by Shaun Baines
“It’s fine and I’m really tired,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “I need a break.”
Callum scanned the room, searching for any kind of threat and then seemed to relax.
“As long as you’re okay,” he said. “Get some rest and I’ll be back in the morning.”
Callum stopped at the base of the stairs, staring at the landing above. “Does Derek usually sleep it off on the sofa?”
“Most nights,” Holly said, her face flushing red and she followed his gaze up the stairs.”
“Derek’s shoes are in the sitting room,” Callum said, scratching his chin. “So why are there dirty footprints going upstairs?”
Holly took the steps two at a time, fighting the urge to be sick. The dirty prints continued along the floor to her bedroom. Holding onto her stomach, Holly burst through the door and clasped a hand around her mouth.
The search wasn’t as destructive as it had been in Callum’s room, but that wasn’t the point. The drawers to her dresser were open. Clothes had been removed from her wardrobe.
Holly’s privacy had been violated while her stupid husband was asleep downstairs.
“I feel ill,” she said.
Callum dropped to his knees, running his hand over the indents in the carpet and examining the dirt on his fingers. “Has anything been taken?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.” Holly wrapped her arms around herself, but was far from comforted. “After everything we’ve done, Arnold still managed to get inside my house.”
“It wasn’t Arnold,” Callum said, getting to his feet.
“How can you be sure?” Holly asked, fighting back a tear.
Callum showed Holly his hand. It was covered in a dusting of mud, but it meant nothing to her.
“What are you trying to say?” she asked.
“This isn’t mud,” Callum offered as an explanation. “It’s dried manure, something you get a lot of in a farmyard. By the looks of it, Mr MacFarlene took off Derek’s shoes, but kept his on. Derek was probably too drunk to notice.
“I didn’t notice either,” Holly said, her throat constricting in shock. “Mr MacFarlene was in my bedroom? Why? Why would he do this? He’s a drunk, but he’s not a bad man.”
Callum shook his head in silence, cleaning his hand on his trousers.
Holly allowed herself a tear and then swiped it away. The sickness in her stomach disappeared. The doubting voices in her head were gone. All the insecurities she’d carried since returning to Little Belton were gone.
Looking at Callum, her face hardened.
“Why don’t we find out then?” she asked.
***
Dusk was setting. The dead branches of Mr MacFarlene’s garden cast long shadows, coating his house in black tiger stripes against the orange of a dying sun.
Holly wrapped her knuckles on the front door, its paint cracking under her persistent fist.
“I told you, he’s not in,” Callum said.
“I want answers.” Holly tried the handle and found it locked. “Let’s try around the back.”
Holly took a cobbled path down the side of the house. The rear garden was twice as big as the front, but just as overgrown. Tall grass had collapsed in a matted tangle. Three mature apple trees waited to come into leaf. Their branches were locked like hands in prayer. They blocked Holly’s view, but she heard sheep bleating from the field beyond.
“Farmers make the worst gardeners,” Callum said, swiping his booted foot through the grass. His foot connected with something hard and he reached down to find the weathered statue of a garden gnome fighting to stay above the vegetation.
“They don’t make great friends, either.” Holly pulled at the collar around her throat. It felt tight, suffocating. The image of her desecrated bedroom came to mind and she forced her eyes shut to block it out. “I trusted him.”
“We should wait for him to come home and explain himself,” Callum said.
“He didn’t wait for me,” Holly said. “MacFarlene ransacked my home. The least I can do is return the favour.”
Callum rubbed his forehead. “Look, we’ll not find anything. If his garden is anything to go by, his house will be a tip.”
But Holly didn’t care. Deep down, she knew this wasn’t about finding answers. It was payback and it was petty. The kitchen door was made of nine panes of glass. Her hand lingered on the handle. What would it say about Holly if she tried it?
Callum came to her side. “You know this is wrong, right?”
She didn’t need the gamekeeper’s moral compass swinging in the right direction and she braced herself to commit a crime.
