Water Rites

by Guy N Smith

  A huge pall of smoke hung in the sky, drifted up towards the forest, swirled down the fields below. A panoramic landscape was obliterated.

  “I’ll come round next door with you this time,” Janie was flushed and shaking. “I’ll …”

  “No, we’re just wasting our breath talking to Bowman,” Mark reached for the telephone directory, began flipping the pages. “Now, let me see … Environmental Health, Department of …” He began tapping in the number.

  Mark had expected an archetypal bureaucrat representing the Department of Environmental Health, complete with clipboard and briefcase. Becky Watson was in her mid-twenties, relaxed and attractive, and carried a jotter in her handbag. She smiled and drank coffee, made a few notes.

  No problem, Mister Bowman would have to extinguish his mammoth bonfire, he was contravening the law by lighting a fire within two hundred meters of a public road. Unless he complied with her requests, notice would be served on him and he would be prosecuted. One other point, she was clearly on the side of the Smythes, the manure heap was in close proximity to a stream, she would speak to the National Rivers Authority about it; if pollution of a waterway was taking place, not only would Mister Bowman be prosecuted on that count, too, but he would be ordered to move his one hundred tons of dung to a place of safety.

  She would go and see Mister Bowman right now. She would telephone the Smythes later in the day, after she had collated her notes, and advise them of the outcome.

  Becky Watson rang back at three-thirty.

  No problem, it was all a mistake on Mister Bowman’s part. The last thing he wanted was for the manure to be burned; he wanted it to rot down and then he intended to sell it by the truckload as organic fertilizer. In fact, he had been forking it over in preparation for this when he’d dropped his cigarette. It had fallen amidst some dry, unrotted straw and before he could stamp it out the blaze was beyond his control. He wanted to extinguish it but he didn’t have sufficient water in his well, it would have to burn itself out. It meant a considerable loss to him in terms of supplementing his meagre income but he’d just have to grin and bear it.

  “Are you still there, Mister Smythe?”

  “I’m speechless,” Mark did not know whether to laugh or rage. “So he dropped three cigarettes accidentally, did he?”

  “Three? I’m afraid I don’t understand you.”

  “The heap had clearly been ignited at three separate points to create maximum burning.”

  “Oh!” She hesitated a moment, then, “well, the priority is to get the fire put out and to ensure that it isn’t lit again. Consequently, I’ve requested the fire service to send a tender and crew first thing in the morning. If it hasn’t arrived by ten o’clock, let me know and I’ll get on to them.”

  * * *

  10:00 a.m. Mark and Janie watched from behind closed windows, squinted into the swirling greyness of restricted visibility. There was no sign of a fire tender.

  “You’d better ring Becky Watson,” Janie entwined her fingers in her frustration. “I get the feeling everything is a stalling tactic.”

  “I’ll ring emergency services direct!” Mark picked up the phone.

  The fire tender roared out of the smoky fog fifteen minutes later, blue lights flashing, siren wailing, came to a halt on the roadside adjacent to the billowing muck heap.

  There was no sign of Dick Bowman. Sometimes he stayed overnight at the Chequers to sleep off his mixture of work and pleasure. He wasn’t needed, anyway. But they would certainly need a second tender, the fire had secured a deep hold in the compressed horse manure.

  Mark and Janie stood upwind to watch, there was something fascinating about fires and firefighters.

  The second engine and crew was on the scene within twenty minutes. The smoke poured out faster as water was hosed onto the pile, hissed like a nest of burning snakes.

  It was midday before the fire was out, just an odd wisp of smoke here and there. Dick Bowman still had not returned.

  “Better fork the surface over,” the leading fireman instructed the crews, “dig down in case there’s a smouldering pocket left.”

  The Smythes watched with a kind of bizarre fascination, a team of yellow cloaked and helmeted figures plunging their forks deep, lifting the charred manure, turning it over. Occasionally, one of them called out and a jet of water was directed onto a burning clod. Digging as if they were preparing a vegetable patch for planting.

