by Lee, Frazer
“If now isn’t a good time… I mean, maybe I can buy you a drink?”
“It’s never a good time, and I don’t like to owe a stranger a favor.”
“You wouldn’t owe me a favor—just a drink,” Tom said.
Joe ignored Tom’s attempt at humor. “Do you reckon you can say your piece in, say five or ten minutes?”
“Sure.”
“Then let’s walk.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Joe led the way through the graveyard and onto a little path that wended its way between the old headstones that jutted out of the ground like crooked teeth.
Tom followed him, taking two steps for every one of the farmer’s.
As they passed parallel with the entrance to the church, Tom saw for the first time that it was boarded up.
“The church isn’t in use anymore?”
“Not for a long time now. Stayed open for a wee while, for the odd village meeting, but folks have The Firs for that now.”
Tom remembered. “Ah, Monroe’s research notes said there’s no pastor here at present.”
“Last one ran off with a lassie from Edinburgh. She was married too; talk of the village that was.”
“And none since then…” Tom wondered if it wasn’t such a bad thing. The people of Douglass seemed to celebrate religion in a way that predated Christ and Christianity.
“Religions come and go. The people remain; they are what make a community, not men in collars, or fancy suits.”
Tom wondered if Joe meant men like him. He let the barb pass.
“But your ancestors must be Scottish, name like McCrae?”
“I guess so,” Tom replied.
“You mean you don’t know?”
Tom had no desire to sound ignorant, but did not want to lie and get tripped up either; it struck him that to do so might be worse in the eyes of someone like Joe Greyson.
“I was born in the U.K., but I was orphaned when I was a little boy. Foster parents raised me on the West Coast, so that’s always been home. California.”
Tom was aware that California must sound like never-never land to an earthbound fellow like Greyson, who had presumably never set foot off the British Isles. Truth was that Tom had, once or twice, been tempted to trace his roots back to the U.K., using a genealogy service. He’d been especially tempted when he saw an online ad for such a service one night, while blazing drunk, after an argument with Julia. But he had found the whole process a little too corny in the cold, sober light of day. He had long since made his peace with the simplicity and anonymity that not knowing had afforded him.
“Is McCrae a common name over here?” Tom asked, eager to continue the small talk now the ice had been broken.
“Not so common, I wouldn’t say so, no. There are a couple of McCraes here though.”
“In the village? Really?”
“In this graveyard,” Joe corrected. “I’ll point them out on the way round. I used to know every single name on every single gravestone in this place. When I was younger, my pa used to bring me up here, get me to recite all the names and dates to him. He wasnae very good with reading. My mam taught me; said it would be useful later in life.”
“Must be useful, running your own business?” There, Tom had said the “B” word; small talk over.
“It is, that, especially now my wife’s gone. She used to do the books, handle all the accounts. It’s been a steep learning curve since she passed.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Tom said.
“Are you?” Joe asked, his face unreadable. “Even though you didn’t know her? You married, McCrae?”
Please don’t ask me about me, Tom thought. The ring on his finger should have been indication enough.
“I am,” he replied, guarded.
“Any kids?”
Tom wanted to say something about his and Julia’s own loss, but the longer he took to find the words, the more his silence set in. He settled for a shake of his head. The farmer snorted, already judging Tom as a career-obsessed yuppie, no doubt, with no time for kids in his world of meetings and overseas flights. Maybe it was better for Tom to keep it that way, to avoid too much humanity to seep through any chink that might rupture his armor. Tom had to keep it businesslike; they were two men standing at a graveside, talking about the future.
“Your wife sounds like she was a…very hard-working person.”
Joe shrugged. “Like an ox that one. If she were here today she’d have a fit about the state the filing is in, I’ll say that much.”
“A tough act to follow, huh?”
Joe stopped walking and bowed his head. Tom glanced in the direction of the farmer’s gaze and saw an inscription on a nearby headstone; Alice Greyson, beloved wife and mother, may she rest in peace. The dates on the inscription told Tom she had passed on while in her early fifties. The gruff attitude of the farmer now had context for Tom; her dying so young had left an indelible mark.
