The Woodcutter

by Reginald Hill

  He said, ‘That’ll keep. If I don’t take your job, I’ll not take your money.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Because if I don’t take your job, it will likely be because it’s something I don’t want to be associated with, so I’ll not be seen to have taken any money from you either.’

  ‘I like your thinking,’ said Hadda. ‘Why’d you leave the Met?’

  ‘Because it had nothing more to give me. And maybe I had nothing more to give it. How did you get on to me?’

  ‘I made enquiries. I was told you’d retired and gone back home to Glasgow. I asked myself, what do old detectives do? And I got McLucky.’

  ‘Fine. That’s the how. Let’s move on to the why.’

  ‘Hold on. My turn to ask a question, I think. You were still a DC when you left, right? Did that have anything to do with your decision?’

  ‘Yes and no,’ said the Scot. ‘If you’re asking whether I felt being a detective constable in some way demeaned me, the answer’s no. It was a decent enough job. If you mean, did I get pissed off seeing little gobshites with worse records and no more brains heading up the slippery pole, the answer’s yes.’

  ‘DI Medler, was he one of the aforementioned little gobshites?’

  ‘Could be,’ said McLucky, finishing his drink. ‘There’s a train back I could catch in half an hour. So maybe we could move things along?’

  A waitress had brought some sandwiches for a couple on a nearby table. Hadda summoned her with a wave of his stick.

  ‘Another drink? And a sandwich? You can pay for your own if I ask you to smuggle me out to Thailand.’

  McLucky didn’t reply and Hadda ordered anyway.

  ‘Taxpayers picking up the tab for this?’ wondered McLucky.

  ‘What makes you think I haven’t got a job?’

  The PI ran his dispassionate gaze over Hadda and said, ‘Well, I canna see you doing much in the world of international finance, so what else are you qualified for?’

  Hadda gave a grin that matched his sobriquet.

  ‘Back to basics, maybe. You don’t forget what you learned at your father’s knee.’

  ‘So what does that make you?’

  ‘A woodcutter,’ said Wolf Hadda. ‘Something you can help me with. Did Medler ever come to see me in hospital?’

  The Scot nodded.

  ‘Aye. Not long after you woke up. Just the once.’

  ‘I’m glad about that,’ said Hadda. ‘I was never quite sure whether I was in or out of my mind back then. My recollection is he looked lightly grilled and he was wearing a Hawaiian shirt that looked like it had been made for some other life form.’

  ‘Aye. He’d gone to live in Spain after he retired, so maybe that accounts for it.’

  ‘I daresay. So when he retired, what was the word?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Come on. I’m sure your squad was as gossipy as an all-girls marching band. What were people saying?’

  McLucky thought for a moment before replying, ‘They were saying that a guy who knew all the moves must have had good reason for moving out.’

  ‘And what reason did he give?’

  ‘Health problems, stress-related.’

  ‘Staying in would have got him where?’

  The Scot shrugged. ‘Up to commander, maybe. But walking the high wire, it only takes a fart to blow you off.’

  ‘You saying he was bent?’ said Hadda.

  ‘If I’d thought that and done nothing about it, then I’d have been bent myself. He wasn’t my best buddy, guys like him don’t have best buddies. Maybe he was a bit self-centred and cut a few corners, but that doesn’t make him a bent cop. Look, where’s all this leading?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Hadda. ‘He can’t have been all that self-centred, though. He did come back to check me out even though he was long gone from the case. That has to mean something. What do you think, Mr McLucky?’

  ‘Well, he could have been driven by compassion for a fellow human being in trouble.’

  His expression was deadpan, his tone neutral.

  Hadda said, ‘Maybe. And he must have been really concerned about me to ask one of his old colleagues to keep him posted about any change in my condition.’

  ‘Could have read about it in the papers.’

  Now Hadda shook his head.

  ‘No. The info wasn’t released to the public until two weeks after I woke up. I checked.’

  The sandwiches and drinks arrived. A scotch was put in front of McLucky.

