Blood and Stone

by Chris Collett

  ‘Can I help you?’

  Mariner’s snooping was cut short by a voice from behind him, cultured and polite, yet with a definite edge. He turned to face a man who looked to be in his mid-sixties, tall and rangy with lank grey hair, too long for a man of his years, and the lined, ravaged face of someone who’d seen the wrong end of a few chemical substances. He was incongruously dressed in country attire: jeans, waxed jacket and Wellingtons, and nestling in the crook of his arm was a twelve-bore shotgun. This must be Willow.

  ‘I came to buy some eggs,’ Mariner said, pleasantly.

  ‘We don’t sell here.’ It was a statement of fact, pure and simple, the civil tone reflected back. ‘We have a stall at the market over in Llanerch. We’ll be there later on in the day.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but I’m staying with Elena Hughes,’ Mariner countered. ‘She said you might let me have some. She told me to look out for Theo.’

  ‘I’m afraid Theo’s not around. You’ll have to make do with me.’ Willow broke into an unexpected smile, revealing stained, uneven teeth, and offered Mariner his hand. ‘I’m Willow. Elena perhaps mentioned me too?’

  ‘Tom Mariner.’ Mariner shook the hand, firm in its grip. ‘Yes, she did.’

  ‘Ah, well, Elena will have been kind to us at least.’ Willow turned and began walking across the yard. ‘The hen houses are over here.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Mariner, falling into step beside him. ‘Actually I was glad of the excuse to come down here. I worked here one summer, about thirty years ago.’

  Willow turned to look at him. ‘Thirty years? You can see a difference then, I hope.’ They went across to the small wooden hen house, where Willow picked up a carton the size of a shoebox, lined with straw. While Mariner watched from the doorway he walked around the coop retrieving a dozen eggs, placing each gently in the box.

  ‘You could say that,’ Mariner agreed. ‘But it’s good to see that it’s still a working farm.’ Mariner nodded towards the humming barn.

  Willow shrugged. ‘We do all right. We grow and sell organic produce.’

  ‘You must have to work hard to make that successful,’ Mariner said. ‘I can’t imagine the climate to be that conducive out here.’

  Willow smiled. ‘It’s not the Vale of Evesham, that’s for sure. But my background is chemistry. I had an idea a while back for a kind of fertilizer that could help maximize, or even raise, the temperature of the soil. I’ve been experimenting and we’re still in the early stages, but we are starting to see some success with it.’

  ‘That sounds rather modest. I heard it’s been doing well.’

  ‘In some respects, but we haven’t perfected the formula enough to get entirely consistent results yet. We’re still trying to work out what are the most successful products and the optimum conditions. It doesn’t work for everything.’

  Closing the egg box, Willow walked Mariner out of the hen house and across to one of the giant pig bins, where he lifted the lid. Mariner reeled back as the stench of rotten vegetation rose up to hit them. When he took a breath and peered inside he saw a sweating tangle of stunted and twisted brown roots.

  ‘Parsnips,’ Willow said. ‘At least that’s what they were meant to have been; back to the drawing board with those.’

  ‘All the same,’ Mariner said, trying not to inhale. ‘This product you’re developing must have huge potential. You’re surely attracting some big investors.’

  Willow gave a wry smile. ‘Potentially I guess there will be people who’ll be interested in it eventually, but at the moment we’re still making too many mistakes for them to make any kind of firm commitment.’ Willow smiled. ‘Besides, I’m not really a fan of big business.’

  ‘Your motives are more altruistic,’ Mariner guessed.

  ‘If you want to put it that way.’

  ‘Well, whatever your intentions, I wish you luck with it.’ Mariner took the box of eggs from him and carefully stowed them at the bottom of his day sack. ‘Thanks. How much do I owe you?’

  Willow shook his head. ‘Tell Elena we’ll settle up next time I see her.’

  But Mariner had already retrieved a handful of loose change from his pocket. ‘I need to pay my way,’ he said.

  ‘Call it one-fifty then.’

  As Mariner passed the coins to the reluctant Willow, a couple of them slipped from his grasp and went clattering to the ground. As he bent to retrieve a twenty-pence piece something else caught his eye, a few inches away, trampled into the ground. He smiled to himself; why did that come as no surprise? Straightening he passed Willow the money.

  As he left the yard, turning to close the gate behind him, Mariner saw looking back that Willow was standing watching him go, and had been joined now by a young woman. Slight and frail with a cascade of gold-blonde hair framing her solemn pale face, she looked as if she’d just stepped out of a pre-Raphaelite painting and reminded Mariner of a fragile china doll his grandmother used to have sitting on the mantelpiece. She came to stand beside Willow, who slipped a protective arm around her, reminding Mariner of what Elena had said about his waifs and strays.