“You know what she said to me, on her deathbed, Mr. McCrae?”
“Please, call me Tom.”
“She said, ‘Don’t you ever sell up, Joe. Don’t ever give up our land, don’t sell out for our boys’ sake, for the sake of a quiet life, nothing.’ She made me promise.”
Tom’s heart sank. He stood stock-still, not knowing quite what to say. He knew that Joe knew that was the very reason he wanted to talk; that The Consortium deal depended on a takeover of all the forestry land, including Joe’s plantation. To make that prospect palpable to a man who made a deathbed pact with his wife might be nigh-on impossible. But Tom had to try. Lithgoe’s words echoed in his memory. “Everyone has his price, Mr. McCrae.”
“So don’t sell up,” Tom said.
Joe looked taken aback; a rare chink in the armor. “You trying to be clever, McCrae?”
“Tom, and no,” he replied. “It’s just that not everything has to be done in absolutes. We buy; you sell, that’s only one way of looking at it—and an archaic one at that.”
“And another?”
“We build the business, you participate in it.” Tom could not be sure if his concept was getting through, or if his words had gone completely over the farmer’s head. Time to cut to the chase.
“You made a promise to Alice not to sell, but you and your lads need the security that your farm is going to turn a profit each season, year-in, year-out…”
Tom’s use of Greyson’s wife’s first name was tactical. Even now he could see the man having a silent conversation with his dear departed. He pressed on.
“I’ve seen the profit-and-loss reports for your business…”
“How have you seen…”
“The Consortium is a multinational organization with offices in each and every city and major port across the globe, Mr. Greyson, and it sees everything. Now, bearing in mind the lousy summers you guys have been having, it’s no surprise the pick-your-own fruit side of things has been sliding steadily these last few years. That and the fact that the supermarket giants are importing vast quantities from Brazil, South Africa, New Zealand. Your Christmas tree business does well, explaining why you and your boys have labored so extensively to expand the plantation and increase your yield over the last couple of winters. The spruces are on the up in more ways than one, and they’ve been saving your bacon as I believe the saying goes?”
Joe grunted. They started walking again, the path leading them past older, more decrepit headstones.
“But for the rest of the year, you guys are pretty fucked. Give it a half-decade or so and you might have to go back on that promise to your beloved wife after all, unless…”
“Unless?”
Joe’s voice had become a tired whisper that might snap in the wind any second.
“Unless you enter into an agreement with my employers—a partnership of sorts, Mr. Greyson, you and your boys would have jobs for life as part of the new biofuels outfit. And you could continue to expand your Christmas tree business alongside if your heart was still in it.”
>
“Jobs for life, you say, but doing what?”
“Processing, mainly. When I was up at your place I saw huge, empty polytunnels where I’m guessing you used to nurse saplings? Apple trees and the like?”
Again, Joe grunted.
“Dead space, Mr. Greyson. And the fruit groves that aren’t pulling their weight—if they were cleared, your farm could become the processing center for the end result wood pellets my company will be producing in their thousands. In their millions. So you wouldn’t be selling up at all, but rather you would elevate your own business to unimagined heights, with guaranteed jobs for your boys and huge fringe benefits for the community you so clearly love.”
The farmer had fallen silent, his great shoulders powering him on as they strolled among the dead ancestors of his fellows.
“Think about it,” Tom concluded.
Joe Greyson sighed a great sigh. It was rather like the sound a shire horse might make.
“You’re a smart cunt, McCrae,” he said.
“Tom, and don’t ever call me smart.”
Joe halted and pointed at a grouping of grave markers near some windswept rowan trees.
“Your namesakes are over there, I think.”
The farmer turned and started walking away.
“You’ll think it over?” Tom called after him.
