The Silent Forest

by Guy Sheppard

  ‘Look,’ said Nora excitedly. ‘Is that a path over there, or what?’

  Sure enough, a broad band of untrammelled snow cut through the Forest.

  ‘More like a railway line,’ said Thibaut. ‘Perhaps now we can make proper progress on the level.’

  ‘No more walking in circles. This track must lead somewhere.’

  ‘Wait.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘You hear that?’

  The rumble of an approaching vehicle filled their ears. A headlamp dazzled. It was heading straight for them.

  That was no train.

  ‘Duck!’ cried Nora, diving back into the bushes.

  The roar of an engine burst upon them. Its noise broke the vast cave of silence that had until now been strangely protective.

  Thibaut crouched lower among dead bracken.

  ‘We should run.’

  ‘Too late.’

  Next moment two men slowed to a crawl on their Norton motorcycle. While the noise of the 490cc side valve engine faded, crunching tyres filled the night as they freewheeled over snow.

  The driver stopped, planted both feet firmly on the ground and let his machine tick over for a moment. While he directed a powerful flashlight into the oaks and larches, his pillion rider scanned the woods through the scope on his hunting rifle.

  Those were neither US soldiers nor a local Timber Supply Department patrol.

  ‘See anything, Phil?’

  ‘The hell if I know.’

  ‘Keep working at it.’

  ‘Might have been a deer.’

  A beam of light scythed the undergrowth just above Thibaut’s head as he recognised the voices of Kevin Devaney and the moustached Phil Cotter – they’d left the trees and used the narrow footpath beside the railway track to get along faster, gain the advantage.

  Devaney pulled out the aerial on his two-way walkie-talkie and put it to his ear.

  ‘No, nothing yet, boss, but they can’t have gone far… Yeah, I get your drift. Do what we have to? You betcha.’

  Next minute he revved the Norton again. As if on cue, Phil sat back down in his seat and slung his gun back over his shoulder.

  ‘What happens when we don’t find them?’

  ‘You heard the boss. That’s not an option.’

  Devaney pulled his cap lower down his eyes. What he really wanted right now was a nice warm puff on his pipe. Hungry for revenge, blinded by rage, the hunters moved on to another part of the Forest.

  Snow slid down Thibaut’s neck. He couldn’t feel his bloodless fingers where he had lain face down on the ground and hugged its ice like a wild animal.

  But Nora was quick, almost reckless. She trod tyre marks left by their pursuers. The idea was to fool the enemy by retracing the way they’d just come.

  Soon they broke into a run.

  They ran for their lives.

  FORTY

  This ghastly pong of other people’s cigarettes and damp woollen clothes wasn’t helping, as Jo took another sip of Guinness under the medieval arches of THE MONKS’ RETREAT bar. Her hammering heart would jump right out of her chest. Her cheeks felt unbelievably hot and her hair was plastered to her scalp. Her head hurt. Her feet ached, but she liked to think that her compulsion to drink was not out of proportion to the guilt she felt.

  It took the black patent malt to settle her morning sickness.

  However, she would be lying to herself if she didn’t admit that her interest in Sarah Smith’s death was preoccupying her to an alarming and chilling extent – no matter how much she imbibed, she couldn’t forget.

  So what was she missing?

  What connection, exactly?

  Could Sarah’s bloody decapitation not simply be a massive distraction from something else equally serious?

  Sadly no.

  Not that she wanted to go out of her way to establish anything was murder, as such, she didn’t want it to be that gruesome.

  You bet.

  Why else did she and Bella squeeze into this corner with three empty stout bottles already secreted at her feet? The harder she concentrated, the thirstier she felt. Give her a few more minutes to down all she could and she was bound to come up with a theory. She uttered a loud belch. At times like this pride could be overrated.

  As could pregnancy.

  She threw Bella a Jaffa Cake. It was either that or suffer her look of insufferable indignation.