  “What a stink!” Janie coughed. “Burned straw and rotted dung, I think I’ve seen and smelled enough for one day. Come on, let’s go back indoors, Mark.”

  “There’s something here,” one of the firefighters prodded with his fork, “like somebody’s buried something. Too small for a bloody ’orse, too big for a dog.”

  “Chuck it up, let’s see,” the senior fire officer waded across the ashes. In a way you’re like a forensic expert, he always told his men, it’s your job to see what’s been burned.

  “Roasted, whatever it is,” the other had impaled it on the spines of his fork, struggled to lift it clear. “There’s a little ’un with it, too.”

  A sudden gust of wind took the smell towards the watchers on the road.

  “Ugh!” Janie turned her head to one side. “Like … roasted pork. Maybe it’s a pig. Let’s go, Mark.”

  “Hang on a minute,” his curiosity prevailed, he grabbed his wife’s hand, held her.

  “Jesus Almighty!” The fireman’s voice reached them, there was no mistaking the shock and revulsion in it.

  “What the bloody ’ell is it?” The others had clustered round him. They drew back from the charred remains, they didn’t need the chief to put it into words.

  Men hardened to death by fire, every one of them had at some time brought a burned corpse out of an inferno. It was all part of the job. But they had not expected to find roasted human remains in the depths of a heap of horse manure.

  “It’s a woman.” The chief’s voice was shrill with horror.

  “And she’s got her baby with her!”

  Twenty-one

  “I wanna play outside, Mommy.”

  Kate sighed, she had half expected Peter to voice his request. “In a few minutes, when I’ve finished washing the dishes.”

  “I wanna go outside now, Mommy!” There was a petulance in his tone, he kicked a piece of Lego across the kitchen floor, it skated off the wall.

  “Don’t do that!” She was edgy. God she hated these weekends when Phil’s extra duty rota came round; on-calls weren’t so bad, often he didn’t receive a single one but weekend duties were eight-till-eight at HQ.

  “I’m bored, I wanna play in the garden.”

  “Well, you can do that just as soon as I’m ready to go outside with you.”

  “Why can’t I play on my own, Mommy?”

  “Because last time you wandered off into the big forest. That was very naughty of you.”

  “I won’t do it again, I promise.”

  “Nevertheless, Daddy’s orders are that you’re not to be left alone outside.” Also, that neither of us are to go into the woods ever again. Because Phil was scared, more scared than she had ever known him. And that scared her.

  “Aw, Mommy, I wanna play in the garden on my own”

  For Christ’s sake! She gripped the sides of the sink, closed her eyes. If you don’t bloody well shut up, I’ll …

  “Are you feeling poorly again today, Mommy?”

  “No, I am not poorly. Neither am I tired. I don’t want to lie down and go to sleep.” Because that’s what you’re hoping for. “I just want to sit out there in a deckchair and read some magazines. You can do whatever you like, play with Rabbit. Or your Lego. But I’m going to relax out there because today might well be the last warm sunny day we’ll have until next Spring.”

  “Why’s that, Mommy?”

  “The weatherman on the TV says that there’s rain spreading across the whole country tomorrow afternoon. Rain and gales, and it’s going to become much colder. Which
is only to be expected because it’s overdue, we’re well into the autumn, the cold and wet should have started three or four weeks ago. So, we’ll make the best of today, Peter, I’ll laze in the deckchair and you can play on the lawn. Right?”

  “I s’pose so,” he kicked at another piece of Lego. “It’s not fair, I wanted to play on my own. I’m a big boy now.”

  “And I’m a big girl,” she laughed, tried to relax. “But even I can’t go in the forest alone. Because Daddy says so, and he’s the boss.”

  “Because of the lady up by the reservoir, the one who’s half like a fish?”

  Kate tensed. “I expect he’s afraid of us meeting with a nasty man. A lot of women get beaten up these days and children are kidnapped and found dead. Remember what we’ve always told you, never talk to strangers.”

  “It’s because of the fish lady, I know it is.”

  Damn you, this business is getting on my nerves. I’ll be glad when they drain the reservoir even if it means us moving to Glascote.

