by Susan Lewis
Martin blinked, as though the news was a shock, but of course it wasn’t: the entire nation had known about it, and many, not only farmers, were still traumatized by the sheer horror and tragedy of it.
‘Obviously no one was allowed to come here while that was going on,’ she continued. ‘We had a D notice slapped on us, meaning we couldn’t move any livestock in or out, and it wasn’t possible for anyone to come onto our land without going through the whole disinfection and interrogation process. It was a terrible time; more stressful than anything I’ve known in all my years on this farm. We lived in daily terror of being ordered to destroy our sheep and pigs.’ She shook her head, still not quite over the anguish of those times. ‘We were lucky to come through unscathed,’ she continued. ‘Government inspectors were crawling all over the countryside. Many of our friends were made to destroy their herds. It was heartbreaking, ruthless … Well, I’m sure you remember. It wasn’t so long ago. You’ll know about the suicides and bankruptcies. Maybe you even reported on it.’
Martin nodded. ‘I did, and it’s not something I ever want to see or report on again. Actually, I almost changed career at the time. I’d only just got a job on a national, covering real news, and I thought that if this was how it was going to be, watching blameless and perfectly healthy animals be sent to their deaths … Then 9/11 happened and it was like the world had gone into meltdown. 2001 was a terrible year.’
Shelley nodded agreement; those particular nightmares still had the power to subsume all other thoughts, but that wasn’t what they were here for, so she quickly moved on. ‘It wasn’t until the following year,’ she said, ‘that we were able to look at Hanna’s project again. It turned out that we still had the heart for it – maybe we were more eager than ever, given how much we needed something positive to happen. There was a lot of red tape to go through again, but then one day, just over six months ago, we found ourselves with all the necessary permissions, health and safety certificates, criminal record checks, you name it, and miracle of all miracles, we finally welcomed our first transitioners.’
It still did seem like a miracle, in spite of all the problems they’d faced since, but she wasn’t about to make them a part of the story. They’d be ironed out one way or another, and talking the project down at this stage was going to serve no one, least of all those they were trying to help.
‘And so far it’s working?’ he said.
She smiled. ‘Most days. Kids of that age who’ve led the kind of lives they have are never going to be easy. However, most of them seem glad to be here. They understand that this can be a new beginning for them, an experience that will help to shape their futures in a way that’s far more positive than any they’d have grubbing around on the streets, having nowhere to go and no one to turn to. Sadly we can’t take extreme cases, we’re not qualified or practised enough yet, but we hope that’ll change over time. We’ll see.’
‘So how do you choose who comes here?’
‘It’s mainly down to social services, but the police and various charities are also involved. At the moment we’re only geared up for eight residents at any one time, but we’ll look into expanding if things work out.’
‘Where do they live when they’re here?’
‘You passed it on your way in, just before the footbridge. Henry, the builder I mentioned just now, has constructed a kind of hostel with eight small bedrooms and three bathrooms, a fully equipped kitchen and a large communal living space. Donations of furniture, bed linens, cooking equipment, you name it, came in from all over once word got out. So it really isn’t just our family getting behind the project, because a lot of farm families and nearby villages are doing their bit too.’
After jotting this down, he said, ‘And how long do you expect your current residents to stay?’
‘That will mostly depend on the individual. If all goes well we hope they’ll be ready to leave, with jobs and a place to live, within a year or two. Others might want to go on to further education – or go back to get the qualifications they missed out on. Again we’re working with the local authority on that.’
‘Do you have rules they must stick to while they’re here?’
‘Oh, we have plenty: a strict no-drugs policy first and foremost; general behaviour has to be acceptable, of course, everyone has to pull their weight around the farm, and we don’t house “guests” they might want to bring in from outside. Nor do we allow fighting or sex. The last is extremely hard to police, so we tend to turn a blind eye if we know about it. It’s important to remember that Deerwood isn’t a prison. The residents are over sixteen and are free to leave if they feel it isn’t working for them.’
‘And if someone drops out, there are always others to take their place?’
