Bone Harvest

by James Brogden

  ‘Right here.’ David opened the app, and they peered at it.

  ‘All right. Tonight is when it emerges, and they’ll want to get rid of Lauren as quickly as possible so they’ll do it tonight, but their tusk moon will be very faint; says here only one per cent. That might be enough for them, but I’ll bet they’ll want to push it as long as they possibly can to maximise whatever it is they’re getting out of it. Sunrise will be four forty-six GMT on Monday morning, so factor in time to get tidied away before the sun rises and the joggers are up and about… I think they’ll do it around four. So, you need to make your roadside call at, say, three-ish, half-three. I mean, obviously I could be wrong so we’ll have to spend the night watching them just in case, but that’s what I think they’re going to do.’

  David looked at her. ‘Wow. Have you ever thought of a career as a military strategist?’

  ‘They couldn’t afford me, dear. What worries me is actually getting anywhere close to them. They’ve got their cronies watching the place twenty-four-seven, I bet.’

  ‘You know what? I don’t think so. From the way Shane was talking, he obviously didn’t believe that Ardwyn and Everett are hurting people, so maybe the allotments won’t be so closely watched as today. Maybe it will only be the trusted few.’

  Viggo laid his head across her knees and sighed. ‘The trusted few still outnumber us, though,’ she said, absentmindedly scratching him between the ears.

  ‘Yes, but we don’t have to actually fight anybody. We just have to get close enough to be absolutely sure of what’s going on and then make the second call. At most all we’ll need is a way of keeping them distracted for a few minutes.’

  ‘That should be easy enough. I’ve got a big four-legged distraction right here. I think he’d like to distract someone’s arm off. Wouldn’t you, boy?’ She scrunched up Viggo’s jowls and kissed him on the end of his nose. ‘Who’s a distracting dog?’ He whined and thumped the carpet with his tail, not sure what she was saying. He only knew that she loved him, and that was enough.

  ‘Which still leaves us the problem of how to get close enough,’ said David. ‘There’s only one gate in and out.’

  ‘There are also houses around three sides,’ she pointed out. ‘Houses which have back gardens and back gates that let onto the plots. They can’t possibly watch all of those.’

  ‘All right then, were you thinking of one in particular?’

  * * *

  They’d been able to hear the sound of a late-night TV variety show on at a punishing volume through the closed front door of Shirley Hewitson’s house, so it must have been something of a miracle that she heard them knocking. When she opened the door the sound of a crowd whipped up to manic intensity flooded out. She was in her pyjamas and dressing gown.

  ‘Dennie,’ she said. ‘David. Do you know what time this is?’

  ‘Yes, we do,’ Dennie replied. ‘Sorry about that.’ They were treading a fine line between waiting for the allotment tenants to go home – which had taken some time given the long midsummer evening – and getting there in time to interrupt the Farrow’s activities. The silver lining to it was that the night was so short and mild that David and Dennie wouldn’t have to spend hours waiting around in the freezing cold.

  ‘We’ve come about Matt,’ said David.

  Shirley’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘Oh my God! Is he okay?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Dennie. ‘As far as we know.’

  ‘What do you mean as far as we know?’

  ‘There’s no easy way to say this,’ answered David, ‘so I’m just going to come right out – he’s fallen in with some nasty folk, I’m afraid. Look, this is a bit tricky, and I don’t think you want to be talking about it on the doorstep; do you mind if we come in?’

  Shirley led them through to her living room and muted the TV but didn’t turn it off. On the screen a pixie-like host in a sequinned jacket continued to gurn and cavort with some Z-list celebrities while the audience wet its collective self at the hilarity of it all. Shirley had a large conservatory full of houseplants and a sofa the consistency of marshmallow where she invited them to sit. Viggo stayed in the kitchen, eyeing some unwashed takeaway containers in case they tried to make a run for it.

  ‘It’s those people up at that farm, isn’t it?’ Shirley asked. ‘They’re one of those county lines gangs, aren’t they?’

