by S J Bolton
‘I thought that was the cheetah,’ I said. The falcon hadn’t taken its eyes off me.
‘Cheetah, shmeetah,’ said Nick, lifting his fingers towards the bird again, pulling them out of reach as the bird ducked its head. ‘The cheetah can run at seventy miles an hour for a couple of minutes. Peregrines have been recorded diving at two hundred miles per hour.’
At the far end of the shed, on a separate, raised perch, a bird that I was pretty certain was an owl jumped and spread its wings, as though clamouring for attention.
‘Well, I would be impressed, but isn’t that just the same as falling?’ I said. ‘If you’re high enough, don’t you just gather speed ad infinitum?’
Nick held out his arm and the falcon stepped on to it. ‘The essential difference between freefall and a controlled dive is that a peregrine can pull himself out of a dive in two seconds.’
I took a step closer to them both. ‘Will he let me touch him?’ I asked. The bird looked at me as if to say, Try it, sweetheart.
‘He’s a bit jumpy,’ said Nick. ‘Even I have to watch myself. Leah will, though.’ He put his arm back to the perch and the falcon graciously stepped down.
‘Put this on.’ Nick was holding out a long leather glove. I pulled it on over my right hand. It stretched halfway up my arm. Then Nick raised my arm until it was horizontal and led me further into the shed until we were both surrounded by intense black eyes. He lifted the owl from her perch and put her gently down on my outstretched arm. She was almost entirely white except that the feathers on her back and wings were the colour you might see if a tortoiseshell cat was turning slowly to gold.
‘She weighs nothing,’ I said, lifting my arm a fraction. She gave a little jump and shook her wing feathers.
‘She’s really just a pet,’ Nick replied. ‘A barn owl. Owls aren’t much good for hunting. I fly her sometimes, just for fun.’
‘And these birds hunt for you?’ I asked. ‘They actually catch food that you eat?’
‘More than I can eat. That’s why Liz comes in handy. You should come out with me one day.’
‘Do you fly them every day?’
‘In the season, yes.’
‘How do you find time to work?’ I asked.
‘I’m a GP,’ he said. ‘We work part time and get paid a fortune. Don’t you read the papers?’
Leah turned her head to look directly at me. There was something a bit eerie about the way her head could move independently of her body. Nick reached out and ran his hand lightly over her crown. As his hand left her, she seemed to stretch up towards him.
‘Never thought I’d hear one of you admit it,’ I said.
‘Oh, I’m always honest about the small things,’ he said. ‘That way the big lies tend to go unnoticed. You weren’t too sure when you came in, were you?’
‘Not really,’ I said. ‘A bird very like these attacked me yesterday.’
‘Where?’
‘A couple of miles from here. Not far out of town. I was out running. I thought I might lose my eyes at one point. It was a bit freaky.’
‘Describe it for me,’ he said.
As best I could, from memory, I described the bird that had flown at me the day before. I gave a rough idea of its wingspan, the colour of its feathers. ‘Bigger than these,’ I finished, looking carefully at the falcons. ‘And with different feathers underneath.’
‘Sounds like a buzzard,’ said Nick.
‘Are they known for rowdy behaviour?’
‘Well, funnily enough, it’s not unheard of,’ he replied. ‘Especially in the summer when they’ve got young in the nests. This time of year, though, it is unusual. I can only imagine it had been kept in captivity at some point and became used to humans providing food.’
The birds sensed the commotion before we heard it. One second they were relaxed, getting used to our presence, maybe even enjoying the unexpected company, the next there was a massive ruffling of feathers, excited jumping around and frantic squawking. Nick gave the door a worried glance before reaching out to take Leah from me. He put her back on her perch, spoke softly to the others and led me to the door.
‘You there, Nick?’ called a man’s voice. I stayed in the shed. I’d recognized that voice.
‘We’re here,’ called Nick. ‘What’s up?’
‘There’s a dog in with the yows down at Tydes End,’ said the voice I knew. ‘Causing fuckin’ mayhem, according to Sam.’