  “The lady’s nice,” he tapped her arm, an annoying habit he had when he thought she wasn’t paying attention to him and he wanted to attract her attention. “She only ran away from me because she wasn’t properly dressed.”

  “She’s probably left, gone away for good, she was only visiting the reservoir.” Christ knows what for, though.

  “No, she hasn’t!” Peter became indignant. “She got into the reservoir through a small hole in the wall. I know she did because she left a trail of slime right up to it. It looks too small for her to squeeze through but she managed it. She lives in there, you know.”

  “Let’s go outside.” Kate shuddered, screwed the tea towel up into a ball and flung it on to the working surface. “Go get Rabbit or your Lego, or whatever you want.”

  It was hard to believe that autumn was well advanced, leaves still clung stubbornly to the branches of the trees and the sun shone with an unnatural warmth. Lying back in the red, white, and blue canvas of the deckchair, Kate didn’t have the energy to read a magazine, just flicked the pages, gazed at pictures of bathroom and kitchen designs which would always be beyond their reach. A motoring supplement; the Motor Show was only a week away. Phil always went even though he would always drive the family round in a van. Somebody else’s van, in all probability belonging to the water authority. Like Dalgety’s Land Rover Discovery, a top of the range, borrowed status symbol.

  Kate smiled wistfully to herself. She wouldn’t want her husband any other way, he was fine just as he was. All she asked was good health, a roof over their heads and food on the table. Any vehicle was a bonus, she didn’t care if they never went anywhere.

  Her eyelids were heavy, they began to droop. The magazine slipped from her fingers, landed with a bump on the grass, its pages fluttered in the gentle breeze like a swatted night moth. She couldn’t be bothered to pick it up.

  The sound of passing traffic on the main road out front was soothing, like a lullaby; folks rushing somewhere all the time, she was the lucky one because she didn’t even have to move out of this chair. It was a nice thought.

  “Peter?”

  “Yes?” The reply sounded sullen, he was in one of his moods because she had come out into the garden with him. “What are you doing?”

  A pause, then, “Nothin’.”

  “Peter, what are you doing?” She hadn’t the energy to make her tone sound authoritative.

  “Somethin’.”

  “What’s ‘something’?”

  “I’m making a necklace out of daisies.” His answer was loaded with resentment at his mother’s persistence. “Miss Averill at school showed us how to do it. It’s easy. Then we put it over her head and it hung round her neck. Everybody said she looked like a queen.”

  “Oh, I see, that must have looked beautiful,” Kate could not imagine anybody less regal than the plump Miss Averill. “Now, don’t get going off, will you?”

  “’Course not, I’m a big boy now.”

  He’d be okay, Kate reassured herself, he was often naughty but he never broke a promise, nor told a lie. Which was why his story about the fish lady was so chilling. Because Kate knew it was true.

  She succumbed to her drowsiness, let her eyes close. She wouldn’t sleep, just doze. The way a cat does, alert even in semi-slumber, ears tuned to pick up the slightest sound of anything untoward.

  “Peter, are you sure you’re okay?” She yawned with the repetitive question, it didn’t sound like her own voice, rather a dreamy echo of the last time she’d asked coming back at her.

  “I’m okay, Mom.” So far away, but he was all right. He would probably get Rabbit out shortly, let the creature loose on the lawn and spend the rest of the afternoon trying to catch it. Then he’d wake her, ask her to help him. That way Peter wouldn’t go far.

  Kate thought she heard the clink of the hook on the rabbit hutch door. She felt herself sliding into a deeper doze but it wouldn’t matter because Peter would yell her awake when he was tired of trying to catch Rabbit.

  Kate awoke with a start, knew instantly that there was something wrong. It wasn’t her son’s expected shout that had awoken her, there was silence except for the continual drone of the nearby traffic.

  Rabbit was still in his hutch, whiskered face pressed up against the wire mesh door, a kind of pleading expression to be let out for one last gambol round the lawn before the winter rains came.

  The Lego was still in its cardboard box.

  There was no sign of Peter.

