by David Mark
‘Were a bad one,’ said Gordon. ‘Pleased I didn’t have to see him, and I’ve seen a lot.’
He crossed to a metal box on the wall and removed a small set of keys. He handed them to me with a little nod. ‘I’ll leave you be, then,’ he said, and disappeared into the darkness of the garage.
My heart was thumping. It felt as though the past few days had all been leading to this moment. I was making fists with my hands – the key digging into my palm. I was shaking as I put the key into the lock and at first I couldn’t turn it. Then finally it gave and as I opened the boot I was hit with an unmistakable reek. It caught my throat and seemed to stuff its fingers down my throat. It was the smell of rotten meat and corrupted earth; fouled water and decomposing tissue. It made me gag. I had to force myself to look into the dark space and I swear the smell was so strong I truly expected to see a mangled, rancid body laying there in the darkness.
There was no body. The boot was almost empty. All that lay inside was a spare tyre and a fine covering of dirt. There has to be a manuscript, I thought, as a pulse began to beat in my temple. A Dictaphone. Something!
‘All right back there, love?’ shouted Gordon, from somewhere nearby.
I forced myself to look closer. Surely there had to be something. A logbook. Leaflets. Something that showed this car had belonged to a real person with a real life. I closed my eyes and forced myself to think. Fairfax had been in a hurry. He needed to hide those secret words of his before anybody saw what lay on the grass. So he ran to the church and stuffed the papers into a prayer cushion that he thought nobody would ever look at. And then he bundled the body into the boot. Where was it now? Where were the other pages?
At once I knew how I would have behaved in such a situation. He would have shoved whatever he found onto the passenger seat … or under it! I darted to the front of the car and looked inside through the open window. Even in the half-dark I could see the blood on the dashboard. I tried to blank it out. Hurriedly I reached in and felt around on the soft leather of the luxurious car. Nothing on the seat. I reached further and felt around …
My fingers curled around the handle of a small case. At full stretch I pulled it free and it was all I could do not to yell with triumph as I stared upon the Dictaphone. I stuffed it into my jacket and hurried back towards the light.
‘Find it, love?’ shouted Gordon, as I nodded to Felicity and moved swiftly towards the road.
‘Yes, thanks so much! I’ll tell Cranham how much help you were!’
He gave a little salute and I looped my arm through Felicity’s – hurrying her up the road and breathing heavily. When we were out of sight I opened my coat and showed her what I had found.
‘Open it!’ she said, excitedly.
I did as I was bid. Slid open the soft leather of the case and stared upon the smart plastic device with its speaker and earphones – its wheels and plastics and dials.
‘There’s a reel inside,’ I said, softly.
She nodded but said nothing. She was staring at the inscription, written in black ink, on the soft white inside flap of the case.
I read it aloud, lips barely moving; voice softer than the breeze.
For my dear friend Fairfax. Thank you for listening and for helping me bury what belongs beneath the earth. Please keep this memento of our friendship, with my deepest gratitude. Your comrade.
FELICITY
Transcript 0009, recorded October 30, 2010
There were an imprint of a bird on the kitchen window. You couldn’t see it at first – it was just a smudge on the glass. But if you angled your head you could make out the shape of wings and beak and eyes. It was too big for a hedgerow bird. Cordelia thought it might have been a pigeon. We checked around in the back garden in case the poor thing was in misery but we didn’t even find a feather. That seemed important, somehow. All these years later I can’t really tell you what we were thinking but I do know it mattered to both of us that we didn’t listen to the recording until we had made sure we weren’t about to be interrupted by the sudden grisly flapping of broken wings.
‘Maybe it’s been carried off,’ said Cordelia, peering under the big leaves of the rhubarb bushes. ‘Cats, maybe. A fox?’
‘I hope not,’ I said, and I felt a shudder ripple through me as I imagined sharp teeth crunching through brittle bones. ‘Maybe it’s flown away.’
