The Slay of the Land (The Heathervale Mysteries Book 1)

by Matilda Swift

  Of course, Arrina realised, Olly had keys to the college. That was how he’d got in to hang the paper suns all those months earlier. She could have kicked herself for not thinking of it sooner. But the tractor accident that day had put the thought out of her head.

  She clasped a hand to her chest with relief that it wasn’t a knife. Hugo patted the young man on the shoulder once again and pocketed the bunch of keys. Arrina still had no clue what either man was doing there at the college. But it was clear that nothing violent was about to happen between them.

  Olly started to walk towards the front of the college. Hugo beckoned the teenager to follow him. But Olly pointed back the way he’d come. He must have been telling Hugo he’d already got a ride home. He walked off alone, waving a friendly goodbye.

  Hugo hesitated.

  The picture of him wobbled on the screen. Then it tipped ninety degrees to the side, slid up, and cut out entirely.

  That was the moment the camera fell.

  Arrina let out a cry of frustration.

  ‘What?’ Julie asked. Her face was still buried in the soft fabric of Arrina’s shirt. ‘What happened?’

  Arrina stared hard at the screen, as though her gaze could pass through it and see what happened next.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Arrina said softly. ‘You can look. The second camera broke just before Hugo walked away.’

  ‘He walked away?’ Julie asked. She looked doubtfully between Arrina and the empty screen. ‘The man with the rocks didn’t hurt him?’

  ‘No,’ Arrina said. ‘Olly left before the camera fell.’

  ‘Olly?’ Julie asked. ‘Is he the killer? Do you know him?’ She looked around, as though the boy could leap out at them right then.

  ‘No, he’s a student. I mean, yes, I know him. But no, he’s not a killer. He goes to the college,’ Arrina said, hearing the circles her thoughts were making. ‘He knows Hugo. He would never...’ She didn’t know how to finish the sentence. It seemed ridiculous to have to say it. Of course, Olly wouldn’t harm anyone. He’d felt so terrible after his scarecrow stunt had damaged Hugo’s field that he arranged for his friends to help him clear up and reseed it.

  ‘But he was there,’ Julie said softly. ‘He was there, and Hugo was there, and...’ She looked over at Arrina with wide, unblinking eyes. ‘I think we have to call the police.’

  Arrina nodded. She knew Julie was right. The police needed to know what she’d seen, especially if she had the only copy of the tape. Hugo was there, at the college, at four in the morning, but then he’d walked away and even been seen by Julie driving through the village several hours later.

  Arrina knew she had to tell the police what she’d seen.

  But she couldn’t just call 999 and tell them to haul the boy away.

  She knew her student. She knew he hadn’t done anything wrong. Or at least, nothing aside from smashing the CCTV. She crossed her fingers that Olly would have a good reason for doing that, one which didn’t involve the murder of a beloved member of the community.

  ‘Yes,’ Arrina said. ‘We need to tell the police. But I can’t just send them around to arrest the kid without warning. I know he didn’t do this.’

  ‘You saw him there on—’

  ‘I know. Really, I know. I’ve worked with kids for almost twenty years. I recognise the good ones when I see them, and Olly is a really, really good one.’

  Julie’s dark eyebrows knitted tightly together beneath her fringe.

  ‘I’ll go around to his house right now,’ Arrina said. ‘And I’ll take him to the police station myself.’

  ‘What if you’re wrong?’ Julie asked softly. Then another flare of panic widened her eyes. ‘What if he is the killer and he—’

  ‘He’s a blue-haired art student,’ Arrina said. She remembered him collapsing into her arms in tears when the tractor had almost hit him. ‘He’s one of the sweetest kids I know.’

  Arrina ejected the tape from the machine and put it back into her bag.

  ‘I know that it looks bad on the video,’ Arrina continued, standing up and heading for the back door, ‘and I understand that you don’t know Olly, so you’ve got no reason to believe in him, but—’

  ‘Are you going now?’ Julie asked. She got up from her chair. ‘I think we need to—’

  ‘I have to go,’ Arrina said, with her hand on the doorknob. ‘His parents are lovely people who don’t deserve a shock over what I know is just some awful mix-up. It really isn’t dangerous. I’m just going round there to explain what I’ve seen, then I’ll take him straight to the police station.’

