by Kim M Watt
“That was close,” she whispered to Jasmine, and the younger woman nodded furiously. She had a smudge of dirt on her forehead and her pink fleece was barely visible under the mud.
“Do you think he was a thug?” she asked.
“A thug?”
Jasmine shrugged. “You know, a heavy hired by the developer.”
“I don’t know. He didn’t sound like a thug.” Not that she was sure what a thug sounded like. Maybe like someone in one of those London movies full of gangsters.
“Stop gossiping and get moving!” Rob crept past them, walking bent over and clutching a tire iron like a rifle.
Miriam gave him her most Alice look. “Stop talking so much. The rest of us don’t like your voice as much as you do.”
He gaped at her, and Jasmine giggled.
“Come on, Jas, dear. This is ridiculous.” She led the way across the field on her hands and knees, dragging her cricket bat with her, slipping as she got to the muddy area by the gate and gouging herself on inopportune pebbles. She peeked into the last field, with its soft long grass and wildflowers, then opened the gate and led everyone through except Rose and Teresa, who had already climbed over.
“Cheat,” Rose said, and Miriam stuck her tongue out at her.
They hurried across the last field in awkward crouches, Miriam fighting the urge to sneeze as pollen and seeds rose around them in a cloud. She glanced around, checking for the dragons, and saw them watching over the wall from the field behind them. It made the tightness in her chest ease a little, just knowing they were there, even if she’d said they shouldn’t be. Some directions weren’t meant to be listened to. She looked back at where she was going in time to avoid being knocked over by Angelus, who was bouncing around the field like a kangaroo on all fours. She joined the others as they lined up behind the stone wall, Rose just able to see over the top by standing on her tiptoes, Teresa in an uncomfortable crouch that made Miriam’s knees hurt just looking at it. The house was directly across the yard from them, the front door open, and someone had turned the light on in the hall. Rob raised his hand with his fist clenched, and the ladies of the W.I. looked at each other, then at Rainbow and Harriet.
“He can’t help himself,” Harriet said apologetically.
“Army?” Carlotta asked.
“Couldn’t get in. Bad hips,” Rainbow said.
“Shh!” Rob said, glaring at them all.
They went back to staring at the house. They waited long enough for Miriam to see Beaufort, Mortimer and Amelia had crept into the field to their left, and were padding down to the farmyard wall. Amelia waved, and Miriam gave a nervous wave back.
“Someone’s there!” Rosemary whispered.
There was movement beyond the door, and a moment later a man stopped in the doorway, frowning out at the yard. He’d put the outside light on too, and it washed over his curly dark hair and lit his face.
“It’s the journalist!” Miriam exclaimed.
“The one with the dimples,” Carlotta said.
“You would remember those,” Rosemary said, then gave a muffled oof as Carlotta elbowed her.
“Duck!” Jasmine squeaked, and the eleven women – and Rob – dropped behind the wall as the journalist scanned the yard. They stayed crouched there, looking at each other.
“What’s he doing here?” Miriam asked.
“He must’ve found out about the farms,” Rainbow said. “We should use him.”
“No, no. We can’t talk to him,” Gert said. “He’s an annoying little hack.”
“We definitely shouldn’t talk to him,” Miriam agreed. Especially not with the dragons in the other field. He might end up seeing them, and they had more than enough to deal with, what with kidnappings and murders and car crashes.
“But it’s good to have the press on our side,” Harriet said. “He could write a whole piece about it. It could really help!”
“We don’t know who else is there,” Priya said. “We can’t just shout, hey, come join us!”
There was a murmur of agreement among the group, then Miriam got to her knees. As if it were a signal, everyone else scrambled up, and they peeked over the wall together, only to find the journalist standing in the yard looking back at them.
“Hey,” he said.
Miriam glanced around. Everyone else had ducked back to safety, leaving her staring at the journalist. She considered following them, but there didn’t seem to be much point. “Um, hello,” she said.
They looked at each other for a moment longer, then the journalist said, “What’re you doing there?”
Miriam licked her lips. “Rambling?”
