Shepherd's Cross

by Mark White

  SHEPHERD’S CROSS

  by

  MARK WHITE

  Text copyright © 2014 Mark White

  All Rights Reserved

  To Felicity…

  …for giving me time

  Table Of Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Table Of Contents

  Part 1: Thursday

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Part 2: Friday

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Part 3: Saturday

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Part 4: Sunday

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  About the Author

  Part 1: Thursday

  Chapter 1

  4.00pm: Wilf Blackett’s young Border Collie glided over the moors, darting between gorse and heather with an effortless grace so typical of the breed. Out on the remote North Pennines, the fields stretched endlessly. A farmer needed a good dog to manage in this hill country. Rex, with a long and established bloodline, was exactly the kind of dog that could be relied upon to serve his master’s needs.

  The job on that particular afternoon in early January was simple enough; a routine check around the boundaries to make sure all was in order. To check that the sheep were safe and the walls were standing firm before darkness fell. Blackett followed after his dog on his quad bike, taking his time and thinking about the remainder of the dying day that lay ahead of him. He and his neighbours had looked after these hills for generations, and very little had changed the way they went about their work. Hill farmers were a hardy breed, almost as hardy as the sheep upon which their livelihoods depended. You couldn’t grow anything of worth on this land; too gnarled, uneven and ancient. Nevertheless, there was a simple beauty in the expansiveness of the barren hills. A raw, primordial magnetism that drew all manner of visitors to them, like the summertime tourists who came to explore the ancient bridleways and footpaths, or the nature enthusiasts, drawn to the various wildflowers and birds that were to be found depending on the season. For others, however, the pull of the moors was more permanent. For people like Wilf Blackett, living in this rugged terrain came almost as naturally as it did to the moorhens and grouse with which they shared it.

  Blackett arrived at the corner of the top field, squeezing the brakes on his quad and letting it roll to a halt. He climbed off the machine and approached the gate, lighting the dog-end of a cigarette that had been keeping the back of his ear company for the past half hour. Reaching the gate, he paused to take in the view of Shepherd’s Cross; the village that nestled in the valley below. He was dwelling on how little the place had changed since he had walked these fields as a boy when an uncomfortable feeling washed over him, leaving him shivering and confused and worried that his heart had finally decided to quit on him after years of neglect. The feeling passed as quickly as it had come, but it left him needing to lean against the gate to steady himself and catch his breath. He reached into his jacket pocket for the hip flask given to him by his wife for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. He unscrewed the cap and raised it to his lips, enjoying the warm, comforting taste of the whisky he had grown increasingly dependent upon to get him through the days and nights since she had died. Farming these hills was lonely work, but it was returning home to an empty house that made him feel most alone. It was all too easy to fool the outside world into believing he was coping well enough on his own, but not being willing to press on people’s time for companionship had come at a price.

  A violent gust of wind blasted across the ground, forcing him to turn up his collar and hunch sideways to shield his face from the worst of the chill. A submissive whining noise drew his attention along the wall to the south-east corner of the field. He immediately sensed that something was wrong; Rex would only make such a noise when Blackett threatened to beat him for misbehaving. In the fading light of day, he could determine that the dog was circling a tall object, but from where he was standing, a combination of waning light and deteriorating eyesight made interpreting the shape too difficult. He would need to get closer.

  He returned to his quad bike, lamenting the lack of a gun. ‘Get a hold of yourself,’ he cursed. There was more than likely to be a perfectly reasonable explanation. Perhaps a hiker had veered from the trail, frightened out of his wits by a whining, growling farm dog. But even with his poor vision and whisky-infused imagination, Blackett was fairly certain the figure wasn’t human; it was too tall, thin and lifeless. It couldn’t have been there long – he hadn’t noticed it earlier in the day when he’d been up with some hay for the sheep. Whatever it was, it could have only been there for a few hours at most.

  Rex ran back towards his master, barking at him as if to insist that he needed to come and see what he’d discovered. Blackett fired up the quad and set off after his dog with a mix of curiosity and trepidation. The wind grew stronger, biting into his exposed face, the cold blast making his eyes water. He paid no attention to this discomfort; he’d lived through fifty-nine winters, and each one had served to harden both his mind and body to all that Mother Nature could throw at them.

  Weaving closer, he grew increasingly confident of two things: firstly, it wasn’t a lost hiker; there was no movement, even with the wind blowing as it was. Secondly, unless it had fallen out of the sky, it had not ended up there by accident. It must have been carried there, and judging by its size, there was more than one person involved. Neither realisation reassured him.

