Christmas Stalkings Read online

  “Poaching the peasant, eh?” said Sixsmith. “Man, that sounds really heavy. And chopping the fur? That’d be rabbits maybe?”

  “Eff eye are” said Nettleton. “The tree. We have a plantation. Had. Someone chopped most of the young trees down the other night. They’ll be on some market stall now, no doubt. Christmas trees, you see. You have Christmas trees back home, do you?”

  “In Luton? Yeah, it’s like a forest down Luton High Street this time of year.” Careful! Don’t trade ironies with the punters, not till you’ve cashed their check. “Deer you mentioned too. Rubbing the deer, was it?”

  “Running. Like in the carol . . . ‘The rising of the sun and the running of the deer . . .’ it means hunting. Crisp winter mornings, red-coated huntsmen, hounds running free, traditional Christmas-card stuff. Only this isn’t like that This is nasty, furtive, dead-of-night stuff. They call it ‘lamping.’ What they do is go out in the woods or up the fells where the deer are sleeping, then switch on a powerful light suddenly. The deer are dazzled and transfixed in the beam. Then the bastards send in their lurchers to pull them down. Or they finish off the job themselves with an ax or pick handle. Disgusting.”

  “What’s a lurcher when it’s at home?”

  “Crossbreed, something between a sheepdog, say, and a greyhound.”

  He spoke with such contempt that Sixsmith, despite his resolution, couldn’t help saying, “Purebred staghounds use humane killers, I suppose.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” snapped Nettle-ton. “No one can object to properly organized field sports. They’re part of our old country tradition. But I do object to mindless thugs coming onto my land to perform their monstrous slaughter. The other day in the woods just a few hundred yards above the Hall, I found a great pile of blood and guts, plus a deer’s head and hooves. They’d actually drawn and dismembered the beast right there! Mary and I are by ourselves just now, but come Christmas we’ll have a houseful of guests, and I don’t care to think of them or their children experiencing that kind of shock, I tell you.”

  “You’ve told the police?”

  “Of course. But it’s the usual story, too little, too late. We’re pretty remote, you see. Got to look after yourself up there, only the locals warn us not to investigate if we see a light. These bastards have as little respect for human life as for animals, and are quite capable of attacking you with a pick handle or even a shotgun.”

  Sixsmith was not liking the sound of this. He said, “Mr. Nettleton, what do you want from me? Take a good look before you answer. I’m not one of those martial-arts freaks you see in the movies. I don’t suddenly uncoil and start parting the bad guys’ hair with my feet. What you see is what you get.”

  “I’m not looking for a hard man,” said Nettleton. “You’ve been recommended to me as a man who comes in at things subtly, from the side. You see, I believe these lampers live in our area. The evening of the day I found the guts, we went down to our local, the Hunnisage Arms. Naturally we got talking with friends about the lampers. My wife expressed her opinion of them in very forceful terms. Anyone could have heard, and the pub was crowded. When we left pretty late—they have very flexible hours up there—I found that some bastard had scratched the outline of a deer’s antlers on my car bonnet”

  “One of the lampers, you think? Any ideas?”

  “There’s a nasty piece of work called Eddie Stamp. I caught him in my woods once. He said there was a path, but I told him I’d kick him so hard he wouldn’t need a path if I found him there again. Could be him, it’d be his style. But I’ve no proof. That’s why I’d like to hire you, Mr. Sixsmith, to go up there and investigate. There’s a converted barn on the estate, which is let out during the holiday season. You can stay there.”

  “A black man by himself in the middle of winter? I’d stick out like a live sheep in a Sainsbury’s freezer.”

  “No you wouldn’t Lots of people holiday in the Lake District at Christmas. As for being by yourself take your wife. Or a friend.”

  “I don’t have a wife. And this is the only friend I’d take.”

  A black-and-white cat had stepped out of a drawer onto the desk and was yawning impolitely in Nettle-ton’s face. “What do you think, Whitey? You fancy a trip to the country?”

  “I’m sorry, no pets,” said Nettleton. “It’s a rule.”

