Nettlecombe Hatchet: Part Twelve

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  To Rose’s surprise, when Ryan returned home from work that Wednesday evening he was actually whistling. He even gave Baby his sunglasses to play with for a moment, as he slipped his jacket over the back of a kitchen chair.

  ‘There you go, mate,’ he said, ‘proper Pilots those are, none of your cheap rubbish. Mind you don’t bend them, or it’ll come out of your pocket money.’

  ‘They’re not really suitable…’ said Rose.

  ‘Don’t fuss, woman. He knows quality when he sees it. He’s a chip off the old block.’

  ‘You sound as if you’re feeling better,’ Rose put a mug of tea in front of Ryan. ‘Did you have a good day at work?’

  ‘I did indeed. Closed a blinder of a sale on a crap flat in Barnchester. Thought we’d be stuck with the sodding thing forever. And yeah, I do feel better. At last. Guts seem to have stopped giving me gip.’

  ‘Oh, that’s good.’ Rose hovered next to Baby, keeping a keen eye on the sunglasses. 

  ‘In fact,’ Ryan swigged at his tea, ‘I’m feeling so much better I’m going to work late tomorrow night. Catch up on some stuff.’

  Rose stiffened a little, her grip on Baby’s highchair tightening.

  ‘Tomorrow? That’s Thursday, isn’t it?’

  ‘Generally is after Wednesday. Don’t wait up.’ He threw her a glance, then paused, looking harder. ‘You had your hair done?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, yesterday.’

  ‘You didn’t say you were going into town. How much did that set me back?’

  ‘Nothing. A friend did it for me.’

  He gave a short laugh.

  ‘Didn’t know you had any friends. Hey! Watch the lenses, you little monster.’ He snatched the sunglasses from Baby’s over-enthusiastic grasp.  Baby responded by letting out an uncharacteristic wail of protest. Rose quickly calmed him by giving him her house keys to play with.

  ‘I’ll cook something nice for your tea, seeing as you’re feeling better,’ she said. ‘How about spaghetti Bolognese? With lots of herbs?’

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ he stood up, taking off his tie. ‘I’m off to watch the footie. Give me a shout when grub’s ready,’ he said, heading for the lounge. 

  Rose heard the tele click on. She set about fetching the ingredients she needed – onions, mince, green pepper, tinned tomatoes, and herbs. Lots of herbs.

  It was well past midnight when Ryan’s stomach finally settled enough to allow him to drop into an exhausted sleep. He had eaten well. Enjoyed his food. He had even said as much to Rose. But then, an hour or so later, the cramps and nausea had started again. It seemed he still hadn’t completely shaken off his tummy bug. Rose had fetched glasses of water and Pepto Bismol and hot-water bottles, while Ryan had spent the evening dashing to the bathroom, then staggering back to the bed. 

  Once both he and Baby were at last sleeping deeply and peacefully Rose went back downstairs. Quietly she took the car keys from Ryan’s jacket pocket, then made her way into the garage. She stood for a moment, looking at the sleek, flashy car in front of her. Then she picked up the Haines manual and began searching purposefully through it.

  Fliss waited until Rhian and Sam had gone back upstairs after supper before picking up the phone and settling herself on the window seat in the sitting room. It was still light, and the village looked at its chocolate box best in the low summer sun. She dialled Daniel’s home number, and was a little surprised to find him in.

  ‘Hi, Babe. How’s it going down there in darkest Dorset?’

  ‘Fine. Well, sort of,’ she said.

  ‘Oh? Something nasty in the woodshed?’

  ‘Unfortunately, yes.’

  ‘Hmm, tell me more.’

  ‘I will,’ she said, trying a firm, level tone, ‘but only if you don’t just make a joke of the whole thing.’

  ‘Now, does that sound like me?’

  ‘I mean it, Dan. This is serious.’

  ‘OK. You’ve got my attention.’

  Fliss took a deep breath.

  ‘You remember I told you I had my suspicions about Withy Hill, about what they were up to?’

  ‘Yes, of course, I do have a marginally more long-term memory than a goldfish. They want to build a laboratory of some sort. You did mention it, once or twice.’

  Fliss chose to ignore his sarcasm, and resisted rising to the bait.

  ‘Well I’ve found out more. I’ve been talking to Neville, and he says…’

  ‘Neville?’

  ‘Yes, Neville Meatcher, he works in the planning department of Barnchester Council. He says the plans have already been approved. We may even be too late to stop it. When we discussed it last night…’

  ‘Last night? Work late at the Council down there, do they?’

  ‘What? No, he came round here.’

