Stench

by AB Morgan

  On the way back to the store of coal, the reconditioned steamroller - the “Jenny-Rose” - was the topic of conversation between the two men tasked with ensuring enough fuel was loaded up for the trip to Swandale Steam Fair. As they re-entered the outhouse Anna picked up on their fateful words. ‘How long did it take to pickle ’em?’

  ‘Not sure exactly, but hours and hours for the two of them, I think.’

  ‘Strong stuff that acid, ain’t it?’

  ‘Works though. He’s got the knack of the disposal too, without old farmer Joe getting wind of it. It’ll be months before the barrels rust through, and anyway they’re buried deep enough. Who’s gonna know?’

  Ann felt sick and not merely through lack of food and drink. Sheer terror coursed through her.

  ‘They’re all in on it. See? Now you know what they do with the sludge. The dead body sludge from the acid tanks. You have to make it out, soldier. This information is vital.’

  Anna examined the red bricks in the rear wall against which she had built her cubbyhole. In the damp earth at the base of the wall there were no tiles and the brickwork was crumbling through rot and neglect where wet logs had been stored year on year, giving a home to hundreds of woodlice. There were layers of half-decayed bricks before her, while orange and red powdery crumbs lay on the ground as a testament to the poor state of the retaining wall.

  Anna smiled to herself as she reached for a neatly serrated pocketknife from within her rucksack. It had been Damien’s sailing knife for cutting lines and undoing shackles. He’d spliced a short length of narrow Dyneme rope and attached the knife to a karabiner, which made for a handy belt loop attachment and a trusted item of equipment to have in her possession. Anna unclipped the karabiner and, taking advantage of the loud heaving, grunting and dragging of the coal removal men, began to prod at the friable walling.

  Great chunks of brickwork fell at her knees, raising her spirits and stirring her belief that freedom was only two brick widths away. Whenever Chopper barked she would stop her labours and listen out for the clues he was giving her. He was a canny canine. She soon recognised the whooshing sound of a steam engine as it breathed into life. When Chopper responded to the clanking and thundering of the abominable roller moving across the compound, Anna’s heart rate increased instantaneously.

  ‘It’s not coming for you, Fruitcake. Hold hard. Stay hidden.’

  ‘No of course it’s not coming for me. They’re going to roll the graves flat. That’s it isn’t it, boy?’ Anna asked as if whispering directly to Chopper across the yard outside.

  Twenty minutes of swearing and complaining later, the door to the outhouse was forced closed. The bolt could be heard sliding back into place as instructions from Leo himself sealed Anna within. ‘Where’s the padlock for that door? I don’t want any of you lot helping yourselves to the logs in there. Carmel will have your bloody guts, and mine, if we haven’t got enough for the bonfires to last the winter.’ A matter of minutes later, the bolt rattled and a padlock clicked shut.

  ‘Right, you lot. Make sure you close up properly. I’ll see you at the rally,’ Leo instructed, his gravelly voice distinguishing him from the other men.

  Anna could barely see what she was doing but with the tremendous trundling roller making its full-throated way to the main gates, she stabbed at the wall, tearing at it with her bare hands until exhaustion and darkness forced her to rest.

  ‘No time to slack. Dig for your life, Anna. Get up and fucking dig.’

  Damien’s shouting had stirred her, but the volume was painful and had caused her to lose her grip on the irreplaceable knife. She scrabbled in the dirt and bricks, unable to see properly until she felt a thin metal object. A fork. She panicked. Where was Damien’s knife? She dropped the fork and raked with her fingers at the brick and sawdust on the ground until she felt the handle and grasped the knife to her chest. Relieved to have it safely back in her possession, she allowed herself hope. She could smell soil. Cool mud. She could feel it.

  Anna didn’t know which way to dig. She tried to contact Chopper through the power of her thoughts, but he didn’t respond. ‘He must be asleep,’

  ‘Dig upwards. You must be in next-door’s garden, just too low down. That’s why the wall is damp. Come on, use your intelligence.’

