Besides, a good shepherd should be watching out for his flock, so it’s really his fault. Smiler doesn’t seem to like the birds. He was saying yesterday that they sometimes pinch rabbits from his traps, but rabbits are plentiful and there are enough of them for both man and bird. In any case, how does Smiler know the thief is a raven? It could just as easily be a fox. The thing about the raven is, it’s not fussy. Yes, it likes a nice bit of mutton, but it also eats eggs, beetles, larvae, seeds, buds, nuts and berries. We find another pellet. I crouch down and examine it. Becky does too. Ashley is some way in the distance. I hand it to Becky. She turns it over in her hand and gives it me back.
—Are you sure that’s what it is? she asks me.
I crumble it up in my palm. Amongst the grey dust, fur, bones and wool, I find a thick rubber ring.
—Look, I say, holding the ring up. She takes hold of it.
—What is it?
I explain that this is what the farmers use on lambs to remove the tails and also to castrate the males. It’s a very common thing to find in a raven pellet. There are also fragments of stone and grit and I explain that the birds swallow this in order to help them digest some of the tougher food they eat. This is what I really love about Becky. I’m explaining all this but she doesn’t think it makes me weird. She actually seems interested. I picture saying the same thing to mum or my sister. They would just go, urgh, that’s disgusting, and pull a face. It’s not disgusting, it is life. We follow the sheep-walk as it climbs up towards some impressively large crags.
Ravens can be pirates too. It’s not uncommon for a raven, or more likely a pair of ravens, to rob a short-eared owl of a field vole say. I think about the ravens at the Tower, the raven master getting fresh meat from the market for them every day and yet, still, there they were, in the bins, scoffing discarded chocolate bars, chips and sandwiches. We are now close to the crag and almost in its shadow. We stop to have a look around, and as we do, I spot it. I hold the binoculars up to the dark shape in the sky. It’s true at this distance it could easily be a crow, but then it does something which immediately identifies it as a raven. It rolls.
First it soars and then glides, then it draws its wings in and rolls over onto its back. It stays like this for two or three seconds, then reverses the movement by rolling back the opposite way and spreading its wings again, going back to its normal flight. The display takes my breath away. I say nothing, just watch it fly. Then it does it again, and again, each time it drops slightly, making it look like it is tumbling through the air. Becky is standing close by, I can feel her next to me and I turn to watch her stare up at the bird. I pass her the binoculars. She takes them and watches the peculiar tumbling flight display. It is almost like it is doing it again, just for her. I put my arm round her and give her a squeeze.
Then another one, its mate, appears. I watch as they silently rise together, flying into a stiff breeze. Then simultaneously, they make a headlong dive with wings almost closed. Checking the dive and catching the wind, they plane steeply upwards. Regaining with effortless grace the height lost. They follow, in perfect unison, tumbling, twisting, diving and climbing. Now over the crag, they are joined by another pair. Without a sound, they begin a similar dance about a hundred yards away. The two pairs fly in towards each other, almost touching wings, then all four birds carry out the same acrobatics, tumbling, twisting, diving and climbing again.
The display lasts for about ten minutes then the two pairs fly off north.
—Wow, Becky says, handing me back the binoculars.
I’m still speechless. She squeezes my hand and kisses me. I think to myself that this is the most perfect moment of my life. That all my life has been working up to this moment, holding Becky, kissing Becky, on the moors of Helvellyn, watching four ravens for the first time, in the most beautiful and graceful flight display I have ever seen. I put my arms around her and pull my lips away, gasping for breath. I hold her tightly towards me, tears in my eyes and a lump like a raven’s casting catching in my throat. I cling on to her, not wanting her to see my eyes. I hold her for perhaps a minute, trembling, her body next to mine.
