The Tale of the Wolf (The Kenino Wolf Series) (5 page)

‘You two finished having sex?’

‘
Yeah,’ we both replied.

‘
Good, ’cos we got business to do.’ Leon was all excited. He always got excited when we were off cow thieving. It was the only time he could wear his night-vision goggles and not feel peculiar.

In addition to being the hostess with the mostess, Leon was also a butcher who did a very nice trade in black market chops, which is what I and now Boom-Boom would be assisting him with. Obviously I could have told Boom-Boom, but where's the fun in that? Far more enjoyable to make him think the wellies were for some lurid sex act, rather than the reality, which was basically that we were off to the countryside to steal a cow, or a pig, or a chicken … or any other animal that Leon felt the urge to nick, and you need wellies, because the countryside is muddy.

‘
Two minutes, Leon hey?’ I said.

‘
Cool. I’ll get the van and rescue Boom from the girls.’

‘
I’ll meet you outside.’ I waited until he left before I addressed Tabatha. ‘Can we sort your thing out tomorrow?’

‘
Yeah.’ she nodded. ‘How’s Marisol holding up?’

‘
I don’t know. I don’t even know whether she knows.’ Marisol was Longy’s sister. A pang of guilt struck me at the thought of not offering my condolences. ‘I’ll call her now along with Mo.’ Geronimo would have wanted to know as soon as possible.

I phoned Geronimo first. He already knew. Marisol had called Charlotte (Geronimo's partner) and she’d gone round there to comfort her. While I’d been asleep Bosley had done his rounds so everybody close already knew. I phoned Marisol after that. She was understandably tearful which caused the same response in me. I told her that I’d come and see her tomorrow which seemed to please her. I doubted she was handling it well, which made me feel even guiltier.

I wanted to go round, tell her what had happened. But I didn’t think I could handle it. Going cow hunting seemed like a better idea.

‘
Look, Tabs,’ I said, returning to Tabatha, ‘I’ll meet you at the Pagoda at eleven. Then we’ll sort your thing out, hey?’ Tears still flowed down her face. She nodded. Longy was as much her friend as he was mine, and the realisation that he was gone had fully sunk in.

‘
I'll see ya later, okay.’

‘
Yeah,’ she said kissing me gently on the lips; a gentle peck, a single moment of tenderness.

‘
Well, you bes’ go. They’re waiting.’ She could see me stalling. I didn’t want to leave. I could have stayed with her all night just standing there. But I had to go, had to carry on. What else was there to do?

Wednesday 9:30 p.m.

Leon had brought the van round the front; an old removal van, blue and white in colour, although you couldn’t tell from the dirt. Someone had written on the side: Clean me! Parking Betsy in Leon’s yard I jumped into the van with my black holdall, inside of which were two tranquilliser guns, a rifle version and a pistol version; both of which were extremely useful. Leon started the engine. The rain was coming down: it was that misty rain where the individual droplets are inconsequential on their own, but accompanied by their brothers and sisters can wet you to the bone. I watched as it swirled and danced across the darkened road. The headlights teased and flirted with the squall.

We moved forward, the gears screeched and creaked into action. Leon was driving, Boom-Boom was in the middle, and I was on the left, seated on the bulging yellow foam that seeped out of the battered leather seat. Leon had tried to repair the tear with some silver electrical tape, but the foam was too robust in its efforts to escape and was breaking back through its mock metallic confines.

There was something under my feet, I think it was old crisp packets and chocolate wrappers, but I didn’t want to look. Whatever it was it was soft and squidgy under my shoe; it squelched and squished every time I moved my foot. I opened the window slightly. There was a frowzy smell in the cab that was starting to bother me. The cold damp night air washed over me reviving my tired soul.

I didn’t know where we were going, but then I never knew. Leon would’ve told me if I’d have asked, but as I didn’t actually care what was the point? It was the journey that I enjoyed: the going from A to B, not the arriving, especially on occasions like this when I didn’t really want to be going.

Slowly we left the city with its reds, oranges, and greys; the colours of our existence. Gradually, the lights became fewer and the noise quieter, and then the city, my beloved town, disappeared behind us and this foreign green place drew closer. Twiddling the spent cartridge that I’d picked up from the floor outside Longy’s window, I couldn’t help but think of the guy in the hat and Longy all trussed up in a gimp suit.

I knew the outfit was bullshit. I’d known Longy well enough to know that he wasn’t that way inclined, was sure he wasn’t into auto-erotic asphyxiation, although I did intend to double check with a few of Longy’s previous paramours, just to be sure.

I don’t know when it happened, not sure when I decided, not sure I ever did consciously decide to do it … but somewhere along that country road I knew I had to find out what had happened; knew I had to find out why Longy was dead.

The rain had started to get heavier. The misty spray had turned into substantial droplets that were now bombarding the windscreen, giving extra work to Leon’s tired old wipers. Their screeching grated inside of my head. I tried to distract myself from the noise by watching as the land opened up and vast tracks of open space presented itself. Greens and browns blended together in the darkness

We travelled onwards for what, I think, was another hour. I hadn’t been keeping an eye on the clock. After a while Leon pulled into a lay-by. The rain had decided to desist in its efforts to irrigate the world. Maybe it had got as fed up as I had listening to Leon’s wipers, and had decided that it wasn’t worth continuing while Leon was still on the road.