  ‘Oh, I see, house calls. Better still.’ Suddenly Daniel’s tone was sharper.

  ‘This was not something he wanted to discuss in the office. Besides, he lives in the village, he didn’t even need to get his bicycle out – it was easy for him to pop round.’

  ‘I’m pleased to hear you’re getting to know the neighbours at last.’

  ‘Can I get to the point, or are you going to interrupt me every two seconds?’ It was Fliss’s turn to be sharp. Daniel didn’t respond, so she pressed on. ‘The thing is, it’s really unusual for an application to go through that quickly. And it bypassed the normal channels. Someone’s been bought.’

  ‘You can’t know that. Why would anyone go to so much trouble to get a chicken feed lab built?’

  ‘It’s not for chicken feed.’ Fliss paused, then said, ‘I decided to have a look around at the farm. The boss is away at the moment. Anyway, I found this room, a locked room. They’ve already been doing experiments and stuff in there, but keeping it secret. I found something. Something…horrible, Dan. They’ve been messing about with rats – I found one with five legs.’

  ‘Yeuch!’

  ‘That’s exactly what Neville said when I showed it to him.’

  ‘You stole this freak and took it home?’

  ‘No, no, of course not. We met in the woods. At night. It seemed more sensible.’

  ‘Meeting a strange man in a remote place after dark with a half-inched deformed rat…yeah, Babe, really sensible.’

  ‘Look, never mind about that. The point is, we’ve got to do something. They can’t be allowed to build the laboratory and do God knows what up there.’

  ‘I’m sure your friend Nigel…’

  ‘Neville.’

  ‘…whatever, I’m sure he has a chum on the local rag. The provincial press must be starved of decent stories, I’m sure they’d run with this one. It clearly has legs.’

  ‘Daniel! This is not funny.’

  ‘Well I don’t know what else you expect me to suggest. Doesn’t Neville have any bright ideas? You could pop round for a cup of sugar – muscovado, of course – and pick his brains. Assuming he has any left, given where he works.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, I had hoped you’d support me in this; that you’d actually pull your overpaid, over qualified, finger out and be of some help. But, oh no, you have to come over all adolescent and jealous…’

  ‘Jealous! Of Neville the neighbourhood nerd? I don’t think so.’

  ‘Listen to yourself! Why can’t you behave like a grown up for a change? Sometimes you’re more of a teenager than Rhian is,’ she told him.

  ‘Well excuse me for not being mature enough for your liking all of a sudden. Your new best friend isn’t a few years older than us, by any chance?’ Daniel wanted to know.

  ‘What on earth has that got to do with anything? I can’t believe you are more concerned about me talking to someone who happens to live in the village than…’

  ‘Talking to, meeting in woods, entertaining in your snug little home…’

  Fliss finally lost her temper.

 ‘Oh fine. Forget it, Daniel. Just forget the whole thing. You’re obviously not interested. Sorry I even bothered to ask. I’ll deal with the situation on my own.’

  ‘But you’re not on your own, are you – you’ve got Neville. Well, I’d hate to get in the way of burgeoning rural relations. Maybe I’ll give the sticks a miss this weekend. Leave you to it.’

  ‘Fine. You do that. Goodbye, Daniel,’ Fliss clicked off the phone and sat seething, her hands shaking more than a little. She bit her lip to stop infuriating tears from emerging. A noise behind her made her jump. She turned to see Rhian standing in the doorway, arms folded, mouth set in that determined line.

  ‘Ah,’ said Fliss, ‘I take it you heard…’

  Rhian didn’t move an inch.

  ‘I want to know everything. Right now. All the details. Particularly about the rat.’ She yelled over her shoulder, ‘Sam! Get down here! You’re going to want to hear this.’

  It took Fliss some time to tell all she knew to Rhian and Sam. Both girls were furious, for their own reasons. Sam was scandalised to think that such revolting activities had been going on right under her nose. Clearly her information sources were fallible after all. Rhian was shocked and mortified on behalf of the rats and chickens, and full of pique and indignation that her mother had tried to keep the whole business a secret from her. 

  ‘We didn’t want to worry you,’ Fliss tried to explain, ‘especially when we weren’t sure what was going on.’

  ‘Huh, it’s typical of Daniel,’ said Rhian. ‘He pretends to treat me like an adult, but when it comes down to it he still thinks I’m a child.’

  ‘No, actually, Daniel didn’t know about the rat and the planning until just now. You heard me telling him.’

  ‘So who is ‘we’?’

  ‘Neville and me. You know he came to see me last night.’

  Sam shook her head solemnly.

  ‘He’s in the enemy camp, Mrs Horton. You really shouldn’t be fraternising with him.’