  Kate opened her mouth to scream, managed to stop it before the shriek reached her throat. Because, logically, there were a number of innocuous possibilities concerning her son’s whereabouts that had to be eliminated before she became hysterical.

  He hadn’t gone out front onto the road because he couldn’t reach the latch on the yard door in the seven-foot-high red brick wall.

  He might have gone back indoors. The warm sunshine told her that he hadn’t, he’d insist on staying outside until sundown. Maybe he’d had to visit the bathroom, he always used the downstairs one.

  “Peter?”

  No answer.

  Kate moved into the coolness of the porch. From here she could see that the door of the lavatory was open, there was nobody inside. The cistern was silent, it hadn’t refilled lately. Peter always pulled the chain, ever since he’d been old enough to stand on the seat to reach it.

  He’d probably gone upstairs to his room to fetch some more toys because he couldn’t be bothered to let Rabbit out and he was bored with Lego. Thunderbirds, maybe, that model island which Phil’s mother had bought her grandson last Christmas.

  Kate ran up the stairs as fast as her weakening legs would allow. She burst into the small bedroom at the end of the landing. The island on the window ledge was bathed in bright sunshine, its assembled fighting force poised for take off.

  Oh, please, find Peter for me.

  The unmade bed was empty. She checked the fitted wardrobe, prayed that Peter might be playing a game of hide and seek. He wasn’t. Or if he was, he’d found a damned good hiding place.

  “Peter!” There was the beginning of hysteria in her shout. Running back and forth across the landing, throwing open doors; the bedroom, the spare room.

  Peter most definitely was not upstairs.

  Downstairs; the lounge and dining room, the kitchen. All empty. There wasn’t anywhere else indoors where the boy might be.

  Outside again; Peter hadn’t gone out front through the gate so there was only one direction left. She stared with frightened eyes at the straggling nut tree boundary between the yard and the wood, elevated her eyes to the tall pines. They looked dark and forbidding even in the bright sunshine.

  Oh, no! Please, not in there!

  Beyond the trees, hidden from her view, was the track that led steeply uphill until it ended right by the gateway to the reservoir compound.

  A place of unspeakable evil.

  Kate found the gap where Peter had squeezed through, broke
n twigs, a snapped lower branch that oozed sap.

  Oh, God, please let him still be safe.

  She tore her blouse as she forced her way between the saplings, a blue-and-white streamer trailing in her wake as she ran blindly through the trees. Gasping for breath, a stabbing pain in her side, stumbling and clutching at branches to keep her balance. A bough sprang back, whacked her across the face; she didn’t cry out, right now she was impervious to pain.

  The reservoir seemed a million miles away this time. She wanted to shout and scream for Peter to come back but she hadn’t the breath in her lungs.

  Finally, a glimmer of sunlight showed faintly through the trees up ahead. Kate gasped her temporary relief aloud but she didn’t slow her stumbling step.

  She threw herself at the rickety gate. A bar snapped beneath her weight, a rusted strand of barbed wire raked her leg but she didn’t feel the pain, didn’t notice the trickle of blood. Atop the flimsy structure, she scanned the surrounding land, her long hair straggling, her contorted features shiny with sweat.

  That was when she saw Peter.

  He was over by one of the concrete inspection hatches, talking to somebody who lay full length on the ground. Kate saw that it was a woman, probably one of the villagers sneaked up here for a bit of nude sunbathing.

  The dirty bitch was topless, Kate could see the other’s breasts, she had a towel or a rug draped around her lower half. At least she showed a little decency! Peter was leaning forward, stooped, he was clasping the stranger’s hand. They were moving slowly. Now they were clear of the obstructing Concrete, Kate saw with horror that the woman was …

  … slithering over the rough surface, squirming her way along the ground, seeming to wriggle. And that was no towel that covered the lower half of her body, it was a giant fish’s tail and she was using it in the manner of a rudder to aid her progress.

  Kate fell over the other side of the gate, the tussocky grass broke her fall. Winded, she picked herself up. Her son, and whoever was with him, were temporarily screened from her view by the high, sloping bank.