Joe kept walking, denying him an answer. Tom shrugged and walked on, towards the graves. He had made his best play. Now he had planted the seed, he would have to hope it would germinate. A shame he had not had the chance to water it in with a couple of drinks at The Firs; perhaps Joe would have been more compliant then.
As Tom approached the graves, he had to take a detour around the larger of the rowan trees. He circled it and noticed something lying on the ground beneath one of the headstones. At first he thought it was a collection of brown sacks, perhaps filled with leaf litter from the graveyard. As he got closer he realized it was a person, lying there on the scrubby grass. He thought it might be Fergus, lying there drunk after one-too-many wassails, due to its bony limbs and unkempt appearance.
Only when he was standing over it, did Tom realize he was looking at a scarecrow, lying there with its upper body propped up against the headstone. Aleister McCrae and Morag McCrae read the weathered inscription. There was no accompanying dedication; no birth or death dates and Tom could only imagine his namesakes had been too poor to afford a longer inscription from the stonemason’s chisel. He found it odd that someone would leave a scarecrow lying on this particular grave. Tom looked over his shoulder in the direction of the gate. Greyson was long gone. Had the scarecrow been left here as some kind of prank? Maybe the farmer and his boys set this little show up to make fun of the stranger in their midst. Tom had to admit he didn’t like the sight of the thing lying there beneath a headstone with his surname on it.
He was about to do an about-turn and hightail it out of the cemetery, when something struck him about the raggedy scarecrow; something familiar.
Crouching, Tom was already pleading for it not to be true but, as he pulled back the scarecrow’s jacket to reveal the shirt beneath, his dreadful suspicion was confirmed.
The effigy lying beneath the headstone was wearing Dieter’s clothes.
They were stained with blood.
Tom grabbed the scarecrow and lifted it from the grave. As he did so, more blood was revealed. This time, the blood had been used to scrawl a word on the headstone, beneath the old inscription. There, written in dripping crimson letters was a name:
JACK.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Tom walked through the village like a ghost, carrying the stiff body of the scarecrow under his arm. He could feel Dieter’s blood on his fingers, still a little damp in places on the scarecrow’s shirt and jacket, the same sensation he had experienced after cradling Monroe as he bled out on the polished floor at Head Office. Dieter’s tie flapped in the breeze as Tom made his way along the main thoroughfare, forcing the Scarecrow Day revelers to step aside as he barreled on through. They barely seemed to notice the scarecrow he was carrying was wearing the bloodied garments of his colleague, yet he was hardly surprised given the macabre nature of some of the locals’ straw creations. He passed the Auld Abattoir again, and saw the butcher-scarecrow’s cleaver, still being held aloft, as it glinted in the golden afternoon light. Tom felt a wave of nausea at the possibility that Dieter was dead and lying in a ditch somewhere. Perhaps he had been killed just moments after Tom had dismissed him. It troubled Tom that the last words Dieter may have heard from another human being might have been his own angry remonstrations. He might be alive, Tom reminded himself. This might be fake blood and the last laugh might be on me. First things first; find whoever was responsible for this little prank, quiz them about Dieter’s whereabouts, then get the Feds involved; whatever was necessary.
Powering his way up the lane and into The Firs, Tom dragged the scarecrow’s sorry carcass all the way inside to the restaurant bar and slammed it down on a table beneath the startled eyes of the afternoon drinkers.
“Who did this?” Tom demanded, his eyes darting from face-to-face, looking for a telltale glimmer of guilt—anything that could give him someplace to start his accusations.
“Who would do a thing like this? These clothes—they were my buddy’s. It’s a sick damn joke, that’s for sure, and when I find the person responsible…”
Something about the gathering in the pub struck Tom; it was deathly quiet, even before he had marched in with his macabre find from the graveyard, and not a soul was drinking. He looked to the bar, expecting to find old MacGregor looking back at him from his usual spot. Instead, he saw Holly, her face slicked with smudged eyeliner tears.
“Probably the same person who attacked my poor Tommy,” she said.
Her voice was raw with anguish.
