The Death of the Elver Man (22 page)

‘What did he call me?’ he asked.

‘Don’t you mind. You go back upstairs and leave this to me,’ said Ada firmly, but Derek had heard their voices.

‘Why don’t you come out and face me, you little runt,’ he called, ‘or is you a coward like your Dad? Maybe you’s a grass too an’ that’s why they let you out. Is that it – you a grass like your worthless Dad?’

Kevin flew down the stairs and lunged for the door but Ada planted herself in the way, fending him off with both hands.

‘You stop and think now,’ she hissed. ‘He’s just trying to get you mad so you’ll open up and let him in. You want that snake in here with us?’

Kevin stopped pushing and stepped back shaking his head.

‘No,’ he said softly.

‘Right now, you go into the kitchen and put the kettle on. Make some tea and don’t you come back out ‘til I say so.’ She gave him a little shove. ‘Go on now.’

She waited until Kevin was out of sight before reaching into the drawer of the hall stand and pulling out the carving knife. Derek was getting increasingly impatient and began to kick at the door, but Ada had taken the precaution of
adding
a metal thresh and extra bracings and it held firm. Derek landed a particularly hard kick and the force reverberated through the house.

‘Shit! You bitch.’ He staggered back, clutching at his toes. ‘I almost broke my foot. You still there?’

Ada stood very still, waiting.

‘Answer me you old cow,’ yelled Derek, peering through the letterbox. He saw the knife at the last moment, as it snaked towards him, and jerked his head to one side. The movement saved his eyes and possibly his life as the blade sliced into the side of his cheek, emerging just below the bone to strike his right ear lobe. Derek leapt back with a shriek, slapping his hand to his damaged face as the knife vanished as quickly as it had appeared. He opened his mouth to shout but only blood came out. There was a rattling from the letterbox and the tip of the knife appeared, wriggled at him suggestively and disappeared inside once more. Derek staggered back, his head ringing from the force of the blow. The pain was
unbelievable
and as he shook his head to clear it blood sprayed through the wound in his cheek. Desperate to stop the
bleeding
he stumbled down the path and made off across the fields. His face was tearing and burning with every jolt and stumble but he did not dare be seen on the roads in this state.

Back in the cottage Ada heard the kitchen door open and a soft voice said, ‘Mum?’

‘’Tis all done now Kevin,’ she said, calmly wiping the knife blade on the inside of her apron before returning it to the drawer. ‘No need to be telling anyone about this neither. ’Tis our business, not no-one else’s. You get the tea ready – I’m gasping for a cup.’

‘What did he mean, about Dad?’ asked Kevin. Ada walked into the kitchen and ran her hands under the tap before
sitting
at the table and motioning him to pour the tea.

‘Well now, I reckon you old enough to know about your father,’ she said as she sipped the brew gratefully. ‘He was never much good as a husband or much as a man, but he was trying to do something right at last, I reckon. Shame is he messed that up too and seems he’s brought more trouble to this house. Still, he sent you a letter.’ Kevin’s head jerked up at this.

‘Just shows how much he knows about you,’ she added, ‘sending a letter. I suppose you want me to read it then?’

Kevin nodded, his eyes staring and mouth open as he waited to hear what his father might have to say to him after almost fifteen years.

Later that evening Kevin and Ada sat in the front room and Ada took out her box of photographs and pictures, laying them out on the low table for Kevin to see.

‘Let me see, this is your Grandma. Fierce woman she was, tried to do her best by us all but there was just too many of us – and my Dad, your Granddad, he was no help. Worse than useless he was. Here, that’s him,’ she said, poking a finger at a faded snapshot.

Kevin picked it up and stared at the figure lounging against a gate, an old crofter’s cottage in the distance. ‘Where’s that to then?’ he asked.

‘That’s where I was born and raised. ’Tis just down aways, across near them Roman works. Probably gone by now,’ Ada mused. ‘Dad never was one for keeping things in order and my Mum done her best, but was too much for her on her own.’ She glanced out of the window. ‘Is getting dark. Reckon you need to close up the greenhouse.’

Kevin rose to his feet obediently.

