Requiem

by Clare Francis

  A blustery wind tore across the field, rippling the flattened grass like a fan. A cable rapped a dull tattoo against the side of the storage tank. Pulling up her scarf Daisy went round the Portakabin to investigate the small hut at the far end. Under a leaking roof was a filthy chemical toilet, its seat missing.

  The Portakabin was grey and rectangular, about eighteen feet by eight, and raised on breeze blocks at each corner. There were windows in each side and a door reached by three rickety steps. High on the side facing the apron was a pale rectangle of brighter paint where a board or sign had once been. A telephone cable emerged from a hole near the top of one wall, led up to a post and looped off across country in the direction of the farmhouse.

  Campbell was trying the door, rattling the handle noisily, apparently without success. Daisy, finding an empty oil drum, rolled it across to the side of the cabin and, righting it, perched herself precariously on the top and took a look through one of the windows. There was not a great deal to see. A bare metal table, a couple of fixed cupboards, a sink unit. There was something on the floor though, and she raised herself on tiptoe to see. Papers, a couple of sheets, lying under the desk close against the wall.

  Climbing down, she went round to the steps again to find Campbell bent over the door lock. Ignoring her, he straightened and took a long look around him, taking in the field and the perimeter roads with a single sweep, then listening hard for good measure. The next moment his hand slid into his pocket to emerge with a metal bar flattened off at one end: which, as Daisy didn’t need telling, was a jemmy. She was on the point of objecting but something held her back, and she realized that she was rather fascinated by this blatant display of criminal accomplishment and decidedly curious to see the outcome.

  Campbell had the jemmy into the doorframe and was levering it forward when he stiffened suddenly and shot a look over his shoulder. The distant staccato of a tractor engine came floating across the field. The tractor must have been coming upwind because it was already quite close, spinning along the lane at a sharp lick, the cab and driver riding high above the hedge, heading in the direction of the farmhouse.

  Their presence hadn’t gone unnoticed. The white oval of the driver’s face turned towards them several times. Then the tractor slowed and, turning abruptly into the access road, came thundering towards them. Campbell came down the cabin steps and stood at Daisy’s side. She glanced down and noticed that the jemmy had vanished from his hand.

  The tractor came hurtling onto the apron, narrowly missing Campbell’s car, and ground to a halt beside them. The driver was a gaunt man with a cadaverous weather-beaten face and a sullen expression. He barked: ‘Yer business?’

  Daisy stepped forward and, raising her voice over the rattle of the tractor’s engine, answered politely: ‘We were looking for the people who used to operate from here. The flying company.’

  A long pause. ‘No flyers here.’

  ‘Are you the owner?’

  Another extended pause. ‘The farmer.’

  ‘Well, perhaps you could help,’ Daisy continued unabashed. ‘We’re trying to find this flying company. You wouldn’t have an address for them, would you?’

  An almost imperceptible shake of the head. ‘No flyers here.’

  ‘But there was – were – a short while back?’

  No response at all. His mouth narrowed into a hard uneven line.

  Daisy maintained a pleasant expression. ‘We were told they flew regularly from here. Some time last summer.’

  ‘Aye, an’ they’re away, so y’ve nothin’ tae find oot, have ye?’

  She was aware that Campbell was moving, that he was approaching her elbow. She saw the farmer’s eyes lock on to him and fire up defensively.

  ‘We just want to locate them,’ Daisy said quickly, as much to forestall Campbell as anything else.

  ‘An’ why would that be?’ the farmer demanded aggressively.

  ‘To hire them,’ she said off the top of her head. ‘We’ve got some spraying work.’

  He gave her a scathing look. Perhaps he was unconvinced by the idea of Daisy farming, and one couldn’t really blame him. ‘Recommended, were they?’

  She shrugged. ‘We heard about them.’

  ‘From a faermer, was it?’ He was beating her into a corner, and they both knew it.

  Before she had time to think the idea through, she said: ‘From Willis Bain.’

  ‘Willis Bain, eh?’ A gleam sparked into the sharp face. ‘They knew the flyers, eh, but couldna’ tell ye the name?’

