by Jacqui Rose
‘Good boy,’ he said, turning the cold tap on, bending to the stream of water and taking a gulp. ‘A healthy body leads to a healthy mind.’
The pills were from the doctor and he’d been taking them for years.
‘One a day,’ the man had said. ‘They’ll keep you on the straight and narrow. These little beauties will dampen things down, get my drift? Stop you having all those fantasies. Girls and such.’
They had. So far. They’d dulled down everything so the only place where there was any true colour was in the cinema with Mr Caine. Tolly thought of the vivid hues up on the screen as Caine’s character in the Italian Job, Charlie Croker, watched a white van explode into orange and yellows and a plume of black smoke.Boom!
‘You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off.’
Nice one!
Tolly grinned to himself and began to lather up with the soap and brush before shaving. It was a shame he didn’t have anybody to share his love of film with, but since the misunderstanding and prison he’d lived out on the moor with only his dog and a few hundred sheep for friends. If the way of life was an additional punishment for his crime, then the sentence wasn’t so bad. True, his tumbledown house had no electricity, an outside toilet, and the water came from a single tap in the kitchen. Luxury was the tin bath full of hot water drawn from the range or his weekly trip down the long track to the road and then the walk to Chagford. When he could afford the diesel he’d take the little grey Ferguson, fill the transport box with his home-grown veg, and drive along the lanes to Okehampton. Nobody knew him there and he could sell the veg at the market. After buying any essentials from the farm store, he’d sneak in to the Carlton and watch a matinee.
Last week the film had been by some young American director called Spielberg. It had been about a man in a car being chased through California by a mysterious tanker truck which seemed to be out to get him. The dry, dusty California desert, with a hot sun beating down, had seemed a very long way from soggy Dartmoor. Tolly had driven home pretending he was in the movie, his tractor weaving through the lanes, Tolly bouncing in the seat all the way back.
‘Get the wheels in line!’
Wrong film, but Caine always had to have the last word, as Tolly turned on to his track, aligning the little Fergie’s tyres with the deep ruts.
After shaving, Tolly made himself breakfast and then got ready to check the sheep. The steading had a few hundred acres around it and Tolly rented the land and the house from the Duchy of Cornwall. The rent was peppercorn and if Tolly looked after the fences and Devon hedges, kept the footpaths open and ensured the place was tidy, he was left alone. Whether the Duchy knew about his conviction he wasn’t sure. It had never come up at the annual visit of the land agent so Tolly had never volunteered the information.
Outside, Tolly’s first job of the morning was to see to the ewes and lambs in the little paddock out the back of the house. The half-acre of ground was encompassed by a dry stone wall which provided protection from the wind. Several sheep had lambed late and Tolly had brought them back to the safety and shelter of the field so he could keep an eye on them. In the warm sun the lambs sprang up and down off a large rock, Tolly’s dog, Jess, watching from a distance. Tolly forked out some extra hay for the ewes and then whistled for the dog. She scampered across to him, ready for work.
Half an hour later and Tolly was near the top of the anonymous tor which marked the northern boundary of the farm and was also its highest point. In good weather it was a daily ritual of his to climb the tor so he could survey his land. Today he could see his sheep had spread out across the grassy field down near the stream which ran past the house. The early summer grass was lush down there and the ewes and lambs were working their way across the field, rumps towards the stiff breeze.
Everything looked fine so Tolly scrambled up on to the very top of the tor, working his way over the big chunks of granite until he stood tall. He braced his feet apart to steady himself. Jess jumped up too, the fur on her face flattened by the wind. She gave a little yap and Tolly reached down and patted her on the head, glad she was with him, glad she was enjoying the morning as much as he was. She yapped again and turned her head into the breeze, raising her nose and sniffing the air. Tolly’s eyes followed in the direction of her nose, thinking he’d be unlikely to be able to see the rabbit or other creature she had caught the scent of. As he scanned the boulder field which fell away from the tor to the east, he caught sight of something down near the gully at the bottom of the valley, something black, but tinged with white.