  Boldly, almost defiantly, she stood up to go to the bar. In actual fact she should be sending a telegram to her mother to tell her to go to hell or otherwise not trouble her again. That was her best option. Something like that.

  ‘If you have anything to say, now’s the time.’

  Jo blinked her blurry eyes and sat straight back down again. John Curtis was scrutinising the line of empties on the floor, to her shame.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Ready to buy another round, are we?’

  ‘Pregnant women are advised to drink Guinness. It’s very healthy. That’s official. Doctors tell the same thing to post-operative patients, blood donors and nursing mothers, so there.’

  ‘No regrets then.’

  ‘I’ll get drunk tonight if it kills me.’

  ‘How is this any different?’

  ‘I thought you said you were going to the gym?’

  ‘That’s it,’ said John, ‘rub it in.’

  ‘What’s up? Getting fit too good for you now?’

  ‘It turns out I’m a ‘non-responder’.’

  ‘And that’s because?’

  ‘No, really, one day it will be a scientifically proven fact that some people do not respond well to all physical exercises. For instance, no matter how much weight-lifting I do, I don’t get any slimmer or fitter…’

  ‘No body beautiful for you, then.’

  ‘It’s more a case of finding the right workout just for me.’

  ‘I think we’ve been over this ground already.’

  ‘I’ve ruled out squat jumps, sit-ups, pull-ups and 300 yard runs.’

  ‘Again, because?’

  ‘All those short, sharp workouts only do more harm than good.’

  ‘You, in your opinion.’

  ‘So what are you doing here, Mrs Wheeler, all alone?’

  ‘I just told you. I’m imbibing.’

  ‘I’ll overlook your intemperance if you’ll let me take you to the flicks.’

  ‘Lose five stone and I might let you.’

  ‘That’s not fair, that’s blackmail.’

  ‘Let’s face it, we’re both basket cases.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘So prove me wrong.’

  ‘You’ll see. In six months’ time I’ll be a new person.’

  ‘Maybe not even then.’

  John admitted defeat, visited the bar and returned with two beers.

  Suddenly he pulled a note from his pocket.

  ‘I have something to show you.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s from Susie Grossman. I thought she and I were done. Now she wants to meet me again on that awful canal boat of hers.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘As soon as possible. Says it’s urgent.’

  ‘Does she say why?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Drink up. We’ll go together.’

  ‘Now? In the blackout?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Fine, but I’ll do most of the talking. Knowing you, you’ll scare her off with that sozzled, bear-like growl of yours.’

  ‘I appreciate that.’

  Jo downed her Guinness and her favourite drinking den’s lopsided, stone arches seriously wobbled. She didn’t indicate what else was troubling her, except to say that drowning her sorrows had to be of small comfort.

  FORTY-ONE

  ‘What did I tell you?’ said James, shining his torch on flattened fencing that littered the snowy garden. ‘This is where it broke in, a
ll right.’

  Sam trod ground that still seemed to shake beneath him. He surprised himself – the sheer brute force that had gone into breaching Beech Tree Grange’s newly created outer defences demonstrated strength beyond his wildest imagination. At his feet lay splintered pales.

  Someone with an axe couldn’t have done a better job, he thought proudly.

  ‘Wow, it must be big.’

  ‘About twenty stone, I reckon.’

  ‘That is big.’

  ‘Bigger the better.’

  ‘What are we going to do, dad?’

  ‘We’re going to set a trap.’

  ‘Are we going to kill it?’

  ‘You got a problem with that?’

  Sam sucked his lip and said nothing. Instead he hummed like a bee. James walked on ahead of him with alarming rapidity. He followed in his father’s footsteps, his feet wading bracken. One. Two. Three… They were soon some distance from their brash new house and its smoky chimneys. He made a mental note of the number of paces. Creaking trees ousted every other noise with the swish of a bough or a shower of dead leaves in their ears. Every twig began to swirl, groan or sing at their approach in the gathering darkness. The more the Forest protested, the more he felt himself carried along by the vast, eddying motion of their branches.

