The Last Baronet

by Caroline Akrill

  The freshly killed birds were set above a bleeding trough at one end of the production line, then pushed along an overhead rail to the rough pluckers. Once plucked, they moved on to the hot wax dip, after which they were stripped clean before drawing. A weathered old boy who had sat in the same place doing the same job for as long as anyone could remember, hooked out the tough leg tendons by means of a bent nail, with surprising speed and dexterity. Two girls were in charge of the giblets, and when they and the neck had been inserted, the birds moved on to be trussed and finished before being carted off to the cold store to await delivery or collection.

  The shed was heated by several Calor gas burners and the workers were entertained by a ghetto blaster turned to full volume. When David Williamson walked into the shed with the wages, the heat, the smell, and the solid wall of sound, knocked him back. Hell, he thought, might prove to be marginally more congenial than this. Averting his eyes from the wheeled bins of entrails, heads and claws, he made his way to where the woman who organised the workers on his behalf was tying together the legs of the still warm birds and hooking them onto the rail. ‘You wanted me to give you the final count, David,’ she yelled at him above the hubbub. ‘I’ve the last bird coming through now and that makes five hundred and ninety six altogether. How many did you think you were short?’

  Throughout the rearing season fatalities were inevitable. Losses in the early weeks were sometimes heavy, turkey poults being notoriously prone to mass hysteria which could easily result in trampling and suffocation. But by twenty-five weeks the birds were full grown, strong, and flappingly aggressive. They were by no means an easy catch and, moving in a large flock, were intimidating to potential predators, man or beast. Housed in the barn by nightfall, losses at this stage were unusual; nevertheless David Williamson had been resigned to the loss of one or two birds as in previous years, but when he had carried out his customary live head count a few days prior to killing, he had calculated that he was four short this year. Now he knew that it was six. Six of his birds hanging in the Rushbroke larder. Six! It was intolerable! It was time for action!

  David Williamson walked out of the plucking shed. He went back to the farmhouse and climbed the stairs. In what had been his parent’s bedroom, he pulled open the door of an old-fashioned wardrobe and took from within a ghastly, evil-smelling suit constructed of fur. He removed his outer garments and stepped into it. From the top of the wardrobe he took down the box containing American Werewolf de Luxe in Latex. Carefully, he removed it from its tissue wrapping and, inserting his hands inside the mask in the prescribed manner, pulled it down over his head.

  The door of the old wardrobe incorporated a long mirror, flecked with age. David Williamson looked at his reflection. A diabolical creature stared back at him; a terrifyingly inhuman being, hideous and unspeakable; an unimaginable horror.

  The Hon. Nicola had gone too far this time. As soon as the turkey shed fell silent, as soon as the lights were extinguished and the last of the cars had departed, he would be ready. The minute the Hon. Nicola set foot on his land to turn loose her cursed equines, she was going to have an encounter she would never, ever, forget.

  *

  Work on the house had intensified. After a day filled with final touches and Christmas decorations Rupert and Len had set out to inspect the gatehouse lodge. They had found it not as bad as they had feared. Although it was covered with a jungle of ivy and surrounded by dense undergrowth, when they had pushed their way through they found that the brickwork was still fairly good and the roof was intact. Even the chimneys were in reasonable order. The windows had gone, the floorboards had rotted, but it was by no means beyond restoration. The lodge was small. Upstairs there were just two bedrooms and space for a bathroom. Downstairs there was a tiny kitchen which needed extending and a surprisingly spacious sitting room with a magnificent and blessedly unrestored brick and bressumer beamed open fireplace. There was another tiny room, not much bigger than a cupboard really, but Rupert thought would make an office, and the kitchen had a pantry, which would please Anna. Already Len had plans for a conservatory.

  They sat on the step, discussing their change in fortunes, the work schedule, the gatehouse lodge, the gardener’s cottage, the proposed sale of The Close, the plans for the stable conversion, whilst Sadie snuffled about in the undergrowth in and around the tumbledown outside lavatory on the trail of goodness knew what. Dusk had fallen. Len looked at his watch and realised he was almost due at the Crick where he had arranged to have supper with the workmen.

