Shepherd's Cross
Authors: Mark White
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Genre Fiction, #Horror, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Supernatural, #Ghosts, #Witches & Wizards, #British
4.00pm:
Wilf Blackett’s young Border Collie glided over the moors, darting between
gorse and heather with an effortless grace so typical of the breed. Out on the
remote North Pennines, the fields stretched endlessly. A farmer needed a good
dog to manage in this hill country. Rex, with a long and established bloodline,
was exactly the kind of dog that could be relied upon to serve his master’s
needs.
The job on that particular afternoon in
early January was simple enough; a routine check around the boundaries to make
sure all was in order. To check that the sheep were safe and the walls were
standing firm before darkness fell. Blackett followed after his dog on his quad
bike, taking his time and thinking about the remainder of the dying day that
lay ahead of him. He and his neighbours had looked after these hills for
generations, and very little had changed the way they went about their work.
Hill farmers were a hardy breed, almost as hardy as the sheep upon which their
livelihoods depended. You couldn’t grow anything of worth on this land; too
gnarled, uneven and ancient. Nevertheless, there was a simple beauty in the
expansiveness of the barren hills. A raw, primordial magnetism that drew all
manner of visitors to them, like the summertime tourists who came to explore
the ancient bridleways and footpaths, or the nature enthusiasts, drawn to the
various wildflowers and birds that were to be found depending on the season.
For others, however, the pull of the moors was more permanent. For people like
Wilf Blackett, living in this rugged terrain came almost as naturally as it did
to the moorhens and grouse with which they shared it.
Blackett arrived at the corner of the
top field, squeezing the brakes on his quad and letting it roll to a halt. He
climbed off the machine and approached the gate, lighting the dog-end of a
cigarette that had been keeping the back of his ear company for the past half
hour. Reaching the gate, he paused to take in the view of Shepherd’s Cross;
the village that nestled in the valley below. He was dwelling on how little the
place had changed since he had walked these fields as a boy when an
uncomfortable feeling washed over him, leaving him shivering and confused and
worried that his heart had finally decided to quit on him after years of neglect.
The feeling passed as quickly as it had come, but it left him needing to lean
against the gate to steady himself and catch his breath. He reached into his
jacket pocket for the hip flask given to him by his wife for their twenty-fifth
wedding anniversary. He unscrewed the cap and raised it to his lips, enjoying
the warm, comforting taste of the whisky he had grown increasingly dependent
upon to get him through the days and nights since she had died. Farming these
hills was lonely work, but it was returning home to an empty house that made
him feel most alone. It was all too easy to fool the outside world into
believing he was coping well enough on his own, but not being willing to press
on people’s time for companionship had come at a price.
A violent gust of wind blasted across
the ground, forcing him to turn up his collar and hunch sideways to shield his
face from the worst of the chill. A submissive whining noise drew his attention
along the wall to the south-east corner of the field. He immediately sensed
that something was wrong; Rex would only make such a noise when Blackett
threatened to beat him for misbehaving. In the fading light of day, he could
determine that the dog was circling a tall object, but from where he was
standing, a combination of waning light and deteriorating eyesight made
interpreting the shape too difficult. He would need to get closer.
He returned to his quad bike, lamenting
the lack of a gun. ‘Get a hold of yourself,’ he cursed. There was more than
likely to be a perfectly reasonable explanation. Perhaps a hiker had veered
from the trail, frightened out of his wits by a whining, growling farm dog. But
even with his poor vision and whisky-infused imagination, Blackett was fairly
certain the figure wasn’t human; it was too tall, thin and lifeless. It couldn’t
have been there long – he hadn’t noticed it earlier in the day when he’d been
up with some hay for the sheep. Whatever it was, it could have only been there
for a few hours at most.
Rex ran back towards his master, barking
at him as if to insist that he needed to come and see what he’d discovered.
Blackett fired up the quad and set off after his dog with a mix of curiosity
and trepidation. The wind grew stronger, biting into his exposed face, the cold
blast making his eyes water. He paid no attention to this discomfort; he’d
lived through fifty-nine winters, and each one had served to harden both his
mind and body to all that Mother Nature could throw at them.
