Cherringham--Murder Most Wild

by Neil Richards

  Or maybe — from the looks of things — permanently open due to rotting wood, rusty metal fittings.

  Jack stopped well away — didn’t want his Sprite getting mired in the mud trap ahead.

  Course, he’d still have to tromp across the patch.

  He wished he had some old sneakers, or ‘wellies’ in the boot.

  Now his new brown pair of Clarks was about to disappear in the clumps of mud.

  He started towards the farmhouse.

  *

  Jack had knocked a half dozen times with no sound from inside.

  Then another series of raps, as loud as he could.

  No guarantee Sam’s brother would be here, and Jack was about to turn around to leave when the door creaked opened.

  And he saw Joel Lewis.

  Unlike Sam, Joel sported a dome-like head with a whiskery coating of hair. Dark eyes, skinny, dressed in black jeans and a grey sweater dotted with food. Or maybe mud.

  Or maybe some other stuff churned when one tends wild boars.

  “Joel Lewis?”

  A nod. The guy, rail thin, was the antithesis of the flamboyant and furry Lewis that everyone had talked about.

  Odd combo for brothers.

  Jack stuck out his hand. “Jack Brennan. Wonder if I could talk to you … about the accident?”

  The man’s face was expressionless as if Jack might be speaking a foreign language.

  “Tony Standish, of the council … he asked if I could well … just see what happened.”

  Finally — a sound.

  “Hmm? Happened? Wot you mean?”

  “Tony was very concerned. Wanted me to come down, find out first hand. You know … about the accident.”

  “That right?”

  Jack smiled.

  “Your brother was … not in the best shape Friday night I heard.”

  “Wasted, you mean? Always is.” Then, a correction. “Was.” He took a breath. “Now he’s gone.”

  Joel’s brother’s death had clearly left him rattled.

  Jack looked over to the barn.

  “Like I said, I just came down to … find out a bit more. Wonder if you might show me where it happened? Maybe how it happened?”

  Joel matched Jack’s look with a head tilt to the inside of the house — the state of which Jack could only guess.

  He imagined — though — something resembling one of those TV shows on compulsive hoarders.

  Or maybe conspiracy ‘nuts’.

  “Got things I need to do. Making the—” he took time saying the next word as if it carried great weight “arrangements.”

  Jack furrowed his brow, nodded. “I am sure. Tough time for you. But while everything is still fresh … would be good to talk, help Tony. Put his mind at ease.”

  “At ease?”

  “That, well, that what happened was just a freak accident.”

  And finally Joel nodded.

  “Alright then. Let me get my boots on.”

  Joel shut the door, and Jack stood on the small porch waiting for his tour of the scene where Sam had met his grisly death.

  This wasn’t going to be easy for Joel, he knew.

  *

  Sarah printed out the draft poster for Cherringham’s ‘Annual Christmas Tree Lighting and Community Carol Concert’.

  She held it out to Grace.

  “What do you think?”

  “Colourful enough, that’s for sure!”

  Sarah looked at the poster — which she thought was far too colourful, with glittering tinsel, glistening ornaments, and a cherry-red Santa.

  “It’s certainly eye-popping. But that’s what they wanted. Well, I’ll send it off to them and see if it causes any migraines.”

  Grace laughed at that and then turned back to her own sizeable mound of work.

  Sarah attached the file to an email to this year’s Christmas fete director, hit send, and then stopped.

  Bit of time now.

  Could look into the Zakro Corporation.

  And as if she was taking a break, checking Facebook at work, shopping for a new frock, she opened a new page and began to dive into what she could learn about Zakro Corp.

  *

  Jack walked across a particularly gooey mound of mud, following Joel who didn’t seem to care, his wellingtons no longer green, but a mustard brown.

  Into the barn.

  The first sensation was the smell.

  Like a wave, hitting his nostrils. As a kid, Jack had visited his own grandfather’s upstate farm. He knew farm smells. The hay, cows, horses. The chicken coops.

  But this went way beyond that.

  And dark inside. Jack had to wait a minute until his eyes adjusted to the gloom.

  Then he could make out what looked like a series of chutes running up and down the length of the barn.

  For a moment he didn’t ask anything of Joel, just taking it in.

  Then his eyes spotted some animals, boars, huddled to the left … three, maybe four of them.

  Their eyes picked up the scant light in the place as if they were checking Jack out.

  He turned to Joel.

  “That where your brother died?”

  Joel nodded. “Well, a few feet back really, more to the other end of that chute.”

  Where Jack saw a gate.

  “By that gate?”

  Another nod from the taciturn Joel.

  “And it was one of those boars that killed Sam?”

  At that Joel shook his head. “One of them? Nah. Them’s the sows. Safe with them — unless they got young. When they got young — you don’t want to go near ’em.”

  Then Joel turned and pointed to the right.

  “No. It was that one over there. Our new male. Hercules.”

  Jack had not spotted it.

  But then over at the other end of the barn, at the end of another chute that led to a series of metal alleyways and gates, he saw something that made the female boars look like piglets.

  The massive male boar looked like a creature that had disappeared from the planet thousands of years ago. Curved tusks, bristly hair that looked spiky and dangerous. Powerful legs.

