Cold in the Earth (9 page)

His feet crunched on the gravel as he walked on past the straggly eyesore of the old maze and the open gates of the stockyard. No one was about: the stockman they had at the moment was a lazy sod and the curtains of his flat above the pens were still drawn. There was a housekeeper’s flat there too but it was empty at the moment. Thanks to Jake being too mean to pay proper wages and his mother’s incurable habit of detailing any failings with more energy than tact, no one stayed long and the house got dirtier and the food more disgusting with every passing year.

Living at home was getting to him more and more. He felt stifled by it, imprisoned as if he were locked into a bad marriage. If his mother found out he had a girlfriend, however casual, she behaved like a betrayed wife. If he took a holiday, other than the traditional one to Pamplona each year in homage to her bloody father, who’d been an evil old sod, she made him pay for it with sulks, tantrums and a multitude of personal inconveniences like forgotten messages and ruined laundry. Everything she did now affected him like fingernails being scraped across a blackboard and she manipulated the purse-strings like a puppeteer jerking around a marionette. It was lucky he’d decided seven years ago to bail out of the farm; at least he had his police wages, even if they came nowhere near to giving him the standard of living he was entitled to expect. If he’d stayed he’d have been forced to exist on what his uncle chose to pay him – minimum wage, probably, mean old bastard – and what Conrad could wheedle out of his mother.

He daren’t leave home, though. If he did make his escape, he had little doubt that she would cut him off in rage and spite and he’d have to kiss goodbye to any chance of getting his hands on the farm, which he lusted after with a passion. He’d never met a woman yet who inspired anything approaching what he felt for the vast upland acres in this quiet, beautiful countryside, and he loved the great black beasts they bred which were such a part of his childhood, loved their size and their power and the sweet, heady smell of their grass-fed breath. But working here would have meant taking his orders from Jake and then – the ultimate indignity – from that wimpish little sod Max when his turn came to crack the whip, because though Brett had a half-share of the inheritance she’d been left with no status on the business side.

Oh, it was reasonable enough. Grandfather Edgar might have been barking but he’d have had to be baying at the moon to let his daughter within a mile of an executive decision. He might have considered her son, though. Surely Conrad could have expected a guaranteed future in the farm or at least a trust fund to let him walk away to set up his own? No such luck.

Still, he was pinning his hopes on Max’s long absence, his silence, even, since as far as Conrad knew he hadn’t communicated with his father since he left home. Surely Jake must have disinherited him by now: the dynasty of the Chapelton Welsh Blacks was important to Jake and Max would barely know a stirk from a heifer. Conrad, on the other hand, had always been careful to show his interest, taking leave for the Royal Smithfield Show and getting himself known in the Welsh Black Society. He didn’t have to fake it; bull-worship was orthodoxy in the Mason family and the romance of it was deep in Conrad’s soul.

He had reached the solid metal bar-gate to the nearest of the in-fields and stopped to lean on it, a habit which had started when he was barely tall enough to see over the top bar. And there, cropping at the tufts of grass rising clear of the snow with that familiar, rhythmic, tearing sound, was the bull Conrad had watched more than twenty years before, when this was the most promising bull-calf they’d had in years. They’d honoured him with the name Minos, held by the first Chapelton Champion, and he hadn’t disappointed.

Champion Chapelton Minos II, commonly known as Satan, was still a superb beast though long retired from stud duties and on Jake’s orders living out an honoured old age. A hardy breed, brought inside only in the most extreme of winter conditions, Welsh Blacks are large, solid beef cattle and Satan’s size was at the upper end of the standard, well over four feet at the withers and not far off a ton in weight. His horns were forward-pointing, sharp and widely placed, and he had a nature as evil as his nickname suggested. He’d killed his man once, years ago – ‘Stupid bastard,’ had been Edgar Mason’s only reported comment on the tragedy – and they’d had to buy off another stockman too, more recently, who’d only just escaped with his life. But Edgar, Jake and indeed Conrad himself would have paid whatever it took to protect this living proclamation of raw, untamed brute nature.