—Come on, let’s follow them, she says. Ashley is still some distance away, in the shadow of a crag. Perhaps he will see he’s not wanted and wander off. We walk at a good pace in the direction the ravens went. As we go round the crag the sheep-walk dips and we start to descend the hill and we see them in the distance, soaring and spiralling. We pick up pace but walk carefully not wanting to disturb them. It looks as though they have spotted some carrion. We watch as they circle it over and over. Then one of them drops and swoops, landing on the ground. We edge towards it. It approaches a large lump of carrion. Difficult to say what it is from this distance, but it is more than likely a sheep. We get closer. It hops and flaps its wings, a good five yards or so from the carcass. Then another lands at the other side about the same distance away.
They both follow a similar ritual, flapping their wings, jumping up and down, a few feet in the air. Then strutting around, before jumping up again. One of them bows and opens its massive bill. It bobs its head about. The other one tilts its head, as though it were trying to catch what the other one had said. It stretches its neck back, its bill pointing skywards. It does this several times, before striding about, getting closer to the carcass. They are joined now by the other pair, who land either side of the two. They strut and jump about. They flap their wings. The raven that landed first gets closer to the carrion and then backs off again. We edge even closer. The carcass is in a muddy sump and is covered in filth so that it is hard to make it out. But it’s a good sized sheep alright and will provide them all with food with plenty left over.
The dominant bird hops onto the fleece, jumps up and down a few times on it then flaps its wings and flies off about two or three yards away. The other birds respond by moving in closer. Then the dominant bird hops onto the fleece again. It pecks at it before perching on the head. Then it reaches into the skull and pulls out an eye, with bloody threads like wet string dangling from it. It opens its beak and swallows it down whole. Another bird hops onto the fleece and starts jumping up and down. We walk even closer to it, ever careful not to disturb the birds, but as we do, it dawns on me that the carcass is not that of a sheep, it is too big. Could it be a red deer?
We get as close as we can without alarming the birds and as we do, I realise that the carcass is that of a person. I look at Becky and can see from the shock on her face that she has realised this too. She stares at me and without saying anything we walk closer. As we get to a few yards away, the dominant bird, with the eye threads still dangling out of its mouth, flies off. The others follow. It’s a man. A large man. We see his shoes caked in mud first, then his trousers and his coat, all daubed in mud. We reach the head with the missing eye. His mouth is open but there’s too much mud to make out his features. As we get closer, I see Becky put her hand to her mouth, to prevent herself from vomiting. Now I feel like being sick too. The head gapes at us with one empty eye socket. The face is covered in blood and filth.
—Oh my god, she says.
I stare at the corpse, we both do, unable to say anything. We stand staring at the body in silence. Then Becky walks over to me and takes hold of my hand. She grips it tight.
—We need to report this to the police, she says.
—Yeah, right.
That’s one thing we can’t do and she knows it.
—Go to the police.
I shake my head.
—Please, go to the police and report it with me.
I say nothing, just stare at the corpse. Then I say, —Dave is going to catch me.
—Then go to the police before he does. It’s your only choice. She squeezes my hand again. To give ourselves in to the police is to surrender to a less hungry wolf. They can protect us from Dave. And if we report this, we will be doing a good thing. It puts us in a good light. On the other hand, it may just bring a whole heap of further trouble. I don’t know
what to say. Ashley has caught up with us but is still lurking in the background. He stares at me and shakes his head. I’m still not really grasping all this. I keep staring at the corpse trying to register that this lump of meat is a dead man.
Then I notice his sock showing from under his trouser leg. I get up closer to it. It’s a sports sock, in fact it’s a Blackburn Rovers football sock.
—It’s Smiler. I say, and look over to Becky. She looks back in shock. Ashley’s face is just a blank.
—No. It can’t be, Becky says.
I take out a rag from my pocket and go towards the head. The sight is repulsive, but I force myself to wipe off the mud from around the mouth. It’s Smiler alright. The scars at either side of his mouth. No doubt in my mind now. I don’t know what to do, I look at Becky but she is frozen to the spot, then I look at Ashley as I realise the truth.
—You? Becky is staring at me and shaking her head. —Oh my god. She shakes her head again.