  That was the convenient thing about hillsides, McGinley thought to himself, lowering his binoculars. They provided excellent vantage points. And wooded hillsides were even more advantageous as they came with the benefits of cover that protected the hunter from the worst of the elements and enabled him to stalk his prey without being seen. He’d finally got here after a gruelling two days of heavy climbing and descents. Sometimes the pain in his abdomen was so bad he thought he wouldn’t make it and in the last stages he’d had to stop at intervals to vomit, but it was remarkable what reserves the human body could find. And just when he’d thought it was going to be all too much, he’d stumbled across a completely uninhabited cottage; a holiday home he guessed, locked up for the winter but with some pretty crap security. It did however have running water and a comfortable bed. There was even a supply of tinned and packet food in the cupboard and after heating up two cans of beans, he’d caught up on a few hours sleep in the dry and relative warmth and had felt revitalized. A collection of assorted waterproof clothing in the porch meant that he was also able to upgrade his jacket to one that actually kept out the rain. Poor old Goldilocks was going to get a shock when she turned up for her summer holiday. Now he was back to sleeping rough, but his target was in sight.

  He’d brought with him the radio from the caravan and when he could, he took the opportunity to catch up on where he featured on the news cycle. They had made up their minds now that it was him, and were linking him to Lindsey. They must also have found the car. The news reader, quoting a ‘police source’, described him as ‘recently released from prison where he had been serving a ten-year sentence for aggravated assault, and thought to be heading for the Irish Republic. Police have warned the public not to approach as he is believed to be armed and dangerous.’

  McGinley couldn’t decide which bit of that last sentence he liked the best: ‘armed and dangerous’ or ‘heading for the Irish Republic’. They had fallen for his ruse. His delight was only cut short by a sudden crippling wave of pain. Now he lifted the binoculars to observe once more. His target was in sight and going about his business. The first couple of times he’d been lucky; he’d remained cool and detached, which meant that things went smoothly, but this time it was going to be more of a challenge because he’d be confronting the man who had wreaked the most damage on his life. This was the man who made Glenn McGinley angry, and what fuelled his rage most was the certain knowledge that this individual was oblivious to, and had remained unaccountable for, the havoc and suffering he had caused. Until now he’d managed just about to keep his feelings in check, but now, feeling the powerful surge of hatred, he realized that this time he would be at the mercy of his emotions. He couldn’t decide if it really mattered. So what if it did turn out to be a disaster? He had nothing to lose any more; it would be like walking into the hail of bullets.

  FIFTEEN

  What
with the activity of the previous night and the effects of his cold, Tony Knox didn’t surface until late on Saturday morning. Immediately he phoned Jean. ‘Any news?’ he asked. From where he was standing in his lounge he could see the marked police car parked outside her house.

  ‘I’ve been in touch with the hospital but there’s no change. Those poor parents, I can’t imagine how they’re feeling.’ There was a catch in her voice.

  ‘I hope you’re not blaming yourself,’ Knox said, though he knew that she would be.

  ‘I was responsible,’ Jean pointed out. ‘Their daughter was in my care.’

  ‘Strictly speaking she wasn’t. You didn’t have to be there. It’s the kind of thing that could have happened anywhere.’ He was just trying to make her feel better, but knew it would be unlikely to have any effect.

  ‘If you say so.’ He could hear from her voice that she wasn’t convinced.

  ‘I do,’ Knox insisted. ‘You didn’t offer Kirsty the pill, and you didn’t force her to swallow it. The only person at fault here is the little bastard who gave it to her.’

  ‘The police are going round interviewing all the kids,’ Jean said. ‘They’re here right now talking to Michael.’

  ‘I can see,’ said Knox, watching from the window. ‘Have any of his mates identified anyone they didn’t know at the party, an older kid perhaps?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll come and see you later,’ Knox said.

  ‘Thanks, I’d like that.’

  ‘Can you tell the officers with you to call in on me before they leave?’

  ‘Yes of course.’

  Knox was in the middle of his breakfast when two uniforms rang the doorbell; officers he knew by sight from Granville Lane, though he’d never had direct dealings with them. He took them through to the kitchen and got out his notebook. As soon as he’d returned home in the early hours Knox had made detailed notes about his involvement in the events of that night and now, as a key witness, he talked the officers through what he’d recorded. ‘Who’s SIO for this?’ he asked.

  ‘DS Glover.’

  Knox was glad to hear it. Charlie Glover would do a thorough job. When the uniforms had gone, he immediately put through a call to him.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Glover. ‘I knew that address rang a bell. Is there anything else you can tell me?’

  ‘Only what I’ve just given to the two plods who were just here, and it’s not much. How’s it going?’

  ‘Slowly,’ said Glover. ‘Can’t get anything out of the kids we’ve talked to so far. They either genuinely don’t know anything or there’s some kind of conspiracy of silence going on.’

  ‘They may not know,’ Knox said. ‘Thanks to Twitter and Facebook, dealers can just show up at gatherings they hear about, blend in for a while and then disappear. I’ll keep an eye on how things are across the road,’ Knox said. ‘Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.’

  Ending the call Knox went through and picked up his overcoat from the peg in the hall. ‘Come on,’ he said to Nelson who was hovering expectantly. ‘Let’s go get some exercise and clear our heads, and fulfil our other duties.’

