by William Shaw
‘Not my thing, really,’ he said.
Spud and Hibou were talking. She didn’t seem to mind. She was laughing at something the young man was saying.
Helen said, ‘What were you looking for, up at the spinney, when you fell?’
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone there. Did I upset your father?’
She looked past him, towards the lounge bar. ‘Did you find anything?’
He shook his head. ‘I just fell. I don’t know what I was expecting to find. I just thought if I looked I might see something. I’m supposed to be a policeman.’
‘Supposed to be,’ said Helen.
‘Did you ever see any reports? Any paperwork about what they’d done?’
She shook her head. ‘I always got the idea they never told us everything. Didn’t want to upset us.’
He nodded. ‘You look tired,’ he said.
Helen glanced over towards Hibou. ‘Oi, Spud! She’s only sixteen.’
‘I don’t mind if she don’t.’
‘Seventeen, actually. Almost.’
‘The farm’s losing money,’ Helen said. ‘Our herd’s yield is way down and we had too many new stillborns. Milk prices are down since they scrapped free milk for secondary schools. I don’t know where the money’s coming from, be honest. We need to get through this winter first, then sort it out.’
‘You’re a different woman down here,’ said Breen.
‘Boring, you mean.’ She swilled down the rest of her glass and licked the rim.
‘When I’m back in London,’ said Breen, ‘will you come and visit me?’
‘I miss London so much already,’ she said.
‘Heard of Tyrannosaurus Rex?’ Spud was saying to Hibou.
She nodded. ‘They’re OK.’
‘I’m getting tickets. Next month. Want to come, Hel?’
Helen sniffed. ‘They do all that Hobbity stuff.’
‘It’s, like, psychedelic.’ He mimed smoking a joint.
Hibou giggled. Spud, reaching to put his arm around her, said, ‘I’m going to Marrakech in the summer. Hitchhiking.’
‘You? You’ve never been further than Bristol,’ said Helen.
‘Bollocks,’ said Spud. ‘I went to London when I was eighteen. Tower of London. Everything.’
‘People who go to Morocco don’t come back,’ said Hibou. ‘Boy from the squat I used to live in said he knew someone who went there. Disappeared.’
‘Too much wacky baccy I expect,’ said Helen.
‘No. Seriously. Just vanished. Him and the other guy he was on the road with.’
‘You used to live in a squat?’ said Spud, impressed.
‘Oi, Spud. Leave that poor girl alone and get us another.’ Helen held out her glass to him.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Spud.
‘I suppose you want one, mister?’ Spud asked Breen.
Breen shook his head.
‘You OK?’ Helen said to Hibou when he was at the bar. ‘I’ll tell him to bog off, if you like.’
‘He’s a bit of a laugh, that’s all.’
‘You written that letter?’
Hibou shook her head.
‘You promised me. God. He’s spotted us,’ said Helen.
‘Who?’
Breen looked. Her ex was waving across the bar to them.
The fact that, apart from Hibou and himself, everyone was drunk made Breen feel even more sober. Sergeant Sharman was pushing his way through the crowd towards Breen, hand out, bouncing off other drinkers as he made his way across the room. They had met before; he was younger than Breen by a couple of years, but jowlier and rounder at the waist.
‘Breen, isn’t it?’
Breen held out his good hand to shake.
‘Hadn’t expected to see you back down here, city boy,’ Sharman said, looking Breen up and down. ‘Don’t tell me. You and Helen must be courting, then?’
‘No,’ said Breen. ‘It’s not that.’
‘Word to the wise, chum. She’s a tricky one.’ He laughed. ‘I know that from personal experience. But good luck to you.’
‘We’re not going out,’ said Breen. ‘I’m just down here on sick leave.’
‘Hel. She’s a bit of a handful, ain’t that right, Spud?’
Spud, returning from the bar with a rum-and-black, scowled.
‘Mind you, you’re a bit of a handful yourself, so I hear,’ he said to Spud. ‘We’re keeping an eye on you, lad.’
‘I’m not going out with Helen,’ Breen shouted above the noise.
‘Sick leave? Bit of skiving?’
‘He was shot,’ said Hibou.
‘What?’