  Daisy thought: I fell straight into that one.

  Campbell was agitating his feet, bracing himself for what she suspected would be some ill-chosen words.

  Daisy threw in rapidly: ‘The man I spoke to couldn’t remember the name, only the place.’

  The eyes narrowed, and he jerked his head in the direction of the road. Just in case they hadn’t got the message, he snapped: ‘Ye’ll be off.’

  Campbell was about to argue, but Daisy pulled at his sleeve and wheeled him firmly towards the car.

  As they drove down the access road the tractor roared up behind them, its lights blazing, and hugged their bumper. ‘Charming character,’ Daisy remarked.

  Campbell didn’t reply. He was chewing his lip, though whether with fury or the effort of deep thought it was impossible to tell.

  They turned into the lane and headed back towards the main road. Daisy watched the tractor stop at the junction. It was still there when she lost sight of it round the next bend. ‘He knew all about it, didn’t he?’ she said disconsolately, blowing her nose. ‘But he sure wasn’t about to tell.’

  ‘I’d say so, aye.’

  ‘But, look, what about the local village?’ she said, trying to salvage something. ‘Wouldn’t it be worth asking around?’ She couldn’t help thinking of the hostelries too, and the warmth a brandy would put into her stomach.

  ‘I asked a time back,’ Campbell said, rousing himself. ‘Nothin’.’

  ‘Not worth trying again?’

  ‘Mebbe, but it’ll be dark by six.’

  The logic escaped her. ‘Dark?’ she echoed.

  He shot her a conspiratorial look. ‘The cabin there.’

  Even then it took her a moment to understand. ‘No,’ she said firmly as soon as she had got his drift. ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘Be in and out in no time.’

  ‘Absolutely not. What about our friend there? No. Really, Campbell, it’s out of the question.’

  Daisy held the torch while Campbell slid the jemmy between the door and the frame. After a moment he gave a grunt of exertion, there was the sound of grinding metal and the door swung open.

  Daisy directed the torch-beam while Campbell went through the cupboards. She had to admit that they made a good team, working over each shelf systematically like a couple of seasoned villains. Their professionalism had extended to leaving the car by the main road in the pitch dark and tramping half a mile across sodden fields.

  The cupboards themselves were disappointing. Crumpled chocolate wrappers – mainly Mars Bars – abandoned cigarette packets, paper clips and plenty of dust. Under the sink was an old telephone directory and the last few sheets of a jotter pad which Daisy pocketed in case there was an impression of the last message, like the fatal clues left by culprits in detective stories. The papers she had seen from the window, lying on the floor under the table, were blank.

  They combed the crevices behind the fittings, in case they had missed something, but whoever had cleaned the place out had done a fairly good job.

  There was a telephone socket, but no telephone and, of course, no telephone number.

  They paused. Daisy didn’t have to check with Campbell to know that he too had run out of ideas.

  They left. Campbell pulled the door to and, using the jemmy, levered the doorlock back into its socket in the aluminium frame, so that to a casual observer the door would look more or less untouched. Close to, the deep dents and scratches around th
e lock wouldn’t fool anyone, and certainly not the tenant farmer.

  Daisy flicked the torch-beam across the air space under the cabin. Around the edge of the cabin a fringe of tall weeds reached almost to its base while in the centre a scattering of soft drink cans and unidentifiable metal sent back gleams of silver.

  Campbell called her over to the rubbish dump, which he proceeded to pull apart, undaunted by even the heaviest items which he chucked to one side as if they were paper-light. The torch-beam revealed chipboard, formica, breeze blocks, bricks, lumps of concrete, earth and weeds.

  They both spotted the red lettering at the same time, buried towards the back of the pile. The style and finish of the lettering was less than professional and the white background paint was peeling off the board in small blisters, but it was a sign all right. Perhaps if Campbell hadn’t been lobbing breeze blocks noisily into the hedge, perhaps if she hadn’t been humming with premature excitement, then they might have heard the engine noise a bit sooner.