  ‘He’s not in any camp. Nor am I. And I wouldn’t know how to fraternise. Anyway, it was your idea I speak to him in the first place.’

  ‘To gain information,’ Sam reminded her,  ‘there are clearly delineated boundaries in a case like this. It is important to observe them. Few people can be trusted with such sensitive evidence.’

  ‘Maybe so, but I had to show Neville the rat to convince him there was something going on. Otherwise he would never have checked up on the planning application. We’ve only just met, for heaven’s sake, why would he take my word for anything? Besides, he’s OK. He doesn’t approve of what’s going on any more than you do.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Rhian was unconvinced. ‘So what’s he going to do about it, then?’

   Fliss tried to sound positive, hoping to give the impression that everything was being dealt with.

  ‘We’re giving it some more thought – we need to come up with a sensible plan of action. No point rushing and making a mess of things.’

  ‘Right,’ said Rhian, ‘can’t imagine that anorak having a crap without putting it in his diary first.’

  ‘Rhian! You don’t even know the man. Just for once could you give someone the benefit of the doubt? Would it kill you?’

  ‘Well what’s he waiting for? A real man would be doing something, not just thinking about it.’

  ‘Rhian’s right,’ said Sam, ‘this is clearly a situation demanding direct action.’

  ‘Now hold on,’ Fliss stood up, the better to make her point, ‘let’s be absolutely clear about this. You are to do nothing, do you hear me? Nothing. This is important, and there are clearly some devious and single-minded people involved. I’m trusting you two to behave like adults here; I’ve told you everything.’

  ‘Only because you had no choice,’ Rhian pointed out.

  ‘That’s as may be, but you have to give me your word on this. Both of you. Your word that you won’t go charging off on your own doing something harebrained.’

  ‘Harebrained!’ Now Rhian stood up. ‘Oh yes, you’re really treating us like adults, I can see that.’

  ‘You know what I mean. No graffiti on the chicken sheds. No chaining yourselves to the yard gate. In fact, no going anywhere near Withy Hill Farm. Do I make myself clear?’

   The girls responded with a wilful silence.

  ‘I promise I will tell you as soon as there is something for you to do. Some way you can help. In the meantime you keep what I have told you to yourselves. Sam, that means not telling your parents for now, I’m afraid. Neville and I are going to come up with something. Trust me, this is not something we are going to sit back and let happen. OK?’

   Still there was no response.

  ‘OK?!’ Fliss tried again.

   There was another pause, and the girls looked at one another for a moment. Sam gave a nod, and Rhian turned back to her mother.

  ‘OK. You’ve got a week. If you haven’t come up with something by then, we will. Deal?’

  ‘Deal,’ Fliss agreed, before slumping onto the sofa as the girls went back upstairs.  She sat for a moment in the increasing gloom, exhausted by the hoop jumping she had to perform to communicate with Rhian, and flattened by her telephone conversation with Daniel. After a little more thought she picked up the phone again. She carried it out to the hall and searched through the local phone book, then dialled. The ringing tone sang away merrily for what seemed an unnecessarily long time, then Neville answered.

  ‘Hi, it’s me. Fliss.’

  ‘Ah, afraid I haven’t come up with a master plan yet,’ Neville told her.

  ‘No, don’t panic, nor have I,’ said Fliss. She took a steadying breath. ‘Actually I was calling to ask if your offer of dinner of Saturday night was still open? It seems I won’t be busy, after all.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Yes, of course. I’m glad you can make it.’ Neville sounded quite chipper all of a sudden. ‘I did warn you my sister and her husband will be there too, didn’t I? They’re determined to go to the Farmer’s Lodge on the Barnchester road. Not exactly a menu to die for.’

  ‘As long as it’s not a menu to die of.’

  ‘Fortunately they keep a surprisingly good cellar. Helps wash the scampi down. And it’s close. We could walk, if you like.’

  ‘Great. That’ll give us a chance to discuss you-know-what. Rhian knows everything, so we’re on borrowed time.’

  ‘I’ll call for you at seven on Saturday then,’ said Neville.

  After she had rung off Fliss sat for a while on the bottom stair, telephone in hand, and laughed when she realised she was worrying about what she was going to wear.

