by Chris Simms
‘You know what? I never read the rest of that document – the account of the ancestor who was shipwrecked.’ Jon took another sip. ‘What happened?’
‘That chieftain O’Rourke? He was eventually captured in a skirmish with the Governor’s forces. Taken to London and hanged for offering succour to survivors of the Armada.’
‘Where was his castle?’
‘Possibly County Leitrim, though no one’s really sure.’
‘Francisco de Avila?’
‘Headed back to Carna with the remains of O’Rourke’s private army. Saw off a much-weakened force of O’Flahertys and carved out his own little domain.’
‘Which the family held on to ever since,’ Jon replied.
‘Yup. Four hundred-odd years. Quite a little dynasty.’
‘The dog, Pio?’
‘Buried near Carna. No one’s sure where; there are so many tombs and burial stones dotted about.’
The sheer rawness of the region hit Jon once more – its stormy weather and hostile terrain. As a small tremor gripped his shoulders the phone began to ring. He grabbed it and looked at the screen. ‘This might be Eileen. She said she’d try and ring before lunch. Hello?’
‘Jon, it’s your Aunty Eileen!’
‘Hi there, Eileen. How’s it all going?’
‘Grand, just grand. We’re all a little tired – away to our beds late again last night. A lot of catching up, as you can imagine.’
‘How’re Malachy and Kieron?’
‘They’re both fine. Kieron took your father to a Gaelic football match yesterday in Clifden.’
My father, Jon thought. He realised how easily the term sat with him. And so it should do, he scolded himself – that’s exactly what he is.
‘He loved it,’ Eileen continued. ‘Said he wished he’d played it, and not rugby league, in his youth.’
Really? Jon thought. He must have been impressed. ‘And Mum?’
‘She’s sitting out in the porch with Malachy. It’s so nice to see them together again. They took Jake out to Gorteen earlier and put flowers on Orla’s grave.’
An image of the little cemetery overlooking the beautiful bay pinged up in Jon’s head. I can’t wait to go back one day, he thought. See Holly’s face when she spots that expanse of white sand.
‘And, of course, Malachy has his view,’ she added.
‘All the building work has stopped, then?’ Jon asked, picturing the site on the other side of the little road.
‘Not just stopped. They’ve looked at planning permission for all manner of their properties. A few in the local government have lost their jobs – that Convila company should never have been granted permission to start building them.’
Jon smiled. ‘That’s great news. Did you manage to find out anything more about the girl – Siobhain?’
‘Kieron’s been asking for you. That poor uncle left her some money, along with a house. We’re not sure where she is, though the property is now up for sale.’
Off the radar, Jon thought. Or somewhere in Dingle, with Zoë. The words Zoë had spoken over Siobhain’s phone when he was in the airport came back. Something about being clean, feeling sorted, ready to…what? Come for Jake? The phone had been snatched from his grasp before she could finish the sentence.
Movement in the doorway caused Jon to turn his head. He felt a smile appearing; Alice was standing there, a little lump in the crook of her arm.
‘Here he is, all clean and fed.’
He gazed at his wife’s face, the clean glow of her skin.
Rick sprang to his feet. ‘I’ll have a cuddle.’
She handed the infant over, catching Jon’s eye. ‘Is that Eileen?’ she whispered.
He nodded as Rick held the baby up. ‘Hello, little Doug. You’re going to be a bruiser, aren’t you? Just like your daddy.’
‘Eileen? I’d better go,’ said Jon. ‘Maybe call you tomorrow?’
‘Please do – and visit soon, won’t you?’
‘We will,’ Jon replied, memories of Connemara’s savage beauty sweeping through his mind.
THE END
Acknowledgements.
As usual, the expertise of others played a vital part in writing this book.
All my thanks to –
Nicola Crooks, RVN, for her insights into treating dogs.
Mike Butcher, RSPCA, for his insights into fighting with dogs.
An anonymous ex-member of SOCA, for his insights into all sorts of murky stuff.
Sleeping Dogs – background to the story
This novel was like a twelve pound baby: awful to deliver.
