by K. A. John
The wooden mantelpiece was covered with knick-knacks, principally small china animals; the sort of cheap ornaments given away as fairground prizes or bought in bargain-priced novelty shops by children with precious pocket money as gifts for their mothers. In pride of place in the centre was a silver-framed photograph of Deirdre. She was wearing a straw hat and smiling as she leaned on a farm gate. Behind her, horses grazed in a field. Louise wondered if the picture had been taken locally, in Wake Wood.
‘Sit down.’ Mary offered Louise a chair. When Louise took it, Mary sat opposite her and leaned forward. Silence reigned for a full minute. When Mary finally spoke it was obvious she’d chosen her words with care.
‘I understand your pain, Louise, but I worry about you. You’re putting yourself in serious danger.’
Louise shook her head. ‘I saw something last night. Something strange … then Deirdre spoke to me about Alice … about her having a lovely voice. Alice adored singing. Her teachers said she was talented … she sang all the time … loved learning new songs …’ Louise suddenly remembered her reason for visiting Mary. ‘I’m looking for an explanation as to why Deirdre mentioned Alice’s voice.’
‘Put the light on.’
Louise reached out to the side table next to her and switched on a lamp.
‘You’ve suffered a great tragedy with the loss of your daughter,’ Mary sympathised. ‘But forget what you’ve seen and heard here. What goes on in Wake Wood is not for everyone.’
‘And what does go on in Wake Wood?’ Louise demanded.
‘Please,’ Mary begged, ‘you and Patrick should try to make another baby to love.’
‘I can’t. There were problems.’ Louise bit her lip, fighting back the memory. ‘The doctors told me that my first would be my last.’
Mary nodded. ‘I know how you feel.’
‘No, I don’t think you do.’ Louise watched Mary turn her head and gaze longingly at the photograph of Deirdre next to the china dogs and cats on the mantelpiece. Realisation dawned. ‘Deirdre’s not your niece.’ It wasn’t a question.
Mary refused to meet Louise’s eye.
‘So please, tell me what’s going on,’ Louise persisted. ‘I won’t leave until you tell me the truth.’
Mary left her chair and knelt in front of Louise. She put her arms around her, and pushed her face very close to Louise’s. ‘You want your daughter back, don’t you?’
Louise’s voice was thick, clotted with tears. ‘Is that really possible?’
‘I can’t say because I don’t know enough about you or about Alice. And that’s the truth, Louise.’
‘Can anyone in Wake Wood help us?’
‘I don’t know.’
Louise felt she had no choice but to accept what Mary had told her. Her phone began to ring again. She took it from her pocket and answered it. Patrick’s voice echoed down the line.
‘Hey, how are you?’
‘Fine,’ she lied.
‘I was hoping you could come out on a job. I need your help.’
Louise was conscious of Mary watching her. ‘I can’t right now, I’m busy,’ she demurred.
‘I wouldn’t have asked if I could manage without you,’ Patrick pressed.
Mary left her chair and went into the hall. She picked up her shopping bags and carried them through to the kitchen, where she began opening cupboard doors and putting away the food she’d bought.
Louise could hear Patrick breathing on the other end of the line, obviously waiting for her to say more. ‘You really need me?’
‘I do,’ Patrick insisted.
‘All right, if you really need me, I will,’ she agreed reluctantly.
‘Thanks. Pick you up outside the pharmacy in ten minutes?’ he suggested.
‘I’ll be there.’
Louise walked into the hall. She watched Mary moving around the kitchen, but although she was certain that Mary was aware of her presence, Mary didn’t turn around.
Louise left by the front door. Closing it quietly behind her, she thrust her hands into the pockets of her white coat and walked up the street towards the centre of Wake Wood and the pharmacy.
Patrick pulled his car into the parking bay in front of the shop when he saw Louise watching him from the open doorway. He waited while she locked the door and pulled down the shutters. She pocketed her keys, climbed into the passenger seat and glanced across at him. He nodded to her and drove on, heading straight out of town.