Nick sucked in a deep breath. ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘It’s too bloody dark. We’ll need lights.’
‘Got ’em. John’s taken the truck down. I said we’d follow.’
Nick turned to me. I had no choice but to step outside. Two men had approached. One was a tall dark-haired man in his late forties who looked as though he ate too much red meat. The other was smaller and slimmer, with silver hair and narrow-set eyes. He was the man called Jim whom Liz had pointed out earlier. He was also the farmer-bully who’d turned me out of the scary woods the previous day.
‘Laura, can you make your way back to the house?’ Nick said. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’
I sensed Jim hadn’t recognized me. The day before, I’d been in jogging clothes, my hair pulled back and dark with sweat, no make-up. Dressed for a party I looked very different. ‘Of course,’ I replied. ‘Everything all right?’
‘There’s a dog worrying the sheep a couple of fields along,’ said Nick. ‘They’re all in lamb so it’s pretty serious. Half the flock could miscarry if we don’t get it out of there. Back soon.’
He patted my shoulder and was off, stopping only to unlock the last shed in the row and pull something that looked a lot like a shotgun out of it. Then he and the other two men disappeared over a fence and across the field.
Jessica walked on, further into the forest, and gradually became aware that the light was changing. The trees were no longer black and silver in the moonlight but a pale shade of gold. They were gleaming all around her, glowing brightly as though reflecting back sunshine. She looked up. As each tree reached the midnight-blue sky, the gold trunks splintered into a glittering cobweb of branches. And tiny pieces of gold were drifting down from above. At first Jessica thought they were falling leaves, but as one landed on her outstretched arm she realized it was snowing.
The snowflake, nearly three centimetres in diameter, stayed on her wrist. She could see its intricate pattern, like the inside of a kaleidoscope, against her pale skin. She watched it melt and others take its place. Golden snowflakes were falling all around her, landing on her arms, her legs, her hair, and covering the ground like a carpet of silk.
Jessica stood up. She had never seen anything so beautiful in her life as this golden wood, in which the trees seemed almost to be growing before her eyes. She could see them breathing, their long, strong trunks swelling as they took in air, then relaxing as they breathed out again. She’d always known that trees breathed, all plants did, but had never thought she’d actually see it happening.
With each breath they grew a little taller. And were they singing? They were. The trees were singing to her, a soft, high-pitched, almost tuneless song, like the sound whales make when they call to each other across hundreds of miles of ocean. It was the sort of music you might hear among the stars.
Jessica turned on the spot, listening to the trees call to each other, knowing that if she stood here and listened hard, she might actually start to understand what they were saying. She realized she wasn’t afraid any more. There was nothing to be afraid of in a wood so beautiful. She took a step closer to the nearest tree and reached out. It was warm and soft, like the skin on a warm-blooded animal. She stroked it and felt the tree purr in response like a great cat.
From behind her came a low-pitched chuckle.
Jessica jumped round, her back against the cat-like tree. Someone was watching her. Inching her way round the tree, she began to back away. She’d long since left the path behind. She had only the light from the golden trees to guide her, and the soft iri
descence of the snow at her feet. She backed up against another tree and worked her way round it. She almost stumbled but managed to get her balance in time.
Still watching her. And getting closer. She couldn’t see them but she could hear them breathing, smell the bitter, stale male odour.
A twig snapped behind her and Jessica began to run. She didn’t dare look back, just kept on running, over rough ground, dodging undergrowth, finding narrow paths through the trees. She saw the lights and the thought flashed into her head that this might be fresh danger. She didn’t process it in time. She’d reached the clearing, had stumbled among them, before she saw the clowns.
I was in no hurry to get back to polite conversation with strangers, but when I reached the back garden I saw the fire-pit was still lit. Two men and a girl were gathered on fold-up chairs around it. Maybe I’d join them. I’d heard people say smokers were the best fun at a social gathering. I was just drawing close when Evi appeared at the back door wearing a blue woollen coat speckled with snowflakes.
