Bury in Haste (8 page)

‘Shall I turn my lamp off?’ Harry asked.

‘Long as nobody sees you riding through the village,’ Deepbriar replied, ‘don’t want you being reported, you know what a load of busybodies they are, can’t trust ’em to be asleep even at this hour, so just keep your eyes peeled. Should be safe enough once you’re heading up to Quinn’s.’

‘Right. I won’t let you down this time, Mr Deepbriar, I’ll see you somewhere near the farm gate,’ Harry said. ‘This is a right old game. And wasn’t it great all that stuff Peter Brook came out with? It was like having Dick Bland or Mitch O’Hara in the bar.’

Deepbriar sniffed. It was all right for the likes of Harry Bartle to be so cheerful; he wasn’t the one who would have to face Sergeant Hubbard if they’d missed another visitation at Quinn’s farm.

The water had begun to seep into Deepbriar’s regulation size tens, making slow but inevitable progress towards his toes, and he could feel a coldness creeping down his neck as well. The rain had stopped, although drips from trees by the roadside kept up a constant shower so it wasn’t much of an improvement.

Will Minter’s house and outbuildings lay shrouded in silent darkness, along with the row of four labourers’ cottages that fronted the road. No dogs barked as Deepbriar pedalled stoically by, his eyes fixed on the distant shadows that hid Ferdy Quinn’s farm. Too late now, but he realised he should have sent Harry this way, for if the villain was at work again tonight he was far more likely to be found between the village and Quinn’s place, not out here.

As he rode Deepbriar considered who it might be. Somebody from Minecliff surely, since the attacks had been concentrated on just one local target. But what was their motive? Ferdy Quinn wasn’t popular, but he wasn’t the kind to make serious enemies, and he insisted that once Bunyard was discounted he could think of nobody who wished him harm.

Deepbriar’s calculations always came back to Bert Bunyard. Could a man ride a bicycle with one leg in plaster? That was impossible. And he’d taken a good look at the ancient wreck of a lorry that stood forlornly on flat tyres in the yard at Hurdles Farm; it hadn’t been moved in months. Bunyard had a swaybacked old draught mare too, but there had been no trace of hoof marks at any of the crime scenes.

It was no use, in this instance it would take more than the detective skills of his two heroes to find the villain by a process of deduction: he needed evidence. He needed to catch the criminal in the act. And the sooner the better, because he wanted to get back to spending his nights in bed. He had no illusions about the Inspector’s patrol car which was supposed to take over while he was facing a picket line in Belston, that would be like sending a couple of lap-dogs out to catch a wily old country fox.

Deepbriar kept a constant watch for any sign of life in the dark landscape as he cycled on. Once he saw something move on the other side of a hedge, but it was only a cow. Nothing stirred as he arrived at Quinn’s gate. He dismounted for a few minutes and stood straining his ears, hearing nothing but the normal after-dark sounds; the rustle of some small creature on the grass verge near his feet and the distant hoot of an owl.

Deepbriar had just set his foot to the pedal again when the scream split the night. It rose to an unbearable pitch, unearthly and utterly terrifying; it was the sound of a soul in torment, in the last desperate throes of pain or fear.

F
or less than a heartbeat Thorny Deepbriar hesitated, then the long years of experience took over. He almost flew down the road, legs pumping, head bent low over the handlebars, every ounce of effort concentrated on reaching the source of that terrible sound.

He had given no credence to Jenkins’s wild theories, and he still didn’t, but a terrifying thought drove him; suppose this had some connection to the abduction of Joe Spraggs? The mysterious car that had knocked down old Bronc could have reappeared, and not missed its victim this time, but surely he’d have heard the sound of the motor?

As he pedalled, Deepbriar was praying with all his heart that the terrible cry hadn’t been uttered by Harry. He suppressed a shudder; no human should ever be driven to make such a sound. It had been a bad idea giving in to the young man’s enthusiasm, he should never have agreed to let him come.

Without slackening speed, Deepbriar leant forward to turn on his lamp. The bright beam showed him the wet surface of the road, but around him the shadows deepened; field, hedge and tree passed by unseen, shrouded in darkness.

