‘I can’t.’ It was a whimper. ‘I’m bad.’
‘Jed—’
‘No, Cora.’ Jed pulled her outside, taking her arm and walking her away from the barn towards the path that ultimately led to Appletree Farm. ‘There’s not much wrong with him apart from being three sheets to the wind. He’ll have a headache tomorrow but again that’ll probably be more the whisky than anything else. I want you at mine where I can be sure you’re safe and Da and I can come back for Maria and the others.’
‘But we can’t just leave him. What if he bleeds to death?’
‘Believe me, Cora, he’s not going to bleed to death. The devil looks after his own, and if ever there was a devil in human form it’s that man.’
Still protesting, she allowed herself to be led away from the farm, but within five minutes she whispered, ‘Jed, we have to go back and at least tell Mrs Burns. There was a lot of blood.’
‘A little blood goes a long way.’
‘Please, Jed. Before we tell your da. What if he bleeds to death before you and your da come back?’
‘Cora, for the second time, that’s not going to happen,’ said Jed, exasperation in his tone, but then, when she stood still staring at him, he said, ‘All right, all right, if it’s going to put your mind at rest.’
They had just climbed over a stile into a meadow that bordered the land between the two farms, dandelions, shining like miniature suns, reflecting the light and providing a rich supply of nectar for the hundreds of bees buzzing busily about their business. The scene was so peaceful, and such a contrast to what they’d just experienced, that it brought a lump to Cora’s throat, tears pricking at the backs of her eyes.
In one way she didn’t want to return – she’d be happy never to see the farm again now – but something was telling her they had to go back and at least tell Mrs Burns what had happened so she could see to her husband.
Jed offered her his hand to climb back over the stile and she took it, but he kissed her first, stroking back a tendril of hair from her brow as he murmured, ‘It’ll be all right, my love. I promise.’
Wilfred had been close enough in his shadowing of Jed to hear the scream faintly and he knew immediately it was Cora. Forgetting all about keeping hidden, he raced for the barn where he knew Jed usually met her, catching a glimpse of his rival as Jed disappeared inside. It was only when he reached the door of the barn which was open a crack and heard voices that caution reasserted itself.
Peering through the gap, he could just about see the farmer spreadeagled on the floor and Jed holding Cora in his arms as he endeavoured to comfort her. His stomach turned over as his heart began to pound fit to burst. It was obvious what had occurred.
The dirty swine, he thought sickly. I’ll kill him. He was on the verge of betraying himself and bursting in, when Jed lifted Cora up from the ground and the action made Wilfred think again. If they saw him Jed would demand a reason for his appearance, and once that can of worms was opened who knew where it would end?
His hands bunched into fists at his side, he forced himself to remain where he was and listen. He’d heard Cora say the farmer hadn’t succeeded in raping her before Jed had pulled her to her feet and now she was urging Jed to make sure the man wasn’t dead. Within a moment or two the farmer and Jed were scuffling on the floor and he watched as Jed hit him, wishing it was his fist bashing into the farmer’s face. And then Cora and Jed were coming towards him and he knew he had to make himself scarce, darting round the back of the barn just in time.
A moment or two later they emerged but it became clear Cora was reluctant to leave, and he heard Jed persuading her to go with him. ‘Aye, take her out of this,’ Wilfred whispered to himself, for once in agreement with his rival. ‘Get her away.’ If he’d been Jed he would have made her leave the farm months ago before something like this very thing occurred. When the two of them had disappeared from view, he found himself pushing open the door of the barn. Farmer Burns had pulled himself into a sitting position with his back against a bale of hay and he appeared to be dozing, but as Wilfred approached him he opened his eyes and squinted up at him, clearly unable to see properly.
His voice thick, he muttered, ‘Come back, have you?’
‘It’s not Jed.’ Wilfred’s voice was cold. ‘I’m a friend of Cora’s.’
The name sparked life into the farmer, if not his body then his voice, as he hissed, ‘Her, the little whore. They’re all whores but she’s the worst of the lot, damn her. But she’s as good as dead, you tell her that from me. Good as dead.’ The words were slurred but the naked hatred behind them was crystal clear. The farmer screwed up his eyes when Wilfred didn’t answer, mumbling, ‘Who did you say you were again?’
