The Drowning Ground (3 page)

I picked up my pint and took a large gulp, quite content to watch my friends talk. Pubs are one of my favourite things about England. We don't really get them back home. Not like this anyway.

One of the locals, a skinny old farmer, bent down, picked up a log, threw it roughly on the fire and then kicked it once with the toe of his boot, so that it rested more firmly in the back of the grate. The log, flickering and spluttering, caught fire. Outside, the branches of the trees stirred restlessly in the growing darkness, as the wind picked up and raced along the ancient walls of the pub.

3

The phone woke me the next morning, and, shivering, I reached for it and stared through the gap in the curtains. Frost clung stubbornly to the edges of the windows, and the sullen silence out in the woods was so deep that you could almost reach out and touch it. I mumbled into the phone, wrote down the address, changed quickly, grabbed a coffee and then drove straight to Lower Quinton.

It was a short drive, but it took me a while to find the entrance to the field, spotting it only when I saw the blue lights of the ambulance spinning above the treetops. I slowed down and parked my car behind one of two unmarked transit vans. I stepped out, opened the boot, got my wellington boots and then hurriedly put them on before moving quickly along the muddy path.

Light was just beginning to push through the mass of cloud above, and there was a stiff breeze blowing. The whole village was still asleep. I walked quickly through the gate and stopped when I reached the ambulance. Its back doors were open, and there was a thin old lady perched on the edge of a stretcher. She was clutching forlornly at a green overcoat in her lap, and a thin trickle of blood was crawling its way down her forehead and towards her left eye. Without thinking, I stepped forward to help her, then stopped when I saw that a medic was already rummaging about for a bandage in the back.

All the same, I peered in. Yes, it was a nasty cut all right. You could see it underneath the grey hair. She was going to need stitches, and quite a few by the looks of it.

I put my head inside. ‘Are you all right?' I asked her.

She looked at me as if noticing me for the first time, smiled and didn't say anything. Poor dear, I thought. She must be going slightly batty. But then the smile slowly turned into an impatient and sarcastic grimace as it drew slowly back along her teeth.

‘Well, of course I'm not all right, am I?' she said. ‘Do I look all right to you? I'm cold and I'm wet and all I want to do is go home,' she said, and emphasized the word ‘home' by nodding her head forward, which only made the blood flow faster towards her eye. ‘But this horrible little man,' she said, glaring at the medic, ‘won't let me and now I don't know where my Jacky is.'

‘Your what?' I said, wondering if it might be a brand of hearing aid or perhaps a type of English walking stick that I had never heard of.

She looked at me as if I had just said the most stupid thing she had ever heard in her entire life. ‘My Jacky. My dog, man. My dog.'

But I was already backing out. ‘I'm sure your dog's fine,' I said a little meekly, turning on my heel and moving towards the gate. Old bag, I thought, and then at almost exactly the same time my mind moved as if of its own accord to search for the Argentinian equivalent:
Vieja Bruja
– ‘Old Witch'.

By the gate I saw that the old woman's dog was being taken care of by a young police constable called Varley. There were plenty of words in English and Spanish for Varley – none-too-flattering ones – but I tried not to think of them. The dog, I noticed without much surprise, was already causing him trouble.

Varley was patting the dog behind the ears and trying to settle it. But that didn't seem to be working, so he got down on his haunches and tried to make it sit and stay there by pressing its back legs down on to the ground, imploring it all the while to calm down. But the dog, a rakish and very young-looking fox terrier, seemed hell-bent on racing back up the hill. It hopped forward on its two hind legs, straining against the lead, whining in its desperation to examine the strange and exciting phenomenon it had just seen up on Meon Hill.

Varley looked up when he heard me approach and momentarily lost concentration, letting slip his grip on the lead. The dog suddenly pulled away, and the lead slipped out of Varley's hands. Varley stumbled and then fell over into the mud, fumbling for the lead but missing it by the very tips of his fingers as the dog began to crawl under the gate.

But by then I was already speeding up towards him. I took a few quick strides and stamped on the dog's lead, stopping it dead in its tracks. I reeled the creature in like a fish before tying the lead to the gate. Varley looked like I was about to give him a bollocking. But it was too early, and I was too cold and still half asleep. Instead, I looked with some admiration at the woman's dog and patted it around the ears while Varley brushed his jacket off as best he could.

