Two Cows and a Vanful of Smoke (5 page)

Nothing can prepare you for finding a hung man in a wood. Nothing about the swinging, nothing you imagined, nothing you thought, nothing you heard or wondered about.

I stood and stared at him for five minutes. He swayed, and the rope creaked and the branch strained under his weight. Everything about the sight reeked of strain, as if the world was under this enormous pressure that could burst in a second. All I had to do was find a pin and push it at the air, and the lot would explode. Everything would go. Nothing would be left, not even the pin. I put my hands over my ears, but the pressure stayed. I looked at my feet. My legs were shaking. I looked up at the man again. I bent my neck to mirror his.

He could have been floating, but he was not. He could have been a dummy, but he was not a dummy. A trickle of blood twinkled at the corner of his mouth, and more had come from his nose. Once he had been a scary fuck with hands the size of bricks and a deep, growly voice, but now he just looked sad and lost. Lost in an unfamiliar place with an unfamiliar nothing in his legs.

And my torch light caught his fingers. They were small and delicate, too small for a big man, and there was dirt under the nails. For a moment I was held by the thought that I wanted to reach out and touch them, wash them, dry them and wrap them in clean towels. No one deserves to die in terror, and no one deserves to die so far away from his family and his friends. And no one deserves to die without a name.

I wondered what his name was, and I wondered who his mum and dad were. Did he have brothers or sisters? A wife? A child? Who were his friends, and who would miss him? Who would grieve for this body in its hung throne, and who would remember the happy times, the loving mornings and the laughing nights? Who would pick up a newspaper and read a story about him being found hanging from a sycamore tree, the leaves around his face shading him from the moonlight, the birds of the night calling after his terror? Who would say, “Oh my God, I remember him. I went to school with him…” or “I bought him a drink last week…”?

I did try to move, but my legs refused to budge. They were planted deep and fast, rooted and caught. My blood flushed, and the smell of fear knotted itself around me and held me tight. It was like it loved me and wanted me, or both, and if I didn’t give in I would take a knife in my stomach. I didn’t want a knife in my stomach. I wanted to go home. An owl called from a tree behind me, spooked me wet and rigid. I’d been shining the torch too long. I switched it off, and the noise made me jump. Now I could move. Now I shook some life into my fingers, and they sang at me. I took a step back, turned and started to walk. Then, suddenly, I was running, running fast, crashing through the undergrowth to the barbed-wire fence and stumbling over the fence and falling and pulling myself up, and I was away and into the field towards the herd. They saw me coming, and some of them stood quickly and lowered their heads towards me. I skirted around them, and when I reached the top of the field I stopped to get my breath, turned and stared back towards the woods.

They didn’t look changed. They were still the peaceful place where the birds nested and mice hid from their troubles, safe and warm in their holes. The owl watched. The buzzard waited. The foxes prowled and stopped, moved on, stopped again, listened. All the animals’ troubles would pass, and one day the blood would drain away from the ground and the trees would forget their part in the night. But now the blood was fresh and the rope was tight, and all the world was swinging. I turned, jumped the gate into the field in front of the farm house, went to the front door and banged on the door.

I waited a minute. No one answered. I yelled “Mr Evans!” and banged again, louder this time, and longer. An upstairs light came on and a window opened. Mr Evans’s face appeared, and he looked down and shouted “Who’s there?”

“Me,” I said. “Elliot. I have to use the phone!”

“The phone? What are you talking about?”

“I found a body. I found a body in the woods.”

“A what?”

“Someone hanging…”

“Are you drunk?”

“No!”

“Then what’s the matter?”

“I told you!”

He started to close the window. “No! I think someone’s been murdered!”

He didn’t close the window. He looked down at me. He opened his mouth. His fillings twinkled in the moonlight. “Please, Mr Evans. Let me in!”

Maybe it was something in my voice, or maybe he just wanted to kick me, but two minutes later he was unbolting the front door. I didn’t stop to say anything. I barged past him, grabbed the phone off the table in the hall, dialled 999 and said, “Police!”