He gently pulled her grip from the handle. “You don’t want to do this,” he said and tried the handle for himself. It was locked and Callum grabbed the gnome by the head, forcing it through a glass pane. Jagged shards fell like rain and he reached inside to undo the lock.
“He’ll know we’ve been here now,” Holly said.
Callum wiped a smear of blood from his knuckles. “Good.”
The kitchen was not what either of them expected. The surfaces were clean. The sink was empty of dirty dishes. There was a taint of bleach in the air as if the stone floor had recently been cleaned. A shelf sported a selection of well-thumbed cookery books. Next to Tapas for Beginners was a copy of The History of Northumberland.
“We haven’t broken into the wrong house, have we?” Callum asked.
The cast iron of the Aga pinged with expanding heat, making Holly jump.
“He’s not who we thought he was, that’s for sure,” she said.
“We should go,” Callum said, glancing at the shattered glass.
“Let’s have a quick look around,” Holly said. “We’re here now.”
Leaving the kitchen through another door, Holly walked into a sitting room. The smell of bleach was replaced with something floral. On a central table was a vase of freshly cut wildflowers. The sofa was covered with a tartan throw and faced a fireplace free of ash. There were paintings of cows and sheep on the wall, but Holly was drawn to a framed black and white photograph on the mantlepiece. It showed a bright-eyed Mr MacFarlene with his beautiful wife. They looked happy, thought Holly.
“Okay, I think we can go now,” she said.
“Not yet,” Callum said, twisting his fingers through his hair. “Look at these.”
Behind the sofa were two sleeping bags, tucked into rolls.
“These are the same bags Mr MacFarlene was drying on the washing line,” Callum said.
Next to them were two rucksacks plump with clothing. Two sets of boots rested on newspaper.
“What’s that?” Holly asked, lifting one of the bags to one side. Underneath was an opened envelope.
“The postmark,” Callum said. “It was sent from South Tyneside. The Port of Tyne is in South Tyneside. That’s where Mr Winnow was sent to collect the bulbs.”
“It was posted over six weeks ago.” Ignoring her guilt, Holly teased out the letter. She also ignored the look on Callum’s face. The letter was printed on a blank piece of paper with no identifying signatures or marks and yet its contents were familiar.
It read - Follow The Star.
Voices came from outside.
Holly and Callum froze, their mouths open.
“Run,” Callum hissed.
They bolted from the room into the kitchen. Fighting to be the first one out of the door, Holly knocked the shelf, spilling cookery books onto the floor. They both stopped.
“Go, go, go,” Holly hissed.
“No, wait.” Callum turned his ear to the rear of the house. “They’re coming in the back way.”
Holly and Callum returned to the sitting room.
“Through here,” Callum said.
They took another door as they heard the kitchen door opening. The voices were louder, speaking in clipped tones. They paused and Holly heard the tinkle of broken glass before Mr MacFarlene raised his voice.
“I’ve been burgled,” he shouted.
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Boots were stamped and voices were raised.
Urging her panic to be still, Holly saw the front door ahead of them. She tried the handle, knowing it was locked. “We need the key.”
Callum’s head swivelled left to right, scanning the hallway. Pictures. Table. Boot rack. Vase.
“There,” he said, pointing.
The vase was glass. Inside was a set of keys. Holly tipped them out, dropping them on the floor.
“What was that?” she heard a voice say from the kitchen.
“Hurry,” Callum said.
Holly’s heart drummed in her chest. She tried one key. Nothing. Another. Nothing.
Callum danced on the spot, his eyes trained in the direction they’d come from.
Holly inserted another key and twisted. It worked. The door opened. She returned the keys to the vase and they slipped outside, closing the door quietly. They kept their heads low, ducking behind a hedgerow opposite the house.
“Can we go now?” Callum asked. His face was grey and he seemed to have developed worry lines overnight.