  James hardly stopped to study the ground.

  ‘How far now?’ asked Sam.

  ‘To wherever we can.’

  ‘To wherever we can.’

  ‘Must you repeat everything I say?’

  ‘Must I?’

  ‘Don’t try to be clever. Don’t make me regret this.’

  Never had Sam trodden such deep snow. Starry flakes stuck to his face like icy moths, while his knees sank out of sight in a mass of white crystals.

  ‘We’re going to find its den, are we?’

  ‘You think?’ said James, shouldering a hammer and wood saw in his bag. ‘Whatever attacked us might not have a permanent dwelling place at all, it might wander for miles in the Forest every night. That said, it might yet circle back to where it began, if we’re lucky.’

  Sam smiled sweetly, even if he was quite sure that his father did not really believe what he said, since no wild boar had roamed the Forest for hundreds of years. Yet there was a glint in James’s eye that said he was genuinely intrigued, that he did want to capture whatever it was that had invaded his property. He, too, had not totally dismissed the notion of some local farmer’s domestic boar gone rogue. When pigs were turned loose in the Forest, it was not unknown for one or two to ‘disappear’. All the more reason to go with the plan. The roll of thin galvanized wire was beginning to drag on his arm, though. He could feel it biting through his tweed shooting jacket, but he said nothing. He did not want to be seen to let his dad down.

  Flashes of red, setting sun winked at them like gunfire through gaps in the trees. The bright eyes of light gleamed and glowed at their feet like stepping stones. They could have been treading on shafts of sky.

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ said James.

  Sam paused, glad to unload his metal burden.

  ‘Are we on its trail yet?’

  ‘Yes, practically.’

  ‘I don’t see how.’

  ‘I suggest you look here.’

  To be included in such a mission was a real piece of luck, thought Sam. His father’s bloodlust was contagious. He was beginning to feel as if they were in the presence of some invisible power – he was so sure that something would steal up on them at any moment, from which direction he could only guess, only fear.

  James pointed excitedly at the non-descript, dish-shaped circle at their feet.

  ‘This is where a very large animal has built a lying-up place in dry grass. No doubt about it. See how it has scraped away the snow.’

  ‘What now?’ asked Sam slyly.

  ‘Better keep going. We need to see where these prints lead us.’

  He was not wrong. The search for more tracks in this awe-inspiring place suggested something both mysterious and mystic in the polar cold. It was like living one of those scary fairy tales that his grandfather had told him in Tunnel Cottage.

  ‘Here,’ he cried in a stage whisper and halted before a muddy puddle. ‘That’s a boar’s print?’

  ‘No, actually it isn’t,’ said James, ‘that’s a deer. The two cleaves look the same, but the dew claws at the back of a boar’s hoof are set lower and further to each side of the foot. They stick out at quite an angle.’

  Quite so, thought Sam to himself. Naturally he feigned disappointment but not surprise. Why should a beast as magical as the white boar leave tracks at all? Surely it moved about by illusion. Of this conviction, however, he spoke not at all but trudged obediently along.

  Tiredness soon set in. It was all right for his father, he could take longer strides. 1005, 1006, 1007…. Also the soft layers of soggy leaves sucked at his heels beneath the snow – he felt them try to pull him down to caves deep below; he expected, very soon, to be devoured by the displeased Forest.

  Nor did James wait long for him to catch up.

  At least his father had thought to bring his .303 B.S.A. sporting rifle.

  ‘Go easy, Sam. You might want to see this.’

  James crouched on a patch of snow beside a pond.

  ‘Is it another print?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘Are those the dew claws you mentioned?’

  ‘Never seen a print so big. Look here, son. See how rounded the cleaves are. Note the length of its stride.’

  ‘Is that good?’

  ‘In younger pigs the cleaves are more pointed. If I didn’t know better, I’d say this is a very large, very old hog of some kind.’