“Rambling? In a farmyard?”
“Well, we’re not actually in it, you are. We, um, we’re looking for the footpath.”
The journalist took a step closer. “I know you.”
“Really?” She’d been hoping he might not recognise her with all the mud on her face and, she had a feeling, foliage in her hair.
“Yes. From the manor house. Ms–— Ms Ellis, right?”
“Um. Yes, actually.”
“Don’t tell him your name!” Jasmine squeaked from somewhere around Miriam’s knees.
“But he already knows who I am,” she said, looking down at the younger woman.
“I’m Ervin, Ervin Giles,” the journalist said.
“I know,” she admitted, turning back to him.
“Okay.” He gave her a really quite lovely smile. “So what’re you actually doing here?”
“Protesting!” Rainbow jumped up next to Miriam, making the journalist take a step back. “We won’t stand for our beautiful land to be flattened and pulverised in the name of corporate greed!”
“Quite,” the journalist said, taking his phone from his pocket. “Do you mind if I record this?”
“No! I’ll shout it from the rooftops!”
“No need for that.” He squinted at her. “Wait – I remember you! You blocked the road with that tree.”
“Mother Nature did that. We merely protected the tree.”
Ervin nodded. “Fair enough. Look, how many farms are involved in this? I’ve been to two others already that were empty.”
“It’s a conspiracy of the highest order,” Rainbow declared, lifting her mud-spattered chin. “An age-old tale of greed winning out against the rights of the little people!”
Ervin gave an agreeable nod. “Okay, so tell me what’s going on. What are your plans for the protest, exactly?”
Miriam stared at Rainbow as she launched into a grand description of how they’d form human barricades and sleep in the trees for months rather than allow the land to be destroyed. She was quite fuzzy on the details of what, exactly, the developer’s plans were, but so passionate it was quite easy to miss that omission. Certainly Ervin didn’t seem too bothered. He just kept nodding and making encouraging noises. Miriam wondered if it could actually have been this easy. If they could have just gone to the press and put the story out in the open, and the farms would have been safe, and so would Alice. Then she remembered the terrible, heart-freezing realisation that the brakes weren’t working, and the sight of the other cars coming toward her, and the impact of car on wall, which could have gone so much worse than it did. No, she wasn’t sure it ever could have been that easy at all. And Alice was still in there somewhere.
“I’m not sure we should do this right now,” she started, and at that moment there was the sound of smashing glass from the house. Ervin spun around, and the W.I. popped up from behind the wall, staring at the house. A man staggered away from the shattered window, and Miriam whispered, “Alice.”
“I knew there was someone in there!” Ervin said, and started across the yard, just as a door slammed open somewhere out of sight around the sheds.
“Wait!” Jasmine shouted. “There’s someone else out here!”
Ervin hesitated, and someone whistled, a sharp shrill noise that sounded awfully authoritative to Miriam.
“I think you sho
uld get over here,” she said to the journalist.
“No, I need to see what’s going on.” But he didn’t make any move toward the whistle. Miriam peered up at the window, looking for movement or a swirl of silver hair, but there was nothing. She wondered what the breaking glass meant. It couldn’t be anything good.
A man appeared around the corner of one of the sheds, and stopped when he saw the journalist in the yard and the women peering over the wall. He was wearing black trousers with far too many pockets and a black jacket that looked very shiny and sleek. He stared at them for a moment, then said, “What the hell are you lot doing here?”
No one replied for a moment, then Ervin said, “Um. Rambling?”
“That seems a bit bloody unlikely.”
“We’re lost,” Miriam said, her tongue too dry in her mouth.
“Got that right,” the man said, then, raising his voice just slightly, called, “Rich?”
There was a pause, and Miriam hissed at the journalist, “Get over here!”
“I might, actually.” He took a step toward to wall, and the man clicked his tongue sharply.
“Stay,” he said, and raised a hand, levelling it at Ervin. Miriam stared at his hand, wondering if it was a prosthetic. Gloves didn’t tend to be so hard and metallic looking. So—
“Oh bollocks,” Ervin said, sounding a little breathless.