‘There you are, Laura,’ she said. ‘Any chance of you walking me to my car?’
Evi didn’t strike me as the sort of woman who’d need walking to her car, disabled or not, so I figured she wanted to talk to me.
‘You’re leaving early,’ I said. ‘Or is it over? Does everybody have to get up for milking?’
‘No, it’s just me,’ she said. ‘I don’t really do late nights.’
Evi’s car was parked next to mine. I held the door open for her and she looked around, as though checking we were alone.
‘Are you OK?’ I asked.
She didn’t reply for a moment, letting her eyes fall to the steering wheel then raising them back to me again. In the dim light they looked black. Then, ‘Do you know much about IT, Laura?’ she said. ‘From a forensic point of view?’
‘A bit,’ I replied. ‘What’s happened?’
Other people were leaving too and drawing closer. I walked round and climbed into the passenger seat of Evi’s car.
‘There’s another track twenty yards down the lane,’ I said, as she turned to me in surprise. ‘You can drop me off there.’
We drove for a second or two and then she pulled over. The car behind passed us.
‘I didn’t realize you knew Nick,’ Evi said.
‘I met him a few days ago at the hospital,’ I replied. ‘Do you know him well?’
‘We both studied medicine here,’ she told me. ‘Nick was a couple of years ahead of me.’ Her face relaxed into a smile. ‘He came to see me yesterday. He’s worried about the suicides too. He was quite relieved to know someone is doing something.’
Worried about the suicides? Or worried that Evi might be on to him?
‘You didn’t tell him about me?’ I asked.
Her eyes opened wider. ‘No, of course not,’ she said. ‘I just thought you might have done.’
I shook my head firmly. ‘No, I haven’t. He can’t know.’ If there was one thing Joesbury and the others had impressed upon me it was that no one could know who I was. Trust no one.
‘So your IT problem,’ I said. ‘What’s that all about?’
She turned away again, tapped her fingers on the steering wheel, glanced into the mirror. There was nothing behind us, just dark shapes all around. ‘I may have a stalker,’ she said eventually. ‘But the police don’t take me terribly seriously. They think I’m a bit … hysterical.’
Hysterical wasn’t a word I’d use to describe Evi Oliver. Anxious maybe, suffering from poor health certainly, but otherwise very considered in everything she said and did.
‘What sort of stalker?’ I asked.
‘I had a couple of threatening emails the other night,’ she told me. ‘But when I tried to forward them on to the detective I’ve been speaking to, they disappeared from my system completely. Now he doubts whether they ever existed in the first place and I’m beginning to think the same thing myself.’
‘They vanished when you forwarded them on?’
‘Yes. Is that possible?’
‘Perfectly,’ I said. ‘They’ll have had some sort of malware built into them that activated when you tried to forward, save or print them. They’ll still be on your computer somewhere. We have forensic computer analysts in the Met. They’d find them in a jiffy.’
‘I’m not sure it merits the attention of the Metropolitan Police,’ said Evi. ‘But it’s good to know I might not be losing it completely.’
‘You and I probably shouldn’t exchange any more emails until we know your system’s secure,’ I said.
She sighed and looked worried.
‘Is that it?’ I asked, pretty certain it wasn’t.
She shook her head. ‘There were phone calls too,’ she said. ‘A lot of them, one after the other on my mobile and my home phone. Nobody there. Number withheld.’
‘When?’ I asked again.
‘Two nights ago,’ she said. ‘Wednesday was when they started. There were more last night and tonight before I came out. I switched both phones off in the end. Which doesn’t really work given that I have to be on call next week.’
‘It’s a real pain,’ I said. ‘But it happens, sadly. You may have to change your numbers and hope they give up. It’s probably not personal.’
Evi said nothing. She didn’t have to. The way she tucked both thumbs into her mouth in a desperate, childlike gesture spoke volumes. I waited, counting in my head. At thirty, she looked at me again.
‘That’s just it,’ she said. ‘It’s very personal.’