‘That doesn’t matter.’ As Wilfred stared down at the farmer he knew what he was going to do, and in the same instant he realized it was no spontaneous thing bred of the moment. The seed had been set a good while ago when he had begun to understand that Cora was frightened of the farmer and that he was a danger to her.
Farmer Burns had slipped back into a drunken stupor and Wilfred knew he’d never have a chance like this again. The hoe was lying on the ground and he bent and picked it up, walking behind the bale of hay. The farmer was now snoring, his head lolling forward and his chin resting on his breastbone, exposing his grimy neck.
Although still small and wiry, Wilfred had toughened up considerably since working full-time for Jed’s father. He had developed muscles he’d never known he had and the hardest jobs on the farm no longer daunted him.
He stood a moment more and then brought down the hoe onto his victim with all his strength. Blood spurted from a gaping wound in the farmer’s neck and he fell to one side, squirming and moaning. Wilfred stood back a pace, savouring the death throes as a sense of power made his chest expand.
The ever-widening pool of red stained the ground as the farmer’s groans grew fainter before stopping altogether. Wilfred waited a full minute, standing in the quiet of the old barn. The rain had stopped and he could hear chirruping in the rafters above. Must be a nest up there, he thought inconsequentially, before stooping over the body and checking for signs of life. There were none. It was over.
He left the barn carefully, checking no one was about, and then began to follow the route he knew Cora and Jed would take to Appletree Farm. The cloudburst had cleared the weather and now patches of blue showed in the sky above, the sun shining and the air fresh and clean. He had gone a short way when he saw two figures in the distance and realized with some surprise it was Jed and Cora retracing their steps. Quickly he left the path and plunged into the thick hedgerow, concealing himself until they had passed by. He had expected they would go straight to Appletree Farm but it looked as though they were returning to Stone Farm. His brow wrinkled. What the hell was Jed doing taking her back there, the idiot? He hadn’t got the sense he was born with. He could only surmise they were going to check on Farmer Burns.
Until this moment his only thought in getting rid of the farmer had been to remove the danger from Cora, but as he stood there in the sunshine it dawned on him what the pair of them would assume – that Jed had killed him. He’d heard Cora remonstrating with Jed that they shouldn’t leave him.
His mind racing, he attempted to weigh up what this could mean for him and slowly a smile lifted the corners of his mouth. Jed would go down the line for this. If he tried to plead self-defence he’d be laughed out of court. As far as he’d been able to see, Jed hadn’t got a mark on him; certainly not anything that warranted practically decapitating a man. And from behind too. No, that wouldn’t go down well with the law. Well, well, well. This particular Sunday was turning out better than he could ever have expected. He’d get back to Appletree Farm and await developments.
Cora had come to a petrified stop a foot or so inside the barn, her hand across her mouth to stifle the scream that nearly escaped. There was so much blood, a great dark pool of it. He had said he was bleeding, she told herself frantically as J
ed approached the body. They shouldn’t have left. She watched as Jed knelt down and she wanted to ask if the farmer was breathing but she couldn’t speak; all she could do was to stare stupidly as he checked for signs of life.
Jed turned a chalk-white face to her. ‘He’s dead.’
She was about to scream. No, no, she mustn’t scream. That wouldn’t help Jed. He hadn’t meant to do it – he had been protecting her – but would the police, especially Farmer Burns’s cronies, see it like that? Her mind racing, Cora forced herself to walk forward.
‘Are you sure?’
The farmer’s dying convulsions had left him lying on his back and now Jed gingerly moved his head before jerking away. ‘It’s from the back of his neck. Perhaps he cut it when we were fighting, I don’t know, or from when I hit him with the hoe. Maybe the fight opened it up or something.’
‘It wasn’t your fault, Jed. He was trying to rape and kill me and then he went for you.’
Jed stood up and Cora could see he was shaking. ‘I never thought . . . I mean, if I’d have known he was bleeding this badly I’d have got Mrs Burns.’
‘I know, I know.’
