He moved along the wall so he could see past the house and into the rest of the compound. A few figures were moving about, but not many. The Mercer farm was not a large one and most of the hands lived on neighbouring holdings. He estimated that no more than six people were inside the compound at the moment. Clearly whatever was happening further north didn’t worry Big Keith.
Over in the corner of the yard there was a brick-built storage shed. He scuttled through the shadows at the base of the wall until he reached it, sat behind it, and settled down to wait.
A few hours later, he looked round the side of the shed and saw nobody about. Going back along the wall, he saw that the house was in darkness again. He walked up to the big windows of the sitting room and examined the lock in the moonlight. It was a simple latch, and by working the tip of his knife between the window frame and the jamb he was able to spring it open with barely a sound. He slid the door open a little, slipped inside, closed it behind him.
He stood in the sitting room for a minute or so, letting his eyes become accustomed to the darkness inside the house, then he moved soundlessly to the door and looked out into a long hallway. Moving unhurriedly, he listened at each of the doors opening off the hall. From two of the rooms, he heard snoring. Listening at a third, he heard quiet conversation, a man and a woman, their voices too low to make out what was being said. He moved on.
In the study, he found what he was looking for. A metal gun cabinet standing in the corner, like a tall narrow wardrobe. It was unlocked, because who would dare steal from the Mercers? Inside were racked three hunting rifles and, miracle of miracles, an ancient semi-automatic rifle of a kind he had only heard about in stories. It looked alien and efficient. Carefully, he lifted the rifles out of the cabinet and laid them on the carpeted floor. At the bottom of the cabinet were boxes of ammunition, and clips for the semi-automatic. He opened the study window and placed each of them outside, then climbed out after them and carried them behind the shed.
Going back into the house, he found his way into the kitchen. Lighting a spill from the range, he lit one of the oil lanterns hanging from the wall, then another, then another. He moved into the sitting room again and lit the lanterns there and carried them out into the hallway. And here he paused.
There was, perhaps, still a dim corner of the old Morty left, the one who would absorb any punishment and insult thrown at him because giving up was easier than fighting back. It was that faint remnant which waited, savouring the quiet, the peace. There was a surprisingly sexual thrill about knowing that he could stop right now, leave the farm, and he delayed acting for long, long moments, finally in control of something. Then he picked up one of the lanterns and pitched it underarm down the hallway.
It smashed and instantly burst into a ball of flame, but he was already moving, opening a door, throwing a lamp inside, moving to the next, throwing another.
In a few moments the hallway was full of smoke and screaming. One of the doors opened and a figure lurched out. Morty lifted his shotgun and fired and the figure collapsed. He moved on, pitching lamps into the study and the sitting room and finally into the kitchen before opening the front door and walking out into the yard.
The house was already on fire; it had taken a surprisingly short time to catch. Morty saw someone come round the side of the building, and he shot them and reloaded unhurriedly. More shouting and screaming in the house. The front door flew open, and he saw, silhouetted against the flames, the figure of Big Keith.
If this were a story, he would have a last line to say, something pithy and amusing. But this wasn’t a story. He took two steps forward and Big Keith had just enough time to register who was standing in front of him before Morty emptied both barrels of the shotgun into his face.
Moving quickly now – the shots would carry a long way on the night air and someone would be coming to investigate – Morty collected the rifles and the ammo and carried them across the yard to the gate. A last look back – the house was completely ablaze now – and he unlatched the gate, opened it a little, slipped through, and was gone.
Chapter Fifteen
“OH, FOR FUCK’S sake,” Harry said.
The Mercer farmhouse was still smouldering, smoke rising into the drizzly air from broken windows and the collapsed roof. He could see a couple of bodies lying in the yard. It was hard to be certain from here by the gate, but one seemed to have no head.
“It’s the second one in two days,” Tony Khan said. “Someone burned the Roberts farm too. Monty Roberts and his wife are missing.”
“Morty,” said Gary Wren.
Tony shrugged. “Whatever.”
Harry was at a loss for words. Since Faye Ogden’s death and the delivery of Walter’s body to the Lyall farm – dumped in the mud outside the gate like a sack of vegetables – his people and the Taylors’ people had been taking potshots at each other in the woods and along the trackways that laced the Parish. Nobody had been hurt so far, though. And it was all local, around the two respective farms. The Mercers were miles away from any trouble.
“We want your protection,” Gary said.
“You want my what?” said Harry.
“We know who did this,” said Tony. “Big Keith had a row with Max Taylor last year.”
Harry hadn’t known the Mercers very well, but he suspected it was more likely that Big Keith would have been responsible for any retaliation, not the other way round. He said, “And your William’s missing too?”
Gary nodded. “Haven’t seen him since the day before yesterday. Ma’s going frantic.”
Harry was having a hard time connecting this atrocity with his own problems; it was a completely new level of madness. He said, “You know, this is just as likely to be bandits.”