  ‘You take the torch,’ Rupert said. ‘I’ve got a beam on my key ring if I need it. There’s a good moon tonight and it’s not as if I don’t know the way back.’

  Len set off down the lane with Sadie at his heels. Sadie liked the Crick, and as soon as she got through the door would wander off to claim her habitual sleeping place on the flagstones by the fire. Rupert had declined to accompany them because he wanted to catch Nicola at evening stables. He walked back towards the house still marvelling at how much his life had changed during the last month. He could still hardly believe it. The gatehouse was to be his home. Anna loved him. They had a business. Len was part of it. Suddenly everything is bloody marvellous, he thought. Bloody fucking sodding marvellous.

  He would never know what made him stop and lean over the gate into the pasture where Nicola’s horses were illicitly turned out with David Williamson’s cattle. In the moonlight he thought he could just distinguish the shape of the horses grazing amongst the cattle. But all he remembered afterwards was the horrific shambling creature he saw coming towards him along the hedgerow. He saw it stop and look at him. In the moonlight he saw the terrible bestial face of it; the yellow fangs; the red rimmed eyes, the black, verminous pelt of it. After the first disbelieving, terrible, frozen moment, Rupert ran. He had never run so fast in his life. He ran as if the devil himself was on his tail. Up the drive and through the gates and into the back door of the kitchen he ran, and slammed the door.

  He sank down at the plank table. Gasping. Terrified. Too many pints of Adnams, he had said to Len. Don’t be daft, there are no monsters in Suffolk. It must have been a bloody cow. Well, it hadn’t been a cow. So what the hell was it? What the fucking hell was it! Staggering to his feet he opened the cupboard and found a bottle of cooking brandy. With shaking hands he poured an uncommonly generous measure into a teacup. His hands trembled so violently that the liquid barely survived the journey to his mouth. What the fuck had he seen? What the hell was it? More to the point, what was he going to do about it? If there really was a monster out there, what the bloody fucking hell was he going to do now?

  *

  Early winter sunshine made it pleasant to be outdoors. The following day, Rupert found the foreman and his gang sitting on the bridge over the moat eating Anna’s lunchtime sandwiches.

  Now and again they threw a crust into the moat. Instantly the surface of the water became a boiling, threshing mass of shining, powerful bodies. As the result of being the daily beneficiaries of kitchen scraps, the carp were now enormous. Rupert looked down at their wide, round mouths, their rolled, pink lips and their little horn-like feelers. They were solid fish, much bigger and heavier, much broader and deeper, than they appeared in the water when viewed from above.

  The Rushbrokes had dined on the carp for centuries. When Anna had enquired what they were like to eat Nicola had grimaced and replied that they had a muddy taste and required plenty of seasoning. Carp had not hitherto been a part of Anna’s repertoire but, knowing them to be part of the Rushbroke tradition, she had felt them worthy of a little experimentation. In her battered copy of Larousse she had discovered three different recipes from France. Vivian had promptly spiked his fishing hooks with bacon and returned after a very short interval with three fine specimens.

  Anna found that the flesh was firm and meaty yet flaked easily. Of the recipes, the one which called for prolonged marination and a short cooking time followed by a twenty-four hour chilling
period, was proclaimed the most successful, closely followed by the baked version stuffed with herbs, lemon, roe and breadcrumbs. The third recipe, that for carp steaks in red wine with garlic was not universally liked by the workmen, who had appointed themselves Anna’s panel of experts. They had proved to be willing and enthusiastic guinea pigs, avid to participate in any culinary experiment and ever ready to contribute advice and suggestions as to how a particular dish might be improved. Thus cold marinated carp and baked stuffed carp were definitely set to feature as Christmas fare in the dining room and would continue to be offered thereafter as a Rushbroke speciality. As the fish came free, the percentage profit they represented was considered by Rupert to be a great benefit.

  Now Rupert sat down on the wall next to the foreman who, since the end of the summer, had become a frequent visitor to the kitchen, bearing rabbits, pigeons and the odd illicit pheasant or partridge for Anna’s table.

  ‘Can I ask a favour, Leon?’

