by Chris Simms
'Who was he? This man you found this morning,' Sutton asked quietly.
'We can't release a name yet, his family haven't been informed.'
'Where was he found?'
'Around five miles from here, towards the city. In a car park by the edge of a lake.'
Sutton's eyes lifted to Jon. 'How old was he?'
'Mid-forties.'
'Mid-forties?'
Jon studied the other man. 'Should his age be of any concern to you?'
'What?' Sutton's eyes refocused, brittle exterior closing back over. 'It's not.'
'It seemed to cause you some concern.'
'No. It's a shock, that's all. To hear someone else has died.'
'It is,' Jon replied. 'So, the place where you found her... ' Sutton crossed his arms. 'I'm not going back up there now.
It's my lunch. Adam, you can take him if you want.' He nodded towards the quad bike. 'Keys are on the hook. I'll be around here when you get back.' Without waiting for an answer he set off across the courtyard, glancing about his feet. 'Chip!' he barked aggressively. 'If that bloody dog is in the upper field again
. . . Chip!'
The animal materialised from beneath the tractor, jinking round a stray chicken before submissively approaching Sutton, ears pressed close to its head. 'Get in there,' Sutton growled, jabbing his finger at a kennel. The dog slithered inside.
The cat jumped down from the mound of tiles, ignoring the chicken to trot alongside the farmer with its head held high. Sutton opened the front door of the farm and first the cat, then the man were swallowed by the darkness within.
Jon stood staring at the farmhouse. He had the distinct impression that attitudes to death were a lot different here. Sutton seemed to accept it readily as part of life, but only in the order he sanctioned.
The cat was free to kill the rats, but not the chickens. Under Sutton's supervision, the dog could harry and torment the sheep, but not chase the cat. The sheep were a mere commodity, to be protected and fed until their time for slaughter. And Sutton was master of them all. Jon thought about how the sheep dog had deferred to him and how the cat had ingratiated itself. Even the sheep seemed to sense that the farmer was boss.
But now things were different. A new element had been introduced that upset the established order. It had been killing his sheep, costing him money. It didn't take much to see that Sutton regarded it as a lot more than a threat to his income – it was a challenge to his rank and, with the death of his wife, a personal enemy. He guessed the farmer didn't want the creature merely trapped or tranquillised: he wanted it dead.
Jon turned to his colleague. 'Well, that's us told. Do you know the way?'
Adam nodded. 'Better change our shoes.'
But I haven't got any others, Jon thought, watching Adam as he opened his vehicle and got out a pair of green wellies. His eyes turned to the fresh black mud sticking to the farmer's Land Rover. Bollocks, I'm going to get covered.
'Haven't you brought anything else for your feet?' Adam asked, now pulling out a thick ski jacket.
'No,' Jon replied, opening his boot and taking out a thin waterproof coat.
'Sure you'll be warm enough in that?' Adam observed him dubiously as he put it on.
How the hell should I know? thought Jon, glancing at the sky.
'There's a fair wind up there, that's all. Shall we see if Ken can lend you anything?'
'No, don't worry,' Jon didn't want to add to the farmer's perception of him as a clueless city boy. 'We're not going to be long, are we?'
Adam shrugged, then walked over to the barn housing the quad bike. He took the keys from the hook and started the machine up. 'Climb on,' he said, jabbing a thumb at the pillion seat behind him.
Jon looked around for a crash helmet, saw none, then climbed gingerly on to the rear seat.
'Keep a good hold of my jacket,' Adam instructed as the vehicle jerked forward, nearly throwing Jon off the back.
Adam steered the bike up a rough stone track that led along the side of the farmhouse then came to a halt at a gate. Jon jumped off to open it and Adam drove into the field beyond. After swinging it shut and hooking the loop of chain around the gate post, Jon climbed back on the bike and they set off across the thick grass, sheep scattering before them.
At the far side, a low building with a series of railings in front of it was nestled against the drystone wall that meandered along the foot of the slopes. Immediately behind it the muted tones of the moor began. Jon was struck by the abruptness of the change. It seemed like the moor was pressing down from above, only held back by the barrier of stone which, at any moment, would collapse, allowing the wild land to engulf the cultivated field below.
