“So they say. Serves those Americans right.”
“What about this one?” I say, pointing ahead, though I’ve no idea if it’s the right direction. “If there is one up there?”
Gail tuts. “I’m pretty sure there can’t be many people know about it. Lee found out about it from Frodo. You know, that kid with the ASBO and the tag? Who was brought in that time for pirating films? Frodo found these really vague clues about a Blighter on the internet—what they call the dark web, as far as I gather—but only clues. No actual fixed location, just bits and pieces. Hearsay. Lee was positive that nobody else’d piece together the location. Only someone like Owen’s got the local knowledge to figure it out and everyone else could still be searching for years.”
“Except they shot their mouths off in the pub and now here we are. Silly Lee.”
The wind gets blowier. Gail’s body bunches up as she walks. She’s like Bambi, all arms and legs and not enough fat for her own good.
“Hey, Gail?”
She keeps on walking, getting further and further away from me.
“Gail? You never said why you’re so keen on this whole Blighter business.”
Gail pulls the hood of her mac up over her woolly hat. I get it. She’s trying to block me out, or at least give me the message that she’s done with talking. Everyone gets sick of me, sooner or later. Then they leave, or worse.
Another half-hour later we’re up on a hill, looking down into a dip. The wind’s died down a bit, but it’s already getting dark and a bit misty. I can only just make out the shapes of Lee and Owen, like they’re paper cutouts. They’re dark, against the deeper dark of the tarn.
They’ve been making their way down the hillside towards some kind of barn. Aha. Not a barn, a bothy.
“It’s perfect,” Gail says.
I reckon that’s going a bit far. I look around. Other than the bothy, the tarn and us lot, there’s basically just grass and mud and way too much sky.
There’s a pile of rocks, too, what Gail’d probably call a cairn. It’s big enough for both of us to sneak behind.
“So the Blighter’s in there?” I say, pointing at the bothy.
“That’s what Lee and Owen think, at least.”
I stare at the building like I expect to see alien slime coming out through the walls or something. Can’t see anything special about it, though. It’s a pretty tough job imagining there might be a massive fat slug inside, but then imagination never was my strong point. After the bastard crash-landed, did it shudder and shuffle its way inside, like a dog trying to get out of the rain? Or did someone lend it a hand, shoving it in there for its own good? The thought of touching a Blighter makes me shudder myself.
“What are they going to do if they do find it?”
Gail looks at me like I’m some kind of idiot. Her nose is red from the cold. “What would you do? You, of all people?”
I give her one of my glares. In my head I’m saying, Don’t you dare get me thinking about Dad and Mum and Auntie Alice right now, you hear me? because most days it takes all my strength not to and it’s even harder right this second because I’m already feeling iffy from the cold.
I just puff out my cheeks. Then I pat my pockets. “Fuck. I’ve forgotten the camera. Have you got one on your phone?”
Gail just gives me another look. Taking photos probably isn’t high up on her list, then.
We watch the two dark shapes struggle down the hillside. Now that they’ve reached the flatter part of the little valley, the thinner one—Lee—has jogged on ahead. Owen’s shuffling along behind him.
Then Lee slows down and stops. He’s still a way away from the bothy.
It looks like he’s got smaller. I squint through the mist to make out what’s going on.
Lee’s dropped down onto his knees.
Behind him, I see a couple of things fall out of Owen’s hands. His walking poles. Then he’s on his knees too. Looks almost like they’re both praying.
Gail’s voice is a whisper even though we’re like half a mile away from the bothy. “That’s just how they talked about it in the Beast. They called themselves pilgrims.”
“But why’ve they stopped there? They haven’t even got inside yet.”
Gail grabs my knee, making me gasp.
“It means the Blighter’s a good one,” she says.
Something’s going on over there at the bothy. A door’s opened and somebody’s coming out. A person, though, not a Blighter.
“Any idea who that is?” I say.