‘Oh, while you out, check the front door. Make sure that great oaf ain’t damaged nothing will yer?’ She sat for a while, turning over photographs and reading old faded postcards, the tiny specks of a past life. She began to order the pictures, setting them out as best she could to show the family line, when Kevin came back in and stood in front of her,
holding
out his hand wordlessly. She looked up from her task and glanced at the outstretched palm. Nestling in his open hand was an ear-ring, a single gold hoop, still attached to the lobe.

It was hard to concentrate with the sense of impending doom hanging over you, Alex thought, as she sat in the office on a gloriously sunny Saturday, ploughing grimly through a pile of outstanding Part B forms. Record keeping had never been her strong point but in her first few months Lauren had kept her mostly up to date, chivvying at her heels like a fox terrier.

‘You want to do them soon as you finish that bit of work,’ she said. ‘Don’t do no good just letting it all mount up. You end up coming in of a weekend and trying to catch up with masses of notes and all them odd bits of scribble. Is no way to do things properly.’

As usual, Lauren was correct. Despite the open windows, Alex was sweating and the heat was beginning to give her a headache. On the desk in front of her were piles of paper, drifts of notes and memos all sorted rather haphazardly into cases and clients. She stared at the whole mess for a moment and rubbed her eyes, screwing them up to admire the galaxy of red and orange dots that danced in her vision. When she opened them again the jumble was still there and she sighed,
reached out and picked up a handful at random, flicking through them with a sinking heart. Simon, the lorry boy, ‘Cider’ Rosie (she shuddered), a reminder to contact Andrew Hinton, dated several months ago – she was in real trouble here and it was all her own fault.

After PC Brown’s visit she had made her way to Garry’s room, her mind full of questions and her attention definitely elsewhere. It was always a mistake to underestimate your boss and on this occasion she ran straight into an ambush with no warning and no defences. There was a small pile of folders on his desk, a selection of her case files, and she had barely sat down before Garry was going through them one by one highlighting their inadequacies in a disturbing amount of detail. She wondered briefly how he had got hold of her files in the first place – they were kept in a locked cabinet and she was as careful about that as she was about her house. Then she realized, Alison had a key and could easily have handed them over. It seemed typical of the woman not to warn her and Alex was torn between fury at her assistant’s betrayal and sick anger at the scathing appraisal to which she was being subjected. Somehow she managed to control herself, sitting in silence until Garry had run through her failings as a
probation
officer and the weaknesses in her working methods.

‘I’m disappointed more than anything,’ he said. ‘You are a highly intelligent and well-trained officer with considerable potential, but you do not seem to be reaching it at this time.’

She was taken aback by this rather backhanded
compliment
, but before she could marshal a response he continued.

‘There are some issues that must be addressed as a matter of urgency. Your records,’ here he waved a hand airily over the folders, ‘need to be brought up to date. I’m going to remove you from the court rota for a month to allow you some time for this. There are also some cases where, quite frankly, your response has been less than successful. Andrew Hinton, for example, seems to have simply disappeared. After your one visit, there is nothing.’

She leaned forwards to try and explain the difficulties but
he carried on. ‘I know Paul can be rather over-protective of his charges, but after a promising start young Brian Morris has also rather slipped off the radar and that is a cause for concern. And there are some prisoners overdue a visit, Billy Johns for one.’

He had her there. She had neglected some of her more difficult cases as well as allowing those on hold – those in prison like Newt, for example, who certainly weren’t going anywhere – to drift whilst she focussed on more immediate matters. He was right in most respects and she was not doing the best job she could, though she did feel he didn’t seem to give her any credit for what she had done, what she was doing right.

‘I wonder if this is the right environment for you,’ Garry mused, staring over her head at the sparkling blue sky visible from his windows. ‘Perhaps you would be more suited to a more, shall we say,
urban
environment.’ He raised an
eyebrow
rather archly and glanced at her before resuming. ‘I am aware your final appraisal is due at the end of this month.’

This was it, she thought, this was the end of all her hard work and years of struggling to qualify. He was going to fail her and she’d never get another chance.