  “No? Well, I’m sorry too. No Whitey, no darkie, that’s the rule here, Mr. Nettleton.”

  The man frowned, then said grudgingly, “All right Bring the cat So it’s settled?”

  It still seemed crazy to Sixsmith, but he needed the job, not least because it gave him a good reason to stop spending Miss Negus’s money.

  When he rang her to tell her he was going away, she said, “No matter. At this time of year, SPADA comes under the aegis of the United Appeal Fund. So our collectors are well supervised anyway, but do keep on thinking about it, Mr. Sixsmith. I know what a trivial matter it must seem but during my teaching days I always had this nose for something not quite right the moment I entered a classroom.”

  Poor old cow, thought Sixsmith. Even noses had to grow old. He went home to pack all his thickest jumpers in preparation for the first journey he’d ever made north of Birmingham.

  It was even worse than he expected. He passed through three sub-Arctic storms, lost his way at least five times, and saw the temperature gauge of his ancient Morris Oxford dip into the red as he scaled hills like the Eiger before he crawled up the winding driveway to Skellbreak Hall. He couldn’t see much of the house in the gloom but it looked to be a long rambling Hammer Films sort of place.

  A woman answered the door, thirtyish, slightly overblown though not yet ready for dead-heading, with a cigarette dropping from an ill-natured mouth.

  “Oh it’s you,” she said with the peremptory clarity of the tennis-playing classes. “Wait there.”

  He waited there till she came back with a key.

  “Back down the drive, there’s an opening on the left. Barn’s straight ahead. What are you gawping at?”

  Sixsmith said, “When you said, ‘it’s you . . .’“

  “‘Small, shabbily dressed black man,’ that’s what my husband said. You are this detective thing, aren’t you?”

  “Well yes. And you’re Mrs. Nettleton?”

  “Who the hell else would I be?” she demanded.

  “I’m sorry. Your husband didn’t give me quite so detailed a description. Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Nettleton. I look forward to helping sort out your little problem.”

  That was pretty smooth, he thought. Show her she was talking to class.

  “What problem?” she said.

  “These what-you-call-’em? These lampers.”

  “Oh, those bastards. No problem,” she said dismissively. “Couple of blasts with a shotgun would see them on their way.”

  “But if they’re poaching game on your estate . . .”

  “Estate? Jesus Christ, he’s not been shooting that estate shit again? Listen, twenty acres of boggy fell-side and a bit of woodland doesn’t add up to an estate. As for game, there’s a bit of rough shooting, but these deer aren’t game, there’s no official hunting of them. Scrubby little roe they are, come down and eat the flowers if you’re not careful.”

  “So you wouldn’t object to a proper hunt?”

  “On horseback? Or course not Fat chance of that round here, where they even chase foxes on foot”

  “But you do object to lamping?” said Sixsmith, eager for clarity.

  “Of course I do. That’s not sport. Lot of nasty little erks come crawling out of their slums to make a bit of money. The Arabs have got it right. Chop off a few hands, that’d bring the crime wave down. What the hell Ambrose thinks you can do about it, I can’t imagine. Well, it’s his money. Just keep out from under my feet, okay?”

  She began to close the door. Sixsmith said, “I take it Mr. Nettleton’s not at home.”

  “You don’t think I’d be freezing my tits off out here if h
e were, do you?” she snapped, slamming the door.

  He found the Barn without difficulty. After his ungracious reception, he wouldn’t have been surprised to find he was expected to sleep on a bale of straw surrounded by oxen. Instead it turned out to have been very effectively converted into a two-bedroomed cottage with all mod cons. Someone had even switched on the electric radiators and stocked the pantry and the fridge.

  He opened a tin of tuna fish and put it in a saucer for Whitey, who returned from a tour of his new domain purring.

  “You like it, huh? That’s fine, but I don’t want you molesting the local wildlife, do you hear me now?”

  He himself dined on scrambled eggs. About an hour after he’d arrived, he saw a headlight moving along the driveway and heard the growl of a supercharged engine. Probably Nettleton returning, he thought. But if it was, the man didn’t think it necessary to call on him.