Satan was looking at him now, blunt, powerful head raised, eyes small with suspicion as his jaws rotated. Conrad finished his cigarette and threw away the butt. ‘Satan!’ he called. The bull stopped chewing for a moment as if assessing the voice, then dropped his head to graze with what almost looked like calculated contempt.

Conrad hadn’t really expected recognition but the animal’s magnificent indifference irked him. ‘Satan!’ he called again. This time the bull did not even raise his head.

Why was it that being ignored always got to him, made him feel young, small, a nothing, of no account? Conrad felt the flush of rage mounting to his face. As he rattled the gate, yelling a string of obscenities, Satan’s head did come up, but with what looked like only mild curiosity, his jaws still moving rhythmically. Still in the grip of temper, Conrad swung himself up on to the gate.

That was different. He had placed himself within the bull’s established territory and Satan was suddenly, dangerously still. Then he snorted, turning to face the challenge squarely, his eyes fierce with baffled courage, the mark of the bull’s uneasy relationship with man down the centuries, from ancient Greece to modern Spain.

At least Conrad had been acknowledged as an adversary. That was all he’d wanted – wasn’t it? He wasn’t angry any more, except with the Fates wearing official faces who might at any moment dictate the destruction of a relationship that went back over twenty years – a relationship of challenge and response.

For a moment Conrad held back. The grass was slick with the snow which was just starting to melt. Satan was, what, sixty, seventy yards away across the field? It would be insane, of course – he wasn’t twenty now and it must be ten years since their last encounter . . .

Conrad had played the game first in his early teens. Edgar had caught him once and thrashed him to within an inch of his life, not because of the danger to himself but because the effort of charging took condition off the bull. It hadn’t stopped Conrad, though, and he’d had a couple of narrow shaves when Satan was in his prime. Surely the beast would be slower now?

In a matter of weeks, days even, there might be no Satan, no Chapelton herd, if the white-coated men came bent on genocide. His throat constricted at the thought and in the grip of some sort of nostalgic madness, Conrad jumped down into the field and stepped slowly towards the bull, every muscle tense with concentration.

Satan snorted once more, tossing his head the better to catch the scent of the intruder, his enemy. He pawed the ground as the man took another few, measured steps towards him.

The charge, when it came, was as always with bulls sudden and implausibly fast for such a bulky creature. The game was to hold your ground for as long as you dared before you fled: Conrad stood still for the first five seconds, retreated for two more, then turned and ran for his life as the ground began to tremble under his feet.

It came close to a fatal miscalculation. He had trespassed fewer than ten yards into the bull’s territory but he had left his escape dangerously late. As he turned his foot slipped on the treacherous ground and he all but fell; only a desperate effort saved him and he could actually feel the panting breath on the back of his neck as he flung himself over the gate to safety. A fraction of a second later, Satan’s head connected with the stout metal, rattling its poles.

He must have been mad. Despite the cold, sweat was pouring down Conrad’s face as he fumbled for another cigarette, then needed three attempts to light it. He was getting an unnervingly close look at those sharp, wicked horns as Satan directed them at the gate yet again.

Gradually Conrad’s racing heart slowed. That must have given it a better workout than half an hour on the treadmill at the gym. He grinned shakily and touched one finger to his forehead in a mock salute as the bull raged to and fro, eyes rolling white, nostrils flaring, shaking his nose-ring and blowing clouds of steaming breath into the cool, damp air as he patrolled his boundaries.

Conrad’s grin faded. It was all too hideously likely that the next challenge would come from the men with needles carrying death, and no proud defiance from one of the lords of life would move them either to fear or to pity.

6

The black crow was flying slowly, coasting on the currents of buffeting wind under a lowering sky. Sated on carrion, it had flown further than usual, unimpeded by the need to scan the ground for food, and beneath it now were acres of evergreen forest, bleak moors, an isolated farmstead. Then the hilly ground flattened and fields of rich green pasture appeared where black cattle browsed. The ruffling surface of water in a makeshift cattle trough caught its eyes and it descended in leisurely sweeps to perch on the edge of the rusty old bath. It dipped in its beak, once, twice, three times, and then with thirst as well as hunger satisfied took off again.