  ‘You ask favour any time you like, Rupert. If I can do favour for you, then I do it with pleasure.’

  ‘You know the gun you shoot rabbits with?’

  ‘Yes, I know it.’

  ‘Can I borrow it?’

  ‘You want for to shoot rabbits?’

  ‘Not exactly, no.’

  Leon threw his crusts into the moat. Two mallards sped across the water but they were no match for the carp. ‘I think I know why you borrow it,’ he said. ‘I think you see something, Rupert. I think you see something terrible. I think you see what Maciej saw.’

  Rupert said nothing. What could he say? He was not about to spread panic in the ranks.

  ‘I tell Len when it happen. Is truth in this. I tell him I know Maciej. Is my friend for many years, and if Maciej say he see something, he not make up. Is out there; this thing; this monster. You want I come with you?’

  ‘No thanks, I’ll do this on my own.’

  TWENTY NINE

  It was the following evening. The workmen had gone off to the Crick. Len had gone back to The Close. After delivering game pie, sweet potato and spinach to Vivian and Lavinia, Anna was waiting for Rupert and Nicola to join her in the family kitchen. Rupert came in first having been supervising the electricians who had been installing light fittings in the bedrooms. He looked exhausted. He had said nothing to anyone and the previous night he had hardly slept at all.

  Together they waited for Nicola. When it came to eight o’clock, Anna began to worry. She transferred their game pie and sweet potato wedges to the holding oven. ‘I think we should go down to the stables,’ she said. ‘She’s never this late and all she had to do was to turn out the horses. She’s been gone since six. She’s never late for supper; never has been. Something has happened. I know it.’ Anna imagined that one of the horses might have escaped.

  Rupert’s imaginings were of a far darker nature. ‘I’ll go.’ He got up from the table. He said firmly, ‘Stay here, Anna. Wait here until I get back. I need to talk to Nicola anyway.’ He took a powerful torch from the shelf.

  Anna sensed that something was not quite right. Through the kitchen window she watched Rupert cross the yard. She saw him go into the building that was now the laundry. He came out with a shotgun. What? What was this? What was happening? Anna had no idea what was going on but she was not prepared to stay behind and remain in ignorance. Did Rupert know about the corn merchant, the vet and the blacksmith? Was he about to see them off with a shotgun? Surely not. So what did he imagine was out there in the darkness? Rabbits? Foxes? Suddenly she remembered Maciej and the wild stories of a creature, a fiend; a beast so terrifying that Maciej had left without even waiting for his wages. ‘Rupert, wait!’ Anna ran after him. ‘Rupert! Wait for me!’

  Already Rupert was in the stable yard. The stables were empty. He looked in the barn, the rickyard. There was no sign of Nicola. He looked in the tack room. The headcollars were gone. She had taken the horses up to the pasture. He groaned.

  He was moving quickly along the drive towards the pasture by the time Anna managed to catch up with him.

  ‘Rupert, why have you got a gun?’

  ‘I told you to stay in the house. Do you never do as you are told?’

  ‘Not often, no.’

  It was too late for prevarication. ‘Last night, coming back from the lodge, I saw something in the pasture.’

  ‘Something? You mean like Maciej? A creature? Rupert, you saw a creature in the field?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But why didn’t you say? Why didn’t you tell me? What was it? What did it look like? Where has it come from?’

  Too many questions. ‘I don’t know. But now you know why I wanted you to stay behind.’ Rupert put his hand on her arm; pleaded with her. ‘Anna, go back. Please.’

  Even in the dark he could see that her eyes were wide with fright. Nevertheless, ‘I can’t leave you on your own, Rupert! No. No! I can’t go back! We need to find Nicola!’

  He motioned her to be silent. He said in a low voice ‘The gate’s open! Why would the bloody gate be open? Let’s see if the horses are in the field.’

  They were. ‘But their headcollar ropes haven’t been unclipped,’ Anna whispered. This was evident; the ropes trailed after the horses as they grazed. ‘Oh my God, Rupert, you don’t think…?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think.’