‘Yes,’ said Cordelia, deciding to believe me. ‘They’re tough, birds. And it’s bigger than that other one that came through …’
I held my hand up and shook my head, hunching down into myself. I didn’t want to think about it. The pain in my hip was reminder enough of what had scared me so badly I had to run from the house and into the path of the wagon.
She turned from the rhubarb plants and looked at me with those blue eyes that always seemed to be staring into the very centre of me. You know those lights you get at the optician, when they’re looking into the centre of your head and you can see your own veins floating in your vision like a plant without flowers? It made me feel like that.
‘Are you ready?’ she asked, softly.
I looked at my watch. It was mid-afternoon. We had a couple of hours until the boys came home. There was nothing to stop us. No interruptions.
‘If you’re sure …’ I said, and it was just something to say, really. Just noise.
Cordelia nodded and stood up. We trudged back into the house. For once, we weren’t soaking wet. The shower on the way back from the garage had barely lasted a moment and we had been able to stroll in relative comfort beneath a cold, pinkish-blue sky. We’d talked the whole way. Talked about the inscription on the recorder. I still don’t really know what I believed. It seemed too extraordinary – too removed from the world I knew. I had grown up in wartime but my war had been very different to the one experienced by millions upon millions of poor souls. Few of the people I knew went away to fight and of those who did, most came home. My childhood wasn’t full of air-raids and falling bombs and houses blown to bits in front of me. Food was a little more scarce and there was always a sensation that the world was wrong, somehow, but the battles and massacres and brutality barely touched us. Even when the prisoners of war arrived it was hard to associate the polite young men who worked in the fields with the stories we heard of the evil done by Hitler far away. I couldn’t make sense of the idea that a man who had seen such evil in a tiny place in France – a place not that different to Gilsland – could meet his end a stone’s throw from my front door.
‘Sit down,’ said Cordelia, pointing to the kitchen table. The recorder was already sitting there. It reminded me of a Christmas present, wrapped so expertly that its contents were completely obscured. There was something thrilling about not knowing what we would find. I remember my heart beating faster than it should have done and the hairs on my arms rose up like the sails of a ship in a bottle.
‘Whatever we find …’ began Cordelia.
I nodded, though I didn’t truly know what I was agreeing to.
It was Cordelia who pressed the buttons that started the reels rolling. I don’t think I could have done that.
At first there was just a hissing noise, like the brakes of a lorry. Then the sound of footsteps started bleeding out through the speaker. After a moment there was the unmistakable sound of running water.
‘That’s a river,’ I said, unnecessarily.
‘Ssh,’ said Cordelia, patting at the air.
The sound of the river continued for almost five minutes. I began to wonder if that was all we would hear. Then there came the shrill chirruping of a bird. It was a high sound; a collection of whistles, trills and clicks, like somebody fixing an old church bell. It evolved into a sound like a flute; a solemn noise, like an old hymn. If I had to describe what the bird was saying I think the word was something like ‘pioo’ but that doesn’t really sound right either. It was the noise of a child firing a pretend ray-gun.
I realized I could feel Cordy against me. Whether she had huddled cl
oser to me or I had done it to her I really don’t know but there was no mistaking that we were now pressed together like dolls on a shelf.
The sound of the bird continued. At length it became a river and footsteps again. Were we listening to the steps of the dead man?
‘That can’t be all,’ said Cordelia, and I could see the confusion in her face.
I had nothing to give her save my own mask of disappointment. I was about to offer her some pointless consolation about it maybe being for the best, and then we heard the voice. A short, clipped ‘hello’. I almost jumped out of my skin.
‘Hello. Hello, sir. Sir. Monsieur!’
I closed my eyes. Every inch of me felt like there were spiders crawling all over it. It was a Frenchman’s voice, of that I was certain. And it contained something that made me think of a smith’s forge; all steam and steal and danger and sweat.