  ‘Something like that, yes,’ David said. ‘And, well, I shouldn’t be telling you this, but there’s going to be a police raid on them tonight. They’ve been dealing out of their shed on the allotment, apparently. I heard it from some of the regular officers.’

  ‘About bloody time. But what’s going to happen to my boy?’

  ‘That’s what we came to talk to you about,’ said Dennie. ‘We think we can help him, purely on a sort of informal Neighbourhood Watch level, without having to involve the actual police if we can help it.’

  David leaned forward conspiratorially, and also to avoid being eaten by the furniture. ‘Shirley,’ he said. ‘I’m trusting you here. This is totally against regulations. If the police find out that I’ve been talking to you about this I’ll probably end up going to jail for perverting the course of justice. But Matt’s a good boy deep down, and I know he deserves a second chance. What we want to do is talk to him – that’s all, just talk – to try and make him see sense. The problem is that we can’t get anywhere near him at the farm and the gang will be watching the main entrance to the allotments, so we were wondering if we could use your back gate to sort of sneak in and have a quiet word with him before it all kicks off. Then we can bring him back here and when the police do their thing he’s got a perfect alibi.’

  ‘Of course!’ said Shirley. ‘Why didn’t you just say so right from the start?’

  ‘We don’t know exactly when they’re going to be there. It might be quite a while.’

  ‘I should come with you! He’ll listen to me!’

  ‘You’ll be right here, keeping the home lights on for him and a cup of tea,’ said Dennie, and squeezed her hand.

  Shirley brushed away tears and nodded. ‘Yes. I’ll be waiting up, don’t you worry about that.’

  She led them down to the fence at the end of the garden. It was heavily overgrown with ivy and the boards of its larch-lap panels had disintegrated here and there, but the gate was solid enough. She undid the lock and let them through into the allotment which lay on the other side. It was a bit wild just here – nothing like as bad as the Neary plot, but some of the nettles were almost at head height and there were a couple of tall buddleia bushes in full bloom that perfumed the evening air and offered excellent cover. They were on almost the complete opposite side of the allotments from the Neary plot, with the Pavilion between. It was a lot of ground to cover. Still, she knew the location of every water butt, polytunnel, glasshouse, and cold frame better than the rooms of her own house now. They might have burned down her shed, but this was still her home and her territory.

  ‘Do you think you can get us there without being seen?’ David whispered to her.

  ‘Try to keep up,’ she whispered back, and set off.

  * * *

  David followed her from shadow to shadow. As they paused behind someone’s greenhouse he saw a lawn-edging tool that someone had carelessly left leaning against the wall – a four-foot wooden handle with a semi-circular blade as its working end, which he thought might be a good weapon, just in case, so he picked it up as Dennie beckoned him onward. Eventually they came within sight of the Neary plot and hid behind a tall bean trellis. The shed was closed and dark, and there didn’t seem to be anybody guarding it. For the moment it was dark and still. There was no light from around the door, no murmuring voices, no furtive silhouettes skulking about.

  ‘You’d think they’d have someone watching over it,’ whispered Dennie.

  ‘I know,’ he replied. ‘Let’s hope they’re getting cocky about having scared us off.’

  The stars wheeled slowly overhead. Light
s in the surrounding houses went out one by one as even the night-owls sought their beds. A breeze rattled some raspberry canes nearby. Viggo’s ears and nose twitched and quivered at the furtive scampering of small creatures.

  David found that if he concentrated he could see quite clearly even though it was dark; the shapes of the world stood out like cardboard cut-outs in a diorama, flat and shadowless. This seemed to be another gift of the first flesh. I don’t want this, he thought, to who or whatever was listening. Get it out of me.

  * * *

  At half past two in the morning Dennie nudged David awake from a doze. ‘Time to cry wolf,’ she whispered.

  He grunted and stretched. ‘Has anything happened?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied acidly. ‘I watched it all happen but didn’t like to wake you because you looked so peaceful, sleeping like a cherub.’

  ‘All right,’ he mumbled. ‘There’s no need to be like that.’

  He took her phone and skulked off into the darkness while she settled back to watch the stars and wait.

