Last Out From Roaring Water Bay (7 page)

Debbie looked at me strangely. “Yes I know of him. But that isn’t his real name; it’s Billy Slade. Why do you want know, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Your father said that when he and Billy were kids, during the war, Billy had been ranting on about a plane crashing in the fields at the time.”

Her lips pursed in surprise. “My father never told me that story.”

“Well actually there was no story to tell because no one believed Billy at the time. Now, after the discovery of the wreck, your father felt a bit guilty for not believing Billy and I think he wanted to make amends, but he never got the chance with…well…the accident intervened. I thought it would be a good gesture to have a word with Billy myself and finish what your father intended. Do you know where I can find him?”

“He’s still in the area. He’s in a nursing home at the far side of the village. It’s an old converted mansion called ‘Three Trees’. You do know he has learning difficulties?”

“Your father did tell me about his condition.”

“Well I don’t think it’ll do any harm you visiting him, Mister Speed.”

“Please, call me Shacks.”

“Well, Shacks, I just can’t imagine Billy actually remembering anything that far back in time.”

“I know it’s a long shot but think I should still try. It’s what your father would have wanted.”

I felt Winston nudged past our legs. I glanced at him concerned. His ears were pricked and he begun to growl, pulling on his restraint, his eyes seemed to be focused on the stone wall at the far side of the church. She had to drag him back forcibly.

“Something’s seemed to have spooked the dog,” I said, forgetting where I was; not that I believe in ghosts.

“He’s not usually this agitated. He’s quite placid normally.”

It got me thinking that perhaps there was something more logical concerning the dog’s behaviour. That maybe Winston was on the same wavelength that I was on and he was sensing that we were being watched from unknowns. Winston’s antics gave me a fantastic idea.

“What’s going to happen to Winston now?” I asked seriously.

Obviously Debbie hadn’t given the matter much consideration. “I don’t really know. I guess he’ll have to stay with us for a while.”

“What if I look after him? It’s the least I can do until you sort things out here at the farm.”

She was delighted with my proposal. “Are you sure, Shacks? It’ll be a great help. I must confess I’m a little reluctant to keep him at my house. I’m actually allergic to animal hairs.”

“That’s settled then.”

“You
will
you take care of him properly?”

I assured her I would and I would keep in constant touch.

She was alarmed. “You’re not coming back to the farm? There’s food and drink laid on for everybody. Oh please do, Shacks.”

It had been my intention to return immediately to London to formulate my plan of action. One look at her desperate expression changed my mind. I smiled, “I wouldn’t dream of missing the occasion.”

“Good. While you’re there at the farm you can collect Winston’s dog bowls, his tins of meat and biscuits; he needs regular feeding and watering. And you’ll need his doggie-do bags for when he does a number two on the pavements or grass verges.”

“Doggie-do bags,” I said unappealingly.

“Yes, to pick up his smelly bits.”

“Can’t I just leave it for the flies to disperse?”

“Not a pleasant experience I grant you, but it has to be done. The local council are very strict on people who inconsiderately leave dog poo on the public walkways.”

“He should have gotten a cat instead. There are no laws to govern where they leave their crap, and it’s usually in some unsuspecting corner in my garden.”

She smiled at my dig at the feline world and handed me the dog lead. “Here, you might as well get used to handling him.”

I flicked my head into the air wondering if I made the right choice and headed back to the Roadster with a new recruit to my regular army obediently by my heels. Yet there was still something bothering Winston as we walked back to the car park. There was nothing or nobody I could see but Winston still had issues with the stone wall at the far side of the church. In Winston I now had an ally. I would use him as my early warning system to sniff out the enemy before I did, or at least I hoped he’d respond quicker than I would.

Back at the farmhouse, eating a freshly cut sandwich, I happened to gaze out of the kitchen window and saw young Benny going about his daily business of taking the herd in for milking; somebody had to keep the farm running. I felt aggrieved for young Benny, as the farmhand he must find it eerily strange to be without the old man about the place. I only wished the whole frigging drama had been a bad dream and I would see Tommy come wandering out of the cow shed wearing the same clothes as when I last saw him...