  Damien‘s belittling words drilled painfully into her head again making her stop to press her palms onto her temples each time he yelled. She tried not to upset him, by being vigilant and doing as he ordered, but her energy was ebbing away. She clutched the knife and scraped at the soil. Taking a handful at a time, she pushed it back past herself onto the floor of the outhouse, building a mound of earth within her hiding hole. Each completed action took determination and a stubborn will to succeed.

  23

  Steam Rally Revelations

  ‘Still no sign of Anna today?’ Annette asked, her voice rising above the cacophony of chatter in the beer tent where she had found Rory casting around the dozens of faces.

  ‘How did you guess who I was looking for?’

  ‘Because it’s obvious. It has to be Anna because, let’s face it, you’re not too bothered about finding your own mother. Not that you need to, you can hear her dulcet tones from outside the marquee, so she’s not difficult to locate.’

  Both fixed their eyes towards Felicity Norton who stood by the bar with a glass of cloudy cider in her hand, entertaining a crowd of ruddy-faced tweed suits, most of whom had their heads directed at her cleavage. One had his hand placed on her left buttock, rubbing the tight denim of her skinny jeans and which could be seen clearly through the sheer material of her long blouse.

  ‘Also you spent most of yesterday searching for clues as to where Anna Chamberlain might be. Barney tells me you even went to the vicarage.’

  ‘I’ve tried everywhere I can think of. The hospital, her house, and I even sat in the graveyard like a weirdo ghoul hunter, until it got too dark to see properly. In the end I reported her missing to the police. Well, I tried, but they dismissed me as some anxious do-gooder who was poking his nose in other peoples’ business. At least they’ve given up on trying to accuse me of burglary.’

  ‘I thought you were supposed to have spent the evening with mother?’

  ‘So, did I, but she was far happier in Rob’s company. By the time I’d returned from the vicarage she’d worked her way behind the bar and was serving customers. The steam rally had doubled the usual Saturday customer numbers. Rob was run off his feet. She …’ said Rory, his thumb indicating towards Felicity, ‘ … loved every minute. Tits out, sliding herself past Rob as she delivered drinks to the masses, and teasing him to the brink of a coronary. Poor bastard.’

  Annette chuckled at the thought. ‘I think he enjoys it. Don’t worry about Rob. Come on, let’s see how the tractor entries are shaping up.’ About to leave the marquee, beers in each hand plus one wedged in his forefingers for Barney, Rory took a glance over his shoulder at his mother. ‘You have to be joking,’ he gasped. Leo Fewtrell was approaching the group of men surrounding Felicity and three of them immediately departed not daring to make eye contact with the bullish interloper. The man with his open palm on Felicity’s behind promptly removed it and tentatively shook hands with Mad Leo. The jovial conversation between them had faltered as the mood changed to one of uncertainty.

  ‘James, I take it you’ve seen the Jenny-Rose? I expect you’ll be keen to award the prize to the best entry in return for my loyalty again this year …’ello, got yourself a prize of your own ’ave you, James?’ Leonard Fewtrell openly leered at Felicity.

  She beamed back, oblivious to the tension, and offered her hand. He took it, raised it to his lips and kissed the back of her dainty well-manicured fingers before pulling her roughly towards him.

  Leo Fewtrell could easily have passed for a gentleman farmer. His beard was neatly trimmed, he wore a pristine white shirt beneath a tweed waistcoat and his moleskin trousers were spotlessly clean.

  Rory handed two beers to A
nnette, re-entered the marquee and plunged through the throng before she could advise him otherwise. His own beer in one hand, he laughed theatrically, ‘There you are mother. Honestly, I can’t take her anywhere without her getting lost.’ He took hold of his mother’s left arm and pulled her with him as he backed towards the exit, grinning unconvincingly. ‘Mother you’ve just been introduced to Mr Fewtrell, my neighbour. Leo, my mother was delighted to have met you.’ He shot a glance over Leo’s shoulder, ‘Mrs Fewtrell is looking for you by the way.’

  Carmel Fewtrell, with fury in her eyes and a look that could turn water to solid ice, marched through the crowded straw-strewn marquee towards her husband who indicated his innocence by raising both hands in the air, palms outwards, fingers spread wide. Rory yanked his mother behind him, protesting as her high heels gave way beneath her, aerating the turf. The rosy-cheeked tweed suit who had stood next to Leo Fewtrell, lost the colour from his face.