  As it was, the vehicle was already out of the lane and into the access road by the time they froze, mesmerized by the approaching lights like a couple of rabbits caught on a vegetable patch.

  Daisy was the first to move. Instinctively she turned away from the lights to head down the side of the Portaka-bin towards the deep shadows at the end. She’d gone only a couple of steps when she looked back and realized that for some inexplicable reason Campbell hadn’t moved, that he was bent over the rubbish again, digging at the board with his fingers. She felt a great thump of alarm.

  Running back, she grabbed at his sleeve. ‘Quick, for God’s sake!’

  But the big man continued to burrow at the board; he was immovable.

  ‘For God’s sake!’ she cried.

  She saw everything in a succession of frozen images, like a film being run through a projector frame by frame. She saw Campbell hunched over the dump, she saw the car beams back-lighting the hedge, throwing the tracery of branches into lacelike relief, and she saw herself rooted to the spot, like an idiot who couldn’t decide which way to run. Yet she knew perfectly well which way to run; it was leaving Campbell that she couldn’t bring herself to do, not until the immovable moron got the message. She yelled at him, and kept yelling.

  The vehicle had almost reached the break in the hedge. At any second it would turn onto the apron and flood them with light. She felt a terrible rage as Campbell, moving with all the speed of a ponderous animal, finally pulled the board out of the dirt and began to move. Free at last, she sprinted off down the alley between the cabin and the hedge. Half way along she realized she wasn’t going to make the end in time: the headlights were sweeping round, and fast. She took a dive onto the concrete. It was a trick she’d never had much reason to try before, and her chin ground into the concrete with an ugly grating sensation.

  The lights flooded over her. She choked for air; something sharp and hard was digging into her ribs. But she kept still, reasonably confident that she’d got down in time, which was more than could be said for Campbell who at this very moment was probably giving the driver a floodlit view of his backside. The lights had swung round and faded. She raised her head and craned round.

  No sign of Campbell; the alley was empty.

  Under the belly of the Portakabin she could see the headlights shining out over the airstrip. The engine note slowed, and stopped. She twisted her head up again, but there was no doubt: Campbell had completely disappeared.

  There was a pause, then the click of a car door opening. Heavy feet sounded on the concrete, walked a distance then stopped. The feet scrunched intermittently as their owner moved and stopped and moved again.

  There was a long silence, then through the space underneath the cabin, she saw a torch-beam flash on and weave its way over the grass. The beam moved steadily around the edge of the cabin, coming towards the alleyway where she lay. Pushing herself up on her forearms she prepared to crawl under the cabin, but just then the torch-beam swung round and went back the other way, towards the steps.

  After what seemed a long time the beam danced back towards the vehicle, the footsteps retreated, the car door slammed, the engine coughed into life and the car reversed into the road and drove away.

  Daisy sank her head on to the concrete, took several deep breaths and picked herself off the sharp metal object that had been grinding into her ribs. She felt weak. One thing was absolutely sure: she wasn’t cut out for a life of crime.

  She rubbed her chin, which felt sore, and brushed ineffectually at the grit clinging to her hands and face. Footsteps approached and she looked up to find the dark outline of Campbell standing over her.

  ‘Christ, Campbell, you gave me bloody heart failure!’ she declared with feeling.

  He didn’t reply, but demanded: ‘The torch.’

  ‘Why the hell didn’t you move! What the hell were you doing!’ The torch wasn’t in her hand, nor her pocket. She scrabbled about on the ground until she found it some distance ahead of where she’d come down. She fiddled with the switch, but it didn’t work.

  Campbell took it from her and gave it an almighty thump. It sprang into life. Nothing, apparently, failed to yield to his methods.

  ‘Where the hell did you get to?’

  ‘In the hedge there,’ he replied. ‘An’ when he was past, I went round the road side.’

  ‘Jesus … Jesus.’ She was still shaking, barely capable of pointing the torch while Campbell led the way back to the rubbish dump. He picked the sign out of the hedge.

  It had been quite a large sign, but now half of it was missing. The wrong half. It read: lying Systems Ltd.