The dog at last seemed to calm down, and, now knowing that there was no chance of getting back up the hill, it looked wistfully upwards towards it from time to time, sometimes gazing at me and then Varley in a friendly sort of way.

‘This little bugger belongs to the lady in the ambulance, I presume,' I said. ‘The lady who called it in.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘She looks pretty banged up,' I said, already feeling guilty about calling her an old bag even if I hadn't actually said it out loud.

‘I think she's all right, sir. The cut's not as bad as it looks. But they're going to have to take her to A & E and do a head scan just in case. She fell over when she tried to climb the stile and hit her head. She was in a bit of a hurry to get to a phone, y'see.'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘I can imagine. Just walking along minding your own business and suddenly that.'

‘Well, yes, sir,' Varley said, as if I had just said something rather insensitive. ‘I know I'm not going to forget it in a hurry.'

‘You've been up there, then?' I said, surprised.

‘Yes, sir. I was first on the scene, and, as the lady wasn't making much sense, I thought I'd better check. She kept going on about a dog or something. About how she knew who it was up there because she recognized his dog.'

‘His dog?' I said. ‘So his dog must still be on the hill.'

‘I guess it must be,' Varley said, as if realizing this for the first time. ‘Must have run off, though, because I didn't see it.' He looked baffled; then his face brightened. ‘But I did see a body – there's definitely a body up there. The old lady's dog found it. She told me that the moment she let her dog off his lead, he went racing up the hill like a demon. He must have sniffed out the body. And when she got to the top, Jacky was there, wagging his tail like mad and sniffing at it.' Varley shot the dog an indignant look.

I wrapped my coat more tightly round my body before glancing up at the hill rising in the distance beyond the gate. ‘Apart from Dr Brewin and his team, anybody else been up and tried to get in?'

‘Only a couple. Villagers with their dogs. The hill's a popular run for them, so I told them there had been an accident. And sent them home.'

‘Good,' I said. ‘Keep on telling them that.'

At the far end of a garden, by the side of the path, was a neat-looking cottage. It was very cold outside. I looked at Varley. His jacket was splattered with mud. He had a long day ahead of him; we all did.

‘Dr Brewin probably told you this already,' I said, watching Varley carefully. ‘But I'm going to tell you again just in case. No one is to go past that gate without his say so. No one. It's his crime scene for now, and he decides who comes in and who doesn't. So you radio in every time anyone tries to get access. And I mean anyone. Okay?'

‘Yes, sir,' Varley said. ‘But your…' He paused before saying, ‘Well … your sergeant asked me to tell you to enter the field from the garden over there.' Varley pointed to the garden that ran along the side of the path. ‘He's informed the owner and he's given orders that everyone is to go through that way, sir, so as not to disturb the path into the field.'

There was a brief moment of confusion. In my mind the image that flashed before me was of Powell. But then I remembered. Powell was sick. Really sick.

‘Oh. He has, has he?' I said, my eyes looking towards the small field on the other side.

‘Yes, sir.'

‘And I'm to take the other way, am I?'

‘That's what he said.'

I grunted and looked down the path. A member of the forensic team was getting some pictures of the mud just below the bottom of the stile at the other end. Nearby was a sign erected by the field's ungracious owner that read:
THE FIELD IS NOT HERE FOR THE BENEFIT OF WALKERS
. Someone, probably the village wag, had crossed out the word ‘not' with a felt-tip pen.

I patted the dog one more time and strode towards the garden, sensing eyes watching me. I looked right, beyond the small neat garden and into the kitchen of the cottage, where a pale-looking boy, still dressed in his Spider-Man pyjamas, was staring at me. I gave him a wave and, as if against his better judgement, he waved back.

4

Meon Hill had once been the site of an Iron Age settlement, and wide, corrugated ridges undulated all the way across it. Black hedgerows surrounded the fields, and at the top a handful of ancient oak trees clustered around the hill's crest. I had glimpsed the hill rising on the horizon from time to time from my car, but I had never actually been there before. It was quiet and empty and somehow mournful too.