‘He was shot,’ shouted Hibou louder, and the pub suddenly went quiet.
Everybody seemed to turn and look at Breen.
‘What?’
‘Almost killed,’ said Hibou more quietly.
‘Ruddy hell. Where was he shot?’
Hibou pointed at Breen’s shoulder.
‘Did you get him?’ asked Sharman.
‘Sort of,’ said Breen. He remembered the nightmare he’d been having. The man who shot him eventually fell nineteen floors from the top of a London tower block.
‘Bloody hell.’
A man in a worn overcoat said, ‘What’s that like, then, being shot?’
Everyone was clamouring around Breen now.
‘Bet it bloody hurt.’
‘Drink, boy?’
‘Proper hero, you are.’
‘That right?’ said Sharman. ‘You were shot?’
Breen nodded.
‘Bloody Nora. London. Mad, in’t it?’
‘Let him sit down. He’s injured.’
Somebody got a chair and pushed it at Breen. Sharman pulled one up next to him.
‘We don’t get that many shootings round here,’ said someone, thrusting a pint of beer at him.
Sharman asked, ‘Where did Helen go?’
‘Lav,’ said Hibou.
Drunk, Sharman looked her up and down, licked his moustache, then turned his attention to Breen again.
‘Hurt still?’
Breen nodded.
He pulled his chair closer to Breen. ‘How is Hel? Police weren’t to her taste, then?’
‘No, no. She had to come back because of her father.’
Sharman stopped smiling. Everyone knew why Mr Tozer had fallen apart. He hadn’t been the same since his daughter was murdered. No policeman liked to be reminded of cases they have failed to solve.
‘Helen says he turned in on himself after her sister was killed. But it got really bad this winter. He’d pretty much given up on the farm.’
The chatter of the pub drifted back.
‘Terrible thing,’ said Sharman. He looked around uncomfortably. ‘Expect you’re bored silly. Play darts? We got a team at the station in Torquay. You could come down. Got a board in the canteen.’
‘Bad shoulder,’ he said. He was grateful for the excuse. He didn’t want to spend his time here in a country police station.
‘Something else then. Maybe you should come out with us boys one evening. You probably need a bit of a laugh.’
‘Maybe,’ said Breen.
‘Course you do.’
Helen was weaving her way back from the Ladies, scowling.
‘Hello.’ Sharman stood, smiling, leaning forward towards her.
‘Thought you were a married man,’ said Helen.
‘Don’t mean I can’t go out for a drink on a Friday night. We’ve missed you.’
He leaned towards her to give her a hug.
‘Get off.’ Helen scowled, lit a cigarette without offering him one. ‘How’s the kiddies?’
‘Just the one,’ he said. ‘Come on. We used to be mates.’
‘Get us a drink then,’ she said. ‘Double rum-and-black. You want anything?’ she called to Hibou, who shook her head.
Hibou was on her own again; the lad she’d been flirting with had made himself scarce now Sharman was around. ‘You all right? W
ant to head home soon?’
‘I’m OK,’ she said.
A man was selling raffle tickets for a leg of lamb. Breen shook his head.
Helen and Freddie Sharman were in conversation now. Sharman had his arm around her and Breen noticed her leaning into him, her lips close to his ear. As she talked, Sharman glanced over and looked straight at Breen. Were they talking about him? They must be.
Breen felt irritated. She would be telling him about how he was hating it down here, probably. Breen didn’t mind Sharman. He was a good enough copper. But she shouldn’t be fooling around with him like this.
Now Sharman was shaking his head. Helen was smiling at him still.
He realised that Hibou was looking at him, too. She must have noticed the look on his face as he watched Helen and Sharman.
‘Helen said you had a thing with her in London,’ said Hibou.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Nothing serious.’
‘Why not?’
‘She’s not my type. Or I’m not hers.’
‘Your type?’ she said. ‘What’s all that? You’re just building walls around you.’
‘What do you know? You’re just sixteen.’
‘Seventeen tomorrow.’
He looked around the pub full of drunkards and farm boys. The window was dripping with condensation. Outside, it was dead and black. The London streets would be bright, full of artificial light. They would be busy with buses and taxis. People you didn’t know doing so many different things, talking in different accents, dressing in different clothes. There would be films to see and concerts to go to.