  He went to bed about half past ten, with Whitey snuggled beside him on top of the duvet. He fell asleep instantly, but woke again sometime after midnight with a sense of how utterly dark it was with no comforting rectangle of dim light at the window from the refracted glow of a nocturnal city.

  Whitey had managed to get his head under the duvet.

  “Good thinking, man,” said Sixsmith, pulling it over his head and going back to sleep.

  He was woken once more by the same car engine. This time the window was visible as a pale square and he lay there till the pallor began to glow. Then he got up, pulled back the curtains and found himself looking at blue skies above trees made gold by the rising sun. Among the trees something moved. He pushed the window open, and to his delight away up the wood bounded a pair of deer.

  Nettleton called to see him late in the morning.

  “Settled in?” he said. “Sorry I couldn’t be here, but business kept me in Manchester overnight.”

  “I’m very comfortable. What do you want me to do?”

  “Start detecting, I suppose.”

  “Oh, yes. Any suggestion where? My Indian tracking’s a bit rusty.”

  “How about the pub? I’ll give you directions.”

  According to Nettleton’s directions, the Hunnisage Arms was only a mile up the road. Sixsmith clocked fifteen finding it A battered pickup with carburetor trouble preceded him onto the car park. Three men got out, rustic types in cloth caps, gum boots, and shirt sleeves, despite the sub-zero temperature. Sixsmith let them go into the pub while he examined the car park. It was large with no sign of any lighting. Perfect for your bonnet artist

  The bar was empty apart from the three men, who didn’t even glance his way as he entered. The landlord, a small bearded man, compensated for this lack of interest with a warm welcome; probably, Sixsmith thought cynically, in the hope that this was a scouting expedition for a large and hungry family out in the car.

  If so, to his credit his bonhomie survived the disappointment of being told Sixsmith was alone. “Till my kid brother and his family join me for Christmas,” he added, this being the story he’d concocted to account for his unseasonal solitariness. “I volunteered to come up early, get the place aired out, suss out the nice pubs. Don’t reckon I need go no further.”

  “We try to please.”

  “You’re succeeding. Where’s the name come from, by the way?”

  “Hunnisages are the local gentry,” explained the landlord. “They own half the land round here. Your landlady is a Hunnisage.”

  “Mrs. Nettleton?” said Sixsmith, surprised.

  “That’s right. She’s some sort of second cousin to young Sir Andrew. He came into the title when his uncle died last spring. The Manor and the main body of land were all entailed, of course, but Skellbreak Hall had come into the family late and never been included in the entail, so he left that to Mary Nettle-ton. He’d always had a soft spot for her mother, it seems.”

  “So it’s hers, not Nettleton’s?” said Sixsmith.

  “That’s right, though he’d like folk to think different Not that I’ve anything against the man,” he added with a publican’s caution.

  They parted on first-name terms. . “Cheers, Joe, see you again soon, I hope?”

  “Tonight, Dave. I’m not a man who likes to cook for himself.”

  In the car park the three men, who’d left just ahead of him, were standing peering under the bonnet of the pickup.

  “Looks knackered to me, Charley,” opined one of them.

  Charley, the oldest and clearly the owner, cursed savagely.

  “I suppose I’d better ring that git at the garage,” he said.

  Sixsmith strolled over and said, “Having trouble?”

  “You’ve noticed,” growled Charley.

  “Mind if I look?”

  He peered in with the expert eye of one well-versed in keeping ancient engines going well beyond their expiry date. Then he went to the boot of his own car, came back with the cardboard box in which he carried tools and a huge assortment of spares, and set about the carburetor.

  “Try her,” he said.

  Charley tried her. The engine started first time and his look of ill-tempered skepticism was replaced by one of amazed delight.

  “By Christ, it sounds better than it’s done in years!” he cried. “Thanks, mate. I owe you a drink. Can’t stop now, we’re late already. But if you’re staying at Skell-break Barn, you’ll be in again, eh? See you!”

  The pickup roared off.

