by Glen Johnson
Once I remember bumping into, Ms. Cuddy as I walked out the Fish & Chip shop on Bovey’s main street, while holding a large portion of greasy chips and a battered sausage. I dropped Phil’s name into the conversation, only to have, Ms. Cuddy start shaking her head sadly, tut-tutting. I never did find out why she reacted that way.
Now the garden had overgrown. Natural habitat, some throwback sixties hippy would call it. Laziness I called it. Grass reached phenomenal heights, to the point where it leant over, falling down on itself. Bushes ran wild, large shabby looking things, the names of which I had never bothered to learn. Brambles and thorn thickets covered large patches, entangling and over running other plants, and even hanging from several trees. In all it looked wild and abandoned. Apart from a couple places that had been dug up, uprooting plants and weeds, possibly by some badger. I gave it scant attention; I was use to all the wild animals that used my home like their own.
Swallows and swifts used the lip under the eaves to make their mud homes, leaving long trails of purple and white shit down my walls, and large accumulated mounds of it on the ground. Foxes and badgers rummaged around in the dead of night, knocking over my bins, and leaving me with a mess to clean up in the morning. Squirrels had even entered open windows and taken food from my kitchen, or pinched clothes or materials for their bedding. And wild cats abounded. They could be heard fighting and screaming at each other throughout the night. Eerie sounds that remind you of crying babies that sounded like they were being dragged around the fields.
I was tired of looking at my overrun garden – I was trying to concentrate on living things, rather than all the death I had seen lately – and even though it needed a lot of attention it still relaxed me.
I reaffixed the black bag over the broken window, which had become a little loose from the day before. I then climbed into my truck and headed down my long overgrown driveway. The grass was high on both sides, hiding the wire fence behind a green wall of grass and lanky – but colourful – weeds. Two furrows wormed their way down the driveway, but the middle section was quite long, it tickled the underside of my truck as I drove over it.
From the gateway looking in it simply looked like an overgrown track, ideal in keeping people away. Also no nameplate announced who lived here, just another entranceway, with PRIVATE PROPERTY. NO ENTRY, painted bright red on an old piece of dilapidated wood and wedged into the hedge. Looking just like numerous other hand painted signs that the farmers had littering their property.
I crept my truck down the driveway, and had got almost to the end when I met another vehicle coming the other way along the narrow road, which made up part of my property, leading out onto yet another identical narrow lane and high uncut bushy hedges. I slowed down. They started to indicate, announcing that whoever they were, they wanted to keep coming down my drive.
I stopped my truck at the entranceway to the adjoining road, blocking whoever it could be. The winter sun was down low and was directly in front of me, the car was just a darkened silhouette; I couldn’t even tell its colour.
My first thought was Officer Kemp. Shit, why couldn’t he just leave me alone? But no, it wasn’t red-faced, suspicious Kemp. I could see two outlines climbing from the open doors.
“Hello,” came a woman’s silky voice. “Mr. Cain? Mr. Jacob Thomas Cain?” she called so I could hear from my truck.
I was confused. I sometimes got the odd fan trying to find me out in the far reaches of Dartmoor. Sometimes hanging around Bovey Tracy, where in the summer I was a frequent visitor. But these two people didn’t seem to radiate that sort of manner about them; they were more confident, professionals of some sort. They didn’t have the hint of awe in their voices that the stalking fans processed.
The two car doors thudded shut simultaneously. I left my trucks engine running and opened the door and climbed out trying to get a better view of the two strangers.
“Depends on whose asking?” I said in my best attempt at an annoyed voice, trying to let them know they were invading my property and privacy.
It had been almost four months since a fan had come to see me in my very home, somehow locating my house and coming down my drive to see me. It turned out to be a shy female nurse, who lived in Cardiff. She was down visiting her sick mother and couldn’t resist the opportunity of visiting her favourite author. She was so polite and seemingly nervous, and even more embarrassed at disturbing me that I offered her to come in, drinking tea and munching on rich-tea biscuits. I believe her name was Laura Dunk or something strange along those lines. She opened up her life story, telling me everything; even very personal things that made me blush.
I usually find once I meet a fan they talk for a few minutes about the books they so enjoyed, and then always end up talking exclusively about themselves. I have had such an impact in their lives that they wanted to share everything about themselves with me.
Laura left smiling, arms cradling all her dog-eared copies of my books, now all signed with good wishes wrote in each. I never did hear from her again, obviously fulfilled by our first meeting and not wanting to intrude again.
More often than not though the people who normally turned up on my doorstep didn’t even know who I was, merely having become lost in the labyrinth like narrow lanes all around this area, and ending up wandering down my driveway and asking for directions.
“Well, are you, Mr. Cain or not?” The man asked, his voice carrying a little more edge than the woman’s.