It was that feeling of wanting to hear a well-loved song again. He would kill for a decent cup of coffee, too.
Breen and Hibou walked back from the pub together, Hibou quiet, self-absorbed, Breen silently angry at Helen. There was a lock-in back at the pub. ‘You go home, Paddy. Not your scene,’ Helen had said.
When they got to the farm Breen opened the small cupboard under the stairs and pulled out the big silver torch. Hibou watched him, puzzled, but didn’t ask what he wanted it for.
That night, again, he lay in bed wide awake. At around one by the luminous hands on his watch he heard Helen returning from the pub, tripping up the stairs. However drunk she was, he would have liked it if she had come to knock on his door on her way to bed, but she didn’t. Soon he could hear her snoring softly at the other end of the corridor.
At around two he sat up straight, yanked himself from the bed. At the window he switched on the torch. The light barely made it across the farmyard to the henhouse. He waved the torch backwards and forwards, but there was no one there. The gate was still closed. He had thought he heard someone moving around out there, perhaps opening the gate to the enclosure, but it must have just been his imagination.
He switched off the torch again and the world became completely black.
THREE
Early on Saturday morning, the windows of the farmhouse began rattling.
‘Miracles,’ Mrs Tozer said, looking out from the kitchen. A puff of two-stroke smoke drifted past. ‘The girl’s done that, you know.’
‘Hibou?’ said Breen.
‘That’s right.’
Bony hands on the rotavator’s handles, old man Breen was noisily churning up a patch of soil at the back of the house, moving slowly backwards and forwards behind the battered old machine as it spat out clods of wet earth. The engine’s splutter sped and slowed, threatening to stall at any moment from the strain of it. Mr Tozer chewed his cheek steadily as he worked.
It was Hibou’s birthday. Mrs Tozer had baked a cake with a big iced owl on it. ‘That’s what Hibou means, you know. She told me. Funny name, though, isn’t it? “Owl”. I asked her what her real name was, only she wouldn’t tell me.’
‘She won’t tell anyone,’ said Breen. ‘In the squat where she lived, they all had made-up names.’
Mrs Tozer had made the birthday cake and Mr Tozer was giving her a vegetable garden.
Hibou was there, in blue overalls and wellingtons, watching him break up the soil.
Old man Tozer turned a switch and the engine died. Hibou put down the basket she was holding and kissed Helen’s father on the cheek.
Breen and Mrs Tozer watched them. Mr Tozer had picked up a handful of soil and was discussing it with Hibou. She took the earth from him and smiled. Sniffed it. For a second Breen thought she was even going to taste it. Then Mr Tozer turned and started tugging on the starter cord until the engine blurted back into life.
Helen came down the stairs in an old quilted dressing gown of her mother’s. ‘What the crapping hell’s he doing at this hour?’
‘Language,’ said her mother.
Helen joined them at the window. ‘Today’s supposed to be my bloody lie-in. One morning when I don’t have to get up for the cows.’
Helen’s mother tutted, went to the range and started making tea for her.
‘It’s Hibou’s birthday.’
‘Besides, I’m coming down with a cold,’ said Helen.
‘Drank too much last night, more like,’ said her mother. ‘I could hear you snoring.’
‘Thanks for the sympathy, Mum. Fab.’ She smiled and gave her mother a little hug.
Hibou came in now, sitting on the edge of the bench to tug her wellingtons off.
‘That outside, that’s for your vegetable thing?’ said Mrs Tozer.
‘Biodynamic,’ said Hibou. ‘It’s what we did at the squat in London. You have to plant the seeds when the moon and the signs of the zodiac are right. It’s amazing.’
‘Amazing,’ said Helen, rolling her eyes.
‘No harm trying,’ said her mother.
‘Nobody round here is going to want stuff like that anyway. Waste of effort.’
‘I’ll do it in my own time,’ said Hibou. She put down the basket. It was half full of eggs.
Mrs Tozer fetched a pile of egg boxes and started counting them, placing them in the boxes. When she’d finished she made a note in a small, well-thumbed notebook. ‘Eggs are still down, too,’ she said.