‘Indeed.’
Refocusing, he said, ‘So how exactly would you describe Deerwood and what you’re trying to achieve here?’
Shelley checked her phone as it rang and seeing it was someone from Dean Manor, probably looking for Jemmie, she let the call go to messages. Jemmie would be there soon enough. ‘I’d describe Deerwood first and foremost as a farm,’ she replied, ‘because it is still very much that, but in the sense you’re meaning it, I’ve heard it called a halfway house, a rehabilitation centre, a transition project … Some of the kids even refer to it as farm-school. I think that’s the term Hanna prefers, but you’ll have to check with her. Anyway, the important thing is that kids who’ve lived most of their lives in care and who have nowhere to go when the system spits them out, can come here to learn how to take the next steps. We place much emphasis on social integration, discovering the therapeutic value of nature and animals, basic survival skills, and getting in touch with themselves in a way they’ve never been encouraged to before.’
Noting this down, he said, ‘And you have experts helping you in this?’
‘We do, and I’m sure Hanna will put you in touch with them if you want to know more about them. Frankly, without them we’d never have been able to get off the ground, so their support is vital in every way. Thankfully, we are finding more and more experts are interested in helping us. We’ve even had a few get in touch from other parts of the country, and we’ve started to hear from university students who want to be involved as part of a degree course in social studies. It’ll take quite a bit of coordinating, but between us all I’m sure we’ll manage.’
With an ironic smile, he said, ‘I can see you having problems getting the residents to leave when the time comes.’
Shelley laughed. ‘We have people ready to help with finding homes and jobs, but again all untested as yet. Now, it sounds as though Hanna and Zoe have just turned up, so I’ll let them give you the guided tour. There’s quite a bit to see, and you’ll probably find the residents will be eager to talk to you. They’re enjoying the fame, that’s for sure. You probably won’t be able to get them to shut up about their ambitions for the place. It can be quite entertaining, if a little unrealistic. However, as we know, “Nothing happens unless first a dream.”’
A while later Shelley was driving through the country lanes on her way to Dean Manor, and remembering all the things she’d forgotten to tell Martin Coolidge. She wondered whether she ought to call Hanna or Zoe to make sure they added them in, although, knowing them, they’d cover all bases without prompting. She just hoped they didn’t get into how over-friendly some of the girls were being towards Josh. While Hanna and Zoe found it hilarious, Josh really didn’t, though he seemed to have it fairly well under control – and hopefully it would stay that way until he left for uni. The last thing any of them wanted was Josh becoming a father at nineteen, or finding himself accused of something he hadn’t done. That could turn very messy indeed.
Glancing at her phone as it rang she saw it was Jemmie and clicked on, even though she knew she shouldn’t while driving. ‘I should be there in less than ten minutes,’ she shouted into the speaker.
‘Oh Shelley,’ Jemmie’s voice was shaking. ‘You haven’t heard? Hum
phrey rang Deerwood …’
‘Heard what?’ Shelley broke in worriedly.
‘Something … Something terrible’s happened.’
Shelley started to brake. ‘What do you mean?’ she demanded.
As Jemmie answered, her words were drowned out by the sound of Josh’s motorbike zooming up alongside the car. Perry was riding pillion and they were waving frantically for her to pull over.
‘What is it?’ Shelley cried into the phone and at the boys as she came to a stop.
‘Oh, Shelley, Shelley, I don’t know what to do,’ Jemmie sobbed. ‘He’s dead. They’ve killed him …’
Shelley was stunned.
‘Keep calm, Mum,’ Josh cautioned, opening the driver’s door. ‘Sir Humph just rang Uncle Nate. Matthew Bleasdale’s been in an accident …’
‘He’s getting married in less than two weeks,’ Shelley shouted, as if it this could make everything stay normal, reinforce the fact that it had to.
The voice of Fiona, the Bleasdales’ daughter, came down the line. ‘Can you come, Shelley?’ she asked shakily.
‘I’m on my way,’ Shelley told her.