  And the size.

  At first Jack didn’t think a wild boar would be anything to be intimidated by.

  Now looking at ‘Hercules’ — the male boar also eyeing the two men — Jack knew better.

  Something that large, ram into you, tusks rearing up and down?

  You wouldn’t have a chance.

  But then Jack looked back to the sows, following the maze of chutes, the system of gates.

  Something about this didn't make sense.

  And suddenly amidst the overwhelming odour, standing in cake–sized mounds of mud, Jack was looking at this place … exactly as he would any other crime scene.

  *

  Sarah’s first impressions of Zakro Corporation was that it was so much bigger than she had thought.

  Their division building supermarkets, with those markets really being ‘super’, was only one small aspect.

  They were into energy, construction, shipping. Big time.

  She saw pictures of their current CEO with the German chancellor, shaking hands while passing over a million-euro cheque for some ‘green’ project.

  The profit statements were equally gargantuan, Zakro had been riding the German economic express for all it was worth.

  They were, she thought, almost a country unto themselves. Global, with factories and operations around the world.

  She had a thought then. Would a corporation that big let a Sam Lewis get in the way of their latest project?

  And though she knew she really should move onto the next bit of work, she decided to stick with this a bit longer.

  Wondering … have they had issues in other places where they tried to bring a controversial store to a rural area?

  And how important was the cool, confident Eva Weiss to that operation?

  Sarah stayed with her online digging.

  Work could wa
it.

  *

  Jack turned to Joel, the arrangement in the boar pens now clear to him.

  “So the police checked all this area, yes?”

  Jack watched Joel nod, then wipe his nose with his sleeve and look away.

  “Joel, I know you must be mighty upset.”

  A quick turn of his head. “Too right there. Lost my brother. That’s something, I tell ya.”

  “I am sure. Which is why, well, I’m trying to understand something.”

  A nod.

  “Like where Sam died. I mean why would he have gone over there? In fact, why would he have walked in here in the first place? Night of drinking. You’d think—”

  Joel titled his head. “You didn’t know my brother, Mr. Brennan. He loved these beasts. This damn farm. Was his bloody life.”

  “And so—?”

  Then a shrug. “Maybe he came to check on them. The barn door open — better to keep the place nice and airy, even in winter. Boars don’t mind it.”

  Then Jack pointed to where Sam had been found.

  Where what was left of him was found.

  “I get that. A quick look. Make sure everything’s all right. But what would bring him over there?”

  Joel looked at the spot.

  Another shrug. And Jack waited, giving the brother sometime to think about that question.

  “Maybe … maybe he saw something. Something wrong.”

  Jack nodded. Still waiting. “Like what?”

  “Maybe one of the sows made a noise, like sick or somethin’.”

  “Okay. So he climbs up, goes over there—”

  “Drunk as a skunk.”

  Jack nodded. “Apparently. And makes his way there, to the sows. And they wouldn’t bother him, right?”

  Joel nodded.

  Jack looked around the barn again.

  He wondered if Alan Rivers had made note of any footprints in the mud. Not much chance of finding anything now — the animals had churned up everything.

  “Could someone else have been here?”

  The brother looked surprised by the question.

  “Dunno. Sure. Guess so. Door open. We have had people sneak in. People who don’t like what we do down here. So yeah, could be.”

  Jack thought back to what Billy had said in the pub.

  So Sam and his brother weren’t the most popular farmers in the neighbourhood.

  Need to find out why …

  Jack looked at the grieving brother. Maybe now wasn’t the time to be asking those kinds of questions.

  He smiled, trying to find a way to soften what he wanted to say next.

  “Right. Because you see, Joel, what doesn’t really make sense is …”

  Now Jack outlined with a finger the rows of chutes and gates, all to keep the male on his side of the barn.

  “…how did Hercules get from his place over there, to here, past those gates?”

  Joel looked around the barn as if the question now had also stumped him.

  “I dunno, I mean, I hear Sam was pretty far gone. Maybe he got confused, all that booze. Opened gates, not thinkin’.”

  “Or could someone have done it?”

  And now Joel’s eyes went wide.

  “You mean someone might have set it up?”

  And as much as Jack didn’t want to, in this foul air, he took a breath.

  “I don’t know Joel. You think of anyone who might have wanted to do that?”

  “Shit. I don’t know. Sam does get into people’s faces. Did — I mean.”

  Jack looked down to his feet.

  Somehow he’d have to give the shoes a good scraping before he got into his Sprite, parked well away from the muck.

  “God …” Joel said.

  Jack turned and with loud squishy noises started out of to the barn.

  “Best keep these doors locked at night, Joel. And maybe you be careful as well, hmm?”

  And with that, Jack tromped back to his car.

  *

  Jack wiped at his shoes with a small towel he found in the tiny boot of the Sprite.

  His new Clarkes still were a mess. And the smell …

  But at least he wouldn't completely destroy the Sprite’s interior.

  He looked back at the farm, trying to place it on the mental map he had of the new supermarket build.

  Behind the main farmhouse were woods — and behind that must be the river.