For a while, I’d wanted to delve further into DI Spicer’s history, knowing rich pickings were to be had if I did. His mum’s family are originally from Ireland – and his Great-Grandfather, Padraig, had used his winnings from bare-knuckle fighting to climb out of Manchester’s slums. I also had the loose-end that was Zoë (the girlfriend of Jon’s murdered brother, who had vanished at the end of The Edge).
Then, one Christmas, the Simmses headed over to Ireland. We went to spend the festive season with the family of my middle-brother’s wife – who are from a remote village in Connemara. I immediately knew it would be the ideal setting for my plot. A plot that would need to be wild and raw if it was to match the untamed beauty of Ireland’s west coast.
So I began my favourite part of the novel-writing process: research. The fact this rugged coastline is also known as the graveyard of The Armada grabbed my attention. Could I create a plot incorporating that? More research revealed information about a particular type of dog – long thought extinct – that the Spanish army-of-old favoured.
A call to the RSPCA’s chief investigation officer gave me lots of material on the modern-day practice of dog-fighting. I began to see a way of tying the strands together.
The only other thing I wanted the novel to feature was a real physical ordeal for Jon Spicer. He’s a prickly character – abrasive, pig-headed, often arrogant. How, I wondered, would he handle a proper beating at the hands of some real head-cases?
Many, many hurdles later, Sleeping Dogs was finished...
Pecking Order
Rubble lives alone in a caravan and works on a battery farm. There, he spends his days disposing of sick and injured chickens. But all the while, he dreams of another life. A life of adventure in the army.
One day, a mysterious visitor arrives and witnesses the child-like relish Rubble takes in killing. Soon, Rubble is employed on a secret – and very sinister – project.
But Rubble is being cruelly used. And the only way he’ll realise it is with the help of the only person he confides in: a fortune-teller working on a premium-rate telephone line.
In this chilling thriller, one thing quickly becomes clear. Life can be brutal.
Pecking Order - Chapter 1
With a sound of two twigs snapping, the chicken's legs broke in his hand. The bird transformed from a hanging bundle of limp feathers to a screeching mess and his fingers instantly uncurled. It dropped fifteen feet to the sand-covered ground where it began flapping round in tight circles like a clockwork toy gone wrong.
'Grab them when I lift them upwards!' shouted the man in shit-splattered overalls, standing on a narrow ledge on the lorry's side. 'If you don't,' he carried on with a note of triumph, 'they swing back and that happens.' He nodded towards the ground but his eyes remained locked on the younger worker.
'Yeah, sorry,' the teenager replied, disgustedly peeling silver scales of chicken skin from the palms of his hands.
Despite his heavy build, the man clambered nimbly along the stack of cages welded to the lorry's rear until he was directly above the stricken bird. With its ruined legs splayed uselessly off to one side, it continued its futile revolutions, the repeated cries from its open beak merging into something that resembled a scream.
He dropped from the side of the vehicle and landed with both boots on the bird's outstretched head and neck. A thick squirt of blood shot out from under on
e heel and all movement immediately stopped. The only thing to disturb the silence that followed was a pigeon cooing gently from amongst a copse of beech trees nearby. The man stepped back, revealing a pulp of bone mashed into the loose sand. Then, relishing the appalled attention of the audience watching from the shed above, he swung back a stubby leg and booted the carcass high into the air. A handful of reddish coloured feathers detached themselves, one catching in the current of air blowing from the extractor fan mounted on the shed's side. The feather tumbled away, up into the clear blue sky.
With arms that seemed a little too long for his body, he climbed back up the wall of cages, each one bristling with beady eyes, jagged beaks and shivering combs.
'It's simple - keep them hanging upside down and they don't move,' said the man, reaching into another cage and dragging two squawking birds out by the legs. Once their heads were hanging downwards in the open air they immediately went still and he lifted their passive forms to the open door. This time the youth successfully grabbed the legs, and before they could start swinging back, he whipped them inside the shed.