The dynamo outshone his battery lamp. At some distance it caught a glimmer of metal; as Deepbriar drew closer, the shiny speck became a reflection from the rim of Harry’s new bicycle lamp, now showing no light. The machine lay in the middle of the road; there were no skid marks, no sign of a car, and no movement except the bike’s back wheel slowly spinning. No Harry.

Brakes screeching, his tyres skidding on the wet surface, Deepbriar came to a halt beside the abandoned bike, reaching down to snatch Harry’s new lamp from its bracket, relieved to find it unbroken. He shone the bright beam along the sodden hedgerows.

Nothing moved. There was no sound but the steady drip of water and a faint sigh of wind in the leaves. To the right of the road a gateway led into one of Ferdy Quinn’s fields. Deepbriar hastily dropped his bike on the verge and dragged Harry’s machine out of the road, then he stumbled across the rough grass and shone the lamp into the field.

Thin pasture poached by many cloven feet sloped away uphill, with a fence running across from left to right, about halfway up. What appeared to be a body was slumped bonelessly against the sodden wooden rails, looking as if it would fall without their support.

Deepbriar climbed over the gate and ran, his heart thumping as if it would burst with the effort. The rag doll figure didn’t move as he approached, though to Deepbriar it seemed his breathing was making enough noise to waken the dead. With a feeling of unreality he recognised Harry Bartle’s checked cap and knitted scarf. Gasping for breath he reached out to the sagging shoulder, afraid that the body would fall at his touch. ‘Harry?’

The young man leapt as if he’d been hit, straightening up and turning, his fists coming up in a swift gesture of defence. His face was paper-white, and his eyes were like two dark holes poked in fresh snow. He stared wildly at the constable.

Deepbriar dragged in a lungful of cold damp air. ‘Harry?’ he said again.

Bartle shuddered, a deep involuntary spasm that shook his whole body. Gradually, as if he was coming from a deep sleep, he focused his gaze on the face of the man before him. ‘Did you see it?’ he asked bleakly.

‘See it?’ Deepbriar was confused. ‘I heard it. I heard something. It wasn’t you that yelled then lad? You’re all right?’

‘I think so. But …’ He sunk his head into his hands. ‘Dear Lord!’ Despite coming from a man who never entered the village church except for weddings and funerals, it sounded more like a desperate prayer than blasphemy. ‘I hope I never see a thing like that again!’

‘What did you see?’ Deepbriar shone the lamp across the deserted field, the beam illuminating nothing but wet grass.

‘Up there,’ Harry said, pointing to a copse of trees that crowned the hill and straggled away down the slope towards Quinn’s farmhouse. He gave another convulsive shudder. ‘I don’t know what it was.’ His voice shook. ‘I don’t even know what made me look that way. Then there was that scream … I leapt off the bike and ran up here.’ He gestured at the lamp in Deepbriar’s hand. ‘I was an idiot, I didn’t think of bringing that. There was a break in the clouds, just for a second, and that’s when I saw it.’

‘Saw what?’

‘I’m not drunk, Mr Deepbriar, I swear. I only had a pint all evening.’ The colour was coming back to Harry’s face now, and he grimaced. ‘You’ll think I’m crazy.’

‘Can’t judge that unless you tell me,’ Deepbriar said reasonably, playing the beam of the lamp across the line of trees.

Harry Bartle swallowed hard. ‘Well, for a start it had a long head, pale coloured, coming up to a sort of blunt point. And it was big. Wide as well as high, if you know what I mean. The top of it was a good three foot above that bit of fence you can see there.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t describe it. It was like something out of a nightmare. It wasn’t human, it couldn’t have been. Its body was misshapen, lumpy just below the head, then sort of rounded. The way it moved was weird, like its legs were too short for its body.’ He shook his head. ‘You know me, Mr Deepbriar, I never swallowed any of that flying saucer stuff, but maybe I was wrong.’