Weaving closer, he grew increasingly confident
of two things: firstly, it wasn’t a lost hiker; there was no movement, even
with the wind blowing as it was. Secondly, unless it had fallen out of the sky,
it had not ended up there by accident. It must have been carried there, and
judging by its size, there was more than one person involved. Neither
realisation reassured him.
There was almost no life remaining in
the day as he pulled up a few yards away and killed the engine. He reached into
a compartment and pulled out a torch that he kept mainly for the lambing
season, turning it on as he swung his leg over the seat and climbed off. Rex
continued to whine, uncomfortable as dogs are with uncertainty and the
unfamiliar. Blackett pointed the torch towards the object and froze.
A stout, ten-foot inverted cross reached
up from the earth, at the top of which was mounted a sheep’s head, blood having
dripped and dried down the black wood to the ground below. The decapitated
sheep’s body had been discarded, lying several feet away in a clump of gorse.
On closer inspection, it was clear that its head had been hacked away from its
spine, in what could only have been a gruesome and horrifically painful death
for the poor beast. Blackett’s focus shifted from the abandoned carcass back to
the cross and up to the severed head, the eyes of which were staring in the
direction of Shepherd’s Cross, its flickering streetlights visible in the
distance.
‘Jesus Christ,’ he whispered,
instinctively taking a step back towards his quad. By now it was too dark to
see if there was anything lying around that could have provided a clue as to
how the cross had ended up there, or who had been responsible for such a
barbaric act. He looked up again, the wind now howling with ferocity. At that
moment, who, why or what were questions that were beyond him. As he drained the
remnants of his flask, his hand trembling as he pressed it to his lips, there
was only one thing he could be sure of.
He was not alone.
5.30pm:
Police Constable Cara Jones carried her cup to the kitchen and emptied its
lukewarm contents into the sink. It had been a slow, uneventful day; one of
those dark and dreary winter days where a minute seemed to last an hour. She
had changed into her civvies so she could leave in good time to collect her
three-year-old son Luke from nursery. It was just the two of them now, and
there’d already been three occasions in the past six months where she’d arrived
late, only to find one of the nursery assistants waiting impatiently with Luke
in reception. On the third occasion, she’d been politely advised that there
were perhaps other nurseries that would accommodate her erratic timekeeping.
She’d come so close to losing her temper and telling them where to go, but her
hands were tied. There
was
another nursery nearby with longer opening
hours, but the higher price they charged put it way beyond what her entry-grade
pay packet could stretch to.
Nearly a year had passed since she had
caught her husband Mike cheating on her, but memories of the events of that
evening remained as vivid as if they had happened only yesterday. He had gone
to take a shower, leaving his phone lying on the bedside table. When a beeping
sound had alerted the world to a brand new text, she’d given in to curiosity
and read it. It hadn’t taken him long to confess, after all, what line of
defence could counter the words ‘Just thinking about you is making me wet!’?
She had left him that night, driving to
her sister’s house with Luke still asleep, curled up in his pyjamas in the back
of the car. The worst part of it, even worse than the fabricated tales about
overnight business trips and company away-days, was his lack of genuine
remorse. He’d fluffed a few throwaway lines about being sorry, and how he’d
never wanted to hurt her, but he hadn’t begged her to stay. He hadn’t even
asked
her to stay. Even now, nearly a year down the line, there was not a day that
went by without her wondering how he could have done that to her; how he could
have betrayed her so callously. Her mind went over it time and time again, but
it didn’t get any easier.
If there was one positive outcome to
have emerged from the mess and heartache of that night, it was the
determination it had given her to complete her Police training, which she had
started a year before her marriage breakdown. If nothing else, she needed the
money. Mike was paying what the law obliged him to, but not a penny more.
Shepherd’s Cross was her first posting.