For a brief moment, a red stain showed on the water, then dispersed.

There was an air of unreality about this whole business, Marjory Fleming thought, or was it just that she was light-headed from worry and lack of sleep?

The Major Incident Room at Galloway Constabulary Headquarters had been opened up and rows of plastic chairs were now squeezed between the banks of desks where computers flickered as officers from all over the region gathered to be briefed by the Chief Constable on what had been flagged up as the ‘worst-case scenario’. Unfortunately, Marjory reflected grimly, ‘worst-case’ looked like being the only game in town.

Like the bubonic plague, the foot-and-mouth epidemic was spreading at the speed of a galloping horse: Moffat three days ago, Gretna two, Whithorn yesterday. Paths and lay-bys had been closed, animal movements halted, local events cancelled, and there were disinfectant baths at every farm road-end, even if that was pretty much like superstitiously carrying a St Christopher medal in your car for protection, more in hope than expectation. No one really believed these were anything other than cosmetic measures when you were dealing with a virus – five microns in diameter, they said, whatever that might mean – which could be transmitted by wind, birds, animals, feet and tyres, could travel up to thirty miles, could be swallowed or inhaled and could survive in pastures for months. As she went about Kirkluce these days Marjory could almost sense a collective holding of breath as its inhabitants waited for certain calamity to strike, as if they were watching the line of a forest fire racing towards them or could see a wall of water building to a tidal wave, ready to break and engulf them in disaster.

Tam MacNee slid into the vacant seat beside her and seeing her expression gave her a consoling nudge. ‘Cheer up, hen. You never died a winter yet.’

She managed a man smile. ‘Burns?’

He shook his head. ‘My old mammy was always saying that. Daft, if you ask me, but there you are.’

Chief Constable Menzies’ arrival at that moment meant she could do no more than mouth, ‘Get raffled!’ as they stood up. Though it was only three o’clock the sky outside was dark with heavy cloud and the lights were on; Superintendent Bailey’s bald pate glistened as he reverentially ushered his superior officer to the desk at the front. Menzies looked imposing beside his shorter, plumper colleague: he was a tall, distinguished-looking man with well-cut iron-grey hair. Police officers tend to be dismissive of those who sit on their backsides and bark instead of getting their hands dirty, but the word on the beat was that Menzies was no worse than most.

Sick at heart, Marjory listened as he characterised this as the worst crisis to hit rural Britain in more than thirty years. Their job here in Galloway, he pointed out, would be even more difficult because of the close links which so many officers would have with the farming community; there must be no personal favours, no bending of the rules, whatever their private opinion might be. ‘It’s in every farmer’s interest to get this thing stopped in its tracks,’ he pointed out. ‘Think of it as tough love.’

That produced a few wry smiles, but Marjory sat stricken. She’d been so busy worrying about their own situation, emotional and financial, that she hadn’t even begun to consider the professional implications. Of course, the police helping to enforce the official destruction orders would be the enemy to any farmer, unless he was fully in sympathy with government policy. And precious few of them were, always supposing they could work out what it was from the conflicting signals coming out of Downing Street. Blair’s incompetence would be farcical if it wasn’t tragic.

‘It’s no part of our job to judge the rights and wrongs of MAFF policy,’ Menzies was reminding them now. ‘We’re not the makers of the law, we’re its servants, and it will be our duty to protect government vets and slaughter teams as they go about their grim but necessary business.’

Even as Marjory was consoling herself with the thought that enforcement was the responsibility of the uniforms, he went on, ‘There will be, I have no doubt, organised protests and this is an area where I will expect good intelligence from CID. We must be pro-active not reactive.’

This was a favourite catch-phrase, much mocked by his subordinates. MacNee sighed elaborately, with a sidelong look at Fleming, but she barely noticed. Act as a spy on her own community? How could she? And if she did, would she ever be forgiven? In the country memories are long, with grudges handed down from one generation to the next.