by J. M. Smyth
When the mare was down, and with junior halfway out, I climbed through the fence and clipped a lunge lead to her halter. We were in business. All I had to do was arrange for the foal to fall into a six-foot-deep drainage ditch. A drainage ditch, for you city folk, is a trench that runs round the edge of a field. In winter when the ground is constantly wet, the rain drains into it through perforated pipes just below the topsoil. Drier land means better grass and fewer rushes. As far as my use of it was concerned, well it’s like this: because I’d studied this for so long, and because the law had first to see this not as a deliberate killing – make that killings – I’d been teaching myself all about life down on the farm.
And if you’re gonna arrange deaths that don’t have foul play stamped on them, use what the person does on a daily basis. That’s the conclusion I’d come to. In this case, farming books will tell you how to avoid fatalities. By reversing the process, they tell you how to bring them about.
This, for instance, was based on a farmer whose mare was due to foal. He went down in the middle of the night to see how she was getting on and found her flat out with her rear end hanging over a ditch, foaling. Being a dumb animal, she wasn’t able to tell what she was doing. The foal literally passed out of her and went ‘bonk’ into the ditch. The farmer went in to rescue it, and dumbo, all worried because she couldn’t see her baby, in a rush to get to her feet, back-kicked him, tried to go in and save junior and squashed her owner to death. It didn’t say whether Chilly Winters took her hoofprints and got her twenty years. Tragic, I know. But that’s the way it goes.
And Picasso was rapping Edna’s door. As per the instructions I’d emailed his laptop. He knew where to go and what to do. No detail was overlooked. I’d even included a few suggestions on how to get her to cooperate, plus info about her and their vet. The dialogue was his own. I was standing behind a hedge at the front of the cottage in my capacity as official observer.
She was in front of the TV with a fag in her mouth and her rollers in. She opened the window.
‘Good evening,’ he said. ‘So sorry to bother you. Might your name be Edna Donavan?’
‘It is, yes.’
‘Well, in that case, Amy sent me for you.’
‘Amy?’
‘Amy is the name I was given. I was fishing the river then making my way across the field when a lady of that name, tending a mare, called me, and here I am. I’ll be more than pleased to take you to her. I have to go back for my rod in any event.’
‘This is all very strange.’
‘Apropos?’
‘Eh?’
Yeah, it was definitely his own dialogue. I don’t remember including any apropos.
‘What’s she doing with the mare this time o’ night and her away to the dance?’
‘There’s a man called Cormac with her. He appears to have hurt his leg. Amy mentioned that you had nursing experience and may be of assistance.’
Homework. It’s the only way to get away with anything. Edna used to work in the General.
‘I’ll get my coat,’ she said. She also put on her wellingtons and Picasso shone a torch and led the way. I traipsed along behind a hedge for scene three.
The mare was still peering into the ditch and snorting when they reached her, and Edna took it by its halter and went to soothe it. ‘There, girl, there,’ she said, trying to calm her, and at the same reminding Picasso what he’d said about Amy and Cormac. ‘Where are they?’
‘In there, madam.’
‘Where?’
‘There.’
I couldn’t see the bottom of the ditch, but when he pushed her she had to have landed straight on top of the foal. And she must’ve been eighteen stone. No newborn could’ve survived that, lungs or no lungs.
The mare started getting into an even bigger state over her foal and Picasso tried to lead her away. But she wouldn’t follow. She kept straining at the neck into the ditch.
So he clipped away under her girth with the crop to get her going and led her down into the ditch, jumping back up onto the grass as he trotted her along it towards where Edna was lying.
But the mare stopped. I heard Edna wailing, ‘Oh my God. In the name of God,’ and generally making it known that she wasn’t too keen on Picasso’s equestrian activities. He had to shut her up. They were behind a hedge and couldn’t be seen from the road, but with the mare going mad and Edna going mad and her rollers coming undone, a farmer out tending stock might’ve heard. As might Anne Donavan, who was up at the house watching TV. Conor himself was with his fancy piece and wouldn’t be back till later. But there was still too much noise.
Picasso slipped a hood over the mare’s head so she couldn’t see, then, with the riding crop, laid into her rear end, which was sensitive from having just given birth. What could she do but bolt forward on top of Edna?
That Picasso’s a fucking eejit. He kept apologising to the dumb bastard every time he hit it. ‘Oh I’m so sorry, my darling, I’m so sorry.’ Fuck’s sake.
She backed up then reared on her hind legs, and he apologised again with the crop, and it sent her hinds forward enough to ensure that when she brought her forelegs down, they hit the spot. Which shut Ed up. But was she dead? He couldn’t tell without getting in himself and checking. Dodgy. The mare might have done the same to him. A mother, head away, protecting her young – not recommended. I always advise people to stay away from mad mares who’re protecting their young.
Though he did need to give Edna a couple more goes to make sure.
He got on the mare’s back. Risky. That trench was up to her withers and only a few feet wide. She could cripple him. Still, the photograph on his living-room wall said his arse had been on a horse before; he obviously knew what he was doing. He fed the lunge lead through her mouth and, using it like a bit and reins, backed her up then kicked her onto Ed and junior. Hard going with all that bucking and screeching. Difficult to be accurate.