  Hadda, he noticed, was on orange juice.

  He said, ‘I can still catch that train if I move quick, so say something to make me stay.’

  ‘All right. It’s bothered you, hasn’t it, something about my case?’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because in the hospital all those years ago, you started by doing your job conscientiously, but you ended doing it compassionately. Nothing dramatic, but by the time I got transferred to the Remand Centre, you were treating me like a human being.’

  ‘You look after a scabby rat long enough, you can become fond of it,’ said McLucky.

  ‘Maybe. But there’s something else.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re here. How many ex-detectives do you know would travel a hundred miles just for the pleasure of having a drink with a recently released fraudster and paedophile?’

  ‘You saying I’ve fallen in love with you, Sir Wilfred?’ said the Scot mockingly.

  ‘Mr Hadda, please. Don’t you recall, once I was convicted, they looked to see if there was anything else they could take away from me after my family, my fortune, my friends and my future, and someone said, he’s still got his title, I expect Her Majesty would like that back. So they took it. No, unless your tastes are even more perverted than mine are reputed to be, you have no special feeling for me. I, on the other hand, do have a special feeling for you.’

  ‘You do? Mind if I have the smoked salmon sandwich? It’s likely from the Highlands and I’m starting to feel homesick.’

  ‘By all means. Yes, my special feeling is based on you being a member of a very exclusive club. You see, Mr McLucky, I think that despite the fact that you only knew me for a few short weeks, and unlike my friends and colleagues who’d known me forever, or my psychiatrist who knew me in depth probably better than anyone else, or for that matter the Great British Public who knew bugger all about me – as I say, despite that and unlike them, you found it hard to be absolutely one hundred per cent sure that I was guilty as charged. Yes, that qualifies you for a very exclusive club indeed.’

  McLucky swallowed the mouthful of salmon he was chewing, washed it down with whisky, and said, ‘Tell me what you want, Mr Hadda, or I’m out of here soon as I finish this sandwich.’

  ‘Thank God for the Scottish hatred of waste, eh? All right, I tried to contact you via the Met in the hope you could be persuaded to answer a few questions about DI Medler. Then I found you’d retired into the private sector, and it occurred to me that maybe we could put our relationship on a proper business footing.’

  ‘A job, you mean? Doing what exactly?’ asked McLucky, placing the last piece of the sandwich in his mouth.

  Hadda said, ‘To start with I’d like some basic information about the people on this list: where they are, what they’re doing.’

  He handed over a folded sheet of paper.

  The Scot glanced down it and whistled.

  ‘What are you after, Mr Hadda?’ he asked.

  ‘I told you. Information. To start with.’

  ‘Aye? And to finish with?’

  ‘A little practical assistance, maybe. Always within the bounds of legality, after making allowances for the necessary deceptions of your profession.’

  McLucky gave him a hard stare then said, ‘Talking of legality, last I heard, you were bankrupt. This kind of stuff could pile up the hours, not to mention the expenses. You’d need to be doing a lot of woodcutting to afford my bills.’

 
For answer Hadda reached inside his field jacket. This time it wasn’t a wallet he produced but a bulging A5 envelope.

  ‘There’s a thousand in there,’ he said, laying it on the table. ‘Also my mobile number. Keep a running total and when the thousand looks like running out, give me a ring.’

  ‘And you’ll do what?’ asked McLucky. ‘Go into the forest and chop some more trees?’

  ‘Like I say, you never forget what you learn as a kid,’ said Hadda.

  McLucky picked some crumbs from his plate and asked, ‘What’s the time?’

  Hadda glanced at his watch. When he looked up, the envelope had vanished.

  ‘I think you’ve missed that train,’ he said.

  ‘No problem. There’s another in an hour. Any time scale on this?’

  Hadda shook his head.

  ‘I want it done well. Take as long as it needs. All winter, if necessary.’

  ‘All winter,’ echoed the Scot. ‘And what will you be doing all winter, Mr Hadda?’

