Special’s grip loosened after the next succession of shots boomed out. I grabbed her little arms to stop her sliding off my back. Another bang shattered the silence, and a stabbing pain seared my right thigh. After lurching a few more paces, my leg gave way. I collapsed onto my side and Special rolled off. She stared at me. She wasn’t sad or frightened. Her face only displayed kindness. Special had never uttered a word, but she tried that night.
‘Sorry,’ she mouthed. And then the light inside her died. My beautiful sister faded. My sister who gave the best hugs in the world.
A few seconds later, a man appeared in my vision. It was Goofy. He reached down and put his hand towards Special’s neck. I didn’t want him touching her. Energy coursed through me and I pushed up with my arms. The agony in my leg stole my power as I attempted to stand, and I crumpled backwards.
The killer shrugged and removed his hand from Special. His fingers came away dripping with blood. He ran a parched tongue over misshapen teeth and put a finger in his mouth. He regretted that she’d died, but only because it prevented him from having her.
A voice in the distance barked out, ‘Finish them off.’
Goofy leaned over me. I smelled the whisky my father drank when he couldn’t get what he needed. His eyes narrowed. I’d often been called Junior at school. A smattering of freckles below cautious green eyes hinted at an age beneath my years. My parents didn’t waste money on haircuts any more, and my mother was no hairdresser. One of the other kids in my class called me Oliver Twist. Perhaps my innocence made Goofy pause.
The wrinkles between his eyebrows deepened, and a cheek twitched. The snow fell again and flurried behind him. Maybe he thought twice, but he remained ruthless at heart. I stared at his eyes as he leaned back. I kept my gaze on him and implored for mercy until I peered into the barrel of his gun.
The next retort and flash were muffled as though the weather had taken the brunt. And darkness fell.
They left us in that bleak field in the depths of winter without a care. The papers would be full of the news for weeks. They called them the snow killings.
Chapter 2
A veterinarian on his way to a morning call at a nearby farm found me covered in blood and lying in the middle of the road. I was two miles from where they discovered my mother, and a mile from my sister. I’d tied my belt around the injured leg and crawled and dragged Special, even when hope was gone. A drunken Goofy had aimed for my face, but his wavering hand meant he hit the top of my head. The strong skull bone broke, but it deflected the bullet away leaving me only with an extremely bad concussion.
They said I should feel lucky to be alive, but it doesn’t feel that way when you’re alone in the world. They mentioned the possibility of a Traumatic Brain Injury, but they hoped for no permanent damage. I would never be the same after that, anyway. I don’t think that’s surprising. Any hopes of a normal future perished in that field.
They removed the bullet from my thigh, and the leg healed fine. Curing a mind was a different matter. Bruised and battered, it vanished to a distant place and left me a vacant creature who responded to little.
I tried to talk to the police. I stuttered about three men, but when I attempted to describe the murders, it finished with me choking and crying. They’d nod at each other and exchange meaningful glances. I assumed they would do their jobs and catch the killers. The visits from the detectives upset me for the rest of the day though, and I’d forgotten about Uncle Ronnie.
As my only living relative, he became my legal guardian. Arriving a week after the deaths, he said he’d overheard someone talking about the shootings. Lucky really, because he didn’t read newspapers. The cottage still had a patrol car outside when he arrived. The police found him cautious and evasive when questioned, but he wasn’t a suspect, and they soon left him alone. The police had determined a clear line of events by examining the murder scenes, and I assumed they had suspects.
My screaming ruined the funeral for the few present. In fact, more police and gawkers attended than mourners. I wondered who paid for the family graves, three in a line, until I caught a subtle glance from the vicar to my uncle. The church was in Peterborough, Orton Longueville. I asked why that particular one and Ronnie told me that he’d saved the vicar’s life once. He gave no further explanation.
After three weeks of little change in my mental state, I managed to describe the man I called Goofy to the police. Uncle Ronnie stayed throughout the chat with them. Afterwards, he tutted and shook his head. All he said was, ‘No good.’ He arrived the next day and told the nurses he wanted to take me for a walk. Fresh air would help waken me up. He borrowed a wheelchair and trundled me to his car. I never returned to hospital and didn’t see the authorities again.
It turned out that Ronnie existed off the grid. Eccentric and crazed, he lived a solitary existence without rules. He slept in a touring caravan pulled by his old van, and had five spots where he would camp for a month at a time. He later told me that was the only way my mother found him. She visited each spot in turn. Some considered him a kind of gypsy, but he said he just didn’t want to live with other people.
To his credit, he took me in. The cramped caravan unsettled me at first. Despite owning little, he’d hung old photos on the wall. He removed them after I mentioned they scared me. I had nothing. Ronnie asked me if I wanted to go back to school. He smiled when I said, ‘No, thank you.’
Ronnie disappeared often in those early months. When I asked where he went, he simply replied, ‘Putting affairs in order.’
Ronnie could best be summed up as ‘the son of a poacher’. His father taught him all he knew, but it wasn’t only animals that Ronnie stole. Pretty much anything not nailed down was fair game. Even securely fastened things were loosened and quickly sold on. In the end, I became his partner in crime. He didn’t speak a great deal, but I think he began to enjoy having me around. There was great value in another pair of eyes in his line of work.