  There was almost no life remaining in the day as he pulled up a few yards away and killed the engine. He reached into a compartment and pulled out a torch that he kept mainly for the lambing season, turning it on as he swung his leg over the seat and climbed off. Rex continued to whine, uncomfortable as dogs are with uncertainty and the unfamiliar. Blackett pointed the torch towards the object and froze.

  A stout, ten-foot inverted cross reached up from the earth, at the top of which was mounted a sheep’s head, blood having dripped and dried down the black wood to the ground below. The decapitated sheep’s body had been discarded, lying several feet away in a clump of gorse. On closer inspection, it was clear that its head had been hacked away from its spine, in what could only have been a gruesome and horrifically painful death for the poor beast. Blackett’s focus shifted from the abandoned carcass back to the cross and up to the severed head, the eyes of which were staring in the direction of Shepherd’s Cross, its flickering streetlights visible in the distance.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ he whispered, instinctively taking a step back towar
ds his quad. By now it was too dark to see if there was anything lying around that could have provided a clue as to how the cross had ended up there, or who had been responsible for such a barbaric act. He looked up again, the wind now howling with ferocity. At that moment, who, why or what were questions that were beyond him. As he drained the remnants of his flask, his hand trembling as he pressed it to his lips, there was only one thing he could be sure of.

  He was not alone.

  Chapter 2

  5.30pm: Police Constable Cara Jones carried her cup to the kitchen and emptied its lukewarm contents into the sink. It had been a slow, uneventful day; one of those dark and dreary winter days where a minute seemed to last an hour. She had changed into her civvies so she could leave in good time to collect her three-year-old son Luke from nursery. It was just the two of them now, and there’d already been three occasions in the past six months where she’d arrived late, only to find one of the nursery assistants waiting impatiently with Luke in reception. On the third occasion, she’d been politely advised that there were perhaps other nurseries that would accommodate her erratic timekeeping. She’d come so close to losing her temper and telling them where to go, but her hands were tied. There was another nursery nearby with longer opening hours, but the higher price they charged put it way beyond what her entry-grade pay packet could stretch to.

  Nearly a year had passed since she had caught her husband Mike cheating on her, but memories of the events of that evening remained as vivid as if they had happened only yesterday. He had gone to take a shower, leaving his phone lying on the bedside table. When a beeping sound had alerted the world to a brand new text, she’d given in to curiosity and read it. It hadn’t taken him long to confess, after all, what line of defence could counter the words ‘Just thinking about you is making me wet!’?

  She had left him that night, driving to her sister’s house with Luke still asleep, curled up in his pyjamas in the back of the car. The worst part of it, even worse than the fabricated tales about overnight business trips and company away-days, was his lack of genuine remorse. He’d fluffed a few throwaway lines about being sorry, and how he’d never wanted to hurt her, but he hadn’t begged her to stay. He hadn’t even asked her to stay. Even now, nearly a year down the line, there was not a day that went by without her wondering how he could have done that to her; how he could have betrayed her so callously. Her mind went over it time and time again, but it didn’t get any easier.

  If there was one positive outcome to have emerged from the mess and heartache of that night, it was the determination it had given her to complete her Police training, which she had started a year before her marriage breakdown. If nothing else, she needed the money. Mike was paying what the law obliged him to, but not a penny more.

  Shepherd’s Cross was her first posting. A quiet, backwater village, where she could begin learning her trade without the constant pressure found in the larger towns and cities. She’d been posted there for six months, under the supervision of Sergeant Brian Jennings. At fifty-eight, he wasn’t heading for anywhere but retirement; a goal that resulted in his growing reluctance to do any kind of work that meant removing his backside from his well-worn leather chair.

  For the past eight years, Jennings had looked after the residents of Shepherd’s Cross, as well as the neighbouring hamlets of Bryerdene and Ancroft Garth. He knew and was known by everyone, and in spite of his recent tendency for doing the bare minimum, it was generally agreed that he was a likeable fellow who did a good job. He’d also been a good mentor for the young recruits who’d passed through his Station, giving them the freedom they needed to apply the practical aspects of their training, while ensuring that they became well-versed in the subtleties of enforcing the law in a fiercely self-reliant rural community. Cara was his first female officer in five years. They had hit it off straight away: she was ambitious but not arrogant, inquisitive but not overbearing. Jennings admired her; he had been raised by his mother and knew of the sacrifices she had made to provide for him in a time when rural society held divorcees in low esteem.

  Jennings had already left for the day. Thursday night was quiz night at The Fallen Angel, the village’s only Public House, and it was his turn to set the questions. As usual, he had left his quizmaster’s role to the last minute, so had decided to go home early and spend an hour cobbling together some half-hearted attempt at a quiz-sheet, cribbed unashamedly from his tattered edition of Trivial Pursuit.