Then she reared and when her fores landed I heard a crack.
I doubt there was a roller in place. My guess was he’d give her one more go for luck, and that did it. Difficult one to call – how many times you need to trample an eighteen-stone woman with a one-ton mare to do the trick. Having administered a final trot or two, that was him for the night, as far as riding without a safety helmet was concerned. He went across to the cowshed.
I went and shone my trusty torch and had a look at how Edna was managing. When the light hit her face, I thought I was looking at a Halloween mask. Bye, sis.
But was the damage consistent with this type of … ‘misadventure’? How the fuck should I know? Who’s to say how much trampling a mare would be capable of when trying to save its foal? That’s how this would look – should, anyway – to the law. For a while. Until they realised Lucille had orchestrated it, as I’ve said.
As for the foal itself, I could now see that he hadn’t thrown Edna on top of it. I think that Picasso’s a bit of an animal lover. It still looked dead though. The mare was nudging it but it wasn’t moving.
Now, as you know, one of the most important ingredients in farming comes from cows. Then farmers spread it to make the grass grow. Years ago a man might’ve had an old byre in which to shelter his livestock over the winter months; today it’s intensive state-of-the-art slatted sheds – barns with slatted flooring, each with a centre aisle between two holding bays. Cattle are taken off the land at the back end of the year when the grass has stopped growing and kept in a shed where they eat silage, which is grass cut in spring or summer, rolled into a four-foot bale and wrapped in black bin-liner-type plastic. You must’ve seen them in fields; they look like giant snooker balls from a distance. The grass gradually breaks down, ferments you might say, in the plastic, which gives it a high acid content. It’s not only good for fattening cattle; it also makes it easier for the farmer to look after them. Once eaten, the silage passes through their systems and comes out the other end as slurry then falls down through the slats they’re standing on into a
man-made pit the size of a swimming pool – effectively we’re talking about a swimming pool of liquid cow shit. Then comes spring, the cattle are let back onto the land and some of the slats are removed to allow a pipe from a slurry spreader to be lowered down into it so it can be sucked up and sprayed over the land as fertiliser. All very recyclable, and all very boring.
Unless you have an alternative use for it.
Poisonous gas builds up in this slurry. Methane. And that’s when it becomes interesting. Which is why I chose it. They’d removed the slats for the slurry man to come and empty the pit. Every year they did this. And they’d brought their bull in.
He’d been out all winter. But his ladies were out grazing. And he didn’t like that. He was keen to earn his pay, wanted to be out playing with them. Which meant he was in a bad mood – and that made him dangerous. Horny bulls kill ten men in Ireland every year. More in a good year.
This one was in the left-hand-side holding bay. Picasso was shaking a bucket of beef nuts beside him to let him smell them. He put the bucket in the opposite holding bay, opened the bull’s gate, got the fuck out of the way, watched the bull cross over to the holding bay opposite and get tucked into the nuts then went back up and closed the gate, locking the bull in the bay where the slats had been removed.
Oh, just in case you’re wondering why I’d chosen Amy for this, instead of Edna, well Edna was too fat, y’see. Amy was only a skinny little thing – about seven stone. Whoever removed those slats removed only enough for Amy to fall through. For Edna, a few more would have to have been taken out – a job for two men. Also, if need be, Picasso could carry Amy over to the slats and drop her down through them into the pit, whereas he would never have managed Ed. He’d have had to drag her and that would leave marks. I had to credit Lucille, in the law’s eyes, with the cop on to think of these things.
I saw headlights pulling in at the front of the cottage. Amy had come home from the dance to put her feet up. But there was one waltz yet to go. Or shall I call it a tango? With the bull.
Picasso put on his bee-keeper’s gear, overalls, gloves and a veil – he didn’t look like a blushing bride in it – and came up to the top of the centre aisle where someone had brought in jumping poles to paint. They stood upright against the wall. To their left was a wasps’ nest.
For this to work, y’see, the law’d have to at first conclude that Amy came home, saw the TV on, wondered where her sister was, saw the light on in the shed, went in to check, found that the bull was loose and in the wrong bay, tried to shoo it back to where it should have been – out of harm’s way from the open slats – and found that it, coming into the mating season and pissed off, ran at her, hit the pole and broke open the nest. The wasps went mad and started stinging all round them, which sent the bull nuts and he chased Amy, who couldn’t see too well with all the wasps stinging her eyes, fell into the pit and was poisoned by the gas – it acts in seconds.
So Picasso took hold of a pole and cracked open the nest. Then he bolted for the door and left the wasps to blame the bull. I wasn’t sure about this bit. I didn’t know how wasps blamed bulls. Could they sting through hide for instance? Leather’s tough. Then again, hide gets a good deal of its toughness only in the tanning process. Besides, it had two eyes, two nostrils, a mouth, open ears and balls the size of milk bottles to sting. How the latter’s performance might later be affected, I wasn’t sure of either. I’ve never performed with my nuts covered in wasp stings, so I can’t say.