‘Although part of me . . .’
‘What?’
‘Part of me is glad he can’t hurt you any more. He was evil, wicked.’
‘Yes, he was.’ They stood looking at each other for a few moments and then Cora said, ‘It was an accident, we both know that. You were trying to protect me and you never meant to kill him. He reeks of drink – he could easily have fallen on something and cut his neck, couldn’t he?’
‘Aye, but he didn’t.’
‘But only we know that.’ Cora was looking round the old barn that was full of this, that and the other. There were bits of broken, rusty machinery, old cartwheels, a rotting wooden plough and other cannibalized odds and ends dating back to the farmer’s great-grandfather’s day. Farmer Burns hadn’t believed in getting rid of anything. Next to a wooden tub holding the remains of a root-cutter and other implements stood a cracked granite trough that had once been used for salting pig meat, the top lethal and jagged in one corner. ‘We have to move that across here, where all the blood’s soaked into the ground.’
‘What?’
‘The old trough. Look at the top of it, it’s as sharp as a scythe. We can –’ she gulped hard – ‘smear blood all over it and make it look as though he fell on it while he was drunk.’
She watched his face stretch as the penny dropped. Then he shook his head. ‘No, I can’t involve you like this. I’ll go to the police and tell them what happened. Truth’s on my side.’
‘That won’t mean anything, not round here, not with his pals. For a start they won’t like it that their supply of black-market goods stops. And anyway, I am involved. The only reason it’s happened is because of me.’
‘Oh, no, let’s be clear about that.’ Jed took her into his arms. ‘The reason it happened was because of him and only because of him.’
Cora drew in a long breath. ‘Jed, we have to make it look as though he did this himself. I can’t – I can’t lose you.’
He held her a moment more before saying, ‘All right. I can see it makes sense. He’s bought and bribed his way into favour with those who have a bit of power hereabouts and that sticks in my craw but it is what it is.’
It took a good few minutes to drag and pull the trough inch by inch across the ground because it was even heavier than it had looked. It left a deep groove in the dirt floor of the barn and by the time they had seen to that, sprinkling bits of straw and other debris on their handiwork, they were both sweating.
The smell of blood, metallic and sickly sweet, was making Cora feel nauseous, and she turned away as Jed smeared it over the jagged top of the trough and down the side. By the time he had finished no one could have guessed that the trough hadn’t been the cause of the farmer’s demise. Cora picked up the whisky bottle, handing it to Jed who placed it near the body.
‘I’ll go and get Mrs Burns.’ Cora spoke softly, almost in a whisper, although she wasn’t sure why. ‘I’ll say we came in here out of the rain and found him.’
‘No, you can’t say that, the rain stopped some time ago.’
‘Well, what then?’
‘Just leave him and come home with me. Someone will find him and you won’t be around.’
‘And that someone could be Maria or Maud or the little ones. No, I can’t do that, Jed. I’ll say . . .’ She thought for a moment. ‘I’ll say you brought me back early ’cause I wasn’t feeling well and we came in here to say goodbye before I went in.’
‘My hands are covered in blood.’ He looked down at them as though he had just realized.
‘You tried to help him, see if he was still alive.’ And when he shook his head, she said, ‘I can’t risk one of the others finding him like this, Jed.’
It was a few moments before he nodded. ‘Go on then, go and get her but be careful what you say. We hadn’t reached mine before you started to feel bad so I brought you straight back, all right? They might question my mam an’ da.’
‘Who?’
‘The police, of course. They’ll have to be told straight away. Mrs Burns will need to report it. Even with an accident there’ll be lots of questions.’ They stared at each other and then Jed gave a shaky laugh. ‘Where’s one of Hitler’s bombs when you want it? If this barn could be flattened that’d be that.’
She couldn’t dredge up a smile in return, merely looking at him and saying softly, ‘It’s true it was an accident, Jed. Whatever happens, that’s true, and it’s only you and me who know he didn’t fall on the trough. I love you.’
‘I love you too, lass. For ever and a day. And like I said, at bottom I can’t be sorry he’s where he can’t hurt you no more. It’s just I’d rather it have happened a different way.’