'You'll be doing four in each hand by lunch - now out the way,' said the man perched on the lorry's ledge, another brace of birds already dangling from his arm. Though no one said anything, something about the over-enthusiastic way the older man gave out directions reminded everyone of the playground: a schoolboy, prematurely invested with authority by his teacher.
The youth got off his knees and, with a bird in each hand, turned round. Immediately in front of him inside the shed was a tier of empty cages, six high. It stretched away in both directions, the dimness inside making it impossible to see right to either end. The walkway he was standing on was made of rippled concrete and barely wider than his shoulders.
Coating it was a mishmash of shell fragments, feathers and dried yolk. He had to struggle round the person next to him, banging one of the chickens against the wall. Once past, he set off into the shed's depths.
Away from the fresh air at the open door the temperature suddenly picked up and the sharp smell of ammonia dramatically increased. His way was lit by a string of naked bulbs dangling at ten metre intervals from a black cable running just above his head. A thick sandy coloured dust clung to everything. Even the top of the cable was covered in it like powdery snow on a telephone line. The bulbs themselves were almost completely obscured - only the bottom third of each was exposed, and the yellowish light they gave out made him squint. In the gloom above, the residue had formed into web-like loops, which curled from the roof, the occasional strand brushing the top of his head. It seemed like a living thing, a kind of airborne mould that made the very air thick and heavy. He imagined that, if he stood still long enough, the spores would settle on him, and eventually he too would become wrapped in its cloying shroud.
To his right the small conveyor belts running along in front of each cage clanked and whined, the moving surface transporting pellets to scores of cages that would soon be stuffed full of birds. Set into the ceiling above him was the occasional fan, blades lazily revolving. Their motion served only to circulate the warm air, carrying the dust into every crevice and onto every available surface.
He walked to the first gap in the steep row of cages, turned right and then immediately left into one of the central aisles. In the gloom ahead of him a dark form crouched. As he walked up to the person he had to step over a lump on the ground. Looking down he saw the tips of feathers and was shocked to realise it was a dead bird. From the layer of powder almost engulfing it he guessed it had been lying there for quite some time. Now in front of the person, he held the two birds out.
'Cheers,' said the woman emotionlessly, taking them from him and shoving them upside down into the open doorway of the nearest cage. The birds began clucking in protest, and one started flapping its wings. 'Get in,' she said aggressively through clenched teeth, forcing them forward with the flat of her hand. Inside what was little more than a hamster's cage, two other birds were already jostling for a firm footing on the wire mesh floor. He watched as one wing fluttered at the side of the door. With a final shove she got them inside, breaking several feathers in the process.
Swinging the wire door shut she announced, 'Home sweet home.'
Pecking Order - Chapter 2
Out in the bright sunlight the rust-coloured feather rose upward through the air, carried on the light breeze blowing between the two elongated buildings. It drifted along for a while and then gradually began to lose height. Finally it settled on the ground, just in front of a weathered pair of brogues. The leather creaked slightly and a thin, angular hand picked it up.
'Who,' said the man, gently rolling the shaft of the feather between a skeletal finger and thumb, 'is the man giving instructions?'
'That's Rubble,' replied the farm owner. 'I don't need guard dogs or anything with Rubble living here. He's my walking, talking Rottweiler.' He spoke a little too fast, trying to impress.
'Where did he get a name like that?' Other hand running through a wiry beard that was shot through with flecks of grey.
'Oh, it's short for Roy Bull. Rubble just seems to fit him better somehow.'
'And he lives here, on the farm?'
'Yeah, in a caravan at the bottom of the lane down there.' He pointed to the copse of beech trees, where an occasional glimpse of white showed between the gently shifting leaves. 'He's just a child really - in terms of IQ. But he certainly likes killing things - chickens, foxes, rats, mink. Even cats, some villagers believe. And if I hadn’t pulled him off the animal liberation woman last year, he’d have probably done her too.’
Table of Contents
Dedication.
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Part II
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Part III
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Epilogue
Acknowledgements.
Sleeping Dogs – background to the story
Pecking Order
Pecking Order - Chapter 1
Pecking Order - Chapter 2