He leaned forwards and raised his voice over the bike's engine. 'What's that building over there?'
Adam turned in the direction of Jon's outstretched finger.
'Sheep sheds. There's a trough built into the courtyard for dipping them. The workers drive the animals between the railings where they queue up for their bath.'
Jon nodded, eyes now on the moor itself. 'That's some change. The green of the grass and the brown of the moor.'
'The field's been seeded and treated with fertiliser. You can't touch the moor. ESA – environmentally sensitive area,' Adam shouted back.
They soon stopped at another gate by the side of the sheds. Once through it Adam announced, 'Hold tight, it gets a lot bumpier from now on.'
Ken Sutton stood by his kitchen window, head slightly bowed. Once the sound of the quad bike's engine had completely died away he turned to the young man. He was sitting in the wooden chair at the side of the Aga, hands hovering just above it.
'Still not used to the chill, Andrew?'
'Chill? It's bloody freezing,' he replied, guttural accent placing an emphasis on the word bloody.
Sutton shrugged. 'No more than usual for this time of year.'
'Yeah?' Andrew replied, his blond hair catching the light.
'Well, it's in the high eighties back home. That's the usual temperature for this time of year in South Africa.'
Sutton had stepped over to the kitchen table where two large pieces of paper were spread out. One was a map of all the farmland he owned, the other was a more detailed rendition of the area surrounding the farm house itself. 'So what are your thoughts?'
Andrew looked over his shoulder, unwilling to take his hands away from the heat source beneath them. 'I can set up motion sensors across that top field. Start them on a level with the farmhouse, then position them in an arc going outwards to those buildings, the ones near that wall—'
'The sheep dipping sheds,' Sutton cut in.
'Right, them. Then they can follow a line back across the field to the track. I'll hook them up to a unit you can keep here in the farmhouse. That way nothing can come down off the moor without us knowing about it. You'll have to clear that field of sheep though, otherwise the sensors will be going off every five minutes.'
'If that's what it takes.' Sutton's eyes were on the pieces of paper before him. 'And what about defences for the farmhouse?' Reluctantly, Andrew moved away from the Aga. He reached into the pocket of his camouflage jacket and brought out a plastic bag full of dark brown strips of meat. 'Biltong?'
Sutton regarded the contents suspiciously. 'What did you say that stuff is made out of again?'
Andrew gave a brief smile. 'Dried impala with a few spices.' Sutton shook his head. 'I'll do without.'
The younger man took out a thin length of rigid meat and bit off the top third, exposing clean white teeth as he did so. 'You got the stakes and fencing like I asked?'
'Yes, six-feet posts and medium stock fencing. It was all dropped off earlier today.'
'Barbed wire?'
'There are plenty of rolls in the barns.'
'Good. So we plug these gaps.' Using the piece of meat as a pointer, Andrew indicated the open-sided barns before tapping the entrance to the courtyard itself. 'And we put up a gate here.
Barbed w
ire at the top. Basically, we'll turn your farmhouse into a kraal.'
'That will be enough?'
The younger man popped the remaining meat into his mouth.
'If the Masai keep out lions, leopards and hyenas with a barrier of thorny branches, six-foot high metal fencing with barbed wire should do for you.'
Sutton looked uneasily at the layout of the farm buildings.
'What about security lights?'
'I'm no electrician, but they can't do any harm if someone can put them up. Have them so they point outwards into the fields.'
'What about the barn doors? Shouldn't we nail them shut?'
'Only if this animal has learned how to open a latch.' Sutton fixed him with a stone cold stare and the smile fell from the younger man's lips. 'Sorry, mate, just a joke. We can nail them up if you want. Tell you what might be better though.'
Sutton waited in silence for him to carry on.
'Bring the sheep from the top field into the courtyard each night. If they start bleating, we'll know something's out there.' Sutton nodded in agreement. 'Yes, I like that idea. OK, best you make yourself scarce. I don't want you around when those two come down off the tops.'