‘Really?’ said Hibou.
‘Only twenty-five today,’ Mrs Tozer said.
‘Maybe you should sell them as free range. Get a better price than the Egg Marketing Board,’ Hibou said.
‘Free range,’ muttered Helen. ‘They’re just eggs. Have you written that letter, Hibou? Like you promised?’
‘It’s her birthday,’ said Mrs Tozer. ‘Leave her be.’
‘It’s her birthday and her parents will be thinking about her. They won’t know where she is. Of all people, you should know what that’s like.’
Her mother tutted. ‘Don’t, Helen.’
‘Yes, actually I have. As it happens,’ said Hibou, holding her head up and looking Helen in the eye.
‘And have you posted it?’
Hibou shrugged. ‘Don’t have a stamp.’
‘Fetch my purse, dear,’ said Mrs Tozer. ‘There are some in there.’
‘I wish he’d stop that noise,’ said Helen. ‘It’s giving me a headache.’ She disappeared up the small staircase at the back of the kitchen.
‘Maybe it’s foxes scaring the hens,’ said Hibou. ‘That’s why they’re not laying so many.’
‘Just our luck,’ said Mrs Tozer, digging her purse. ‘I suppose.’ She pulled out a fourpenny stamp.
‘But it’s a Christmas stamp,’ said Hibou. Two children playing on a rocking chair.
‘That don’t matter,’ said Mrs Tozer.
Helen returned, clutching her present.‘Sorry ’bout the wrapping. I’m no good at that sort of thing.’
It was a record; you could tell from the shape. The young girl threw her arms round Helen.
‘Get off,’ Helen said. ‘Any chance of a fry-up, Mum? I’m starving.’
Hibou unwrapped the package. It was a copy of The Beatles’ new album, Yellow Submarine, cover brash, bright and childish. ‘For me?’ she said. ‘Really? That’s super.’
Helen grunted,
last night’s make-up still on her face.
Mrs Tozer took a couple of thick rashers out of the fridge and laid them into an old black pan. The rotavator stopped, finally.
‘Alleluia,’ said Helen.
Quietness.
Breen wasn’t used to the kind of silence there was here. All you could hear was the occasional motorbike on the road above the farm; seagulls squawking above the estuary below. A yawning day inside this small, dark farmhouse, with nothing to do.
Old man Tozer came in and said, ‘You doing some rashers for me?’
‘You already had yours.’
‘Want more,’ he said.
‘Want more, please,’ scolded Mrs Tozer, but she was smiling.
‘This is a fab birthday,’ Hibou said, kissing Helen’s father on the cheek as he washed his hands in the sink. He smiled and blushed.
‘I don’t know what you want to grow vegetables for anyway,’ said Helen. ‘We got our work cut out doing the cows.’
‘I’ll make time,’ said Hibou.
‘Leave her alone,’ said Mr Tozer.
‘God’s sake. There. You got the stamp. Give it me and I’ll post it,’ said Helen.
‘I can manage that myself, actually,’ said Hibou.
‘Do it today.’
‘OK, OK.’
‘Who took the torch?’ Mr Tozer said. ‘Hibou went out to do the milking this morning. No torch.’
‘Sorry,’ said Breen. ‘I did.’
‘What for?’ said Helen.
‘Sounds stupid now. I thought there might have been someone nosing around the farm at night. So I wanted to take a look.’
‘And?’
‘I didn’t see anyone.’
Helen snorted. ‘The great detective. There’s no one sneaking around this farm.’
‘You got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning, didn’t you, madam,’ said Mrs Tozer.
Breen went back to bed to lie down and smoke a cigarette. On the way out to help on the farm, Helen put her head around the door as he lay there, doing nothing.
‘I’m going mad here,’ he said.
‘Imagine what it’s like for me, then,’ she said. ‘You’d have thought the sun shone out of her bum.’
‘You’re the one who brought her here.’
‘I know.’
‘Are you sure about her?’
Helen said, ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’
‘We don’t know anything about her. All we know is that when she was in London, when we found her, she was a drug addict. She won’t tell us why she ran away from home. She won’t even tell us what her real name is.’