  Cara was consequently alone when the Station phone started ringing. She hurried from the kitchen to the front desk, wondering who could be calling at this hour. She couldn’t be on the phone for long; if she was late again for nursery, it was highly likely that Luke’s place would be filled by a child whose mother never had a problem turning up on time.

  ‘Good afternoon. Shepherd’s Cross Police Station – PC Cara Jones speaking. How may I be of assistance?’

  ‘Umm. Aye. Hello. Is Sergeant Jennings there?’ The voice sounded frightened, the words spoken unevenly and with a sense of urgency. They almost always asked for Jennings. This had frustrated her when she’d first arrived; for a while she had felt somewhere between a secretary and a housekeeper. Over time, however, she had come to realise that trust was earned slowly and destroyed quickly in a place like this. She couldn’t expect to simply waltz in and command the same level of respect as Jennings - she had to work hard and prove herself if she was to share a platform with him.

  ‘I’m afraid Sergeant Jennings has left for the day. Is there anything I can help with? If you could perhaps begin by letting me know your name and reason for calling.’

  ‘It’s Wilf. Wilf Blackett from Banktop Farm. I need to report a crime.’ He proceeded to explain what had happened that afternoon. Cara took notes, listening intently and saying nothing until he had finished.

  ‘Do you have any idea who might have done this?’ she asked. ‘Have you fallen out with anyone recently?’

  ‘No. I don’t see anyone enough to fall out with them,’ he replied, conscious that his answer drew attention to his solitude. ‘But there was more than one of them, I’m certain of that. It takes more than one man to catch and cut the head off a fully-grown ewe, and….well, will you come and see for yourself? In the morning, when it’s light. There might be something I didn’t notice, but it was dark and to be honest I didn’t feel like hanging around.’

  ‘Of course - I understand. Either myself or Sergeant Jennings will call by first thing. Can you remember seeing anyone nearby at all?’

  ‘No. I saw nobody. But I didn’t feel alone.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘This is going to sound strange, but you see…I’ve worked this farm all my life. I know the land better than anyone. So you have to believe me when I tell you that I’ve never felt as strange as I did on that top field this afternoon. Something up there was watching me. I may not have been able to see anything, but I swear I wasn’t alone. Whatever it was, it frightened the life out of me.’

  The direct manner in which he spoke these last words caught Cara completely off her guard. She stood there silently, holding the receiver in her hand like she didn’t know what it was for, before eventually pulling herself together and confirming that she would call by in the morning. By the time she had hung up, she knew for a fact that she would not be going to Banktop Farm without Jennings.

  Chapter 3

  7.30pm: Ben Price pulled up to the drive of his house on Rowan Lane and killed the engine. He remained sitting in his car for several minutes, winding down the window to breathe in the cold, refreshing January air. His tired eyes studied the last of his neighbour’s fallen silver birch leaves as they danced in unison across his front garden in the evening breeze. His two hour commute from work in Newcastle had never troubled him when his family had been there to welcome him, but coming home to an empty house was scant reward for a day spent negotiating the rat race of financial sales. He increasingly resented the drive, but with his house now worth fifty g
rand less than when he’d purchased it at the top of the market, and with crippling monthly maintenance payments going to his estranged family, there was little he could do at the present time to improve his situation.

  In the early days, when he and Jane had first moved to Shepherd’s Cross, he would always look forward to heading home after work, occasionally stopping on the way to buy a bottle of wine to have with their evening meal or a chocolate treat for Chloe, his six-year-old daughter. It didn’t matter what kind of day he’d had in the office, home was his safe haven; a place where he could hide from the world, at least until the next morning when it all began again.

  It was different now. He no longer felt the same sense of anticipation of walking up the steps to his front door, listening out for the familiar sound of conversation or the television blaring out some children’s programme. He was alone, with nobody waiting for him; nobody caring if he was ten minutes later than he said he’d be. He couldn’t remember when he’d last enjoyed a proper night’s sleep.

  They had moved to Shepherd’s Cross three years earlier, buying one of thirteen new ‘executive-style’ houses that had been built on both sides of a narrow road called Rowan Lane. The majority of their neighbours had moved in around the same time. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it had been an exciting time, with numerous house parties taking place as the adult newcomers got to know each other; their children finding out who they were likely to spend the next few years getting up to mischief with.

  Most of the new arrivals were engaged in some form of professional employment in Newcastle or Durham, willing to trade a lengthy commute for the perceived benefits of spending their hard-earned weekends breathing in fresh country air and quaffing warm Shiraz in front of a log fire. At half a million pounds each, the development had not been built with the local villagers in mind, most of whom could not even begin to imagine how anyone could afford to spend such exorbitant sums of money on a house; even if they had mortgaged themselves to the hilt in order to buy their tiny share of idyllic rural life.