  Arrina had been to Olly’s house following the tractor accident. The Board of Governors were scared that his parents might sue. But in fact, the older couple were so grateful that Arrina didn’t kick Olly out over the stunt that they invited her to stay for dinner.

  Julie stood up and went into her storeroom-cum-office. There was a landline phone in there, and Arrina dashed towards the room to stop Julie from calling the police. Her friend was trying to protect her, but Arrina was sure it wasn’t necessary.

  ‘Please don’t—’ she started to say. Then she fell silent as she saw Julie emerge with a pair of large Tupperware boxes in her hands.

  ‘Do you think this is more of a tiffin or a flapjack situation?’ Julie asked.

  ‘I don’t...’ Arrina started, staring at her friend in confusion.

  ‘You’re right,’ Julie said. ‘Let’s take both. If this kid is as good as you say, then he deserves to have his choice of fortification before going to talk to the police.’

  Arrina rushed over to her friend and gave her an awkward, Tupperware-embracing hug.

  Then the two of them hurried into Julie’s yellow Mini. Julie backed it out of its perilously tight parking space and followed Arrina’s directions to Olly’s house.

  Julie talked her usual mile a minute as she drove, trying to decide if she needed a superhero name, even though she was not exactly fighting crime that day. ‘I think helping to solve crimes is a heroic act as well,’ she said. ‘Don’t you think?’

  But Arrina wasn’t listening.

  She didn’t know whether the tape she had was the only copy of the CCTV from the college. If it wasn’t, then the police would have seen the same thing she had. And they didn’t know Olly as well as she did. Perhaps after seeing the video, they would draw a very different conclusion.

  She only hoped that the police wouldn’t recognise Olly that quickly. In the black-and-white night-time recording, the boy was missing his distinctive sky-blue hair. Though even without it, he was still almost as tall as Hugo, and he knew the college well. A few questions around the local teenage population of Heathervale would turn up Olly’s name on a very short list.

  Arrina willed Julie to drive quickly as she wound through the tight country lanes towards Olly. She nibbled nervously on one of Julie’s flapjacks as she hoped beyond hope that they would reach him in time.

  20

  Olly lived on the border between Heathervale and Grindleford. It wasn’t far to his house, but the hills, rivers, and train line all conspired to take Arrina and Julie on a scenic route to get there.

  Arrina gripped her bag in her lap. It contained the CCTV tape that showed the events of that awful night. She would have to hand it over to the police when she took Olly in.

  She thought very briefly about keeping it from the police. She could say that Olly had come to her—that he’d been too afraid to go to the police with the details of what he’d seen but that he’d told Arrina and she’d persuaded him to come in.

  She couldn’t do that.

  She couldn’t ask Olly to lie to the police. He was a good kid, and he deserved to get out of this mix-up as quickly and cleanly as possible.

  Julie’s car zipped around a final corner and onto Olly’s road.

  Outside his house was the unmistakable blue and white of a police car. Olly wasn’t getting out of this quickly and cleanly.

  Julie slowed her car down as she
drove along the narrow country lane.

  Just then, the front door of Olly’s house opened. The boy with distinctive blue hair walked out with his hands behind his back. A police officer stepped out of the house next. It was Tony Mellor. His jaw was tightly clenched, and his eyes were watching every move that Olly made.

  Arrina leapt from Julie’s car before it stopped completely. She ran towards Olly.

  ‘There’s been a mistake!’ Arrina shouted as she raced down the quiet street. Several curtains twitched in the cottages she passed, and one or two people even opened their front doors to get a better look. ‘Wait!’

  Tony glanced down the road at her and frowned. He nudged Olly forwards, and the pair of them walked to the waiting police car.

  ‘You just need to watch this,’ Arrina said between gasping breaths as she reached them. She pulled the black VHS cassette from her bag and held it out to Tony. He ignored her and opened up the back door of his vehicle.