  In front of it, Jack could see fields surrounded by stone walls and what looked like an electric fence. The grass was scarred by deep ridges that had turned to mud.

  Did the boars do that? Digging up the earth to look for food?

  To one side of the fields, he saw another wooded area — then beyond that a bigger area — a level pasture that Jack could see sloped gently down towards the distant river.

  Dotted across the pasture he saw poles that surveyors plant to make measurements.

  And — in the distance — a couple of bright yellow builders’ trucks, with men in hard hats moving what looked like a digger into place.

  So, even before they got planning permission, work was already starting.

  Hard to imagine that whole area being turned into a supermarket. Parking for all those cars. Street lights and big ads.

  No wonder Sam Lewis and his brother opposed the build.

  Sure didn’t fit with the whole organic thing they had going.

  One last wipe — and he heard his phone trill.

  Sarah.

  He dug the phone out of his pocket.

  “You won’t believe what I’m doing. Been wiping off mud for the past ten minutes …”

  But he detected excitement in Sarah’s voice. She was outside, the wind whipping around, making scratchy sounds over the phone.

  “Jack, I’ve been digging, and found something.”

  “You usually do.”

  “Zakro, usually led by Eva Weiss, has done this lots of times. Moves into an area, UK, France, even Germany … sways the local council or board — lots of promises, deals — plants one of their supermarkets, and moves on. Things have been even nastier in other countries. Near riots in a village just outside Grenoble.”

  Jack nodded. “You think they’re to blame in some way?”

  “They turn up — divide the community …”

  He wanted to talk about what he had just seen. But there would be time for that. Besides, he wasn’t sure what it could mean, if anything.

  “Jack, I think I’d better talk to someone.”

  “Let me guess … Eva Weiss?”

  “Right. Apparently she’s heading back to Germany in a day or so. She got the approval, so her business is done here. If I don’t get to her now, we’ll lose the opportunity.”

  “And what about work at the office?”

  Sarah laughed. “I’ll multi-task.”

  Jack laughed as well. “Good. Want me to join you?”

  “Hmm. I think, maybe she’ll have less of a guard up, if it’s just me. Woman to woman. Make sense?”

  “Okay. I need to read up some on raising wild boars. Also have a few more leads. Want to strategize a bit, for your chat?”

  “Yes. Good idea. I was thinking I’d start off friendly, with that unfortunate tragedy with Sam, then how it might impact their plans … and—”

  Jack stood there.

  Amazed and how adept Sarah had become.

  Not a student at this any longer.

  Sounding very much like a pro.

  7. Eva Weiss

  Sarah sat in the window seat of the Angel and looked out through the mullioned windows and across at Cherringham Square, lit orange by the street lamps.

  Two men with a small cherry-picker were putting the final touches to the village Christmas lights, testing the coloured bulbs one by one, working their way down the High Street.

  She checked her watch. Eva Weiss had said she’d be across from the Bell Hotel in half an hour. And that was nearly an hour ago.

  Sarah had already texted the ki
ds to tell them to make their own supper. They’d be quite happy with the leftover lasagne — always a hit.

  And she’d taken two calls from Grace about problems with some copy she’d sent to a client.

  I really don’t need this, she thought, taking a sip of her now warm Coke.

  And then made herself calm down. Being angry wasn’t going to help. In fact, the trick, as Jack always told her, was to stay calmer than the person you were questioning.

  She took a deep breath.

  Then saw Eva Weiss crossing the square and coming towards the pub. She wore an elegant winter coat, scarf, and hat. And she wasn’t alone. Sarah could see her assistant scuttling along beside her.

  Brilliant. So much for a woman-to-woman chat.

  Sarah had requested they meet alone. Ms. Weiss had said that would be no problem.

  The woman was clearly into playing games — and it looked like she was good at it.

  *

  “I really am so very sorry for my lateness, Ms. Edwards,” said Eva, placing her drink on the table settling into the armchair opposite. “You must think me terribly rude.”

  “Not at all,” said Sarah, smiling as sweetly as she could. “And please, call me Sarah.”

  “Likewise — Eva. And this is my assistant Heinrich.”

  Sarah nodded at the young man with a floppy dark fringe who had carefully folded Eva Weiss’s coat then taken the hard wooden chair next to her. Sarah saw him nod back to her shyly, then take out a tablet from his shoulder bag and turn it on.

  Then he delicately removed a silver stylus from his shirt pocket as if it was an heirloom Mont Blanc fountain pen.

  The scribe was ready.

  And he’s here to take notes, thought Sarah.

  Is that supposed to put me off?

  “Gave me a good chance to catch up on some work,” she said trying to make her voice upbeat.

  “And what exactly is it you do, Sarah? You were not quite so clear on the phone.”

  “I’m a graphic designer,” said Sarah. “Got my own business here in the village.”

  “I see,” said Eva, smiling thinly. “Well I’m really not sure how I can help you. We are a long way away from commissioning advertising, and anyway, we use a centralised purchasing and evaluation system. Though we may be very much interested in your services down the road, as they say.”

  This woman is full of offers.

  “So, to the point then. Why it was necessary to meet so urgently?”