I get back on. I haven’t really got a choice.
Gethin’s sympathetic.
Ollie’s just silent. It’s as if he’s stopped being rude, but he still can’t say anything nice.
I swallow the blood, bite back the tears and swear at Samson. He immediately tries to take another swipe at Gethin’s horse.
“Stupid creature,” I say, to the blizzard.
“Come on, Gethin!” yells Ollie.
Samson speeds up and I cling on. It’s really uncomfortable and the snow stings the bruises on my face – although Samson is like sitting on a hot-water bottle and I kind of like the way we’re moving over the ground, just the sound of his hooves slicing through the squeaky snow.
Both the dogs trot to the front, disappearing into the snow, it’s so deep.
My phone pings, but there’s no way I’m going to look at it until I’m firmly on the ground. If I drop it, it’ll be lost until spring.
“You OK?” asks Gethin. Then he mutters, “You can’t ride, can you?”
“No,” I say. “But don’t tell him that.”
“I won’t.”
“Thanks,” I say, brushing snow from my legs. “He doesn’t like me very much, and nor does Samson.”
“Both of them’ll come round…” says Gethin, “…in the end. Give Ollie time. He’s all right, really. He’s having a bit of a hard time with his dad at the moment. He keeps making promises to visit and then lets him down at the last minute. Anyway, look on the bright side – isn’t it great riding in the snow?”
* * *
We climb up and up, following one behind the other. Soon we come upon the wall that the sheep ought to be behind.
At first it all looks white and then I spot the sheep crammed under a broken sheet of corrugated iron at the far end.
Their wool is almost black against the fresh snowfall and they’ve poked small holes through to the skimpy grass underneath. The ones that don’t look up are digging with their hooves. They all look hungry.
“Where’s the hay?” asks Gethin, swinging down from his pony and landing knee-deep in the white.
Ollie points at a huge pile of snow to the left of the track. “There’s a shed with emergency stuff under there. We’ll have to dig it out.”
He drops from his horse, and pulls two folding shovels from a saddlebag. He chucks one at Gethin, and wades towards the mountain.
“Hey – what about me? I can dig.”
He shrugs, but doesn’t look at me.
“You’re welcome to have a go with mine,” says Gethin.
“No thanks,” I say, touching the corner of my mouth where Samson clouted it. It’s not bleeding any more, but it throbs.
Samson pricks his ears, listening.
I listen too.
Birdsong, sheep and an engine?
I can’t see a thing and it occurs to me that anyone in a white suit of any sort would be invisible. Even one of those decorating overalls we sell in the shop. They could be really close. Within fifty metres, and we wouldn’t know. We wouldn’t see or hear them and Samson’s black. He shows up quite well.
In my pocket, my phone buzzes. I watch Samson’s ears swivelling back and forth and then he shakes his head and looks into the middle distance across the valley. He feels sprung.
Both the boys are digging. Leaning forward, I slip uncomfortably to the ground. The snow is surprisingly densely packed, so I don’t get as low as Samson’s hooves, which makes him seem quite small. I pat his neck and he swipes his head around, just catching the sleeve of my fleece with his teeth.
“No,” I say, firmly, and much to my surprise he lets go.
Underneath the phone, I find the bag of liquorice. I slip my fingers in and take out a piece, slipping it into my mouth. Samson looks at me. Accusingly.
“You want some?” I ask.
He obviously isn’t going to answer, except with his teeth, so I take a piece from the bag, and flatten my hand completely to let him take it.
He doesn’t grab it, instead he picks it gently from my hand, curling his lips around the little black stick and chewing it experimentally.
I check the phone. A message from Zahra, sent yesterday.
There’s been hit-and-run in Llandovery (that’s really near you). They think Peter Romero was driving the car. TAKE CARE. X
I fumble with my phone, my fingers thick and slow with the cold.
When? I ask her.
Yesterday, comes back immediately.
I stare at the message.
Llandovery?
We passed it on the way here.
