BLACKDOWN (a thriller and murder mystery) (4 page)

Thomas Blackdown threaded his way through the thick undergrowth, the sweet smell of earth and leaves almost cloying in its intensity. This was an ancient place, he thought, passing oak and ash trees whose trunks were gnarled and swollen with great age, their arcing boughs forming an almost unbroken canopy above. Dead leaves were already beginning to break free and flutter down, intimations of the winter to come.

He came across a small clearing and searched for a suitably low-hanging bough over which to throw his canvas sheet to construct his makeshift tent. He glanced at the brooding sky through the shivering treetops, felt a spot or two of rain. He removed his greatcoat, unfastened the leather straps on his knapsack and took out the thick canvas sheet, tossed it over the bough and fastened it down at each corner with metal pegs. The rain began to fall heavier now as he gathered brushwood and struck his old tinderbox to light a fire. Taking a long bayonet from the pack he speared the strips of lamb and, like a spit, set the lethal looking blade over the flames across two pieces of forked wood. Fat began to drip onto the fire and spit and crackle. The rain disturbed the leaves of the brush about him, causing them to jerk violently in little dances. Thunder growled in the distance.

Blackdown closed his tired eyes, the scent of the cooking meat wafting over to him. The sound of the rain thumping against his canvas caused his mind to wander back. To the night before the battle. The night before Waterloo.

It had rained then, didn’t let up till morning and it soaked them through. Like a great many men he couldn’t find shelter and so did the best he could to get through the long night, wet and hungry. He’d tried to find food for his men, but there had been little to hand, and what he found he shared amongst his company. He remembered their faces as if they sat before him now. Nervous, excited, impassive. A dwindling close company of friends and comrades he’d fought long and hard alongside throughout Spain, together under Wellington’s command forcing Napoleon’s armies back into France, to that final bloody and decisive confrontation in those quiet Belgium fields around the village of Waterloo filled with chest-high ripening corn. And now they were gone. All those faces he remembered so well. He was the last of them.

The pain of remembrance caused him to sigh and he opened his eyes. Beyond the circle of fire, which complained at the rain that fell into it, the wood lay still and almost pitch-black. He tore the meat from the spit and began to chew the rancid, partially cooked flesh, washing it down with water from his bottle. Would the memories of war plague him forever?

Another memory insinuating itself on him. The young Frenchman – he can’t have been more than sixteen years old – lunged at him with his bayonet, having used up his charge, and missed him. His face was dirty and wet with sweat, wreathed in a rage born of extreme fear. But the memory of how he had managed to parry the musket aside with his sword, and brought the blade slicing down across the young man’s neck was still as clear as if it had happened moments ago. Blood gushed out in a scarlet spout and the Frenchman’s eyes first took on the look of incomprehension, and then glazed over as he toppled to the churned-up bloody ground at his killer’s muddied boots.

Blackdown drained the water bottle. Stared into the flames till his eyes hurt with it. He’d seen too many young men die, on both sides. And yet he’d been spared. The one man who cared not whether he died was left to live, to remember those whose lives had held such promise, who wanted to go on living. Why had God seen fit to punish him, to torment him? Had he not suffered enough? What had he ever done so wrong as to deserve this?

The noise snagged his attention like a thorn snags flesh. At once his senses were alert, and he stared hard in the direction of the sounds of disturbed undergrowth. It fell silent again, except for the drumming of the rain. He pulled his knapsack closer to him and took out a pistol. It was already loaded with powder and shot, an old habit, and he cocked the hammer, the click loud in the silence.

The woods were notoriously dangerous places to be for lone travellers, the countryside already filling with demobbed soldiers from the war with Napoleon. Many couldn’t find work and some of them had taken to robbery and murder in order to survive in a land that had always loathed the military and couldn’t care less whether they lived or died, abroad in some forgotten foreign war or here on home soil. The army was a necessary evil and its numbers made up of the scum of the earth – even Wellington himself had said so. Where now the gratitude for saving the country’s skin?