  ‘That was either brave or foolhardy,’ Annette smirked at Rory who was trying not to be publicly angry with his mother. ‘Mrs Norton, your son is so gallant. You must be very proud of him.’ Taking a bewildered Felicity aside, Annette gave Rory space to let the pressure of the situation subside.

  Barney’s beer was delivered personally to him as he sat on the love seat of Tinkerbell the tractor. Passing the plastic pint glass to his friend, Rory swore that never again would his mother stay for a weekend, and most definitively not during steam rally week.

  ‘It’s my own bloody fault. I forgot about the rally. I also appear to have repressed personal memories of my own dear mother’s penchant for leading men on. It’s embarrassing. Look at her. She’s off again.’

  Rob had come to her rescue rather than put his feet up for a couple of precious hours between the lunchtime trade and the Sunday evening shift at The Valiant. He sat on a row of straw bales next to the diminutive Felicity and was gently rubbing her ankles as she flicked back her wavy thick hair, pretending to wince. They left together, Felicity hobbling along towards Rob’s Land Rover which had been given special permission to enter the show ground, requisitioned as an ambulance. Propped up by an attentive Rob, Felicity was placed into the front seat of the vehicle and driven off.

  ‘Oh, please …’ protested Rory as he averted his gaze from the offending sight. Annette waddled over. ‘I’m glad I’m not playing gooseberry to those two any longer. It’s going to get hot and steamy in the upstairs rooms of The Valiant this afternoon. Budge up,’ she said dragging herself up onto the tractor and forcing her thighs into the remaining space of the tractor’s bench seat. ‘Hello gorgeous,’ her husband said, placing his arm around her and kissing her cheek. ‘See any of the judges on your travels?’

  ‘As a matter of fact we’ve just seen Leo Fewtrell about to coerce one into giving him the top prize. He’s a prize dick-whacker.’ Annette bent forward and produced a catering sized bag of salted peanuts from a cool-bag stashed under the steering wheel. She offered them to Barney and Rory as they debated the blackmail behind what they had witnessed in the beer tent. Rory took a seat on Barney’s toolbox and sat with his back against a rear tractor wheel, where he listened to his friend recounting a tale of gossip and tantalising fact.

  ‘James Whittington, the man who had his hand on your mother’s rear end, works in the county planning department for industry and development, or some such fancy title. He did say what his job was once, but he’s a boring tosser and I don’t always tune in when he talks at me.’

  ‘He’d be of use to a man like Leo Fewtrell then, but what hold has Leo got over him?’ Annette asked, accidentally spitting out crushed peanuts as she spoke and trying to catch the pieces with an upturned hand.

  ‘Have you seen James’s son Ryan? Tall lad, loads of hair. You know him, love, but Rory doesn’t. Well let me tell you, pal, he doesn’t look a lot like Jim Wittington. However, he is the spit of a certain Mad Leo Fewtrell.’

  ‘Give over …’

  ‘Oh, yes, he does look like him. I knew he reminded me of someone. Good grief,’ announced Annette.

  ‘It is widely believed that the fragrant Mrs Eileen Wittington caught Jim having a snog with his secretary fourteen years ago. In revenge, she had a mad fling with the man Jim had spent years taking to court for health and safety breaches, planning offences and the rest … You guessed it.’

  Rory shifted position to look up at Barney. Annette’s mouth fell open revealing a peanut paste on her tongue to which Barney gave a disapproving frown as he gently pushed up her rounded chin to shut her jaw.

  ‘That can’t be right,’ she said after sipping from her beer beaker and swallowing hard. Annette sought the truth in Barney’s eyes and found that it was already there. ‘She of the iron breeches? Wouldn’t know a “come on Eileen” if it jumped up and bit her … that Eileen Whittington?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m not making it up. Why do you think they have the most expensive front driveway in Swandale? Leo spent weeks ensuring that every single brick was hand-laid to perfection, while he was indoors hand-laying Mrs W and giving her a good tamping down with his whacker, into the bargain.’

  Rory was laughing hard and bracing himself against Tinkerbell’s wheel arch. ‘She actually wanted that to happen?’

