Finders Keepers полностью

‘You do. You think I’m lying. I’m not. You need to stop wasting time and go and find them!’

‘Now, now,’ said DI Reynolds. ‘We need to do this the right way.’

‘You need to do it the fast way!

‘Listen, Emma—’

‘Emily.’

Reynolds pursed his lips disapprovingly and glanced at Rice, but Rice pretended to be looking into the woods.

And then she really was looking into the woods.

‘Somebody’s there,’ she said softly.

They all turned to follow her gaze. In the straining silence that followed, they heard something moving quickly through the undergrowth. Getting louder.

‘It’s coming this way,’ whispered Rice, and her hushed words in the cathedral of trees made life suddenly seem like an evil fairy tale.

‘There!’ hissed Em, at a brief flash of red.

‘Davey!’ shouted Shane.

Reynolds felt a rush of relief.

‘See?’ he couldn’t resist saying to the girl, and had to make a conscious effort not to add ‘I told you so.’

Davey Lamb stumbled out of the trees at an angle to them, as if he had only arrived by accident.

‘Davey!’ Shane said again, but in a more faltering voice. Reynolds could see why. The boy moved as if drunk, his legs stiff and rubbery by turn, and his arms loose and flapping by his sides, the elbows jerking this way and that. He turned his head at the sound of Shane’s voice, but it was with the wobbly neck and the vacant eyes of an unstrung puppet.

Nobody moved; nobody ran to Davey and helped him. That alone made the scene even more disturbing. Instead the boy swung himself around in a doddering arc and came to them. Rice finally closed the few paces between them. ‘Are you OK, Davey?’ she said.

‘What?’ he said, screwing up his face in confusion. ‘What?’

Drugs. Reynolds had seen enough of them to know. These rural communities were rife with them. An edge of anger made him want to slap the boy for wasting their time. Except, as he got closer he could see that Davey Lamb was also streaked with what looked like coal or grease.

‘Where’s Steven?’ said Emily Carver urgently.

‘Back there,’ said Davey, waving a vague arm behind him. ‘They tried to kill me, but I got away.’

‘Who tried to kill you, Davey?’ Rice had bent down a little now to get on to the same level as the boy. She spoke in her soothe-the-victim voice.

Davey stared at her, then turned and stared at the woods behind him, frowning deeply. ‘I dunno,’ he said. Vomit followed the last word out of his mouth and fell down his shirt in a lumpy coconut stream.

‘Gross!’ said Shane.

Reynolds looked soberly at Rice.

Davey sat down heavily on the forest floor, cross-legged, and with long strings of snotty fluid hanging from his nose. He started to cry.

‘Davey, where’s Steven?’ the girl insisted, but Davey Lamb could only shake his head and sob.

PART TWO

LAST WINTER

34

THE HOCKS, THE hoofs, the hide, the head.

The hocks, the hoofs, the hide, the head …

Funny, I never do this without singing that old song. In my head, mostly, but sometimes out loud, as my knife slips easy through the skin. No accident, that. Old Murton taught me well about knives. Meat likes a fresh blade, old Murton used to say – no point in sharpening a knife and then not using it. I sharpen my knives right before I use them, see? Right before I take the legs off at the hock, like so. They come off so clean and I pick them up. This is a calf, so it’s easy to hold all four feet in one hand. Place them off to one side. Now a little slit here and here, a long slit there and all round the throat.

Now the chain goes round the head like that, to hold him in place, see? And the hook for the winch goes in the collar like so. When I started there weren’t no electric up here and it were my job to turn the winch by hand. All right for a calf, but you try winding the hide off a bloody carthorse! It’s different now. Press the button and away we go. The hide comes off lovely with a crackle and quiet little ssssssssss and leaves neat pink muscles and tendons in the shape of a calf.

Taking off the head dulls the knife but I won’t sharpen it until the next job – whether that’s five minutes from now or five days. Old Murton taught me well. Old! Listen to me calling him old when he was likely younger than I am now. Just seemed old to me ’cos I was just a bay, see? Fourteen when I started here, and it took me a right good sweat to line out my first sheep. Up to my elbows in blood and shit and I still couldn’t get the head off!

Not like now. One, two, three and it’s gone. That’s the only place that bleeds. Just drops out of the throat on to the concrete. Dark red and shiny but not much of it. Put the head beside the legs, with the fat pink tongue poking out all comical.