Josh had already handed the bike to Perry, and opening the driver’s door he drew Shelley out. ‘I’ll drive,’ he told her.
‘What does she mean, they killed him?’ Shelley demanded as Josh helped her into the passenger seat. ‘Who are they?’
‘I don’t know any details,’ Josh replied, ‘only that it concerns Matthew,’ and returning to the driver’s side he restarted the engine.
As he took them the rest of the way Shelley found herself fixating on how scathing Matthew Bleasdale had been about their social project. His brothers too, but they were hardly ever around. They had been lately, though, as preparations got under way for the upcoming wedding.
Dear God, she was praying inwardly as they sped through the lanes, please don’t let Matthew have got into some kind of altercation with one of our residents. Please, please, don’t let that be what’s happened here. If it had they could end up having to close the project down, and it did so much good …
‘Josh,’ she said shakily.
He turned to her, but she didn’t know what to say.
As Josh zipped along Dean Manor’s tree-lined drive towards the main house, Shelley was already clocking the blue flashing lights up ahead. Two police cars were blocking the front steps, and more vehicles she didn’t recognize were haphazardly parked on the forecourt. A group of suited men turned to watch Josh bring the Volvo to a stop.
As they got out Fiona came running out to meet them.
‘Shelley. Oh, Shelley,’ she cried, dashing straight into Shelley’s arms. ‘Thank you for coming. It’s so awful. Mummy’s in the drawing room. She keeps asking for you, but to be honest I don’t think she realizes what she’s saying. Daddy’s even worse.’
Slipping an arm around the girl, Shelley told Josh to explain who they were to the police, and took Fiona inside. Her heart was beating raggedly; her mind was frozen against the dread of what was about to unfold.
They’ve killed him, Jemmie had sobbed down the phone. They’ve killed him.
Passing another officer at the door of the drawing room, Shelley followed Fiona inside and found Sir Humphrey standing in front of the enormous fireplace, his back to them as he ran trembling hands over the ornate family crest.
‘Shelley,’ Jemmie exclaimed, and seeming to spring out of the shadows she ran across the room to clutch Shelley’s hands. ‘Thank you for coming,’ she sobbed. ‘It’s so awful. Matthew’s … They’re saying … I don’t know what to do.’
Bewildered, Shelley looked to Fiona for an explanation.
It was another voice that spoke. Male, deep and drawling, but not quite steady. ‘We’re all in shock,’ he stated. ‘It’s … The police are saying his car went off the road …’ It was Charlie, Matthew’s twin, a tall, slightly overweight thirty-year-old with ruddy cheeks and bloodshot eyes. The younger brother, Felix, was with him, looking ashen and pinched, and clearly not as relieved to see Shelley as his mother and sister were.
‘What’s happened?’ she pressed, glancing round as Josh came into the room.
The Bleasdale sons looked at the newcomer, then at one another. Charlie said, ‘A motorcyclist ran Matthew off the road.’ The way he eyed Josh made Shelley’s heart turn over. Surely he wasn’t trying to imply that Josh was responsible?
‘When did it happen?’ she asked anxiously.
No one answered. There was such a strange atmosphere in the room now that she was becoming more unnerved by the minute.
Charlie said to Josh, ‘Have the police spoken to you?’
Josh’s handsome young features darkened. ‘Why would they need to speak to me?’ he countered, showing no reluctance to stand up to the older man, or much reverence for his recent loss.
Shelley felt so sick, so horrified by what was happening, that she barely heard the next words.
‘… no doubt thought you could get away with it,’ Charlie was saying savagely.
‘Stop! Stop!’ Fiona jumped in. ‘It has nothing to do with Josh and you know it.’
Charlie’s tone slapped her down. ‘Do we?’ he demanded. ‘He rides a motorbike, and so does that cousin of his, illegally in his case I might add …’
‘Leave it, Charlie,’ Felix barked. ‘I know what you’re thinking, but it won’t fly.’
Charlie rounded on him, so angrily he might have hit him had Fiona not stepped between them.
‘What’s going on?’ Jemmie cried in confusion. ‘What isn’t going to fly?’