Gail don’t reply. When I look over she’s peering through little binoculars like spies have. She’s proper prepared, alright.
“Yeah. Maybe. Not from the Beast, but around. Some landowner. An offcomer, not a local or a farmer or anything.”
If everything they say about Blighters is true, this guy got pretty lucky. I can just picture him up here from London on his hols, wandering around his second-home estate, then coming across the exact thing most people in the world would cut off their thumbs for. It’s just like Dad always said. The rich get richer and the rest of us just get to watch.
Whoever he is, he’s walking towards Lee and Owen. Just strolling, really. I fucking hate the way well-off types look all comfortable, no matter where they find themselves.
“Surely he’s not going to let them come any closer?” Gail whispers.
I know where her mind’s going. If Lee and Owen can just waltz up like that, then who’ll mind us having a crack at a bit of Blighter action too? The funny thing is, that thought makes me realise something I really should have properly figured out before this point. I’m actually not all that fussed about Blighters, at least not in the way Gail is. I’ve got some Caffreys cold in the fridge at home and that’ll do me just fine.
We keep watching, Gail through the binoculars and me with my eyes all scrunched up, trying to see through the mist.
Lee and Owen both stand up slowly. Their arms are opened up wide, like they’re music conductors or magicians going ‘Ta-da!’
I start shivering again but not from the cold. I never was gifted, but I know when something’s wrong.
The wind seems to stop suddenly and then I can just hear mine and Gail’s breathing and then we both stop doing that too.
The man who came out of the bothy reaches out for Lee and Owen at the same time.
He’s giving them both a hug.
“Well, that’s cosy,” I say. “Have they come all this way for that?”
Then the three of them down in the valley all stand apart again. Owen looks like he’s nodding or maybe crying.
Hold on.
There’s a noise. A voice, shouting. But it’s not coming from any of them down there. I can hear Gail’s breathing get quicker again.
It’s coming from up there on the hillside, opposite where we are. Is that someone up there? It’s getting too dark to see.
The shouting carries on, but I can’t hear the words. From the sounds of it, the person’s not so much angry as showing who’s the boss. Telling the three guys in the valley exactly what to do.
Lee and Owen and the man who came out of the bothy turn around—slowly, mind you—to look up at the opposite hillside. Whoever’s up there must be about as far away from them as Gail and me are.
If someone was shouting at me like that I’d feel pretty stressed out, but these three don’t seem to be taking it too personally. They haven’t moved at all. Looks like they’re sort of swaying on the spot.
I’m still trying to see whoever it is on the hillside when something lights up for a second.
I hope it’s a torch.
But then a second later there’s a sound like somebody clucking their tongue. It echoes around the little valley.
Lee’s back down on his knees again, but he don’t stop there. He falls down onto to the ground.
“Oh, Christ,” Gail says.
There’s another flick of light and another clucking sound. Owen falls forwards and disappears down into the
dark grass.
I feel Gail’s little body shuddering up against mine. I just watch. That third guy’s still standing there like he isn’t freaked out one bit. I wait for the flash of light.
But the shouting’s stopped. The guy who came out of the bothy turns and looks down at Lee and Owen. Even without the binoculars I can see that he don’t even look shocked about what’s just happened. It’s more like he’s being polite, like he’s at a country show taking a look at someone’s prize marrow or something.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” I say. Gail hangs back for a second, so I yank her arm.
We peg it back the way we came. Before we get over the rise of the valley, I take one more quick look back.
That guy’s still standing where he was, just looking at the ground.
Then his arms rise up. He spins on the spot, slowly, slowly. He’s doing that thing people talk about. Dancing like nobody’s watching.
And then there it is, another cluck of the tongue. Something spits out of the guy’s back. A darker mist against the mist.
He drops down and I guess that’s it for him.
3
HUTCHY PULLS OUT a notebook, then makes a ‘humph’ sound and licks his pencil like he’s from the olden days. I try and see around him—there must be someone else I can talk to?—but behind him the police station’s dark.