They were there half an hour later. Two fat men in a blue-and-white car, and the first thing they said was, “What’s happening round here tonight?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“First it was some fracas up the road there…” he pointed to the place where we’d heard the sirens, “and now this…” He took out a notebook. “Caller reports finding a body hanging in woods. Is that you?” He looked at Mr Evans.

“Not me. Him,” and he jabbed a finger at me.

“So, sonny,” and they took steps towards me. “You been drinking?” He sniffed. “Been at the old apple juice?”

“That’s what I thought,” said Mr Evans.

“So have you?”

“No I fucking haven’t!” I took a step back. “Come on. I’ll show you!”

“There’s no need…” said the fattest of the two policeman, “for that sort of language. No need at all.” He reached into his pocket. “In fact, we could arrest you for it…”

“OK,” I said. “Arrest me. But before you do that, come with me,” and I headed off. “Come on!”

When I looked over my shoulder, Mr Evans was twirling his finger against his head and making drinking motions with his hands, and the policemen were nodding their heads. For a moment I thought they were going to stay where they were, but then they walked towards me and followed me through the yard gate towards the fields.

I didn’t walk with them, but I didn’t get too far ahead. I was fit and they were puffing and wheezing, and once, when one of them said, “Hold on, lad,” I stopped to let them catch up. Fifteen minutes later we were standing beneath the swinging body, and their torches were shining in the dead man’s face, and one of them whispered, “Shit…” while the other threw up into a bush.

“When did you find him?”

“An hour ago. Maybe less.”

“Have you moved anything? Touched anything?”

“No.”

“You sure about that?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

He tried his radio. There was no signal. “OK. Stan. Clean yourself up and let’s get back to the car.”

Stan threw up again.

“And you,” he said to me. “Don’t go wandering off. We’ll want to talk to you.”

The rest of the night was busy. More police came, and the area around the body was cordoned off. As soon as dawn broke, an ambulance came, and police with cameras and boxes of equipment parked in a lay-by at the entrance to the wood. I went back to the caravan and slept for an hour, then went to fetch the cows for milking. I worked in a daze, my legs felt woolly, my eyes heavy and my nose was still filled with the smell of fear. When I wasn’t thinking about the man swinging in the tree I was thinking about Spike in his stupid garage, sitting beneath the drying plants with a stupid grin on his stupid fucking face and his stupid fucking hands reaching up and stroking the stupid fucking leaves. Oh why, Spike? Why don’t you listen to people? Why do you have to follow your greed when all your greed does is lead you to trouble you don’t even recognize? Maybe that was it. Recognize trouble and you’ll protect yourself from it. Or something. I don’t know. Did I care? I think I did, but that was my trouble.

As I was letting the cows out to pasture – call that pasture if you want, that scorched field, the dust rising, the faint dew making no difference, the birds still gasping on the fence – two policemen in suits came from the farmhouse, and one said, “Elliot?”

“Yes?”

“Elliot Jackson?”

“That’s me.”

“You’re the lad who found the body?”

“I am.”

“I’m DS Pollock. This is DS Brown. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“OK.”

“We’ll need to take you down the station.”

“Why?”

“You’re our main witness, so we need to tape everything you say.”

“OK. Give me a minute to get a wash.”

“OK.”

I stood in the caravan, stripped to the waist and washed as well as I could. As the water ran over my skin I tried to imagine it washing everything away, the sight of the man and the smell of blood, the sound of the creaking rope and the swinging torch lights. And ten minutes later, as I was driven to Taunton, the world became stranger to me. The colours of the fields and trees and sky and road and the inside of the police car and the policemen’s hair and my trousers swirled and pulsed. I’d never been in a police car before, and for some reason I felt as though I’d been swallowed by a dog. A radio crackled, a bored voice said things I didn’t understand, and I said, “I’m very tired…”

“I bet you are, son.”

“You get any sleep last night?”

“An hour.”

“Get some kip if you want.”

“Thanks,” I said, and I closed my eyes, and a minute later I felt myself dreaming. Big dreams of talking cows and trees that walked from one valley to another. Dreams of clouds lowering to my face and crawling into my mouth and tasting of milk. Flowing milk, boiling cream, potatoes falling like rain. I jolted awake, and we were in the car park behind the police station.