Three clowns were sitting around a slatted wooden crate that served as a tea table. A teapot, white with coloured spots, and three matching cups and saucers stood on the crate. There was a plate of cupcakes and another of sandwiches. One clown, dressed in a patchwork jumpsuit, was being mother. It had huge, white, skeletal hands that shook as it raised the pot and poured. All three clowns giggled when the steaming liquid spilled on to the ground. The clown with the teapot had three tufts of scarlet hair that bounced up and down as he laughed. The lower third of his white face was all teeth.
The clown who took the outstretched teacup wore the red and yellow checked suit of an eccentric English country squire. His face seemed twice the normal length, tapering into a sharp point that reached almost to his breastbone. His hair was long, wild and a lurid green.
The third clown seemed enormous. It wore layer after layer of multicoloured ruff round its neck and red and white striped trousers. Its belly and bottom were massive. So were its feet, in the clown’s traditional enormous shoes. This clown’s face, like the others, was mostly grinning yellow teeth.
‘Hello, Jessica,’ it said.
Ten minutes later I watched the tail lights of Evi’s car disappear, then turned back to the house, wondering if I’d done the right thing telling her not to worry and that I’d see her on Tuesday.
Creepy toys. Masked figures in the garden. Blood – albeit fake – in the bath. Those were the actions of a seriously disturbed mind. And a clever one at that.
Two more cars passed me in the lane and I could hear more cars starting up. Country folk obviously did keep earlier hours. I really had to go myself. Evi’s story had worried me. I also wanted to think about Nick Bell and whether I really suspected him. And if he was involved, involved with what? Then there was Scott Thornton, a senior member of my college who, together with a couple of mates, had dressed up like Zorro and borrowed a well-established college ritual in order to scare and humiliate a new student.
Then all thoughts of Bell and Thornton fled, to be replaced by the most hideous sound. Several short guttural sounds, in fact. Like someone trying to scream and having the breath choked out of them at each attempt.
Run! The voice in my head told me. Hide!
Telling myself the sounds had been faint, that whatever had made them was almost certainly some distance away, and that they’d been carried to me on the wind, I nevertheless stepped into the lane, not wanting to be too close to the hedge. Or to an
ything that might be hiding. The night had fallen silent again.
What on earth had I heard? A woman screaming in distress had been my first thought, but we were miles from anywhere out here. I looked back towards the house, wondering how long it would take me to sprint there, in the dark and over uneven ground.
There was something moving in the hedge. Something large, breathing heavily. I stepped back, a second from running for my life, at the same time not daring to take my eyes from what was coming at me. A creature, on four powerful legs, teeth gleaming as though they were lit from within. It bounded up to me with a speed I couldn’t hope to match. Then stopped, just a little too well mannered to spring.
‘Hello,’ I said, with a voice that didn’t sound too steady. ‘Where did you come from?’
The dog was soaking wet. It poked its long white nose towards the pockets of my borrowed oilskin. Its tail was wagging and its ears were back and it simply knew that my fingers were made to tickle the backs of its ears. When I stopped it stood upright on its hind legs, putting its front paws on my chest. It wasn’t far off my height. Could a dog, this dog, have made the noise I’d just heard? I didn’t think so.
Oh, having my face licked was a compliment I could do without.
Then I heard shouting from the field immediately on the other side of the hedge. I recognized Nick’s voice and the thin, reedy tones of silver-haired Jim. This had to be the dog from the sheep field. If so, they were hot on its trail. They’d be with us any second.
‘Come on,’ I whispered to the dog. Obedient in the way only dogs are, it followed me to my car.
‘In you get.’ It jumped inside and settled itself down on my back seat.
‘Keep your head down,’ I told it, before heading back towards the house. By the time I’d found my coat, Nick and the others were back.
‘Any luck?’ Liz asked Nick, completely ignoring Jim. He shook his head and turned to me.
‘Are we losing you?’
‘Early start,’ I lied. ‘Thanks for having me over.’
‘I’ll walk you to your car,’ he offered.
‘No, really. You should see to your guests.’