“Step aside,” Tom said, and he pushed his way through the mute patrons.
Leaning over the bar, he saw MacGregor, being attended to by Fergus and a couple of concerned regulars. The old man’s head had an angry red gash in it. He was out cold, and bleeding heavily. Lying next to him was the Jack in the Green costume. He was clutching on to it for dear life.
Tom looked into Holly’s eyes, and she his. As they shared a silent moment, Tom knew she was thinking exactly what he was thinking.
Cosmo did this.
The paramedics came and went. Having stitched MacGregor’s wound and treated him for concussion, they instructed Holly to make sure he had plenty of bed rest but told her to make sure he was alert, fed and watered between naps.
Tom phoned Travis from the telephone at Reception and left a message about his gory discovery in the graveyard. The officer on the line sounded like she did not know what to make of his story, but promised to pass it on just as soon as Travis returned from his rounds. Tom reiterated the urgency of the matter before hanging up.
He returned to the downstairs bar/restaurant, surrounded by hangers-on eager to hear more about what had happened to the poor landlord. The scarecrow, dressed in Dieter’s blood-slicked clothing, still lay on the table where he had left it. The locals did not pay it much heed; their collective focus on the gossip surrounding MacGregor and his head wound.
When Holly eventually came back downstairs, she announced she was closing up until further notice so she could better care for her husband. The locals left, some rather reluctantly Tom noted, apparently disappointed not to have further details about the assault to gossip about behind their twitching net curtains.
Holly told Tom he could, of course, stay but asked if he would mind helping himself to some sandwiches for his evening meal as she wouldn’t have time to open the kitchen. Tom said he didn’t mind at all. They talked awhile, and Holly intimated that MacGregor must have surprised someone in the kitchen as that was where he had been found, bleeding from his head wound. A bloodstained rolling pin was found on the floor next to him. Holly theorized that Cosmo had come into the pub to steal some food, as he had been ca
ught in the act on more than one occasion before. Tom asked her if the vagrant had a known history of violent acts prior to the attack on her husband that afternoon, but Holly could neither confirm nor deny it.
Seeing how tired and stressed she was, Tom made his excuses and went upstairs to his room, taking a couple of plastic-wrapped sandwiches with him. The alternative was to remain in the bar and try to comfort her—and he did not want his advances to be misunderstood. His day had been trying enough without having the further grief of someone else’s distraught wife weighing on his conscience. So he bailed, as politely as he could, and took the Dieter-scarecrow with him, unsure of what else to do with it.
Tom laid the scarecrow across the end of his bed and closed the door properly behind him. He crossed to the window and looked out at the tree line, a dark row of swaying sentinels welcoming the coming dusk. Peering into the gaps and hollows, he wondered if dark eyes were looking back at him, watching him unseen from the forest.
He closed the curtains and frowned at the scarecrow lying crucified on his bed. Tom picked the thing up and carried it to the bathroom, having no desire to look upon it a moment longer but aware he needed to keep a hold of it as evidence. As he leaned the scarecrow’s head into his shoulder, he felt a weight thump against his chest. Leaning the scarecrow up against the bathroom doorway, he slipped his hand into the inside pocket of Dieter’s bloodstained gray jacket. His fingers hit pay dirt and he pulled Dieter’s wallet from the pocket. Rifling through its contents, Tom satisfied himself that nothing major was missing; all of the bankcard slots were occupied by gold or silver plastic, and there were a few dollar bills and Scottish fivers tucked into the cash compartment. That ruled out an opportunist mugging. Whoever had taken the trouble of removing Dieter’s clothing had zero interest in his wallet; they would have felt the weight of it the same way Tom had when taking the jacket off of his body.
The fact that Dieter had not been robbed did little to assuage Tom’s unease at the whole affair. The single word scrawled in blood on the headstone was still giving him the jitters. JACK. Whatever the macabre warning might mean, Tom was none the wiser about Dieter’s whereabouts, or if the big man was alive or dead.