'Fine. Any problem if I have a bath?'
'No, you do that.'
Andrew picked up his rifle case then turned back to Sutton.
'I've been meaning to say. Have you got a CD player in the house? I brought a few discs over with me, a bit of music would be nice with my bath.'
'Discs?'
The younger man grinned. 'You know, round silver things?' Sutton looked back, face impassive.
Andrew's expression fell. 'Jesus, you really don't know what
I'm talking about.'
'I've no use for stuff like that.'
Andrew raised a hand, palm upwards. 'No CD player, no DVD player. A black and white telly and a few dusty videos. Tomorrow you'd better tell me where the nearest town is. I can't play cards with you every night.'
Sutton shrugged. 'There's a pub in the village. It shows football some nights.'
'Football,' Andrew sighed. 'Any women drink there?'
'One or two. But mind yourself, the local lads won't like an outsider muscling in.'
'We'll see,' he replied with a grin, wandering out of the kitchen and up the dark stairs.
Sutton folded the maps up and placed them in the kitchen table's drawer. Looking around the room, he spotted the younger man's combat boots by the back door. After hiding them in a cupboard, he went over to the sink and filled the kettle.
Clegg gunned the engine and they began bouncing up a narrow track that soon thinned to little more than a sheep trail. As they climbed up, the wind steadily increased in strength. Soon the few twists of gnarled gorse that eked a stunted existence were left behind. Coarse grass that shifted and swayed in the wind like the pelt of an animal was all that surrounded them.
Frequently the bike's wheels skidded for purchase on the boggy ground. By the time they reached the high ground the wind was a continuous roar of air that made Jon's eyes stream and his ears ache.
They made their way across the relatively flat land at the top, Clegg frequently having to steer the bike round little ponds of black water. Jon peered about. Apart from the radio mast and a distant fence that he guessed marked the edge of Sutton's land, there was absolutely nothing to signal the existence of man. They reached the crest of a small hillock and Adam brought the bike to a halt. On the other side the land dropped away in a series of parallel grooves, as if a giant claw had raked its surface. Racing away below them were a dozen or so sheep. Suddenly they cut to the side, running single file along an invisible path before disappearing from sight.
Further down the slope a collection of boulders fringed with gorse bushes and clumps of heather broke through the surface of the land. Adam switched the engine off and almost shouted, 'She was found down there.'
This bloody wind is going right through me, Jon thought, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. He looked at the ground beneath the tyres. The grass was thin, exposing the dark soil beneath. Peat. He climbed off the vehicle and liquid oozed beneath his feet. Looking into a nearby pool he saw that the water itself was quite clear; it was the soil at the bottom which made it appear black. Apart from a few lichens that looked prehistoric in their simplicity, the water was utterly devoid of life.
Adam was already trudging away and he started to follow.
Immediately his foot sank into a rut in the turf and he felt ice-cold water flood into his shoes. Fucking great. Keeping to the thicker clumps of grass, Jon hopped his way down the slope, relieved that the wind's strength lessened with each step. By the time he reached the boulders the bottoms of his trousers were completely soaked, but only a strong breeze remained.
Keeping away from the stream of water flowing down the middle of the shallow ravine, he could now see the grit-stone rocks were shaped in a rough semi-circle, the ones in the middle a good four feet high. The soil at their base was riddled with hoof prints and Jon spotted tufts of white in the small growths of heather. The shivering fragments of fleece contrasted with the purple flowers that clung to the tops of the plant. A small glimpse of beauty in such a desolate place.
'As you can see, sheep use this as a spot to shelter in. She'd parked the quad bike where I've left it and clambered down here on foot. Hobson reckons the panther was lying in wait for a sheep on top of these rocks. Maybe Rose heard it bleating with distress and knew it was being attacked. Anyway, her body was lying right here.' Clegg pointed to a spot where the rocks on one side of the miniature amphitheatre ended.
Jon took a deep breath and looked around. I hate to admit this, he thought, but if a panther exists, it's a perfect spot to ambush a sheep 'And there were no paw prints found in the peat?' he asked, crouching down to examine the ground.