A mile after leaving the last of the houses behind them, Patrick turned left. He bumped along an unmade track for half a mile before reaching a farmhouse that sported a home-made wooden plaque on its front wall. O’Shea Farm had been burned into the wood with a hot poker.
Behind the house was a farmyard hemmed in on all four sides, apart from a narrow access, by a barn and outbuildings. Patrick parked the car to the side of the house, climbed out and opened the back door to get his veterinary instrument case. Louise followed him. A loud bellowing was coming from a building to their right. She followed Patrick inside.
A tough-looking weather-beaten man who could have been any age between forty and sixty was leading a bull out of the bull house towards a pen. The bull was skittish, nervous, snorting and fighting the man’s best efforts every step of the way.
‘Mick, I’m here,’ Patrick announced with a wave of his arm.
‘Thanks for coming out at such short notice, Patrick. Much appreciated.’ The farmer shouted to a younger version of himself, ‘Martin, get the gate open. Sooner we get this devil penned up the safer we’ll all be.’
Martin, a square-built, thick-necked young man in his mid-twenties, swung open the iron gate to the pen. Patrick and Louise stood back while the farmer and his son attempted to coax the bellowing animal forward.
‘He’s creating this fuss because his temperature’s shot way up, Patrick. Can you sort him?’
‘I can try. But get him into the pen first.’ Patrick set his case on the ground, opened it and reached for a syringe.
Mick and Martin O’Shea manoeuvred the bull into the long narrow pen of metal bars the local farmers called a ‘cattle crush’. But the bull wasn’t happy. It bumped from side to side, holding its ground, refusing to go forward even when Mick and Martin hit its flanks.
‘Normally he’s as easy to manage as a kitten but he has a bitch of a fever.’ Mick was clearly worried and Patrick knew with good reason. A bull like the one he was about to examine could be worth as much as, if not more than, the entire acreage of a hill farm like the O’Sheas’.
‘We’ll hose him down to cool him off,’ Patrick said, ‘but first I’ll give him a shot to calm him. Louise, can you prep two fifty mils of Tilmicosin? And maybe an anti-inflammatory as well.’
Louise picked up the syringe Patrick had left on top of the instruments in his case. She checked the drug bottles, picked out two and inserted the needle into the casing of the first, drawing up the liquid it held slowly and steadily. When it was empty she reached for the second.
‘Move him up into the crush and get the head yoke on so we can hold him firm.’ Patrick had to shout to make himself heard above the noise the bull was making.
Mick slammed a stick on the bull’s flanks but the creature continued to stand rigid, stiff and obstinate. ‘Get up, you,’ Mick yelled to no effect. The bull didn’t move an inch. Mick looked sideways at Louise. ‘Doesn’t like her,’ he muttered to his son Martin.
Patrick overheard the remark but chose to ignore it. He examined the blood-encrusted bull’s muzzle. ‘Where’s his ring, Mick? Martin?’ he shouted.
‘Broke it this morning,’ Mick revealed. ‘Don’t know how. When I saw to him first thing it was lying in pieces in his pen.’
‘Come on, hurry up, move him up to that halter,’ Patrick ordered.
Mick swung his stick again and Martin reached into the crush to get hold of the bull’s massive neck. The animal swung his head, catching Martin’s hand sideways and thrusting it tightly and painfully against the
metal bar of the pen.
‘Watch out, Martin!’ Mick shouted too late.
Martin screamed and doubled over in pain. When he managed to extricate his hand it was dripping blood.
The bull continued to low and bang against the bars.
Louise ran to Martin. ‘Let me see to that.’
‘Quiet, woman!’ Mick yelled in irritation as the bull carried on bellowing and kicking. Instead of heading to the top end of the crush where Martin and Mick had been leading it, the beast backed up and started banging the bars, moving from side to side without walking forward.
Mick hit out with his stick and shouted again to no avail. Patrick took the syringe Louise had handed him before she began examining Martin’s hand.
‘Keep him there, Mick,’ Patrick ordered. ‘I’ll try and sedate him where he is.’
Louise drew Martin aside, away from the pen. ‘Where’s the nearest water? We’d better disinfect this.’