This must be what Auntie V was told this morning.
So he is here. He’s been watching me since I arrived. But where? Right by us at the top of the mountain? Or down by the farm? I stare into the blizzard. I really can’t see anything.
By the shed, Ollie straightens up and stares in the same direction as Samson.
“Helicopter,” he says.
The boys both stare into the snow.
The dogs raise their heads to listen.
“If we can’t see anything, then neither can anyone else,” says Gethin.
For a second, I feel paralysed.
“Let me have a go with that shovel,” I say in the end, and grabbing it off Ollie, I grit my teeth and drive at the snow, matching Gethin load for load and revealing the shed door.
After about two minutes, I lower the shovel. Ollie is watching me and I can’t work out his expression. The bottom of my back aches, so I straighten up, stretch and then resume digging. I wonder if he’s surprised to see me, his princessy London cousin, dig.
“Here,” says Gethin, handing his shovel to Ollie. “I need a break.”
Ollie steps over and quickens the rate. I now find myself digging faster than I was before, because I can’t possibly let him get there first.
My hands hurt, my back hurts, and actually, my feet are starting to freeze even though the rest of me is boiling.
“Stop!” calls Gethin. “What are you doing? You could easily open the doors now – look.”
He’s completely right, and Ollie and I step back. I don’t look at Ollie and I’m pretty sure Ollie doesn’t look at me. Neither of us wants to give in.
We pull open the doors. There’s almost no hay.
“What?” says Ollie. “But I thought there was supposed to be loads. The sheep won’t survive up here without it and this snow’s going to last days.”
“We’ll have to go back down, get the Land Rover and drive up with some,” says Gethin.
“Or bring the sheep down, a few at a time?” I suggest.
“The Land Rover won’t make it. The snow’s too deep,” says Ollie.
And then I have a thought.
Chapter 18
The horses cover the ground surprisingly fast, keeping us to the right of the path, for good reason. To our left is a precipice, a sharp drop that seems to go on forever. The snow comes down harder than before and the wind blows wilder, and I feel quite safe. I can hardly see Gethin or his pony.
The dogs have completely disappeared.
I realise as we approach that the thing I took to be a split in the mountain-top is actually a road between two piles of slate. And that the actual top of the mountain is a spoil heap.
Samson stops in the middle of the quarry and blows steam from his nostrils. The boys both slide to the ground and leave their ponies standing.
It’s weirdly quiet in here. Everything echoes, everything’s louder. It’s shaped like a horseshoe with a narrow entrance and a big circular middle. To the right are four little trucks, like miniature railway trucks. They must be the things that used the rails I found yesterday.
“So, M’ilady – what’s the plan?” says Ollie, standing back, his arms folded across his chest.
Annoying or what?
I slide down from Samson. The boys watch as I wander over to the lump that’s covered by a tarpaulin. Gethin helps me tug it off, sending snow cascading to the ground and the
ponies scuttling to the far side of the quarry.
Underneath is the bulldozer. Smaller than I expected, and greyer. I’m aware that even the ponies are watching me, so I try to look really unconcerned and really knowledgeable. Actually, it’s not remotely like the motorbikes I’ve worked on before, it’s all huge and the metal’s corroded with rust. But I can see the clean shiny bits that Ollie has done, and the orange rusty bits that he hasn’t. I can also see where he’s oiled it, and where he’s greased it. I feel excited. This looks as if it ought to work.
Actually, it kind of has to.
For my sake, and for the sheep.
“And where’s the trailer?” I ask.
“You’re mad,” says Ollie.
“Fine, I’m mad, but I just want to try it,” I say.
“It won’t work.”
“Humour me,” I say, echoing my mum.
* * *
“So – have you got the key?” I say.
He points at the ignition. “S’there.”
“OK – can we try starting it?” I say.
Ollie sighs and clambers up to the seat.
There’s a clunk and nothing more.
“See?” he says. “It won’t work.”
I think about what Granddad said.