  ‘Sharpening my axe,’ said Wolf Hadda.

  3

  Imogen Estover awoke and lay still, trying to identify what had woken her.

  Old buildings have their own language as meaningful to the initiate as the singing of whales and the howling of wolves. Imogen could interpret just about every sigh and creak of her Holland Park house. She’d had plenty of time to learn in the two decades since she and Wolf Hadda had first moved in here.

  Toby Estover had wanted to sell. It was strange, she’d said to him, that a man who had no scruples about taking possession of his friend’s wife should balk at taking possession of his friend’s property. She loved the house. She saw no reason to leave it.

  So they had stayed. There had been changes. Wolf had known what he liked and seen no reason why his home should not reflect his tastes as well as his wife’s. All traces of his rough masculinity had long since vanished and as Toby had shown no interest in leaving his own scent marks on the house, it was now redolent of Imogen alone.

  Toby shifted heavily beside her and threw an arm across her chest.

  He was getting fat, she thought. She knew that Wolf had changed physically. She had seen him during the trial. His face, his hand, his leg. And the years of imprisonment had doubtless wrought other changes. But she was certain he would never let himself become fat.

  Would she still find him as magnetically attractive as she had way back? He had tried to describe to her the effect she’d had on him when he first saw her dancing on the castle lawn. She’d made no attempt to let him know the effect he’d had on her, either then or later. Attraction exerted was power. Attraction felt was weakness. Life was a struggle if you left yourself at the mercy of feelings. She had learnt that from her mother.

  By now she had isolated what had woken her. It was a distant sound, very regular, part thud, part crack. It hovered on the edge of familiarity without spilling over into recognition.

  She moved her husband’s arm and slipped out of bed.

  Toby grunted, ‘What?’

  She didn’t reply but went to the door. The sound was too faint to have come from the front of the house which their bedroom overlooked. Out on the landing she could hear it much more distinctly. She looked towards the tall arched window that stretched from the first floor to the half-landing. It overlooked the garden and she was sure the sound was coming from out there. To get close to the window she had to descend to the half-landing. As she moved forward, she felt the cold air caress her naked body. If Toby had his way, the central heating would have stayed full on all over the house throughout the winter. She’d told him to wear bed-socks and a thicker nightshirt.

  She reached the half-landing and looked out into the garden.

  It was a murky night. The air was full of dank vapours dense enough in patches to negate even the perpetual half-light of the sleeping metropolis. Slowly her eyes adjusted to the outer darkness and began to etch shape, trace movement.

  A big shape – the old rowan tree.

  A smaller shape – a figure standing beside it.

  And now a movement.

  Over the figure’s head something caught what little light drifted between the vapours. Bright, metallic, swift.

  And then the sound again. Now it was unmistakable. How many times had she heard it in the estate forest surrounding Ulphingstone Castle?

  The sound of sharp steel biting deep into wood.

  She recalled the rowan standing proud among the dreary conifers of Ulphingstone forest, much smaller than these foreign invaders but large for its kind and brighter far. It had been one of their favourite trysting spots in that first crazy year when they had roamed the countryside together, making love on fellside and in forest whenever the urge took them. And often the urge had been so strong that they had not moved from beneath the rowan’s shade before their first coupling.

  When Wolf had learned from his father that this section of forest was scheduled for harvesting and realized that almost inevitably the rowan would be flattened along with its tall neighbours, he’d said, ‘No way!’ and at vast expense arranged for it to be dug up, roots and all, and transported three hundred miles to begin a new life in their London garden.

  In defiance of Fred Hadda’s assurance that it was an insane waste of money and the tree would be dead in a fortnight, the rowan had flourished and blossomed and fruited. Imogen recalled how her daughter, Ginny, had been tempted to feast on the bright red berries. Refusing to be put off by the bitter taste she had persevered till she’d been sick. Granddad Fred had laughed when the girl told him the story and assured her that at Christmas they’d reckoned nowt to a roast goose unless accompanied by a dollop of his Aunt Carrie’s rowanberry jelly. After that Ginny hadn’t rested till a recipe was found, by which time the birds had eaten all the berries. But the following autumn she’d remembered and, under Mrs Roper’s supervision, she’d boiled up the berries with slices of apple and cloves and grated cinnamon and triumphantly burst in upon her mother a couple of hours later flourishing a small jar of what turned out to be a surprisingly tasty relish.

