Sixteen Horses by Greg Buchanan (readict TXT) 📕

arcades were open all the time, even though no one came.

The problem of how they possibly survived as businesses when all else failed had used to bother Michael, until he’d had a drink one day, until someone had told him the secret.

The arcades, they weren’t what they seemed.

‘People put coins in them all the time. They don’t get anything back,’ the man had said. ‘Don’t you understand?’

Michael hadn’t understood. A stranger had come up to the two of them, had begged, and his friend had told the stranger to fuck off.

‘The arcades clean the money. They clean everything. All the filth right off it, it’s like detergent, those games.’ The man had stubbed out his cigarette in the tray, smiling then roughly tousling Michael’s hair. Michael hadn’t liked that. ‘Where do you think the money goes, Mikey? Where do you think that fucker’s money goes?’

So Michael sat there now, all those months later.

He sat waiting for Joe, who might have owned this place, might have owned nothing.

A stranger came and hovered near the chair. ‘This seat taken?’

Michael shook his head.

The stranger sat down, scratching his neck. It was an old guy, grey hair, thick arms. Michael thought he’d seen him around, somehow. He’d seen him driving.

‘You lose much?’ the man asked.

Michael stared at him, and paused. ‘Yes,’ he said.

‘I don’t gamble much myself. Not with money.’

‘Then this is a strange place to be,’ Michael said, looking around. Joe wasn’t there yet. ‘Unless you like the kid games.’

‘Heh.’ The man grinned at him. ‘Can I ask you a question?’

Michael didn’t answer. Something about the stranger was starting to bother him. ‘Do I know you?’

‘Answer me first. Humour me.’ George smiled. ‘Where were you the night of the seventh?’

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Clouds drifted across the fields as the moments passed. There were no towers to break them, no city to conceal the wake of the sky.

To be accused of something you didn’t do, it might not be character-building.

But it did something, didn’t it? It was half of Alec’s business, potentially laying blame upon innocent people. You just didn’t know who might be right or wrong at the beginning, who might be lying. You had to do your job.

He listened to his friend, a small sheen of sweat along his dirty cheek. The phone had cut against it, resting now against his ear.

‘Michael claims he was at the fireworks show, the night of the killings,’ George said, his voice slightly robotic from the weak signal. ‘No names of anyone he was with, but . . . he says he was there. Claims he went alone. What can I say?’

‘And his heavy goods licence?’

‘Apparently he hasn’t driven a truck in years. Just a horse and carriage for our ex-con.’ George hesitated. ‘Had a look through his caravan windows before we spoke. He’s drinking pretty heavily, maybe some drugs too, it was hard to tell.’

‘How was he to speak to?’

‘Sad, I think. I don’t know . . . All he had was that animal. It was his business. It was his friend, I guess, his pet. I don’t buy that he’d hurt it.’

‘He’s been violent before,’ Alec said.

‘So have I. We can all make mistakes.’ George sighed. ‘I don’t know, like I said. If we’re on this much longer, I’ll see if we can pull some CCTV from the shore. Must be a camera that points his way. Might help with the alibi, what time he got back, what time he left. I wouldn’t rule out some of his associates being involved, I suppose. But him personally? I doubt it.’

‘OK,’ Alec said. ‘We got all the heads to the vet surgery. The consultant is looking over them now.’

There was a pause in the line.

Over near the Coles’ farmhouse, he heard the noise of a rattling door.

‘Do you think she’ll find much?’ George’s voice was muted.

‘She said the heads might have been sawn off . . . Seemed to be promising.’

‘Strange kind of job she does,’ George said, and then, after a pause: ‘You seemed to be getting on well earlier.’

‘What?’

‘Just what I said. You seemed to be talking a lot.’

‘About four hundred cats.’ Alec scowled.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘They were – they were sliced up in people’s . . . You know what? Never mind. It’s—’

‘Why would people slice up cats?’ George sounded genuinely hurt, mystified, his voice grown quieter. ‘That’s horrible.’

‘It is horrible,’ Alec admitted. ‘Talk later, OK?’

‘OK. Sure.’

Alec put the phone back in his pocket.

He sneezed. For a moment he thought he had sneezed blood, but it was only a trick of the falling light.

When Cooper had asked him if they’d met, Alec had lied, or he’d told a half-truth, anyway.

The vet had looked different in the morning light, especially in the green boiler suit, the black wellingtons, the tired eyes. But it was her. The night before – the dark-haired woman in the dark red sweater, the one he had been caught smiling at in the beer garden. It had been Cooper.

He couldn’t tell her that was their first meeting, that he was the silent weirdo at the pub. He didn’t know what had been wrong with him, why his thoughts had been so strange. He wondered if she’d even registered it. A woman like that, she probably had guys fawning over her all the time.

He thought about the way she had snapped the crow’s neck.

He stared at the road. The land was so flat out here. There were no hills in sight, no escalation or fall. It was a vast blankness, punctuated only by a few barns, a few tractors, and the curve of the Earth itself hiding all else from view. Only Ilmarsh was visible to the east, its low buildings sprawling. You couldn’t even see the sea.

There was a skip nearby, just outside the corner of the barn. Rusted farm tools and machines stuck out of the top. Alec saw something fluttering within.

He approached the skip, the shiny plastic cluttering his eye. He did not know what it could be.

He had to move a wheelbarrow a little, but he found the