They gave me a cup of tea, sat me in a bare room, and I sat between them at a table. When they were ready, they clicked a tape recorder, spoke their names and my name and the date, and Pollock asked me to start at the beginning.

“So what were you doing in the woods at half-past midnight?”

“Mr Evans asked me to check the herd. The cows.”

“Mr Evans, your boss?”

“Yes.”

“And why did he do that?”

“We always check them last thing. Make sure none have got out.”

“So you went to check the cows, and then what did you do?”

“I saw lights in the woods. Torches.”

“How did you know they were torches?”

“There were beams of light. It was obvious,” and I told them about the voices and the screams, the shadowed sentries and the deeper, wooded shadows.

Pollock asked these questions in a slow and kindly way. He was a thin man with ginger hair and a clean, close-shaved face. When I say he asked questions in a kindly way I only mean that: the rest of him bothered me. I thought he could most likely turn in a second and turn badly, switch to meanness and trouble, and use his little fists to put a bruise somewhere that wouldn’t show but would hurt. His eyes were small and green, and he didn’t blink, and as he listened to me he sat still and quiet, like a monk. And all the time the other policeman, Brown, sat back and watched me, until at the end he leant forwards, rubbed his chin in a thoughtful way and said, “And that’s your story?”

“It is.”

“And you’re telling us everything?”

“Yes. Of course. Why?”

“Just a feeling, Elliot. You know. Sometimes I get a feeling. In my waters.”

“I told it like it was.”

“And you didn’t recognize the body when you found it? You’d never seen the man before?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so? That’s not what you said half an hour ago.” Brown leant forwards again. He was less disguised than Pollock, more upfront and obvious. He hadn’t looked after himself as well as his friend, and was starting to pork out. His face was jowly and his lips were fat, and his eyes were beginning to do that thing that eyes do when they get old. They were watery and distracted, maybe like they’d seen too much for one life and wanted to go home.

“Well you know…” I said.

“No, I don’t know. You’ll have to explain.”

“Maybe I saw him in the pub or something.”

“Maybe you saw him in the pub or something?”

“Yes. Or the shop.”

“Or the shop?”

“Yes.”

“Which shop?”

“The post office. In Greenham.”

“Well which was it – the pub or the shop?”

I was very tired, and felt the words drop from my mouth. There was nothing I could do to stop them. “The pub,” I said, without thinking.

“So now you had seen him before?”

“Maybe.”

Brown leant towards me. He rubbed his eyes, but it didn’t make them any better. He smelt of coffee and cigarettes and damp wool. “Elliot, Elliot. Maybe… maybe not. Definitely, definitely not. You need to tell me the truth.”

“I’m tired.”

“So are we.”

“Would you like a coffee?” said Pollock. I wasn’t sure if he meant it, but I said, “Yes please.”

“Sugar?”

“One big one.”

“Coming up…”

Brown leant forwards and said, “Interview suspended 11:16, 17th August 1976,” and clicked the tape recorder off. Pollock came back with the coffee, put it on the table and said, “Smoke?” I shook my head. “Mind if we do?” I shook my head again, and for the next ten minutes we sat in silence in a growing cloud of smoke, and I felt the world lighten and haze and fade. A buzzing started in my ears, and my eyes watered. When they finished their cigarettes and turned the recorder on again, I was swimming in a world of half-remembered stuff that swirled between the first site of the plants in the hoop house, the sound of the dead man’s voice, the sight of the dead man’s eyes, the hanging plants in the garage, the hanging man in the wood, the creak of the rope, the sleeping cows, my sleeping eyes, the smell of my caravan, the hippies in the pub, Mr Evans in his vest. “Elliot?”

“Elliot?”

“Elliot?”

I snapped back. “Sorry. I was gone.”

“Interview resumed 11:31, 17th August 1976,” said Brown.

“All you have to do is tell us the truth and you’ll be gone,” said Pollock, and for a moment his smile slipped and I saw his teeth. They were small and polished-white, like mints.

“I have,” I said.

“But you maybe saw the victim in the pub. Which pub?”

“The Globe. The Globe in Appley.”

“And was he with anyone?”