The constable patted his shoulder. ‘I reckon I’ll take a look up there, see if there’s anything to see. I won’t believe in Martians until I’ve shaken one by the hand. A man’s mind can play funny tricks in the dark,’ he went on, reassuringly, but he couldn’t help remembering that awful scream; he too might have been ready to see monsters if he’d been confronted with something out of the ordinary just at that moment.

‘I’ll come with you,’ Harry said firmly, climbing on to the railings. ‘I think I’d rather be going out of my head than believe that I saw what I thought I saw.’ He paused astride the fence. ‘Am I making sense?’

‘Enough. Don’t you fret, perhaps you got a bit overheated getting yourself up here so fast. A long time ago, when I was a lad, I had a spot of fever. And there I was, lying in bed, telling my poor mother to throw these three big dogs out of my room, because they were keeping me awake! I can still remember what they looked like, they were as real to me as you are right now. For years I thought she’d been telling me fibs when she swore they weren’t there.’

‘The scream was real,’ Harry reminded him.

‘That’s why we’re going up there,’ Deepbriar said. ‘Can you tell exactly where you saw this thing?’

‘It was inside the fence,’ Harry replied, his eyes following the sweep of the lamp. ‘There, just by that big beech tree.’

They reached the spot and peered over the wooden rails. Just inside, the tangle of undergrowth was too thick to have allowed anyone through, but a little further into the wood a grassy track ran between the trees. Deepbriar worked his way towards it, but he couldn’t make out any tracks. ‘It’s no good,’ he said, ‘I’ll have to come back in daylight, we’ll only trample on the evidence, if there is any. Was it going towards Quinn’s farm, or away from it?’

‘Away.’ Harry pointed. ‘Down there. And it was moving fast.’

As any midnight prowler would, Deepbriar thought, if he was afraid of being discovered. But he was at a loss to explain the thing Harry had seen, or the reason for that terrible scream.

The sun rose in a glory of red and yellow streaks splashed broadly across the eastern sky. Deepbriar breathed in deeply and forgot to care about the shortness of his night’s sleep. The rain had left the world clean and fresh, and even the coldness of the air seemed invigorating rather than unpleasant; he was in a rare good mood as he cycled out towards Quinn’s farm, heading for the spot where he’d found Harry Bartle the night before. Having received his assurance that he’d fit in a visit to Mrs Emerson, Mary had thawed a little over breakfast, and although she hadn’t totally forgiven him yet, she’d given him a second rasher of bacon.

Another source of pleasure was the knowledge that it was Saturday, so he was only on duty until midday. He’d had four hours sleep, which was enough, and no matter what happened he was determined to spend a few hours in the company of Dick Bland that afternoon.

In daylight the little copse on the hill was a place of peaceful green solitude, in keeping with his cheerful frame of mind. Deepbriar located the beech tree and climbed over the fence, noticing the marks he and Harry had left the night before. Under the canopy of leaves the green track ran away to left and right. A little reluctantly he turned to the right, towards Quinn’s farm. He didn’t particularly want to see Ferdy Quinn, but if Harry’s apparition had been the mischief-making prowler then he’d have to find out what he’d been up to this time. With luck he might have left some sign of his passing.

The path skirted the wood then led out through a gate to follow an old trackway between two hedges. A few yards beyond the gate Deepbriar found what he was looking for. A patch of mud in the centre of the track held a boot print. The impression was perfectly clear, and it had obviously been left since the rain stopped. Unless Ferdy or one of his farm hands had been out overnight, then it looked as if he’d finally made a breakthrough.

Deepbriar measured and sketched the imprint, which had been left by a man’s right foot, in a size nine boot. If there had been more damage done at Quinn’s farm then perhaps he might persuade Sergeant Hubbard to send somebody to take a cast of it. He had a momentary vision of himself giving evidence in court, while the lawyer presented exhibit ‘B’, and he explained how he had run the villain to ground, thanks to this vital piece of evidence. The judge was congratulating him profusely on his skill in cracking the case, before the bubble suddenly burst. Deepbriar shook his head. It was funny the effect a bright sunny morning could have on a man.

