Bone Harvest

by James Brogden

  ‘It’s a date,’ said Becky.

  After Everett had gathered his things together and left, Becky put it on the kitchen calendar. To Alice’s column of reminders about tests, there was now added Chickens!

  * * *

  Although Burton was technically the main police station for the Needwood area it was closed on the weekends – because nothing exciting ever happened on a weekend, did it – and his shift was based at the police station at Rugeley. He changed into his kit and paired up with his regular for the evening, Sergeant Praveen Kaur, a veteran of some fifteen years whom he enjoyed riding with because she took him seriously and didn’t treat him like some gung-ho amateur who was only in it for the nee-naw and the flashing lights. The early part of the evening was spent mostly attending to calls about gangs of kids hanging around parks and making nuisances of themselves, an argument between hikers and cyclists who had run afoul of each other on Cannock Chase – the broad swathe of heathland and forest that backed onto the town and was always busy with families on the weekends but especially so at the height of summer – and a callout to a pair of cars in a lay-by that the dispatcher had said were suspected to be full of people dogging. It turned out to be two families of neo-pagan crusties heading home from the solstice festival at Stonehenge who had stopped for a rest. The driver opened the window on an interior full of dreadlocks and facial piercings and reeking with patchouli, and asked if everything was okay, officer. Prav thought there was a good chance that they had some weed, but, after asking them to turn out their pockets and having a quick look around the vehicle, couldn’t find any and wished them a safe homeward journey. They were resigned and polite about it, as if that sort of thing happened to them all the time.

  ‘Bit of a stereotype, isn’t it?’ he asked as they drove off. ‘Assuming that they were in possession because they’re into sun worship and facial tatts?’

  ‘David,’ she replied. ‘When some idiot comes at you with a knife do you want him to see your uniform and think “Oops, better not make assumptions here, let’s just see if I can stab him first” or do you want him to take one look and back off because the way you’re dressed sends a clear message about the kicking he can expect from you if he tries it? Everybody wears uniforms, whether they mean to or not, and those uniforms communicate messages about the kind of behaviour you can expect from the people wearing them – again, whether they mean to or not. They’re stereotypes because they’re sometimes true.’

  He thought about the fact that the pagan cultists he knew wouldn’t have looked out of place on the average village allotment, but didn’t say anything; she’d have just thought he was being sarcastic.

  Then around eight in the evening they got a call to say that Lauren Jeffries’ co-worker, Pauline Marsh, was worried that she’d gone missing. Apparently Jeffries hadn’t shown up for work at the travel agency that day and wasn’t answering her phone, so Marsh had gone to her flat and found it locked up and her cat unfed.

  ‘Chances are she’s bunked off and spent the day at the beach,’ said Prav. ‘Weather like today? I would.’ She drove them to Dodbury to hear from Marsh first-hand, have look at the flat and a chat with the neighbours, who predictably hadn’t seen anything and knew nothing, and in the meantime the Police Search Advisor at Stafford got back to them with a GPS result from the location app on Lauren’s phone. It wasn’t pin-point, and the data was two days old, in which time she could have gone anywhere, but it was better than nothing. When Prav punched it up on the car’s satnav, David’s mouth ran dry; the kilometre radius of the search area included Farrow Farm almost dead centre.

  ‘That’s your neck of the woods, isn’t it?’ Prav asked.

  ‘Yes it is. A bit closer to home than the beach.’

  ‘She could be visiting friends, sitting on their back patio, having a drink and ignoring her boss trying to call her. So, it’s just you and me unless it turns out to be something else. Didn’t you have another misper here a couple of months ago? Older chap?’

  He nodded. ‘He was a retired headmaster. Never showed up.’ Him and the rest.

  ‘Ooh, maybe they’ve run off together.’

  ‘Four months apart? I don’t think so.’

  ‘No, but think about it. He leaves first and sets up their secret love nest while she hangs around just long enough to avoid drawing suspicion because their families don’t approve of the age gap. It’s your classic autumn-spring romance.’

  David just looked at her.

  ‘Well, your sense of humour crawled under a rock and died, didn’t it?’