—What? I manage finally, and point to Ashley. He says nothing but he shakes his head.
—You did it. Admit it.
There is a long pause. Eventually he says, —I did it for you.
I stare at him then look over to Becky. She is still in shock. She shakes her head with incomprehension.
—What? I say at last.
—You wanted to see them stupid birds, well you got to see them.
I just stare at Ashley, it’s like I’ve not heard him properly and I have to repeat his words out loud until it begins to sink in.
I look at Becky, she is shaking her head. —No... No...
I go over to her. I try to comfort her, but as I go to put my arm around her, she withdraws. I try and hold her but she shakes me off. She turns away from the scene and starts to walk away back up the sheep-walk towards the large crag.
—Becky!
She speeds up, still walking away. I run after her and catch up with her. I grab her by the arm. She shakes me off again, this time with more force. —Becky, where are you going?
—Get off me.
—But where are you going?
—Away from you.
I don’t understand what she means. Why does she want to get away from me?
—You’re crazy.
I’m speechless, throat clogged up with emotion. I hold out my hands, pleading, but she looks at me, and this is the bit that really gets me, she’s looking at me the way I looked at Ashley, with utter revulsion. Then she runs off.
I start to run after her but I trip over. I get to my feet, carry on running, this time limping, but it’s too late, I can’t catch up with her. I limp after her for about three hundred yards, before she disappears behind the crag. She’s gone. I stop and get my breath back. I don’t feel anything, just numb. I turn back to the scene. The corpse is still there. For a moment I thought I might have imagined it. And Ashley is still there. He is standing over the dead body, casting a shadow over the man’s face. Above a raven pair appear. They are high up and they soar up even higher in a widening spiral. They are waiting for us to leave so that they can feast.
Leach’s Petrel
When we had the flat in Ordsall, for a while my mum was on her own. Quite a long time really. There was this bloke who lived in the flat opposite. Richard, his name was. He’d trained as a chef at one point, he told me – but all he cooked now were fried egg sandwiches. I used to go round there sometimes. I didn’t like the sound of them at first, but when I tried one, I was surprised to find that, with loads of red sauce on, I really liked it. Because mum was on her own, Richard thought he stood a chance. He didn’t realise mum wasn’t interested in men in that way, and I didn’t tell him because I liked having him around. He’d ask me what mum thought of him and I’d tell him that she liked him, which wasn’t really a lie.
He started to leave notes under the door. Always a folded piece of paper with mum’s name on it. Just daft things really like: great film on tonight on ITV at 8pm. Or: reading a book from the library, really good. I’d sometimes add a reply at the bottom if there was space and put it under his door, you’ll have to tell me about it later. Or, let me borrow it when you’ve finished. I didn’t sign it from mum, but I could do mum’s handwriting. I’ve been able to do mum’s handwriting since we were given homework diaries in primary school. It was one of the reasons I got excluded. Actually, that time I’d written a letter explaining to the teacher that I couldn’t do Games because of a medical condition. I slipped up there by not stating what it was and he rang mum up at home to ask her.
Anyway, this time I didn’t sign the notes so in my mind I still wasn’t lying. It wasn’t my fault if my writing was like mum’s and it wasn’t my fault if Richard thought the notes were from mum. Mum’s handwriting is small and neat but she gets half way into a word and then just sort of abandons it, so that there’s just a squiggly line where the last few letters should be. I used to think Richard’s handwriting was like his voice. Almost a whisper. Hardly a trace on the paper. But he was nice and I liked him. He’d let me have some of his lager. He’d pour a bit into a glass. Not enough to get me drunk though, probably no more than a quarter of a tin. He was a shy man really but I suppose he wasn’t shy around me. He didn’t go out much but sometimes I’d hear him leave at ten or eleven at night and not come back till the early morning.