  By the gatepost into the lane there was a scrap of something dark. Anna shone the torch onto it. ‘It looks like hair or black fur, and what’s this?’ she knelt beside a dark stain on the ground. ‘Rupert,’ she said faintly, ‘this looks like blood.’

  Rupert put his fingers into it. It was red. Sticky. Fresh.

  ‘There’s more, look, there’s a trail, and more of the hair. Oh my God, Nicola!’

  They ran, following the trail; the dark splashes on the drive; the clumps of hair. They stopped at the drive to the home farm, casting around like bloodhounds following a line. ‘Here, Rupert, here! Leading up to the farmhouse! Look, here’s a big chunk of fur and more blood! Rupert, you don’t think… you don’t think Nicola….’

  ‘I don’t know what I bloody well think but I’m going to fucking well find out!’ Rupert pounded furiously up to the farmhouse door with Anna at his heels. The door was open. Lights were burning. On the kitchen table was a bowl of blood. What appeared to be the flayed skin of some massive, hairy animal lay across the floor. Anna screamed. Rupert flew around opening doors, and finding nothing, no one, set off up the stairs. Anna followed, terrified; filled with dread; expecting any moment to find Nicola disembowelled, decapitated, butchered; quite possibly hacked into several pieces. Instead, when they opened the door to one of the bedrooms they found David Williamson with a great bloody bandage around his head and Nicola on top of him, both completely naked and indulging in some mutually enjoyable and energetic activity.

  At the sight of Rupert and the shotgun, David Williamson let out a yelp of fright. ‘Don’t shoot!’ he yelled. ‘For God’s sake, don’t shoot!’ Nicola rolled to one side, looked round at them in surprise then covered their nakedness with a sheet. ‘Sorry,’ she said in a calm tone. ‘Obviously, we were not expecting visitors.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Nicola,’ Rupert collapsed against the door. ‘We thought you were dead. We saw the blood. And the hair. We really thought the creature had got you.’

  ‘It was the other way round, actually; I got him,’ she indicated the bandage around David Williamson’s head. ‘I picked up a branch and socked him with it. Well, heavens above, whatever did he imagine he was doing, trying to frighten people like that?’

  ‘I wasn’t trying to frighten people,’ David Williamson said heatedly. ‘I was trying to frighten you. I went to a lot of trouble with that costume; the mask alone cost me an arm and a leg. You were stealing from me, Nicola; my grazing, my turkeys, my logs, my holly, even my best Christmas tree.’

  ‘I saw the basin of blood,’ Anna said. ‘I thought he had killed you.’

  ‘Killed me? David? Why would he d
o that? He loves me. He watches my every movement through his binoculars. I have driven him almost insane. He has always loved me. He’s mad about me. He just didn’t know it,’ Nicola said.

  David Williamson looked at her. Was it true? Rather reluctantly he supposed it might possibly be nearly the truth.

  ‘But we’ve sorted it out now,’ Nicola said calmly. ‘Now that we have agreed to get married.’

  ‘Have we?’ He looked at her in astonishment. ‘Did I actually say that?’

  ‘Well, I’m not moving in here to look after you unless it’s going to be a permanent arrangement,’ Nicola said. ‘And you certainly need someone to look after you; you are not eating properly.’ She looked at David Williamson critically, as if he was a newly arrived equine delinquent to be studied and assessed before being prescribed a less heating diet with boiled barley twice a week and linseed on Fridays. She made a slight adjustment to his bandage, which had slipped down over one eye. ‘You must admit that the house is a disgrace. You really should be ashamed of yourself. Your mother would turn in her grave if she saw how you have neglected it. I think our arrangement will work very well. I will move my horses into your farm buildings and start a proper livery and riding stable, and you can do as much or as little farming as you wish. You know you hate farming, David. You have always hated it.’

  ‘Should that wound on your head be looked at?’ Anna wanted to know. ‘Does it need stitches?’

  ‘It’s fairly superficial,’ Nicola said. ‘Head wounds tend to bleed a lot; they always look worse than they really are. I’m sorry we gave you such a shock.’ To David Williamson she added, ‘Of course, if you do marry me, you will have to change your name to Rushbroke. You do realise that? We can’t let the family name disappear.’