and half a dozen black cartridges full of lead lay before him. He had lined up all six in a row ever so neatly. His knuckles turned white on his spread-eagled hands, upon which he leaned with considerable pressure. He thrust out his chin as he breathed very quickly.

  Freya stood there for a minute.

  A minute could be a long time.

  For that’s what it felt like now, this frenzy of staring.

  This furious civility.

  This ordering of live ammunition at the edge of the table.

  When she did move across the room, she did so like a ghost. Nothing about the way her husband behaved could be said to be calm or impartial when suddenly he rose to his feet. Whereas before he dug his fingers into his palms, now he tore at his bristly white hair.

  ‘Can you fucking believe it?’

  Her decision to join him at the window was risky, but not without hope.

  ‘What is it, James? What’s going on?’

  He would have her sympathy about something? He clasped her hand with violent apprehension; he was agitated, shocked, disturbed. There were tears in his eyes.

  ‘See for yourself.’

  Freya heard him grind his teeth and froth at the mouth. It was as if all his emotions had to be hers for a moment. Then she looked outside and saw why. The newly laid lawn below the terrace of Beech Tree Grange was green no longer. Rathe
r, an area half the size of a football pitch had been thoroughly turned over and uprooted, each flap of newly laid turf had been flipped on its back to expose brown earth underneath. Something or someone had dug up the ground quite methodically.

  ‘Whoever did this came in the night,’ said James. The full force of his criticism bore down on her as he began to squeeze her fingers.

  ‘What do you mean? Whoever?’

  Soon the smallest twist would hurt horribly.

  ‘Somebody wants to take us on.’

  ‘It doesn’t look like that to me.’

  ‘Whatever do you mean?’

  ‘A great many animals live in the Forest.’

  ‘You think?’

  She winced at the pain from her crushed thumb.

  ‘I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical explanation.’

  ‘Logical, be damned.’

  ‘But James, you said it yourself. Farmers turn their pigs out to roam in the Forest at this time of the year. They eat the acorns and beechmast and use their snouts to root for worms. Many a garden and graveyard get raided, as you know.’

  ‘I can’t believe you just said that.’

  ‘Call it a gut feeling.’

  ‘You can’t shoot feelings, but you can jolly well shoot a stray pig. I’m going after the bastard if it ever it shows up here again. Meanwhile I’ll erect a great big fence to keep us secure.’

  Freya said nothing. There could be no talking him out of the notion of some hostile neighbour. That an intruder had come on to their property could not be denied. It made her think of Sam’s strange nightmares, except in his dreams his visitor was as much human as animal?

  James finally thought to release her sore hand. What possible point was there asking her anything, anyway? In his eyes, she could no more put a face to their mischievous vandal than he could.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  ‘That’s not Sarah’s, I tell you,’ said Bruno flatly and averted his bloodshot, brown eyes. His face looked drained, dismal and demoralized.

  Undaunted, John continued to hold up a red, cap-sleeved sweater in the dining room; he exposed its heavy, hand-knitted and silky yarn with three pearl buttons to the light at the window for everyone to see. In the distance the sparkling river snaked past Westbury-on Severn on its way to Bristol.

  ‘You sure about that? Red has to have been your wife’s favourite colour?’

  ‘You think this is easy for me?’

  ‘How about this, then?’ asked Jo and selected a matching, red-suede Dorothy Bag from the grey suitcase on the table. She opened its purse and inside were a lot of blue and pink one pound notes. She was already secretly angry. Either the widower was genuinely confused or there was something else he was not saying.

  She really didn’t like Bruno’s attitude, at all.

  He couldn’t just tell them?

  Really, this was not him helping.

  Bella rolled her eyes, too. While it did not become a dog to brag, there were certain things that she could do far better than humans. She wasn’t thinking of how she could jump higher, run faster and catch rats, she was thinking how superior was her sense of smell. Her nose twitched at an eau de toilette she recognized all too well. The top notes were crisp lemon and orange. At the other end of the scale her nostrils quivered at a trace of rose and geranium. Between the two extremes floated the distinct aroma of verbena. But Bruno ran his hand through his uncombed mop of reddish hair and remained thoroughly lost for words. His cheeks were all stubble and he had nicked his chin in two places with his blunt razor – no one could buy new razor blades in the shops for love or money these days. One set of shoelaces had come undone and he displayed the drawn look of a hunted man. That’s to say, she also smelt fear on him.

  ‘I should know, shouldn’t I?’ he said petulantly.

  ‘Is that all you have to say?’

  ‘What do you care, Mrs Wheeler?’

  ‘We found this suitcase in the boot of Sarah’s mangled car. The wreck is about to be cut up in a scrapyard a few miles from here, as we speak.’

  ‘And I tell you Sarah didn’t own a grey suitcase.’

  ‘So what’s it doing in her Austin Seven?’

  ‘How many times must I say it, none of this stuff is hers.’

  ‘So whose is it?’

  Bella pawed Jo’s leather motorcycle boot. Alas, a dog had no voice. Or, to put it another way, humans had no bark.

  ‘How should I know?’ said Bruno. ‘Honestly, this whole business is insane.’