‘I’m going to postpone the formal appraisal for three months,’ he said. ‘I feel I have been, perhaps, a little remiss in not ensuring you are more closely supervised. We will meet every week, check your records and see how you are
progressing
over that time. It is a two-way process of course.’ Here he gave one of his slightly creepy smiles. ‘I expect you will want to use my knowledge and experience to help you develop your practice.’

She suspected her smile was just as insincere as his as she agreed that would be most helpful. On the way back to her room she had to resist the urge to rush into the washroom and scrub every inch of visible flesh.

So here she was, on the third glorious Saturday afternoon since that horrible meeting, surrounded by the wreckage of her career and with no idea what to do. She was suddenly
startled to hear her name being called from the yard below. Rising from her desk she peered down to see Eddie waving cheerfully up at her.

‘Come on down,’ he yelled. ‘We’re ready to give it a go!’ Behind him half a dozen young men with their shirts off were wrestling the completed raft on to the trailer of Eddie’s car. She hesitated, looked at her desk, and then guiltily slipped out of the office, locking the door behind her despite the fact the building was deserted. Life must be pretty tough, she thought, skipping down the stairs, if she would rather risk life and limb on a home-made raft in a mud-filled river than sit at her desk and work on her records. She emerged into the warm afternoon, blinking in the bright sunlight. The men had finished loading the raft and were milling around in a rising tide of excited chatter with a few playful scuffles on the outskirts. Eddie stood next to his creation, his square figure radiating pride and determination in equal measures as he checked the straps and made sure the paddles were secure inside.

‘Right,’ he said, ‘off you go, you lot. I’ll drive it to the
landing
stage. Coming with me Alex?’

She hesitated for an instant and then, feeling the eyes of the young men on her, said, ‘No, I’ll see you round there.’ She walked over to the main group. There were a few nods and a mumbled greeting as they set off, and she felt at first as if she’d made a mistake, that she was in the way. Half way round a short man with powerful looking shoulders fell in beside her and said, ‘Done much rowing then?’

‘Some,’ she said. ‘At college. I was in the rowing club and we won a couple of cups and stuff. Don’t expect it’ll be much like that though.’ She fell into the slightly stilted speech pattern of the group without thinking about it, and no-one seemed to notice. It felt more natural somehow, as if she had stepped into a different role. Another young man dropped back and joined them.

‘I done it last year,’ he said, ‘and is terrible hard work. There’s this current see, pulls as you turn towards Warren
Point. You is pretty well knackered by then so is a real
battle
. Lots of rafts, they try to get there early else you can get caught up in a bit of a crush ‘less you goes round and out to sea a bit. I tells yer, I was girt glad to get back on dry land.’

Alex looked at him curiously. ‘If it was so bad why the hell are you doing it again?’

The young man laughed. ‘My brother, he’s in another raft see. Reckons they’s going to beat all comers. Well, he’s younger than I, so I has to beat ‘un.’

Alex had a number of brothers, older and younger, and to her this made perfect sense. They trotted on in
companionable
silence, hurrying over the bridge and down past the car park of the Iron Beehive before rounding a small shack to find Eddie with the trailer backed up on the river bank, ready to go.

There were several anxious moments as the group
struggled
with the finished raft, slipping on the muddy bank as they tried to lower it into the water. Finally, Alex looked at Eddie and said, ‘How do we get it into the sea for the race?’

‘We just sort of shove it,’ he said, hanging on to one of the ropes that balanced the craft over the flat, silt-infested water of the Parrett.

‘Maybe we should do that then,’ said Alex. ‘If it’s going to make it in the sea it’ll surely be all right here and if it’s not, well at least there’s only us around to see it.’

‘And all them,’ said the older brother, gesturing towards the far bank where a crowd of hecklers and supporters had gathered.

‘You’re right,’ said Eddie. ‘Okay, enough pussy-footing around. Let’s get this raft in the water and see how it does. One – two – three!’ And at the final shout the crew shoved together, propelling the raft down the ramp and into the water with a great splash. There was a cheer, mixed with a few jeers, from the other bank, and the audiences on both sides craned forwards to see what was going to happen. For a heart-stopping moment the raft rocked wildly, taking on water as it rolled and pitched, then it settled into a more
measured rocking until at last it floated, a bit low in the water but not too far. Alex found herself grabbed and hugged by a jubilant lad who didn’t look old enough to be on probation.