“Down!” Rainbow bellowed.
Miriam tore her gaze off the man’s hand in time to see the tall, bearded man they’d met before come around the corner of the shed, then Jasmine had hold of her and was hauling her to the ground.
“That was a gun!” Jasmine gasped, her hands shaking. Angelus was barking, big booming arfs that seemed to echo off the walls and ring in Miriam’s ears, making the world around her swim. “Miriam!”
She shook herself, trying to dislodge the noise. “Are you sure?”
“Definitely,” Gert said. She looked uncharacteristically pale.
“But why— why would they have guns?” Miriam whispered. And not practical old shotguns for rabbits or anything like that. Whatever he’d been holding had been short and fat, a nasty ugly thing made for hiding and hurting. “They shouldn’t have guns!”
Rose started to say something regarding the man’s ancestry and possible relation to non-humans, and from over the wall, they heard the man say, “Hold it right there.” Miriam supposed Ervin was making a break for it, and started to climb to her feet, not sure how she could help, but sure she should do something, then there was a horrible bang.
Miriam felt something reach inside her and squeeze her heart so hard she thought it might stop. Pearl gave a small scream, and Carlotta clutched Rosemary to her like she would a child. Then there was echoing silence.
Jasmine touched her ear, then said in a shaky voice, “Is everyone okay?”
There was a general murmur of agreement, and Miriam took a deep, wobbly breath. No one seemed inclined to move, just exchanging anxious looks and little touches, a way of assuring each other they all still existed. She pressed her trembling hands together, counted everyone again, then said, “Was— what about Ervin?”
Rose lifted herself onto her knees carefully, while Priya tried to drag her back down. Rose pushed her gently away, took her hat off, stuck it on the end of her garden shears and lifted them so the hat stuck up over the wall. There was no response, no more shots, so Rose climbed to her feet and peeked cautiously into the yard. “I don’t see anyone.”
“What? They were right there.” Miriam scrambled to her feet, took a deep breath, and lifted her head over the stones, flinching from a shot that never came. The yard was empty. “Where’s he gone?”
“Well, he wasn’t shot, at least,” Gert said, standing up next to Miriam. “We’d … well, we’d be able to see if he had been.”
“They must have taken him prisoner,” Pearl said, her eyes wide.
“Are we going back?” Jasmine asked in a small voice. She was hugging Primrose to her, the dog wriggling and whining. “They’ve got guns.”
“I think that’s wise,” Priya said, and everyone looked at Miriam. She tried to ignore them. Why did they insist on looking at her? She wasn’t the sort of person people looked to for leadership in a crisis. Or outside of one. But even Gert was waiting to see what she said.
She took a deep breath, thinking that she’d really like to be home, in her pyjamas, watching something terribly cheesy and mindless and probably involving sequins and dancing on TV, rather than standing in a field covered in mud and sheep effluent while someone took potshots about the place.
“We could wait for the police,” Rosemary said. “You know, just keep an eye on things.”
The police. “Um,” Miriam said. She’d had her phone out to text them, of course, and she’d sat in the car, yes, then Beaufort had surprised her, then … “Oh dear.”
“Oh dear?” Gert said. “As in oh dear, I didn’t call them?”
“Maybe?” Miriam said, then wilted as everyone glared at her. “I was going to, I was! But everyone was rushing, and the …” she caught herself before she could say dragons, because Rainbow and Rob and Harriet were here, and they still didn’t know “… I forgot.”
“Well, damn,” Gert said. “That’s inconvenient.”
“We’ll just call them now,” Rose said. “Who’s got a phone?”
There was a rustle of movement as everyone checked their pockets, then silence other than Angelus’ steady barking. Everyone looked at Rob, who was unusually quiet and pale.
“You made us leave them all behind,” Priya said. “No room for them on a covert operation, you said. You silly man!”
“To be fair,” Teresa pointed out, “I can never find clothes with a good phone pocket.”
“Buy men’s,” Jasmine said. “They’re much better for that sort of thing.”