  With no great hope Jo replaced the bottle of eau de toilette in the handbag. Then she shot John a hard look. He also pulled a face.

  It couldn’t be a coincidence.

  Somebody else put that suitcase in Sarah’s car, but who?

  ‘Maybe, then, you can explain these photographs which we found with the clothes?’

  Bruno went off to pour himself a glass of neat whisky. His third.

  ‘What photos?’

  ‘Take a close look, because they’re all of your wife,’ said John. ‘They show Sarah with a friend called Susie Grossman. Here they are aboard Susie’s canal boat. Another print shows the two of them laughing and smiling in a restaurant. Here they are again buying hats in Gloucester. Think about it. Did you take these photographs by any chance? Were you using them to frighten somebody? Did you stalk your own wife with her lover? You knew about their affair all along, didn’t you?’

  ‘Not in a hundred years.’

  ‘That’s not what I heard. Susie told us that you stopped Sarah going to a monthly book club with her because you suspected that they were more than devotees of literature. That’s how patriarchal and jealous you really are. Or did you want your wife dead, Mr Smith, because I think maybe you did?’

  ‘Okay, so I did know of their affair, but I didn’t photograph them together. Not ever.’

  ‘You do realise Sarah was never going to leave you, don’t you? Or was she?’

  Bruno shut his lips and swallowed hard. His face grew stonier. But no matter how obdurate his stance he could not deny his pounding heart.

  ‘So what if I knew of Susie’s existence? Sarah and I still loved each other. I was willing to do anything for her. She told me lots about her. I even suggested that Susie move in with us for a trial period. Whoever took those photos meant us all no good.’

  Jo snapped shut the suitcase’s catches. She didn’t know what John had just done exactly, but it sounded bang out of order.

  ‘So the presence of this luggage in Sarah’s car on the night she died doesn’t indicate she was leaving home? Well, all right then, but if these aren’t her things, whose are they?’

  ‘….’

  ‘Damn it, Bruno, who else was Sarah seeing? It wasn’t Susie – she told us they already broke up.’

  ‘Really? I didn’t know.’

  Jo muscled in again.

  ‘It seems there’s a lot you don’t know.’

  Bella clawed Jo’s foot.

  ‘Stop it Bella, don’t be a nuisance.’

  Unable to confute the evidence, Bruno’s confusion grew.

  ‘I doubt it’s connected to that boar’s head that Sarah found on the bonnet of her car. You should be looking into that, not a few useless photographs.’

  ‘Not to alarm you, but I think it might be.’

  ‘But you don’t know.’

  ‘I know this,’ said Jo. ‘As I just said, we’ve found Sarah’s car in a scrapyard in Cinderford. Well, we have reason to believe that the yard is owned by James Boreman.’

  ‘So? That car has to be scrapped somewhere. It’s an absolute write-off. Covered in blood…’

  ‘But you and Boreman have a long history together, don’t you? You were old school friends as well as business partners. That’s how you knew where to go to get rid of the wrecked car in a hurry?’

  ‘Everyone knows everyone in the Forest.’

  ‘You were happy to work for him for years, but
recently you and he fell out big-time, did you not?’

  ‘Who’s been talking behind my back?’

  ‘Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.’

  Bruno clenched his fist to his mouth. Looked uncomfortable.

  ‘James is absolutely ruthless. You have no idea. He’ll sell his soul to the Devil to get what he wants. I couldn’t stand idly by and watch his criminal wheeling and dealing on the black market any longer, I had to have it out with him, man to man, on account of his greed. After all, there’s a war on.’

  ‘You mean he refused to cut you in on the excessive profits to be made?’ said Jo.

  ‘I left while I still had the chance. That’s a fact. Everything else is opinion.’

  ‘You do bear him some sort of grudge, though?’

  ‘It won’t be me who ends up in the fourth circle of hell.’

  John interrupted – he feared they were going up a blind alley again.

  ‘Admit it Bruno. Is it not highly likely that Sarah was with someone on the night of the accident – someone who suffered only minor injuries and then walked away from the crash scene?’

  ‘Please don’t say that, it only confuses.’

  ‘Suppose it doesn’t? Sarah met up with Susie Grossman again a few weeks ago. Over coffee Sarah told her she was in serious trouble.’

  ‘That would explain one thing. Did I not tell you, Mrs Wheeler, how my wife and I were walking through Gloucester one afternoon when she became quite panicky? She positively ran off into the cathedral to hide from somebody.’

  ‘Yes, I remember. She acted as if she were being followed?’

  ‘Susie offered to let Sarah lie low on her boat for a while,’ added John, ‘but Sarah said she was more concerned for someone else’s safety than her own.’

  ‘Yes,’ added Jo, ‘and I bet you that very same person’s things are staring us in the face right now. These are her clothes.’

  Bella pricked up her ears at everything she said, whereupon she displayed a rare show of solidarity – that is, she barked and wagged her tail.

  *

  ‘That could have gone better,’ said John as he lowered himself into the Brough Superior’s sidecar and sat Bella squarely on his lap. To say it was a tight squeeze was an understatement.