Patrick leaned in through the bars, pressed the bull’s neck and deftly inserted the hypodermic into a vein.
‘I’m all right,’ Martin protested groggily, going into shock.
‘When was your last tetanus shot?’ Louise asked Martin, as much to keep him talking as to find out.
‘Dad, have I had a tetanus shot?’ Martin called out.
At the sound of Martin’s voice, the bull lunged forward. Patrick lost control of the syringe and it fell from the bull’s flank and hit the floor.
Patrick cried out to Mick, ‘This is no good. We have to get him up to the restraint and hold him fast.’
Mick hit the bull again without provoking a reaction from the animal.
‘I’ve had enough of this stupid beast.’ Mick climbed the bars of the crush.
‘Mick, that’s a bad idea,’ Patrick called out in alarm, when Mick swung his leg over the side of the crush and prepared to jump down into the pen with the animal.
‘Don’t go upsetting yourself, Patrick. This is my beast and I know what I’m doing.’ Mick swung down into the narrow crush behind the bull and continued to hit the animal’s hindquarters in an attempt to move him forward.
‘Come out, Mick,’ Patrick urged when it was plain that the farmer was having no effect whatsoever on the bull.
Mick ignored Patrick and continued to urge the bull forward.
Patrick turned to Martin. ‘Can you get his head collar, now, right away, before you sort your hand?’
Martin ran back towards the bull pen. Alarmed by the wild-eyed, snorting beast that appeared to be staring at her, Louise stepped further back from the crush. She retreated too far and crashed into a stone wall.
The bull continued to stare at her through red-veined and -rimmed glittering eyes.
‘Patrick …’ Louise froze in terror as the bull backed up and reversed down the crush on to Mick.
The animal’s massive hindquarters slammed Mick’s body against the gate at the far end of the crush. There was a loud and sickening crunch of bone hitting metal as the gate bit into Mick’s spine, ribs and pelvis.
Mick screamed. An agonising sound that resounded through the barn.
Galvanised, Louise ran to the bars and joined Patrick in beating the bull over and under the bars, trying to force the beast forward and off Mick.
The bull was still bellowing but the only sound Louise and Patrick could hear was the splintering, crunching and cracking of Mick’s bones breaking and shattering. His face turned purple. He gasped for air.
‘Go on, move up!’ Patrick roared at the bull.
Martin returned with the head collar. ‘No … Dad …’ He saw his father pinned against the top gate of the crush and pulled ineffectually at the bull’s neck.
Crushed tight against the bars that were biting into his back and legs, Mick whispered to Patrick, ‘Get him off me.’
Patrick and Martin banged at the latch on the gate. But it held firm, solid under the pressure the bull was exerting through Mick.
‘There’s too much weight.’ Patrick moved up to the bull’s head. He took a line from the side of the pen, looped it around the bull’s head and tried to pull the animal forward with all the strength he could muster. The creature ignored him and continued to stand firm. Patrick screamed at Louise, ‘Open the front gate.’
Louise ran forward and opened the gate before darting back close to Patrick. If the animal should take it into his head to run out, there’d be nothing to stop it from charging at any one of them.
The bull still didn’t move. She watched in horror as Mick choked and coughed up blood. It ran from his mouth down his chin, dripping on to his chest.
Martin hit the bull again and again, his blows having no more effect than if they’d been flies landing on the beast’s back.
Without warning, the bull lurched forward, almost knocking Patrick down. He lost the line he’d looped around the bull’s upper lip. Mick slid off the gate on to the floor of the crush pen. His jacket was soaked in blood. He lay face up, half propped on the gate, glued to it by his own blood.
The bull eyed Patrick, who was attempting to retrieve the loop. Then, just as unpredictably as he’d moved forward, he reversed. His hooves trampled over and sank deep into Mick’s chest.
Louise lifted her hands to her ears but still she could hear Mick’s bones rupturing. Mick coughed again. His lower jaw was soaked in blood. His eyes rolled to the back of his head.