We parked up next to a small woodland path, a muddy track that led through a less than welcoming woodland. The trees were tightly spaced and the branches meshed together linking the canopy. The moon was full. Leon had, as always, planned this well, and there was enough natural light to make the night-vision goggles surplus to requirements, although that didn’t stop Leon. I shoved on my wellies and we jumped out of the van and headed round to the back of it. It had a lifting platform which had been folded over to cover the doors. Originally intended for wardrobes and the like, but now used to lift the equally heavy farmyard animals we were about to acquire. We pulled down the platform and Leon opened the back.

The interior was divided into six even stalls with a pathway through the centre. Each stall had straw on the floor. Sitting in the pathway was a converted shopping trolley, with small tractor tread wheels and a reinforced body. Boom-Boom and Leon pulled it out and I pulled the tranquiliser rifle out of my bag. Leon took it from me once they’d got the trolley on the ground. Leon in turn handed me a pair of goggles, while Boom-Boom watched in confusion.

He had no idea what was going on and no intention of asking. He’d rather look on in ignorance and hope that things would explain themselves in due course. Usually, I would’ve kept the rifle, but as this was Boom-Boom’s training session I thought it wise to give it to Leon.

‘
You need me on this one?’ I asked Leon.

‘
Nah. This one’s easy. Be the lookout.’ Leon could tell I wasn’t really with it. I hadn’t mentioned Longy, but he knew something was up.

‘
Cheers,’ I replied.

I watched the two of them walk down the path, Leon striding ahead and Boom-Boom dawdling behind. Obviously the idea of walking through a wood, in the middle of the night with a man in night-vision goggles and a tranq gun had got Boom-Boom a little nervous. On a normal day I would have been pissing myself laughing, but truthfully I didn’t even recognise Boom-Boom’s trepidation until they were a good distance away.

I sat down on the tail flap and twiddled again with the bullet shell, smoking like a chimney. It was one thing to say I’d find out what happened to Longy, it was another thing entirely actually doing it. I didn’t know where to start. I didn’t even know why I had the shell casing. It’s not like it had an address on it or anything.

As I was trying to figure out how to begin, Leon and Boom-Boom appeared at the end of the path. Boom-Boom was grinning from ear to ear, pushing the trolley in which a sleeping ram’s head bobbed up and down. Obviously events had explained themselves enough for him to relax.

‘
I take it you had a good time?’ I asked, smirking at Boom-Boom.

‘
Piece of piss,’ he replied, fronting it.

We loaded the ram and jumped back into the cab. We hit four more farms in a similar fashion: Boom-Boom and Leon alternating between tranq gun and trolley duty. Our last journey was slightly different. We were going to Tom’s farm (one of Leon’s friends from his butchering days). Tom was a lovely bloke, a proper trooper. He even made us a coffee when we went to steal bits of his herd.

We pulled up to the main gate at about ten to four. The sun hadn’t yet started to rise but Tom was already up and about. Tom and Leon had known each other for years, Leon had been the butcher that Tom always sent his cattle to. It was during the early days of their relationship that Tom explained his plight; something to do with EU regs and cattle passports. There was much complexity to it, but in essence it meant that Tom couldn’t sell his grass-fed beef and was stuck with a load of cows that he not only couldn’t sell but also couldn’t eat, as it was against the law for them to enter the food chain as they lacked a passport. Obviously, this idiocy had to be dealt with. So, like every other honest man who the law treats unjustly, he decided to break it, which is where we came in, we basically stole his cows for him and sold them on, cutting him in.

‘
Morning, lads,’ Tom said, coming across to greet us.

‘
Morning, Tom,’ Leon returned. ‘So, how goes it?’

‘
Not bad. Just doing my rounds.’ Tom was every inch the stereotypical farmer; burly, strong, salt of the earth, he always reminded me of an
Elizabethan
yeoman. I liked him. He was trying to do the right thing and getting the shaft; trying to rear his animals the correct way and instead of being rewarded was being punished.

‘
I’ve got orders for six sides back in London,’ Leon said shaking his hand.

‘
Lovely!’ Tom grinned. Leon had been pushing Tom’s wares into some of the fancier restaurants in the West End. In truth, they were gnawing his arm off to get it. Tom’s quality levels were out of this world, which made the situation even more preposterous. Everybody wanted it, everybody loved it, and he wasn’t allowed to sell it. ‘They’re this way,’ Tom signalled the next field.

We trudged across the damp mud. We followed Tom through the gate and into the field. There were three bullocks ambling aimlessly around where the Jersey cows were penned up.

‘
Mmmoooooooo!’ one of the Jersey’s thundered.

‘
Mmmooooooo!’ Boom-Boom mimicked.

‘
What’s up with that one?’ Leon asked with concern.

‘
She’s started bulling, that one. Have to get the AI man out today, hopefully get her to calf.’

With the utterance of the word ‘bulling’ I stopped in my tracks … unlike Boom-Boom, who was still mimicking the noisy Jersey. For those of you unaware,
bulling
is a state that a cow enters once a month, where it basically becomes hyper-horny and will mount anything. The mooing is to summon a bull to service the cow’s needs.

‘
That explains why the bullocks were hovering round.’ Leon said addressing Tom.

‘
Yeah, not that they’re any use,’ Tom replied laughing

Boom-Boom was still mooing inanely, oblivious to the potential danger that had now presented itself. I stepped back a few feet, already seeing disaster approach. The bullocks had turned to face us and were responding to Boom-Boom’s utterances. I edged further away from Boom-Boom, Leon and Tom.

‘
It’s probably not a good idea to pretend to be a Jersey cow, Boom,’ Leon said.