Tolly held his hand up to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun. Now he could see the thing was a man. He was prone on the ground and from this distance Tolly couldn’t tell if he was moving or not.
Bugger, Tolly said to himself. A walker had tripped and sprained their ankle. Unable to move far they’d died in the gully. He thought for a moment about leaving them down there. The body was on open moorland, really nothing to do with him. If he got involved with this he’d have to go into Chagford and report it and that might well bring trouble. Just a few months ago a couple of policemen had made the long walk from the road to his place.
‘Sergeant Hanning and Constable Finn,’ the taller one had said. There’s a girl missing and we reckon you might be up for it. All things considered. Mind if we have a look around?’
The two of them had pushed past Tolly without waiting for an answer. They searched the house from top to bottom.
‘What about the sheds?’ Hanning had said.
Tolly had shrugged and shown them the outside buildings. They’d looked into each one and then taken a cursory tour of the land.
‘We’re watching you, you fucking pervert,’ had been their parting words. But a few weeks later Tolly’s chips came wrapped in the local paper. ‘Girl Found Safe’ had been the headline and the police hadn’t been back since.
He stared down at the body again, thinking it was strange that the crows hadn’t arrived yet. Which could only mean …
‘Come on, Jess,’ he said, sliding down off the rock. ‘Otherwise I’ll not sleep tonight.’
The dog yapped and bounced at his feet as he began to weave his way down through the boulder field towards the ravine at the bottom of the hill.
Two
The cinnamon swirl had long gone and a rumble in Jane’s stomach told her it was late morning. She glanced down at the clock in the corner of the screen. Goodness! A couple of hours had gone by. She’d been so absorbed that she’d forgotten everything else. She stretched and then stood, moving across to the window so she could see the beach. The tide had ebbed and an expanse of sand now lay where she’d seen the body. A blue and yellow Coastguard Landrover was parked facing the sea and a team of volunteers had spread out across the beach. A few hundred metres offshore, beyond the point where the waves had started to break, Jane could see the rescue boat. From what she’d seen of the body, ‘rescue’ was a redundant term, but the crew of IRB were still there, still looking.
For a second she almost wanted to weep. Not only for the unknown corpse but for the bravery, commitment and selflessness of the people out there on the beach. If you were in trouble, they’d help. There was no background check, no payment, no expectation of anything other than a ‘thank you’. As she sat at the computer again she reflected that her own profession was quite the opposite: introverted, selfish and profuse with the most appalling vanity.
*
As Tolly descended, he lost sight of the body as the bracken in the ravine came up around him. In some places the foliage was almost shoulder high and he had to push through as he attempted to head in the right direction. Jess still bounded around like the whole affair was some kind of game, but when they reached the open moor again and the body was not much more than a hundred yards away, the dog sensed the tension.
‘Down, Jess,’ Tolly said, waving the dog into a lying position. He didn’t want her running up and disturbing anything, especially if the body turned out to
be in some state of decay.
Jess lay down and whimpered. Tolly moved away from her and towards the body. He could see now it lay not in the gully itself, but to one side on an area of soft grass. As he got closer he was for a moment confused. The man was wearing some kind of dress made of black, heavy material. Twenty paces away now and Tolly could see it wasn’t a dress, it was a cassock. The man was Father Ryan. Face down in the grass. And he wasn’t dead, far from it. His hips were pumping back and forth as he screwed the young girl lying beneath him. The white dress she was wearing was ripped open at the front, the lower part lifted above her waist. For a moment Tolly grinned to himself. Who’d have guessed it? Father Ryan was as sinful as all the rest. Tolly was about to step away and leave them to their business when a flash of red in the girl’s blonde hair caught his eye.
Blood.
For a moment Tolly didn’t understand, but then he spotted a piece of granite a couple of yards to one side of the priest. Liquid glistened on the dark surface.