‘Sir. Stop. Arrretez. S’il vous plaît. S’il vous plaît. Il n’est pas ce que vous en pensez. Savez-vous de moi, monsieur? Je sais que vous. Mon Dieu, je sais que vous …’
All these years later and I remember the shape and sound of those words. Sound daft in my voice, don’t they? But I remember them like the sound of me own bairns saying me name. It sounded as if they were being carried along on the water.
‘Don’t run. Sir! Damn you, I know you! And you know this face. I must speak. S’il vous plaît. There are secrets …’
The recording suddenly became muffled. There was banging and sudden steps and then the sound of voices. It was impossible to make out the words but it was the sound of an angry exchange. We listened to two minutes of unintelligible argument and then without warning the recording stopped.
Cordelia sat forward in her seat, peering at the machine. She threw herself back, exasperated.
‘That’s it? The end of the tape. For God’s sake …’
I saw my face in the glass of the picture frame beside the table. I looked pale, like scrubbed stone.
‘Did you know what it meant?’ I asked, softly.
Cordy pulled a face and shrugged. ‘Some,’ she muttered. ‘He wanted him to listen. Asked him if he knew him …’
We sat in silence, consumed with our own thoughts. The story that Fairfax had written down made it clear that a man called Jean Favre had done terrible, terrible things during the war. But we only know the name Favre because of Fairfax’s story. Was the man with the tape recorder Abel? It seemed likely from the tone of Fairfax’s papers. How, then, could their paths have crossed in the woods near Gilsland?
‘You know everybody,’ said Cordy, suddenly. ‘Who saw service in France?’
I shook my head. ‘Don’t start thinking that. So many people pass through, don’t they? It must have been a stranger.’
‘A stranger who told Fairfax their deepest secret?’ asked Cordy, scornfully.
‘Sometimes that’s easier …’
‘You must know who went where,’ protested Cordy. ‘Who fought where. Fairfax’s son! Could he have seen what happened at this little place? Could he have told Fairfax before he died?’ She scowled, knowing that there were too many missing pieces. ‘If we could just hear what they were saying!’
I was staring into the wood of the table top. I felt cold and sick. I felt let-down, more than anything else. I don’t think I’d ever imagined myself solving a crime or anything like that but it had become important to me that I make sense of what we had seen during the storm and now I had nothing but loose threads and confusion.
‘Who speaks French?’ she asked, suddenly. ‘If the man spoke to somebody in French he must have expected them to understand. We know he could speak English so why would he address them in French?’
She started playing with the machine. Spooled it back and started playing the conversation again. The second time around it was no clearer. We could make out the tone of the words but not the content.
‘This is madness,’ said Cordy, frustrated.
I heard the pantry door suck in as cold air blasted down the corridor. Somebody was coming in the front door. I started forward, my heart in my mouth, but Cordy was too intent on listening to let me hide the device or silence the voice. A moment later the kitchen door opened and Brian was standing there, head cocked. His face was red, as if he’d been running, and he was narrowing his eyes at the tape recorder.
‘That a Frog voice?’ he asked, and his question was to Cordelia and not me.
‘Go get changed, Brian,’ I said, standing up. ‘I’ll make you some tea.’
He shook his head at me and focussed on the tape recorder. He was angling his head like he was moving the aerial on the TV, trying to get a better reception.
‘They’re having a ding-dong,’ he said. ‘Who is it? Fairfax’s mate?’
We both span towards him. Cordelia stopped the recording.
‘Which mate?’ asked Cordelia, in a rush.
‘Bloke who stayed with him a few months back,’ shrugged Brian. ‘Was out here recording birdsong. Some friend of his back home was here during the war and missed the sound of the local birds and the river and stuff. He was here recording it for him, so Fairfax said.’
‘You met him?’ asked Cordelia, voice rising.
‘Not met. Not really. He was reading headstones in the graveyard and Fairfax was leaning in the gateway to the church. I had a natter with Fairfax and he told me. That his tape recorder, is it? He must have left it for Fairfax.’
Cordy turned to me, eyes full of accusations. Had I been keeping this from her? Did I know?