He crept out from under the shelter and grabbed a handful of dirt and doused his fire. He heard the noise again. Someone – or something – was moving stealthily through the dark undergrowth, and he knew enough about such things to know it wasn’t a deer or a badger. It was the distinct sound of two feet being placed one carefully in front of the other. He covered the charge in his pistol with his hand, protecting it from the rain.

But whatever it was turned and fled at speed through the bushes with a loud flurry of cracking stems, leaving him standing there with his heart beating a tattoo. He waited a moment or two, letting his eyes grow accustomed to the gloom. He pushed forward, through the bushes towards where he’d last heard the sounds. He came across dried and newly broken seed heads of cow parsley. At a height too tall for an animal. He crouched down to examine the ground, but it was very difficult to see properly in the dark. He thought he saw a footprint in the rain-softened earth. But it wasn’t a boot print, or even the print of someone walking barefoot. This was like no other print he’d ever seen. It was neither animal nor human. But perhaps his eyes were deceiving him, because it was so damn dark to see by and he was simply letting his imagination run away with him. He’d allowed himself to dwell on the past, and that was never good, for it coloured his thoughts and his judgement in a murky wash.

Whoever it was had gone now, he thought. He’d check the print in the morning when it was light, but it had probably been another traveller, like him, who’d been seeking shelter. Maybe they’d seen the comforting light of his campfire, smelt the cooking lamb and had been drawn to his campfire by biting hunger.

All the same he did not relight his fire, and sat for some time under his canvas sheet watching the darkness growing ever thicker about him, the loaded pistol sitting heavily on his lap, a cloud of bleak memories swarming around him like biting mosquitoes.

He woke early, as was his habit. He’d been so long a soldier, waking to the harsh sound of the trumpets and drums announcing Reveille, he could never hope to shrug it off.  Dawn was just pouring its leaden light onto the tiny clearing in the wood as he poked his head from under his tent. A few drops of water trickled down from the canopy, but it had stopped raining. The musky smell of damp earth and foliage was strong. He rubbed away the sleep from his eyes and went over to where he thought he saw the footprint, but he suspected the earth had been thoroughly soaked during the night and would have washed it away. He suspected right. There was only the faintest impression left on the ground.

After a breakfast of bread that was fast becoming stale, and refilling his canteen from a billycan he’d set under the canvas to catch the rain, he rolled up his tent with the intention of setting it on open ground to dry as soon as he could, and made his way out of the wood.

He heard hushed voices on the other side of the hedge that bordered the wood and he pushed through the hole in the hawthorn, much to the surprise of the three men who had gathered on the other side and were standing over the mutilated remains of the sheep.

One man – elderly, a large white beard sitting on his chest like a frozen cloud – turned quickly towards him and raised his musket.

‘Who goes there?’ he said, somewhat nervously.

‘Have no fear; it isn’t your savage dog,’ he said, dragging his heavy pack after him and standing tall.

‘Who are you?’ said one of the men. He sneered. He was dressed in a shepherd’s attire, the same as his companion, his lined face weathered a ruddy brown.

‘A soldier come home,’ he replied.

‘A poacher, more like,’ said the man with the gun. ‘What have you been doing in there? Devilbowl Wood is private property. Empty those pockets.’

‘I’ll do no such thing,’ he replied flatly. ‘And put that gun down, you’ll do someone some mischief.’

‘Do you know anything about this?’ he said, nodding at the dead sheep, his hand tightening around the stock of the musket.

‘Did I kill it, you mean?’

‘You know what I mean,’ he said. The other two men regarded the stranger warily.

‘I took it in my claws and sank my teeth into its neck and bit its head off,’ said Blackdown evenly. ‘What do you think?’

‘I don’t like this,’ said one of the two shepherds. ‘It’s exactly the same as happened before.’

‘It’s a dog gone wild,’ said his companion, pushing back his hat and wiping a hand across his sweated brow.

‘No dog did this,’ said the man with the gun. ‘Poachers did it. Someone with a grudge against Lord Tresham. Someone like this vagabond here.’

‘I take it you’re the gamekeeper called Budge,’ said Blackdown.