  Neville puffed as he pedalled, finding the journey home longer than usual. He had been forced to stay late at the office, yet again, due to an apparently urgent pile of trivia arriving on his desk at five-thirty.  Sharon had assured him it all had to be done then and there – orders from above, it seemed. This was the third day running Neville had had to work well beyond his normal hours, and he was beginning to think Mr Forbes was deliberately filling his time. Could he have got wind of Neville’s investigations into Withy Hill? It was possible. His increased workload had certainly had the effect of hampering his attempts of thinking up some way of exposing Withy Hill. Some way that did not involve losing his job, preferably.  But time was running out. Since Fliss’s revelation of the night before that Rhian now knew about the rat, he was keenly aware they would have to come up with something soon. But what? There was no point going to the press without some sort of proof. At best they would be laughed at, and at worst his boss could dismiss him and sue for slander. It was obvious they needed evidence, something incontrovertible. However, the idea of what might be involved in getting such evidence brought Neville out in a cold sweat.  

  He kept his bike well into the side of the road, hearing a fast car approaching from behind. He still bore the scars of his encounter of a few weeks ago with the Withy Hill lorry, and was somewhat wary of the combination of narrow roads and speeding traffic.  He wobbled slightly as the car flashed past, registering only as it disappeared that it was somehow familiar. He paused, foot on the floor, catching his breath, trying to focus his mind on a vague memory. Then it came to him where he had seen the blue Subaru before.

 ‘Claude sodding Lambert! Now where’s he going?’ he wondered aloud. He heard the engine noise change as it rounded the bend. Instead of gearing down and revving up to climb the hill towards the village it slowed almost to a halt. Neville pedalled on and made the corner just in time to catch sight of the car turning left up a private drive. There was a For Sale sign on the gatepost, above a smaller one bearing the name ‘The Larches.’ On impulse, Neville followed, taking care not to get close enough to be spotted. 

  The short drive led to a secluded and apparently empty house. Neville parked among the branches of a late-flowering rhododendron and watched. The car stopped to one side of the house and the driver got out. Neville was still some distance away, but even so he could clearly see that this was not Claude Lambert. He couldn’t make out the passenger, who was still sitting in the car. Curious, Neville left his bike hidden in the bush and crept forward until he reached the remnant of an old holly hedge. He hunkered down behind it, squinting out from the dense cover of the glossy leaves. Now he recognised the driver as a man from the village – Ryan Behr. Neville had had the dubious pleasure of dealing with the young estate agent several years ago when he had first rented his flat above the Post Office.  Ryan was plainly furious about something, his voice raised sufficiently for every word to easily carry as far as Neville.

  ‘Stupid, bastard, sodding thing!’ he yelled, banging his fist on the roof of the car. ‘What the fuck’s wrong with it now!’ He tore off his jacket, threw it onto the driver’s seat, then bent down to try and peer underneath the vehicle.

  The passenger door opened. Neville craned his neck to try and identify the person who was climbing out. It definitely wasn’t Claude. Nor, if memory served, was it Ryan’s rather plump, mousy wife, as far as Neville could see. The young woman was tall, slender, and expensively dressed. She had glossy blonde hair, held back off her face by a pair of sunglasses perched carefully on the top of her head, and a sharp, strident voice.

  ‘There’s no point losing your temper,’ she told Ryan. ‘I don’t know why you’re getting so upset anyway, I couldn’t hear anything.’

  ‘Then you must be sodding deaf,’ Ryan shouted back from under the car.

  ‘Oh, charming. Look, I didn’t come all the way out here just so you could spend the whole time searching for a silly rattling noise in your precious car.’

  ‘A clunk, not a rattle. It was a clunk. And it was coming from somewhere under here. It’s just one thing after a bloody ‘nother, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘Can’t you look for it later? I want to go inside. Where are the keys?’

  ‘In my jacket. You go on, I’ll be up in a minute.’

  ‘Promises, promises.’

  Neville watched as the woman checked through Ryan’s pockets. He had no interest in the car or the couple now he knew Claude was not there, but he was sure he’d be seen if he tried to leave. What would they think if they found him lurking in the bushes apparently spying on them? He would have to wait a few more minutes, just until they’d gone into the house.

  ‘I can’t find them,’ the woman spoke to Ryan’s back as he grovelled beside the car shining a torch on its underbelly. ‘Are you sure you brought them?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course I did.’ Ryan straightened up with some obvious difficulty. ‘Ow! Sod it!’ he grimaced and leant heavily on the car.

  ‘What on earth’s the matter now?’

  ‘My stomach. Ow!’

  ‘Again?’ the woman’s voice showed more than a hint of impatience. ‘I thought you said you were better. You said you’d finally shaken off that bug.’

  ‘I though I had, but…ahh…it’s more than sodding obvious I haven’t, isn’t it? Where are those keys? I need the bog.’ He shook his jacket, then dived into the car and searched inside.

  ‘I told you, they’re not there. You must have left them in the office.’

  ‘Bastard sodding keys!’