“I want to see who is with Mr MacFarlene,” Holly said.
“What difference does it make? They’re probably calling the police by now.”
Holly wriggled her arm through the hedgerow, clearing away branches blocking her view.
Someone in the house switched on a light.
“Because those sleeping bags belong to someone,” Holly said. “Someone who got the same note I did.”
The first person to appear by the window was the farmer. He was carrying a whisky bottle in one hand and a telephone in the other.
Callum pushed in beside Holly, his reservations giving way to curiosity.
Then two people came to the window at once. They looked tired and weather-worn, probably from tramping through the estate all day and night. When Arnold’s camp had been disturbed at the manor, he’d found sanctuary elsewhere. He stood in profile, talking animatedly to Mr MacFarlene, who lowered the phone from his ear. Holly wasn’t surprised to see Nancy Foxglove next to him.
“So that’s where they disappeared to,” Callum said. “I knew they couldn’t be on the estate. I would have found them.”
Holly slithered back from the hedge. “Mr MacFarlene isn’t an eco-warrior. Why would he help Nancy and Arnold?”
“We’re worried about the village being run into the ground by the Masterlys. He’s worried about his farm. It’s all he’s got.”
“He has his drinking problem.”
Callum stroked his throat with his finger. “I think one thing bleeds into another.”
Holly was angry with Mr MacFarlene, but she had to admit it was waning. His house was immaculate, which was a miracle considering how drunk he constantly was. The pride missing in most winos was found in the farmer’s home; the home he once shared with a wife he loved.
It didn’t excuse how he’d acted at Holly’s home, but it raised a larger question mark over Mr MacFarlene’s head.
“There’s no point in waiting here,” Callum said. “We should confront them.”
Holly held onto him. “You can’t. It’s too much of a coincidence. They’ll know it was us who broke in.”
“Mr MacFarlene isn’t calling the police,” Callum said. “For some reason, Arnold seems to have talked him out of it.”
“Because the pair of them have been doing exactly the same thing. They obviously don’t want to attract any further attention.”
“What are we going to do?” Callum asked.
Holly crawled away from the hedge, lying in a dip in the field. With dusk deepening to nightfall, starlight pricked into existence. Little Belton settled down to sleep and planets a billion miles away were waking up.
We need another plan, she thought.
Chapter Forty
Over the next few days, Callum trailed the trio from Mr MacFarlene’s farmhouse. Holly left him to it. Her skills as a tracker were as well-honed as her skills as a barmaid. When she’d stated the same to Callum, she had hoped he might disagree. After five minutes of him talking about the weather, Holly realised it wasn’t going to happen.
She didn’t mind. She had bigger farmers to fry.
Little Belton’s high street was deserted. There was no moving traffic and few pedestrians. Up ahead, a young mother pushed a buggy over the divots of the village green. She glanced at Holly and down to her sleeping baby
Holly tried to smile, but it was met with a hard stare. The young mother pushed harder, picking up her pace until she disappeared around a corner.
A handful of people milled around the Masterlys’ media hub. They held tattered leaflets in their hands. They’d been read before. In their other hand was free alcohol and the chance to forget.
Opposite the hub, Big Gregg rested in the doorway of The Travelling Star, his arms folded. A Sold sign hung above his head.
“How are you, love?” he asked as Holly approached.
The sign read ‘Building a Better Future Today.’ It belonged to the Salting Brothers.
“What happened?” Holly’s mouth was dry, the shadow of the sign falling across her face.
“Got an offer on the pub. A good one.”
“You can’t take it,” Holly said.
“What else am I going to do?” Big Gregg asked.
“You can fight. You can fight back.”
Big Gregg rapped his knuckles on his prosthetic leg. It emitted a hollow sound. “I’ve done my share of fighting. Doesn’t do much good in the end.”
“It’s only been a couple of weeks,” Holly said. “You can’t be bankrupt.”