  Mariner had planned his route to Devil’s Mouth, over the mountain and along the next gorge, but it was early, and there was somewhere else he wanted to visit before he went to the waterfall, so he struck out instead around the side of the mountain. After about ten minutes he came to it; an unexpected dip in the landscape that led into a small tree-lined dell, sprinkled with boulders. It looked different now of course. The gorse had grown denser, leaving barely any exposed grass, but it was unmistakably where he and Elena used to bring a rug, usually on the long summer evenings, to get some privacy away from the hostel. A number of birch trees remained dotted around, though the landscape had changed, and Mariner spent some time scrambling from one to the other inspecting the bark. He was about to give up when finally he spotted what he was looking for, almost obscured by the frills of pale green lichen that coated the bark: TM and EH over a crudely carved heart. Life didn’t come more clichéd than that. She’d disapproved when he’d taken out his pen knife, afraid that the tree might be mortally damaged. Mariner looked up into the branches of the solid tree. ‘Didn’t do you any harm though, did it?’ he murmured to himself. He felt a ridiculous sense of relief at finding the initials still intact; a kind of portent he would have supposed if he believed in that kind of thing. He didn’t have to think too hard about what Tony Knox’s observations would be if he could see Mariner standing there grinning like an idiot. Confirmation that the boss was losing it after all. Kicking away the clods of sheep shit, Mariner cleared a patch so that he could sit with his back against the tree for a few minutes.

  After a drink and a breather, Mariner resumed his ascent of the mountain. The path rose almost vertically ahead of him and he tackled it slowly, his breathing laboured and a sign of how unfit he really was. Cresting the hill and into the next valley, Mariner picked up the footpath that ran along the sides of the ravine towards the gushing spout known as the Devil’s Mouth. Elena was right about the changes. The route was peppered with directional signs, stating the obvious, and any number of warnings about the steep drops and treachery of wet rocks, just in case anyone was too stupid to work either of those things out for themselves. Mariner was soon caught up in a steady stream of tourists who were walking from the main car park, but even so, he hadn’t expected to have to buy a ticket at the booth that had been set up before the last half-mile or so. From this point the path followed along a narrow shelf high above the river and was quite tricky in places, where erosion by the weather had taken its toll. What began as a background murmur increased to a roar, as the path opened out beside the rushing waterfall. After all the recent rain, it was in full spate, rushing and tumbling over the rocks and plunging down into the deep pool, forty feet below. Mariner stood for a while feeling the fine mist on his face and watching as, now and again, the sun broke through the clouds to create rainbow arcs from the spray. Beyond the falls, many of the tourists were heading for the entrance to the limestone caves. Much was being made of the fact that potholers were very close to connecting a huge network of caves to the east of Devil’s Mouth with an equally extensive network to the west of Caranwy, which would make it one of the largest underground routes in Europe and add a whole new attraction to the area. Mariner studied one of the new information boards that had appeared to explain the development in more detail. The diagram provided looked like a cross-section of the inner ear. The last passageway joining the two systems was a two-mile long and impossibly narrow tunnel that had to be painstakingly cleared, boulder by boulder. Apparently by lighting incense sticks at each end, the cavers could tell that there were only at most a few metres to go. Members of the public were being invited to go into the cave at this end to view progress and today there were a handful of people queuing up to don hard hats and do just that. As the attraction was still new, there was a young man, a student Mariner guessed, trying to encourage people to go in.

  ‘Would you like to explore the caves?’ he asked Mariner.

  ‘Not today,’ said Mariner, inwardly shuddering. He could think of little worse than being enclosed by tons of solid rock; the mere thought of it made him break out in a sweat. Disconcerted too, at suddenly being among so many people again while he was walking, Mariner didn’t linger at the falls for long, preferring to get back on to the quieter footpaths. He made his way back around the mountain and as he began the descent towards the pastureland of Caranwy, the cloud began to thicken again, the breeze strengthened and he heard the first rumble of thunder. By the time Mariner climbed the wall and into the woods the rain was pelting down and the storm was moving directly overhead, the thunder booming periodically. Nearing the village and through the trees Mariner saw the wind billowing the sides of Willow’s poly tunnels, and wondered if it had been a profitable day at market. It occurred to Mariner that the farm must really be thriving if it generated enough pro
duce to sell locally and to distribute more widely. He was pondering the logistics of this, and trying to calculate tonnage and turnover, when a howl, like a human cry of anguish, ripped through the air and made his scalp crawl.

  Mariner stopped walking and stood stock still, straining his ears for the slightest sound. He could hear nothing now, except the rain pattering on the leaves and the last clap of thunder dying slowly away. Maybe he’d been mistaken, or had imagined it. Somewhere up in the trees a crow cawed and Mariner shook his head with relief. He ploughed on through the dense undergrowth, the footpath eventually opening out again close to the wall, and he had just started to make good progress along it when out of nowhere Mariner caught a brief flash of fluorescent green before something hurtled into him, sending him flying sideways into the scrub, to land on a bed of brambles and nettles. Scrambling to his feet Mariner lunged for his assailant, before he or she could escape, and received a heavy clout to the side of the head in return. Despite Mariner’s efforts to restrain him, the figure kicked and fought like an animal, though Mariner had an impression of a man, small and wiry, dressed in black lycra and a high-visibility waterproof jacket.