A Season For Everything - Matthew Fairman (pocket ebook reader .TXT) 📗

shoulder and filled his mouth and his eyes. He walked along with the hedgerow to his left following the slop of the meadow past the railway bridge downhill towards the main road that bisected the valley through the middle. He could no longer see anymore and he was so tired. He shuffled barely lifting his legs, the snow piling up around his hips. He no longer saw the point in running. He remembered the diseased rabbit he had caught when he was a boy. Just like him, it had no choice in how things were going to be, thats just how things were. He stopped walking, and fell to his knees. The sound of gun shot reached him a few seconds later. The buckshot peppering his back and tearing a large hole in his shoulder spinning him around. He sank softly into the snow, the frozen ground reaching up and holding him in its arms. He rolled onto his back and looked up into Michaels face. The walls of white around his head like the sides of a coffin. The two round empty eye sockets of the shotgun hovering in front of his face. This was it, he closed his eyes and accepted his fate. There was a sharp mechanical click before he slipped beneath a dark veil.

 

The dry cracking report of the gunshot drifted across the valley and was eventually drowned out by the dense falling snow. Hollis moved as fast as she could, following the curving tracks that the two men had already carved out. It was Michael who she discovered first. Lying on his left side clutching the gun to his chest, the beam of the torch shining up into his face, illuminating it like a ghastly death mask. She picked it up and threw it away from him, it disappeared, swallowed up into the ground. The back of his trousers on his right leg was ragged and ripped apart, the fabric stained dark brown. She took off her scarf and wrapped it around the wound and packed it with snow. She took out her phone but was unable to get a clear signal. Hollis could tell that Michael was alive, but barely. Weak puffs of steam issuing from his shallow breath. ‘Just hold on Mike, your gonna be fine, you here me, you're going to be OK.’ Hollis found Beaton less than thirty yards ahead. Lying peacefully on his back with his arms flung out. As if he had been playing at making snow angels. There was a peppering of red spray about the ground, Beaton’s right shoulder seemed to have taken the brunt of the shot but she could see that a few of the pellets had caught his neck and chest which was bruised and swollen. She checked his wrist, he was still alive, it was a miracle. The familiar sound of sirens, off in the distance. Hollis saw the blue flashing lights climbing the hillside on the road behind the hedgerow. She made her way back up the meadow towards the Quarryman’s arms where the ambulance and the police van were pulling in.

Hollis was waving her arms and hollering as loud as she could, she felt breathless in the cold air. The adrenaline was wearing off and she was starting to feel tired. She saw Steve, she had never been so glad to see him. He climbed over the fence and ran towards her. Hollis grabbed him by the arms and rested her head on his shoulder to catch her breath.

‘What happened, are you OK, are you hurt?’ Steve held her back at arms length, looking her over to see if she was injured.

‘Your leg, it looks bad. We’ll get an ambulance on the way.’

‘I’m fine, fine, its nothing, down there, it’s him, he’s alive and Michael Powell’s down there too.’ By this time two officers had caught up with Steve who directed them down two where the two wounded men lay, dying on the ground.

‘Why d’ya do it Hollis, why d’ya go and do it?’ Steve helped Hollis limp back up to the car park and radioed in for ambulance assistance.

 

 

Michael had lost a lot of blood from the wound in his leg. He had spent a long time in the hospital. When Hollis had visited him he had tried to seem positive but it was clear that his recovery was not going to be so simple. He had lost everything. His biggest regret was that the gun had jammed. How could there be any room for forgiveness for what that man had done? Michael said that he would move away from the town for good, he had family in Bristol who could put him up until arrangements could be made to sell the business. It seemed to Michael that somehow he had been marked in some way, a cursed man. Nothing but misfortune seemed to befall him. Even his Father’s gun had given out on him at the very moment he had hoped for revenge.

Beaton was question intensely at his bedside by the police. He would not give up the whereabouts of Emma Powell although he did not deny that he had murdered her. The bloody saw and DNA evidence left little doubt as to what had gone on. A thorough search of the caves and the surrounding area failed to show anything up. Reluctantly the search was called off and it was presumed that in time that Beaton would give up the whereabouts of the body. He never did. He also admitted to the murder of Jonathan Powell, a crime he had committed when he was only a young boy. A Mr Finnegan Cole, who appeared as a witness at the trial, told the court that he had met the defendant twice in one week whilst drinking at the Quarryman’s arms. He admitted that he had been drunk when had given the defendant a detailed account of the death of young Jonathan. Beaton’s account of the death, despite being vivid, was dismissed as a fantasy designed to cause further pain to Mr Powell. They had found the poor broken body of Mrs Gream in a sports bag,Bag hidden beneath the snow, not far from entrance to the mine. Her sister, who was her only living relative, attended the trial as did the deceased ladies neighbours, a Mr and Mrs Campbell.