  If the search area had been urban the task would have been almost impossible, but here there were only a few country lanes to check – assuming that Lauren hadn’t taken off cross-country and that her phone would be by the roadside – so it was a process of elimination, taking each road slowly and peering closely into verges overgrown with nettles, hogweed and Queen Anne’s Lace. Even so, it was a staggeringly small chance that either of them would actually see anything. As they moved onto the lane that ran past Farrow Farm, David found himself becoming increasingly anxious; he didn’t know whether he desperately wanted to find anything or not. With every glint of sunlight on a glass bottle or crisp packet his heart did a queasy double flip.

  Then Prav gave a whoop. ‘There you are, you little sod!’ she crowed.

  Two hundred metres up the lane they found a smartphone lying in the long grass, its screen dead. ‘Rubbish batteries on these things nowadays,’ she said, picking it up with an evidence bag. She went back to the car and called it in while he stood and scanned the fields of sugar beet on either side. They couldn’t be more than a hundred metres or so from the gate to Farrow Farm.

  ‘All right, POLSA’s on it,’ she told him when she was finished. ‘We do a house-to-house in the immediate neighbourhood and see if the locals have heard or seen anything. It’s still possible that she’s been found and is being looked after by a farmer.’

  ‘But you don’t think that’s likely, do you?’

  ‘This is where I stop making assumptions and start opening my eyes.’

  * * *

  ‘Dave, good evening!’ said Everett, all smiles, when he opened the door, then saw the uniform and Sergeant Prav. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen you on duty before. This is exciting.’

  David was sweating, and not just because it was still the tail end of a warm day. Everett had never called him Dave before. It was a warning. David knew exactly how this was going to look to the Farrow, turning up with a cop the day after they had threatened him, but he couldn’t refuse the Sarge, so he’d done the next best thing and suggested to Prav that he do the actual door-knocking.

  ‘Hi, Everett,’ he replied, hoping that he was projecting the right kind of neighbourly calm instead of the jittering nerves that were crawling under his skin. ‘We’re following up a call about a missing young woman by the name of Lauren Jeffries.’ He showed Everett a picture on his phone, taken from Lauren’s Instagram account. ‘Her phone was found just a little way down the road and we’re just asking around in case anybody has seen or heard anything.’

  ‘Her phone?’ Everett said in surprise. ‘Well, that’s a stroke of luck, isn’t it? No, I’m afraid we haven’t seen her. But if we do we’ll be sure to get in touch.’

  ‘Is there anybody else at home that we can ask, Mr Clifton?’ said Prav.

  Everett’s eyes flicked to her and then settled firmly back on David again. ‘No, it’s just me here at the moment. How are the wife and kid, Dave?’

  ‘They’re good, thanks, good. Well, cheers for your help all the same.’ He felt an absurd urge to laugh; this was ridiculous, a pantomime played out for the benefit of an audience of one.

  ‘Pleasure. Looking forward to seeing you next weekend.’

  ‘Likewise.’ Like fuck, he wanted to say, but he stepped back as Everett closed the door, turned to Prav and shrugged.

  ‘Friend of yours?’ she asked.

  ‘We’re allotment neighbours.�
�

  ‘Huh. Small world.’ She shrugged, looking at the list of nearby residences on her own phone. ‘Right, who’s next?’

  As they walked back to the car, he thought of the outbuildings around and behind the farm, and especially the abattoir shrine, wondering if the Farrow had Lauren locked up in one of them. It was still an if, he told himself. He had no definite, actual proof that they were kidnapping people. All the same, as Prav drove them away he opened his window fully to get some fresh air, sickened by his own cowardice and fear for his family.

  * * *

  Halfway through the house-to-house they got a call to assist other units dealing with a fight outside a pub in Lichfield, and from that point on the shift was absolutely rammed with no way for him to concoct any sort of reason for getting away early, and it was four o’clock on Sunday morning and dawn was just lightening the sky by the time he got home.

  He didn’t even bother to shower – just went straight into the bedroom, switched the light on and shook Becky awake. ‘Honey. Honey, come on, wake up.’