A quiet, backwater village, where she could begin learning her trade without
the constant pressure found in the larger towns and cities. She’d been posted
there for six months, under the supervision of Sergeant Brian Jennings. At
fifty-eight, he wasn’t heading for anywhere but retirement; a goal that resulted
in his growing reluctance to do any kind of work that meant removing his
backside from his well-worn leather chair.
For the past eight years, Jennings had
looked after the residents of Shepherd’s Cross, as well as the neighbouring
hamlets of Bryerdene and Ancroft Garth. He knew and was known by everyone, and
in spite of his recent tendency for doing the bare minimum, it was generally agreed
that he was a likeable fellow who did a good job. He’d also been a good mentor
for the young recruits who’d passed through his Station, giving them the
freedom they needed to apply the practical aspects of their training, while
ensuring that they became well-versed in the subtleties of enforcing the law in
a fiercely self-reliant rural community. Cara was his first female officer in
five years. They had hit it off straight away: she was ambitious but not
arrogant, inquisitive but not overbearing. Jennings admired her; he had been
raised by his mother and knew of the sacrifices she had made to provide for him
in a time when rural society held divorcees in low esteem.
Jennings had already left for the day.
Thursday night was quiz night at The Fallen Angel, the village’s only Public
House, and it was his turn to set the questions. As usual, he had left his
quizmaster’s role to the last minute, so had decided to go home early and spend
an hour cobbling together some half-hearted attempt at a quiz-sheet, cribbed
unashamedly from his tattered edition of Trivial Pursuit.
Cara was consequently alone when the Station
phone started ringing. She hurried from the kitchen to the front desk,
wondering who could be calling at this hour. She couldn’t be on the phone for
long; if she was late again for nursery, it was highly likely that Luke’s place
would be filled by a child whose mother never had a problem turning up on time.
‘Good afternoon. Shepherd’s Cross Police
Station – PC Cara Jones speaking. How may I be of assistance?’
‘Umm. Aye. Hello. Is Sergeant Jennings
there?’ The voice sounded frightened, the words spoken unevenly and with a
sense of urgency. They almost always asked for Jennings. This had frustrated
her when she’d first arrived; for a while she had felt somewhere between a
secretary and a housekeeper. Over time, however, she had come to realise that
trust was earned slowly and destroyed quickly in a place like this. She couldn’t
expect to simply waltz in and command the same level of respect as Jennings - she
had to work hard and prove herself if she was to share a platform with him.
‘I’m afraid Sergeant Jennings has left
for the day. Is there anything I can help with? If you could perhaps begin by
letting me know your name and reason for calling.’
‘It’s Wilf. Wilf Blackett from Banktop
Farm. I need to report a crime.’ He proceeded to explain what had happened that
afternoon. Cara took notes, listening intently and saying nothing until he had
finished.
‘Do you have any idea who might have
done this?’ she asked. ‘Have you fallen out with anyone recently?’
‘No. I don’t see anyone enough
to
fall out with them,’ he replied, conscious that his answer drew attention to
his solitude. ‘But there was more than one of them, I’m certain of that. It
takes more than one man to catch and cut the head off a fully-grown ewe,
and….well, will you come and see for yourself? In the morning, when it’s light.
There might be something I didn’t notice, but it was dark and to be honest I
didn’t feel like hanging around.’
‘Of course - I understand. Either myself
or Sergeant Jennings will call by first thing. Can you remember seeing anyone
nearby at all?’
‘No. I saw nobody. But I didn’t
feel
alone.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘This is going to sound strange, but you
see…I’ve worked this farm all my life. I know the land better than anyone. So
you have to believe me when I tell you that I’ve never felt as strange as I did
on that top field this afternoon.
Something
up there was watching me. I
may not have been able to see anything, but I swear I wasn’t alone. Whatever it
was, it frightened the life out of me.’
The direct manner in which he spoke these
last words caught Cara completely off her guard. She stood there silently,
holding the receiver in her hand like she didn’t know what it was for, before eventually
pulling herself together and confirming that she would call by in the morning.
By the time she had hung up, she knew for a fact that she would not be going to
Banktop Farm without Jennings.