Sixteen Horses by Greg Buchanan (readict TXT) 📕

The storm raged, but the amusement arcades were still open, even at ten o’clock in the evening, even on a night like this.

A caravan shook near the waves further down, perched in a car park near a brick cafe.

The lights were on, and a stranger stood outside, his hood up.

The stranger looked at Alec, his face full of water, and Alec looked back, the same.

They paused for a moment, thirty feet away from each other, the only sound the heavy rain hitting the roads, neon swaying through the drops. Static filled the world until there was no picture left.

The man’s lips moved. Alec did not know what he was saying, or if he was talking to him. God help him, he did not care.

Alec turned, angry, broken, making his way towards a house that was not a home, towards an empty, lonely bed.

Tomorrow, he would go and dig up the horses. He’d meet the forensics expert, they’d find who did this, and the expert would leave and he would stay. His life – his shitty, broken husk of a life – would continue on.

He’d do what he had to do until he could do nothing else.

‘She asked me a question, once.’

The van slowed down for the turning.

‘She asked me if I knew what God wants.’

The noise of rockets pulsed through the air.

‘What kind of a person asks a thing like that?’

The driver did not answer.

‘Are you religious? Do you believe in anything?’

The driver shrugged.

Everything was silent now.

The sound of screams had ended.

Day Two

CHAPTER EIGHT

The next morning, Alec hit a pedestrian with water from a puddle.

Technically speaking it was an illegal act, worthy of a thousand-pound fine and three points on his licence. He grimaced. He’d let himself off. The jogger was on his side of the road. He shouldn’t have been running away from the direction of oncoming traffic, especially considering how dark it was.

Alec hadn’t even seen the man.

He slowed down a hundred yards away and briefly considered honking his horn in apology, but this might seem like taunting, so he didn’t. He just sped up again, off to the farm.

He’d awoken to emails containing files and witness statements from all the horse owners, compiled from phone calls at the station and a couple of in-person interviews.

It was a varied group. Three of the horses had been owned directly by the local riding school and livery; four more by a former town councillor, Joanne Marsh; most of the rest by farmers and local kids. Two of the horse owners they had not yet traced, no identification chips being present in their animals’ necks.

One of the owners had a criminal record: Michael Stafford, forty-three, lived by the sea. He had used his horse for work, driving kids up and down along the shore in his carriage. Alec looked at the file.

Aggravated assault. Possession with intent to supply. All when Michael had been a younger man. But mistakes were like arrows fired through time. They kept going, on and on, unable to find a target, unable to stop.

Two other names stood out on the list: the stable owners Charles and Louise Elton, the only joint owners of horses and therefore a ready-made fit for the mysterious couple spotted by the hermit on Well Farm. Judging by their age, however, it felt difficult to imagine the pair hacking off skulls.

George would look into what he could; today, he was needed on other cases.

Alec would follow up the rest.

He had a couple of hours before he was due at the crime scene. He planned to talk with the farmer again. Among the horse owners, several had not only heard of Albert Cole, but spoke of a troubled past. There were rumours about his wife Grace and why she had left him; his daughter Rebecca had been pulled out of school around the same time.

Alec wanted to speak to the girl, too. He’d tried to do so the day before – she’d been the first person to find the animals, after all. But her father was protective, evasive, kept claiming that she was busy with her work or that she had some urgent chore to perform at the farm. Alec did not know what was or was not urgent in a place like this.

He thought of the stag heads on the wall of the pub.

He kept driving. He kept his eyes on the road. The specialist would know more. He knew so little.

CHAPTER NINE

The teenager angled away from the rising sun. Her whole face convulsed, forcing a sneeze out onto the damp mossy rock beside her. In the early light, droplets dribbled down into the miscoloured marsh below. The void behind her nose ached.

She was alone.

Sat here as she was, hunched up on as natural a throne as anyone might ever find, Rebecca didn’t need to hold her hands before her face. She didn’t need politeness. To sneeze and not care, that was freedom.

Far off, the tents had survived the storm. Even now, one of the policemen was over there, Mr Nichols. He’d arrived at first light, just like the day before. He’d spoken to her, her father at her side.

How did you find the horses? Why were you out so early?

Why did you touch one?

Did you see or hear anything strange?

Do you know why someone would want to do this?

She was walking the dog, she’d had problems sleeping.

She wasn’t sure what she was looking at.

No, apart from the sight itself.

No.

She looked out at the lonely lights of nearby farms, far enough away that they seemed like campfires now.

Something moved beneath her dangling feet.

There was no sound but the cricking of crickets, of tree leaves rippling like rain.

She peered down. Her heart beat a little faster. Just a little. It was like music switching on by itself. Like a voice mumbling in another room.

The thing below her feet . . . it was coiled, thin, flat . . .

The hair of horses, the clotted pile of tails