“Like I said, it depends on whose asking?” And at an after though I added. “This is private property, you know. I should be the one asking the questions.” I tried to keep the nervousness out of my voice.
They moved closer, each one walking down the clear tracks in the road, the grass on either side and between them coming almost up to their knees.
Their features became visible, now that I had become accustom to looking into the low glaring winter sun.
A middle-aged man and woman, both smartly dressed, both in dark grey suits and black shiny shoes. She had long black hair that was tied up in a ponytail, with brown eyes and high cheekbones, and a long slender neck that blended in nicely with her slender body. He had a day’s worth of stubble and short-cropped light brown hair, green eyes and a cowboy and western style square jaw, making him look slightly strange in appearances, adding also to his triangular shape, wide broad shoulders tapering down to womanly thin hips. A sports or heath freak?
Both were tall, taller than me. I stand at five foot five inches and both of them towered over me, both easily over six foot.
They continued to walk purposefully forward.
“Are you or aren’t you, Mr. Jacob Thomas Cain?” The man asked once again, and as he spoke he pushed his hand into the folds of his grey suit jacket, reaching for something.
“Yes,” I almost shouted, my mind flipping over. Is he reaching for a gun? My mind was screaming. Who would want to hurt me?
As I was about to jump into my truck, he removed his hand, holding on tightly to a couple sheets of trifolded paper.
They had both reached my black truck, and were now stood side by side in front of me, a couple of arm lengths away.
I now noticed the woman also had something in her hand. She flicked her wrist causing her small black leather wallet to flip open. A CID identity card rested behind the plastic cover – they were the English equivalent to homicide investigators.
The man spoke first. “Mr. Cain, we have here a warrant for your arrest and a search warrant giving us permission to search your property, and impound your truck. We are also being accompanied by eight officers who will help us in fully searching your home and surrounding property.” As he said this I could hear other cars now making there way up my drive. Obviously having lagged behind in the narrow lanes.
My heart lurched in my chest, bile rising in my throat. What had tipped them off about the bodies in my garden? But then I thought, I didn’t kill them.
How am I going to explain them being there? I
might getaway with manslaughter, but I would be living the rest of my life in a looney-bin.
The two officers were watching me.
I stood motionless. My brain not comprehending just what all this meant. Seven dead bodies were buried in my back garden. I had no way of justifying how they had got there.
“Beelzebub brought them to me,” I could hear myself explaining to a room full of police and psychiatrists. They would lock me away in a nicely padded room and throw away the key. Luckily England didn’t have capital punishment, or I would defiantly get the electric chair or lethal injection. Didn’t the English use to hang people?
I could now see the outline of two more cars following each other towards my driveway, these having rounded lumps silhouetted on their roofs – police cars.
Then without thinking, or even knowing what I was doing, I jumped back into my truck, but before slamming the door shut I shouted, “I HAVE A GUN!” I hit the button to lock them all out. Then revving the engine I shifted it into reverse. The engine roared as I wormed my way backwards down my narrow drive.
Confusion seemed to rain down on the two figures. First, realising I had jumped back into my truck, they both jumped to the sides, thinking I was going to ram them. Regaining their composure they realized I was heading back the way I came. They both started to shout orders at the other men and women standing outside their vehicles, witnessing what was transpiring in front of them.
The echo of slamming doors resounded across the fields, as the three other cars started to give chase. Even though I was going backwards, I still knew the narrow lane better than they did, knowing what corners were coming up next.
I soon left them behind, hidden by tall hedges and overhanging branches.
I whacked on the brakes, bringing my truck to a skidding halt, hitting a hedgerow. I climbed out of the truck leaving it parked across the road, and tossed the keys into the nearby field. Then running as fast as I could, I started heading down the narrow driveway.
Within seconds the other cars reached mine, almost plunging head first into it. The cars came to a screeching, skidding halt.
My truck had tinted side windows, and because it was parked sideway they couldn’t see if I was still inside. I used this to buy myself some time.
They reversed their cars stopping them about five car lengths away, the female talking madly on their police radio, while the man climbed out of the silver Ford Mondeo. He stood behind the open door, trying to see if I was still inside. But the road was very narrow, with many overhanging trees, and with my drivers side door shut they had no idea I wasn’t in there, but rather running full pelt towards my house.
I still didn’t have a plan. All I knew was I needed to get away from them.
Around behind my home was the wide-open field, then the wooded area, which all belonged to me. I knew it like the back of my hand. When I first bought the house I was pleased that I had so much land and actually owned trees, that I walked it constantly, until it became boring. After a while I just started to ignore it was even there.
I now ignored the house. I had plenty of money on me, and all my credit cards. I was still panicking, but I now had some sort of plan. Behind the woods lay another road, one hardly used and overgrown. I would get to this road and flag down a passing car. Even steal one if I had to. Grand thief auto, it couldn’t be worse than being accused of murder.