  She lurched out of sleep in the hardwired reflex of a parent with a sick child. ‘Is it Alice?’ she mumbled.

  ‘No. Yes. Sort of. Get yourself and Alice and go to your parents. Now.’ He was dragging her go-bag – the one with spare clothes and toiletries in case of an emergency hospital visit – from the top of the wardrobe and onto the bed as she roused herself fully.

  ‘Why?’ She pulled herself up in bed and looked at the time. ‘Jesus, David, it’s four in the morning! What’s going on? You’re scaring me.’

  ‘You just have to go, okay?’

  ‘David, I am not waking up our daughter at this ungodly hour until you tell me what’s going on.’

  He stopped and took a breath, wondering how to put this in a way that wouldn’t make her think he was going mad. ‘I think Ardwyn and Everett are dangerous,’ he said. ‘I think they’re hurting people and I think we might be in danger too.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous! They’ve been nothing but lovely and friendly to us since the day they arrived! What makes you say that they’re dangerous?’ Then she must have remembered that he’d just come off-shift. ‘Oh Jesus, have you heard something from the police?’

  ‘Becky, for God’s sake, have you ever known me to overreact to anything?’ He was trying not to shout, with only partial success.

  ‘No, never.’

  ‘Well then. There will be time to explain everything when you’re safe at your folks’.’

  As he said this, Alice appeared at the door, puffy with sleep and disturbed by the conversation. ‘Daddy, what’s going on?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, Daddy,’ echoed Becky. ‘What’s going on?’

  David knelt down by Alice. ‘It’s a surprise holiday, darling. Mummy is going to take you to stay with Nanna and Pops and I’m going to join you later.’

  Alice’s eyes lit up. ‘Can we go to the beach?’

  ‘Yes, of course you can. Go and find your best sand-castle building outfit.’

  Alice ran back to her room.

  ‘But aren’t you coming with us?’ Becky asked.

  ‘I can’t. I have to stay here and help sort this out.’ Because I should have said something before, but I didn’t, and now if that girl dies it’s on me. But before Becky could round on him and make this any more difficult – because she was obviously confused and scared by his behaviour – he simply took her by the hand and said, ‘Please.’ She must have seen the naked terror in his face because she just replied, ‘Okay,’ in a very small but calm voice and started getting dressed.

  4

  SUNDAY

  AT A LITTLE AFTER EIGHT THE NEXT MORNING BECKY messaged David to tell him that she and Alice were safely at her parents’ place in Southend. He called Dennie Keeling to tell her what had happened and then had to drive around for a while before he found a working payphone; all the pubs, including the Pavilion bar, were closed at this time of day and what few red telephone boxes still existed had mostly been converted into ATMs or miniature libraries.

  ‘Hello?’ he said to the police operator at the other end. ‘I have information about the missing girl, Lauren Jeffries. No, I don’t want to give my name.’

  * * *

  Ardwyn watched the police car pull up in the farmyard and had the front door open in welcome for the two uniformed officers before they reached it. Both were men, one large and with a beard like a shovel and the other slimmer, darker, and younger.

  ‘Two visits in as many days?’ she said. ‘This is unusual.’

  The officer with the beard must have been well over six feet tall. ‘I’m Sergeant Ryland and this is Constable Lennox, Staffordshire County Police. Are you Miss Ardwyn Hughes?’

  ‘Yes, officer,’ she replied, demure and deferential. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘We have a warrant to search these premises for a Miss Lauren Jeffries. Do you know her current whereabouts?’

  ‘I don’t even know who she is, officer. She’s certainly not here.’

  ‘Is there anybody else currently on the premises?’

  ‘Only my partner, Everett, and our farm hand, Matthew.’

  ‘Please take us to them now.’

  ‘Of course.’