  ‘Terrific,’ Daisy murmured.

  She held the light while Campbell searched the rubbish heap for another ten minutes, but there was no more white board, no more red lettering. It was beginning to rain, a thin drizzle which threatened heavier things. She felt deathly cold.

  ‘The village,’ Daisy said wearily, thinking of the hot meal and warm brandy they’d had earlier and how she’d like to repeat it, thinking too of the long-departed afternoon train and the overnight sleeper that she really mustn’t miss. ‘Let’s get back to the village.’

  The village, two miles away, consisted of a string of low houses straddling a main road. Having tried the larger of the two hotels at midday, they now went to the smaller one, a dreary hostelry with frosted windows, dim yellow lighting, and the sickly-sweet stench of stale beer. The decor was a nicotine-stained sepia, the furnishings a uniform dark brown. Daisy spent ten minutes in the ladies sneezing, coughing and dabbing the blood from the graze on her chin before joining Campbell at the bar and ordering a brandy. She certainly felt she had deserved it. Campbell obviously felt in a deserving mood too, because he had ordered a double Scotch.

  The barman was a vast man with a waistline that had defeated the local outfitters. His name was Jock and he tried very hard to help. ‘A flyin’ company, ye say?’ He kept repeating it, as if this might be enough to jog his memory. ‘Cannae say I recall a flyin’ company. We had a construction company, right enough. Here a couple of months, they was.’ He looked hopeful, as if the construction company might prove an acceptable alternative.

  The bar began to fill up. The customers had the sly laconic air of regulars. After exchanging monosyllabic greetings they stood silently at the bar waiting for Jock to pull their brew before slapping coins onto the counter and shuffling off to their tables. When Jock questioned them about the flying outfit they looked wary, then thoughtful, then shook their heads.

  The atmosphere in the bar became heavy with smoke. Daisy felt her lungs turn raw.

  A girl appeared behind the bar. She was about twenty, so far as it was possible to tell beneath the spiky hair and heavy eye makeup. The hair, which came low over her eyes, and the copious use of the kohl gave her the look of a black-eyed terrier.

  Jock proudly: ‘Ma daughter, Morag.’

  Morag’s mouth twitched grudgingly into what might have been a smile or a contemptuo
us pout.

  ‘They’re lookin’ for an aero company,’ Jock explained. ‘Based on Auldhame Farm some time back.’

  She slid Daisy a look of open suspicion. So much for the freemasonry of women.

  Daisy tried to look friendly. ‘They used to go spraying,’ she said. ‘Forests and that sort of thing. Over to the west. There must have been a mechanic. And a pilot. We thought they might have come in here from time to time.’

  A sulky shrug and a hand pushed into the spiky mane.

  ‘You’ve never heard anything about them then?’

  Morag picked up a glass and polished it desultorily.

  ‘I thought you’d know everything that went on around here.’

  Morage flung her a look of mortal insult. ‘I’m no tattler!’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Daisy said hastily. ‘I just thought you’d have more idea. Than most people, I mean.’ She flicked a glance in the direction of the male drinkers.

  Morage rolled her eyes and said with feeling: ‘Nothin’ gets their noses oot of their beer, no’ the roof fallin’ in, no’ nothin’.’ She stalked up to the far end of the bar and slid a glass onto a shelf. Wandering back, she stopped some way away and looked sulky again, as if to show that she wasn’t entirely won over, not by a long chalk. Then, taking her time, she sidled over again and, her back half-turned to Daisy, leant an elbow on the counter.

  ‘There’s a person might know,’ she said in a bored voice, examining the far side of the room.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘A friend a’ mine. Doon Balinteith way.’

  ‘Oh. This friend knew them then?’

  Morag fixed Daisy with a wrathful soot-encrusted stare for daring to interrupt. ‘Tha’s no’ what ’a said.’

  Daisy looked suitably penitent, but Morag was not one to be hurried, not when every ounce of satisfaction could be squeezed from a waiting game, and it was another ten minutes and a third round of drinks before she deigned to drop a name and an approximate address.