“I know it sounds stupid, but can you have another go? Hold the key in the starting position. I want to try something.”
Ollie shrugs, turns the key, and I take a large icy spanner from the side, and hit the fuel pump.
“What’re you doing?” he shouts. “Don’t smash her up!”
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’m not – I just…” I clunk the spanner against the fuel pump, slightly harder this time, and there’s the faintest cough from deep inside the engine.
Ollie jumps and the whole machine judders with an extraordinary noise – a puff of black smoke spurting out of the vertical exhaust pipe by his leg.
“Wow!” he shouts. “Wow!”
The ponies panic and stamp at the back of the quarry.
“I’ll get them,” says Gethin, and he magically calms them, walking them back out towards the blizzard. “I’ll meet you by the sheep.”
“So do you know how to drive it?” I shout at Ollie.
“Dunno,” he says, swinging the long gearstick round and gripping the steering wheel.
The engine thud becomes deeper and growlier and the bulldozer inches forward. The machine rattles and groans but it doesn’t fall apart. I step back and stand against the pile of slate on the other side. I do hope Ollie knows how to stop.
He does. And he knows how to go backwards too.
And forwards.
And backwards.
And forwards.
It leaves flattened, rust-spattered, oily fingers of ice moulded into inverse images of the tracks.
Slowly, slowly, Ollie inches away from the wall until the bulldozer sits right in the middle of the quarry, facing out into the blizzard. He’s got a huge grin on his face although when he catches my eye, he straightens his face and looks serious again.
“Let’s get the trailer,” I shout over the engine.
“Right,” Ollie shouts back. He fiddles with something by his leg and leaves the bulldozer chugging gently by itself.
“C’mon, it’s over here,” he says, moving towards another vast pile of snow.
We tug at the tarpaulin, which is ridiculously heavy under the snowfall. At first all I can see is an enormous tyre, with something wooden and blue on top. And then, when we’ve pulled the cover off completely I see what Auntie V meant by a trailer.
It’s really a sort of farm cart, four huge wheels, with tractor tyres. Tall sides and a tailgate. Ollie clambers up on top and chucks down the last corner of tarpaulin.
“It doesn’t have a brake, but it was obviously built to be pulled by the bulldozer,” he says.
“Wow,” I say, staring at it. “We’ll never pull it over to connect it though.”
“Don’t have to,” he says. “We’ll bring the bulldozer to it.”
“OK,” I say. “If you think so.”
I’m sure it is possible to back a mini bulldozer within a couple of centimetres of a trailer. I’ve even seen it done on YouTube, but when Ollie does it, the corner of the trailer ends up a bit flatter than it was before.
“Rats,” he says, getting down to inspect the damage. “That’s sixty years old that trailer.” But surprisingly he doesn’t throw a tantrum.
We pull a metal loop across and link it firmly to the tow bar on the back of the bulldozer.
Ollie stands back. “I never thought this would happen,” he says, and he very nearly smiles at me, but catches himself at the last minute.
“Down to the sheep?” I shout into the wind.
He nods vigorously and climbs up into the seat.
The engine increases in intensity and the machine grinds forward, the trailer jolts, lurches and follows, rolling easily in the bulldozer’s giant flattened tracks.
“Yee-hah!” shouts Ollie from the driving seat.
“Yay!” I yell into the wind.
Despite the bulldozer’s size the quarry floor vibrates under my feet and I walk behind on the compressed snow watching as the trailer swings slightly from side to side, narrowly missing the wall to the left of the track but keeping well away from the precipice on the right. Ollie steers it out of the mine, flattening the drifted snow like candyfloss. The flakes of new snow melt easily on the engine.
It’s easy to walk now, because everything’s squashed and the chunks of icy snow ping sideways under my feet.
Ollie stops by the hay shed and climbs down. “Gethin’s not here,” he shouts. “He must have taken the horses back – probably just as well.”