  It was a good thing for her old bones that the night was so mild. She was tempted to try to call up Sarah again, but she didn’t want to risk a repeat of either the migraine or the entity that had come through her. Not here and now. Sarah’s face and shape were just the outward clothing chosen by the part of her mind that as a child had spoken through her doll, and yet in spite of everything she still couldn’t think of the word ‘psychic’ without a sceptical snort. Sarah and Sabrina weren’t two separate things – they were part of the same being, part of herself.

  It seemed like only minutes had passed but the next time she looked at her watch it was nearly three. Only the dog licking her hand had woken her from another fugue state, the longest one yet.

  ‘Please no,’ she whispered. ‘Please, God, not now.’ She felt like an ancient mariner shipwrecked on an ice floe in dangerously warm waters, watching bits of herself break apart and drift away with nothing but an abyss below. What was happening to her? What damage was she doing to herself with all of this? Sensing her distress, the dog nuzzled her, whining, and she stroked his head in gratitude.

  Her hand froze.

  The dog.

  She couldn’t remember the dog’s name.

  Panic grabbed her, squeezing her heart and scattering her already tattered thoughts. The dog! His name was… his name was… there was a man, tall and dark, with a beard and a shining sword, and she couldn’t remember his name! She clutched the dog in desperation, and he was licking her face, and her hands found his collar and the metal name tag there and she fumbled for her little torch and flashed the light on it.

  ‘Viggo!’ she wept in relief, and hugged him tighter still, her face buried in his fur. ‘Oh, Viggo, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!’ Viggo let himself be held as her shudders slowly subsided, and eventually she sat back, wiping her face. ‘I’m sorry I scared you,’ she whispered. ‘But I’m scared myself, boy. I’m really scared. I think whatever this is, it’s bad, and it’s getting worse.’ Cruelly, the one word that she wished she couldn’t remember was the one that sat in her mind as heavy as a tombstone.

  Dementia.

  Just thinking it made her cringe physically. It had taken Brian’s father, reducing him to a shambling scarecrow of a man who had lived for the last ten years of his life unable to recognise his own family. It was an old person’s disease, but she wasn’t old, she was only in her sixties, damn it – she might live another third of her life so far. To do so with her brain rotting from the inside out like a worm-eaten cabbage was her worst nightmare.

  But there was something that could fix it, if David’s story was to be believed. He’d shown her the scar on his leg, and Alice’s medical results were pretty incontrovertible. If it was true, then Ardwyn Hughes had access to something that could make it stop. All Dennie had to do was go cap in hand, and what was the sacrifice of one’s pride when it was one’s very mind at stake?

  Well now, ‘sacrifice’. That was the word, wasn’t it? Yes, all she had to do was swallow her pride, along with a bellyful of animal flesh. All she had to do was be complicit in a young woman’s murder.

  No.

  ‘Fuck you,’ she said. ‘I’d rather die.’

  3:07 came and went without a visitation from Sarah, and at first she was worried that something had gone wrong, but it made sense if the apparition really was a hidden part of her mind trying to warn her conscious self about something. This was one night Sarah didn’t need to show herself.

  ‘Consider me warned,’ she whispered.

  When Viggo started to whine she knew David was back, and moments later he settled down beside her.

  ‘Everything okay?’ she whispered.

  He nodded. ‘Shirley was asleep on her sofa so I didn’t have to make up any sort of excuse. Called them. Even saw them on the way back here, which was pretty quick, to be fair. Just one car, though, but at least we know they’re in the area.’

  ‘Good. Let’s just hope that the Farrow are doing the same.’

  * * *

  It was a few minutes short of four in the morning when Viggo’s head shot up, and he jumped to his feet.

  ‘Look,’ she whispered, indicating the dog. ‘Shh, boy, nice and quiet.’

  A moment later they both heard the metallic rattle and the creaking of the allotment gate opening, then the soft crunching of tyres on gravel as the snub-nosed shadow of a van rolled down the access road with its lights and engine both off.

  ‘Have you got your phone?’ she asked. He nodded.

  ‘Let’s see if we can get closer.’