Debbie disrupted my thoughts when she entered the kitchen and offered me another sandwich. I politely declined. I wasn’t really hungry but I did accept the offer of a sweet sherry though I could have done with something stronger. When the chance came I slipped away from the depressing atmosphere, left the farmhouse and went to see for myself where everything had happened to cause this unhappy occasion.

I located the slurry tank where Tommy had died and decided to climb to the top. I was about to mount the first rung of the vertical steel ladder that was attached to the side of the galvanized tank when I hesitated. Something on the ground had caught my eye. I reached down and picked up a large, rusty adjustable spanner which had been concealed by overgrown grass at the base of the tank. On examining the tool I noticed the tip of the adjustable jaws had a small piece, of what I assumed it to be, dried skin with a few strands of short black hair. I didn’t need any forensic freak to confirm to me that the piece of tissue was the missing piece from Winston’s skull. It wasn’t surprising they found Winston concussed having received a crack across the head with such a heavy tool as he probably tried to protect Tommy.

I cursed suddenly when I realized what I had just done and how naive I’d been as I held the spanner tight in my hand. My fingerprints were all over the handle. Worse, and without thinking about my actions, I’d just contaminated the possible finger-prints of the previous holder, because I was sure that Winston would have gone berserk if I had shown him the weapon that had clobbered him. What a shame the police had missed what would be vital evidence, but then again, they were investigating the death of Tommy and not his dog.

I threw the spanner to the ground in the almost identical spot from where I’d retrieved it and climbed to the top of the tank. I stood on the inspection platform spanning across the edge of the tank and ran a few things through my mind. The platform was long and wide enough to hold at least three men. I say three men because I could well imagine Tommy being forcibly dragged up here and threatened by the bogus MDP men that had come calling at my home. And after they had gotten the information they wanted from him, they threw Tommy into the tank of cow shit and probably held his head under until he drowned. It was a horrible thought but it all sounded too feasible to be ignored.

Apart from my imagination working overtime, there wasn’t much else to see. The tank had now been emptied yet the smell of cow shit still lingered. I suddenly felt sick. It was time for me to leave. I made my way back to the farmhouse and found Debbie to tell her I was leaving. I collected Winston and his doggie belonging, and went to see Billy Slade. On the way I called into a toy shop.

*

I found Three Trees nursing home and drove the obligatory ten miles an hour along the driveway and parked near the main entrance of a 1920 red brick building. I took a carry bag from the rear seat and told Winston to guard the car, which he seemed to understand. I got out and approached the large oak door and rang the doorbell. A nubile girl with her hair in plaits, dressed in a white tunic, answered the door. I asked to see the matron of the establishment. She smiled pleasantly and ushered me inside, through another set of coloured glass doors and told me to wait at reception. I immediately smelled hospital bleach. It reminded me of my childhood memories and my first encounter with a syringe the size of a javelin.

“Can I help you?” A woman’s stern voice came from behind me.

I turned and was greeted by a woman with peroxide blond hair, wearing a dark blue uniform and with a face like thunder.

I smiled politely. “Is it possible I could talk to Billy Slade?”

She looked at me quizzically. “Are you a relative of Billy’s?”

“No, Matron. I won’t keep him long.”

“What is it you wish to speak to Billy about, Mister Ah?”

“Shackleton Speed, Matron. I’m here on behalf of an old friend of Billy’s; the friend I refer to has died recently and I have something to pass on to Billy from him.”

At first she didn’t appear to take kindly to my intrusion into her highly efficiently run nursing home and greeted my request to spend some time with Billy Slade with open hostility. “The normal procedure is to arrange an appointment, Mister Speed; not just turn up when it’s convenient for you.”

“I know I’ve been a little rash not arranging a proper time, and I can only apologize for the inconvenience. I only arrived from London this morning and unfortunately, I have to return to London tonight.”

“It’s not just your timing, Mister Speed; more that it’s very unusual for Billy to receive visitors. In fact, it’s never.”

I was determined that she let me see him. “I’ve just come from the funeral.”

“Oh I see.”

“The deceased had left me instructions that I was to pass on this gift to Billy-,” I showed her what I had in the carry bag, “-and to convey a message to him, an important and confidential message.”