‘When was this?’ I asked him, trying to stay steady.
‘May sort of time, I reckon,’ he said, without much of a care. ‘Few months anyways.’
‘What was he wearing?’ I asked, and Cordy asked at the same time.
‘Blue suit,’ he shrugged. ‘Had curly hair parted here.’ He pointed to the side of his head. ‘Who’s that he’s arguing with?’
‘We don’t know,’ said Cordy, and her face looked like thunder.
‘Why didn’t you say?’ I asked him. ‘When you found the tooth you must have known it was this man’s.’
‘Tooth?’ demanded Cordy.
I ignored her. Kept staring at Brian and I think he knew he’d proper done it this time. I would have gone for him if he hadn’t spoken up.
‘Aye, it made sense it was his but you never asked me about any French bloke,’ said Brian, squirming. ‘It was just a letter and the tooth.’
‘What letter?’ asked Cordelia, and I swear she was ready to swing for one of us.
I told her. Told her what my son had found and how it had led to Pike chasing him through the woods with a shotgun.
‘Where’s this letter?’ she asked, when I was done.
‘Binned it,’ said Brian, unconcerned. ‘He said there was nowt to it anyways.’
‘Who did?’ I asked.
‘Cuckoo,’ he said. ‘The clock man with the birds. Came to school and spoke to us and I asked him to read it because he said he spoke French and German.’
‘Who the bloody hell is Cuckoo?’ asked Cordelia.
I found that my mouth was dry. I couldn’t unstick my tongue from my teeth. It felt like somebody had sucked all the moisture out of me.
‘Your neighbour,’ said Brian, untying his tie and enjoying knowing more than both of us. ‘The farmer. Swiss man. Mr Parker.’
Cordy said nothing for a moment, then her face creased.
‘The man with the birds, you said.’
‘Aye, I told you. He’s Swiss. They make cuckoo clocks, don’t they? That’s what everybody says. And that’s why he must want the birds.’
‘What birds?’
Brian rolled his eyes. ‘He collects them. Traps them. We’ve seen him, out towards the castle. Uses lures and traps. He came in to school to talk to us about crop rotation but when it got to the “any questions” bit we all asked about the birds. He said he didn’t know what we were going on about but we’ve seen him. His missus took him away after that so I had to g
rab her to ask about the note. Her husband had a quick glance and told me it was nowt but gibberish. Why?’
I felt Cordelia’s eyes boring into me. It was like she was poking around inside my head.
‘My neighbour,’ she said, teeth locked. ‘That funny little man.’
‘Aye, Mam knows him to say hello to. His missus too. She were at Fairfax’s all the bloody time last winter.’
Neither Cordelia or I spoke. We just let the silence stretch out. I found myself staring through the outline of the bird on the window. Suddenly it was all I could see. The image beyond the glass was just a grey and green blur that seemed unfamiliar to me.
‘We have to,’ said Cordelia, jerking her head in the vague direction of her house across the river.
I nodded. There was no way she was going to stop now. And there was no way I was going to let her go alone.
CORDELIA
The Parker farmhouse had a reddish sheen to the brick in daytime but the sun had long since settled behind the hills when Flick and I cleared the treeline at the edge of my property and looked upon the large, L-shaped building. The moon was full in a cold, clear sky and in the darkness around the house was the colour of deep, silent water.
‘You need anything from home?’ asked Flick. Her voice broke on the first word. She hadn’t spoken at all on the walk and I could tell her throat was dry.
‘I’m fine.’
‘I just thought …’
‘What?’
She shook her head. She was wearing a headscarf and the knot at the back wagged like a tail.
I stopped where I stood and she must have noticed I was no longer beside her as she turned around, looking guilty.
‘Your husband,’ she said, all trembly and pathetic. ‘He might have left you something to protect you, in erm, emergencies.’
‘No,’ I said, flatly. ‘I haven’t got a gun. If you wanted a gun you knew where they were. You could help yourself.’