  Olly looked over at Arrina. His eyes were red, and his lips were quivering. The kid was barely holding it together.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Arrina said to him. ‘We’ll get this all straightened out.’

  ‘I didn’t do it,’ he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. A tear blinked over his eyelashes and landed on his cheek. He hunched up a shoulder to wipe it away.

  Then Tony pushed down on the boy’s towering head and guided him into the back seat. Tony did not even acknowledge Arrina was there.

  ‘I’m telling you,’ Arrina said to him, ‘he didn’t do it.’ She held out the CCTV tape once again. ‘Just watch this, and you’ll see. He was there, but he left. He didn’t do anything to Hugo.’

  Tony slammed the back door shut and stepped forward to open his own door. Arrina blocked his path. He stared past her and stood straight and unmoving, waiting for her to leave.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Arrina said. ‘Not until you listen to me. I’ve got evidence that you need to see.’

  Arrina glanced over to Olly’s house. His parents stood in the doorway. They were crying and holding each other, looking utterly lost in this terrible situation.

  Julie walked towards them, her arms filled with Tupperware boxes. Arrina could tell that she wanted to force sweet, sticky flapjacks into each of their hands, but she held off and just stood there, offering quiet sympathy to the shocked pair.

  Olly sat stiffly in the back seat of the car. Arrina could see the strain on his face from trying to hold it together in front of his parents. He was almost eighteen, but right then he looked like a toddler on his first day of kindergarten.

  ‘There’s been a mistake,’ Arrina said again, feeling tears prickle in her own eyes.

  She turned back to Tony, who still wasn’t looking at her. She tried to push the video into his hands. He didn’t take it.

  ‘If that’s what I think it is,’ he said in a low voice, ‘just put it back in your bag and walk away.’

  ‘What exactly do you think it is?’ Arrina asked, stepping onto the curb to stand at eye level with him.

  ‘I think it’s stolen evidence in a murder investigation.’ He glanced at her then looked away. ‘There’s only so long I can pretend not to see it, Arrina. Put it away before I have to arrest you as well.’

  She stepped back sharply. Glancing between Olly and his parents, she felt a strong pulse of pain. ‘Have you seen it already?’ she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.

  Tony nodded.

  ‘And you’re still going to arrest him?’ Her voice shook with tears.

  Tony glanced at her again but said nothing.

  She needed to do something, but it was difficult right then to even breathe. She held the tape in her hands for several seconds. Then she put it away.

  ‘Now go home,’ Tony said. ‘And let the police handle this.’

  Arrina watched powerlessly as he got into his car and drove Olly away.

  21

  Arrina and Julie took Olly’s parents inside after the police car drove away. The shocked couple stared blankly into the cups of tea they were handed. Julie urged them to take a sip and to eat some of her sugary flapjacks and tiffin. They nodded and did as they were told.

  ‘We should go,’ Olly’s mother said weakly. ‘We need to be there with him.’

  ‘The officer said processing would take a while,’ her husband said.

  She nodded and then repeated, ‘We should go soon. We need to be there with him.’

  Olly’s father explained the situation. Had the boy been sixteen, he would have been allowed to have his parents present as soon as he reached the station. But at seventeen, they were only permitted in for the interview. Olly could even be kept overnight in the cells by himself.

  His mother pulled up internet horror stories of young people in prison until Arrina gently took away her phone.

  Julie insisted that they finish their drinks and snacks before leaving. ‘They’ll have terrible tea there,’ she said. Then she shook her head sadly, as though that were the worst prospect the bewildered parents would face.

  But their son had been taken to the police station in handcuffs. He was accused of murder, and the police had video evidence to support their case. Arrina struggled to finish her own cup of tea as she let her mind dwell on these details.

  Finally, Olly’s parents came out of the fog of their shock. They thanked Arrina and Julie for being there and for everything they’d done to help.

