Foxglove Summer

by Ben Aaronovitch

  Because the media pack were camped outside the front door, I went out the back and hopped over the garden fence and onto the unofficial – definitely not a right of way – footpath that ran behind the houses. Now that I knew what to look for, I could see that nearly all the late-twentieth-century build in the village had gone up on decommissioned orchards. In some places the old fence line had become the edge of people’s back gardens. One remnant of the original orchards remained behind the Old Vicarage and I saw a dip in its back wall where a pair of eleven-year-old girls could have easily climbed over. This must have been their semi-secret path. No wonder they’d been inseparable since they were old enough to express a preference – it must have been like having their own secret garden.

  The pair would have had to split in September – Nicole would be going up the road to Lucton School, fee paying, while Hannah would be commuting into Leominster to attend a state school. Fear of this separation was put forward as one of the narratives that might lead to them running away together. I wondered what being split up might be like – I didn’t have any friends that had gone to posh schools, unless you counted Nightingale.

  The path led me out onto a lane by Spring Farm and after a short cut down the back of the graveyard – Rushpool was an old enough village to have two – and I came out by the car park of the Swan in the Rushes where Beverley was waiting with the Asbo. All without attracting the attention of the media.

  Me and Beverley parked the Asbo at the Riverside Inn, crossed the bridge and found the official Mortimer Trail footpath a hundred metres further on. We followed it to another gate and stile and through another field munched down to a green fuzz by sheep and then over a barbed-wire fence into a lumpy field of long grass. The path was barely visible as a slightly trampled diagonal, but luckily we could see the next stile at the far corner. A solitary goat watched us go past – we were probably the most interesting thing that had happened all summer.

  I paused mid-field to orientate myself using my phone. We were less than three hundred metres from where we’d found the dead sheep. I looked for it and I could spot where it had lain in the next field.

  Pokehouse Wood was not what I expected. For a start, it was missing a lot of trees. It was easy to see where it had been, a rough rectangle of cleared land on a steep slope that ran down to the footpath by the River Lugg. Freshly planted saplings stood in white protective cylinders like ranks of war graves, and between them the scrub and grass were shot through with purple stands of foxglove. I recognised these because I’d googled the plants after seeing Hugh’s notes – a famous source of digitalis, which in small doses can save your life and in larger doses kill you.

  The missing trees were explained by a sign on the kissing gate which, on behalf of the National Trust, welcomed us to Pokehouse Wood and told us that the area had been cleared and planted with conifers in 2002, but had now been cleared again and planted with native broadleaved trees to restore the beauty and nature conservation of this important local woodland. There was a contact number for Croft Castle which I made a note of.

  According to the map on my phone, the footpath ran along the river all the way to a historic mill at Mortimer’s Cross. Stairs cut into the slope and reinforced with planking marked where the footpath led up to the ridge. We weren’t supposed to be searching exactly, a full POLSA-directed team was an hour behind us. But I’d wanted to have a look before all those size tens stirred up the ground.

  At the top of the steps was another track, this one cut level into the hillside and sloping down towards an intersection with the footpath by the river.

  ‘Logging track,’ said Beverley. ‘That’s why it has to be graded flat. You know, this is a bit weird.’

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘Weird is what we’re looking for.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s that kind of weird,’ she said. ‘You see, this bit of land we’re standing on belongs to the National Trust but it’s been managed by the Forestry Commission.’

  The role of which was to deal with the fact the UK was in danger of losing its forests which were, back then, a strategic national resource on account of the fact you needed it to make stuff. This being before Ikea turned up backed by the limitless expanse of the Swedish forests, fabled home to fascist biker gangs, depressed detectives and werewolves.

  ‘Really?’ I asked. ‘Werewolves?’

  ‘That’s what I heard,’ said Beverley.

  No wonder the detectives were depressed, I thought. And just about managed to stop myself asking for more information – priorities and all that.

  ‘They would have cut down the ancient woodland and planted western hemlock or Douglas fir, probably,’ said Beverley. Because back then you wanted a tree with a nice straight trunk that grew fast and was easy to manage. Then, in the late sixties, it began to occur to people that perhaps there was a bit more to reforestation than just planting a ton of trees. By the early 1980s someone had invented the word biodiversity and rural landowners, who up until then had cheerfully been industrialising the landscape, were told to start putting it back the way they’d found it – in fact, better than the way they’d found it, if you don’t mind.

  ‘When the National Trust took this place over they probably designated it a PAWS,’ said Beverley. Which meant Plantation on Ancient Woodland Site, which led to the next question – what the fuck is an ancient woodland?

  ‘They call it the wildwood,’ said Beverley and, according to the men and women with serious beards and slightly windswept hair who make it their business to know this stuff, it used to cover pretty much most of the island of Great Britain. Then, 6,000 years ago, farmers turned up with their fancy genetically modified crops and started clearing the forest out. And what they didn’t clear got eaten away by their artificially mutated cattle, sheep and goats. By the Middle Ages most of it was gone, and Britain entered the Napoleonic War desperate for timber.