There was a groan from the girl, but she wasn’t struggling because she was barely conscious. Tolly raised his hands to his head and covered his eyes for a second, but when he removed his hands the horror was still there. He walked across to the piece of granite and picked it up.
‘Father Ryan?’ he said.
The priest made a guttural sound and rolled off the girl. His cassock was open at the front and Tolly turned away for a second. The abomination of the priest with his lust for the girl all-too-plain to see was too much to bear.
Father Ryan was on his knees, scrabbling to get up. Then he was standing in front of Tolly.
‘Sam,’ he said as he fumbled with the buttons on the front of his cassock. ‘The little harlot attacked me. I was trying to help her and there was a … um …’
‘Misunderstanding?’
‘She tried to seduce me. There’s a devil within her. It needs exorcising.’
‘Looks like you’ve done a pretty good job already, Father.’
The priest turned and looked back at the prone form on the ground. He walked over to the girl and knelt and pulled the dress down, covering her nakedness. There was a whisper from the girl’s mouth, but her eyes remained closed.
Father Ryan glanced up at Tolly. ‘We don’t need to say anything about this, Sam. Our secret. You, me and God. Okay?’
Tolly closed his eyes. He’d never been one for praying but if there was ever a time, now was it. He wondered if God would want this hushed up. One of his flock attacked by a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Tolly felt the rock in his hand, heavy, as if it would weigh him down and drag him into the boggy ground to be swallowed by hell itself.
‘Yes, Father,’ he said. ‘Of course. I won’t say a thing.’
Then he slammed the rock into the face of the priest. Father Ryan jerked backwards and rolled over, one arm splashing into the brook. Tolly moved after him and brought the rock down again, this time into the back of the man’s skull. The priest lay unmoving. Tolly lobbed the piece of granite away, the rock clattering against a boulder. The little brook bubbled and in a nearby bush a bird began to sing. Somewhere in the distance there was the bleat of a ewe.
The girl made a sound too, a sort of wheeze. Tolly moved back to her. Around her right temple the hair was matted with blood. She needed medical care and fast. He bent and picked her up, easy, as if she was a lamb. Then he whistled for Jess and set out for home.
*
At the farm, Tolly took the girl inside and carried her upstairs. A fan of his girlie magazines lay across his bed and he swept them to the floor before laying the girl down and covering her with a sheet.
He stood over her for a moment and then reached under the sheet for her hand. His own bear-of-a-palm dwarfed the girl’s as he held it. She felt cold, colder than she should be on a summer’s day. Tolly whistled for the dog and seconds later heard her scampering up the stairs.
‘Stay with her, Jess.’
The dog glanced up at Tolly and then leapt on to the bed and curled up at the feet of the girl. Tolly nodded and then stomped down the stairs and outside to the open-fronted shed where the Ferguson was parked up. He climbed up on to the tractor and pressed the starter.
Whirr, whirr, whirr.
The engine turned over but didn’t start.
Again.
Whirr, whirr, whirr.
Diesel!
Tolly jumped down and ran to the back of the shed where he stored the big jerry can. He kept the can full in case of emergencies, like when he’d had to take Jess to the vet’s in Chagford on account of her eating a dose of rat poison.
The diesel seemed to take forever to glug out of the can and into the fuel tank, but when it had he flung the can down and jumped up and pressed the starter.
Whirr, whirr, whirr … chug-chug-chug-a-chug.
Tolly looked over his shoulder and down at the transport box on the back of the tractor. Should he take the girl with him? For a second he thought maybe he should, but then he remembered the state of the track. She’d be thrown around in the back there and the ride wouldn’t do her any good at all.
Tolly shoved the gearstick forwards, pulled back the throttle and engaged the clutch. The tractor lurched from the shed and he span the wheel and steered out of the yard.