“Strangers came through here and did this, we’d have noticed,” Tony said. “Big Keith was no fool; must’ve taken fifteen or twenty people to get into the compound and kill everybody.”
Harry wasn’t so certain. He said, “If fifteen or twenty of the Taylors came through here, you’d have noticed too.”
“Locals?” Gary said. “Moving at night?” He spat on the ground.
“Did nobody hear anything?” Harry asked.
“We heard some shooting, came over to see what was going on, but the house was already on fire and everybody was dead.”
“It’s got to be the Taylors,” Tony said. “Who else could it have been?”
Harry walked out into the yard and stood with his hands in his pockets, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Look,” he said, “I can’t tell you lads what to do, you don’t owe me anything, but if I was you, I’d be really careful about spreading rumours about who did this. Things are bad enough right now as it is. We don’t need a war on our hands.”
“What if they come back for us?” asked Gary. “We were friends of Big Keith’s.”
Harry rubbed his forehead as if massaging away a spike of pain. “Trust me,” he said, “the Taylors have got their hands full at the moment without coming down here and giving you grief.”
Gary and Tony looked at each other. “So you won’t help us?” said Tony.
Harry thought about it. The southern edge of the Parish had always been a peaceful place; they traded more with the community in Lambourn than they did with the farms along the crest of the ridge. He said, “If you need my help, really need it, I won’t leave you hanging. But there’s no earthly reason for the Taylors to have done this.” He watched the two men exchange glances again, and knew it was pointless.
AFTER WALTER’S FUNERAL, Harry and the senior members of his family retired to the house. Harry refused to think of it as a council of war, but really that was the only difference. He still had a couple of bottles of whisky his father had bought from the Mortons up in Wycombe, back in the day, and he poured everyone a glass and sat them down around the big dining table. Everyone here was a cousin, either by blood or marriage, although some were more recent additions and Harry didn’t know all their names. Th
ere seemed too many of them.
“Well,” he said. “There seems no reason for someone to be hanging round the Taylors’ gate waiting to take a potshot at someone coming out unless it was one of us.” The story of what had happened at the Taylor farm had come via two Taylor hands, exiled and looking for shelter. After hearing their story, Harry had given them some food and sent them away. He didn’t need to be harbouring two more people with a grudge against Max and his family.
“Walter didn’t do it,” said an angry, teary woman he didn’t know but assumed was a relative of the boy. “It wouldn’t have crossed his mind to hurt anybody.”
Harry felt he had to bear the lion’s share of the blame, for putting the idea of a marauding wolf into Walter’s head. But he was going to have to bear it on his own. He said, “I don’t want any reprisals for this.” And he rode out the angry muttering of his family. When it had subsided, he said, “Someone shot Faye Ogden, for fuck’s sake. If it wasn’t Walter and I find out who did it, I’m going to shake them by the fucking ears myself.”
“We can’t just sit on our hands while they kill our own, Harry,” said his cousin Barbara.
“We can, and we will.” He looked around the table. “Unless you really want a war.” The lack of agreement was dispiriting, at best.
“So, what,” said Neil Brookes, his second cousin Ruth’s husband. “We’re going to carry on as normal?”
“No, we’re not,” said Harry. “We’re going to be very, very careful not to annoy anyone. Not just the Taylors, but any of the other families.”
“What if they do this again?” asked someone whose name he didn’t know.
“They won’t,” he said. “I’m going to make sure of that.”
IT WAS, WHEN he thought about it later, an act of quite considerable bravado. He’d known these paths and roads and fields and woods all his life – had played in them with Max when they were boys – but now the landscape seemed fraught with danger as he rode slowly down the path towards the Taylor farm in the drizzle.
As he came round the last bend, he saw dozens of people patrolling on top of the wall around the Taylor compound and for a moment he faltered. He drew the horse to a halt and sat there looking at the gate, the clusters of heads peering over the parapet at him. There was still time to turn and go home. He might make it.
Instead, he clucked his tongue and shook the reins and the horse plodded contentedly up to the gate.
“Taylors!” he called.
Patrick, Max’s eldest, looked down at him. “Go home, Harry.”
“I want to talk to your mother,” he said.
“Not going to happen. Go home before I shoot you.” And he lifted a crossbow to his shoulder.
“I’m not armed,” Harry said. He shrugged out of his long coat, sat there in the drizzle in his pullover and jeans.
“I don’t care, Harry. You’re not coming in here.”
“Let him in,” called a voice from the other side of the wall, down in the yard.
Patrick turned and looked down. “No.”
“He’s come here, on his own and unarmed,” said the voice. “Don’t you know how much balls that takes? Let him in, let’s hear what he has to say. While we still can.”
For a moment, Harry had a dizzying sense that the past few days had not happened, that he was here again to collect Rob’s body. He wondered if any of this could have been avoided if he’d done things differently.
Patrick leaned over the wall and looked in both directions. Then he nodded down into the yard, and after a few moments the gate slid open, just far enough for Harry to walk the horse through. Where he faced a semicircle of heavily-armed people. He noted crossbows and longbows and shotguns and various pieces of edged and serrated agricultural equipment. The gate clanked shut behind him.