  ‘Wonderful evening this is turning out to be,’ complained the woman.

  Ryan emerged from the car, bent double, clutching at his stomach and groaning loudly. 

  ‘I gotta get to the bog!’

  ‘Well I don’t know what you expect me to do about it. You’re the one who forgot the keys.’

  ‘Fuck!’ shouted Ryan, before sprinting for the shrubbery.

  Neville gasped as he realised Ryan was heading straight for him. He forced himself to burrow deeper into the holly bush. A hundred prickles stabbed at his hands and face. It took a considerable amount of willpower for him not to cry out. He froze, squashed into the damp earth, spikes pinning him down. 

  Ryan blundered into the undergrowth, tugging at his belt. Not more than a few yards from Neville’s hiding place he dropped his trousers. There was a tortured moan, then the unmistakeable sounds of violent, explosive, and abundant diarrhoea.

  Neville’s jaw dropped in horror. He quickly shut it again as an acrid and repulsive stench reached his nostrils. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine he was somewhere, anywhere, else. The foul smell grew stronger. Ryan’s moans continued for what seemed like days, accompanied by graphic sound effects. Neville clung to a holly bush root in an effort to stop himself bolting in search of clean air. Vomiting could only be moments away. For both Ryan and himself.

  Then, mercifully, the noises stopped. With a deep sigh, Ryan hitched up his trousers and staggered back out to his car.

  Neville pressed the back of his hand hard against his mouth and dared to open his eyes. Ryan was already behind the wheel of his car, the woman hurrying to the passenger’s seat complaining all the while.  With much slamming of doors and revving of the engine the hapless couple sped away.

  The moment they were out of sight Neville shot from his cover like a driven pheasant. He put as much distance as he could, as quickly as he could, between himself and the revolting scene of Ryan’s evacuation. Gulping fresh air he retrieved his bicycle, and peddled, not a little unsteadily, in the direction of home.

   The full midnight moon shone with a silver brilliance over the sylvan scene. Nettlecombe Hatchet slept. Beneath the shimmering lunar beams the village lay peaceful and quiet, a preternatural stillness stopping time. The landscape slumbered in the ageless night under softly strobing starlight, while below its turfy surface troglodyte creatures stretched and stirred and poked twitching snouts out into the warm air.  Hedgehogs made prickly progress across the village green in search of snacks. Dozing ducks sat in impossible paper-clip shapes beside the pond. The water, dark and smooth as an oil slick, held its secrets of coins and wishes and the dunking of witches. In the bins behind the shop a twenty-first century fox foraged for his fix of fast food past its sell-by date. In gardens and above doorways and up trellises and over arbours jasmine and honeysuckle released their heady scents to steal into the senses and intoxicate with ideas of sweetness and romance. Moved by the magic of the glimmering moonshine, a nightingale cast its own irresistible spell, all who heard it at once enchanted and beguiled.

  At three Brook Terrace Fliss slept naked under the white cotton sheet, her red hair a Pre-Raphaelite dream on the pillow. The open window let the birdsong in to mingle with the curling smoke of the incense cone by her bed into a fragrant lullaby. In the next room Rhian snoozed, still wearing her headphones, serenaded by more modern sounds.

  In Honeysuckle Cottage Ryan snored and moaned in a sleep achieved only with large doses of kaolin and morphine. Rose slept happily on the single bed in Baby’s room; her own foetal posture echoing that of her child’s.

  Upstairs in The Soldier’s Arms Pam lay large on her back in her inappropriately lacy bed, open-mouthed and rasping, her diminutive spouse beside her a mere bump under the tented sheets.

  In the Old Vicarage a restless Cynthia wandered the room in her candlewick housecoat, cooling herself with a Spanish fan, trailing a favourite shawl, like a portly Miss Haversham, Hamlet shuffling in her wake.

  In her tiny bed in her tiny flat only a few feet and a flimsy wall from the sherbet dips, Miss Siddons fidgeted and itched, and her dog curled himself into a brown and white croissant and farted at ten minute intervals.

  Upstairs in his flat, Neville wrestled with dreams that began with a solitary, questioning mouse, and ended in a phantasmagoria of mutant creatures, their imploring eyes allowing him no escape. Driven from his bed by such nightmarish scenes he roamed his rooms in his boxers, finally coming to rest in a cool leather chair in the sitting room.  He gazed out of the window at the softened shapes of the trees and their perfect moon shadows, listening to the rare birdsong, breathing in the pure, uncontaminated night air, and, as Cilla landed lightly on his lap, he fell at last into a weary, mercifully dreamless, sleep.

To be continued…