Caroline Graham - The Killings at Badger's Drift

She had been walking in the woods just before teatime when she saw them. Walking very quietly although that had not been her intention. It was just that the spongy underlay of leaf mould and rotting vegetation muffled every footfall. The trees, tall and packed close together, also seemed to absorb sound. In one or two places the sun pierced through the closely entwined branches, sending dazzling shafts of hard white light into the darkness below.

Miss Simpson stepped in and out of these shining beams peering at the ground. She was looking for the spurred coral root orchid. She and her friend Lucy Bellringer had discovered the first nearly fifty years ago when they were young women. Seven years had passed before it had surfaced again and then it had been Lucy who had spotted it, diving off into the undergrowth with a hoot of triumph.

Their mock feud had developed from that day. Each summer they set out, sometimes separately, sometimes together, eager to find another specimen. Hopes high, eyes sharp and notebooks and pencils at the ready they stalked the dim beechwoods. Whoever spotted the plant first gave the loser, presumably as some sort of consolation prize, a spectacularly high tea. The orchid flowered rarely and, due to an elaborate system of underground rhizomes, not always in the same place twice. Over the last five years the two friends had started looking earlier and earlier. Each was aware the other was doing so; neither ever mentioned it.

Really, thought Miss Simpson, parting a clump of bluebells gently with her stick, another couple of years at this rate and we’ll be coming out when the snow’s on the ground.

But if there was any justice in the world (and Miss Simpson firmly believed that there was) then 1987 was her turn. Lucy had won in 1969 and 1978, but this year ...

She tightened her almost colourless lips. She wore her old leghorn hat with the bee veil pushed back, a faded Horrockses cotton dress, wrinkled white lisle stockings and rather baggy green-stained tennis shoes. She was holding a magnifying glass and a sharp stick with a red ribbon tied to it. She had covered almost a third of the wood, which was a small one, and was now working her way deep into the heart. Ten years could easily pass between blooms but it had been a wet cold winter and a very damp spring, both propitious signs. And there was something about today ...

She stood still, breathing deeply. It had rained a little the evening before and this had released an added richness into the warm, moist air - a pungent scent of flowers and verdant leaves with an undernote of sweet decay.

She approached the bole of a vast oak. Scabby parasols of fungus clung to the trunk and around the base was a thick clump of hellebores. She circled the base of the tree, staring intently at the ground.

And there it was. Almost hidden beneath flakes of leaf mould, brown and soft as chocolate shavings. She moved the crumbs gently aside; a few disturbed insects scuttered out of the way. It gleamed in the half light as if lit from within. It was a curious plant: very pretty, the petals springing away from the lemon calyx like butterfly wings, delicately spotted and pale fawny yellow but quite without any trace of green. There were no leaves and even the stem was a dark, mottled pink. She crouched on her thin haunches and pushed the stick into the ground. The ribbon hung limp in the still air. She leaned closer, pince-nez slipping down her large bony nose. Tenderly she counted the blooms. There were six. Lucy’s had only had four. A double triumph!

She rose to her feet full of excitement. She hugged herself; she could have danced on the spot. Nuts to you Lucy Bellringer, she thought. Nuts and double nuts. But she did not allow the feelings of triumph to linger. The important thing now was the tea. She had made notes last time when Lucy had been out of the room refreshing the pot and, whilst not wishing to appear ostentatious, was determined to double the choice of sandwiches, have four varieties of cake and finish off with a home-made strawberry water ice. There was a large bowl of them, ripe to bursting, in the larder. She stood lost in blissful anticipation. She saw the inlaid Queen Anne table covered with her great aunt Rebecca’s embroidered lace cloth, piled high with delicacies.

Date and banana bread, Sally Lunn black with fruit, frangipane tarts, spiced parkin and almond biscuits, lemon curd and fresh cream sponge, ginger and orange jumbles. And, before the ice, toasted fingers with anchovies and Leicester cheese ...

There was a noise. One always had the illusion, she thought, that the heart of a wood was silent. Not at all. But there were noises so indigenous to their surroundings that they emphasized the silence rather than disturbing it - the movements of small animals, the rustle of leaves and, overall, the lavish ululation of birdsong. But this was an alien noise. Miss Simpson stood very still and listened.

It sounded like jerky, laboured breathing and, for a moment, she thought that a large animal had been caught in a trap, but then the breathing was punctuated by strange little cries and moans which were definitely human.

She hesitated. So dense was the foliage that it was hard to know from which direction the sounds came. They seemed to be bouncing around the encircling greenery like a ball. She stepped over a swathe of ferns and listened again. Yes - definitely in that direction. She moved forward on tiptoe as if knowing in advance that what she was about to discover should have remained forever secret.

She was very close now to the source of the disturbance. Between herself and the noise was a tight lattice of branches and leaves. She stood stock still behind this screen then, very carefully, parted two of the branches and peered through. She only just stopped a sound of horrified amazement passing her lips.

Miss Simpson was a maiden lady. Her education had in many respects been sketchy. As a child she had had a governess who turned puce and stammered all through their ‘nature’ lessons. She had touched, glancingly, on the birds and the bees and left the human condition severely alone. But Miss Simpson believed deeply that only a truly cultivated mind could offer the stimulus and consolation necessary to a long and happy life and she had, in her time, gazed unflinchingly at great works of art in Italy, France and Vienna. So she knew immediately what was happening in front of her. The tangle of naked arms and legs (there seemed in real life to be far more than four of each) were gleaming with a pearly sheen just like the glow on the limbs of Cupid and Psyche. The man had the woman’s hair knotted around his fingers and was savagely pulling back her head as he covered her shoulders and breasts with kisses. So it was that Miss Simpson saw her face first. That was shock enough. But when the woman pushed her lover away and, laughing, scrambled on top of him, well ...

Miss Simpson blinked, and blinked again. Who would ever have thought it? She eased the parted twigs back together and, holding her breath, gently let them go. Then she stood for several minutes wondering what to do next. Her mind was a mass of conflicting thoughts and emotions. She felt shock, intense embarrassment, disgust and a very faint flicker, instantly and resolutely suppressed, of excitement. She felt as if someone had handed her a ticking bomb. Having, by force of circumstance and natural inclination neatly sidestepped all the mess and muddle of selection, courtship, marriage and the resulting clash of arms, Miss Simpson felt singularly ill equipped to handle it.