  ‘A champion.’

  ‘We don’t know that.’

  But Sam did. He already had in mind something or someone who fought for a cause. An athlete. A hero. A warrior.

  ‘Remind me what to do again, dad.’

  ‘Here might be the best place.’

  ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘I think we’ll soon know.’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘That our enemy is still in the area planning his next attack.’

  ‘What kind of attack?’

  ‘To drive us out of the Forest.’

  ‘You can’t be serious.’

  ‘Who knows what it wants?’ They had somehow circled back to the breach in their homestead’s defences. ‘This is where we’ll place the trap, Sam. Still want to help?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  So saying, they set about sawing down and trimming twigs off a sapling.

  ‘How will we kill it?’ asked Sam.

  ‘Been through this.’

  ‘I remember now. We bayonet it to death.’

  ‘That’s all there is to it.’

  James cut and sharpened a short wooden spear that he tied at right angles to the sapling’s thinner, more flexible end – the other, thicker end he anchored to three spikes that he hammered into the Forest floor.

  ‘But dad, why don’t we wait for the boar and then shoot it?’

  ‘You can’t shoot at night.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Sam, watching James bend the branch to test its springiness at groin height above the ground.

  ‘We might shoot each other.’

  James ran a wire to the bait. Once tripped, it released a peg which freed the branch under formidable tension – the spear sped straight at the breach in the fence in a successful rehearsal.

  ‘Any wild animal is bound to be very wily. It’ll smell us a mile off. Chances are, though, it will try to pass through this gap to dig up our grass again. With a cunning adversary you have to think both tactically and strategically. This spear will hit him right between the eyes.’

  Sam could not follow everything his father did, but he was bolstered by one thought especially. James did not hear the innumerable sounds of the wooded dean, so intent
was he on pursuing things of his own making. As always. The source of the noises was no more than a brief gleam of light here or a slight lifting of leaves there. Something passed close by as if to show him its presence.

  Show him how?

  Could he see anything?

  The answer was no.

  Whatever it was, it ran grunting and slobbering to the remotest, least accessible place where it lay down unseen on the Forest floor.

  There it fed on bones.

  FORTY-TWO

  ‘Dislike dogs, do we?’ said John and doffed his Homburg, politely.

  Susie Grossman was all bluster and fluster. She stood holding an oil lamp astride the narrowboat’s counter and blocked the way past the cabin doors’ crudely painted castles and roses. She gazed narrow-eyed at her callers as if they were the enemy.

  Bella was all frown, too. She let her tongue hang out and worked her tail very hard. Any feelings of dislike were definitely mutual. She didn’t much care for this boatie in her late twenties wearing a baggy blue boiler suit – she had her hair tied up in a blush-coloured Jacqmar scarf and had coal dust on her cheeks and hands. Noting everything about the boat owner’s tense little features and awkward posture, she responded the same way any good, canine sleuth would – that’s to say, she sniffed animal phobia.

  But no one could like a dog that was all ferocity and no fun. Consequently, she adopted the vain, empty-headed gaze of a six-week-old puppy.

  Had there been room on deck she might have rolled.

  ‘Bella can stay on the quayside,’ added John hurriedly. Clearly he should have told Susie to expect someone else. Perhaps they should have come bearing gifts or something. That really didn’t matter now.

  Susie’s hazel eyes still offered unhappy and pointed resistance.

  ‘Who’s your friend?’

  ‘Meet Fire Guard Jo Wheeler.’

  ‘I’ve heard of you. You fixed the carburettor on Sarah’s Austin Seven for her?’

  ‘Cars can be as much trouble as motorcycles, what with petrol the way it is these days.’

  ‘Sarah liked you a lot.’

  ‘It was so sad losing her like that.’

  Susie nodded.

  ‘You’d better come aboard, then.’

  ‘About what happened to Sarah in the Forest…’