  ‘Why do you know all this stuff?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s all anyone involved in working the countryside ever talks about,’ she said. ‘That and the vagaries of the EU subsidy regime and how evil the supermarkets are. Anyway, ground cover has a critical impact on water tables and flow rates. so you can bet we all take an interest in that – even Tyburn, who’s pretty much a storm drain from one end to the other.’

  Beverley pointed out the trees that had been left standing when the area was cleared. A long strip of them went along the river bank and beside the footpaths. ‘That’s deliberate. Those are remnants of the ancient woodlands,’ she said.

  ‘And the weird bit?

  ‘It’s the timing,’ she said. ‘You don’t just charge in and clear ten hectares of commercial forest – which apart from anything else is worth a ton of money.’ So normally you wait for the current crop of western hemlock or Douglas fir or whatever to mature and then you cut them down and replant with historically appropriate broadleaf trees. Forest management not being an industry for people with a short attention span.

  But according to the dates we’d seen on the sign, the trees had only been halfway to maturity before they were felled. ‘That would have been a serious loss of revenue, and I doubt the Forestry Commission would have liked it.’

  ‘And that’s what’s weird, is it?’ I asked.

  ‘I told you it wasn’t the kind of weird you wanted,’ said Beverley. ‘What do you want to do now?’

  I looked back the way we’d come. The squared-off tower of Aymestrey’s church was visible on the other side of the river, and up the road by the bridge I could see the half-timbered jumble that was the Riverside Inn. It was hot and exposed out amongst the seedlings and the air was still and close. It was tempting just to walk back down, step into the bar and a have a beer or nine. I turned to find Beverley looking at me with concern.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said.

  ‘Let’s go up a bit,’ I said.

  So we followed the trail as it climbed diagonally across the upper slope of what would be, in a
nother twenty years or so, the ancient Pokehouse Wood. We got a taste of what it might look like when the path turned left into a mature belt of deciduous trees. Near the far edge of the trees the path got steep enough that you ended up using your hands to navigate the last bit, and that meant my eyes were just at the right level to spot the little strip of pink hanging from a strand of the barbed-wire fence, just to the right of the stile.

  It was a centimetre wide and about six long. Thick pink cotton, the same shade as that of the Capri pants that Nicole Lacey was thought to have been wearing when she left her house. I froze and told Beverley to stop moving. We’d have to be careful backtracking down the path to avoid contaminating the scene any further.

  I leaned forward, put my hand over my mouth, and got as close as I dared. When I was sure there wasn’t any detectable vestigia I leant back and swore.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Beverley.

  I nodded at the strip of cloth. Along one side there was a distinctive reddish-brown stain.

  We’re the police. We’re accustomed to disappointment. But I’ve never been in a room full of so many dispirited coppers as we had at the evening briefing on Day 6.

  Windrow and Edmondson were good, but there was no disguising the litany of non-results. There had been sightings everywhere across the UK, Europe and beyond. Police were turning out from Aberdeen to Marseilles, which was heartening while at the same time being totally futile. In a case involving missing children the good news/bad news routine is always, the bad news is – we haven’t found them yet, and the good news is – we haven’t found them yet . . .

  But we had found a strip of pink cloth. Less than two minutes after I’d called it in, a helicopter had gone overhead and less than ten minutes after that the lead elements of the search team in Aymestrey had arrived, red-faced, sweating and proving that they were much fitter than I was. They helped secure the site, but as the numbers started to pile up me and Beverley made a tactical retreat.

  Windrow and Edmondson invited me down to the nick where we had a two-hour discussion about what led me up that particular path at that particular time. The problem being that a search team had done the whole length of the Mortimer Trail on Day 2 and that strip of pink fabric had not been there when they did it.

  When this was reported at the briefing a ripple went through the ranks. I knew what they were thinking – a kidnapping, a plucky but futile escape attempt, recapture by the kidnapper, followed by panic. Followed, with remorseless logic, by death and disposal.

  When it was over I slipped out onto the terrace to clear my head.

  It was still close enough to sunset for the sky to be dark blue rather than black, but it was already cooler. There was a distinct breeze coming from the west and with it snatches of James Brown and the hum of generators – the drone of a funfair as unmistakable as a bagpipe warming up. Much closer below me I could hear the restless murmur of the media pack as they lapped at the walls of the station.

  My phone pinged. The caller ID showed ‘withheld’ but I knew who it was.

  Y haven’t you found girls yet?

  Beverley was waiting for me outside the cowshed – which would have been encouraging on just about any other night. The door was open and the light was on, casting a yellow rectangle across the bottom of the garden and into the empty orchard beyond.

  Either I’d left the door open or Beverley had broken in.

  ‘Dominic’s mum gave me the spare keys,’ she said.

  ‘Did you have a good rummage?’

  ‘Yes, thanks.’

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I’m going to bed. You can do what you like.’

  ‘You’re fucking unnatural, you are,’ she said,

  ‘Oh, don’t start.’

  She stepped over into my line of sight.

  ‘I understand you’ve got self-control and all that,’ she said. ‘I get it. But you’re just . . . fucking unnatural, Peter.’

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘You can come to bed too, but I’m still going to go to sleep.’