“Do you think we can get the sheep up into the trailer with the engine running?” I ask. “It’s just the fuel-pump trick might not work twice.”
“We can try,” he says and we go over to peer at the sheep. They stare up at us.
“How are we going to get them up there?” Ollie asks. “I don’t think I can lift them that high.”
In answer, I open the door of the shed and check inside. Pallets. A stack of them, and some corrugated iron.
“We’ll build a ramp,” I say.
* * *
You’d think the sheep would want to get out of the freezing cold and into a lovely clean specially prepared trailer. But no – sheep are not that intelligent. What they really want to do is race around in circles driving people mad and going nowhere.
We line the floor of the trailer with hay, we scatter hay up the ramp, we put a big blob of it in the middle of the trailer; we back the trailer into the entrance of the field. It’s so obvious.
But the sheep won’t play.
They run away into the snow, burrowing themselves like dirty cotton wool in clean cotton wool.
They stand and quiver until Ollie approaches, at which point they then rear and bolt.
“You stupid creatures,” I shout into the wind.
The sheep turn to look and scatter in different directions.
All but one.
That sheep wrinkles its upper lip, teddy boy style, and wees long and yellow into the snow.
I grab it.
It pulls back, but the wool’s well-attached to its back and my fingers are well-anchored in the wool.
“You, sheep,” I say. “Are coming with me.”
The sheep eyes me. I suspect it’s sizing me up. “I can tell you now sheep that you can run faster and bite harder, but I’m not going to let go.” I drag at the sheep’s wool and like a resistant toddler, it slides across the snow – its legs locked straight.
It is actually quite heavy. I drag again, and this time it comes a little easier, leaving four leg-sized scratches in the snow. I get it to the entrance of the field, beside the trailer.
“This …” I say, “… is hay.” I hold a small bunch of it in front of the animal’s nose.
“It is good to eat. You will enjoy it.”
> The sheep keeps its mouth firmly closed – its feet motionless. The snow settles on my hand embedded in the sheep’s wool.
“You’re supposed to walk up the ramp,” I say, pointing into the trailer.
The sheep stays still.
“Perhaps,” I say, thick flakes of snow landing on my eyelashes, “you want to die out here on this frozen hillside?”
The sheep pulls against me, but I don’t let go. Instead, I put my legs on either side of its body and march it up the creaking, juddering ramp. It’s not really willing, but it’s slightly less unwilling than it was before.
We reach the top of the ramp and I slither the sheep towards the sections of hay scattered across the floor of the trailer. It puts its head down and starts to eat, grabbing at the hay with the enthusiasm of a creature that hasn’t eaten for twelve hours.
This is great. One sheep up, only twenty-something more to go.
I turn to see what the others are doing and to my surprise, they’re sniffing around the bottom of our makeshift ramp. Behind them, Ollie holds a long stripy pole, and gives them gentle taps on their bottoms until they begin to advance. First one, then two, gallop up the slippery corrugated iron until they reach the top.
“Go on,” he says, “keep going, girls.”
Half the sheep are now at the top but I don’t let go of mine. I can see that it works by getting one and the others will follow, but if I lose that one, then I could lose them all.
The last sheep clangs on to the ramp and Ollie practically pushes it up the slope, slamming the back of the trailer shut behind them.
“Thirty?” I call.
“Yes,” he says. “Now we’ve just to get them back down the hill.”
From up here, I look into the valley. It’s invisible, just a white screen, whirling and swirling. My feet are so cold I can’t feel them, and my fingers are going the same way. We’ve done the impossible. The bulldozer works and the sheep are in the trailer but we’ve still got to get them safely down.
“It’s getting worse,” I say, but I don’t think Ollie can hear me over the sound of the engine. He pulls the corrugated iron away and checks the back of the trailer before pulling himself up into the driving seat.
“Should I stay in here?” I shout.
He holds a thumb up, so I crouch among the sheep, who nuzzle and tug at me as they try to stuff their bellies with hay.
Murder In Midwinter Page 7