Felix moved away from his brother and checked his phone.
Knowing they’d just abandoned some hare-brained scheme to land some sort of blame on Josh, Shelley turned to Humphrey as he mumbled, ‘We told him it would end badly. We said he needed to stop, to understand he’d never win with people like that.’
‘The old fool doesn’t know what he’s saying,’ Charlie growled, as though to distract them.
Felix snapped. ‘Pa, come with me. You need to lie down.’
Shelley watched them go, needing to understand what was happening, while wondering if she really wanted to. ‘Where’s Matthew now?’ she carefully asked Jemmie.
‘The police are going to take us to him,’ Fiona replied.
‘So what’s delaying them?’
Fiona shook her head; she seemed to have no idea.
Josh took Shelley’s arm and steered her to a far corner of the room. Keeping his voice low he said, ‘I think we should go.’
Having a feeling he was right, Shelley said, ‘But I can’t just leave Jemmie.’
‘You have to. If someone really ran Matthew off the road … You just saw what Charlie tried to do. If Felix hadn’t made him back off … Something’s going on here, Mum, that we really don’t need to be a part of.’
He looked so young and yet resolute, so wise to whatever further dastardliness Jemmie’s detestable sons might try to concoct, that Shelley had to agree.
She turned back to Jemmie. There was so much going round in her head, too much. ‘I’m truly sorry about Matthew,’ she said gently, taking Jemmie’s hands, ‘but Josh and I have to leave now.’ At Jemmie’s look of surprise and alarm she pulled her into an embrace. Her eyes met Charlie’s over Jemmie’s shoulder, and she had the satisfaction of seeing him flush with discomfort. ‘I know what you just tried to do to my son,’ she said quietly. ‘It would never have worked, but the fact that you even attempted it …’ She let her words trail off, not wanting to say more in front of Jemmie, and with a last apologetic glance in Fiona’s direction, she followed Josh out of the room.
Three days later the police came to Deerwood. They didn’t stay long; they were simply collecting statements from anyone who’d been in the vicinity of the ‘accident’ on the day in question.
Nothing was said about Josh and his motorbike, but rumours of a Honda Gold Wing (not the same model as Josh’s) being involved in the incident were spreading about th
e county like a summer muck spread.
Not long after the police left, Giles turned up.
‘Don’t tell me,’ Shelley quipped as she plonked a coffee in front of him, ‘you’ll give me the latest gossip for a fee.’
Giles’s grey-bearded face remained sober even as he grinned. ‘Word has it,’ he said, ‘that the twins, maybe all three brothers, were into some sort of money-laundering scheme that the Revenue caught up with. Someone who’s remaining nameless, if anyone even knows who it is, foreign, I expect, reckoned the Bleasdales were about to do a deal to get themselves off and land everyone else in it. So Matthew was sent to rest under a tree as a warning to the others that the same will happen to them if they don’t keep their mouths shut.’
Feeling the bafflement of what went on in other people’s families, the secrets and lies, and even the ignorance of what loved ones could be capable of, Shelley thought of Jemmie and Humph with nothing but sadness. How much they’d known before Matthew’s death she had no idea, though they’d obviously known something, or why else would Jemmie have said ‘they’ve killed him?’ when she’d called Shelley in a panic. As for Humph, it seemed highly likely that he’d been trying to help his sons out of the mess they’d got themselves into, and now he’d learned the hard way that his efforts had been in vain.
‘From what you told me about the day you were over there,’ Giles went on, ‘I’ve deduced – and my mate at Kesterly nick agrees with me – that Charlie, because he’s stupid and always has been, had the grand idea to try and blame Josh for the “accident” because Josh is known to roar about the countryside on that bloody noisy bike of his. Felix was a bit cleverer, I’m told; he made his brother let go of that nonsense before it even got off the ground. Tangling themselves up in false accusations was only going to land them in an even bigger mess than they’re already in. Best to play it down, go along with it being a tragic accident and that way their “business partners” might back off and leave them alone.’