Last Rites
NEIL WHITE
Last Rites
To Thomas, Sam and Joe, as always
Abigail Hobbs looked up and shivered as she opened the door to her stone cottage. The wind was blowing hard from the west, October ending with a snarl, the first bad mood of winter. It roared along the sides of Pendle Hill, a huge mound of millstone grit covered in grass and heather. The hill dominated the surroundings, dark and gloomy, and kept the sunlight from her windows. She pulled her coat to her chest and flipped the collar to her ears. She was too old for mornings like this.
‘Tibbs? Tibbs?’
She couldn't find her cat, a grey British Shorthair, all smile and floppy paws. He was always there when she woke, waiting on her windowsill, blinking at her. But not that morning.
‘Tibbs?’
She looked around. Still nothing. Her voice wasn't as strong as it had once been, and it died on the breeze, but she knew something wasn't right.
Abigail stepped onto the path, the stones sunken and uneven, and listened out. She could hear something, but
at first she thought it was the wind. A knocking sound; a fast rattle. She edged along the path, her slippers making slapping noises on the stones. There was the noise again, like metal banging against wood. And there was something else. A crying sound, distressed.
‘Tibbs?’
Abigail got nearer to the end of the house, long grass trailing against her ankles. The noise seemed louder. She called out again. The sound was still there.
She reached an old outhouse, a brick add-on to the cottage that was used to store garden tools. The door was banging, the metal latch clattering, and as her footsteps got closer, the crying got louder.
‘Tibbs, wait there. What have you done?’
She pulled on the outhouse door but it didn't give at first. It felt stiff, like someone was holding the other side. She could feel the vibrations in the door, the cries from inside louder now. She yanked at the door, and then as it opened she saw Tibbs, her cat, suspended in mid-air, struggling, thrashing, something wrapped around him.
Abigail was confused. She reached out, went towards him, but then there was a flash, a loud bang. Something wet hit her in the face, sharp and small, making her stumble backwards, losing her balance. As she fell, she saw that Tibbs was no longer there.
I didn't hear my phone at first.
I was walking up the steep hill to my house, legs working hard, chin tucked into my scarf to keep out the cold. The morning walk was my break from the mundane, where I could forget about the bickering at home or the long stretch of the day ahead. The air in the Lancashire hills woke me up, crisp and fresh, so different from when cotton ruled the valleys, when the giant chimneys filled the towns with smoke and every life centred on the huge redbrick mills clustered around the canal.
My walk wasn't just about the cold in my face though. The last year had seen too many chocolate runs or long nights in with takeaway and wine, and we'd both put on weight. We'd settled into each other. Maybe too much.
I turned as I walked and looked back on what had made me: Turners Fold – a tired old collection of steep terraced streets, cobbled scars in the lush green view, like a museum of lost industry. But for me it was more than just that. As I looked, I saw all the haunts of my
childhood. The park where I'd braved my first kiss, the sweeping crescents of the estate where I'd grown up, the school that had educated me so I could leave the town, which I did for a while, but the lure of home brought me back.
I smiled at the view. The mills were all empty now, the chimneys cleaned up, the buildings redeveloped as offices and apartments, or just left to crumble as grass grew through the floor and the windows fell in. But the town glowed from October dew and stood in silhouette against the sun spreading from the east, making me forget the bitterness of the wind.
I turned back and saw my house ahead, halfway up the hill, dry-stone walls lining the road, the old slate tiles and stubby chimney set against the fields behind. I thought I saw Laura through the window, just a shadow as she moved about inside. I waved but she didn't wave back.
Then I heard my phone, the ringtone set to the horns of ‘Ring of Fire’, an old Johnny Cash tune. I flipped it open and recognised the number. Sam Nixon, a local defence lawyer. He didn't call me that often and so he must have something good for me.
‘Hi Sam,’ I said, as I went into the house.
Laura looked up as I answered, but I turned away. She was making Bobby his breakfast but I could tell that she was listening.
I listened to Sam, and then said, ‘Okay, I'll see you then,’ and closed my phone. I turned to Laura and tried to look innocent.
‘What did Sam Nixon want?’ she asked.
I sneaked my arm around her to pinch one of Bobby's soldiers. ‘He said he would tell me when I got there.’
‘Don't get mixed up in anything stupid,’ said Laura, and when I glanced back I saw her eyes flash me a warning.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean,’ she said wearily. ‘Defence lawyers can mean trouble. Most don't see the line that separates their client from themselves.’
‘Sam's not like that,’ I replied. ‘And you know how it works.’
And Laura did know. As a detective in the local police force, she saw too much of her hard work undone by crafty defence work, silence or lies peddled in the name of human rights. My side of crime was different. I sat at the side of the courtroom, writing up cases for the local paper, usually just sidebar stuff. I'd done some feature work, even used to do freelance in London, but it was too uncertain, sometimes dangerous, and it wasn't a good time for me to take risks.
Laura sighed heavily and gave Bobby a kiss on the top of his head. ‘Not now, Jack,’ she said. ‘We can't afford to mess this up, not so near the end.’
I turned away and walked into the kitchen, a small windowless room partitioned off from the living room. I didn't want an argument, not so early.
Laura came into the kitchen behind me. ‘Jack, talk to me.’
I turned around, the kettle in my hand. ‘It's all we talk about these days,’ I replied sullenly.
‘I just don't want you getting wrapped up in anything stupid, that's all,’ said Laura.
‘I know, I heard you,’ I replied. ‘Our lives are on hold, just so we don't upset your ex-fucking-husband.’ The words came out harsher than I intended.
‘Do you think I'm enjoying it?’ she snapped back at me. ‘Waiting for someone else to decide who my son can live with? Is that what I had in mind when I moved up here?’
