Jack Higgins - Dark Side of the Street

When Youngblood went into the parlour there was no one there and he moved along the passage and entered the kitchen. Molly was standing at the stove in an old cotton dress that was a size too small so that the skirt seams had split in several places. She wore no stockings and when she turned to look at him he realised, with considerable disappointment, that the moon had lied. She was at best plain and with her high cheekbones, olive skin and overfull lips, many people would have considered her ugly.

"It's almost ready," she said in that strange, dead voice of hers and smoothed her hands over her thighs. "I'm just going out to the shed to get some more wood for the stove."

She took a lantern down from a hook above the sink, lit it and moved towards the back door. Youngblood was there before her. "Here, I'll take that," he said. "You could probably do with some help."

She hesitated, gazing up at him, a strange uncertain expression in her eyes and then she handed him the lamp. "All right. It's across the yard."

The cobbles were damp in the night air and treacherous underfoot and Youngblood picked his way carefully, cursing when he stepped into a puddle and water slopped into one of his shoes. When the girl opened the door of the shed, he could smell mouldy hay, old leather and wood shavings and damp where the stars gleamed through a hole in the roof.

"Over here," she said.

He went towards her, lantern raised and paused. A trick of the lamplight, he knew that, but for a moment she looked exactly as she had done down there on the road in the moonlight-as old as Eve and more beautiful than he had thought any woman could be.

She turned, leaning over the woodpile, one knee forward so that the old cotton dress tightened across her thighs like a second skin.

Five years. Five long years. Youngblood moved forward, reaching out to touch and she turned to face him. It was there in her eyes, the sudden shock, the knowing. For a moment they stayed that way and then she seemed to sway towards him.

From somewhere in the house Chavasse called, "Harry, where are you?"

Youngblood smiled, reached forward and gently stroked her face with the back of one hand. "Some other time perhaps? You take the lantern. I'll carry the wood."

She moved back clutching the lantern in both hands, the knuckles gleaming white, betraying her inner tension. Youngblood piled half a dozen logs in the crook of one arm and led the way out.

As they crossed the yard Chavasse appeared in the kitchen doorway. "So there you are? There didn't seem to be anyone around. I got worried."

"Just helping with the chores." Youngblood turned to Molly. "Where's your father got to?"

"Here I am, Mr. Youngblood." Crowther moved out of the shadows on the other side of the yard. "Just settling the animals."

"Where's Billy?"

"Never you mind about him. He sleeps in the barn. Best place for him. Are we all ready then?" He turned to the girl, rubbing his hands together and said jovially, "By gum, I don't know what you've got for us, lass, but I could eat a horse."

It was a good hour later when Billy shambled out of the darkness across the yard and approached the rear door. He opened it carefully and moved inside.

Crowther was sitting at the kitchen table smoking his pipe and reading a newspaper. He looked up and nodded calmly. "There you are then, Billy."

He went to a cupboard under the sink and came back with a ten-pound hammer. "You know what to do?"

Billy gripped the hammer tightly in his right hand and nodded eagerly, saliva glistened on his chin.

"Good lad. Best get started then."

Crowther opened the door, led the way along the passageway and mounted the stairs to the landing. He paused outside the end door, a finger on his lips and tried the knob gently. The door remained immovable and he turned calmly and pushed Billy back along the corridor.

At the bottom of the steps he paused and put a hand on the big man's shoulders. "Never mind, Billy, there's always tomorrow," he said.

In the bedroom, Chavasse and Youngblood stood in silence watching the door knob turn. When the soft footsteps had faded along the passageway, Youngblood's breath left his body in a long sigh.

"My God, I'm glad you're here," he said to Chavasse. "I feel like a ten-year-old kid that's looking for a bogie in every cupboard."

"In this house you'd probably find one. Still, there's one good thing."

"What's that?"

Chavasse grinned. "It's nice to know I'm wanted."

Rain drifted against the window with the dismal pattering and Chavasse looked out across the farmyard morosely. In the grey light of early morning, it presented an unlovely picture. Great potholes in the cobbles filled with stagnant water, archaic, rusting machinery and a profusion of rubbish everywhere.

"Have you ever seen anything like it?" Youngblood asked in disgust. "Talk about Cannery Row."

Chavasse went to the table and poured himself another cup of tea. "What time is it?"

"Just coming up to nine forty-five."

"And Crowther said the funeral was at ten. They should be back here by half past." He nodded at the table. "Had enough to eat?"

"Yes-you fry a good egg."

Chavasse opened the kitchen door and looked up at the hill on the other side of the yard. There was a small grey stone hut on top and a scattering of grimy looking sheep.

"Think I'll take a walk-see what I can see."

Youngblood looked out over his shoulder at the rain. "Rather you than me. I'll search the house. There might be a gun around the place."

"You'll be lucky," Chavasse said. "Crowther may be primitive, but he has all the cunning of the fox."

He took an old oilskin coat down from behind the door and went outside, buttoning it up to his chin. There was a pile of rusting tin cans against the outhouse wall, the accumulation of the years, and he kicked one of them across the yard and followed it into the barn.

It was in the same state of decay as the rest of the place, planks missing from the door, rain drifting down through several holes in the roof. An old cattle truck which still seemed to be in working order was parked by the rear door and the tractor beside it, its metal parts red with rust in the damp atmosphere, looked as if it hadn't functioned for years.

Chavasse kicked the tin can carelessly out of his path. It landed in a pile of mouldy hay in one corner and a couple of brown rats shot into the open to poise in the centre of the floor watching him. Strange how you could never get over some things. His face wrinkled in disgust and he picked up a stone and threw it with all his force, sending them running for the shadows on the other side of the barn.

He went out through the other door, passed through a wilderness of brambles and nettles that had once been a kitchen garden and found the beginnings of a path beyond the crumbling boundary wall.

It lifted through a scattering of alder trees, following the curve of the hillside, climbing steeply to the summit. Quite suddenly he found that he was enjoying himself. There was a fine fresh smell to the rain and the hard physical exercise was something to be enjoyed for its own sake after the long weary months of prison life.

He negotiated a high drystone wall by climbing an ingenious stone stile and found himself on the final slope. Sheep wandered amongst a jumble of great boulders and outcrops of stone, carved by the winds of time into a thousand strange shapes. Above him to the rear of the hut, a clump of thorn trees stood together, their branches twisted and unnatural and pointing, like the fingers of a gnarled hand, in the same direction, forced by the prevailing wind.

The hut was larger than it had looked from the farmyard and in reasonable condition. There was fresh hay inside, dry and sweet and sacks of feedstuffs, probably for the sheep. He lit a cigarette, went back outside again, and crossed to the scattering of rocks that formed the spine of the hill.