“So sexist,” Rose said. “Typical!”
They all glared at Rob, who tried to hide behind Rainbow.
“Well,” Miriam said, “Someone has to go back for the phones.” She looked at the house, looming grey and uninviting across the yard, and the sheds crouched together as if they held monstrous secrets. Which they did. They held at least two men with guns, and who knew what else. “I’m going after Alice.”
No one spoke, until Jasmine said, “They shot at the journalist.”
“But they didn’t hurt him.” She hoped. “We need to get Alice out of there.” Miriam was almost certain that a last hold-out of common sense was jumping up and down in the back of her mind and screaming, but she ignored it. “I can’t just leave her.”
Silence again, and this time it was Rose who broke it. “Well, damn.” She’d managed to get hold of Angelus and stop him barking. Now he was just growling steadily, like some massive engine. “Let’s go, woman!”
“I’m in,” Rosemary said. “How do you deal with kidnappers in the old country, Carlotta?”
Carlotta looked thoughtful. “I think it involves missing limbs. Or eyes. We may have to improvise.”
Priya climbed to her feet. “I’m in, then.”
“Me too,” Pearl said. “Obviously.” Teresa gave her a quick, one-armed hug, and Jasmine put Primrose on the ground, where she growled at everyone.
“I’m coming. We can set Primmy on them.”
The women mumbled agreement, although Miriam imagined they all thought much as she did – that with any luck the dog might run away and never be found again, and that she was more likely to bite one of them than the gunman. But it was the thought that counted.
“You’re all mad,” Harriet said. “I’m a protester, not a commando.”
Rainbow fidgeted for a moment, then said, “Fine. Fine. But only because I can’t stand for anyone shooting at my little sister.” She looked at Harriet. “Can you go call the police, and take Rob with you?”
“That I’ll do.” Harriet helped a trembling Rob to his feet and they crept off down the field, bent low. He clung to her, reciting numbers and making little squ
eaking noises every time he tripped on a stone.
“What’s wrong with him?” Gert asked.
“He’s not very good in high pressure situations,” Rainbow said. “He was a stockbroker when he was younger, and now if the stress gets too much he just shuts down and starts reciting stock prices.” She looked at Miriam. “Alright then, little sister. What’s the plan?”
Miriam managed to swallow her own squeak, and reminded herself that, at the very least, she wasn’t haunted by stock markets. That sounded dreadful. “Well,” she said, “I think—”
“Can you hear that barking?” Rose interrupted.
“What barking?” Teresa asked.
“I hear it.” Jasmine put her hands on the wall, peering into the darkening yard. “It sounds like it’s in one of the sheds.”
“Or not,” Rose said, as Ervin bolted into the yard, arms and legs pumping desperately, followed by a wash of men’s laughter and the deep-throated baying of dogs. He sprinted for the nearest wall, flung himself at it so hard the women gave a collective wince, and tumbled over the top into safety as at least a dozen frankly enormous dogs thundered into the yard.
“Well, at least he’s not hurt,” Pearl said.
25
DI Adams
DI Adams swung the Golf into the farm lane, the engine snarling as she pushed as fast as she dared, the surface a mix of rock and mud that wasn’t designed for speed. Collins had one hand on the door, the other on the dashboard, and Thompson was clambering over him as if he were one of those carpeted towers people buy for their cats to ignore.
“There’s definitely a block on this place. I can smell it. I bet it’s werewolf runes.” He stepped rather heavily on Collins’ lap, and Collins yelped.
“Watch it!”
“How’s that tracking looking?” DI Adams asked, trying to see beyond the stone walls to the house.
“The journalist and Auntie Miriam are both here.”
“We just have to hope Alice is, too.” By the time they’d left the house the little blip that showed Alice’s phone had vanished entirely from somewhere around the middle of town, and DI Adams had a sneaking suspicion that the culprit was the well in the centre of the village square. But even in a village as quiet as Toot Hansell it seemed unlikely anyone had stuffed a body down the well when it was still light out, so they’d left it and gone in pursuit of Miriam and Ervin.