I paused and took a deep breath. ‘I'm sorry,’ I said, putting the kettle down and holding my arms out to her, trying to pull her towards me. ‘I wasn't having a go. I know it's harder for you.’
Laura shrugged me off. ‘No, you don't know how it is for me,’ she said angrily. ‘I'm the one who has made the sacrifices. I moved north with you, with my son, made a new life for us. No, hang on, that's wrong. I moved north
for
you, and sometimes I just wonder whether I did the right thing or whether we should have stayed in London, where I wouldn't get the fucking martyr treatment every time the situation gets a bit inconvenient.’
I looked to the ceiling. We'd had the same row too many times now, but I knew it wasn't us. We were good together, in those quiet moments we shared, when the custody battle for Bobby was forgotten for a few hours and we got the chance to relax – but those moments were getting further apart.
‘Look, it's okay,’ I said. ‘Sam just said he had a story for me.’ When Laura didn't look convinced, I added, ‘It will be nothing. Some tip, an overnight case or something.’
‘So why didn't you just say that?’ she said, before she turned and walked away.
I sighed heavily, all the pleasure from the walk now evaporated. How had we got to this? And so quickly.
I went back into the living room and saw that Laura was getting Bobby's school bag ready. Bobby was silent, eating his breakfast slowly. He had been here before with his father – Laura's ex-husband – and he deserved more than that. He was the sweetest boy, just six years old, with Laura's brightness and Geoff's height, but how did you stop a child getting hurt?
It wasn't us, though, I knew that. It was the situation, Laura's ex-husband fighting to take him back south, to her native London. He claimed that it was for Bobby's benefit, that Laura's police work made his home life chaotic, but it had never been about Bobby. It was all about me, Laura's new man, stranger in the nest, the one who made her happy, who had made her give up her London career and settle instead in a small northern town, a detective job in nearby Blackley replacing the London Met. So now we had the fortnightly trip to some motorway services near Birmingham for Bobby's handover, Laura quiet all the way home, only really happy again when he was collected two days later.
Laura looked up at me, Bobby's bag in her hand. I tried a smile.
‘C'mon Bobby,’ she said, turning away from me. ‘Finish your breakfast. We need to go.’
Inspector Rod Lucas dusted down his tatty brown corduroys, slammed the door on his battered old Land Rover, and looked at the scene.
The cottage was just as he expected it. Like most houses in the shadow of Pendle Hill, it was set back from the road, dark grey stone against the sweep of green fields stretching away behind it, the slate roof low and overhanging.
He looked up at the hill, the exposed, barren summit making him feel cold. He pulled on an old waxed jacket and turned away, thought about Abigail Hobbs instead, still in hospital, burns on her face and stitches in her head from when she'd hit the stone floor. He knew that it wasn't the physical injuries that would hurt her the most. It would be the emotional scars that would last.
The two constables by the door straightened as he approached, both young women, their hands thrust into the pockets of their luminous green coats, their hips made to look big by the large belts around their waists. He glanced down at his own clothes. He lived in a barn conversion, access gained by a mud track overhung by
branches, and he had been pruning a tree when he'd got the call. His hands were still covered in dirt and he hadn't changed into his uniform. He would oversee the scene, and then go back to his garden.
‘How bad is it?’ he asked, his voice quiet, a slow Pennine drawl.
The two officers exchanged glances. ‘It's not nice, sir,’ said the older of the two.
‘Are Scenes of Crime on their way?’ he asked.
‘As soon as they can,’ came the reply.
Lucas knew what that meant: that this was a rural area, a few miles from the nearest town. Scenes of Crime would be busy with more urban crimes: burglaries, glassings. They'd come out here when the day warmed up and they fancied a drive in the country.
He looked around. Brambles overhung the path and the paint on the windows looked flaky and old. The windows didn't give away many secrets though.
‘Third time in two weeks,’ he said to himself.
‘Is that why you're here, sir?’ asked the other constable. ‘An inspector, I mean. Is it more serious now?’
‘Someone has been hurt,’ Rod replied. ‘It's gone beyond routine vandalism.’
‘So what do you think?’ she asked. ‘Kids?’
He looked around, noticed the small track that meandered down to the cottage from the main road, grass grown over the stones so that it was sinking back into the land as the years passed. ‘No,’ said Rod. ‘It's too far from everywhere else, so getting away would take too long. It would increase the chance of getting caught. This is something else, some kind of a message.’
‘But why her?’
Lucas's lips twitched. ‘I don't know. Why any of them?’ He straightened himself, and when he asked where it had happened he was pointed towards an old outhouse along the path. As he set off walking, he felt his trousers become damp from the trailing grasses. He swept back his thinning hair, his head golden with freckles, grey sideburns reaching down to his jaw-line.
He slowed down as he got near to the outhouse. The remains of the cat were still scattered over the path, the tiny severed head by the door, its mouth open, the sharp little teeth set in a final grimace.
He pushed at the door with a pen, careful not to leave any forensic traces, and saw the wire hanging from the latch. Just like the others, the wire led to a small metal pipe, filled with gunpowder. Once the door opened, it pulled at the wire, which set off a small blasting cap and exploded the pipe. In the other attacks, the pipe had been left on the floor. This time it had been strapped to Abigail's cat and suspended from the top of the door by a clothes line. This was more than just kids, he knew that.
He let the door close slowly as he turned away, the rusted hinges creaking, and walked back to the house, deep in thought. The constables by the door stepped aside as he went to go into the house, curious to find out more about Abigail, but he caught their exchange of glances, the raised eyebrows.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
They both looked at each other again, unsure what to say, and so Rod Lucas brushed past them and pushed
at the door. It opened slowly, the interior dark, and as he peered in, his eyes adjusting to the gloom, he whistled.
‘What the hell?’ he muttered to himself, and then stepped inside.