‘Girt magic,’ he chortled, showing a wide expanse of gum where his front teeth should be. Eddie intervened, gently
prising
Alex from his clutches.

‘This is Jimmy,’ he said, ‘your rowing partner.’

Jimmy nodded enthusiastically. ‘Right, right, you’m on the left, right?’ Alex blinked at him uncertainly but was rescued once more by Eddie.

‘As you say Jimmy, Alex is on the left. Now, let’s try some real paddling shall we?’

Alex glanced down at her clothing ruefully. She wasn’t wearing anything special but she was fond of these particular jeans and her tennis shoes were almost new. Eddie watched her expression.

‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I guess I should have warned you.’

‘It still beats writing Part Bs all afternoon,’ she said, and made her way to the bank where the crew were holding the raft steady.

‘How come I’m first?’ she asked, looking at them suspiciously.

‘You’m lightest and got to get over there, see,’ said Jimmy. ‘I’ll be right behind you – though actually I’ll be next to you.’

Alex shook her head at him. ‘I hope you’re not the
navigator
,’ she said. ‘We’ll end up in France.’ She slid over the
minimal
sides and edged towards her place with the rest of the crew holding the raft steady. Someone passed her a
single-bladed
paddle and she sat for a moment trying to get a feel for the craft until it rocked alarmingly under Jimmy’s weight. Resisting the temptation to fling the paddle away, jump into the water and swim for the far bank, Alex began to use the paddle to help keep the raft straight and close to the side as more of the crew took their places.

The raft dipped and swayed with every new body, but always righted itself, until they were almost all aboard. But
just as the steersman was settling into the stern, Eddie
suddenly
called out, ‘Wait, everyone sit still! Don’t move.’

This did not have the desired effect, as everyone aboard jumped and swung round towards him, and the
remaining
rowers on the landing stage let go of the ropes. The raft drifted away from the bank, bow in the air with the weight still concentrated towards the back. Several people in the boat didn’t have paddles and in the ensuing chaos the raft, with an almost natural grace turned 360 degrees in the current and slid over on to its side depositing the crew in the muddy waters of the river. Alex surfaced, keeping her mouth firmly closed and resolutely pushing any thoughts of what might lie in the murky depths from her mind. Several of the crew, those closest to the steps, were already scrambling ashore and the rest were swimming for the riverbank. She did a quick count of heads and realized they were one short – Jimmy was nowhere to be seen.

Risking a mouthful of river water, she took a gulp of air and dived past the raft, which was now bobbing merrily the right way up again. The silt was so thick she could barely see more than a few feet through the water, but she made a quick circuit round the raft before coming up for air again. Ignoring the calls and waving from both banks she breathed deeply once more and dived again, going under the raft this time. Her head bumped against something and she reached out and felt movement. A hand grabbed at her, seizing her shoulder and clinging on with the desperation of the drowning. Without thinking, her training took over and she reached over and bent the fingers back, pulling Jimmy by his arm as she prised him loose. She rolled him over on to her chest, holding him by the chin and pushed away from the raft and up to the surface. As they bobbed into view Eddie flung a lifebelt and the crew pulled them to the steps and hauled Jimmy, now coughing and retching, on to the bank.

Eddie held out his hand and helped Alex up the landing steps.

‘Bloody good show,’ he said. ‘That was impressive.’ Alex shook him off and hurried over to Jimmy to check he was breathing properly. He was blue with cold despite the
sunshine
and he was shaking and gasping. He cradled his hand against his chest and glared at her.

‘You’m broken my fingers,’ he said between coughs.

‘I’m sorry but you were panicking,’ she said. ‘You could have drowned us both. I had to get free or we’d still be under there.’

Jimmy hunched his shoulders, nursing his injured hand like an abandoned kitten, and lapsed into sullen silence as Eddie rummaged through his car boot and came out with a rather tatty blanket.

‘Sorry about this,’ he said, as he tucked it round Jimmy’s shoulders in an attempt to keep the shivering young man warm. ‘It’s the dog’s.’

With commendable foresight one of the crew had run back to the Iron Beehive and called an ambulance and shortly Jimmy was being whisked away to Casualty.