  ‘Is that what you think I’m talking about?’ Beverley folded her arms across her chest.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you just tell me?’

  ‘You had your hands on the Faceless Man,’ she said. ‘And your best friend stabbed you in the back and you’re just like “Oh well, you win some, you lose some – ho ho ho.” Which is fucking unnatural.’

  ‘And you think this is helping?’

  ‘I think it would be useful if you got just a little bit angry,’ she said. ‘I’m not asking you to turn green and go on a rampage but, you know, expressing a little bit of displeasure would not be inappropriate given the circumstances.’

  ‘Like what you’d have done, yeah?’ I said, because I’m terminally stupid. ‘Throw a strop – flood out a few homes?’

  ‘That’s different,’ said Beverley matter of factly. ‘And, anyway, sometimes it’s you getting angry and sometimes it’s exceptionally heavy rainfall in your catchment area. To be honest, it can be tricky telling the two apart. But that’s me, isn’t it? I’m a goddess, Peter, a creature of temperament and whimsy. I’m supposed to be arbitrary and mercurial – it’s practically my job description. And this isn’t about me.’

  ‘What do you want me to do, Bev? Anything for a quiet life.’

  Beverley turned and pointed down at a solitary tree that stood by the garden fence. It was squat and a bit twisty; something deciduous is the best I can do.

  ‘Why don’t you blow up the tree?’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Give it a lightning bolt, rip it up by its roots, knock it down – set it on fire?’ She trailed off.

  ‘What’s it ever done to me?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s a tree,’ said Beverley.

  ‘I can’t,’ I said.

  ‘They’re not short of trees round here,’ she said. ‘They’re not going to miss it. And in case you’re worried, nobody’s living in it or mystically attached to it. Take some of that anger and let it rip – you’ll feel better.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Yeah, you can,’ she said.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘What is wrong with you?’

  ‘I can’t,’ I said slowly. ‘It doesn’t fucking work that way, okay? It’s not about anger, or love or the power of fricking friendship. It’s about concentration, about control.’ It’s hard enough to make a forma when you’re hungry, let alone when you’re angry. ‘So you can see that as a form of cathartic release it’s a little bit shit.’

  Beverley tipped her head to one side and gave me a long look.

  ‘Okay,’ she said and cast around at the base of the tree and came up with a section of branch a shade longer than a baseball bat – she held it out to me. ‘Hit it with a stick instead.’

  ‘If I hit the tree,’ I said, ‘will you get off my back?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  She smiled as I took the branch. The full moon hovered over the roof of the bungalow and I remembered half dreaming the empty orchard full of trees. I strode up to the tree, swung one handed and the impact jarred the branch loose from my fingers.

  ‘That’s pathetic,’ called Beverley.

  I scooped up the branch and brandished it at the tree.

  ‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I know you trees are up to something.’

  And then I smacked it hard with the branch, keeping my grip loose so that I wouldn’t let go this time – it did make a satisfying thwack.

  ‘Now, I thought I was dreaming last night,’ I said. ‘But I wasn’t, was I?’

  Thwack.

  ‘They were ghost trees . . .’

  Thwack.

  ‘Weren’t they? Because people leave a trace behind them. So why shouldn’t trees?’

  Smack – a fragment of bark flew off the trunk.

  ‘It doesn’t have to be a big trace, because you’re there for bloody years – aren’t you?’

  Smack.

  ‘But you
can’t talk because you’re a fucking tree, so really this whole fucking enhanced interrogation shit is a waste of time.’ I lowered my branch. ‘As if it wasn’t always a waste of time.’

  I hit the bloody thing as hard as I could, hard enough to numb the palms of my hands, hard enough that the crack echoed off the old wall. Because it’s always a waste of time, all those rushed, angry stupid things you do. They never solve the problems. Because in real life that rush of adrenaline and rage just makes you dumb and seeing red just leads you up the steps to court for something aggravated – assault, battery, stupidity.

  I hit the tree again and it hurt my hands even worse.

  Because getting angry doesn’t help, or weeping or pleading or just fucking trying to be reasonable. Because she lost her face, man. Because that had to be like having your identity ripped away. Because you’re looking in the mirror and a hideous stranger is staring back. And what would I do if I was her, if I was given that choice? – like there would even be a decision. And getting angry doesn’t bring back her face or unmake the choice that she made. Any more than it made a difference when Dad wouldn’t get out of bed or when Mum just flat out told you that your stuff was needed by somebody else. When the people you need stuff from are more interested in something else.

  At some point the stick broke.

  There were probably manly tears.

  Beverley Brook may have put me to bed, or it’s possible I might have done it myself, just as I’ve always done.

  I woke up to find the curtains open and my bed bathed in sunshine.

  I got into the shower and the hot water stung my palms. There were scrapes and cuts across both my hands.

  ‘You think this is bad,’ I told the reflection in the bathroom mirror. ‘You should see the other guy.’

  When I got out of the shower I rolled my shoulders and stretched my neck. I felt better, but there was still a stone in my chest when I thought of Lesley. Some things aren’t fixed by a couple of hours of primal screaming – or whatever that was I’d been doing the night before.