'With the storm that night, there weren't prints of any kind.' Jon rubbed the back of his neck. The attack had taken place too long ago, there was nothing for him here. 'Shall we head back before my bollocks freeze off ?'
'Right you are.'
After making their way back up the slope, they climbed on to the quad bike. Jon tapped his colleague on the shoulder. 'I was just wondering. How near are we to where Brady and Hindley buried those children?'
Adam Clegg's shoulders visibly slumped. 'I was wondering when you'd ask.'
He started up the bike and drove across a couple of ridges before pulling up next to a cairn on the highest crest. 'This is the top of Black Hill, which is, strictly speaking, part of Wessenden Head Moor.'
'How big is the moorland?'
'I don't know, thousands of acres if you include Marsden Moor as well.' He pointed west. 'Saddleworth Moor is over there. That's where they found three of them. The body of the lad is still buried out here somewhere, God bless his soul.'
As Jon looked out across the silent land he knew it wasn't the wind that was causing the hairs on the back of his neck to rise. Wild and bleak as it was, the place had a strange kind of allure, there was no denying it. With a shudder he turned his head to stare down at the relatively flat land stretched out far below. The density of buildings slowly increased until a cluster of tower blocks, chimneys and cranes were visible in the distance. Manchester. Beyond it the air grew grey and hazy.
'Rain moving in off the Irish Sea,' Clegg announced. 'It'll be here in another half hour or so.'
Jon stared at the floating veil, thinking about the water saturating the ground beneath them and how it drained into the little streams that, over thousands of years, had carved narrow ravines in the slopes.
Looking again at the plains below he remembered a geography lesson from school. Something about the number of rivers that ran through Manchester on their way to the coast. Unsure why he thought it important, he leaned forwards. 'All these streams that run off the moors... '
'Cloughs is what they're called.'
'Cloughs then. They eventually turn into rivers, right?'
'Of course. The Ether
ow, Goyt, Tame and Medlock. They all rise on these moors. Apart from the Medlock, they converge at Stockport to form the Mersey. That's why the area below is known as the Mersey basin.'
'Where does the Medlock lead?'
'Right into the centre of Manchester. I think it eventually merges with the Manchester Ship Canal at Salford.'
A collection of black shreds suddenly scored the mottled greyness above them. Jon looked up at the crows as they traversed the sky in an unnaturally straight line. Instead of trying to fight the current of air, the birds were passively allowing themselves to be swept along, heads angled at the men below. Then, with an invisible adjustment of their wings, they plummeted as one, disappearing beyond the contours of the moor. Jon wondered if they were the same birds found feeding on Mrs Sutton's corpse. Pushing the thought away, he tried to focus on what Adam had just told him. The information seemed significant somehow, but the constant buffeting of the wind was giving him a headache and when Clegg turned the handlebars to begin the bumpy ride back to Far Gethen farm, he didn't complain.
Thirteen
They slowed to a stop in front of the barn and Jon climbed off the quad bike. While Adam drove it slowly back inside, he examined his feet. Smeared black earth clung to the sides of his shoes and fragments of gorse were caught in the soaking laces.
'OK,' said Adam, hanging the keys back on the hook. 'You'd like a word with Ken?'
They walked across the courtyard to the front door of the farmhouse. Adam knocked loudly on the heavy wooden door then opened it. The kitchen was pretty much as Jon had expected – flagstone floor, chunky wooden table and an ancient Aga with tea towels and oven gloves draped over its front rail.
A Welsh dresser stood opposite Jon and he noticed the pair of walkie-talkies standing upright in a base unit, battery lights glowing as they recharged. The shelves above were lined with plates painted with images of foxhunts. Hounds raced across landscapes, horses vaulted hedges and, in one, a stag was being brought down in the shallows of a river, eyes wide with terror.
'In here.' Ken's voice came from further inside the house. Seeing Adam removing his boots, Jon crouched down and took his shoes off, realising his socks were totally saturated. They crossed the kitchen and Jon glanced back to see a trail of glistening footprints behind him.