One time when I was round there he asked me to go to the shop for him for some milk and bread. He gave me two pounds and said I could spend the change on sweets. It was raining heavily outside and as I went to the door I saw his large green anorak on the hook behind the door. I went back into the room to ask if I could borrow it but he was on the phone. He won’t mind, I thought and I put the coat on. It was far too big for me. I went downstairs in the lift. My hands explored the pockets. There were some stones in one, and a knife in another. A small penknife. I reached into the inside pockets. There was a wooden handle in one. It went through the lining. There was another knife, much bigger. It slid into a leather sheath. I slipped it back into the lining of the anorak. In the top pocket was something soft – I pulled out a black Balaclava. Wearing the anorak made me feel weird, like it was putting thoughts into my head. I didn’t feel myself in the coat. I bought the milk and bread and some sweets and returned the coat to its hook behind his door.
I didn’t tell Richard I’d used it, there didn’t seem any point. I thought there must be a good explanation for what I’d found. Perhaps he used it for fishing, and the things in his coat were used to fish. There were quite a few blokes in the flats who would go to the canal to fish. Nothing strange about that. A few weeks later I was watching the telly with mum and there was a local news story. A woman had been attacked down Black Friars. For some reason the council had converted one of the high-rise flats into student accommodation. The woman was studying at Salford University. It was the middle set of flats, so any student walking home would have to walk through the estate.
When the students first moved into those flats they looked like students always do. Tight jeans or leggings, big daft boots, dyed hair or a daft haircut, stupid jewellery. But within about a month of them moving in all the boys had hair like Oasis or crew cuts and they wore loose-fitting jeans and trainers, T-shirts and tracksuit tops. They started wearing gold jewellery instead of silver. The girls changed too, started wearing the same sort of stuff. Dyed their hair blonde or brown instead of red or black, got rid of the big boots and started wearing shoes. A man had jumped her at about midnight when she had been walking home through the estate. She’d managed to get away and out-run him.
The telly showed a photo-fit picture, and the funny thing was, it looked a bit like Richard. About a week went by and there was another attack. This time the woman had been sexually assaulted. I asked mum what ‘sexually assaulted’ was and she just said it was what men did to women. It had happened the night before, again about midnight. I’d heard Richard leave about eleven. I’d fallen asleep shortly after that so I didn’t know what time he got back. I got worried ab
out it. I thought it was Richard. And because of the notes I’d sent him, Richard thought he was in with my mum. He kept talking about her, asking me where he should take her for a date. I didn’t have the heart to tell him.
I kept this secret inside me. I wanted to tell mum about Richard, but was afraid she would confront him and they’d both find out about the notes. It was just after my exclusion for faking a letter from my mum so I was being cautious. I made myself a promise. If another woman was attacked and Richard was out at that time, I’d tell mum and suffer the consequences. Another few weeks went by and I was thinking that I’d got away with it, but that night on the evening news there was another woman, again a student, who had been ‘sexually assaulted’. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I’d heard Richard leave late on the night before. I asked my mum if being ‘sexually assaulted’ hurt. She said it hurt very much. I was going to tell her, really I was, but first I thought I’d ask Richard where he’d been. Give him a chance to explain.
I went round there. He made me a fried egg sandwich with loads of red sauce. He gave me a bit of his lager. He was smoking one of his roll-ups. He wanted to know more about my mum. I was just waiting for the right moment before asking him where he’d been, when a steel ball about the size of a marble came through the window and hit the wall just behind where we were sitting. Not easy to hit a window seven floors up. Must have been a catapult. Richard grabbed hold of me and we ducked down. He crawled over to the window but the kids who had fired the shot were running off.
He asked me if I could keep a secret and I said I could – and that was true. He told me he was part of a vigilante group. I asked him what that was. He told me there was a gang of them and they were trying to drive the drug dealers out of the estate. I’d heard about this. Neighbours had spoken about it. He said that one of the drug dealers had found out about him and that’s why the steel ball had been fired. It all made sense. I believed him. I could never really imagine him ‘sexually assaulting’ a woman even though I didn’t know what that was. I’d just seen how friendly he was with mum.
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