Having come this far, he decided to follow the trail all the way. He had some bread and cheese in his pocket for elevenses, and although it wasn’t yet nine o’clock he fetched it out as he strode down the hill, keeping his eyes on the ground as he ate. His perseverance paid off; he found two more partial prints, one of them of the left boot, which showed signs of wear on the outside of the heel. A gleam in his eye, Deepbriar made a record of that as well. Minecliff wasn’t a big place, he reckoned he’d have the case all wrapped up in a couple of days.

There was the usual morning bustle going on at Quinn’s farm. Deepbriar spotted the farmer himself, just coming out of the house on the heels of old Bob.

Ferdy Quinn stared at the constable. ‘Well, I suppose it proves something, you being on the way when I telephoned. But you didn’t stop him last night, did you?’

‘So, I was right, he was here again.’ Deepbriar scanned the yard. ‘What was it this time?’

‘He’s taken to thieving,’ Quinn said grimly. ‘Something’s gone missing.’

‘Not the heifers again?’

‘No, this isn’t just a matter of a gate being left open.’ Quinn marched across the yard, Deepbriar and old Bob trailing in his wake. ‘You were supposed to be out making sure nothing like this happened, constable. And now I’ve been robbed.’ He came to a halt and waved a hand dramatically. ‘There!’

It was a pigsty. And it was empty. Deepbriar stared at the emptiness, then looked back at Quinn, as the light dawned. So that was it! He couldn’t help the smile that flickered at the corners of his mouth; it really was a good morning. The mystery of Harry’s alien was solved, and he was well on the way to making an arrest.

‘I don’t know what you’ve got to be so pleased about! Where were you last night when somebody was running off with my prize sow?’ Quinn demanded furiously.

‘Keeping watch,’ Deepbriar said. ‘A man can only be in one place at a time. Your villain has all the luck, I’ll say that for him. However, this time we’ve had a bit of luck of our own. I think he’s left us some evidence. Did you or any of your men come down that path since the rain stopped last night?’ He pointed at the track he’d followed from the copse on the hill.

‘I certainly didn’t,’ Quinn replied, obviously mystified. ‘I’ll find out.’ He hurried off and came back a couple of minutes later, shaking his head. ‘No, they all came straight into the yard. What’s that track got to do with anything?’

‘It was used by a man in size nine boots,’ Deepbriar said triumphantly. ‘And I’ve got a good print of the pattern on the sole.’

From inside the next sty came a squeal of outrage, and a large pink pig appeared, shaking itself indignantly as it rushed out into the walled yard at the front, followed a moment later by a cluster of little pigs.

‘Give Ant a hand with that feed, Bob,’ Ferdy Quinn said.

‘It’s on its way,’ the old man replied, pottering towards them bowlegged under the weight of two full buckets.

Deepbriar stared down at the sow, which had its front trotters up on the wall as it yelled for its breakfast. He’d heard plenty of pigs in the past, he should have known what had made that inhuman scream the previous night. Come to that, so should Harry. He hid another grin as he shook his head. If he let on in the Speckled Goose, young Bartle would never hear the end of it. Martians!

‘Exactly how would our man go about stealing a pig?’ he asked, as Bob tipped the food over the wall into a trough. ‘They’re not exactly easy to drive, I’d guess.’

‘That they ain’t,’ the old man replied. ‘If’n a sow don’t want to go someplace then her won’t, not nohow, and Matilda was a right independent-minded old biddy.’

‘So it might be easier to pick her up and carry her?’

‘Could be.’ Bob sighed, grimacing as he straightened his back, and giving his boss a baleful glance. ‘If you’m got the strength, that is. Mind you, Matilda ain’t such a big ’un as this ’ere. Time was I could hoist that beast on my shoulders an’ not notice her was there!’

Piggy back, Deepbriar thought. Perhaps that was where the phrase came from. Harry’s monster had been a man, and the pale deformed head was a pig’s snout pointing skywards. So all he had to do was find a strong man with short legs, wearing boots that fitted the print in the wood.

‘Constable?’ Ferdy Quinn interrupted his train of thought, and somehow also anticipating it. ‘Are you sure Bert Bunyard’s out of action?’