By the time I’d crept round from my ringside seat – a hole high up in the cowshed wall where a block had been left out for ventilation – (I’d covered it with a little mesh to keep the stingers at bay) – Picasso had removed his veil, gone over to the cottage, rapped on the door and was talking to Amy through the open living-room window.
‘Excuse me,’ he was saying. ‘Might your name be Amy?’
‘Yes. And you are?’
‘I am with the vet: Mr Feeney.’
‘What’s Feeney doing here?’
‘Administering to the bull. It has slipped its moorings, so to speak, and has injured itself as a result. Your sister Edna is asking for you.’
‘Edna’s asking for me? I thought she was in bed.’
‘She may well have been. Now she is in the slatted cowshed with the vet.’
‘What does she want me for?’
‘She is of the opinion that you are the one who normally deals with the bull.’
‘Why didn’t she come herself? Why did she send you?’
‘I volunteered. Would you like me to fetch her?’
‘No, it’s all right. I’d better come.’
She opened the door and followed him round behind the cottage and halfway across the yard then stopped at the noise coming from inside the shed. The bull was wrecking the place.
‘Is he loose?’
‘He is. Though he presents no immediate danger.’
‘What’s all that buzzing?’
‘Perhaps the vet has his electric shaver on. To shave around the wound before stitching.’
‘What – with him going buck mad?’
‘He’s waiting until the anaesthetic takes effect.’
‘Where’s his van?’
‘We drove it straight in and locked the doors in case the bull got out.’
‘Oh.’ Talkative bitch – I thought she was never gonna shut up. ‘I’d be afraid to go any further with all that commotion. I’ve never heard him this bad. Edna?’
‘I doubt she will hear you.’
She saw Picasso’s bee-keeper’s veil lying near the wicker door. ‘What’s that?’
He got it and put it on. She didn’t fancy him in it. And no way was she going anywhere near that door.
‘This?’
‘Yes. What’s it for?’
Fuck knows what she thought with him standing there in that get-up. He looked like something out of a sci-fi movie. She made to back away and Picasso scooped her into his arms.
I didn’t like it. A bull charging her down would not leave paw marks on her. A small point, I know. But if forensic found bruises consistent with being grabbed, it might ruin everything. Still, what was I worrying about? Lucille would get the blame when the time came.
Picasso opened the wicker and turfed her in then went in after her.
And I returned to my air vent. Amy was standing screaming and grabbing her hair as the wasps got to work. Picasso lifted her over the metal feeder into the bay where the bull was going mad. Then he stepped back.
To be fair to her, she didn’t faint. She just stood in the corner wailing. She didn’t try to climb back out either. Whether she was in too much of a state or she knew Picasso would prevent her, I couldn’t say. The wasps were keeping her mind on other things.
The strange thing was the bull never charged. I thought he’d be so out of his head that he would’ve gone straight for her. Maybe she’d been good to him. You can never plan for how an animal will react.
Picasso climbed over, lifted her into the aisle then carried her up and turfed her back over the feeder rail to where the bull was.
The bull was bucking so much he couldn’t help but ram her. He bucked all round him, caught her with a rear hind in the small of her back and bolted for the opposite end of the bay as she slid down the wall. The methane in the silage’d finish her off.
Picasso went in and dropped her through the opening in the slats. Then he opened the gate to let the animal have the run of the place. There was no need for him to stay behind and check that the fumes’d finish her off. Everybody needs oxygen and there wasn’t any down there.
She didn’t try to climb back out. I couldn’t hear her spluttering as the slurry covered her face. The bull was making too much noise for that.
I went to my car, emailed Picasso’s laptop in his Transit (I’d told him to bring it with him), telling him what to do next: see to Conor then Anne. Job done.
All the Donavans would be gone.
And I would have
what I had wanted since I was nine years old.
PICASSO
It was now clear that I was at the mercy of a devious and savage mind. Under penalty of exposure, I had been blackmailed into dispatching two sisters in a fashion both prolonged and unnecessary. I have little time for gratuitous violence. It is the preserve of the sadist. Having to treat two harmless creatures in such a manner was very distressing. I shall not describe it to you in detail, but I have never experienced anything like it.
However, while I had initially considered the tenuous possibility that the only person in a position to exert such control over my actions might have been Conor Donavan, it soon became evident that this was not the case. Another’s deception was at work. But who was this unknown person? Naturally I had deduced that he, or she, in some way had an association with those now departed. Perhaps a relative, conspiring to profit from their demise by way of a bequest or suchlike. A precise identification was required, and it was towards this goal that I had taken my own investigative measures.
You will recall that I had taken possession of Jackie Hay’s camcorder. If a camera had placed me in this predicament then a camera might steer a course back out of it. I had therefore placed the camcorder on the dashboard of my Transit before the incident to which I have just alluded.
Consequently I now had footage of a man coming out through the entrance to the riding stables. Darkness, alas, had been against me. His identity remained a mystery. However all mysteries provide clues. And while I may not have been able to discern his face, he did have one distinguishing characteristic.
‘Lucille, do any of your male relatives walk with a limp?’
‘Wha …?’