The ruts in the track were dry and hard and the only suspension was in the sprung seat. After a few hundred yards, Tolly was glad he’d decided not to bring the girl. Every so often the wheels of the tractor tried to climb out of the ruts and then bounce back down again. Usually at each occurrence of this Tolly would shout out his Michael Caine line, but now he kept silent. Caine was an actor, the blood in his films fake, and everybody who died or was killed got to their feet as soon as the director shouted ‘cut’.
Ninety minutes later and Tolly was on his way back to the farm. Only this time he was sitting in the rear of a Landrover. Through the glass in the back of the cab he could see the driver - a local farmer - and Sergeant Hanning and Constable Finn from Chagford. Every so often one of the officers would look back for a second and Tolly could see that neither man believed his story. He’d stood in the police station in floods of tears, close to becoming hysterical. Eventually they’d agreed to return with him to the farm, warning him that if he was mucking them around he’d be for it.
As they swung into the farmyard Jess came bounding over. Tolly jumped down from the back and cursed the dog. He lashed out at her with his boot and she squealed as he caught her in the stomach.
‘Now then, Sam,’ Hanning said. ‘Calm down.’
‘I told her to stay with the girl,’ Tolly said.
‘Did you now? Clever dog, isn’t she? Because if that’s true then she’s managed to come outside and close the door behind her.’
Tolly looked across at the farmhouse. He’d pulled the door shut, he was sure. Jess was a clever dog, but she wasn’t that clever.
‘Come on, Sarge,’ Finn said. ‘Let’s get this sorted and then we can get back. I’m gagging for an early pint.’
Tolly led the officers across the yard and into the house. He clumped up the stairs and pushed open the door to his bedroom.
‘Thank God!’ a voice said from inside.
‘Hang on,’ Hanning said, grabbing Tolly by the shoulder. ‘Let me go first.’
Hanning went into the room and Tolly followed.
Father Ryan stood next to the bed, blood all down one side of his face. He gestured at the girl. The sheet had been removed and her dress pulled up.
‘He attacked me,’ the priest said. ‘Left me for dead and took the girl.’ He pointed down at the spread of magazines on the floor. ‘Bloody pervert.’
*
This time Jane didn’t glance out of the window when she rose from the computer. Instead she went straight downstairs and made herself a late lunch. She needed nourishment if she was to come up with an ending for the story and right now she was famished.
The microwave pinged out and she removed the container of tomato soup and d
ecanted it into a bowl. Crusty bread - the remains of a loaf she’d baked in her breadmaker the day before - butter and cheese completed the meal and before long she was climbing back up the stairs.
At the window she stopped and peered out. The rain had set in now, great sheets marching across the beach in lines. The IRB was high and dry having been recovered onto its launch trailer. A huddle of people stood next to the Coastguard Landrover and Jane could see a black body bag to one side. Four of the volunteers bent and lifted the bag on to a stretcher and then they began to walk across the beach towards the lifeboat station.
Jane shook her head. There was no happy ending down there, but then as soon as she’d seen the body in the surf she’d realised that. Death was always a tragedy and for someone, somewhere, a phone would soon be ringing. And the call would bring bad news.
She sat down in front of the computer and stared at the words on the screen. Tolly was in trouble and as yet she had no idea how he was going to get out of it.
Three
‘There’s a hundred of them at least,’ Sergeant Hanning said. ‘It’s a bloody lynch mob.’
Tolly watched from a chair inside the cell, the door to which stood open. PC Finn slouched against the frame, guarding him. The little station in Chagford consisted of just a couple of rooms, the cell doubling for interviews and storage. There was a table, chair and a bed. The bed had no mattress, just bare springs. Tolly didn’t think it looked very comfortable. He hoped he wouldn’t be staying the night.
‘And the phone’s still out?’ Finn said.
Someone’s taken the line down I reckon. Whole village is cut off.’ Hanning shook his head. ‘This is trouble, lad. Never seen anything like it. There’s friends of mine out there but they’re not in the mood for talking.’