The only thing he’d kept of his father’s was a hand grenade. The story behind it was the only tale of any note that he ever told me. The first time he spoke of it, he stood me up next to the fire and leaned in. This is what he said:
‘The Japanese overran my father’s position at the fall of Singapore in the Second World War. The regiment knew well the enemy’s cruelty to prisoners. With his ammo used and the enemy just feet away, he clutched his last grenade. He couldn’t bring himself to pull the pin and, even though he survived, he left his health and sanity on the Death Railway. After being rescued at the end of the war, he acquired another grenade. He kept it as a souvenir to remind him of his decision.
‘Back in England, he found his son, me, staying with an aunt after an air raid had buried his wife. He took me to the woods and we lived an isolated life. He said he’d never be taken alive again, but died of a heart attack in his sleep, so he never had to make that drastic choice. He raised me to feel the same way.’
I heard that story often. And that belief grew in me too.
We visited the vicar on numerous occasions. He was partial to game, hare being a favourite of his, although he received a TV once. He often gave me a few pennies and a wink. To my astonishment, Ronnie knew nearly everyone. They cheered his arrival. Backhanders and deals filtered through every office and factory.
I put the murders to the back of my mind. Tears wouldn’t help my predicament. We only made one visit to the family graves in Peterborough. When we arrived, fresh flowers lay on the stone. Ronnie had left instructions and money for them to be placed there regularly.
I existed as Ronnie did; a hand-to-mouth life with brief flashes of danger. He taught me how to shoot and lay traps. We relieved washing lines of their contents when we needed new clothes.
Ronnie instilled in me a desire to keep fit. His twenty-minute exercise regime most mornings also became mine. It stilled my mind. We would run together, sometimes by choice, other times when people chased us.
Gradually, I emerged from the shadow
of that terrible night. I read anything from books to the magazines and newspapers we’d find. Mainly to relieve the boredom. Ronnie only needed cigarettes to achieve the same goal. When we were out, I’d notice other young men and women in brightly coloured clothes and striking hairstyles. By contrast, my own clothes reminded me of vagrants I’d seen in London. I also remembered the cinema trips of my youth. I wanted to see movies again and mentioned this to my uncle.
That was when we finally talked. I should have known something was wrong because he’d lost weight when he had few pounds to spare. There were places where he hid his money, and we visited them. He also had a leather bag of jewellery, which he kept behind a panel in the caravan. I asked him if he knew who killed my family. He refused to answer, insisting that they’d still be searching for me. He said I should never trust the police. That was why he removed me from the hospital. Besides, revenge wouldn’t bring my sister back.
It turned out he was quite a few years older than my mother and, even though they were both called Smith, he was only a half-brother. I never really knew who my mother was, and Ronnie didn’t enlighten me.
A little later, he took me out for a drive. He wanted to take deer from one of the royal estates in Norfolk. It was a rare venture because the rich have the best gamekeepers. I think he just hoped to feel the rawness of the hunt one final time. His carelessness on that last day shocked me. His laboured gait betrayed any reassurances of being okay.
He crouched and shot a target from a good distance and gave me a melancholic smile. His lack of urgency surprised me. I stepped from foot to foot as he struggled to rise. A big deer is incredibly heavy. We gutted it on the spot to make it lighter and left the innards for the foxes, but it still took some dragging. It was slow going, made worse by Ronnie’s obvious weakness. Human voices whispered nearby. Ronnie fired in their general direction. My pulse quickened as he’d never done anything like that. He wobbled and lurched as he ran.
It’s strange to think that all those close to me have been killed by guns. The bullet that arrived as we got in the van pierced Ronnie’s back and zipped out the front of his stomach. Must have been a powerful rifle as I later found the bullet embedded in the passenger seat. He managed to pull the door shut, and I drove us away. He’d shot his last deer, but he wouldn’t get to taste it. I headed for the hospital but Ronnie stopped me with a final request. He declared himself ready.
‘Take me home,’ he insisted. The caravan had always been his sanctuary.
‘Come on, Ronnie. They’ll be able to fix you if we go now.’ I didn’t know if that was true, but it had to be worth trying.
He placed his hand on my leg and left it there. I gently covered it with my own, not recalling him deliberately touching me before.
‘I’ve been bleeding.’ He focussed on the distance and swallowed. ‘From the back passage.’
I returned to the campsite and helped him into a deckchair. He pushed me away when I tried to check the wound.
‘Do you want a drink?’ I asked.
‘Yes. Some water, please.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Just quiet.’ His head tilted backwards.
At that point, I decided I had to know and there wouldn’t be another chance to ask him.
‘Who murdered my family?’
He didn’t reply, but his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.
‘Come on, Ronnie. Where can I find them?’
His lips remained shut. His breathing slowed, and I assumed the worst. Suddenly, he whispered the words I needed to hear. ‘The Boy’s Head, Oundle Road.’
I sat next to him in silence because that was all he wanted. I thought about the killers, and guessed that if they weren’t in prison then they’d got away with it. A plan hadn’t formed at that point, but I understood the life I lived would expire when Ronnie did. He took an hour to die.
I know Ronnie believed that retribution would not bring my sister back, and he worried that the men were still searching for the only living witness to the crimes.
I disagreed. I was sure they would have forgotten me, but I would always remember them. And the need for revenge consumed me.
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About the Author
Ross Greenwood is the bestselling author of eight crime thrillers. Before becoming a full-time writer he was most recently a prison officer and so worked everyday with murderers, rapists and thieves for four years. He lives in Peterborough.
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First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Boldwood Books Ltd.
Copyright © Ross Greenwood, 202o
Cover Design by Nick Castle Design
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The moral right of Ross Greenwood to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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