  She led them around to the long stone barn at the back, the doors of which were wide open. Inside, Everett and Matt were putting the finishing touches to a second coat of whitewash that covered the sigils of Moccus. The slaughtering frame and chains had been removed and redeployed as ordinary-looking agricultural equipment about the farm, and the skull of Moccus, the carnyx, the moon-knife, and the vessel itself were all safely with Gar in the van, parked off the road and under heavy tree cover. The chest freezer was still there and plugged in, but as far as the police were concerned it should have been perfectly harmless. A lot could be done in ten hours if one were committed enough.

  ‘As you can see we’re in the process of converting the outbuildings into bed-and-breakfast accommodation,’ she said.

  Sergeant Ryland raised an eyebrow. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes – why, is there a problem?’

  ‘Well, it’s just that we have reason to believe that you’re not the legal residents of this property. How did you get planning permission for that?’

  She allowed her smile to thin; Ryland had obviously taken a dislike to her and there was no point trying to butter him up. ‘I thought you were looking for a missing girl,’ she said, ‘not coming to evict us, because if so I’d very much like to see the court order for that.’

  ‘Miss, you’re squatting,’ said PC Lennox. ‘We don’t need a court order.’

  Sergeant Ryland merely grunted and went straight for the chest freezer. He opened it and shifted the parcels of frozen meat around, but there wasn’t enough to either hide or comprise a human body, so he closed it again. ‘It’s all good, healthy, organic produce,’ she said to Constable Lennox. ‘Feel free to take some, if you like. It’s perfect barbecue weather this weekend.’ Ryland and Lennox had a good look around, but other than the freezer the building was completely vacant. The younger man peered at the large black stain on the floor where the god had been bled, but Matt had covered it with engine oil so that it looked like the remains of an old spill. He had even moved the rubbish skip on top of the refuse pits for the previous vessels in case the police were suspicious about the three grave-sized mounds of earth. The boy had worked hard to make up for his mistake in forgetting about the girl’s phone.

  ‘We’d like to look in the house now.’

  They found even less of interest in there. Ardwyn, Everett, and Matt sat in the kitchen and listened to them roaming around upstairs, opening wardrobes and tapping walls. Then they went back outside again and went through the tractor shed, the tool shed, the garage, and PC Lennox even stuck his head into the new chicken coop. After a few more minutes of wandering around in the back field and talking quietly between themselves, they came back in and Sergeant Ryland said that as far as he was concerned it seemed to hav
e been a hoax call. ‘It’s probably just some attention-seeking idiot who picked the name of your farm at random. On the other hand, do you know why anybody might have suggested that you had something to do with it?’ he asked. ‘Is there someone who dislikes you enough to do that?’

  ‘Oh, the last thing I want to do is get someone in trouble,’ she replied.

  ‘Does that mean that you do? Wasting police time is a serious offence, especially when missing young women are involved. If we can chase it up and take this person out of the picture it’s one less time-waster for the search coordinator to have to deal with.’

  ‘It’s just a bit sad and embarrassing, that’s all.’

  ‘There’s no need for you to feel ashamed,’ said PC Lennox, with what he probably thought was meant to be a reassuring smile.

  ‘Oh, not me,’ she said. ‘You. The police, that is. He was here just last night with another one of your officers. He’s a volunteer – David Pimblett.’

  ‘D’you know him?’ Lennox said to Ryland.

  ‘Vaguely.’ To Ardwyn he said, ‘Why would Mr Pimblett claim that you had anything to do with this?’

  ‘Like I say, it’s a bit sad and embarrassing, what with everything that’s been happening with his daughter, you know, the one with leukaemia? The poor man’s under a lot of stress, we all understand that. But for some reason he and his wife seemed to take dislike to us right from when we arrived. We have neighbouring allotments, you see, and I don’t like to brag but I like to think I have a greenish thumb, and we managed to make a lot of progress with our plot in a short time and I think he was just jealous. I mean it was easy to ignore to begin with – snide remarks, that sort of thing – and I even loaned him some of my tools, but then, well, some of our plants were damaged and Everett had to have some harsh words. We asked for our tools back and Pimblett claimed they were his and that we’d never loaned them to him in the first place, and that was when he turned really nasty, saying didn’t we know who he was and he had friends in the police and he’d make sure that we were taught a lesson and such.’