The national and local press made the most of the grizzly events that had taken place in a seemingly idyllic country village. The Quarry was eventually closed down, a popular move amongst the villagers who had seen more than enough intrigue to last them a good many years to come. People seemed to show a morbid curiosity in the infamous mines. Rilksham council decided after much pressure from the parish that it was far too dangerous a place to leave open to the public and so it was decided that the entrance be barred. The entrance was sealed off with a large metal gate that spanned the full width of the cave. Every now and then a small bouquet of flowers can still be found wilting between the metal bars.

It would not be until nine years later that the body of Emma Powell was finally discovered. When three young caver’s who had been exploring the mines came across a grim discovery. They had found themselves in the vast open chamber that was known to be the Abbey. Deep beneath the hillside, it was bathed in the light that fell through a hole in the vaulted roof above. Below this hole was a well that over time had been filled with the rubble and litter that had washed down. They decided to clear the well and restore and remove the litter. In an old rotten rubble sack were a collection of bones that appeared far too human to ignore. When forensic teams were finally called in they discovered the dismembered body of a woman. The mystery of where Emma Powell’s body had ben disposed had finally been solved, adding another sad chapter to Michaels life. Strangely enough, near the body of they woman they discovered the bones of a dog. Maybe a pet that had wandered off and had fallen through the grate above.

 

The landscape flashed by the train window. The barren trees, like witches broomsticks thrust into the ground, clinging to the horizon. The pale brown grasses, in hazy clusters, between the stubble of the corn fields. A thin band of pale blue sky above the tree tops, weighed down beneath the heavy leaden sky. The snaking pattern of the drifting snows over the brown mottled farm lands. Cottages, outbuildings, jobs and homes and lives all whisking by. The zip and dip of the wires along the pylons, undulating, on and on. It hurt her leg to sit down for any length of time, the pain in her thigh had now receded into a constant dull ache, the painkillers helped somewhat. It was the first family holiday they had had in so long that Hollis couldn’t quite remember. Leo was sleeping his forehead resting on the cold glass of the window, his head rocking with the motion of the train. Hollis could see Greg’s eyes flitting from left to right as he took in the passing scenery.

 

‘Is there snakes where were going mum?’

‘I hope so’

‘Are they dangerous’?

‘Probably, yes?’ Greg turned and looked at her.

‘Why do you hope that there’s dangerous snakes?’

‘I don’t know Greg, I guess because it would be less exciting if they weren’t so dangerous.’

‘But what if I got bitten, we could die.’ Hollis motioned Greg towards her.

‘Come here you.’ Greg jumped from the chair opposite and rest his head on her shoulder, Hollis ruffled his hair.

‘What you so scared of young boy o? Not some silly old snake.’

‘Well, not just any snake.’

‘I hear that they eat snakes, taste just like chicken.’

‘Ugh, no way am I eating any snake.’

‘You can feel them all wriggling around inside your belly, wurrhhh!’ Hollis stuck her fingers into Greg’s ribs and tickled him.

‘Get of, get off, stop it, stop it.’

 

She grabbed him and gave him a big squeeze around the shoulders. She felt a twinge of pain shoot up her thigh into her hip. The doctor had warned her against travelling with such a wound. Especially in a country as humid as Thailand. Hollis didn’t care, you only lived once so why not make the most of it. The boys had never been abroad, had never stepped on a plane. She could sense their nervousness. The last holiday that they had spent together was three years ago in Devon, it had rained non stop and the tents had leaked. As for work, well, something would turn up. Hollis didn’t imagine that she would be getting a choice in the matter, she would not be returning to the force. She certainly wasn’t going to be getting any medals for her actions. The press had painted her role in the incident in a favourable light but her have a go hero attitude had lost her the job. Michael had thanked her for saving him but sometimes she got the feeling when he looked at her that he wished she had left him to die. ‘Who could blame him?’ she thought to herself. Maybe she should have taken the gun and tried again. But Beaton was alive, he had been assessed and diagnosed and closeted away. He was destined to live out his days in a cell or at least until he was too old and frail to be of any harm to anyone but himself. It was not meant to have happened this way. It didn’t feel like justice, it was not the type of justice that you hope for.

 

Beaton Arnold Earnest began keeping a diary of his dreams and every morning when he rose before breakfast he would write down his thoughts before they had a chance to fade in clarity. It was rare that he did not dream at all although often he