The Fox in the Forest

by Gregson, J. M.

  “But it could be dark when you finish. I can’t —”

  “You can and will.” It was a relief for a man who spent so much of his time being diplomatic to assert himself so decisively. “I know the tracks through the forest well enough, and I have a torch here if I need it.” He patted the pocket of his anorak. “You can pay me back by helping me to get a collecting box for the famine appeal into the Crown. Drunken heathens are often the most generous givers. I’ll explain to Mr Davidson that I insisted you left me, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

  “Oh, it’s not that.” The thought that he might be considered in fear of his employer seemed to decide Harry. “All right, if you’re sure. I’ll go straight through to Cheltenham when I’ve dropped you. If you change your mind and want a lift just ring my flat — I’ve got my own number.” They came to a halt outside the old church and he put on the handbrake while he scribbled the number on the back of a petrol receipt.

  Peter Barton watched the rear lights of the Rover as they wound away from him over the undulating lane. They seemed unnaturally bright on that dim afternoon. When he turned the other way, the drunken tombstones seemed almost threatening in the cheerless shadow of the church.

  He walked briskly to the first house beyond it, trying unsuccessfully to thrust away conjecture about the whereabouts of his wife.

  6

  Clare Barton did not return to the Vicarage until the next day. She had been away for forty-eight hours. Absence had seemed at first to confuse her emotions rather than clarify them. By the second day, there had come to her a dim realization that her problems were within herself, and that therefore she would have to confront herself before they could be solved.

  Perhaps she had hoped despite her conduct that her absence from Peter would really make her heart grow fonder, as it had been used to do in the early years of their marriage. That had not quite happened: life as she got older did not seem to be as simple as it had once been. But she returned full of a bleak determination to try harder. She would throw herself wholeheartedly into the work of supporting Peter. It was not the first time she had so resolved, but this time she felt very determined.

  Her arrival back in the village was noticed. The vicar’s old red Ford was known to everyone, and in the quiet middle of the day several pairs of eyes remarked the strained white face of his wife behind the steering-wheel. She drove very slowly when she reached the village, turning the tight bend by Tommy Farr’s village shop with elaborate care, working out what she would say to Peter when she re-entered their sterile little house.

  As soon as she turned her key in the front door, she sensed that the house was empty. She called her husband’s name up the stairs and into the kitchen, but already she knew that there would be no reply. She walked round the ground-floor rooms, looking for the note she could scarcely expect to find. It was she, after all, who had left Peter wondering where she was for two days.

  She went into the kitchen, half-hoping that she would find the units in a mess, so that she could emphasize her contrition by cleaning the place up before he returned. The place was as orderly as a hospital operating theatre. Not even a piece of cutlery relieved the surface of the stainless steel sink; there was no sign of even a cereal packet on the grey formica surface of the table. She felt the electric kettle: it was stone cold. Tipping the lid of the rubbish bin, she saw only an empty baked bean tin as evidence of her husband’s use of the kitchen while she was away. She smiled, for the first time in two hours. Peter hadn’t much idea of how to look after himself. The thought of his vulnerability was a comfort, a support to her new resolution.

  She went over to the single small bag she had carried in with her. She put the cricket book she had bought for Peter in the corner of the lounge; with its gaudy Christmas wrapping it became immediately a point of interest. Later, on her way through the village, she would call in at Tommy Farr’s and order a Christmas tree, that pagan symbol so beloved of her Christian husband with his schoolboy enthusiasms. She had told him the artificial one they had upstairs would be quite adequate for their needs, if he must have some such childish symbol. Now this would be the first of her concessions.

  The second one would be more important. She picked up the phone and tapped out the number of the secretary of the diocesan adoption society. Her fingers flicked impatiently over the panel: her resolution must not fail before the thing was accomplished. Within two minutes, she had set in motion the first stages of the adoption procedure which for five years she had adamantly refused to contemplate.

  It was much easier than she had expected. While still buoyed up by her relief, she sat down at the kitchen table and wrote her message on the jokey Christmas card she had brought for Peter, indicating that she was willing now to adopt. She said nothing about the phone call she had just made; she would tell him that, as the confirmation that she was serious in her intention. This would be her real Christmas present.

  When she had sealed the envelope and put the card on top of the book in the corner of the lounge, she washed her face, put on some light make-up, and prepared to go out into the village. Looking at her pale features in the mirror, she saw herself don the smile she was accustomed to wearing on her village rounds. Well, that was all right: it was too early yet to expect anything else. If things worked out, the smile would become more genuine over the months.

  She walked briskly through the village, calling as she had determined to do at the stores to order her tree. Tommy Farr promised that there would be a four-footer ready for her on the morrow. She kept her eyes alert as she went on for any sign of Peter. If she could find him, she would plunge enthusiastically into support of whatever he was doing, as a public demonstration of her new attitude.

  The church’s heavy wooden door was open. She was disappointed to find that her husband was not within the place. Frosty Mrs Coleman had not seen him today; she was putting the final touches to her Christmas floral display. The older woman stood looking thoughtfully after the vicar’s young wife from the church porch, wondering what could be the source of her new animation: Strange woman; the vicar deserved better, she thought protectively.