“You still haven’t told me why they were up there in the first place,” he says.
I tap my nails on the counter like Mum used to when she was narked off. “I dunno. Going for a walk, I suppose.”
There’s no way I’m going to tell him about the Blighter. It’d only make people antsy if they thought one was in the offing.
“And do you suppose they strayed onto private property? Maybe that’s why they were shot at?”
“I didn’t say ‘shot at,’ I said ‘shot.’” I make the shape of a gun with my fingers, then put it up against my forehead. “Blat-blat-blat.”
“And who was it who shot them?”
Am I going to have to do his whole job for him? I start speaking slowly for his sake. “I don’t know who they were, Hutchy. Don’t you reckon I’d have told you? When you go up there to fetch what’s left of Lee and Owen, maybe you’ll find out.”
Hutchy does that thing of straightening himself up to look taller. “It sounds like a wild goose chase to me. I’m not heading all the way over to Sadgill and beyond, Becky.”
Hutchy’s three months younger than me. When we were eight I trapped his leg in the slats of the school gate and nobody told the teacher and he was there for ages. I was a mean old cow back then, and Hutchy was a wuss and still is. I lean over the counter to look at his notebook. There’s nothing written on it.
“’Course you’re not,” I say. “I meant when the proper policemen go up there.”
“I don’t know about that,” Hutchy says. “Lee and Owen Ellinger aren’t missing persons, officially.”
“But I’m telling you they’re missing. And they’ll stay missing, because they was both shot in the head.”
Hutchy grabs a ring binder with the word Procedures written on the side. He takes his time, licking his fingertip to leaf through the pages. If he does that again I’ll lick my finger, too, and then I’ll jab it in his eye.
“Photo ID, DNA sample...” he says while he’s running his finger over the page. “We normally have to wait forty-eight hours minimum, it looks like. You’re not family, are you?” He must see me go all stiff, because then he says, “Shit, Beck. I forgot. I’m really sorry about your mum and dad, okay?”
“Okay,” I say. The last thing I want is to talk about them with Hutchy, of all people.
He clears his throat, meaning let’s change the subject while the going’s good. “Thing is, we’ve got a file on you. The ‘Becky Stone dossier,’ we call it. It’s as thick as my thumb.”
I feel all the angry redness come into my cheeks right away. They don’t half bear a grudge, the police. One time caught pissing up against the doors of the magistrates court, a bit of cobble-boxing after pub chuck-out, two goes at twocking cars, and they won’t give you the time of day any more. I should make my own dossier, because I swear the police are way more crooked than I am. Auntie Alice never spent one day in a cell, even though back in olden times they’d probably have drowned her in a pond for what she did.
I tell myself to calm the fuck down. Dad would say to keep my mind on the job at hand. “You’re saying you don’t believe me?”
“I’m saying that my boss won’t. And they certainly won’t send anybody way up Longsleddale with only your word to go on.”
Maybe they’d have believed Gail. But there’s no chance she’ll speak up, even though she knew Lee and his dad better than me, from their hanging around in the Beast. Last night her face was white as white can be and she’s hardly said a word since. Seeing the two of them shot in the head probably didn’t agree with her.
I have an aha moment. “But you’ll see Lee’s car on the road into the valley.”
Hutchy puts down the folder. “Listen. As of right now, nobody’s worried about the Ellingers except you. If I go ahead and trek up to Longsleddale and find their car, and then later they are announced as missing, then the first thing my boss will do is say, ‘Aha, that Becky Stone’s knee-deep in this whole business.’ I’m just looking out for you here, you see? We’d check Lee’s car thoroughly and if it’s not clean...”
I snort to show I’m done with all this crap. “You make it sound like we’re hunting for a litterbug. We’re talking about two dead bastards here.”
But I get it. I turn to go.
Hutchy says, “So you don’t want me to fill in the missing persons form?”
“No.”