  They left the cover of the bean trellis and skulked forward to hunker down behind a pair of large compost bins, by which time someone was opening the newcomers’ shed and lighting a candle, and someone else was carrying a large bundle from the open doors at the back of the van.

  A bundle that kicked and squealed.

  ‘David…’ she said.

  He made the call.

  ‘999, what service do you require?’

  ‘Police,’ he said, not even trying to be quiet. There was no point any more.

  ‘Connecting you now.’ A moment later a different call handler asked, ‘What is the nature of the emergency and your location?’

  ‘The location is Briar Hill Allotments, Dodbury, in Staffordshire. There’s a girl being attacked. And they’ve got guns.’ He let his phone fall to the ground with its screen glowing brightly while the handler was asking him lots of other questions, and stood up out of hiding because he knew that Everett or whoever it was in the shed must have heard him by then.

  Two figures came towards him – Matt, small and fast, and Gar, large and lumbering. Matt was strutting with his chest all puffed up the way David had seen lads facing off against each other in pubs and bars, stabbing a finger and waving a knife in his other hand. ‘You better fuck the fuck off right now, or…’

  David never found out what the alternative was because he swung the lawn-edging tool up and around in a short arc that stopped as the flat of the blade smacked Matt in the side of the head with a dull clang! Matt uttered a single grunt and toppled sideways into someone’s cabbages.

  So much for having a quiet word, he thought.

  Then Gar was on him. He was seized in a bear hug and immediately had the wind crushed out of him. Gar headbutted him and the world greyed away for a moment and he was dimly aware of cracking sounds and a flaring pain like sudden savage heartburn as several of his ribs broke. Gar’s maw was opening for his face, far wider than any man should have been able to unhinge his jaw, and he was reminded of footage he’d seen of hippos fighting. Even the great razor-pointed pegs of ivory that passed for teeth were the same, but David wasn’t sure that a hippo’s breath could match the fetid stench that washed over him.

  Suddenly the pressure was released as one of Gar’s arms fell away, and Viggo was snarling and tearing, teeth buried deep in the boar-man’s flesh. Gar squealed in rage and pain, staggering back with a hundred
and fifty pounds of Great Dane clamped to his arm and worrying at him. David fell, gasping for breath and instantly regretting it; it felt like being impaled by burning spears. He fumbled on the ground for the edging tool which he’d dropped in Gar’s attack. Gar drove a fist hard into the side of Viggo’s head and the dog let go with a yelp, then aimed a kick at Viggo’s stomach which sent him tumbling. He turned back to David and met the blade of the edging tool as it swept in under his outstretched arm and thudded deep into the side of his torso. Gar frowned down at the metal sticking out of him, as if confused about what it was doing there, then took hold of the shaft and twisted it to and fro, working it free as blood gouted from the wound. It pulled free with a thick sucking sound and he tossed it to one side, then came for David again.

  ‘David!’ Dennie was yelling and shoving at the shed door. ‘They’ve locked it from the inside! Help me!’

  He could barely breathe, let alone run, but he managed a kind of hunched stagger. Gar made a clumsy swipe that was easy to dodge, and when David reached the shed he kept going, shoulder charging the door with more momentum than finesse. It splintered around the bolt and sprang open, but before he could see what was happening inside, Gar grabbed him by the jacket collar and hauled him back. He bit deeply into David’s shoulder, and David screamed.

  * * *

  Dennie saw David lay Matt out and become enfolded in Gar’s huge arms, and she let go of Viggo’s collar.

  ‘Get him, boy!’ she ordered, but the Great Dane didn’t need any encouragement.

  She skirted the lurching and thrashing figures and made her way to the shed. Two voices were chanting with a third muffled and whimpering, and light burned all around the edges of the door; she pulled at the iron ring handle, frantic at the thought that they might have been too late to save the girl, but it wouldn’t budge. ‘David!’ she shouted. ‘They’ve locked it from the inside! Help me!’

  He was there in a moment and barged it open. Then Gar seized him and their brawl resumed, leaving Dennie to confront Ardwyn and Everett alone. She stepped inside; Sabrina was fully awake inside her and she saw everything with Sabrina’s eyes.