I couldn’t hear any pursuit behind me; obviously they had fallen for my ploy.
My heart was racing, more to do with the adrenaline pumping through me than from exhaustion. I passed my old farmhouse running at full pelt like a frightened rabbit. I passed the seven mounds – the cause off all my grief – and carried on to the back fence, which I jumped in one stride. My legs pumped like pistons as I sped across the open field behind my home, heading for the dense wooded area a couple hundred meters away.
Cows looked up from their grazing, wondering what all the fuss was about. But simply gave me no mind, as they lowered their heads again to carry on with their chewing.
Surely the truck ploy wasn’t still detaining them? Knowing that I’m American they might presume I had a gun, like my threat warned them. They could be crouched down behind their automobiles waiting for an armed response team. I later found out they were hiding behind their cars for almost an hour while waiting for the English equivalent of an armed SWAT team, which is simply called a Firearms Unit.
I found that funny even though England isn’t plagued with an assortment of weapons like America, guns did still exist. But the average policeman simply had pepper-stray and a truncheon, pitiful weapons against a gun wielding manic. According to The National Crime Recording Standard, in 2010/2011 there were just over 4,000 incidents involving shotguns or handguns in Great Britain.
How stupid they must’ve felt some hours later when it became obvious that I wasn’t even in the truck.
Even though at the time I didn’t realize I could have leisurely walked towards the small lane, I continued to pound the ground with my feet, running through the thick trees, merely conifers that were so thick they blocked out the sunlight, reducing the ground to bare mud, piled high with dead pine needles and twisted fallen branches that reached for my feet trying to trip me like twisted gnarled fingers.
I finally reached the narrow lane and continued to jog along it at a leisurely pace. Fatigue was screaming at me. Within ten minutes a car started to wind its way slowly around the corner, an old green Morris Minor 1000, older than me, which even had faded wood trimming around the back end. A little old man and lady sat barely able to see over the dashboard.
I waved them down, not that there was much point, because in order to pass me I would have had to lean right back into the thick hedgerow.
The driver’s window slowly wound down in jerking movements. I stepped closer, a musty smell pouring out the open window. The little old man just starred at me, not speaking, just drinking in my appearance. The old engine continued to turnover; sounding like it was going to pack-up at any given moment.
“Hello,” I said lamely. “I seemed to be lost.” Then I went into a story about how I had been walking along with a group of friends, following a well know walk called Tempers Way; a very old railway track that was long abandoned, but was a popular route for walkers to follow, now simply two stone rails that wormed its way around the Moors.
The old man still didn’t speak, but rather looked me up and down. Then he simply said, “We’re on our way to Exeter, to Haldon Market.” Then continued to stare, his wife now leaning over to get a good look at me.
“That would be great. I actually live in Exeter,” I lied. I climbed in and buckled up, not that he ever went fast enough even to put a bent in the fender, even if we did meet another car coming the other way.
Luckily they didn’t listen to the radio, but sat in silence, not even talking between themselves, having both know each other for so long they no longer needed pleasantries, only talking when something needed to be said.
I shared the shabby, lumpy back seat with what looked like a terrier crossed with a rat, which looked like it had lost a fight with a set of hair trimmers. After I had snapped shut my seat belt it simply laid its head on my lap and continually stared at me the entire way, blinking so in often it even made my eyes being to water. It also kept whimpering and swivelling its large watery eyes – which looked like poached eggs – in the direction of its two owners, as if trying to tell me something. Later I realized why it acted that way.
I wanted to wind down the window, just a crack, to let the smell of musty dog and old people out. But I sat motionless, trying not to draw attention to myself, even though the couple seemed oblivious to me being here, not once speaking to me, or even turning their heads to check I was okay.
It was dark when we reached Exeter, having been dropped off by the quiet duo twenty minutes before. I thanked them profusely, but they just returned my thanks with blank stares. And I knew that the market would be shut hours ago, and wondered wh
ere they were really going. When I opened the door to get out, the little scruffy terrier jumped to the pavement and ran full bolt down the road, barking loudly all the way. I was about to tell the old couple what they had obviously missed, when the car started to roll forwards, yanking the handle from my hand, and disappeared off into the distance. The door still being open, until they slowly turned a corner that swung the door shut.
Shaking the strange incident from my mind, considering I had more important things to worry about, I concentrated on the task of locating the closest bank with an ATM machine, and then I proceeded to draw out as much cash as it would allow me, then simply finding another and doing likewise. I wanted to draw as much cash out before the authorities froze my accounts.
Luckily I had a platinum card allowing me to draw literally thousands out during my rounds of the ATMs. I also knew that as soon as they check the account they would see where the money had come from, so staying in Exeter was out of the question.
I drew as much as all the machines I could find would let me, having money stuffed into an orange Jaffa-Cake backpack I had bought at an Esso petrol station.