  Clare decided that her husband must have gone over to one of the other churches. She felt a pang of guilt that he had not had the car. It was still drizzling a little: perhaps she should take the car and try to collect him. But she did not know for certain where he was, and she would hate not to be in the house when he came home.

  She took home the vegetables she had bought at Tommy Farr’s and began to prepare a meal which would be an elaborate one by her recent standards. Activity was an effective therapy. For the first time in years, she was actually enjoying a domestic task. The drizzle on the window made her feel warm and protected in the warmth of the small brick house.

  It looked as though there would not be a white Christmas, after all.

  ***

  In the forest, the rise in temperature brought a smell of damp vegetation which overwhelmed all other scents. The drizzle was scarcely more than a dampness in the still air, but it had been present for most of the day, so that the trees dripped steadily on to earth which was soft with the residue of the melting frost.

  Despite their initial reluctance to come, the children were glad to be here, releasing their abundant holiday energy. It had needed all the persuasive powers of an overworked mother to get them out into the open air and away from her festive preparations. Now they were glad of the change from waiting for Christmas and what it might bring. In less than thirty-six hours now, it would be Christmas Day; to young minds, the interval seemed interminable. But racing along the tracks in the woods, throwing the stick for an enthusiastic dog, even they could forget Christmas for a while.

  There were three of them, two brothers of eleven and nine and the elder boy’s classmate. The dog was a black labrador, not yet two years old, more delighted to be here even than they were. He dived in and out of the trees, retrieving the stick when it suited him, ignoring it when more interestin
g scents or sounds diverted him. Sometimes he made longer expeditions into the undergrowth, rejoining his young companions further down the wide stone road when they had almost despaired of his return.

  The boys had brought a mountain bike with them. They took turns to ride it, bouncing crazily over the stones which protruded from the earth, coming to grief occasionally in the ruts left in soft areas by the heavy forestry vehicles. The young one, as usual, had to fight hard to get his turns on the machine. His shrill tones, sometimes near to tears in his frustration, soared piercingly over the tops of pine and beech as the boys moved towards one of the clearings where wide tracks crossed, then curved away again until they disappeared beneath the trees.

  The boys were so preoccupied that they forgot the dog for a while. The eldest one eventually realized that the animal had been missing for several minutes. They called his name in high, wailing tones. It became a contest of decibels between them as the labrador failed to appear. Gathered around the bike, they took turns to bellow, each one straining his alert young ears for the response which would show that his cry had been the successful one.

  Eventually, they caught the faint sound of a bark through the heavy air. All of them called together then, and the bark came again, made eerie by the distance. But still the dog did not return. The sound was from their left, down the track which had just met them at the crossing place. They set off towards the tenuous notes of the dog, calling as they went to make sure they were correct.

  The labrador was a good quarter of a mile away; they were quite breathless when they reached him. Only his excited snuffling told them where he was, for his sleek black fur was almost invisible beneath the ferns which covered the ground below the leafless oaks. The boys called his name again, but still he did not come to them, acknowledging their presence only with an excited half-bark.

  The eldest boy called, “Come on then, lad! What is it that’s bothering thee?” in what he thought was a fair imitation of his father’s unflappable tones. Then he scrambled down the bank and crossed the shallow ditch between him and the dog.

  When he saw what the dog was tugging at, he felt again the child he was rather than the man he had pretended to be. It should not be children who discovered things like this.

  The man was sprawled upon his back, his eyes gazing unseeingly at the ferns which brushed his face. One arm was twisted beneath him, the other stretched wide and stiff on his other side, as if it was ready to embrace the boy who had come so unexpectedly upon him. The boy backed fearfully away, feeling his legs which wanted to run turn suddenly to lifeless sticks.

  In the nightmares which beset him in the weeks to come, it was the huge raw wound in the chest and the great red hole where flesh should have been which woke him screaming in the dark hours of the night.

  ***

  Clare Barton was impatient to see her husband. The meal was almost ready; she had set the table in the little dining-room which they had so rarely used. Now she put the two cut-glass goblets beside the place settings and positioned the reading lamp on the sideboard beside the table. The claret glowed richly against the winking crystal in the subdued light: it was almost like a scene from one of the magazines her mother studied so avidly.

  She was glad she had lit a fire in the lounge: it transformed the square room with its welcome. Standing on a chair, she pushed the drawing-pin through the last of the Christmas paper chains at the corner of the low ceiling and looked at her handiwork with satisfaction. It was a good start.

  She was taking the apple pie which was his favourite out of the oven when the doorbell rang. She knew the sergeant, but not the rather nervous-looking policewoman at his side.

  It was the sergeant who said, “May we come inside for a few minutes, Mrs Barton?” And then, as she stared without comprehension at them, “I’m afraid we have some bad news for you.”

  7

  On the morning of Christmas Eve, the forest throbbed with unaccustomed activity. Or at least, that part of it did where the body of the Reverend Peter Barton had met his death.