The semicircle opened, and John Race stepped through and took the horse’s bridle. “Harry,” he said.
“I’m here to talk to Rose, John. I don’t want any trouble.”
“I think things have gone way beyond that. Get down; we’ll look after the horse.”
Harry dismounted. “Can I put my coat back on?”
Patrick came down a set of stairs built against the inside of the wall. He patted Harry down, then took his coat from where it was draped over the horse’s neck and inspected the pockets. He threw it at Harry and earned a look of rebuke from John. He beckoned Harry.
“You’ve got guts, I will give you that,” he said, as they walked across the compound.
“I didn’t see there was much choice,” Harry said, shrugging into his coat and pulling up the hood. “Where’s Rose?”
“She’s with Max. I can’t let you see her, Harry. I don’t know what she’d do if she knew you were here.”
Harry glanced at him. “This has got to stop, John.”
“It’s not me you have to convince. Did that lad kill Faye?”
Harry shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so, but I don’t know.”
“Well, miz is sick. Faye said it would happen.”
“Sick how?”
“In shock. Exhausted.”
“So who’s running things?”
The old man shrugged.
Harry stopped and looked round the compound. “Well,” he said, “this is good.”
“I’ve known you and Max since you were boys; you’re not bad men. Nobody here is a bad person. But bad stuff is going to happen. Half the people in this yard would give you a good kicking if you gave them the slightest reason. The other half would shoot you.”
“Have any of your people been down on the south side lately?”
“What? No. Not that I know of, anyway.”
“Someone burned out Big Keith Mercer’s farm last night, killed everybody. And another farm.” He couldn’t remember the name.
John scowled. “Fucking hell,” he said. “Bandits are all we need right now.”
“The locals down there say Max and Big Keith had some sort of grudge going on.”
“Oh, come on, Harry. You know Max; he never held a grudge against anybody in his life. I’m sorry to hear Big Keith’s dead, but seriously, he was a twat.”
“So he wasn’t making trouble? Taking advantage of the situation?”
“No. No, not that I know of, anyway. We don’t even know what the situation is yet.” He reached out and grasped Harry’s forearm. “Whatever’s going on down there, it’s got nothing to do with us. We’ve got enough trouble here.”
There was a commotion across the yard and Patrick came striding towards them, crossbow in hand. “What are you two plotting?”
“We’re plotting a way for nobody else to die,” John said.
“And how’s that going?”
Harry and John exchanged glances.
“Time for you to go, Harry mate,” Patrick said.
“We haven’t finished having our conversation,” said John. The tone of his voice suggested that he wasn’t talking to his boss’s son; he was talking to a sixteen-year-old boy who had interrupted two men trying to do something important.
If Patrick noticed, he gave no sign, and that, more than anything he had seen here, made Harry’s heart sink. “Yes, you have.”
John turned away, looked around the yard. Harry willed him to carry on, to make Patrick know who was running things while his father and mother were unable. But he didn’t. He sighed, and Harry saw his shoulders slump a fraction, and he knew it was all over.
He reached out and touched John’s arm. “I’ll go,” he said.
“That’s good, Harry,” said Patrick.
He turned to face the boy and took a step towards him, saw out of the corner of his eye every single person in the yard tense up. He leaned forward until their faces were inches apart. “Don’t do this, Patrick,” he said quietly.
Patrick looked startled for a moment, then he smiled and stepped back. “Off you trot, Harry,” he said, waving his bow in the direction of the horse. “I’ll be seeing you.”
Harr
y paused a few seconds, then he nodded to John, who looked as if he was in agony, and set out across the yard. The crowd parted silently, no one threatened him, but it was still the longest walk he had ever taken.
Chapter Sixteen
THE MOSTLY LEVEL country between the coast and Canterbury was so waterlogged and overgrown as to be almost impassable. Frank’s family had opened two of the roads from Margate – quite an achievement in itself – but they were patrolled by enforcers even at the best of times, so trying to get out of Thanet that way was likely to be a bit of a grind ending in a firefight he couldn’t win.
He could go back the way he had come, that first time, looping south back into Sussex before turning north again, but that was a fuck of a long way, and he was going to have to do most of it on foot because he didn’t dare beg for rides on passing wagons.
There was, however, the old railway line between Margate and London. Slightly elevated above the surrounding land in most places, swamped by trees and washed away by floods in others, it was useless as a trade route or for moving large numbers of men. But looking at it from the branches of a tree about half a mile away, Adam thought it might work. It would at least take him up onto the Downs, and the further he got from Thanet the more sparsely the countryside was inhabited. Frank’s people couldn’t be everywhere; there just weren’t enough of them and the territory they controlled was too large. They would be concentrating themselves on and around the obvious roads in and out of the area and hoping he was too stupid not to use them.
Four days out from Reculver, Adam found himself a hiding place in a ruined house and cranked up the radio again.
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