‘What of it?’

He shrugged, took a bone-white clay pipe from out of his greatcoat pocket and popped it into his mouth. His teeth closed around it with a click. ‘Lord Tresham’s gamekeeper?’

‘Yes. Gabriel Budge. What business do you have here?’ said Budge. ‘We have strict laws against vagrancy.’

‘I am not a vagrant, Mr Budge, nor am I a poacher. Your accusations flow out as fast as a man pisses away his beer.’ He took tobacco out of a small bag and stuffed it into his pipe. He nodded at the sheep. ‘That’s not the work of a dog. It’s been savaged by a far larger, more powerful animal. Or appears so at first glance.’

‘It’s a man with a grudge, I tell you,’ said Budge. ‘And I’ll find him and bring him to justice. He’ll hang or be sent to one of our penal colonies, I’ll see to that.’

‘It’s not a man,’ said Blackdown.

‘It’s a dog…’ insisted the shepherd.

‘And what makes you an expert?’ said Budge to the stranger.

‘Because I’ve seen all sorts of savagery meted out by men, and I have never seen anything like this. What man has claws to slice through flesh like this, and what man has the strength in his arms or jaws to tear apart a carcass in such a manner?’

‘I’ve seen foxes ripped apart by a pack of dogs…’ the shepherd interjected.

‘A pack,’ said Blackdown. ‘Do you suppose a stray pack of dogs did this?’

‘Perhaps,’ he replied.

Again Blackdown shrugged. ‘Believe what you will.’

‘You didn’t say what you are doing on Lord Tresham’s land, in Lord Tresham’s wood,’ said Budge.

The stranger’s eyes narrowed as he hoisted his pack onto his shoulders. ‘This land used to belong to my father, Lord Blackdown. I’m his son, Thomas.’

‘Gabriel Budge’s eyes fused into slits. ‘Blackdown has no son called Thomas, I know that much.’

‘You know only what you know,’ said Blackdown.

‘And even if you were Lord Blackdown’s son you wouldn’t wish to openly admit it, not after the shame he’s brought down on his name. He’s a traitor to his country and deserves to be hung for it.’

‘A traitor, you say?’

‘You do not know?’ said Budge. He gave a low mirthless chuckle and his companions did the same in response. ‘You cannot be Lord Blackdown’s son if you are not aware of his state of affairs. Everyone from here to London knows of it.’

‘I’ve been away fighting.’

‘So you say,’ said Budge.

‘To save skins like yours,’ he said. ‘My name is Captain Thomas Blackdown, and I care not whether you believe me or not. This land used to belong to my father.’

‘A lot of land used to belong to Lord Blackdown,’ said Budge. ‘But it doesn’t any longer. He is a Lord by name only, and only he calls himself that. The rest of society has wiped its hands of him.’ He stepped closer to the stranger. ‘I’ll admit you do have a look of the old man. I only hope he did not pass on his treacherous ways. It is a soiled bloodline.’

Blackdown’s jaw tightened. Muscles worked away beneath the skin. ‘You forget who you talk about, Budge. The very hills are named after my family, the town of Blackdown the same.’

‘Then it’s a pity we cannot name everything afresh.’

Thomas Blackdown adjusted the weight of his pack. ‘Your tongue will be your downfall, Budge,’ he said and set off at a pace away from them.

‘Where do you think you are going?’ said Budge as Blackdown started to march away. ‘I haven’t finished with you.’

‘I’ve finished with you,’ he returned sharply.

‘I could shoot you if you don’t stop and come back,’ he said. ‘I have the law on my side.’

Blackdown halted and turned. ‘And would one soldier shoot another in the back?’

Budge’s eyes widened. ‘How did you know I’d been a soldier?’

He smiled thinly. ‘I know.’

‘I want you out of here,’ said Budge, waving the musket, ‘off Lord Tresham’s land.’

‘You really should make your mind up. I have business here and I will not be leaving until it is concluded. And by the way, if you are going to shoot me, make sure in future you choose a gun that has flint in its hammer.’