“And you don’t want a note putting in the Becky Stone dossier?”
“Fuck off. No.”
I turn in the doorway. “But won’t Lee’s mum report them missing, soon enough?”
Hutchy shakes his head. He winces a bit and I can tell he’s thinking about me and my sad, sad story. “She died last month. Pneumonia. But it’s alright, she was old... That sounds bad. Don’t tell the others I said that, not in uniform.”
So Lee and especially his dad were alone and unhappy. That makes sense. Now I get why old Owen dragged himself up the fells to the bothy. He had nothing to lose.
I’m just about ready to stop caring about this whole thing, though. All the same, I say, “But if they stay missing, do me a favour. Check the tarn. What’s the word? Dredge it.”
Hutchy just laughs. “If you could see our station’s budget! This isn’t Manchester, Becky.”
The radio beside him hisses and he starts doing all that Roger-Charlie-Tango business. He’s loving it.
Yeah, it’s not Manchester, Hutchy. And it’s not South Central LA either, you knob.
4
“YOUR ROUND,” GAIL says.
That gets one of my glares. Gail grins and hands me her purse. Off I trot to the bar.
You’d think a barmaid would want to do something other than hang around in pubs in her spare time. At least we’re not in the Beast, though. So far, our so-called pub crawl’s only taken us from the theatre lobby to the wine bar on Lowther Street and now we’ve been in here for three rounds. We’re classy lasses, see. From here on in, Kendal town centre’s all sticky-floored boozers and two-for-ones and puddles of sick.
While I’m standing at the bar a couple of guys give me the once-over. Gail made me wear this black top with sequins on the front, not my usual thing. It doesn’t show too much up front, but the sleeves are hardly sleeves and I’m no fan of my bingo wings. I pull a face and maybe my tongue stud puts them off.
Gail drinks half her cider before I’m even properly sat down.
“You don’t normally put it away this fast,” I say.
“I don’t normally have as many reasons to drink.”
Here we go. Until now all Gail’s wanted to do is moan about working at the Beast and point out guys
who might be alright in bed.
“You’re still thinking about Lee?” I say.
She laughs into the bottle she’s holding to her mouth, making a load of foam. She nearly chokes for a second. “Yeah. Sure. Lee.”
Sometimes I wonder if I’ve got second sight. I can tell right away she’s not thinking about Lee, not really.
“Ralphie, then,” I say.
She points at me and touches her nose with her other hand. Spot on. “He’s been gone since New Year. No word, just gone.”
“He left you running the Beast all on your own? No wonder you’re pissed off.”
“It’s just the start. I’ve seen all this before. Last time, he was gone two weeks.”
“Where?”
“Manchester, maybe.”
Bloody Manchester. Cumbria’s too boring for really bad things to happen here. Manchester soaks up all the shit. “He got family down there?”
Gail scowls. “Are you trying to be funny? No, Becky, he doesn’t have family there.”
From her tone of voice I’m guessing Ralphie isn’t staying with friends, neither.
She rubs at her forehead. “I mean, he’s more than ten years older than me, for God’s sake. And he’s ugly as sin when you really look at him up close. It should be me running around out there, not him.”
It’s tough thinking what to say. If I was Ralphie, I’d stay home cuddling up with Gail every night. And I’d also be getting wrecked every night in the pub I owned. That’s about as sweet a setup as I can imagine.
Gail’s still going on. “I swear there’s more than one of them he sees. Slappers. I don’t know if he pays them.”
I think about Ralphie’s sweaty, pockmarked face. I’d say he pays.
“It’s not like I care, mind you,” Gail says.
She looks like she cares. Even if her and Ralphie are just about the worst couple you can imagine, who wants their other half disappearing every few months to screw any lass who’s halfway willing? The fact he’s nearly fifty makes imagining the whole thing even worse. His wrinkly little cock.
“Look at me,” Gail says, waving her hand up and down her body, displaying the goods. “I’m still young. I’m cute.”
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