Sensing freedom, the bull snorted and headed at speed down the crush. Louise ducked behind a barred gate and was imprisoned in a small pen set against the wall. She couldn’t stop looking at Mick. He lay at the bottom of the crush, no longer human. Just a smear of bones and tissue covered in blood and gore.
The bull stopped, turned its head and looked at Louise. Only a few feet from his nostrils she struggled to remain still.
Martin knelt beside his father on the floor of the crush. ‘Dad,’ he whispered. ‘Dad, can you hear me? Say something,’ he pleaded. ‘We’ll get help. Just say something. Tell me you’re going to be all right.’
Patrick and Louise watched him.
Neither had the courage to tell him that his father was already dead.
Eight
RAIN CONTINUED TO fall heavily and relentlessly into the farmyard, hammering down into the sticky brown quagmire that coated the cobbles, stirring it and intensifying the peculiar farmyard odour of ammonia and fertiliser that hung, heavy and acidic, in the air.
Martin had insisted on carrying his father’s remains into the house and up into his bedroom alone, without assistance from either Patrick or his mother, Peggy, whom he’d ordered to stay indoors. Louise had taken it upon herself to telephone the doctor. He’d arrived within ten minutes of receiving her call and had been ensconced in the farmhouse with Peggy and Arthur ever since. Patrick had had no idea how close Arthur was to the O’Shea family until his partner had driven into the yard a few minutes behind the doctor.
Martin had emerged from the farmhouse after calling his nearest neighbours. With their and Patrick’s assistance, he finally succeeded in returning the bull to its pen in the bull house. The beast was mercifully quiet – for the moment. The second dose of tranquilliser Patrick had succeeded in injecting into the animal had worked.
An hour after the event, the only sign of the tragedy of Mick’s death was the smears and smudges of blood and tissue that marred the floor at the top end of the cattle crush.
Despite an invitation from Martin, Patrick and Louise had chosen to remain outside the house. Traumatised, grief-stricken, Mick’s death had reminded them of Alice’s. Both had been unspeakably horrific and bloody, and both caused by animals.
Patrick felt totally unequal to driving home. He and Louise clung to one another for mutual support, standing just far enough inside the open barn to avoid the rain, their heads resting on one another’s shoulders.
‘You can’t blame yourself for what happened, Patrick.’ Arthur had approached so quietly that neither Patrick nor Louise had heard him crossing the yard. ‘Mi
ck was a stubborn man. He was the one who climbed into that pen. Martin said you warned him it was a bad idea. You did everything you could to stop him and, afterwards, all you could to save him.’
‘Find someone else to run the practice, Arthur.’ Patrick’s voice was hoarse from emotional exhaustion. ‘We’re leaving Wake Wood.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Arthur sympathised. ‘This has been such a shock. But let’s not talk about it now. Tomorrow will be soon enough.’
‘Arthur, we’re not staying.’ Now that Patrick had made the decision, he couldn’t wait to drive away from the town and leave it behind – for ever.
‘But you two seemed so happy here,’ Arthur protested.
‘It’s not just Wake Wood. We – Louise and me – we have a lot on our plate.’ Patrick was loath to offer more of an explanation.
‘I know, Patrick. But it’s not a good idea to do anything in haste,’ Arthur advised persuasively. ‘I don’t know what we’ll do without you in the town, but it’s you and Louise I’m thinking of.’ Momentarily lost for words, Arthur placed his hand reassuringly on Patrick’s shoulder before walking across to his car.
Louise lifted her head and watched Arthur. When he reached his car he looked up at the trees that overhung the buildings bordering the farmyard. A night owl swooped low over the roof of the house in its first foray of the evening. Arthur watched it circle twice then fly away. He turned and gazed at Louise.
Arthur and Louise exchanged glances across the yard for what seemed like a long time before Arthur turned on his heel and walked purposefully back towards her and Patrick. When Arthur reached them he closed his eyes for a moment before speaking. It was as though he knew that his words would cause them unbearable pain and he couldn’t bring himself to witness the hurt he was about to inflict.
‘Tell me about your daughter, Louise.’
Louise stiffened in Patrick’s arms. Hot salt tears seared her eyes.