Talk of death softened her up. “Very well Mister Speed. I will allow it to pass on this occasion, but for future reference, you must make an appointment in advance.”

I assured her I would; well I grovelled really.

“Now I feel I must warn you that it’s important you’re patient with Billy, as he sometimes struggles to understand what’s going on around him.” She pointed the way. “Go through the lounge and out of the French windows. You’ll find Billy at the bottom of the garden on his favourite bench; it overlooks the wheat fields. Please avoid walking on the grass; keep to the gravel pathways at all times.”

I sensed Matron watching me closely as I exited through the French doors and set off down the pathway searching for somebody I’d never seen before. Eventually I came across an old chap, sitting alone on a wooden bench donated by some benefactor. The chap was gazing skyward in a world of his own, oblivious to my presence as I approached. I wondered if he even heard me and he was perhaps deaf. I presumed I was looking down at Billy Slade.

Billy Slade had tight cropped white hair and a sunken mouth where his teeth should have been. He was dressed in a thick, blue woolly jumper that was tucked into the waist of a pair of grey baggy trousers which were secured by a leather belt and a pair of red braces. This I could see was a man who lacked confidence and I wondered if I was doing the right thing being here.

“Hello, Billy!” I said pleasantly, trying not to scare him with my sudden introduction.

His head turned to face me. He obviously wasn’t deaf after all.

“My name is Shacks,” I told him, a slight smile to assure that I was no threat to him.

He smiled back, displaying a set of gums. His, “hello”, came out slow and in an instance he was up onto his feet wobbling slowly up and down the pathway with his arms outstretched and between rasping the sound of engine noises, shouting out at the top of his voice, “I…like…planes.”

Embarrassed by his strange antics and the attention he might attract, I said. “Why don’t you come in to land, Billy, I want to talk to you.”

I did feel a bit of an idiot saying that and hoped no one heard my off-the-cuff remark to him.

He sat down eventually, exhausted after completing ten paces out and ten paces back. In between catching his breath he spoke wearily. “I was a pilot…you know… during the war…against the Germans.”

I played along. “Yes I know you were, Billy. That’s what I want to talk to you about; during the war. You remember the war?”

“Oh…heard then…I was a pilot?”

“Yes, Billy, I heard you were a good pilot.”

“I…like…planes!”

“Yes, Billy, I know you do.”

I reached into the plastic bag I’d brought with me and retrieved a metal replica of a Spitfire plane I’d purchased at the toy shop on the way over and showed it to him. Billy was delighted. He made a grab for the plane but I selfishly drew it away from his grasp. I said, “It’s yours, Billy, only if you listen and concentrate on what I’m going to ask you. Okay?”

By his enthusiastic nod I assumed he understood. I talked slowly and clearly so he could fully absorb exactly what I was saying. “Think back, Billy, when you were a young boy during the war. Remember the war Billy? A plane, just like this one in my hand, crashed in the local fields. Remember that, when you were a little boy?”

The vacant stare he portrayed didn’t quite instil the confidence from him that I was hoping for. To be honest I was probably wasting my time on him. Debbie did give me ample warning that I would fail on all accounts. But prevail I must because illiterate Billy was all I had to go on. I pressed him again. “Remember telling people that you saw the crash. No one believed you, did they, Billy?”

“I was…a pilot! No one believed…I was…a pilot.”

I was losing patience quicker than I could think and the frustration was clear in my voice. I said sharply, “I believe you, Billy. You were an excellent pilot, but do you remember the frigging plane?”

He stared at me like a frightened child. I’d lost before I’d even started. I sighed heavily, disappointed by my failure to communicate with Billy. I suppose my tactical approach was doomed because I’d no experience in dealing with people like Billy. It had been a long shot anyway and though I hate the word defeat, it was pointless pursuing something that was going to lead nowhere.

I shoved the replica plane in Billy’s hands and his eyes suddenly brightened. At least I would leave him happy but it left me at a dead end. Where I went from here I’d no idea other than I’d be dragging my feet for the rest of the day wondering what I could have achieved. I was about to rise from the bench when Billy, twisting the plane through the air playing, said something quite unbelievable.