  ‘Too right she did. Rumour has it he’s hung like a donkey. She organised for the drive to be brick paved and she flirted with Leo shamelessly until he could resist no more.’

  ‘I take it Jim found out and put a stop to it. Revenge complete.’

  Barney shook his head and raised his beer to his lips in slow motion. Annette could wait no more, ‘Well?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If Jim didn’t catch her at it then what happened?’

  ‘I don’t know if it’s right to tell you,’ Barney teased. He received a thump in the chest for his trouble. ‘Ouch … Carmel Fewtrell found out. That put a stop to everything. She went to Jim. He paid her to keep quiet and Leo was seen with a black eye.’

  ‘From James Wittington?’

  ‘Don’t be daft; his backbone is too weak to hold him up in a fight. No. Carmel beat the shit out of Leo the lion and he returned to his charming wife like a pussycat, if you pardon the pun. She deals with the accounts and any correspondence. He can’t read too well, so he’s reliant on Carmel and she knows it. She also holds secrets that Leo could never afford to be revealed.’

  Rory listened intently, smiling broadly as the revelations kept coming. ‘I think I’m beginning to understand the extent of the leverage Mad Leo has over Mr James Whittington. Perfect blackmail material. But wouldn’t Carmel be pissed off?’

  Barney leant forward taking Annette with him. ‘Eileen was hardly the first and your mother was in line to be the next. You can’t blame the man … that wife of his is pig ugly and she’s more evil than Leo himself. Think about it. The Fewtrells have had freedom to act as they wish in that yard ever since. Scrap metal, electroplating, tarmac, roofing, dodgy dealings, gangland beatings, the bloody lot.’

  Rory didn’t have to use his imagination; he knew exactly what Barney was referring to.

  The three friends were silent for a while, watching passers-by and cogitating. Barney and Annette were acquainted with most people at the rally and although Rory said a polite hello to one or two, he felt very much the stranger, the blow-in from another county. An outsider.

  Through the milling crowds, the steaming machines and their owners in matching blue overalls, Annette spied Dr Janice Dalby. ‘There she is in the pack-a-mac, the green flowing skirt, and blue Hunter wellies.’ Annette glanced up at the cloudless sky for an instant. ‘Why she’s dressed for rain, God only knows. Perhaps she’s got this confused with Glastonbury.’

  ‘Right, that’s it. I’m off for a wander about,’ Rory announced finishing his pint. ‘See you two love-birds later.’

  ‘Not if Mad Leo sees you first. You’re a dead man walking, Rory-boy. If I were you, I’d make sure mother is on that train home as soon as possible. If Leo and his gang have their evi
l way with her she’ll never flirt again.’

  ‘Don’t tempt me.’

  Rory waved goodbye as he strode into the sea of people, the steam, the grey smoke and the sounds of the fairground. He headed toward the main arena where the man making tuneless announcements over the tannoy system could be heard extolling the virtues of owning a steam driven lorry.

  Dr Janice Dalby was with her husband. Rory studied them from a short distance before questioning his assumption about them being man and wife. The couple bore an uncanny resemblance to each other and could just as easily have been brother and sister, or cousins.

  ‘Hello there. I’m sorry to interrupt. We haven’t met, but we have spoken on the phone. My name is Rory Norton.’

  Dr Dalby made no effort to shake Rory’s hand but her male companion did, and the limp grip made Rory squirm. His father’s words haunted him, “never trust a man with a wet-fish handshake”.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, I’m Janice’s husband Miles. Are you local?’

  Rory tolerated the inane introductions, which continued for a while before he could address his burning question about Anna, without appearing too pushy. Dr Janice Dalby was avoidant of a straight answer, thus forcing Rory to be less polite.

  ‘Look, I know we can’t have a public discussion about this, and if you can’t give me a yes or no answer to the question then I’ll give you my mobile number. Please phone or message me to let me know if she has been seen and is receiving help from the right services.’ Rory pulled out his phone.

  Dr Dalby shook her head.

  ‘No. I’m sorry but I have no authority to give you or Brenda Chamberlain any information. You’ll just have to accept my word for it that action has been taken.’

  ‘So the young lady we are talking about has been seen?’

  ‘That’s all I’m prepared to say. Good day to you.’