  Thereafter it became an annual event, with the jelly saved for Christmas Day. When this was celebrated up in Cumbria, Sir Leon declared it was the finest rowan jelly he’d ever tasted and even Lady Kira compared it favourably with the crab-apple relish served by her family with the festive roast suckling pig. Everyone had smiled at the little girl trying in vain to look modest in face of such praise, and for a few moments they had felt like a real united family.

  All because of a crop of blood-red berries from this same rowan tree that someone was now chopping down.

  She drew in her breath.

  As if hearing the sound, the figure paused and turned to look towards the house. The air was far too opaque for her to make out features. She had the impression he was looking straight at her, but if she could only see him dimly, he would not be able to see her at all.

  Slowly he raised his right arm, stretched it out, placed the palm of his hand against the trunk of the tree, and pushed.

  In the same moment Toby’s voice grumbled, ‘Jesus, it’s like an ice-box out here. Imo, what are you doing?’

  And the landing light came on, wiping the garden from her sight.

  She knew to the man in the garden she would be framed naked in the window, but she did not move.

  There was noise outside once more, different, no single sound this time but a drawn-out creaking, tearing noise accompanied by a confusion of groans and cracks all climaxing in a single thud.

  Then silence.

  ‘Toby,’ she said calmly, ‘put the light out.’

  ‘What? Oh, all right. What the hell’s going on?’

  The light went out.

  It took a few moments for her night sight to return, but in her mind she already knew what she was going to see.

  The figure was gone. And after all those long years of growth, first in Cumbria where it had come to maturity in her father’s forest, then here in London where
it had put on new strength in this milder clime, the rowan tree lay overturned across the ravaged lawn.

  She found she was weeping.

  For what, she wasn’t sure.

  4

  A week after his first meeting with Hadda, Luke Hollins had found a message on his mobile dictating a grocery list. He turned up at Birkstane with the supplies a couple of days later.

  It occurred to him that if Hadda had to drive to Carlisle from time to time to see his probation officer, there was nothing to stop the man picking up his groceries at one of the big supermarkets. Perhaps he didn’t care to stump around the aisles, leaning on his trolley like a Zimmer frame. Or perhaps, despite his declaration of unsociability, he needed some human contact locally, some line of communication with what was going on around him, how people were feeling about him.

  Hadda gave no evidence of such curiosity. His grunted greeting made even Sneck’s rumbling growl sound more welcoming. Hollins had parked the Micra at the head of the lonning, not wanting to risk his suspension again. There were too many boxes to carry on one trip so he had to go back for the second instalment. Hadda did not offer to accompany him and the vicar tried charitably to put it down to his disability, but it was hard to keep resentment out.

  On his return, very much out of puff and slightly out of temper, he found Hadda transferring the contents of the first load to his kitchen cupboards. On the table he’d placed a bag of sugar, a carton of cream, and a packet of dog chews.

  ‘What’s them?’ he said. ‘Not on my order.’

  ‘Not on your bill either,’ said Hollins. ‘A gift.’

  ‘Oh aye? You’ll not get round Sneck that easy.’

  Or me, was the implication.

  Hollins opened the chews and tossed one to the dog, who caught it, nibbled it cautiously, then swallowed it whole.

  ‘How did you find him?’ he asked.

  ‘Didn’t. He found me. Takes a one to know a one.’

  Meaning outcast, the vicar assumed.

  ‘Why Sneck?’

  ‘’Cos with a dog like him you don’t need one. If that hail storm hadn’t started when it did, I’d have turned him loose on those idiots who came up from the village the other night.’