  So much for rustics paying no attention, thought Sixsmith. The sods had probably earwigged every word he’d said!

  But it was all bread upon the waters.

  When he entered the Arms that night (a journey he’d reduced from fifteen miles to three), he hadn’t got a yard beyond the door when Charley rose from a crowded table by a roaring fire and cried, “Over here, Joe! Sit down. Your money’s no good tonight”

  Joe. He probably knows my National Insurance number too, thought Sixsmith. There’s a lot I’ve got to learn about this detection business!

  He sat down and was introduced as a visiting mechanical genius to the seven or eight men around the fire. He soon realized they were already in full possession of every scrap of disinformation he’d given Dave, the landlord, and they seemed genuinely friendly, with none of that suspicious reserve he’d been conditioned to expect from country folk. Only one of them, a small wiry man with a swarthy complexion, came over as less than wholehearted in his welcome. When he was identified as Eddie Stamp, for once Sixsmith found himself fully in sympathy with Nettleton.

  Charley, after his fourth pint, became expansive.

  “You ought to settle up here, Joe,” he said. “Lad with your talents’d never be short of work.”

  There was a chorus of approval, but Eddie Stamp said, “A bit far north, I’d say. You lot aren’t built for the cold, are you?”

  Before Sixsmith could pick his response, Charley said, “Your mam’s family managed all right and they came from Egypt originally, didn’t they? Whose shout is it? Eddie, it must be you.”

  As the man rose reluctantly and went to the bar, Charley said, “Half Gyppo. Pay him no heed, he’s harmless enough.”

  Sometime later there was one of those twenty-to-the-hour silences which often fall on noisy groups, and from the car park came the roar of a powerful sports-car engine.

  “That sounds like Randy Andy. Better lock up your old lady, Dave,” Stamp called out.

  There was a general laugh which Dave didn’t join in.

  “Randy Andy? Who’s he?” said Sixsmith.

  “Sir Andrew Hunnisage of Hunnisage Manor,” said Charley. “Half the buggers in here work on his estate or on farms rented from it. They might have a laugh behind his back but just watch them touch their caps when he comes in.”

  Sixsmith watched. In fact, there wasn’t all that much touching of caps but nearly everyone returned the hearty “good evening!” with which the willowy young man in jeans and a tartan lumberjack shirt announced his entry to the bar. He had a bored-looking young woman
with him who sat on a barstool, showing a great deal of rather chubby leg, while her escort chatted to various individuals with apparently effortless ease.

  “He seems to get on well with people,” said Six-smith.

  “Bred to it,” said Charley. “No use trying to put it on like some buggers.”

  “I wouldn’t mind breeding her to it,” said someone with a lascivious glance toward the bar.

  And in the laughter Sixsmith heard Eddie say, “I know someone who’ll have her nose put out of joint.”

  In the days that followed, Sixsmith found to his surprise that he was rather enjoying his stay in these foreign parts. Charley had “adopted” him and missed no chance of showing him (in every sense) round the district.

  As to his investigation, he made only negative progress. It was easy after a while to get Charley himself to bring up the subject of “lamping” deer. The countryman expressed his own obviously genuine revulsion for the practice. And while there might have been some partiality in his assurances that no one local would do such a thing, this seemed to be supported by Sixsmith’s own assessment of his nightly drinking companions, with the possible exception of Eddie Stamp. And even here, Sixsmith wondered uneasily whether his distrust might not be a crypto-racist response to the man’s “half-Gyppo” origins.

  After a while he began to feel as guilty about wasting Nettleton’s money as he had about Miss Negus’s, but during their brief daily encounters, he got no sense of pressure from the man, so it was easy to drift along with the slow current of country life. He even began to enjoy his gentle strolls around the “estate” in an over-large pair of gum boots he’d found in the Barn. To his relief he found no grisly evidence of lamping, but he saw plenty of live deer and got a great deal of pleasure out of watching these timid, graceful animals.

  Then one day he bumped into Mary Nettleton and her reception more than compensated for the lack of pressure from her husband.