She nodded. The tops of her legs were throbbing from where the farmer had manhandled her and she knew she would have a whole host of bruises tomorrow. Her face hurt, everything hurt, and if Jed hadn’t come when he had she would have been raped and probably killed because Farmer Burns had had murder in his face. But for it to end like this . . . Jed had to be kept safe, that was all that mattered now.
Chapter Twelve
The next few hours were chilling and Cora would remember the terror she felt for the rest of her life. Mrs Burns came to the barn with her and looked at the body on the floor and then at Jed who was standing as though he was guarding it. Her eyes rested on Jed’s hands and Cora, seeing this, said quickly, ‘Jed tried to see if there was anything he could do but it was too late. He wanted to check if he was breathing.’
Mrs Burns didn’t reply to this; instead she said, ‘What have you done to your face? It looks sore.’
‘I tripped earlier and banged it.’
The farmer’s wife nodded. ‘I see.’ What she saw, Cora wasn’t sure, but then Mrs Burns said, ‘I always said his drinking would be the death of him and it’s got worse lately. Had you noticed?’
‘What? Oh, aye, yes, much worse.’
‘He must have tripped and fallen backwards onto the trough.’
‘Yes.’
Rachel looked at Jed. ‘Will you go for the police, lad? They’ll need to be told. Sergeant Irvin will be at home at this time of day on a Sunday. Do you know where he lives?’
Jed shook his head.
‘No matter. I’ll give you his address and directions. The sergeant is a crony of my husband’s so are you both sure exactly what you are going to say to him?’
Cora stared at the woman she had come to think of as a friend. She knew. Mrs Burns knew, or had a pretty good idea of what had occurred, anyway. ‘I was feeling bad so we came into the barn for a bit of privacy to say goodbye and – and we found him like this.’
Rachel nodded. And pigs fly. She looked down at the face of her husband. It was streaked with blood and his eyes were partly open. She felt not the slightest trace of pity. So, she thought grimly, you finally got what you deserve but n
ot before you gave a bairn a baby and she died in the delivering of it. What a pity this hadn’t happened years ago.
Her voice soft, she patted Cora’s arm, saying, ‘Are you all right, lass?’
The question was more than just about the scene in front of them and they both knew it. ‘Yes, I’m fine, Mrs Burns. Just – just a bit bruised from the fall earlier but nothing else.’
Again Rachel nodded. ‘Probably better if you don’t mention that to the sergeant. It’s only me who would notice your face is a bit swollen and we don’t want to complicate things, do we?’ Turning to Jed, she added, ‘Come into the house and wash yourself before you leave, lad. Better to be clean and tidy, eh? It is a Sunday, after all. You can take the horse and cart – it won’t take too long but in the meantime I’ll keep Cora and the others in the house. Don’t want Anna and Susan seeing this, do we? Well, funny how things turn out; we had the authorities here the other week asking if we wanted a couple of POWs from the Italian POW camp and Bernard wouldn’t hear of it. Had a barney with them in the end when they went on about increasing production and the rest of it. Looks like that’ll sort itself out now. I’ll get in touch with them.’
Jed stared at Mrs Burns. Her husband was lying dead in a pool of blood and she was on about POWs. Was that normal? But then nothing had been normal at Stone Farm from what he could make out. And her present attitude certainly wasn’t a bad thing in the circumstances. He didn’t like the idea of Italian POWs around Cora, though; they had some working at the farm now and the men had already charmed his mother with their Latin ways.
The two of them followed Mrs Burns back into the house where Maria and the others had been helping the farmer’s wife with some baking when Cora had rushed into the kitchen earlier. It was Mrs Burns who said quietly, ‘There’s been an accident in the old barn and Farmer Burns has been hurt. I don’t want you going in there for the time being. Jed here is going to go and fetch Sergeant Irvin and he’ll take care of things.’
Jed had hurried into the scullery to wash his hands before the girls noticed the blood, and when he emerged a few minutes later Mrs Burns motioned for him to follow her outside, leaving Cora with her sisters and Maud. Immediately they were alone, Maria said, ‘What’s happened? How bad is Farmer Burns?’
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