Sixteen Horses by Greg Buchanan (readict TXT) 📕

came through the square, stopping at the corner of the car park. This was not that unusual. It would be unusual if you saw one in the night. They left the town to itself in the night.

One of the policemen got out – it was the handsome older one; George, the old woman thought his name was – and he went over to the market tents. He disappeared for a bit. The metal letters above the arch – ILMARSH MARKET – they were grimy, they only shone when the sun was properly out.

Minutes later, George emerged and got back into his car. He drove off.

Over the next hour, people started talking.

The old woman knew something was different – people were gesturing to each other. She saw two motor scooters stopped, their owners deep in conversation.

Something had happened.

She said as much to her friend. ‘Something has happened, Derrick.’

Her friend just nodded. It was unclear what he was thinking about.

She turned her head, twisting her body in awkward, dramatic motions that had come to her with age. She looked a little scared, a little delighted. ‘Something has happened,’ she repeated.

Rain had been forecast for the day before, but it had never come.

It came now.

They hammered nails into tents around the horse heads, dividing them into three roughly distinct sites. They left their police cars closer this time.

Sixteen horses, Alec had said. And the tails – they’re all cut off . . . They’re in a pile . . .

The way the tails clung together, slightly wet within the growing rain. The way the eyes, even now, even after wind, still watched from the ground. And the spacing . . . the almost-but-not-quite circles they formed . . . it did not feel like a crime scene.

It felt like a wish.

No uniformed officers had been available that morning. Alec shouldn’t have been. He was a detective sergeant. He was CID. He was meant for more than this.

He had been having trouble sleeping.

Alec got on the phone as the head vet drove off.

The man had given him a name and a number, a referral for a specialist just a few hours away. Someone with forensic experience, apparently.

‘Might be worth it,’ Alec said to his superior. They’d only need her for a little while.

Earlier that day Alec had been laughed at for suggesting they plaster-cast the footprints found at the scene (‘You want some luminol with that, Poirot? How about we get COBRA on the phone and—’). Now, now the situation was different.

All these people, phoning into the station. Not just the owners of horses.

Something had happened. Something was happening. The day was cold and the wind blew and the rain was pouring.

‘OK,’ the inspector said, staring at a photo of the crime scene. Harry held the dark images in his hands, saw the captured tails up close, the clotted blood. He saw the white bone. ‘OK . . . I’ll make a call.’

CHAPTER TWO

The journey took a few hours, enough for the specialist to feel queasy without travel sickness pills. Trains weren’t normally too bad, and driving herself, that was fine, but the carriages heaved at slight angles along the rails. Her body, her mind – they lost their balance. The world sank into nausea.

Her bags, full of her tools and instruments, rested on the racks nearby. She had a plastic cup of red wine in front of her, abandoned for a while now. It had stained her lips just a little. She had tried watching a movie in the muddle of all these people, but surrendered quickly, staring out instead at the smear of the passing world. The carriage spat itself out at various stations, until there were only thirty minutes left, until Ilmarsh.

She’d read about it online.

It had been a pleasure town, once. All lettered rock and candy floss by the sea.

A place to escape. A place to drink clean air, to recede from the grind of daily work.

She closed her eyes in a light doze, the table finally hers, folding her coat so she could wedge it into a pillow against the glass.

She drifted. Down the carriage, a door opened and closed. People shuffled in with their bags. A stranger laughed at something on their phone. Another stranger talked softly. The minutes passed. She woke.

They had come to their final destination. Sixty miles had passed in a dream.

When she gathered her bags and stepped onto the platform, there was no one else around. From the look of the announcement board, trains only arrived every couple of hours. There were posters for films that had come out over a year ago. Old advertisements with faded colours. You could see the soul of an area in how hard it was sold to. How it was rated. How much there was to spare.

There were no barriers or guards, no one at all. Just a platform, a shuttered waiting room, and a small island of red and blue flowers out on the street.

Her cab arrived a few minutes later. The driver was polite enough, quiet, didn’t want to talk, which was fine.

They reached their destination, much closer to the sea now, though still no water was visible.

She’d been given the address by the police.

There were trees in a field outside. Oaks. Dark, unwashed hotels loomed against everything, their original white stucco muddied with the grey of a hundred years, a small splash of colour on each. The car-hire building itself was low and red in this strange road, JOE’S TYRES emblazoned on the front.

She went inside. The place smelt of ash and cigarette smoke. Car air fresheners stood in a rack next to the counter. A teenage boy sat behind it all, shuffling through a pile of keys.

‘You Joe?’ she asked.

He looked up, vaguely confused. ‘What?’

‘Are you Joe?’

‘Why would I be Joe?’

She frowned. ‘The sign outside.’

‘What sign?’

‘The sign, outside the—’ She sighed, scowling before trying to turn it into a smile. ‘You know what? Doesn’t matter. I’m here to pick up a car.’

‘What sort of car are you looking for?’

‘A rental. It’s been booked for me