I trudged across the ridges of the field; the mud clung to my boots in large wet clumps. I dug my gloved hands deeper into my pockets as I walked, already dreaming of warmer climes. The cold is something that I have never been able to get used to. It reaches deep into my bones, and, no matter how many layers of clothing I put on, the wind slips beneath them. Scarves, mittens, gloves and hats seem to serve no purpose at all for me. The cold shakes and rattles the teeth in my head so badly that sometimes I can hardly think or even breathe, and every winter without fail I always end up in bed with a damned lousy cold or flu for a week, no use to anyone. And in the winter it is always so dark out here in the country. You'd think I'd be used to it by now. But I'm not.

I looked up. Dr Brewin had fixed yellow police tape around the oak trees at the top of the hill, and my step quickened when I saw it. For a moment the cold was forgotten, and I was suddenly eager to get on with it. But when I glanced up again a few moments later I saw Graves coming down the hill towards me. I stopped in my tracks and waited for him.

Graves's blond hair was just visible underneath a knitted hat, which he pulled firmly over his ears in a sudden gesture as he caught sight of me. Around his neck was a matching grey scarf, which he had tucked very precisely into the collar of his overcoat. He was wearing a suit. On anybody else the woolly hat with the black suit would have been ridiculous, but on Graves the combination seemed somehow to work, creating an impression that was elegant and yet roguish at the same time. Unable to help myself, I gazed down critically at my now rather threadbare trench coat and straightened my tie. Graves seemed immaculate and, I couldn't help but think, kind of brand-new-looking too.

‘Good morning, Graves,' I said. It was an apt name for a policeman. I'd thought it the first time I'd seen it on his file.

‘Morning, sir. We already know who the victim is,' Graves said, a little out of breath but obviously pleased with himself. ‘Dr Brewin recognized him. Apparently he owns this field. He's called Frank. Frank Hurst.'

The moment, the very moment I heard that name, I thought of a swimming pool in summer and of a dead woman lying face up on its surface.

‘Apparently he lives on the other side of this hill,' Graves said, looking around.

‘Frank Hurst. Jesus. What happened to him?'

‘Someone's rammed a pitchfork into his throat,' Graves said, looking as if he wished that there had been a nicer way to say it.

‘Jesus,' I said again.

‘You knew him?'

‘You could say that,' I said grimly. I paused, thinking, and gave him a long look. Graves had turned a little pale and was trembling inside his coat, though he was trying very hard to cover it up – not because of the cold but because of whatever it was he had seen at the top of the hill. You tried to prepare yourself for what was waiting for you, but sometimes it wasn't enough.

‘Well, you'd better send someone to his house,' I said a little doubtfully. ‘And you'd better try to get as many PCs as they can spare. We're going to need them. You can do that for me, can't you, Graves?' I said hesitantly. ‘Set all that up?'

Graves smiled. ‘Oh, I'm sure I'll manage.'

I nodded. ‘All right, then.'

I moved up the hill. Frank Hurst. I turned around suddenly. Graves was already nearing the gate.

‘Graves!' I yelled.

He turned around and trotted back up the hill.

‘He has a daughter,' I said. ‘She may still live there – in the house – and there's a housekeeper or at least there used to be. She might be there too. If she isn't, you should try to find her – be worth talking to her, I think. Lives locally, if I remember rightly. But find his daughter first – be good if we can let her know before the papers get wind of it and she learns the hard way.'

Graves nodded and immediately started down the steep incline. I watched critically for a few moments, until he disappeared beyond the hedgerow. Graves looked more than a little rattled. I turned around and started to walk, feeling oddly out of place all of a sudden. Sometimes the strangeness of the countryside hits me. And it struck me right then like a cold wet slap as I trudged alone under the moving shadows of the clouds and up the hill. To me, for a moment, the hill seemed completely unreal, as if the earth before me had split into a thousand cracks and one more step would see me flung straight into the abyss. Maybe it was the cold that was making my head spin or the remnants of the dream of home, which now seemed to be following me as I shuffled up the hill. I tried to shake it off. But it was no good.