  Arrina felt newly awful about the fact that she had not actually done anything to help her student. But Olly’s parents seemed grateful to her anyway. They pulled on matching brown woollen cardigans and walked slowly out of their house. Arrina and Julie both made the couple promise that they would call if they needed anything. Then the scared parents walked out to their car and climbed in. The net curtains of nearby houses fluttered as if stirred by an invisible wind. They only stopped once Olly’s parents drove away.

  Arrina and Julie walked down the street and got back into the bright-yellow Mini that was parked haphazardly several houses down the road.

  They drove straight to Arrina’s cottage on the hill, but when they parked, they didn’t get out. Instead, they sat side by side in the car, wordlessly taking in what had happened that day.

  Arrina could not believe that it was only a matter of hours ago that she’d been nestled in blankets on her sofa, asking Tinsel for his input on the case. Since then, she’d been scared in the woods by one of Sampson’s nephews and surprised with a gift from the other. She’d rejected Sampson’s resignation, had an awkward exchange with Rory Hayes, overheard worries about Hugo’s will from his widow, watched a video of stolen evidence, and tried and failed to keep the police from arresting her student.

  It was only the middle of the afternoon on a long summer day, but Arrina could not take one more thing happening. She wondered if she could just stay sitting there in Julie’s car forever and never move.

  After a little while, Julie broke the silence. ‘Captain Cookie,’ she said. ‘Or maybe even the Caped Baker.’ Then she lapsed into silence for a few more seconds before adding, ‘Those were my top two ideas for superhero names. But I don’t feel very heroic right now.’

  ‘It’s probably for the best,’ Arrina said. ‘Those are terrible names. They make you sound like a stripper.’

  Julie let out a short, sharp laugh. ‘Well, I imagine superhero work doesn’t pay that well. I’d have to keep the lights on somehow. And a dairy herd certainly isn’t the way to do it.’

  ‘Oh!’ Arrina said sadly. ‘I forgot to ask you about the cows.’ Her voice was stretched thin with tiredness. ‘Sorry. I should have asked.’

  Julie gave a heavy sigh. She loved Phil’s herd of huge, dopey Friesians—even though she hadn’t grown up on a farm, she truly belonged there. ‘I think this morning was the last straw. Phil hasn’t said anything, but I’m pretty sure he’s decided to sell the cows and get out of milk for good.’

  ‘But his family’s always kept cows,’ Arrina said.
That was the first thing Phil had told her when they met. He was a dairy man, born and bred.

  ‘It’s funny,’ Julie said without a trace of humour in her tone. ‘Two years ago, when they started work on the bypass, the original proposal had it cutting through our land. It would have meant splitting the farm in two, and we wouldn’t have been able to move the cows between the pasture and the milking parlour. We were getting ready to lodge an official protest when they announced a new route that took it elsewhere. We felt ecstatic at the time—Phil mixed White Russians made with our own milk to celebrate, and I even baked a cake in the shape of the farm.’

  ‘Well, at least you’ve still got the land.’

  ‘If we’d given up the cows back then, we’d have saved a whole lot of back-breaking work trying to survive on milk prices these days.’

  ‘There’s no chance the prices might go up?’ Arrina asked. Her brain scrambled for a better solution to her friend’s problem than blind hope, but her thoughts felt stuck at the bottom of a deep well. She could sense them down there, scrabbling at the sides to get out. Precious few seemed to be making it.

  ‘Who knows?’ Julie said. ‘With our luck, milk prices will turn around the day after we sell the herd.’ She pulled her key out of the ignition and fingered the tiny silver cow on the ring. ‘We were stupid enough to be happy that the bypass didn’t cut through our land. But the compensation they gave to the farmers who were affected would come in awfully handy right now.’

  ‘You know, if there’s anything I can do to help...’

  Julie waved Arrina’s offer quickly away. ‘You’ve got your own problems to worry about.’ Arrina thought that her friend might list the terrible facts of the past few days, but thankfully she kept quiet on that front. ‘You’ve even got your own road situation to be working on.’

  Arrina glanced outside at the empty country lane, which terminated halfway up the hill. She had no idea what Julie meant. The road here was OK, aside from not reaching all the way up to her house, but that problem was very far down on her list of priorities right then.