“I’m not, but I will be. That new till is an anchor around my neck and without any customers, it’s only a matter of time before I’m out on my ear.”
“What about Callum? He’s paying for room and board,” Holly said.
“Paying over the odds, too, but it’s not enough.”
Big Gregg’s body was strong enough to carry beer barrels around like they were children’s toys. Looking at him now, Holly thought, he was barely able to raise a smile. He was a giant. Reduced to nothing.
Holly rushed into his arms, pressing her cheek against his chest. “Who made the offer on the pub?”
“I think you know. The Masterlys ground me to dust and swept up the pieces. I was an idiot to believe they were here for our benefit. It felt like I was back in the Forces. We were called The Iron Fist Brigade and we never questioned those above us. We went all over the world to fight, but I mainly saw desert.”
Big Gregg stepped out of the hug, leaving Holly holding onto an empty space.
“What happened?” she asked.
“You fight because you’re trained to. They expect it of you, but when you can’t – when you’re no longer capable – they don’t need you anymore.”
Holly stared at Big Gregg’s artificial leg, her lips trembling. “What was it? An IED?”
Big Gregg brushed his ginger locks from his face and laughed. “Didn’t anyone tell you?” he asked, slapping his leg. “I was knocked down by a herd of cows.”
His laughter was infectious and Holly managed a confused chuckle. “A what?”
“I was on leave. I came home to Little Belton and had one too many in here,” he said, touching the brickwork of The Travelling Star. “I went wandering into a field and spooked the cows. They get jumpy at calving time. By the time they got through with me, the surgeons couldn’t do a thing.”
Holly scratched her cheek. “You fought all over the world and you lost your leg in Little Belton?”
“I would have been safer in Iraq,” Big Gregg said. “They really did look after us out there, but I guess it’s different times now. I don’t matter enough anymore.”
“You matter to me,” Holly said.
“This village is my home,” Big Gregg said. “If a rampaging herd of cows can’t scare me away, the Masterlys won’t either, but I’m tired of fighting. Sometimes, retreat is the better option so why don’t we go inside and have a couple of
gins?”
Holly’s smile slipped when she saw the man she was waiting for.
Mr MacFarlene shuffled along the high street, heading toward the media hub. Gone were the days when he propped up Big Gregg’s bar, not when he could get drunk for free. She didn’t even blame him. At least not for that. The media hub was the perfect honey trap, distracting the residents while their homes were demolished around them.
“Another time,” Holly said to Big Gregg. “I promise.”
She hurried after Mr MacFarlene, catching him before he made it to the hub.
He spun to face her, his face draining to white. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for what I did.”
“You were my husband’s guest.”
“I know, but it wasn’t like that.”
Holly stamped her foot, unheeding of his words. “Derek thought you were his friend,” she said. “I thought so, too.”
“I can explain.” Mr MacFarlene said.
“Why did you do it?” Holly asked. “What were you looking for?”
Mr MacFarlene searched the buildings, searched the people. His eyes only stopped roaming when they looked over Holly’s shoulder.
“Come to my house tonight. I’ll explain everything,” he said, stepping away. Breaking into a run, Mr MacFarlene fled down the street.
Holly turned around to see what had frightened him.
Mrs Masterly smiled back at her.
“Causing trouble?” she asked, her flawless teeth gleaming.
As if on cue, there was a distant rumble of thunder. It reverberated around the village green, drawing gasps from those at the hub. The rumble continued, building into a high pitched keen.
“Chainsaws,” Mrs Masterly said. “The clearance is going at quite the pace.”
“You can’t do that.”
“My husband always gets what he wants. How is yours, by the way?”
The frustration in Holly’s throat threatened to choke her. “Fine. Thank you.”
“I’m surprised to hear that,” Mrs Masterly said. “We saw him here the other day. Asked my husband for a job. Again.”
“Why don’t you leave Derek alone?” Holly asked.
“We told him to come back when he was a little less inebriated.”