  The barriers at the edge of the wood which were designed to prevent access by four-wheeled vehicles had their padlocks removed for a time. The white police vehicles drove swiftly down the unpaved road, but parked a respectful distance from the thing the boys had found in the bushes beside the wide, unpaved track. There might be other wheel tracks here, even footprints, which must not be obscured.

  Only the ambulance inched cautiously nearer to the body. It stopped about ten yards short of it, waiting like a large, patient animal until the men around the corpse had finished their business and given the signal that it could be moved. Presently, what remained of Peter Barton was slid into its black plastic sack and zipped scrupulously from sight. Four men lifted the bag carefully but unemotionally into the ambulance and shut the doors against the prying eyes they might meet once they left the shelter of the woods.

  The pilot of the police helicopter which circled above the forest watched the process going on below him, seeing human detritus swallowed into a dustbin bag and stowed for disposal like so much kitchen rubbish. Then he swung the craft away on the light breeze and resumed his survey of the forest. He was more than a mile from the scene of the crime when he found something to interest him in a tiny gap between the lines of tall firs.

  ***

  Behind him, the uniformed officers directed by the Scene of Crime sergeant began to move methodically outwards from where the body had lain, their progress almost indistinguishable from above, searching the ground minutely for any tiny sign the killer might have left of his presence. Fibres from brambles, a rusting paperclip from the ground, the plastic top of a ballpoint pen, all found their way into plastic bags to be tagged, documented, filed. The painstaking groundwork of the investigation had begun.

  It was another twenty minutes before John Lambert parked the big Vauxhall at the edge of the forest, nodded to the rather nervous young constable who prevented entry by the public, and walked into the woods with Hook at his side. Among superintendents, he was a survival from an earlier age; sometimes his juniors made him feel like a dinosaur. He was unable to keep away from an investigation, unable to sit in his CID office and marshal his forces towards the defeat of homicide like a general behind the lines.

  His Chief Constable indulged him, so far. Perhaps it was because he produced results: the CC was a statistician, as the current perception of his office encouraged him to be. Lambert solved a high proportion of the serious crimes which came his way, using his own idiosyncratic methods as well as the modern police machine. It worked, and as long as it continued to do so, Douglas Gibson, with one eye on his Committee and the other on his pension, was content to indulge his Superintendent’s eccentricities.

  On this bleak, damp day, when most men of his rank would have welcomed a centrally heated office, Lambert marched with the sturdy Detective-Sergeant Hook at his side, looking thoughtfully at the pewter sky above the firs at the edge of the forest. If he pulled his coat more closely about him against the cold, he sniffed the air of a new inquiry with the slightly guilty enthusiasm it always prompted in him.

  He liked to approach on foot, getting the feel of a crime as he moved towards the scene. It was an illusion of course, but he felt that he sometimes picked up small nuances that way that more precipitate arrivers missed. Now Superintendent and Sergeant rounded the gentle bend in the wide track and saw the machinery of the investigation set out before them.

  The police ambulance had passed them as they approached the forest, moving with extreme care over the narrow lanes so as not to disturb its gruesome burden in the plain fibreglass coffin it had been accorded, proceeding at a pace appropriate to the hearse it had become. So the pathologist had already been and gone: Lambert frowned at the thought of the scent of murder growing stale before he had even reached the place. If it was murder.

  Sergeant Dickenson, who was in charge of the scene of crime team, gave them the white paper zipper overall and overshoes he dole
d out to all who came through the limits of the roped-off area around the innocent-looking ditch. Lambert and Hook stood for a long, silent moment beside the spot where the body of Peter Barton had lain. The imprint of the corpse, with its arm thrown crazily sideways, was still visible in the rushes which covered the soft ground on the side of the ditch.

  The men who were conducting the search for clues affected not to notice the chief’s presence as they worked methodically away from the spot. They grunted sometimes with the effort necessitated by the cold and uneven ground beneath the trees, but even their curses were subdued once they realized that the Super was around. Their eyes fastened to the ground in conscientious diligence, they examined its unrevealing surface; their breath rose in white clouds through the few brown leaves which clung still to oak and beech, a badge of their conscientious exertion.

  “We couldn’t do much last night,” said Dickenson, as though apologizing for the fact. “We lit the place overnight and put a guard on, of course, and the fingerprint officer got busy. But DI Rushton thought we’d be better doing most of the scene of crime work this morning.”

  Lambert nodded. The dead were never in a hurry. To avenge them, one had sometimes to be patient. “How long had he been dead when he was found?”

  “Dr Burgess didn’t commit himself on the spot; he’s making us wait for the autopsy. But the police surgeon said last night that the body had been there for some time probably overnight, he thought.”

  Lambert nodded glumly. The longer the interval between a death and its discovery, the greater the chance of a culprit escaping detection. “Could he have been dumped here?”

  “Dr Burgess thought not. There’s quite a lot of blood here.” Dickenson pointed to an innocent-looking russet patch on the sparse grass beneath the low branches. The police photographer, a civilian in huge wellington boots, was taking his last shots of the area, a pair of tyre prints twenty yards down the track which were probably unconnected but just might be crucial. He had a film in his pocket which would be developed within two hours, showing the body and its spillage of gore from every conceivable angle.