Stephen Booth - Blood on the Tongue

Malkin paused. He looked across the moor towards the side of Blackbrook Reservoir and opened a field gate in the dry-stone wall before he continued.

'Ted said there were millions of pounds. It took us days to count the notes, but there wasn't that much. We could barely carry the bags between us. I was only little, remember, and I soon got tired. We planned to hide them before we called the police. We reckoned everyone would think the bags had been thrown into the reservoir in the crash, because there were plenty of other bits of the aircraft lying all around the edge of the water.'

'I understand all that,' said Cooper. 'So what went wrong?'

Malkin still stared at the reservoir. 'We saw the light,' he said. 'Out on the ice.'

'A light?'

'It was way out in the darkness, and we knew it was in a place no human being could possibly be. It was as if the light was floating in mid-air. You get daft ideas at times like that, but the first thing we thought of was the spirits that are supposed to be on the moor. We thought of ghosts. Even Ted was a bit scared, I think.'

Malkin seemed almost to be reverting back to his childhood as he spoke. Cooper could picture him as the excited, terrified little boy, in awe of his older bother. It wasn't all that hard to imagine how the young George Malkin must have felt. There had been times in his own past when Cooper had become almost sick with excitement at some adventure that Matt had got him into.

'And then we heard a voice calling for help,' said Malkin. 'It was weak, and there was a funny echo to it. We stood and watched the light moving, and we knew it must be one of the crew from the crashed plane. But we didn't think he could be alive at first. We thought it was his ghost, just a light and a voice. He was calling for help in English, but we weren't fooled. We'd heard them speaking in their own language, so we knew they were German.'

Cooper closed his eyes. 'They were Polish,' he said.

But Malkin didn't hear him. He was far away, re-living a moment that was permanently etched in his memory. Fifty-seven years had done nothing to weaken his recollection. He was talking now as if it didn't matter whether Cooper were there or not.

'Then Ted said the airman must be near the edge of the reservoir. He said the dam wall was behind him, because we could hear the echo when he shouted. So we watched the light for a little while longer. I've never felt so cold in my life, but part of that was the fear. I knew if we waited much longer, I wouldn't be able to carry the bag any further. I started to look round for somewhere to hide it, but there was nowhere near. There was only snow. And then Ted said: "He's on the ice."'

'The reservoir was frozen over, wasn't it?' said Cooper.

'At that far side, it was. The airman was walking across the ice, following the dam wall.' Malkin paused. 'I was worrying about the money. The man on the ice was the one thing that seemed to stand between the money and us. He would know it was missing. I said we should put the bags back, but Ted told me not to be stupid. I said the airman would reach the water board road, that he'd be able to walk to the phone box half a mile away. But Ted said: "He won't reach the road."'

Cooper opened his mouth to ask a question, but changed his mind. It would be a mistake to interrupt now. The story was approaching a conclusion. He could feel it in Malkin's increasing tension, see it in the lines around his mouth, a tightening rictus of fear. Cooper could tell he'd memorised every word that had been spoken as the two brothers stood clutching the leather bags, listening to a voice calling for help.

'And then we both heard it — the cracking,' said Malkin. 'It was clear in the night air, and it sounded so loud. It was like the sound of two pieces of metal being tapped against each other, and a little crunch of something breaking. Then the light disappeared. One second it was there, then it was gone. There was no shout or cry from him, not even a splash of water. Maybe a reflection of the flames on a piece of ice as it tilted on the surface. But then the ice fell back, and he was gone.'

Cooper shuddered, imagining the shock of icy water closing over his head. McTeague would have been dressed in heavy flying boots and a parachute harness. Trapped under a layer of ice, he would have been dead within seconds.

Now Irontongue had disappeared in the mist, which was rapidly approaching across the moor, racing towards Hollow Shaw, turning the air heavy with the expectation of rain. Cooper could feel the dampness on the back of his neck.

'I didn't understand what had happened,' said Malkin. 'Not until later. When we went up and looked at the reservoir next morning, I saw it was only on the east side that the water was frozen enough to walk on. It had a covering of snow, so it wouldn't have felt any different to a piece of level ground to a man in the dark. It's bloody hard work walking across that moor at any time, let alone in snow and in the dark. There are cloughs everywhere to get across.'

'He must already have been exhausted by the time he got to the reservoir,' said Cooper.

'Aye. He would never have suspected. But on the other side, near the weir, the water was still moving and the ice was thin, not enough to carry a man's weight. By the morning, there was barely a crack on the surface where he'd fallen in. You know, that bloke had been over Germany, got back home and walked away from a crashed plane. Then he put his life in the hands of two young boys. And we let him die.'

Cooper knew that his own imagination couldn't match what Malkin was going through. The man had been over the events of that night too many times.

'I always thought he would come back and haunt us out here, on the moor,' said Malkin. 'At nights, he does come back. But only in my nightmares.'

Cooper stared towards the reservoir, where it lay in a hollow between the snow-covered hills. He nodded, thinking not of Malkin nor even of Danny McTeague, but of Zygmunt Lukasz.

'No forgiving. No forgetting,' he said.

And suddenly, Malkin snapped. His face reddened and the veins stood out in his forehead, twisting his face into an unrecognizable expression.

'Do you think I want to remember this?' he said. 'Don't you think I've re-lived it often enough already since the night it happened? How many times do you think I've had the nightmare in that time? How many?'

'I don't know,' said Cooper.

'How many nights in fifty-seven years?' said Malkin. 'Work it out for yourself, clever lad.'

George Malkin turned and began to walk back towards the farm. Cooper felt for his radio. Should he call in? But it was ridiculous — this was surely an accidental death, fifty-seven years old. The witness had been an eight-year-old boy. After all that had happened recently, everyone would think he'd finally gone mad if he made a drama out of it. Then he saw that Malkin wasn't heading for the house, but towards the big shed where Rod Whittaker kept his lorry. Malkin slid back the doors and disappeared inside.

'Mr Malkin?' called Cooper. He began to feel foolish standing in the field. He started to run towards the shed as he heard a diesel engine rumble into life. Cooper peered inside. The DAF wasn't there, but the big Renault tractor was, along with all its implements lined up against the wall — a hay baler, a harrow, a snowplough blade. George Malkin was sitting high up in the cab of the tractor.

'Mr Malkin!' shouted Cooper. 'Do you help Rod Whittaker with his contracting business, too?'

'Nay, I don't have an HGV licence,' Malkin called back.

'You can drive this tractor, though.'

Cooper saw Malkin put the tractor into gear. He dodged round to the side and pulled himself up on to the step to clamber through the passenger door.

'You said Rod Whittaker is contracted by the council. His contract includes clearing the snow sometimes, I bet. It's much cheaper for the council to pay farmers and local contractors to do it, rather than buy expensive snowploughs of their own.'